Interlagos, Brazil

Interlagos proved to be a decent last-minute substitute for Long Beach when logistical issues precluded the execution of the Long Beach GP.

This circuit is very fast, with long straightaways that see the cars get up to over 200 mph. There are a couple of complex corners to slow things down and insure some significant downshifting if a driver botches his approach, but otherwise the course is flat-out, pedal-to-the-metal racing.

This day saw Team Poderoso Sporin's Gaudalupe MacDougal, previously bereft of any points in the series due to his inability to conclude a race, taking the pole position in qualifying and running a commanding race. An early breakaway took Gaudalupe and two other racers away from the main scrum and he never looked back, running his own race with near flawless precision and only bothering to make a single pit stop.

Victor Eelap, running for Tombstone Racing had a horrendous crash on the back straightaway approximately halfway through the race. His car hit debris on the track, spun, bounced off of a retaining wall, caught air, and flipped end over end in the air before coming to rest upside down.

Unfortunately, Victor was seriously injured in the accident, with a broken spine, several shattered ribs, and a subdural hematoma. Medical experts have indicated that Victor may one day walk again, but his racing days are over.

This was a very hard blow to take for Tombstone Racing, who were running well in the top half of the pack and had the potential to challenge Team Poderoso Sporin for the lead at one point. The engineers of Tombstone Racing have vowed to revisit the car design to ensure there is no repeat of this accident.

Pretty Pink Ponies' driver Sun Princess drove an excellent race, as did Team Poderoso Sporin's Gaudalupe MacDougall. MacDougall's army of Scottish/Mexican fans are currently embroiled in a divisive dispute over whether they are Mexish or Scotican, but either way, they are solidly behind Gaudalupe!

Smitholine Motor Oil driver Racer X had a hard day, attempting late braking and blowing through a corner, tearing off all 4 tires in a spectacular display of shredding rubber and blowing brake calipers. That was an unfortunate race ender for the rookie driver.

Dozois' Auto-Vitesse driver Racer 3B struggled throughout the day, at times making good progress, but seemingly hampered by engineering problems with his car. We expect to see better results out of this young rookie once his team gets the kinks in their car design sorted out.

Overall, a great day of racing for race fans. With the season approaching the halfway point, IMW has a strong but not insurmountable lead. Second and third are close enough and behind that, the season is still entirely up in the air as one good finish could radically change the outcome.

Long Beach, fast and tricky!

Long beach has several fast straights, a sharp hairpin, and quite a few tricky corners. It's a fast track, but if you screw up, regret you will have in spades!

Next Circuit: Watkin's Glen

Three weeks to Watkin's Glen in upstate New York; Teams prepare furiously and the track is expected to be quick and exciting!



One turn rated difficulty 2, the rest are difficulty 1 and a lot of fast corners and flat out straights are expected!

The National Capital Racing League is working on some regulatory changes to avoid some of the straightaway contact we saw during the race in Shanghai. These rules are expected to be in place for Watkin's Glen.

Shanghai in Sun and Rain

With a starting field of 8 drivers representing 8 disparate teams, Shanghai promised to be an exciting race. Weather that started out volatile, moved into pouring rain a third of the way through the first lap, and stayed that way until the middle of the second lap, and then sunny weather came back to stay only contributed to add to the excitement!

The race saw the early elimination of the newly recovered Guadalupe MacDougal of Team Poderoso Sporin from collision damage, shortly to be followed by Victory Eelap of Tombstone Racing due to body damage. Racer X of Smitholine Motor Oil went out in the third lap due to a critcial braking failure coming out of the second last corner.

Of the remaining field, Alice Gibbons of Initorque Motor Works took the checkered flag, followed closely by Darth Moto of Team Sidious. Behind the Sith came Racer 3B from Dozois' Auto-Vitesse, Simon Garfunkel of Sixty-Nine Racing, and Luka Filipov of Serbian Speedworks.

2011 Driver and Team Roster Unveiled!

2011 looks to be a promising season! There are old favourites like Team Sidious, Team Poderoso Sporin, and Initorque Motors, not to mention the perennially underated Tombstone Racing and then there are the new teams like Serbian Speedworks, Smitholine Motor Oil, Dozois' Auto Vitesse. The fan favourite, Pretty Pink Ponies is back, as is the league's Tow Operator, Team Campbell Towing.

The Season's kick off at Shanghai should be exciting with the first line drivers and their substitutes all anxious to cruise to victory! A special note: Hernando MacGregor, who suffered a broken arm late last season, is back and ready to race again in top form if his team-mate Guadalupe MacDougal is out of action.

A lap of Shanghai with Mark Webber gives fans an idea of what the drivers are in for! 

Hiatus Over

After a long hiatus, it is time to rejig, reset, and start again for the 2011 season.

One of the reasons for this is an abiding interest in campaign games and the fun of Formula De. One of the other abiding reasons is the large number of tracks still to be raced (there have been a goodly number of user-created tracks that are just excellent).

One of the problems the first campaign run faced was good intentions with bad implementation. The bookkeepig overhead was too great and some of the tracking was fairly ambigous. So the plan is to try to limit the bookkeeping to keep the focus on racing. This should make things move faster on the track as well.