(Elite Series) Afton 120K

Macena Motorsporte finds success. "Turning Point".

The Macena Motorsports cars's speed was dormant, waiting for to come out, and Lake Afton was the place to be.
After being criticized by several drivers, Gabriel Macena was expecting to wreck early as his morale was down, but after the first turn incident at the start where several cars were involved, including Gabriel, the Saar's speed came out, and even with some damage the car was able to keep going, bringing home a solid 13th place.
Coming to the feature, Macena had a good start, keeping himself in the top 10 for most of the race, and as his opponents were falling down due to wrecks or mechanical failures, Gabriel continued to work his way up front, and by avoiding a massive wreck involving Rachel Rainsford and several other drivers, he jumped to 2nd, and in that moment, it already a dream finish.
But as his major opponent, the 4-division race winner Tom Delgado cmmited a mistake with 5 laps to go, the win was in Gabriel's hands, and he wouldn't let it go, as he brought home the first FARC win for any brazilian driver.
In the victory lane, an emotional Macena was crying and couldn't contain his emotions, as he said in his interview:

"I can't say that I won this alone, we worked hard, that wreck almost took us out, but I put the pedal to the metal as soon as I got a space where I could go without being hit, and if it wasn't everyone in the team, this wouldn't happened. this is a turning point for our season. And to everyone that criticized me, said that I wasn't a good driver, I want to see their faces now, I won this one for me, for my honor, to show to them what I can do."

POST RACE IN A NUTSHELL:

Delgado Nearly Does Double at Lake Afton

Tom Delgado substituted for his wife Ashley Tucker in the #90 Bjorn Green Racing car, and nearly brought home a double win. Instead, he will be kicking himself over a senseless mistake with 5 laps to go in the feature in which he got into the back of the lapped car of Kenny Brillon. The front end damage received from that contact, he was forced to pit and ended up gifting the race win to controversial rookie Gabriel Macena.

"I'm stunned. How could I make a ridiculous mistake like that?" Delgado said, bewildered at how he didn't win the feature. "No excuses on my end, I did a bad job in the final laps, and I feel bad that I couldn't bring home a double win for Bjorn Green Racing. Still a fantastic week for BGR and I had a great time driving for them. I'd have no problem driving for Bjorn again if he needed someone in a pinch. Great driver, and an even greater person. Love you Ashley" Delgado continued, looking on the bright side of the team's week and sending his love and thoughts to his wife recovering back at "Delgado Towers" in Brooklyn, New York.

HQS Racing celebrate good day with double top 10 in Main

While owner Ben Atkins was eating humble pie when Gabriel Macena, the driver he criticized heavily, won, the girls in the HQS Racing stable, Tammy Barnton and Caitlin Richler, were celebrating their top 10's in the main. It was a particularly good weekend for Tammy Barnton, as she hopped back into the top 10 in points and also made huge gains in the fight to win the Rookie of the Year honours.

"I'm really happy everything worked out for us this weekend." said Tammy Barnton, "The car was great, the track... ehhhhh, I'd understand why people would complain about this one. However, I wouldn't like to be in Ben's [Atkins] shoes right now. That Brazilian guy shut him up pretty hard. I think he's pretty happy about knowing he's probably not going to get killed by him now."

After a smooth interview with Tammy Barnton, the same interviewer made the horrible mistake of interviewing Caitlin Richler while he was in the HQS garage.

"Like OHHHHHHHHHHHHHH MY GOD!" said the lesser experienced Caitlin Richler, "I just like SPUN on the first corner and got hit a bunch of times and I just kept thinking 'OH MY GOD IM GOING TO DIE!!!!' but I, like, NEVER! Sooooooooooooooooooooo all is go- HOLD ON, SNAPCHAT!!!!"

The poor, now-suicidal interviewer had to endure the wait as Caitlin Richler took a selfie with him.

"OKAY back to the interview, but yeah, like, all is good, like. AAAAAAAAAND we got a top 10!!! So- OH MY GOD THAT'S TOM DELGADO! TOM I LOVE YOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUU!!!!"

At this point, Richler ran off after Tom Delgado to stalk speak to the second sprint winner, but was seen being dragged back to the garage by teammate and much better interviewee Tammy Barnton.

Matthews vents at RaceSim duo, calls them "menace to racing"
To hear Ryan Matthews tell it, his words about "idiots on the race track" after the carnage at New York Autoring fell on deaf ears.

His latest target: the RaceSim driver combo of Caden Beckett and Ryan Barrett. His venom was directed more toward Beckett, who collided with Matthews in Turn 1 in the early going of the feature. The contact cost Matthews a chance to regain the points lead.

"Beckett is, like I said last week, one of those idiots who has no business out on a race track," he said. "The kid clearly is over his head. Him and his cohort, what's his name, Bennett? Oh, right, Barrett. Whatever. I know we all have to start somewhere, but those two clearly don't belong in the Elite Series. Thus the name, 'Elite'. Those two clearly are not that."

"But at least we got through to the feature race, so we did make up some ground on Cyrus. We're still in a good spot to get back in the points lead, so we'll go to Buffalo Downs and do what we usually do. I just hope I don't run into either of the squeakers. Actually, I do. I'll show them what a 4X really looks like."

Jon Halks responds to Lora Ocean: "I was probably a little too close to her rear bumper while we were letting Radomir, and when she braked, I couldn't react fast enough, and off she went. I'm sorry to her for that. But she needs to understand, that, unlike 95% of drivers in this series, hell, all of FARC, when I make a mistake, I will own up to it, and there, I made a mistake. As for the crash with Ash, he went off in front of me, and I thought I was going to get past him, but he rejoined the track quicker than I thought he would, and we tangled, and it caused a big crash. I'm sorry to everybody for what happened. I try to be as clean a racer as possible, but things happen. As for being in the Top 20, I hope that we can stay there for the rest of the season."