(Elite Series) Karl's Superstores Showdown

Back-to-back, belly-to-belly, he does give a damn; he's stone dead ready
Matthews claims Sprint win for second straight event
It's been said that once is an accident, and twice is a trend.

Consider Ryan Matthews' winning ways a trend.

After waiting four years for his first stock car win, his second came fifteen days from his first, as he took the fourth of four 50/50 Sprint races to help pad his points lead.

"This is a track we did well at last season, so I really felt we'd repeat that. Glad to see I was right," he said. "I hate that we had to rely on someone else's misfortune - again - but I'm not going to lose sleep over it. Can't do that in this business. Now we have another chance to sweep the weekend. And this time, I want it."

There's no reason to believe he can't. Momentum is on his side.

(OOC: That's a terrible headline and I should feel bad. I don't. Go listen to some Rockapella. )

Spannerhead Racing has regretful day

Spannerhead Racing regretted their decision of spending money on bribing officials so they can get lucky cautions, and wish they spent money on non-blowing up engines instead

Robert Nelson explains actions

Robert Nelson said he kept hearing someone around talk a lot about irrelevant things no one cares about and decided to wreck people until those voices disappeared

Gabriel Macena reportedly had altercation with Miura

After the end of the first 50/50 sprint, was reported that an heated discussion between Gabriel Macena and Nanami Miura could had happened, as these two wrecked themselves out of 4th and 5th places. After the wreck Gabriel was unapologetic: "I had the position and the fucking bitch take us both out of this crap, she has to be kidding me, no surprise her first win was because the winner was cheating, she doesn't know to drive a fucking car in this crap."

Taylor gets into showdown, has words about Macena.
After a race that Cade Taylor would like to forget, the only saving grace is, he made the showdown here at Karl's Superstore #3802. He also had incidents with two drivers, Gabe Macena, and Aaron Singer

Taylor : That 1 car has no ****ing brain, tries to wreck me and puts himself in the tire wall what a jack***.

(After a reporter asked him about the 238) (OOC : Me and Gabe starting a rivalry likely )
Taylor : I hate him, he drives like he's hot **** after winning the wreckfest at Lake Afton, and he plain sucks. He wrecked me at Langhorne, refused to draft with me at NY, and he basically killed poor Megan, and wrecked the shit out of the 80, which almost wreck me. Thank god he's not in the feature, i would've put him in the tire wall.

Fochesato Wrecks from Transfer Position @ Karl's

After starting the third of four 50/50 Sprints for the FARC Elite Series' second trip to the Karl's Superstore of Riverside, California in the 7th position, Vincenzo Fochesato made clear his confidence in his car, and in quite the wrong way. Fochesato spun the Saar of Michael Madrigal within the first half-lap of the 1/5-mile circuit, but was fortunate enough that no damage was inflicted on either Madrigal or himself. Restarting 6th, Fochesato immediately resumed challenging his competition, and found his way to the fourth of the five transfer positions without hitting any more cars. His attempt to take the 3rd position from pole-sitter Dan Leckliter, however, failed when he and Leckliter made contact, carrying each other into the outside tire barrier.

"First of all, I want to apologize to Dan for wrecking his car. I think that I would have been fine if I hadn't come up another foot, but I drove too wide to not run into him, and I had no right to force him wide like that even if it was an accident. I'm glad that Madrigal made it in and that I didn't keep him from transferring with that spin, I've got to apologize that, too. My car was set up so perfectly, and I felt like I could make my way forward with it, but I made a little mistake, and that's all it takes to end your day in racing. This track's a lot of fun though; I'm glad we were able to make the haul out here!"

Today's third Sprint was Fochesato's fifth Sprint this season, and the first in which he has failed to finish.

Macena responds to Taylor

After the conclusion of the 50/50 Sprints of Karl's Gabriel Macena was already not happy at all with Nanami Miura that wrecked him from a 4th place run, and after hearing what Cade Taylor had to say about him, Gabriel responded with really sour words:

" The kid is a c***, he came here, won at a superspeedway which doesn't require skill at all, throws an innocent Gaffigan into my car, and still wants to say s*** about me, alright then, if the guy is trying to be a b****, two can play this f***ing game."

Taylor celebrates 3rd place, podium at Karl's Superstore #3802

Lucstar Motorsports, a single-car team here in FARC's Elite Series, jumped for joy, when they saw the 125 car, cross the finish line in 3rd, with basically battle scars on the car. Their first top 5 since the NY Autoring event

Taylor : It feels good running like this, for a new team like us, without much backing, it's really great. I crossed that finish line, thinking, damn, I finished 3rd, with some of the best racers in the world having problems, it's our gain, and since the 11 blew up in the sprint, the ROTY battle is more interesting!

GRIFFIN CLAIMS 1ST CAREER ELITE SERIES WIN; ATTEMPTS AND LANDS BACKFLIP OFF CAR IN VICTORY LANE

In 2012 after the TM Lights round of New York, Ryan Griffin was stripped of his TM Lights license.  With his reputation all but destroyed, Griffin did the only thing he could.  He went back to the FARC Elite Series.  Griffin, who ran a partial schedule in the Elite Series in 2011, signed to drive for Ike Durbin's race team in the #86.  2013 was a mixed bag for Griffin, though, he got his best career finish of 2nd, but faced a bit of criticism for his driving late in the race at Mosport.

For 2014, Griffin returned with IDI.  But, so far this year the team had a mix bag of results as well.  This weekend in Riverside, that changed.  The weekend started off nicely for the 23 year old Michigan native.  He tied his best Elite Series finish by finishing 2nd in the 4th sprint race to Ryan Matthews.  

Starting 6th in the feature, Griffin immediately found himself in the line of fire.  While attempting to make up ground at the start, Griffin went 3 wide with Joseph Howard and Radomir Stanoytchev.  Contact between Ryan Matthews and Harry S. Enola in front of him, sent the former around off the front bumper of Griffin.  Thankfully the #86 Bloody X Inglesby was unaffected.  This was just the beginning of Griffin's interesting day.  Later in the race Cade Taylor and Enola got together and triggered a multi-car crash that sent Ralph West upside down.  Griffin made slight contact with the #45 after it had come to rest and received some minor contact from Ashley Tucker.  

After the #82 blew up under the resting yellow, Griffin found himself battling for the lead with the #81 of George Bryant.  After taking the lead, Griffin would go on to lead 101 laps.  Despite getting held up by Frank Azure's engine failure and facing a late race charge and battle with Joel Rodriguez, Griffin held on to claim his 1st Elite Series win and first career win as well.  

This was Griffin reaction on the team radio coming to the line and afterword:

"[#86 spotter]: He [Rodriguez] is about 4 car lengths back, clear traffic in front of you.  It's all you right here bud."
"[Griffin]: ALRIGHT!!! Hell'va job guys.  Thanks for everything.  This for you guys, you deserve it as much as I do.  WE WON ONE!!!"

The elation Griffin showed on the radio was evident in victory lane after the race.

"Man, I don't know what to say.  This is unbelievable.  Ok, I need to thank some people first.  Ike [Durbin], he's the reason I'm standing here right now.  He gave me the opportunity to drive this car and work with this wonderful group of guys.  I can say enough about him and this whole crew.  These guys work long hours just to make sure we had a car that would go the distance here.  This win is as much theirs as it is mine.  The Bloody X guys are awesome as well.  So happy to have them on the car this week.  They are wonderful to work with.  Man this is amazing.  I'm stunned."

Griffin was asked in victory lane about the late battle with Rodriguez:

"Well, I kind of got held up there when the #46 [Azure] blew up and I knew that he was a little faster, but I have to thank the Lord that Jim Hayes despite him being a lap car was just fast enough I could get back down in front of Joel [Rodriguez].  But, this #86 machine was really descent on the upper part of the groove and I think we were a bit faster up there anyway.  But, it was fun getting to race Joel and George [Bryant] as well.  Man, I'm so happy I could do a backflip right now."

True to his word, Griffin, encouraged by his celebrating crew, got up onto the door of his car and proceeded to do a backflip off the edge of the door.  He did land it, but stated afterword that he wouldn't be doing it again.

No End of Bad Luck in Sight for Webster

After a season filled with top 10s in 2013, Webster's full-time 2014 FARC run did not get off on the right foot, and still hasn't come close to changing for the better. A season plagued with, wrecks, mechanical failures, and missed features continued this weekend in the feature for the Karl's Superstores Showdown. Webster was able to pick up his 2nd top 5 of the season with a 3rd in his 50/50 Sprint.

The feature didn't go anywhere near as well. In nearly deja vu fashion from last year's race at the track, Webster was rudely pushed into the tire wall off of turn 2 by Ralph West. It would only get worse for the #41 as later in the race, Ralph West was once again a part of a big pileup on the backstraight, which left the track blocked and left Webster with no escape route. Monica Rook spun down into the path of Webster, and Webster tried to jam the brakes and get stopped before hitting the 25. The brakes locked up and Webster ran into the right side of the 25, rolling the car over. Webster took his car behind the wall and would finish 13th with yet another DNF on the season.

Webster had the following to say after the race.

"I'm not gonna lie, I hate running here. I think it's a really neat concept to be running a race inside a store, but I just hate running here. With this track only being like two tenths of a mile long, there's not really a lot of room out there, even though there's only 20 cars on the track at one time. It's been two years in a row now we've been shoved into that outside wall off of turn 2, so I don't know what I need to do differently to keep that from happening. 13th was still a decent finish even though we also collected another DNF. Happy about finishing 3rd in the 50/50 Sprint, but I really just don't like running here.