FARC Lone Star Championships weekend

Stater, Halks on pole for 50/50 Sprints

The first on-track activity for the Elite Series at TMS was Marlisle Pole qualifying for Saturday's 50/50 Sprints.

The 96-car entry list was split into 4 groups; 2 for each race. Todd Stater will lead at the start of Sprint 1 with a time of 28.315, and Jon Halks will lead Sprint 2 with a time of 28.332.

Sprint 2 qualifying saw a surprising number of notables being bumped out, including defending series champion Joseph Howard, hometown hero Kurt Walker, and Salem winner Henry Santos. There is no word on possible driver changes as of now.

Sprint 1 Lineup

1- 422 T Stater 28.315
2- 33 R West 28.316
3- 67 L Burr 28.322
4- 49 B Stewart 28.354
5- 64 L Riggs 28.468
6- 14 B Foote 28.479
7- 81 G Bryan 28.512
8- 24 R Tyler 28.516
9- 27 R Scott 28.527
10- 251 J Ashcroft 28.531
11- 110 R Leckliter 28.588
12- 92 J Rodriguez 28.592
13- 94 I Lightener 28.603
14- 62 C Fitzgerald 28.609
15- 789 L Ocean 28.618
16- 51 R Barrett 28.645
17- 5-O J Lester 28.675
18- 5K M Malone 28.687
19- 11 R Bullet 28.704
20- 798 L Ocean 28.73
21- 71 R Rainsford 28.744
22- 79 T Clason -R- 28.747
23- 77 J Hayes 28.749
24- 4 K Hitsuno 28.75
25- 619 M Lester 28.757
26- 22 M Yamada 28.764
27- 966 M Adachi 28.767
28- 07 A Griffith 28.769
29- 01 B George 28.781
30- 90 N Miller 28.802
31- 35 J Chavez III 28.813
32- 590 M Thompson 28.836
33- 29 K Ians 28.841
34- 19 A Riggs 28.847
35- 264 A Mizushima 28.857
36- 36 J Baker 28.859
37- 93 B Atkins 28.879
38- 90 A Tucker 28.938
39- 97 T Ashby 28.973
40- 02 A Bridges 28.987
41- 25 M Rook 29.072
42- 20 K Brillon 29.212
43- 950 H Johnson -R- 29.263
44- 18 C Beckett 29.399
45- 100 T Brayton 29.433
46- 80 K Gaffigan 29.478
47- 06 T Matthews 29.712
48- 55 M Holter 31.717
49- 54 C McGuffie 31.734

Sprint 2 Lineup

1- 114 J Halks 28.332
2- 125 C Taylor 28.39
3- 05 A Whitt 28.403
4- 238 G Macena -R- 28.432
5- 91 S Daiho 28.434
6- 46 N Azure 28.465
7- 8 L Sweeney 28.478
8- 99 Z Zins 28.503
9- 70 P Carroll 28.505
10- 87 F Azure 28.512
11- 37 T Delgado 28.512
12- 84 C Richler 28.529
13- 96 K Splison 28.537
14- 9 T Brillon 28.576
15- 40 J Dempsey 28.594
16- 83 T Barnton 28.603
17- 12 T Ashby 28.611
18- 717 S Dalitz 28.619
19- 2 J Bates 28.649
20- 78 A Kinasa 28.667
21- 314 M Madrigal 28.675
22- 10 D Leckliter 28.677
23- 888 L Pellerin 28.69
24- 1 A Singer 28.71
25- 61 R Matthews 28.718
26- 45 H S. Enola 28.723
27- 3 L Cyrus 28.732
28- 88 K Posadas 28.745
29- 666 R Koch 28.786
30- 56 N Howard 28.791
31- 16 L Bell 28.82
32- 82 L Azarov 28.825
33- 5 S St. Martin 28.845
34- 41 Z Webster 28.847
35- 43 R Nelson 28.867
36- 38 V Fochesato -R- 28.867
37- 63 K Monroe 28.888
38- 59 J Graham 28.893
39- 7 B Stephans 28.895
40- 821 R Stanoytchev 28.896
41- 15 A Young 28.995
42- 98 K Walker 29.063
43- X2 H Santos -R- 29.105
44- 39 N Miura 29.194
45- 86 R Griffin 29.421
46- 17 J Howard 29.699
47- 68 D Dudding 31.862


DiEmAr Cup champions crowned after 75-mile sprints

The three FARC DiEmAr Cup championships wrapped up with a set of 51-lap races after Elite Series qualifying had concluded.

Rebecca Pellerin took her first series win in the East race. Charles Gilbert dominated the previous week at Oxford Plains, but fell a lap down and limped to a 13th-place finish. However, it was still good enough to give Gilbert the title by 78 points over Matt Pearson.

The Central title fight was the closest of the three, with John Alexander and Kenny Brillon in contention coming into the weekend. Alexander fell behind thanks to lapped traffic, which left Brillon in need of the race win to get the edge. However, Brillon had to settle for 3rd as Thomas Tucker took the win. Alexander took the title by 24 points over Brillon with an 8th-place finish.

Justin Slade clinched the West series championship by starting the race. Despite this, he fought as hard as he did in every other race, finishing 3rd while Luther Austin took the win. Slade wrapped up his season with a 123-point advantage over Sarah Carlisle.

Title contender starting spots:

1 - Matthews: 25th, Race 2
2 - Hayes: 23rd, Race 1
3 - Bell: 31st, Race 2
4 - Monroe: 37th, Race 2
5 - Bates: 19th, Race 2

Matthews not concerned with starting spot

Most drivers would be worried about a 25th-place starting spot in the final weekend of the season.

Ryan Matthews is not most drivers.

Nursing a 19-point lead heading into the Lone Star Championships weekend, Matthews knows that, as of now, the math is on his side.

"We'd love to win, but we know that realistically we only need five spots," he said, referring to the 20th-place finish he needs to advance to the Feature. "It also helps that a lot of our rivals for the title are in my Sprint. So we'll have a really good idea of what's what once the day's over."

His main points rival, Jim Hayes, is not one of them. He will race in Race 1, where he starts 23rd. But Matthews has an ally in that race: teammate Carter Fitzgerald, who starts 14th.

"I'm not going to make his life miserable," said Fitzgerald in reference to Hayes. "That's not my thing. The last thing we need is controversy. I'm going to run my race, and whatever happens, happens."

TDR Get 3 of 4 Entries In, Howard Out......

Championship contender Jim Hayes enters Texas with a 19 point hole to try and dig out of, and he'll start from the 23rd position. Meanwhile, other TDR entries include rookie contender Frank Azure and 4-division winner Tom Delgado, who will start from 10th and 11th positions in Heat #2 respectively, but defending series champion Joseph Howard has managed to miss the field entirely. Delgado has decided to leave it up to his defending series champion to decide if he wants to race.

"It's up to Joseph (Howard). If he wants to race, I'll give up my spot for him. Otherwise, I will have him up top of my pitbox. As the defending series champion, he has every right to want to end the season on a high, and if he wants to race, I'll let him" Delgado said of Joseph Howard's situation.

When asked about the situation Jim Hayes finds himself in, Delgado was more blunt. "Jim's got some work to do. The expectation is that he make the feature. If he doesn't, we don't keep the championship. It's that simple. This is advance or die. There is no tomorrow!" Delgado roared.

UPDATE: Tom Delgado has voluntarily withdrawn himself from heat 2 of the Lone Star Championships in favor of Joseph Howard.

Pellerin (Rebecca) celebrates her first career win at Texas. The young driver from New-Brunswick got her first career win here today at Texas Motor Speedway. She will be returning to APRS for 2015, no plans for the DiEmAr Cup or Modifieds.

Lucstar Motorsports gets both cars into sprints, last race for Pellerin.
Lucstar Motorsports, got both cars in the 2nd sprint today, with Taylor starting in 2nd, and Luc Pellerin, in his final race for his home team is starting 23rd.

Pellerin : I really want to make it in, last race for mom, it be great if we could make the race along with Cade and hopefully i'll have enough fun before going with Macena's team.

I'd like to point out that for the sake of NASCAR-style theatrics, all 5 title contenders get into the final race no matter what.

Bell Frustrated At Qualifying Effort

"I can't frickin' believe this!" shouted a clearly upset Libby Bell. "You gotta be kidding me with this crap!" Bell said while clutching and waving a paper that had her qualifying effort time compared with those of her SPI teammates.

Sprint 1:
6- 14 B Foote 28.479
8- 24 R Tyler 28.516
19- 11 R Bullet 28.704

Sprint 2:
31- 16 L Bell 28.820

"These cars all came out of the same garage? What happened?! I mean, I went last!! We shoulda improved on their times-- not gotten worse!" Bell elaborated.

"This is no way to go about winning the championship. This is not the way to begin the championship weekend. We need to do better than this if we want to win this thing. We've been great with our consistency all year and now this! (shakes now crumpled paper again) We picked the worst possible time to lay an egg." Bell concluded.

Bell is 61 points behind championship points leader Ryan Matthews with Jim Hayes sandwiched in between. However, SPI teammate Rip Tyler overcame a 72 point deficit on the final race weekend to win the championship in 2012. Tyler started on the outside of row 14 (28th of 30) that night.

Heading into Fort Worth, Fochesato Reflects on Season Thus Far

It's been an interesting year in racing for Vincenzo Fochesato.

The 22-year-old Italian racer who lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan will be bringing his two-year tenure in the FARC LoBo Truck Tour to a close this upcoming weekend. After a relatively successful rookie campaign in 2013, his sophomore season has been largely a challenge, but also a success in its own right, according to what Fochesato said to the press before opening practice for the FARC Elite Series races in the FARC Lone Star Championships.

"I've enjoyed myself a lot this year. It’s been more of a battle than I was expecting it to be, but it’s still been amazing. I had a lot of excitement for this season when it began with us using our new V6 engines and racing at a lot of new tracks with new trucks. We may have had our problems throughout the year, but there will always be challenges to face, and I think that as a team, we’ve done a great job to resolve them together.”

In the first eleven races of the year, Fochesato has scored five top 10 finishes with one top 5, with his best finish being a 4th-place result at the Texas World Speedway. Last year saw him finish four races among the top 4, part of a total of five top 5’s and seven top 10’s, in addition to three pole positions. Perhaps part of the explanation of his 2014 results, his equipment has seemingly not been as reliable this year as it was in 2013. Of Fochesato’s five DNFs in the FLTT, four of them have come this season; all of them being a result of mechanical failures.

“I don’t mean to sound vain, but when the year started, I really thought that we could have contended for the championship. There’s never anyone that you can point to and say ‘If you had done this differently then we would have done better’. A team doesn't work like that, and we couldn't overcome anything that way; we’re all in this together whether we do well or not. I haven’t always had an easy time performing as a driver, but I’ve always had a lot of support from my friends, family, and everyone at Focus Autosports. It’s something special to get to work with everyone who makes this team that my dad started so great. All in all, I’m happy to be racing with them here in the FARC LoBo Truck Tour, and I wish them all the best of luck in the future.”

The Truck Tour, itself, has been subject to criticism this season, and at times the quality of its product has been regarded as questionable. Recovering from a logistically and financially adverse 2013 season, 2014 has seen a drastic reduction in its number of participants, and many of the races have seen a great differentiation in speed between the racers, and the few regular competitors have largely struggled to keep pace with the part-timers and one-offs.

However, Fochesato (as usual) was optimistic, saying, “I hope, as I move on to Europe, that the teams, the officials, and the fans will have faith in this series and what it can do for FARC and for stock car racing. It’s been such an excellent place for me to call home for these last two years, and it is worthwhile to be a part of it all. I believe that there’s a lot of potential for this series to grow in popularity and in competition in the future. I would absolutely love for that to be.”

Following the imminent close of the 2014 racing season, Fochesato will be changing gears in his racing career, as he will be returning to live in Italy for the first time since his infancy. He will be competing in the newly-revamped Dash Cup Super Touring Series for FIAM Engineering. With the series implementing a North American tour into its 2015 schedule, it appears to be possible that he could return for another FARC race or two, but no plans for anything of the like have been released by Focus Autosports.

“Truthfully; I would love to return to FARC next season, but I have been presented with an opportunity that I have had no second thoughts about accepting. I am very excited to be racing in Dash Cup next year. FIAM Engineering has shown a lot of faith in me, and I wish to reward their faith through any opportunity that they present me with. Until then, I’ve got some more races to run this weekend! I’m hoping to end this leg of my journey on the highest note possible!”