USWNC: Dramatic finish in A1's

0 Dec. 6, 2015, 10:15 a.m.

By Thomas Tran
LiveRC.com

2015 World Nitro Cup - A1 Results

The qualifying and lowers rounds have been a series of fantastic races and finally, Sunday has come. With the final preps done to the cars, racers are anxiously waiting for the A main events. Tear downs and rebuilds are all part of the prep that is required to get maximum performance.

First race of Sunday’s triple A-main event was 1/8th Masters class. As the tone went off class TQ, Desoto Racing’s Joaquin Desoto, had a horrible first lap allowing the field to slip on by and giving up the lead. Yesterday’s bump up, Steve Rossi was able to establish a lead and start to pull a comfortable gap. Unfortunately half way through the race, Rossi would find trouble in the high speed chicane and get it wrong damaging his car forcing his retirement. Peter Breton would take over and push hard to maintain his lead over a hard charging Desoto. As time was running out, Desoto would catch and contest Breton for the lead, but in the final laps the two drivers would tangle multiple times allowing Paulie B to jump into the lead and steal the win.

Next up, 1/10th Nitro Sedan had a great start in A1, but just after a few laps the class TQ, Thilo Toedtmann would spin his car in the sweeper and break. Serpent/Picco’s Scotty Gray would inherit the lead until a flame out would see him lose valuable time and shuffle backwards. From there, it was Capricon/Novarossi’ DJ Apolaro who would take over the lead and never look back. Apolaro would take A1, Chris Tosolini 2nd and Scotty Gray 3rd.

The start of 1/8th Open A1 was very clean allowing the class TQ, DJ Apolaro to cruise out in front and stretch his lead into a comfortable gap. With no pressure, Apolaro would drive flawlessly in the lead from tone to tone and take the win leaving the rest to battle for 2nd and 3rd. 2nd place qualifier, former World Champion Daniele Ielasi would try hard to contest Apolaro, but the task proved to be too much and would remain 2nd for the entire race and finishing only 4 seconds back. From 7th to 3rd, Vincent Jackson would work his way through the field with calm and collected driving making the best of his start.

The final class of round 1 were the GT8's who saw a lot of drama in their single 45 minute main. At first the class TQ, Joaquin Desoto was on a Sunday stroll and at one point had built up his lead to nearly a minute. With a critical mistake on lap 74, Desoto lost valuable time to his competitors, but it was lap 111 where Desoto lost nearly 50 seconds and gave up his lead to Zuriel Aular. With 20 laps to go, Aular would hold off Desoto to take the win. However, there was a controversial stop and go given to Aular, who came into the pits to serve his pentalty. While in the pits, Aular would get refueled and given a warning as the rules forbid any pit work when serving a stop and go penalty. Before the there could be any petition from the Desoto camp, Desoto's car failed to make weight and was therefore was disqualified. As a result, Samuel Zayas and Kevin Johnson would finish 2nd and 3rd with Aular taking the win.