The Race
The race started and there was soon some trouble as [PM] Ant crashed his car after a few turns and forced a lot of people to brake hard and unfortunatly two of his own teammates couldn't do anything then crashing into him and into each other. Surely a not so great day for the Parkfield Motorsport team. 5 or 6 more drivers couldn't really do much about it and also touched, dented and scratched their cars in this Lap 1 pile-up.

FLP/r Jouman was leading the field for the next 5 laps till ATC Dadge was able to pass him at a favourable moment in T1 of lap 6. And he had to as he was 1 point behind him in the championship standings.

In lap 11 Jouman made a little mistake and almost crashed while touching the green at T1 but Dadge also  made a bad move into the first chicane and drifted through it after touching the tires a bit to heavy, Jouman saw his chance and passed him again for the lead.

After only 12 laps when we had already lost 5 drivers due to crashing or rolling their cars on the roof.  Dadge and Jouman were driving their own race followed by T7R| P1LOT on the 3rd and BBO on the 4th place. ATC gAg who also still had chances on the overall podium had fought his way back up to the 5th place after he had been placed on the back of the grid for a qualifying penalty that made him start from the very last place.

When ATC Dadge pitted in lap 16 Jouman was leading the field by almost 3 seconds. So it was more then unlikely that he will give up the lead again. But Dadge still tried.

After a crash and a messed up pit stop P1LOT gave up his 2rd place and T7R| BBO took it. After 22 laps and a little crash by BBO, Dadge took the 2nd place again to still hunt Jouman for the win.

In lap 26 when Jouman pitted the race and the championship was already decided. FLP/r Jouman was leading by 11 seconds and I bet ATC Dadge asked himself how could he get that far away in such a short time. He risked his neck and tried everything but a few lap and a few mistakes later Jouman was over 18 seconds in front and only 1 lap to go.

Nothing happend to the leader in the last lap, He showed again a very impressive drive and finished on the first place, ATC Dadge finished on the 2nd place and T7R| BBO brought the 3rd place home. All the rest finished more than 1 lap behind in this exhausting race.

 Congratulations! 

But not only to the podium, I would also like to thank all the others who started in the first season of the Triple double Cup. You really made this Cup, that was held over the last 2 months, something special. Thanks a lot guys.



Some personal words:
The original idea of this Cup was, next to provide some good and clean racing, to have a platform for people to get in contact with us, to race with us and maybe to join such a long-established Team like Triple 7 Racing. But unfortunately almost all possible candidates wo said they "I want to join T7R" were either not showing up for the races, doing crazy stuff on the track or just didn't really showed the interest in our Team as we expected it.

It looks like that nowadays people are only interested in Teams when they can get into it in less then a few days but that was never our approach and I don't think we'll ever change that.
 
So no one really took the chance we offered here for the first time in over 4 years and I have to say that we didn't accomplished our goal here.

But was it worth it? Spending about 30 hours to create the Triple Double Cup and the rules, test driving the car and track combos, calculate the laps, making some pictures, sending out invites and so on? Spending about 4 hours after every race event to create the stats and results, check the replays for penalties, create some news and after race reports?

Yes it was worth it!

I really had a lot of fun during all those races and found everything that made me love LFS so much over the years. Close battles, hard and clean fights, small mistakes, big mistakes, fortunate circumstances, unlucky situations, great and failed strategies and tires choices, close qualifyings and impressive driving of great racers who also shared the setups with their main competitors just in front of the races. So in the end no one can say: You just won because of a better setup.

All that really made me proud and to see that also people who are maybe not the fastest still stuck with us and still found their fun and a little sense of achievement after every round and also people who said "I will only drive a few races" drove every of the 6 rounds. All that really gave my a good feeling and the conviction that it was worth it.

Thanks a lot guys!

As some of you have already requested I'm sure that there will be a 2nd season but I'm not sure when, what cars and tracks etc. But stay tuned, there will be maybe some free weekends available in April and May of 2009 ;)

Have a great time and see you on the tracks
and thanks for joining and driving the Triple Double Cup


And at long last: The results of the last race and the final standings, the replays, the after race reports
and much more is available in the Triple Double Cup (TDC) board of our T7R forum.