BASERACER WINS THE INAUGURAL BHMS LEAGUE RACE!

Chris Jacobs & Tim Corder

Pole Sitter BaseRacer Wins The Las Vegas 200

In a dominating performance, BaseRacer won after leading 88 laps of the inaugural race of the Blackhole Motorsports League. The 133-lap event was held at the D-shaped 1.5 mile Las Vegas Motor Speedway. FK28, Huskky, shfty40, and CKeller rounded out the top 5 finishers of the race.

Although BaseRacer dominated the second half of the race, there were a few drivers who were in contention for the lead. Towards the end of the race it seemed like FK28 was gaining on BaseRacer, and looking to possibly take the win. When asked if he had anything for BaseRaser, FK28 said “At the end of the race, I was cutting into the lead, but I am not sure if he was being cautious or maybe he just took 2 tires on the last pit stop.” FK28 wasn’t far off with his analysis. “FK28, (who finished second), told me that he had been catching me,” stated BaseRaser. “What he failed to realize is, that I was saving my tires for the unlikely event that he DID catch me. If he had broken the 2 second interval, the hammer would have been dropped!” When asked about his dominating performance, BaceRacer stated “I've been around Sim Racing for quite a while now, and I know each N3 track like the back of my hand. I think experience and patience were the two biggest factors.”

Another driver that looked to be in contention at the beginning of the race was Akitax, leading the second most amount of laps with 23. “I was a bit disappointed with a 10th place finish, but when I put it into perspective I am very pleased overall with the result. For me there were a couple of key moments, where if I had made a different choice, I could have finished further up the field.” Said Akitax.

The race had a bumpy start with four cautions in the first 40 laps of the race. Turn one was a wreck magnet with at least three of the four cautions being caused by incidents in that turn.

The first caution was brought out on lap 12 by a tangle between JakeCat22 and TheShark17. JakeCat22 and ghans had a whale of a race going into turn one when, as JakeCat22 stated, “I started to go into the corner, and his car warped out, so I just kept my line and prayed, but it wasn't enough! I bumped him and started to lose it. I was about to recover it when I got hit from behind by another driver (TheShark17). It was over after that.” TheShark17 was able to continue on after the incident but was down four laps by the end of the race due to damage sustained during the incident. An innocent bystander caught up in the wreck was DJSpeedy. After JakeCat22 bounced off of the wall, DJSpeedy hammered JakeCat22 in the driver’s door. About the incident DJSpeedy said, “I actually didn't see him until the last second because of all the smoke. By the time I did I was at his door, and it was too late for me to think. All my spotter said was ‘go high’ one time. I did go high a bit, just not high enough.”

DJSpeedy T-Bones JakeCat22 After JakeCat22 Bounces Off The Wall

The second caution, on lap 16, is somewhat of a mystery. The replay shows A_Austin bouncing off the wall, but shows no other incidents or drivers. A_Autin said, “The PSO1.com Ford was poised to do a long run. On the first caution we took on four tires. On the restart we were going into one and the driver made a bonehead mistake. He shifted down from second gear to first and that ended our night. There is always next week.” I guess I will remain a mystery for some time.

Lap 30 saw the third caution brought up by a gentle tap between Valve(2) and D_Goff that sent both of them careening into the turn one wall in front of half of the pack. “The car just turned around on me,” said Valve(2). “It happened so fast I wasn't sure what hit me.” D_Goff said about the wreck “I believe that it was just a racing thing. I believe I might have touched the other driver (Valve(2)) but it was very little, we were running side by side almost into the turn and simply touched and the rest was history for me.”

Valve(2) and D_Goff Spin In Front of Half The Pack

The final caution was brought out on lap 38 by contact between ghans and Cliff-R in turn one with a subsequent collision between Cliff-R and dking6 in turn two. Going into turn one, Cliff-R tried to dive under ghans and the two got together. Ghans spun into the turn one wall. Cliff-R scrapped along the wall before shooting across the track and collecting dking6 in the melee. Dking6 said “The 44 and 93 were racing each other pretty hard a lap or so after the 44 passed me. I was actually having a fun time just watching them duke it out.” He went on to say “I went low and they both spun high so I thought I was clear, but the 44 came back down off the wall and just barely tagged my RR…at first I thought I had come out of it with only minor corner damage, but just as I was getting ready to spin the car around all of a sudden my windshield filled up with the Amoco logo.”

Ghans Spins After Contact With Cliff-R In Turn One

The race definitely had two distinct parts with cautions coming fairly frequently in the first 41 laps and then running incident free for the remaining 92 laps. After the race, some drivers pleaded for folks to use their heads, and not try to win the race in the beginning laps. Other drivers thought that it was a good start for the league, there were some rough spots but overall it went very well. Commissioner Robert Platts leaned toward the later outlook of the race. Robert said, “It actually went better than I was expecting for the first race.” He says that he is considering some rules changes regarding dive-bomb passing and a change to single file restarts, but there are no changes at the present time to the rules. The Commish says, “I am very happy with everyone, up to this point.”