MOFO Season 2: Kabort's Kurse - Unlucky Or Just "Accident-Prone"? (Part 1: The Past) + Concord Blog
It's been made quite clear now that Truswell hasn't had the most "ideal" start to the second MOFO League Series (formerly "COVID Cup, now "Race But Don't Race, coined after Boris Johnsons' infamous speech) but the question on the minds of fans and drivers alike is: Is Truswell getting himself into awkward situations or is he just at the wrong place at the wrong time? Season 1
Right from the very first race, Truswell was raising eye-brows (for the wrong reasons) for his controversial move on Herring.
(Video Has No Audio) This sort of move would have a recurring theme in Truswell's driving style, albeit with different outcomes - sometimes getting past before getting into trouble, other times clattering into. and throughout the season, it began to rub people the wrong way.
However, like all drivers, genuine mistakes can be made, at at both Silverstone (National) and Brands Hatch this was all to clear to see - both times not wanting to make an ambitious lunge, however missing - or making an error - under braking. At Silverstone, he got away scott-free, but at Brands he would "cream" into the side of Herring's car taking both out and ruining both their races.
Truswell would have a clean streak for the second half of the season up until the penultimate race at Philip Island. Coming out of a slow hairpin, Truswell would pull to the inside of Daman, the pair would touch before Truswell would launch up the side of Daman.
The incident was a difficult one to decide - on one hand, Daman shouldn't have shut the door, yet on the other hand, Truswell didn't have a massive speed advantage over Daman, and the move wasn't 100% certain. Truswell had once again gone for a move that just wasn't.
The stewards left it as a racing incident.
Season 2 Watkins Glen
A new name, new book of rules and a shiny new livery for Truswell. MOFO was back and back in business! The new series would be called "MOFO Race But Don't Race Championship", inspired by Boris Johnson's (somewhat) infamous lockdown speech.
Introduced with this was a bunch of new rules - most notably, a mandatory pit-stop.
The session lengths would also change - The pre-session practice session would halve - whilst the qualifying session would be amped up to a healthy 15 minutes. In needing to have a mandatory pit-stop, the races during season 2 were extended to 45 minutes, whilst the fuel-tanks were decreased by 30% - meaning not stopping would lead to running out of fuel.
The final change, more exclusive for Truswell, was the fact that he swapped out the VODAFONE liveried Skippy of his first season, with his own Kabort Motorsport styled Skippy.
For the first race of the season, MOFO would return to where the MOFO Skippies first met: Watkins Glen. Lining up on Pole would be a familiar face - Cleland. Chaz Cleland. With Bailes not participating, it would be just the start to the season that Cleland needed. Making his debut on the front row alongside Cleland was Positively Racing star Shawe.
Teymourian would line up in an impressive 3rd with seasoned driver Sibbald just behind. Widdup and Shelton (who made an appearance last season) rounding out the top 5.
Those Outside The 107% Time (1:29.254)
Phillip Hayden - 1:37.457
Connor LaFrance - 1:43.301
No Time - Adam Christodoulou
No Time - Ben Constanduros
Truswell would start down in 17th in a 21 strong field - a vast difference from starting 4th in 7 strong grid at Summit Point at the start of the first season.
But Truswell's race would only last a couple of corners.
With cold tyres and a heavy fuel-load He'd go much too hot into turn 4, not wanting to lock the brakes or lose control, he'd feather the brake...but it wasn't enough....
He'd drift off the circuit... before smacking the left rear hard into the wall - a pit-stop was urgent. On such a small circuit like this one, the repairs would be incredibly costly...there may have been a start-shunt behind, but Truswell would have to up the pieces with the time lost.
a stall for Riddles caused problems on the start-line.
Overall it was an incredibly exciting race for most, but being laps behind and having nobody to fight, it was a day to forget for Truswell.
At the end of 32 Laps, Cleland would take an easy win, followed by Christodoulou who started all the way in 28th and Roodenberg in 3rd. The rest of the results are as follows: 4th: Will Money
5th: Naser Teymourian
6th: Edward Sibbald
7th: Teammie Van Weert 8th: Daniel Widdup
9th: Damiaen Van Mourik
10th: Simon Herring
11th: Richard Cleaver
12th: Ben Constanduros 13th: Christopher Shawe
14th: Adje Koster
15th: Ronald Verweij (-1 Lap)
16th: Darren Wood 17th: Nicholas Daman
18th: Matthew Riddles
19th: Ewen Honeyman 20th: Joe Bradley (-2 Laps)
21st: Sean Gaffney
22nd: Phillip Hayden
23rd: Robin Truswell 24th: Reinaldo Marrero - (-9 Laps)
25th: Jack Schillawski - (-15 Laps)
26th: Jacob Money (-19 Laps)
27th: Jake Conway (- 28 Laps)
28th: Craig Shelton - DNF
29th: Connor LaFance - DNQ
30th: Joe Burgy - DNQ
31st: Rodney Scott - DNQ
(Apologies about no blog, connection issues during the race)
Concord
For the second round of the season, MOFO wanted to experiment with ovals, in particular short ovals - to begin with, the plan was to run at Lanier, however due to unforeseen circumstances, this fell through. Both tracks had lap-times under 20 seconds.
Those Outside The 107% Time
J. Money - No Time Set
From looking at qualifying and practice, it would be easy for one to assume that the race would be a free-for-all and the one with the fewest needed pits would win...but how wrong the whole paddock were about to be.
Sibbald would be lucky enough to start on pole.
60. Sixty laps. 60 laps out of a total of 90 completed is the grand total run behind the pace/safety car.
After qualifying 28th, Truswell needed some luck to propel him up the order...but exactly 27 seconds after the green flagged was dropped, he'd collect into Van Mourik who had been involved in a multi-car wreck further up ahead...not the start either were hoping for.
Unsurprisingly, the pace car was called out....but it stayed out for a while...so long in fact that Truswell managed to leave the pits whilst it was still out. Despite the leaders being on lap 7, (and Truswell on lap 3) there was still a good chance of a half-decent result.
A spin from Connor Clifford bought out the second safety car. And as Truswell had passed Daman prior to the "caution", positions were being made.
Some who had not pitted previously, took the safety car period to pit, with a lap of just 18 seconds, Truswell knew he could un-lap himself once or twice.
After a few laps of green-flag running, Van Mourik was the next to spin - and bring out the next safety car. This was on lap 17. Fries would then spin under caution - promoting Truswell higher and higher up the grid. Van Weert would be the first with the "Lucky Dog" (allowed to unlap himself).
Lap 25 and the next caution was called after Graham Jr. collected a re-joining Herring - Despite going over the wall, Graham managed to crawl out of the remains of his Skippy
Van Weert once again got the lucky dog, putting him on the same lap as the leaders.
But on lap 30 Truswell makes a very costly error - after getting all the way up to 26th...He would get a great launch off the restart....too great.
In oval racing, you must not pass any cars before the "safety car line" which is located at the very end of the track...Truswell passed Herring, Constanduros and nearly Wood. For this, he was given a stop-go penalty.
During his time in the pits, the Pace car had returned out on track - this time for an un-known cause. Truswell would shortly join the train....but even back here he wasn't safe...
Fortunately all escaped with just few dents. Seconds after getting going again, the caution was back out - Widdup (And shortly after Daman) spun - not hitting anything the race was becoming tedious with the amount of slowing and starting needed.
Half way into the race Truswell managed to get up to 25th. But not for long. Clever would tap Truswel's rear on the start/finish straight, before Truswell would spin at Turn one.
Taking advantage of the safety/pace car, Truswell would pit for repairs...but would speed on exiting before then crossing the yellow line on coming out of the pit-lane, calling for yet another stop. This was now getting damaging.
Truswell had fallen down to 28th due to his many pit-stops. He had to run some clean laps.
Lap 60, and Verweij and Daman tangle, the safety car is back out.
No sooner had the green flag came out, there was another accident...and another half-dozen caution laps.
Truswell had made it up to 26th all he needed now was some luck...but that would come easy as Riddles tapped Truswell's rear, spinning him around before Constanduros got collected in the accident.
By this point the pack had spread out over many different laps, so despite the spin, Truswell remained in 26th.
With just 10 laps to go, there was another wreck, multiple cars involved this time.... and this one cause a bit of controversy - The stewards on scene decided that Truswell had to let Money by - even though his car was in an undrive-able conditon., since Truswell overtook Money under a safety car period.
The safety car would pull release the field four laps from the end, and right until the very last corner, the field behaved...Bailes would win this very odd little race, followed by Cleland (who was hit by Sibbald, who'd crash across the line, finishing 11th)
After this, The point-scoring positions were:
4th Richard Zuurveld 5th: Christopher Shawe 6th: Derek Roodenberg 7th: Adje Koster 8th: Daniel Widdup 9th: Joe Bradley 10th: Jake Conway 11th: Matthew Riddles 12th: Ben Constanduros 13th: Darren Wood 14th: Teammie Van Weert 15th: Damiaen Van Mourik 16th: Simon Herring
As For the championship:
