Well, it’s taken us into the Fall, but we’re one round away from completing this incredibly competitive series.
Here are the points standings after four rounds:
| Place | Name | Laps | Points | Total Time |
| 1 | George Peters | 764 | 349 | 5127.071 |
| 2 | Aaron Castro | 651 | 289 | 3974.74 |
| 3 | Jerry Pearson* | 576 | 231 | 4063.124 |
| 4 | Jordan Walker | 302 | 133 | 2894.16 |
| 5 | Eric Lane* | 296 | 104 | 2939.946 |
| 6 | Kevin Webster | 174 | 89 | 996.869 |
| 7 | Steve Stewart | 793 | 403 | 5113.704 |
* Sportsman Driver
Remember, the rules are such that each driver is scored on their four best appearances, which means that if you missed a round, you’re not necessarily out of the hunt for the series win.
It’s a bit of work for the Race Director, but we’re taking the best points from the four best race results for each driver to calculate the series winner. And, yes, Sportsman and Experts are scored separately. There is a Sportsman series winner, an Expert series winner, and, of course, a Junior winner. Oh, and remember, Home Cook’n doesn’t get awards or trophies. If you somehow come in second to him, you’ve still won the series!
With our new racing format, you don’t earn points unless you make the main (Feature) event. So, if you don’t see your name above, you either missed the first couple of rounds or didn’t make the main in subsequent rounds. Junior driver points will be picked separately by combining Qualifier race and Last Chance Qualifier race points for up to four rounds attended.
The final round will be on the SR3 oval course. We’ll run our latest race format but longer segments since we’re on the oval. We’ll also run fuel allocation for the Last Chance Qualifier race and the Feature event. I think the LCQ race will have 30-lap segments, and the feature race will have 45-lap segments. Fuel allocation will be announced on race day.
The weather is expected to be ideal, so leave your expensive cooled driver suits at home. We’ll only need two marshals for each race event, but please invite guests to drive, marshal, or be the Race Director.
Stay tuned for more details, the invite, and the schedule. I think we’ll run MegaG+ “Lites” at 20V. Comments and suggestions are welcome, of course.
Round 4 Short Story
Race 1: Qualifier Race 2
Race 2: Qualifier Race 1
Race 3: Feature Event
Round 4 looked like it wouldn’t happen, with very few RSVPs and then a couple of RSVPs bailing out at the last minute.
Team Johnson’s Junior drivers were impressive in the first qualifier against two Expert drivers vying for the single transfer spot to the main event. George won all four of the segments, Madeline came in second in four. Matthew Johnson found his groove in the final segment and put some serious pressure on Madeline, finishing third but just one lap down and posting a slightly faster median lap time than Expert George Peters.
Continuing our new racing format in Round 3, we conducted a five-lap qualifying session that divided the field into two qualifying races. The winners of each qualifier race transferred directly to the main event. The rest of the field went on to the Last Chance Qualifier race, where two more drivers (1st and 2nd) transferred to the feature race. We had enough drivers to do a Consolation Race but opted not to.
This qualifier race pitted the 1st, 3rd, 5th, and 7th fastest qualifiers against one another, with only one driver transferring to the main event. The two Expert drivers, George Peters and Home Cook’n, looked to be the favorites to win, but Sportsman Jerry Pearson (Pearson Racing) was having none of that. Jerry took second in three of the four segments and second overall against a hard-charging George Peters. Team Johnson’s Jared Johnson was introduced harshly to our fastest class of cars, the Viper V-SPEC chassis. Jared did amazingly well against two experts, including a seasoned and highly motivated sportsman, Jerry Pearson. Jared also found his groove in the final segment, posting his fastest race lap. 
Sportsman driver, Jerry Pearson was on fire again in the Last Chance Qualifier. Only two drivers would transfer to the Main Event, and Jerry was determined to be one of them. Jerry won three of his four segments and bagged second in his final segment. Also vying for one of the two transfer spots, George Peters won three of his four segments and took a second in the other. In the end, George and Jerry tied in laps and total points, but Jerry took the top podium spot by just 1.18 seconds. This is competitive racing at its finest! This was Team Johnson’s first “official” race day with the more serious crowd, but they all finished every stage and segment of the event and recorded some impressive results. 
After experiencing a hiccup with SlotTrak’s latest version (scoring and fuel management feature failures), we abandoned the planned fuel stop component of the main event. We continued with a straight-up sprint race with 30 lap segments and no fuel stops. This race was an adrenaline party. Team Forza’s Aaron Castro put the heat on Home Cook’n and everybody else with three 2nd place segments and just missing a 1st in the first segment by 4/10’s of a second. Pearson Racing’s Jerry Pearson and GP Design’s George Peters would prove to be spoilers in the last two segments: Jerry put in a fabulous effort in the third segment, taking 2nd place to Home Cook’n by just 2/10’s of a second; George bagged the win in the final segment with the fastest runtime of the segment at 145.139. Both driver’s late-race performances robbed Aaron of valuable points that could have put him on the top of the main event podium had Home Cook’n not won three of the four segments. What a blisteringly fast race! 