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GASCAR News Center - 4th Edition

4th
Edition

| |GASCAR
NEWS CENTER


Competition Ramping Up In The Truck Series
Ei Pickett, seasoned crew chief for Lagan Parkle,
now crew chiefs Jamie Parkle in the Truck Series. Here you can see him calling the shots from the pits during Jamie's run at the Boxem Boats 200 at Trover.

Since the departure of the "Old Guard" in the Truck Series, many of the drivers of old have taken up the mantle and won championships as rookies came into the series. It seems that now those rookies are finally getting their racing legs under them, and they're starting to get competitive, like, really competitive.

One such driver is Jamie Parkle. Jamie is the son of Lagan Parkle, GASCAR champion and current driver for Bach Racing. Lagan is a fan of the Truck Series, as he grew up racing trucks in Skahyahn, and so he owns a team in the Truck Series called Parkle Motorsports. Parkle Motorsports has a deep connection with Bach Racing, and combined with Parkle's racing knowledge led to two championships for his organization; one in 2064 with Davy Clerisseau and another one in 2076 with Joel Roshan.

Well, add another driver to that list, because Jamie Parkle raised the 2078 cup at season's end. And he did it in dominating fashion; he had a worst finish of 13th and won seven times. In fact, he only finished outside the top ten, and that was his 13th place finish. This can only be described as total and absolute domination, and he truly lived up to his father's last name in trucks.

Rumors have spread around the garage that Lagan might retire so his son can take up driving duties in the 33 car, but both Lagan and Jamie shot those ideas down. Despite his son's dominance, Lagan wants him in trucks for a couple more seasons before moving him to cup, and Jamie agreed with his father's decision. We'll see how Jamie performs next year.

Tests at Crowley Considered Succes: Races Scheduled
GASCAR conducted additional tests at Crowley this season since the previous tests were such a great success. After another testing session with Grace, GASCAR determined Crowley needed testing with multiple cars to see how racing at the track will roughly look. So, GASCAR brought Alex Bach, Karl Weller, Gagarin Vityanilo, and Kalevi Costiniu to test their cars at the track at the same time. We'll have Bach say how the test session went; "Really haven’t watched a ton of races here so it was a really steep learning curve for me." "Just trying to piece together all of the different parts of the track was a challenge I'll admit, but once we all got it figured out we had a lot of fun." Bach further added, "While I usually don't like low-banked tracks, this one was fun."

And he's right, Crowley is a low banked track. To put it into perspective, the lowest banked track in GASCAR right now (ignoring road courses), is Bursahai in Ulutor, with a banking of 14° in the turns, 8° on the frontstretch, and 2° on the backstretch. Crowley, on the other hand, has progressive banking of between 2° and 7° in the turns, and 1° on the frontstretch and backstretch. For comparison, the banking at Baytona in the turns is 31°.

With all the positive feedback from drivers, GASCAR decided to start talks with the track's owners about hosting a race. Talks began with the track's owner Bob Butler (who also has part-ownership in the Kürranie Motor Speedway) and the local government. Going into the talks GASCAR wanted to install lights at Crowley for a night race, but there was a problem with that. You see, Crowley is a tourist and fishing hub in Anthacia, and if GASCAR raced at night they would receive huge amounts of noise complaints, and might even disturb sleeping fish.

See, local stock car races average about 110 dB in noise; that's loud (about how loud a rock concert is), but not town-disturbing. Let's compare that to GASCAR cars; GASCAR cars average at 145 dB. They are so loud as a matter of fact, people sitting close to the track have to wear hearing protection or risk hearing damage. To further drive home the point, 145 dB is about how loud a .22 deer-hunting rifle gunshot is. Imagine you or your fish are sleeping, and there's gunshots going off for three hours!

Suffice to say, the local government and population were fine with a race, just not at night. So, GASCAR agreed to race during the day, and signed Sacaigan Inc to sponsor the race as the Sacaigan Resort Casino 301. And speaking of racing and Anthacia...

"I just knew it wasn't the time, but I feel like we can win now"

Karl Weller in the pits at this year's
Northern 500. You might notice the paint
scheme is different; that's because 2078
was the 100th year anniversary of
Theo Murphy Banking, which is a subsidiary
of Angor-Morton. So, the company ran this
throwback paint scheme, which had the original
logo of Theo Murphy Banking on it from 1978.

Last time we left Angor-Morton, Hoffenheim scored the team two wins, Tjurgard and Sosco were making sure first place always looked in their mirrors, and the team was putting up record-breaking pit stops. There were some things the team needed to work out; Weller, the frontman for the organization, was doing horribly and the team was struggling to diversify their driver's skills.

Then came a promotion. Matthew Morgan, the crew chief for Weller, was promoted. On top of crew chiefing duties for Weller, he became the vice president of competition for Angor-Morton. This gave him the ability to dictate the team's strategy throughout the season. So, Morgan decided to mix things up.

In order to diversify the driver's skills, he swapped Tjurgard and Sosco's crew chiefs and frequently invited the two out to dinner so the two could gleem information off each other; Tjurgard would help Sosco understand the superspeedways, and Sosco would help Tjurgard get a better grasp at the intermediates. He also sat Jones down with the new guy in Angor-Morton, Denis Hitternaier, driver of the #68, to help him understand the finer details of wheeling a car.

Now, Morgan made use of every bit of time behind the wheel the drivers were allowed to have. Every minute of practice was used, and Morgan used all the allowed test sessions for the drivers. And even during the race he used all sorts of strategy. He openly told Angor-Morton's heads that this season "we might not win the cup, but the knowledge we get will." So, with the mindset that this season was just one big test session, Morgan threw everything at the wall and saw what stuck. Somethings stuck so well you'd swear he'd glued them, while others failed to even make it to the wall.

This tactic scored Stephen Hoffenheim a win and the team ranked up top 15s like they were going out of fashion. But when something didn't stick, it really didn't stick, meaning Tjurgard, Sosco, Jones, and Hitternaier all failed to break into the top ten in points at season's end. But someone who did was Weller, who scored a 9th place points finish at season's end, which was his first top ten points finish since he finished 8th in 2075.

When interviewed regarding Angor-Morton in 2078 and what 2079 might look like, Morgan responded "I just know it wasn't the time, but I feel like we can win now".

Another Fine Year For Huick; But For How Long?
Huick, one of the largest cooperatives in the world and an automotive juggernaut has taken its place among the winningest manufacturers in GASCAR history, and this year was no exception. Dernov Larion scored a second place points finish with three wins, and Vasili Alesnaro scored a 4th place points finish and single win. On top of that, Gagarin Vityanilo scored the brand two wins. These three are easily some of the most talented drivers GASCAR has to offer, but there is a problem.

These three are old by GASCAR standards. Alesnaro is 47, and Vityanilo is 50. Even the "young" Larion is 39, and as it stands right now there’s no “up and coming” drivers in Huick’s driver development. Why? Because Huick doesn’t have a driver development. Huick relies on scouting agents to scout out already developed drivers, which while that can be effective, it also relies on those drivers not being signed into contracts, and also relies on Huick having the equipment and money to coax drivers into their program.

And there’s a lot of problems with that, but the main one is that Huick tries to recruit from the second world since that’s where Huick has the most influence. The thing is is that while that worked great in the past, recently there’s been a shift away from stock car racing in the youth, and instead the racing young have been going towards rally, offroad, and motorcycle racing. That means that Huick has a smaller pool to pick drivers from, and the drivers they do have to pick from might be coaxed by other teams.

Huick doesn’t seem to mind though. The main purpose of Huick racing in GASCAR is to get their brand out into the world and show how their cars can stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the automotive giants. Suffice to say, Huick has a different mindset than other companies racing, and it seems to have worked for them so far. Time will tell if this works out for them.

Katimos Makes A Genius Discovery… Then Gets Slapped With Fines
With the technical alliance between all the Katimos teams, when one team makes a discovery, they share it with the other teams. That strategy seemed to have worked for them as they got their first win in the Norefelk Bars 200, but there was a problem. They were doing well, but they weren’t winning often. By the halfway point in the season, Katimos had a single win to their credit. Not winning means dropping back in the points, and when you start losing points, you start getting desperate. And in that desperation, the race shops began exploring how to make the cars go faster and faster.

That’s when Ahle Racing made an interesting discovery. See, all the Katimos teams run the fuel bavaline, a fuel unique to Ankriad, and that fuel is the same for all the teams. But Ahle Racing looked at the rule book, and discovered that you could not modify the fuel with “automotive additives”. So, while you can’t modify the fuel’s mixture with other automotive mixtures, it says nothing about modifying it with other mixtures.

So, out of sheer curiosity, engineers at Ahle Racing added a hint of mixtures that are often found in…. rocket fuel. So, mixing bavaline with those rocket fuel elements made the car slightly faster. But “slightly faster” is still faster, and so they shared the info with the rest of the Katimos teams, and they all showed up to the Trustmanster 600 and ran a really good race. Curious, GASCAR inspected every inch of the cars, but couldn’t find anything wrong.

Going into the next race the teams did the same thing, but told their drivers to not absolutely floor it so they wouldn’t look so suspicious. While they didn’t win the next three races, all the Katimos teams placed within the top 10. Then, following the Dakono 350, Caroline Eisner needed a win to maintain her points lead, so her team mixed more rocket fuel into the bavaline and floored it and she absolutely dominated the race and won. But as she crossed the finish line, the engine blew up. This looked highly suspicious to GASCAR officials, so they tore her car down and found the fuel mixtures.

Now, strictly speaking within terms of technicality, the teams didn’t break any rules, but it was of questionable legality. GASCAR banned teams from adding “rich fuel mixtures” to their fuel, and while GASCAR didn’t knock the teams any points, they did hit them with fines. In total, the three teams were fined $400,000. Much to the chagrin of GASCAR officials and Katimos’s on track rivals, the CEO of Katimos, Shima Kato, found the story so hilarious that he gave each of the teams the money to pay the fines.

Amanar And Kistler Have Another Great Season

Kurj Dalca, crew chief for Stefan Amanar pictured
walking out of the hospital Stefan Amanar was being treated at after his injury at the Hirhi Electronics 400. His cheery demeanor gave the press all they wanted to know; Amanar was not only okay, but Dalca had something up his sleeve to make sure Amanar kept the points lead.

Kistler and the company’s frontman, Stefan Amanar, had another tremendous season. He started out of the gates strong, winning the Baytona 500 by about half a car-length over Nadia Trauth. He then went on to win at Gallediga. His dominance at superspeedways wasn’t all him, as he and his teammate, Kalevi Costiniu (also a Baytona 500 winner), did research on the aerodynamics of the draft over the off-season, and discovered the by running their cars bumper-to-bumper, they could get a massive speed boost. Of course, the cars would have to switch spots so the second car wouldn’t overheat, but this tactic got Amanar the win at the superspeedways. Naturally, it didn’t take long for the other teams to realize this too, but the pioneers of the tactics were the masters.

All was going fine for Stefan Amanar until the Hirhi Electronics 400 at Ulutor came around. About halfway through, Amanar made contact with Aksakov Vyach, and Amanar smacked into the wall drivers-side first hard. He was able to drive the car to finish, but he had to literally be lifted out of the car by his crew. As it turns out, he had a broken rib and a bruised lung.

Now, doctors advised him to take about a month off then come back and see them. The problem, however, is that if Amanar missed even a single race, he would lose the points lead and thus, lose out on the chance to win his second championship. So, Amanar's crew chief, Kurj Dalca, the mad scientist he is, devised a plan. See, whoever starts a GASCAR race is credited with the finishing position. You could start the race, turn a few laps, then come in and get replaced by the greatest driver in the garage. And then, if that driver wins, you are credited with the win, the reward, and the points.

So, Amanar did just that. For the Chewies 400, Trustmanster 600, and Durenbaunt Banking Roval 400, he would turn a few laps with a flak jacket on (so he wouldn't completely make his injuries worse), pull in, and get replaced by his son, Cal Amanar, who would run the rest of the race. Then for the Seasonal Outdoors 500, Northern 500, and Dakono 350, same plan, but instead of Cal Amanar, he’d be replaced by Tristan Chapelle. Chapelle is a multi-time winner and champion in the Stelin KART Series, an open-wheel series, and Clerisseau recommended Chapelle to Amanar.

And Chapelle went out and lived up to his KART reputation. He outright won the Seasonal Outdoors 500 and the Northern 500, and placed 15th in the Dakono 350. This gave Amanar a comfortable cushion for his return at the Kistler 325 Presented by KonvoCo. Now, with a flame lit under him, he went on an absolute tear; he quite literally won the rest of the races in the season. That’s right, he won the House Sberrj 400, Glenigrad 355, Clayyard 400 presented by Kordlun Hardware, Callum Corp 500, and finally the Wentz 400. He basically secured the championship after the Clayyard 400 presented by Kordlun Hardware, and although he won the Callum Corp 500, he still needed to have second place, Dernov Larion, place outside the top 20 in order to secure the championship completely.

The Race For The Cup
Stefan Amanar's Kistler #8 Intrepid.

It should be obvious from the previous section who won the championship. Despite a harsh season, Stefan Amanar won the cup by a large margin. Once again, Kurj Dalca’s wonder with setting up a car and judging when to bring the car into the pits gave Amanar a chance to win wherever he went, and win he did.

The History Hub

Ryan Vic at the 1988 Firecracker 400.

In an effort to educate our readers about stock car history before the establishment of DOSCAR (later DASCAR and GASCAR), we’ve started the History Hub. The History Hub will detail a story from stock car racing’s past so our readers can learn the lore of GASCAR.

And what better way to start the History Hub then by telling the story of the last win of stock car’s statistically greatest driver?

Ryan Vic was active from 1955 all the way to 1994, with his last win coming at the Firecracker 400 in 1988 at Baytona. The first of his 183 career wins came in 1957 at an unnamed race in Sprikwood. That’s right, 183 career wins, and to put that into perspective, the next closest driver, Rickie Johnsen, has 102 wins. Ryan Vic is also tied with Rickie Johnsen and Erik Trustmanster with the most championships, with 8.

Ryan Vic indisputably had the best car in the 1988 Firecracker 400 until his camshaft broke. In that race, Vic drove from 34th into the lead in just 50 laps without hardly any help from the caution flag, and by lap 60, Ryan was breaking away from the field when the caution flew for Bobby Tuinel’s blown engine. And then after a series of pit stops dropped him back, Ryan passed the leader Claude Scrukils handily, which virtually no other car on the track at that point in the race could do.

On lap 158 of 160, Ryan and Claude Scrukils, driving the #52 Cehve, were battling for the lead. While this was going on, a wreck occurred in turn one. The race was placed under caution, and as per SCARB’s rules at the time the caution period did not begin until the leaders reached the start/finish line. Vic and Scrukils continued their battle through turns three and four, with the first driver to make it back to the line also taking home the race victory as the positions would be held once they crossed and there would not have been enough time to clear the track and resume the race. Scrukils cut a tire exiting turn 4, allowing Vic to cruise to the win.

Vic would race for six more years and would never find victory lane again, and would retire after the 1994 season was over.

Track Trivia

Baytona International Speedway as it stands today.

And we’re not just doing the history of the sport, we’re also going to do the history of a specific track too. After all, what is a racing series if it didn’t have tracks? And what better track to start off with than Baytona International Speedway; the world center of racing itself?

The origins of the track start with the Baytona beach. The beaches of Baytona have finely-grained sand which is perfect for auto racing, in fact the beach was home to land speed record attempts in the 1920s and 1930s before attempts moved elsewhere. That opened up the doors of Baytona beach for stock car racing in the 1940s and 1950s, and the Baytona Beach Course was very prestigious on the SCARL calendar. But as speeds got higher and higher, races got more and more hectic and chaotic. So, SCARL’s founder and president, Lloyd Murchance, began thinking up ideas for a permanent racetrack in Baytona. After doing some research and traveling to the Jagen proving grounds, he assembled a 10-man designer team and they got to work designing a track where drivers would never have to let off the throttle.
Construction lasted three years and Murchance was deeply in debt by the time it was finished. But it was finished, and he dropped the beach course from SCARL’s calendar and replaced it with a race at the new track in 1959. The track was completed only a week before the race was scheduled, and drivers poured into the track and they were impressed. The first race took place and was named the “1959 First 500 Mile SCARL International Sweepstakes at Baytona” (it was the first Baytona 500, as the race would be called the next year). The race was a huge success, and the photo finish took a week to figure out who won, meaning the speedway got a lot of attention.

Murchance added a road course to the track, and racing series from all around Alaback (and even the world) flooded into Baytona to schedule events. Today, the track plays host to over nine different series, with the major events being the Baytona 500 (GASCAR Cup Series), the Juniper Networks 250 (GASCAR Truck Series), the 24 Hours of Baytona (International Endurance Championship), the Baytona 200 (International Motorcycling Federation), the Baytona Ringer 250 (World Touring Car League), the Lake Peney Powerboat Race (Speedboating Racing League), and the Motorcross at Baytona Presented By Adiltv (Motorcross Motorcycling Federation). Suffice to say, the track more than earns its nickname as “The World Center of Racing”.

The track had several improvements and renovations throughout its history. The first repave and renovation of the stands was made in 1978, then again in 1986. Lights were installed around the track in 1998, allowing for night races. The largest renovation was done in 2013, and lasted three years and cost over 400 million Dolarks. It would again be renovated in 2027, 2035, 2056, and again in 2074.

The track today is a modern colosseum of speed. Currently it holds the record as the single largest outdoor sporting arena; it is so large in fact, it could be a downpour at one side of the track and sunny on the other side. Baytona prides itself on providing a great fan experience, and has also got several records in the process; most bathrooms of any sporting arena, most concession stands of any sporting arena, and also allows people to bring their RVs and other motorhomes into the infield to watch racing from inside the track.

It goes without saying that the ancient Ankraidians, who used to hold chariot races in limestone amphitheaters would be proud that their ancestors carry on the tradition…. just in a slightly different way.

Sponsor Spotlight

Brightwater's iconic logo.

And for our final new addition, we have the sponsor spotlight. Sponsors are the lifeblood of GASCAR; without them, the sport would not exist in its current form. So, to pay thanks, we’ll highlight a sponsor on every new edition. While the sponsors will be randomly picked after this edition, we figured we start with the sponsor that has had the most success as a result of sponsoring a driver; Brightwater.

Brightwater was founded in 2029 with the idea of selling completely “purified” water; essentially they didn’t want to pump their water with a bunch of minerals, additives, etc.; they sold and bottled just straight up H2O. But that wasn’t doing very well, so they ditched that idea and then sourced water from the glaciers in the seas north of Ankraid and sold that (after filtration, of course). This got them some success, but they were still a small brand that needed to get their name out there, so they put their hat into the ring at Garbith Marketing.

Through Garbith, Brightwater was put into contact with Alex Bach, a racer who just raised enough money to compete in the new DOSCAR league. Brightwater, seeing as how Bach had literally no sponsors, offered him a contract; they would sponsor his entire car for one season, and depending on how well he did, they’d keep sponsoring him. It goes without saying they kept sponsoring him.

As Bach found victory lane more and more, so too did Brightwater. They made stupid amounts of money, and introduced newer and newer types of Brightwater, including “Brightwater+”, which adds flavor to the water to give it a distinct taste. And with their newfound cash too, they branched out into other beverages, introducing Teacup Lemonade and V8 Powerdrink. Eventually, Brightwater got so much money they reformed into a corporation and bought Congle Food Inc, expanding their products to include frozen/refrigerated food and TV dinners.

As DASCAR reformed into GASCAR, Brightwater began selling its products worldwide, and today Brightwater’s bottled water brands account for 30 percent of all bottled water sold worldwide.

The company has a strong connection with Alex Bach, and the company’s CEO, Gary Galaqu, is close friends with Bach. Bach has appeared in numerous commercials, ads, and has done more sponsorship appearances than any other driver. He even sometimes loans old race cars to Brightwater so they can showcase them at stores that sell their products for a short time. And even today, Bach’s famous number 36 car adorns every bottle of Brightwater.

GASCAR All-Star Race I

Stefan Amanar leading at the All-Star race,
followed by Nemetz, Hoffenheim, Parkle, and Bach.

The first GASCAR All-Race was held this season, and it was a big success. Taking place at the Valirrian Alps Circuit, the race was a sold out crowd and TV ratings were through the roof. The qualifying race, the GASCAR All-Star Open, a race between the drivers who weren't automatically in the All-Star race, was won by Karl Weller after an intense duel with Tony Maxwell and Lieselotte Oberhauser. Maxwell, after finishing second in the Open, won the fan vote by quite a big margin. So, Weller and Maxwell joined the rest in competing in the actual race.

In the actual race Caroline Eisner was able to get the lead for the first 20 or so laps before she was overtaken by Alex Bach. Ole Nemetz was then able to get past Bach, then Stephen Hoffenheim took the lead with Nemetz hot on his tail. Then, Parkle joined the party, and there was a four-way battle for the lead between Bach, Nemetz, Hoffenheim, and Parkle. Then, a hard-charging Stefan Amanar was able to catch the four and was able to use an expertly-timed pit stop to pass all four of them in the closing laps, taking the checkered flag. Your GASCAR All-Star Race I winner; Stefan Amanar.

Alaback

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