Coomans Cruises to Lead at Okayama
July 12th, 2011 by DavidP
Though he won a race in his two NVIDIA Cup starts last week, it was a second place finish in a high sof race that put Jan Coomans on top of his peers in the weekly standings. Coomans, a driver from the Benelux sim racing club, came into the second week of racing in the runner-up spot in the standings but will cross the halfway mark in this short campaign as the point leader.
Coomans’ second place run came in a 2972 sof race which Laszlo Kotrocz led flag-to-flag. Coomans was a distant second, seven seconds behind the winner of the July 11th event. Omar Soto, Madison Down and Week One victor Kaique Piropo completed the top five. Kotrocz went on to start six more races, winning in five of those events and wound up with 159 points for the week, compared to Coomans 169 he garnered for the runner-up spot in this race. Down went on to win another race during the week, which put the Australian with 147 points at weeks end, good enough to capture fifth overall out of 2203 drivers to take to the grid at Okayama.
A single point behind Coomans this week was Norbert Leitner. Leitner captured a 2695 sof event on July 11th but he had to work for it. Leitner, who started from the first position swapped the lead twice with Soto before taking the lead for good on the ninth circuit. Balint Hatvani came home in second in front of Soto, Slawomir Judek and Joan Morales. Leitner led 18 laps en route to the win, which earned him his 168 point total for Week Two.
Fourth for the week belonged to Marco Schneiders, a member of the DE-AT-CH club. Schneiders drove to victory on July 10th during a 2432 sof race which got the German 152 points for the week. Schnieders led all 25 laps of the race over Pedro Najera, Morales, Reuben Bonnici and Jason Noble. For the victory, Schneiders took home 152 points.
Rob Racer sat on the grid a total of 68 times in the past seven days at Okayama while Michael Dangel saw the checkered flag 20 times over the week. John Barty was the fastest driver when it comes to the qualifying sessions for the week as he posted a quick lap of 1:00.966 around the Okayama Short Course. Kotrocz, Coomans Gabor Szaba and Marcelo A Neiva completed the top five in qualifying out of 1001 drivers. Szaba was the quickest in the Time Trial competition as his effort bested Luke Graham, Kelvin van der Linde, Simone Rossini and James Trimble.
Coomans leads the drivers into battle on Week Three as the Mazda MX5s and the NVIDIA Cup make a return trip to Lime Rock Park. Can Piropo, Schneiders, Jason Stock or any of the over 2000 drivers who have ran so far this season catch Coomans en route to the 2011 Season 2c championship? Find out here next week at inRacingNews.
Until then, keep the hammer down and we’ll see you at the track!