2011 TM Lights Round of British Columbia

The 2011 TM Lights Round of British Columbia was the fifth race of the 2011 TM Lights season's North Division schedule. It was held at the HLR Circuit in British Columbia.

Pre-race storylines
A major obstacle for both TM Master Cup and TM Lights competition in the past was the size of the pit area, which in the past had been resolved with teams sharing pit stalls with other teams at the back of the grid.

This was a pretty epic (not to mention LONG) strategy race. Also keep in mind that there was very little to pay attention to anywhere but the front and where the effective leader of the race was. In part, this was due to that fact that, of the six retirements from the race, only two were from crashes. Part of the intrigue in the race was the ability to get clean laps in with the fewest possible errors &mdash; and this track of all tracks has many many opportunities for unforced errors.

Turn 3 is like a turn at New Hampshire, go too fast and you're on a slow one-way trip into the wall. Many cars pushing it too hard on old tires or on new tires found the wall on the exit of turn 3. The Mousetrap corners were also quite hazardous early in the race, and I honestly thought there would be a 10-15 car pileup there on lap 1 because on the opening laps, you can take 4 wide going into the Mousetrap. There was passing in the Mousetrap believe it or not because the curbs on the left side of 5 were pretty slippery from rain in the morning... but a few made it.

Turn 9 is the best passing zone on the track. But it's also the best place to lose your brakes and skid into the car in front of you. Several cars wound up doing this during the race, most notably Brandon Baker slamming into the back of Ross Schuyler and several people into the back of Tyrone Stanley at various points during the race.

Passing in turn 12 is difficult because of the rumble strips on the runoff. Turn 14 slowly drops away and makes a country road look smooth. Incidents were expected in the Beartrap, but the only ones in the Beartrap were cars pulling off onto the sandtrap for mechanical failures!

Summary
The contenders in this race that you need to know about were Garth Davidson, Chris Davenport (who made up the front row with Davidson on pole), Packer Carroll, Ebenezer Quiggles, Jr., Jefali Animiha, Elmer Farley, Estell Dusak, Shinji Tanaka (although he was nowhere until about lap 20), Carter Davids, Kevin Dwyer, and Curtis Darcy.

Davidson led off the line, with Davenport trying way too hard to lead the opening lap and nearly taking both of them out. Davenport even brushed the wall in turn 3 (the only car to do that on the opening lap, I should point out) trying too hard. Needless to say, Davenport looked dangerous on the first lap, and his erratic driving jammed up the whole field and gave Davidson a 6 second lead after the first lap. The big hero of the opening laps was Kevin Dwyer who started 14th, was 18th after the Mousetrap, and after lap 2 and many awesome banzai moves later, was 8th.

Lap 2 saw the first retirement. Tyrone Stanley got turned in turn 9 and Amy Harrison, with nowhere to go, plowed into the 5 car. Harrison also crashed in qualifying, leading speculation on Harrison's future in the series to blossom.

Stanley continued on, but he was slow and rather annoying.

Ebenezer Quiggles, Jr. and Estell Dusak rolled the dice and pitted on lap 3 along with several cars further back, including Shinji Tanaka. This race had four or five pit cycles, and with one rather large group pitting early, this definitely threw a spanner into the works. Nobody else entered the pits until lap 5 when Animiha came in. Pretty much everyone else stopped on lap 6, and after that, Davidson held the lead with Davenport in second, with Darcy leading the Flying Penguin Onionburger cars of Quiggles and Farley with Dusak jamming up Dwyer and Animiha.

The Quiggles-Dusak gang pitted at least 3 laps before everyone else, but had the advantage of a clear track to make up time, which worked in the first two stints, but not later in the race. Of note, Bruce Wilkinson was on this strategy, but I didn't list him as a contender because he kept smashing the turn 3 wall and was overall a bit of a nuisance.

After the second pit cycle, the lead changed hands after Davidson whacked the wall in turn 3, giving the lead to Chris Davenport. Curtis Darcy and Carter Davids went an extra lap, greatly boosting their chances at the race win. At this point it became clear that the race's major players were Davenport, Davids, and Darcy. Darcy was slowly reeling the leaders, and Davids was doing likewise. Davidson was losing gobs of time to Davenport, who, as soon as he got into the lead, basically drove away and very smoothly, to boot.

Shinji Tanaka ran long with Darcy and Davids, and the Japanese driver made many aggressive moves and made a hero of himself today. Despite contact with the turn 3 wall, Tanaka was VERY quick (Kasumoto on the other hand spun in the Mousetrap on lap 2 in a not terribly brilliant move) and worked his way into the top 10.

A great battle for third was ongoing between the FPO pair and Darcy, which reeled Kevin Dwyer in. However Dwyer fell back a bit because his pit crew weren't at all competent.

Doug Baker was on the move as well, but contact with lapped cars ended his hopes of capitalizing on that. Another collision with the also-hard-charging DeAndre Berkowitz eliminated Baker before halfway.

Gerald Johnson was running towards the back and retired with mechanical difficulty. Julian Alexander and Ebenezer Quiggles, Jr. began to make a habit of running into every wall possible and testing every runoff area. Alexander seemed to have enough by lap 19 and pulled off into the sand pits in the Beartrap...but Quiggles kept going.

Dan Timothy was Chris Davenport's least favorite backmarker, costing Davenport a ton of time during the critical pit cycle. However, it's the story of how Timothy fell so far back that is interesting...

... and we come back to Tyrone Stanley again. Stanley pulled off on the right side of turn 10, and for whatever reason, decided to reverse back onto the track and whacked Dan Timothy's #68 car. Stanley was immediately called to the Steward's Office after that... and he also earns Reject of the Race.

Kevin Dwyer's party was forcibly ended when his car let him down. He was in a position to take 4th or 5th.

Darcy's strategy would ultimately give him the win as everyone else was forced to pit with a handful of laps to go. Packer Carroll, notably, was running 4th when he had to pit with two to go. Carroll didn't lose too many positions (he finished 7th) as a result. Carter Davids pitted from second with three laps to go and still wound up third. Davenport could not build a big enough lead (at one point, 13 seconds. That was before Dan Timothy though...) to earn him the race win, but still finished 4th on the road.

From 28th on the grid, Shinji Tanaka took second in an awesome drive from the Japanese driver.

The top 10
To be added

Points
To be added