2019 ESPLAR Elite Series Season

Logo used in the 2019 ESPLAR Elite Series (from Japan onward)

The **2019 ESPLAR Elite Series Season** is the 46th and current season of the top tier of the **Evanshire Super Pro League of Auto Racing**. The season began with the Round of Florida at Pensacola Speedway, and will end with the Evanshire 700 at Camberwell Raceway in Evanshire. Julia Truong is the defending series champion after winning a very close title battle at the 2018 Evanshire 700.

This is the first season of ESPLAR's Green Revolution, where all ESPLAR cars switch to zero emission biofuel and more durable tyre rubber. It is the last season before ESPLAR introduces its highly anticipated cyber navigational system into their cars.

**Saihara Motorsports'** Hayato Kitanami won the Morson-Austin Trophy at the Evanshire 700 despite finishing 15th while championship rival **Julia Truong** finishing 11th. The margin of victory was 2 points. **Greater Kanto Motorsports** retained their Team's Championship title thanks to **Yoshihiro Ishikawa** getting eliminated from contention at the Round of Norway.

## Signed Teams and Drivers

The following teams and drivers are scheduled to compete in the 2019 ESPLAR Elite Series season.

Italics denote a rookie.

## Season Calendar

ESPLAR Elite Series contests the following rounds in the 2019 season.

* Pensacola International Speedway replaced Daytona International Speedway as the season opener after 38 years.
* Middle Georgia Motor Speedway was moved closer to its traditional mid-Spring date in April as Ocean State Speedway made its debut in MGMS' date to test the Round of New England.
* As Brands Hatch was closed to accommodate major renovation works during the year, the Round of England was moved back to Mallory Park for the first time since 2017. The 2018 race was not held at Mallory Park due to safety concerns.
* Darlington was knocked off the EES calendar.
* Moncton Speedway replaced St. John's Motorway Park in Newfoundland as the premier race in Canada.
* The Round of Texas moved from Texas World Speedway near College Station to Dodge Motodrome in Austin.
* For the first time in over 40 years, the Round of Estlenhar returned at the renovated Rockport Raceway Park in northern Estlenhar, securing a 3rd race in the Altruras Archipelago for the first time in 3 decades.
* A 2nd Australian race at Barbagallo was added to the schedule.
* The venue for the annual All-Star Race moved from Sonoma Raceway to Chicago Motor Speedway.
* The Round of California was replaced with the Round of New York at Oswego after negotiations with Auto Club Speedway and Maxwell Center fell apart.
* The Round of Iceland was replaced by the Round of Germany, at Eurospeedway Lausitz.

## Preseason Changes

The following changes occurred at the beginning of the 2019 season (TBD):

* The ESPLAR governing body implemented new catchfence technologies aiming to reduce the amount of debris that flies onto the grandstands. This is in response to catchfence crashes that occurred in 2018, including Simion Brediceanu's and Olaf Pulaski's crashes at Darlington, and Clarent Paxman's at Fontana.
* ESPLAR officially integrated higher quality rubber for tyres and biofuel into their cars, aiming for them to last longer between pitstops. However, such effects were not immediately seen until Moncton, where no pitstops occurred before the only caution of the race. It did increase the tires' grip and allowed for faster and more exciting racing at short tracks like Middle Georgia, Texas, and Mexico.

## Season Summary

The 2019 ESPLAR Elite Series season was the 2nd consecutive season where at least 10 drivers have exited the series for varying reasons. Among the notable exits were **Kazuichi Saihara**, who retired at the end of the 2018 season to manage his growing **Saihara Motorsports** team, **Tony Farley**, who exited the series after 2 decades in the ESPLAR Elite Series, and **Jan Henkla**, who has not won a championship despite coming close for several seasons. Other drivers that exited the series were **Ivan Loss, Taemon Omololu** (who despite winning a race last season failed to secure a drive), **Nicolau Severnes, Saler Kuliev, and Olivia Miller.** Several notable driver replacements occurred, among them several promotions from the 2018 ESPLAR Lites class. **Hayato Kitanami** was the most notable having won the ESPLAR Lites title before the final race, racing (as expected) for Saihara Motorsports. Next was **Nizur Ostnyaniv**, who replaces **Saler Kuliev** in the #13 Dodge and finished 2nd to Hayato Kitanami in the 2nd tier. A number of small teams made their way up to the top class, including **Mid-Pacific International (Nicholas Wade), Team Europe (Samet Özkan), Viking Motorsports (Alex Tanker)** and **Anthony Lopez Racing (Anthony Lopez)**. Some other teams returned to the top class, like **KTR-Miranni**, who after a turbulent ESPLAR Lites campaign secured a spot in the series. **MTS-Vojvodina** made their EES debut after several seasons in the European Touring Car Championship (**ETCC)**. **Team Valor** expanded to a 2 car operation, adding **Maddie Watkins** to the lineup. A small team named **Kiruvenik Motorsports** secured a spot for Sápmi driver Kállá Mjaari after he secured the ESPLAR Premier Regionals (tier 3) title in 2018, and thus became the youngest person to win that title in its short history. 2016 ESPLAR Elite Series champion **Lean Campana** made his return with Turvali-Koralia Racing, but only for the first 3 races as he is driving full time with Mercedes in **Formula NX**.

### **Evanshire Test Race**

The first race of the ESPLAR Season, unofficially, was the **Evanshire Test Race** at **Camberwell Raceway** in Evanshire Island. First held in 2018 which was won by Bridget Sonobe, the event returned in 2019 to show how the cars' pace was looking like. The weekend was, however, without difficulties, as Azeri Motorsports' Enar Selnimarov was struck with flu and cannot race during the weekend, in which the team selected ESPLAR Lites driver **Mahir Bakirgil** to drive the car in his place. Then, in practice, Luxis Rothenburg pushed Alice Seharitayan into Nathan Perry which caused an accident out of turn 4 involving Halvan Nazarov (who replaces Ivan Loss at Hennivan), Lukas Johansen and Olaf Pulaski. Rothenburg was warned by his teammate, Laura Kerrivan, to not go aggressive like than in the actual race (even though it's his first race in ESPLAR Elites).

Like the year before, the ESPLAR Test Race starting grid was determined through a random draw. MSquared Racing's Maya Galvan drew the pole ahead of Lukas Johansen. ESPLAR Lites champion Hayato Kitanami started in row 2 with Laura Kerrivan beside. Last year's Morson-Austin Trophy holder Julia Truong started in 5th. However, last year's test race winner, Bridget Sonobe, started in last.

Maya Galvan started from the pole but was unable to lead the first lap as Hayato Kitanami passed the #11 for the lead before the first lap ended. Kállá Mjaari attempted to make his way to the front but was pushed into the outside. Meanwhile, Kylie Kovacević hit the outside wall and immediately lost the pack. Last year's test race winner Bridget Sonobe ran into problems as she hit the pits with a flat tire, costing the Danish driver a chance at the win.

4 wide was not a good idea out of turn 4, but Nazar Varotian turned Kállá Mjaari into Yoshihiro Ishikawa which sent the #22 into a spin. Amazingly, no one else was involved but the caution was thrown for the accident. Setting up for the caution, however, Mahir Bakirgil, sandwiched in between the Podkarpackie Racing cars of Kaspar Dabrowski and Olaf Pulaski, turned all three of them into the wall, which caused an accident also involving Merry Santiago, Nicholas Wade, Anar Dara, Yoshihiro Ishikawa, and Kylie Kovacević.

Nathan Perry took the lead on the restart, but was passed by Alice Seharitayan. Seharitayan would end up winning the race under caution as a huge accident between Matt Croft, Halvan Nazarov, Maya Galvan, Laura Kerrivan, and Kaspar Dabrowski occurred towards the end of the race. Kerrivan suffered two huge hits (one to the driver's side) while Dabrowski suffered a collapsed car roof. Amazingly, Kerrivan, Dabrowski, and Nazarov were unhurt despite Kerrivan suffering impacts at 370 kph.

### **Round of Florida**

The 2019 ESPLAR Elite Series season opened with a major change in the schedule for the Round of Florida. Despite an exciting 2018 edition, the race was not enough to save Daytona International Speedway from being axed from the 2019 calendar in favor of the Pensacola International Speedway in the Florida Panhandle. Regardless of the skepticism the ESPLAR fans had before this track hosted this race, it kept Daytona's iconic Superspeedway racing that ESPLAR was always known for at the beginning of every season beginning in 1981.

Anaheim Industries, a major technological and industrial giant from Altruras, began the 2019 ESPLAR Elite Series season as the official pole award sponsor in a major sponsorship shift away from international sponsors in an attempt to keep ESPLAR fans within the Altruras Archipelago interested in the top tier. Altruran fans have slowly moved into ESPLAR Lites and Premier Regionals series as the racing in 2018 was often seen as more exciting than the ESPLAR Elite Series in 2018, mainly due to mechanical troubles. But many other Altruran fans decided to brave the cold and into the milder Floridan landscape to attend the race anyway. Attendance figures were up to 74,000 for race day, of which about 30,000 were fans from the West Coast or Altruras. Many hundreds of thousands tuned in from social media sources, including streams from ESPLAR's KATR-09 radio and streaming station. Overall, fans were not disappointed with what was about to come.

Coming off of last season's superspeedway performances, Podkarpackie Racing's Kaspar Dabrowski took over the Anaheim Industries Pole Award for the Round of Florida. His lead would only last a half distance of the track as rookie Lajos Gardonyi took the lead away from him before one lap was completed.

An early accident thanks to 4 wide occurred at the beginning of lap 3 with Kevin Jackson pushing into Nazar Varotian sending Anar Dara, Laura Kerrivan and Nathan Perry into the wall, eliminating all 5 from winning contention early.

Pack racing continued all throughout the race, with early predictions often falling flat and other predictions often lacking in terms of who would set the pace. Since no one was leading for more than 2 laps apiece, many could not predict who was going to win.

As is with all superspeedways lapped cars became an issue. Most notably Alex Tanker managed to clear a slow Nathan Perry and hold a sizeable lead; however the pack managed to catch up and was swarmed in the process.

Late in the race, a loose wheel would cause defending champion Julia Truong to slide into Nizur Ostnyaniv and Alice Seharitayan, which would cause Kylie Kovacevic to be sent into a wild tumble in turn 4. Anar Dara, who was pretty slow, Anthony Lopez, Nicholas Wade, and 2016 EES champion Lean Campana were also collected in the accident, with the latter three being eliminated as well. Azeri Motorsports' troubles would climax when Enar Selnimarov had an engine blowout which eliminated him out of the race.

No one realized that 4 wide still did not work which resulted in Alicia Marshall getting sent into the wall and Alex Tanker in turn 1 after the restart.

With the race winding down Mittyia Hala managed to take over the race lead coming to the white flag. She held, like Alex Tanker before, a sizeable lead although it was not due to lapped traffic. The pack was bearing down on Hala coming out of the last corner with Nathan Perry, a lapped car, making the race to the line one of the most exciting in years. With Halvan Nazarov, an Uzbek rookie driving in his first points race for Hennivan Racing, possibly trying to take an upset win over Hala.

Ultimately Hala held off for the win, but the margin was the closest in ESPLAR Elite Series history; a 0.003 difference between Hala and Nazarov which produced one of the closest finishes in motorsport.

### **Round of Southern Illinois**

Carbondale, a tricky triangular track in southern Illinois, has long been home to ESPLAR’s short oval programme since the early 1980s. Here, drivers are faced with maintaining their momentum through the entire track, as going three wide is very risky and could often result in an accident.

As this track was used early in preseason testing between many teams, anyone could have taken the Anaheim Industries Pole Award here. It was last year's winner Katya Alarcon that won out eventually, with Greater Kanto Motorsports teammate Julia Truong missing out by only a fraction of a tenth of a second between the two.

Like many Carbondale races before it, this year's event started with an accident with Swedish rookie Samet Ozkan turning Matthew Torres into the front stretch inside wall, which would in turn collect Nizur Ostnyaniv, both MSquared Racing cars, Vei Saafi and Nathan Perry.

On the restart, Nicholas Wade's aggressive move for the lead would backfire as he turned Julia Truong into Bridget Sonobe and also wrecked himself into Yoshihiro Ishikawa.

Three wide would backfire on the next restart as Julia Truong pushes Mittyia Hala into the wall and the crash would also involve Lean Campana and Lukas Johansen.

Julia Truong's misfortunes would continue on the next restart as she nearly causes an accident by pushing Merry Santiago into the final corner. It is compounded by a failure to slow down on the part of Yoshihiro Ishikawa as he collides with the #1, sending Ishikawa on a roll down turn 2.

A bizarre accident occurs on the next restart as three wide in turn 4 would launch Bridget Sonobe into the catchfence after contact with Mittyia Hala. Fortunately safety precautions after the Simion Brediceanu accident at Darlington last season prevented any major harm to the spectators in the grandstands.

The stranded Sonobe would cause the Big One as Anthony Lopez misjudges the inside line and wrecks, which would involve about 10 cars.

On the next restart three wide eliminates Matthew Torres after colliding with Lean Campana; Lajos Gardonyi was also involved but continued on regardless.

Another crash would occur as Maddie Watkins turns Lexie Yong into Matt Croft, collecting Nazar Varotian and several others.

Lean Campana's fortunes would get worse as accidents with Yoshihiro Ishikawa, and then with Anar Dara and Alice Seharitayan ensure no points.

Meanwhile, a spinning Nathan Perry and Kevin Jackson behind the Dara-Seharitayan accident would cause damage to many cars.

Another accident occurs between EES champions Campana and Truong on the next restart, then on the restart after that Maddie Watkins finds the turn 4 wall and wrecks into Anar Dara after being turned in a four wide situation.

A mechanical problem again takes Enar Selnimarov out of the race while another one with Maddie Watkins causes a yellow after getting tagged by Srdan Kylaiosevic.

Alex Tanker took the lead from Hayato Kitanami until three wide takes him out of contention for the win, which also takes Alice Seharitayan from contention as well.

More three wide results in Kylaiosevic and Valentina Hudesti finding the turn 1 wall.

On the following restart Luxis Rothenburg is taken out by Merry Santiago which would, in a spectacular accident, take out Katya Alarcon from the race.

Another accident occurs later with Mercedes Burke turning Matt Croft but then also taking out Anar Dara and Nazar Varotian.

A three wide accident towards the end of the race would set up a green-white checkered finish with Clarent Paxman as the leader; however he would not be able to capitalize as Hayato Kitanami passed him and took the race win away.

### **Round of Rhode Island**

Rhode Island was a nice change of form after New Hampshire was cancelled due to insufficient safety standards the track had. Yoshihiro Ishikawa took the pole over Katya Alarcon and Nicholas Wade; Wade took over the lead on the second lap.

Turn 3 became a magnet for cautions, as the race went on several accidents would claim many drivers. The first such accident occurred when Lajos Gardonyi misjudged the corner and ran into the back of Lexie Yong's #71. Anar Dara also misjudged turn 3 and turned Maya Galvan into the outside wall.

Eventually, Katya Alarcon would take the lead from Nicholas Wade, but outside pole sitter Yoshihiro Ishikawa ran into trouble when he ran over Nathan Perry, also at turn 3 and damaged his car. Lukas Johansen and Matt Croft became turn 3 magnets as they both collided on the following restart.

A minor pileup at turn 3 occurred when Nizur Ostnyaniv runs into Nathan Perry, who appeared to be pitting, and collected Ostnyaniv's teammate as well. On the next restart 3 wide forces Bridget Sonobe to spin Mercedes Burke into Alex Tanker, sending both cars into the wall. Further ahead, Kaspar Dabrowski turns Matthew Torres, only to get spun and create a pileup with Julia Truong further complicating her season's start with another accident.

As the chain of accidents continued, Kylie Kovacevic emerged as a contender to win the race. The final caution came as Nathan Perry turned Maya Galvan into the inside wall, and both cars come back onto the track setting up a pileup and Galvan's car launched into the catchfence, requiring a brief red flag. Kovacevic faced no opposition and cruised to what will be her last victory in ESPLAR.

### **Round of England**

Rhode Island would be the final race of the season for the 2016 Elite Series champion as preseason testing in Formula NX would begin shortly after the race.

In the meantime, Julia Truong has been having one of the worst starts to a championship defense ever, with 0 points after 3 races. (WIP)

### **Round of North Dakota**

Enar Selnimarov's first win since the 2016 Round of Texas knocked Transylvanian Racing driver Valentina Hudesti out of the playoffs, and ensured Enar could compete for the title before he hangs up the helmet at the end of the season. But Enar's first obstacle in a series of races was the superspeedway race at Bismarck Superspeedway in North Dakota, where anyone can come out to win in style.

After being crowned the ESPLAR East Regional Series champion with 5 races left to spare in the 12 race season (with his rivals unable to catch up at this point), Turvali-Koralia driver **Kailan Tuornin** was called up to drive the #32 car that was driven by current Mercedes Formula NX driver Lean Campana in the first 3 races of the season. Kailan suddenly faced a situation similar to Hayato Kitanami in 2018 at Altruras when Hayato replaced Yoshihiro Ishikawa at Saihara Motorsports due to injury. But regardless, the recent champion and college graduate was not letting that scenario haunt him as he arrived at the track for first practice.

North Dakota marks the first race in the ESPLAR Playoffs, with the starting amount of points determined by the gap between the points leader at the Round of Mexico to 19th place, with Enar Selnimarov given only 5 points to start the playoffs since he won the EES All-Star Race. Julia Truong, the points leader at Mexico, was given 40 points, with Hayato Kitanami, 2nd in points, given 38 to start. After this race, one driver lowest in the ESPLAR Playoffs would be eliminated leaving 19 drivers left in the playoffs.

In qualifying, non-chaser Luxis Rothenburg grabbed the pole from chaser Mittyia Hala, demonstrating Mylo-Kerrivan Motorsports' superiority at the superspeedway with teammate Laura Kerrivan only managing a 14th. Most of the top 20 were chasers, with the exception of Rothenburg, newcomer Kailan Tuornin, and Lukas Johansen. (TBD)

### **Round of Alabama**

Incoming rain after qualifying meant that the official qualifying for the Round of Alabama was done via group qualifying for only the 2nd time this season, after the snowstorm of Florida. In the end, Kailan Tuornin surprisingly took the pole over championship contenders Hayato Kitanami and Kállá Mjaari.

The big one struck early and quickly, for Alice Seharitayan turned Srdan Kylaiosevic into Kylie Kovacevic, setting off a 12 car chain reaction, which involved championship contender Katya Alarcon and proceeded to retire out of the race.

While setting up for a caution another chain reaction would be caused by Kaspar Dabrowski turning championship contender Maya Galvan into the wall. Both drivers were casualties as they were eliminated though several other cars like Julia Truong and Mittyia Hala were also involved in the accident as well. (WIP)

## Driver's Championship

Points are awarded to the top 20 finishers using the following structure:

\*Additionally, 10 points are each awarded for winning the pole, leading the most laps, or making up the most positions from qualifying position.

Beginning with the ESPLAR Elite Series playoffs, the points system for that stage of the season was changed, with points awarded via finishing position. The bonuses will remain the same but will amount to +2 points.