Formula Dé - May Race

by Ed Rozmiarek

24 Dead at Barcelona! That's what the Monday morning headlines would have read if Sunday's race at Barcelona, Spain had been real. This was the first race we have had since adopting our "death die" house rule. With this rule (which we read about on one of the gaming Yahoo groups), when a driver crashes out of the race, they roll the black die of death. The number that appears is the number of spectators that die in the crash. Morbid, yes, but fun. Sunday's race saw three crashes for a total of 24 dead spectators.

Highlights from this month's race included:

• Mark's first win. After two hard luck years, it seems that Mark's luck is improving this season as he has more points now than either of the previous seasons. The win also pushes Mark into the league points lead half way through the season.
• After a pretty hard first lap, several cars were in bad need of repair. The three leaders decided to pit but several of the others decided to risk skipping the pits to catch up. That decision cost Jon and Robert greatly as they both were to crash before the end of the second lap. Also, Roxana barely made it into the pits after the second lap.
• Susan won the pole position for the third straight race, and the curse of the polesitter continued. We have only had 4 polesitters (out of 25 races) win the race. It's almost as if people don't want the poles position now.
• Three drivers crashed during the race killing 24 spectators. The death toll included Jon with 6, Robert with 13 and Susan with 5.

Sunday was interesting in that this was the first repeat track of our short history. We raced at Barcelona back in April, 2002, so this is the first time we can compare results of the races. A couple of strange things can be pointed out. First, Susan won the pole for both races. Second, Susan crashed in both races, placing 6th both times. I'm guessing Susan will not want to race on this track again for a while.

The point standings are still very close, with Mark's win pushing him into the lead just ahead of Ed with Roxana dropping back to third overall. As we are half way through our season, the drivers at the bottom of the points totals will need to start placing higher to have a shot at the season championship.

See our Formula Dé webpage for the detailed results of today's race or visit the picture gallery for the pictures from the race.

Check back with us again next month as we travel to Zeltweg, Austria

Posted by Ed Rozmiarek at May 5, 2004 12:10 AM