On The Track: Chaos Canyon

By Ali Kidder-Mostrom

The Mustang Memorial Tournament has moved into the semi-final rounds.

Heading into the round, Daddy G led the pack with a healthy 4 point advantage over his closest competitor.

However, chaos always reigns at the Canyon and – with six cars on the track – carnage was definitely the order of the day. With that much rubbin’ and racing, any car could earn the points necessary to move on to the finals.

In lap one, Idiot Luggage took off from the pack – following some mayham in the second turn. It looked like Daddy G was set to follow in second until a well done, last-minute pass by Shelby Mazesnagged the second place points for the racer from RTR.

The Zombie seemed out to prove that he did not fear death. Starting with an impressively acrobatic spin in lap two, he made a number of fancy moves throughout the race. Unfortunately for The Zombie, there aren’t points awarded for style.

Another agent of chaos was AV, who flipped a number of times – including a lap three flip which led to a pile-up of about half the competitors.

All the cars (finally) managed to finish lap four. Daddy G tried to catch the front of the pack, but never quite pulled it out. That didn’t really matter, however, as his consistently solid performance meant he already had 60 points on the board at that point in the competition. I definitely looked like he would end the day where he started – on top.

In the final race, Idiot Luggage again led the pack – and this time by quite a lot. There was no way he wouldn’t take first place for the lap, until Shelby Maze came out of nowhere for what was dubbed “the pass of the night”.

Even with Ms. Maze’s last lap steal, it ended up being Idiot Luggage who stole the night from Daddy G – by only 0.5 points!

AB’s flipping did not pay off to flip him in the rankings and he ended the day at the bottom with 31 points.

Which, was already lower that Scooter Roundwell – the top point holder for the second group of semifinal racers. It became clear in lap one why Scooter Roundwell was on top – as he drove away from all competitors with a smooth ease.

This crew brought much of the same mayhem (or more!) to the Canyon track as the first. In a rather tragic start to the night, four of the six competitors left in Roundwell’s dust flipped and did not finish.

In a bit of a flip from the first lap, in lap two it was Scooter Roundwell who flipped over and didn’t finish. However, the biggest crash of the lap belonged to Dick Turpin who drove right off the edge of the track.

Lap three was another full of DNFs, including Bo Shay whose pirouetting maneuver left him dead on the track right after the jump. In fact, this seemed par for the course for Bo Shay who only finished XX laps out of six.

Lap four finally saw all competitors cross the finish line and then they were back to their old tricks in lap five. Lap six was also a bit tidier, but Dick Turpin ground to a halt right on the edge behind the diner and failed to finish.

Also, it seems like a Dick joke should be inserted here (phrasing!) as that seemed to be what really finished first in this race.

Though Big Samm had one of the more solid performances throughout, he still finished behind Scooter Roundwell (who ended the day with 58) and Luap Knips (at 56).

When all the points were counted for the full twelve contenders, Big Samm did manage to slide into the last qualifying Finals spot. The other competitors for that round will include Idiot Luggage (currently on top), Daddy G, Scooter Roundwell, The Zombie and Luap Knips.

In between Mustang races, the Outlaws once again took to the track. This time, newest list member Tim “The Toolman” Taylor had to wait just a little longer to advance and instead had a faceoff with nonlist challengers.

Once it got to list racing, Mother Canucker proved he belonged on the list as he raced his way up from 7th to 5th, finally being shut out by Mike Maze in Scud.

Scud was then shut out by Xanthippe who then took out Rat Bird, but that’s where the ladder changes stopped. At the end of the day, hometown favorite Five-0 held tight to the top spot (one he is not likely to lose).