DJ Apolaro wins at Florida State Series Rd5

This past weekend was the 5th round of the Florida State Series held at the Homestead RC Raceway. Paolo Morganti and DJ Apolaro battled for TQ in the 1/8th class and at the end it was Pablo who grabbed the prestigious position followed by DJ. At the start of the final DJ got a good jump on Paolo, but could not get the inside line and had to back off the power to not take both out. This allowed the 3rd place driver through. DJ then made an error on the same lap and got caught at the timing loop and lost time to get a turn marshal, falling back to 9th place so he had to work his way back through the field.

By the end of the first pit stop cycle DJ made his way back to 2nd and was keeping a chase for Paolo who had a 8 second lead on the first lap and DJ got it down to 4-5 seconds over the next 10-12 minutes with consistent error free driving and good pit stops. Both Paolo and DJ where on a different tyre strategy with Paolo opting for a tyre change meaning DJ had to watch his pace to avoid any unnecessary stress on the tyres. When Paolo later on pitted for tyres DJ got a 1.5 lap lead after his pit stop and the race was on for the next 12 minutes. As DJ’s tyres got smaller for the last 10 minutes he was faster and came around to try and get his lap back. DJ made sure to not leave enough space for him to get by and hoped for mistakes from him. In the end of the 30 minute final Apolaro was able to keep his 1-lap advantage over Morganti to secure the race win.

Source: XRD [xrdtech.com]