The Driver’s Seat

The second week of the current SRS series goes to the archives with brilliant results for the 4Fun pilots. Matteo Venuti pierces an astounding winning streak, while Emperor Omerius comeback gets closer and closer. Newspapers and television reporters asked eagerly for some comments from Omerius in sight of his long waited return to races, but he refused to do any statement to the media. According to an anonymous source, Omerius is since a couple of days locked in a garage sitting in his Audi TT with a bottle of water and some sandwiches, hands on the wheel and staring with vacant expression to a big timer on the dashboard that countdowns to his last second of exile. Clock’s ticking, we’re almost there!

Meanwhile, as above stated, Matteo Venuti had an outstanding racing week, getting – deep breath in – three wins out of three races in Sentul with the Mazda MX-5, a win and a second place in Nürburgring with the Audi TT, a second and a fourth place in Calabogie with the Lotus Evora, a second place with the Ginetta GT4 in Thruxton and above all a superb clean win in the 1-hour-long race with the Mazda 787B in the Nordschleife – breath out. Asked on how he could have been that fast in the Green Hell, Venuti calmly answered: “Well, I had another race right after the end of this one, so I hurried up”.

Moreover, since Venuti also listen to music while racing, as kind and collaborative teammates Roncaglia and Omerius decided to give their support: Roncaglia sent to Venuti a racing playlist, and Omerius offered himself to setup his Spotify player (“The bass sounds boosted a lot, so I had to work on reducing vibrations”, he said). After one race only, anyway, Venuti trashed Roncaglia’s playlist. “It’s weird, Bach’s The Art of Fugue for organ is a masterpiece of classical music, one hour of sublime contrapunctum architecture”, said Roncaglia “but maybe Matteo would have preferred Mahler’s nine symphonies. I will prepare a new playlist he will be happy with”. “Well, I almost fell asleep while listening”, replied Venuti “and it’s not advisable when you are at 250 km/h right before a turn”.

Dario Bucalo also did team play and decided to go for a race with music in his headphones. He didn’t arrange a playlist, anyway, but appropriately choosed to repeatedly listen to this song. Unfortunately, he started to tap with his feet in rhythm on throttle and brake pedals and rapidly crashed into a barrier with his car out of control, so he quickly sent his new Bose headphones back to Amazon. There’s nothing like the sound of roaring engines, after all.

Furthermore, Bucalo decided to take advantage of the Black Friday and buyed a Fanatec base, a Fanatec BMW rim, a Fanatec pedal board and a Fanatec load cell brake. He remained out of sight for the rest of the week then since he had to escape his many creditors, and could only do on-off practice. Racing in disguise and in unusual times in order of not being recognized from his angry chasers, he ended up the week with an unsatisfactory 5th place as a best result with the Audi TT, but planning his revenge: “I’ll be at my best with my new racing setup”, said “and if not, I’ll also buy a racing suit, a racing helmet, a H-shifter and giant fans to simulate a wind tunnel”. If you like to donate to support his pursuit to success, please contact the 4Fun site for more info.

In the end, good race results also for Gianluca Roncaglia, that after fixing his usual configuration issues – he setupped his P2P Audi button not for “push to power” but to “peer to peer”, sending Baroque concertos and sonatas to his teammates on every straight – could get two second places in Sentul with the Mazda MX-5 and a win in his last try in Nürburgring with the TT Cup. Satisfied with his achievements, Roncaglia could then relax listening to Handel’s Messiah. Hallelujah! and stay tuned for next week’s report!

Selected playlist for this article:

The Beatles – Drive My Car

The Eagles – Life in the Fastlane

Cyndi Lauper – I Drove All Night (Matteo Venuti’s best choice)

Yello – The Race

King Crimson – VROOOM (Omer Kinay’s a cappella cover)