Season 7, Week 4 highlights

We packed in the races this weekend with three nail-biting tournaments.

Heat Seeker - All the FTEs lined up for this one but overall I think wins fell where they should have, even if there were a few upsets in the bunch. The Lotus Esprit came out a lot faster than many expected but did so by the skin of its teeth in every match-up. The race to watch out of all 16 first round match-ups was the Stockar and VW181, both known to be speedy cars and each having been so close to gold before that they could taste it...but in the end, the Thing just couldn't keep up, even with its sweet bronze rims and metallic green paint. The Stockar won clean but you could measure the win by millimeters. The Honda Spocket was also a surprise of sorts as it kicked tail against the old GTO and the Batmobile. Somewhere, Adam West is weeping.

Gone Shootin' - This was a really mixed bag of entries and it was a lot of fun to watch with battles around every corner. Many of these match-ups were first time fights so there were few safe bets. In the first round, stand out heats included the Callaway and Ferrari, both being pretty even, as well as the Cunningham and GT-03. The spotlight race in the first 16 was easily the Ferrari 308 and the other VW181, both having been so close to victory lane before that neither would stop at anything to get there. It was a tight match going back and fourth but the Thing held out, sending the heavy Ferrari back to Italy once again.

Heading into Round 2, the Ford GT was a favorite but the Callaway did a surprisingly good job of keeping up, it showed a lot of guts. Looking at Round 3, the Ford and Twin Mill race was a nail biter first seeing the Twin Mill squeeze out a flag, then the Ford fighting fire with fire, but for the tie-breaking match the Twin Mill turned on the juice and eeked out a victory. At that point, I'm sure the Twin Mill thought it would be a cake walk to the the gold but the car from Germany wasn't going to make it easy. Another bumper-to-bumper race I think the Twin Mill just got lucky. If this had gone another heat or more, that VW could have seen retirement.

Who woulda thought?

Ride On - Another bracket with pretty open restrictions, this was easily the hardest bracket to pick. A lot of unknowns and a lot of darkhorse cars that have seemingly come out of nowhere. The first race out of the gate saw two old foes go at it as Dieselboy revved up against the GT Racer. Both cars had proven to be forces to reckon with and I think it's fair to say the GT Racer win was an upset. Looks like Dieselboy will have to wait another week to try and reach retirement (again). The car that continues to drop jaws is Splittin' Image as it had little trouble with the Mustang...who knew? On the other wise of things, The Studebaker pickup tried its best against the Screamin Hauler...and it kept up...but just couldn't seal the deal.

The Elite 8 races of this tournament were all too close to predict. Splittin Image with a HUGE upset over the GT Racer and the Pronto once again showing that just because a car is ugly doesn't mean it can't be fast as it came from behind to out pace the all-metal Mustang convertible. Bone Shaker versus the Hauler was, in a word, luck. I don't know if the Hauler felt sorry for the little guy or just hit a few bad bumps in the road but it was truly the Bone Shaker's lucky day...too bad I didn't pick him to win. The Final 4 were some unlikely candidates to say the least but the tubby little Pronto and Bone Shaker saw victory with the Bone Shaker then somewhat easily laying waste to the Pronto in the final.

Top prospects: Splittin Image, Honda Spocket FTE, Callaway C7