Season 6, Week 1 recap and analysis

Week 1 of the sixth season is officially in the books! It was an FTE weekend as two FTE models took home gold while a Roger Dodge, a rookie wins its first tournament the first time out.

Complete results:
http://www.redlinederby.com/fantasy/schedule.php

Green Flag VI - Not too many surprises in this one but some very close matches along the way. The Chevy Flashsider truck, a rookie, held its own against the Delorean but just couldn't eek out the win. Don't discount this truck for future brackets, it's speedy. Retro-Active came in to the league with a little bit of hype behind it but struggled to outshine the Batmobile FTE. Maybe Retro-Active just needs to break in its wheels or something...there might be potential but nothing to write home about yet. On the other hand, Blvd Bruiser really surprised me by making it to the third round. Bruiser just didn't feel like a winner when you hold it, but apparently there is some muscle there. I expected the Ferrari 250 to skate on by but see what happened there.

Straight Six - This was a muscle car bracket and the best showed up to play. Somehow, the Pontiac GTO made it into the mix even after it was retired in Season 5 (whoops), but that didn't matter because the Firebird cut it off at the pass. The Firebird is a great performer but has yet to win, she's usually a safe bet. No other real surprises in this bracket except for Roger Dodger who is otherwise unproven in the fantasy league. The model is just a Challenger with a blown engine, but that engine is HEAVY and gives the car an advantage on the drop. Thankfully for it, it has the wheels and balance to carry it to the finish line first. I'm kind of bummed Roger won so early in the season because I was looking forward to seeing it race for a while. Oh well...you know it'll be a top pick come the championship.

FTE Frenzy - With a limited FTE population, you could pretty much pick this tournament blindfolded, and the player scores show that. The final round of Stockar vs. Phantasm shouldn't have surprised anyone and even Phantasm taking home the gold was a safe bet. The only surprise to me was the tiny Toyota over the flashy Straight Pipes. The news of this tournament is the introduction of the VW 181 rolling on FTE wheels. The non-FTE version is a speedy thing so it's no surprise his gold-rimmed brother is just as fast. I was honestly kind of surprised it didn't make it to the final round right out of the gate but it will get there soon enough, you can take that to the bank.

Congrats to all the top players in this first week. There are a few new names in the Top 20 and that's great to see...but we have a lot of racing ahead! And don't forget to check out the teams thread in a few days to see how well you all did together. There's been some great smack talk going on there so I look forward to see how the team battle progress.

Next week's tournaments feature the other two big classes, the International and Fantasy collections. Dieselboy is still alive in the Fantasy division and I'm sure he'll make an appearance...possibly his last. On the International side, I think things are really up for grabs. Some very close cars in terms of rating and quite a few rookies that have yet to show off their stuff, including a very heavy Ferrari F512M.