WBC 2025 Report

Over three days at WBC, 25 drivers competed to qualify for the finals on day 4. Scheduling conflicts, especially with other racing games, made attendance a little lighter in heats 2 and 3, so we only ran two tracks each on those days, making the competition tight.

The final this year saw a ton of dice rolling (as usual) but with an inordinate amount of successes, which made for a really wild race. The rubber on his tires was long gone by the end of the race, as Stephen Peeples rode his rims to victory and went home with his first WBC win.

Day one saw us racing on Detroit, Estoril, and Imola. Day two was Nurburgring and Adelaide, tracks that favored a race from the front strategy. The final qualifying heat included tracks where racing from the back held its highest advantage: Sochi and Austin.

The Finals track this year was Shanghai, an interesting track which is 3-wide for most of it, but has a really brutal corner right at the start that can turn into a meat grinder if you’re not careful. The back half of the track features a long straight heading into another hairpin corner that can really cause issue if you haven’t held onto some tires to take care of it.

Fleckenstein took his 120 start speed, pushed it to its limits, and then made it through the opening corner in the first two turns to jump out to an early lead. Long and Baker were stuck in the corner on turn 2, and thus formed the initial chase pack. Behind them the peleton was made up by Keller, Schultz, Gallulo, Needham, and Peeples. And then behind that the final pack was Nicholson, Polcen, Haskell, Buccheri (in this first finals appearance), and Aubuchon.

A quick note from the editor: In case you were counting, this year’s final had 13 racers. This was due to a paperwork error on the part of the GM. Ultimately, I had told 13 people they had qualified for the finals, and when I became aware of that, decided that it would be much more fun for everyone to simply play instead of turning someone away.

Right from the beginning of the race, the first corner took its victims. Keller moved into the inside lane at the end of the corner, leaving Schultz to late-brake and slow down with nowhere to go. Similarly, with all the slow driving, Nicholson decided to force pass and chance roll to stay in the race. While the chance roll went fine (the first success of 13!) his forced pass was much harder and wound up costing him some extra wear.

Other than the damage from the initial corner, the rest of the first lap went by pretty tamely. It was in the second lap, that we saw some drivers start to make their move. Both Peeples and Gallulo pushed away from the peleton to move up into the chase pack. Baker held onto second place while Long seemed content to let drivers by him. But it was the “S” curves at the start of the long straight that saw the most action. Gallulo broke his and then both Needham and Haskell rolled chance through the corner to make up position. Then Peeples rolled chance in the hairpin at the end of the straight to move up and challenge Fleckenstein for the lead (chance roll count 5/5).

Peeples started out the third lap hot as well, with another chance roll in the first corner, which prompted Needham to do the same a turn behind him. Gallulo broke his brakes for a second time heading into the same corner and was eliminated.

Heading up to the long straight in the third lap was where the action really ramped up. Peeples had pushed Fleckenstein and forced him into a chance roll in the “S” corner, which he made, and then charging in right behind them was Needham with his own successful chance roll (chance count 9/9). Buccheri and Aubuchon both made their own chance rolls in corner 4, which brings our total to 11 successful chance rolls, however, that would be the end of the magic. From here, there would be 7 more rolls, but only 2 successes (both from Peeples).

Flying down the straight in the lead was Peeples, Fleckenstein, and Needham. All three made it through the hairpin corner together, although it required another chance roll from Peeples. So lining up for the final corner it was Peeples and Needham, neck and neck. They both chose to plot fast through the corner. Peeples made another chance roll (his fourth of the race) while Needham’s luck ran out and he spun (also Needham’s fourth roll). Fleckenstein was a couple spaces out and rolled into an easy second, while Long who sat half a turn behind them navigated around Needham’s car for a drama free third place finish.

It was an excellent and exciting race right up to the finish. The amount of successful chance rolls has got to be some sort of record (final count 13/18), and certainly made for a crazy race this year. Congratulations to all participants, and Stephen Peeples in particular for his first finals win at WBC.