This past weekend’s season finale at the historic Indianapolis Motor Speedway started out on Saturday with a textbook race day – beautiful blue skies and calm winds. The tides turned on Sunday afternoon with a weather related race delay and a gusty track, which led to more than just a few upsets throughout the day.

Landing third in practice on Saturday morning, Goulian started the weekend on a high note. His qualifying run in that afternoon was a bit slower due to a more conservative approach to the vertical turns, leaving him in eighth place overall for the day. On Sunday, Goulian’s first heat (the Round of 14) was against Nicolas Ivanoff of France. Ivanoff accumulated a series of penalties during his run, which made him almost 6 seconds adrift of Goulian’s time of 1.07.517.

In the Round of 8, Goulian faced Spain’s, Juan Velarde who qualified third and was consistently fast all weekend. Just as Goulian started his run with an aggressive line, he pinched the second gate with his wingtip, costing him a trip to the final 4 round, and the race. Without the pylon hit (and the 3-second penalty that comes along with it) Goulian’s net time of 1:05.006 was well within range to win against Velarde who posted a 1:06.075.

“Today was a good day in that we flew to a plan and executed the plan, but on the other side it was a bad day because we were just six inches the wrong way to that Gate 2 [a pylon hit], and we had a time that would’ve seen us on the podium. It’s an opportunity lost, but we’ll just keep learning and start 2018 in what we think is a really positive way.”

Team 99 was excited to have dedicated fans, sponsors, friends, and family at this final race and we thank everyone that made an effort to come out and support the team. A special thanks to our steadfast race sponsors: Alpina Watches, Cirrus Aircraft, Hartzell Propeller and BOSE Aviation for their allegiance to the team and for trusting us as a true partner.

The continued improvements in the speed of the race plane and tweaking of strategies showed up with much stronger results this season. Goulian was a consistent player in the Round of 8 and challenging his competitors for a spot in the Final 4. A podium finish in Kazan was the high spot of the season but the team is very confident for a lot more podiums in 2018.

Results Master Class race Indianapolis 2017:
1. Yoshihide Muroya (JPN), 2. Matthias Dolderer (GER), 3. Juan Velarde (ESP), 4. Martin Šonka (CZE),

Congratulations to Team Muroya who finished first in the 2017 World Championship.

Here is a look back at Goulian’s Round of 8 race and his post-race interview:

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