Armed Forces Racing League 2025: No Flow, No Go, No Mercy.

Report by: Dean Bowditch

There are racetracks, and then there’s Suzuka — a swirling ribbon of tarmac that looks like it was designed by a sadist with a geometry fetish. It’s the kind of circuit that rewards rhythm, punishes hesitation, and leaves the unprepared staring blankly at tyre walls wondering where the last 90 seconds went.

For the Lossie Phantoms, this was their baptism. Their entry exam. Their polite introduction to a world where “fast-flowing” means “you are permanently one twitch away from annihilation.”

The benchmark? A brutal 1:26.932, set by someone not wearing Phantoms colours — a professional-looking time that screamed, “I have a rig with pedals worth more than your car.”

The Phantoms, to their eternal credit (and mild surprise), did not disgrace themselves.

Ryan Beesla clocked a 1:30.409, a lap full of bravery, mild panic, and a heroic refusal to lift through 130R. Dean Bowditch followed with a 1:31.432, a lap that began in optimism, survived Spoon 1 by divine intervention, and ended with the kind of relief usually reserved for people who’ve just landed a plane without training.

The margins were slim. The pride, unquantifiable. Suzuka had done its work — exposed every hesitation, every microsecond of lost flow — and yet, somehow, the Phantoms walked away smiling.

Flow, Found and Lost

Suzuka is all about momentum. Lose it once, and you’re chasing ghosts. Find it, and for a brief moment, you’re a god. The Phantoms danced between those two realities for 90 seconds at a time — flicking, correcting, clinging to grip like it was the last biscuit in the crew room.

They didn’t top the leaderboard. They didn’t even sniff the podium. But they did something far rarer: they raced, they finished, and they learned. In the Armed Forces Racing League, that’s half the battle.

The stopwatch remains merciless. The clock still belongs to Racing Jesus. But somewhere, in the neon blur of Suzuka’s Ferris wheel, the Phantoms found their rhythm — and, maybe, the first spark of something special.

👻 The Mighty Phantoms

🛡️ AS1(T) Ryan Beesla (@beeslaryan)
🛡️ SGT Dean Bowditch