It’s now nearly 12 hours since the World Championships wrapped up, and I’m not sure I’m any closer to being able to make sense of that bonkers final. Some races are like that. So much goes on, that it’s hard to figure out quite how to tell the story.

In one sense, it’s simple. Ongaro led, the margin opening up, the World Champ seemingly cruising to the win before an unthinkable, unforecastable, unimaginable mistake. And that was it.

Except that, of course, that’s nothing like “it” at all. There were so many stories within this race, so many twists and turns.

And so, at risk of taking the same approach to a story two days in a row, I’m drawn back again to starting with a quote from the preview we wrote a couple of weeks back:

“Honestly, from a story perspective, just about any outcome will be amazing. If Ongaro wins, what a story – four times in a row would be an achievement of monumental proportions. If Ronnefalk backs up 10 years after his first? Unreal! Imagine someone like Coelho or Kaerup or Rivkin crossing over to a non-favoured discipline and winning? Outstanding! Or someone like Canas or Boots or Phend or Maifield winning the title at last? What a story! And if it goes to just about anybody else, it’s a breakthrough win that establishes a new legend. However the next week goes, it’s going to be a great story.”

Just about every one of those stories we talked about seemed possible at some point in that crazy one-hour final.

Ongaro seemed destined for four in a row. Having stuck to his guns and a program geared toward the one-hour main, having ridden out a horrible start to the earlier 30-minute semi-final and then shown astonishing pace over the back half of that run, having been gifted a huge lead through the errors of his rivals, we were all starting to mentally write the headlines. In one of a couple of group chats I was in during the race, we wrote things like “this is a big gift to Ongaro” and “already calling it, Ongaro”. The gasp when he hit the post over the back double was audible in the trackside FX mics, but also echoed in lounge rooms around the planet. Everybody, hard-core fan or first-timer, caught the significance of the moment. It was a mistake that is unthinkable from Ongaro…and yet it fit with a week when he just hadn’t seemed quite as locked in as usual.

Or we could think about this race from the perspective of Chase Lemieux. What an incredible story this might have been. A beautiful drive in the semi-final, and as discussed here yesterday, we were suddenly thinking about this son-of-a-racing-legend doing the unthinkable, defeating all the 1/8 specialists in a rare appearance in this category. Lemieux looked so settled, so comfortable, so in control early. Until he wasn’t. An error at pit-in resulted in him being called for a drive-through penalty, and then compounded with another problem and a flame-out. It went from the most exciting possibility to disaster in moments.

Or Phi-Long Nguyen, the young charger who had struggled through the week but found amazing pace on the final day – bumping from the quarter (alongside a huge run from Jared Tebo) to the semi, to the final, to the top three on a bold fuel strategy that had us all asking "what if?", only for that run to be cruelled. Another possible story ruled out. Another dream crushed.

Or Juan Carlos Canas. A man whose last-lap mistake in Q6 has out-weighed his whole week, and who, after a steady start, was ideally positioned to press. In a parallel universe, Canas is there to pick up the pieces when Ronnefalk, Ongaro and Lemieux fall, and goes on to win his first World Championship. Except that a string of his own errors buried him on the field, consigned to a race-long fightback that became a story of its own. He drove through an enthralling encounter with Rivkin and Kaerup that would have held our attention if it wasn’t for what was going on out front. Third, again.

Or Mason Fuller, the man who since Tuesday has looked so ‘on it’. So put together. So in control. So destined for a big result. So clearly the quickest of the US drivers after the early practice heroics of Camden Lime (remember that, all the way back on day one?) had faded. On lap 41, that fateful Ongaro lap, Fuller assumed the lead, the 10-minute fuel strategy he’d been riding all week depositing him with out front and with a pit-stop in hand. Hopes of a first US winner since Cody King’s 2010 triumph were building, buoyed by a string of fast laps that seemed to be holding Ronnefalk at arm’s length. Even after a fateful, weird, unexpected mistake put David back in the race, it seemed like Fuller had a pace edge and would run down the Swede, only to fall agonisingly short. So close. So impressive. So much now the international star his potential has always indicated. We can only hope that SWorkz build an international race program for him in the years to come.

And then there is David Ronnefalk. A man whose own story in this one race contains a whole book's worth of ups and downs. The highest of highs in the opening laps, edging away while Lemieux found his feet, looking comfortable out front and building a margin. Until that tiny mistake in the stutter bumps, a part of the track we highlighted days ago as high-risk, dropped him back. And then, predictably, a mid-field coming-together in a congested mid-pack dropped him even further – as low as P8 at one point. But Ronnefalk has looked the fastest man all week in free air, and the conclusion to this story was still being written. That pace, put to good use, brought him right through the field to P3 by lap 31, then P2 when Ongaro removed himself from the narrative.

There was a moment, chasing Mason Fuller when it looked for all the world like David Ronnefalk suddenly realised there was a chance to win here, to repeat his famed 2016 victory. For a lap or two, the opportunity seemed to overwhelm him, driving tight, small mistakes emerging. But we had talked yesterday about the calm that has surrounded Ronnefalk all week, and that calm descended. Poise returned. Speed returned. The chase was on.

The rest, as they say, his history. Ronnefalk to the lead with a Fuller mistake, and then resolute defence worthy of a World Champion brought him to the line. 10 years on, a one-time champion doubles up, only the third in the history of the 1/8 IFMAR Championships, putting the full stop on a week in which he has looked completely in tune with car, track and challenge. It’s easy to say, but in the end this win has something of an air of inevitability - to draw on the famous movie quote from the Matrix - about it.

Ronnefalk, of course, delighted. XRAY pick up what is arguably their most important ever race win, new parts on the car transforming it from contender to champion, and a huge congrats to the European manufacturing powerhouse. Hotrace too, brought a new tyre to a championship win, coming out on top in the ever-raging 1/8 tyre battle. And a European again stands on the top step for the fifth straight Worlds. All the stories are there to be written, and no doubt they will be.

And all of that barely scratches the surface of the stories that could be told. What of Marcus Kaerup’s performance, 4th to go with his eBuggy and 4wd World Championship crowns? Or first Worlds A final appearances for hometown hero Brandon Rose? Or LCQ winner Seth VanDalen? Or the brilliant Aydin Horne? Or the trials and tribulations of the legendary Ryan Maifield, now surely unlikely to ever win a 1/8 Worlds at this stage of his career? Or Dakotah Phend, for whom yet another 1/8 Worlds passes by and things just don’t fall his way? So many drivers, so many stories.

It’s been, I think, an amazing World Championship week, in terms of the stories at least. Kudos to the Thornhill Racing Circuit team, and we can only hope that a way is found to preserve this track, lest it join a long line of Worlds' tracks that are no more. Kudos to the Live RC crew for the coverage, to the racers for the show, and to all of you who’ve enjoyed these musings. Kudos, most of all, to David Ronnefalk and his team. Inevitability is, I think, a fair word to describe his triumph.

And that only leaves one thing to wonder about, one question to ask. Where will we be in 2028? By the rotation system, we’re back in FEMCA for the next 1/8 Worlds. A classic Asian 3D track like the Philippines or Indonesia? Back to Australia? To NZ for the first time? We’ll hear eventually, and the whole two-year cycle will begin again.