Come see the drama At Mt Panorama... meh, rhyming is so last week!
Besides, we all know that Bathurst writes it's own poetry. We are but the ink, the mountain simply the parchment... um, getting carried away. But can you blame me? I survived 40 laps of Bathurst! Let me repeat that - 40 LAPS OF BATHURST. That's an hour and a half of racing AFTER a 30 minute qualifying! All with a box strapped to my face (maybe I shouldn't have put it like that). Pretty sure my eyeballs were sweating. VR really does give you the complete experience.
I feel for those who were caught out by the Pit Config issue, especially
@R0T0R-AU86 as it had big championship implications. Very inconsiderate of Kunos to introduce a new pitstop system just before our big enduro! Lucky for me the chat in Discord during practice meant I had it sorted before qualy. It goes to show the value of getting into Discord early on. I mean who wants to miss out on discussions like the colour of your pants by mid-race (for those that wear 'em)?
Now with a race of such epic length there's a danger this race report could fill up the whole forum, but luckily I had very few incidents. Even so I'm going to try to summarise the hell out of it.
Qualifying: A few early laps were hampered by traffic but that's the way it goes. As the track gripped up I managed a few clear laps and my final run was the best. That put me in 6th which was awesome.
Race start: from the outside of the 3rd row I got a good getaway but
@TF22Raptor ahead was a little slow away. With
@tezpez85 on my inside I took a cautious line around the outside of T1 which cost me some exit speed so
@TheStig13 got me into T2 putting me in 7th. All good - long race. Well done all on a clean start. Better than those overpaid V8Supercars amateurs for sure
.
1st stint: Lucky to avoid tezpez85 at the elbow early on as he was stuck nosed into the inside wall. I was happy with my pace and attacked Stiggy early. He repelled well and then managed to pull away. I felt the heat from a R0T0R blowtorch for a number of laps but his ballast was just what I needed and I held him off till the 1st pitstop. Pitted lap 14.
1st Pit Stop: Entered the pits with less than a lap of fuel left. No pitstop app screen?! Stopped in my bay - fuel and tyre progress bars showed and pitstop worked - whew! Took full fuel and new tyres. Raptor was already in the pits when I stopped. R0T0R pitted too and pulled into his bay a few ahead of me. Exiting my bay he was reversing then forwarding through his bay. I knew he was having a pit app issue. Felt bad as I was missing out on a possible long battle with him plus it was a championship on the line. Raptor was still in the pits when I left so evidently also had the pit app issue. Bad luck guys. Stiggy did an extra lap before pitting.
2nd stint: With Raptor and R0T0R out of the race I was in 5th and just lapping on my own. Stiggy had got further ahead after his stop and I had a decent gap back to
@marty behind. Started catching backmarkers on lap 18 and they did well letting me through. Lap 24 I touched the grass braking for T1 and nearly ended my race. Somehow caught it and made the apex. Heart rate was pretty high after that and no chance of falling asleep at the wheel. Pitted lap 28.
2nd pit stop: This time the new app DID show up (WTF?). Stop went as planned with full fuel and new tyres. Marty pitted behind me and looked like he could be a threat.
3rd stint: It was all about staying focussed from here. My car was best towards the end of each stint so I knew early on was a crucial time. Marty was slowly gaining but I felt I'd have enough to hold him out if he got up to me as long as I made no mistakes. By lap 35 he was hovering about 1-1.5 secs behind and putting the pressure on. I was holding out well until the end of lap 37 when a slight mix up lapping
@David Brister forced me to go very shallow into the final corner. The lower speed and tighter turn somehow made the rears let go and I had a slow motion drift on exit. I was so late on the throttle Marty got along side me on the outside and almost completely passed me by the braking area into T1. With gritted teeth I stayed on the inside line and we went 2 wide through T1 just centimetres apart. Awesome stuff! It was a drag race up Mt Straight but due to my clever tactical use of his ballast I won! Marty tucked in behind into T2 and soon I was able to make a small gap. My adrenaline seemed to act like a NOS boost and I pulled out 3 quick laps to end the race in 5th, just over a second in front of Marty. What a battle! Really fun stuff. My car had not a scratch on it too.
Well done to everyone on an epic endurance race. I'm fairly certain we can all class ourselves as elite athletes now - I know I will be
. Congrats to Koastr on the win, Shaun Allan for 2nd and
@Cherno for 3rd.
Also congrats to Koastr for another Championship win and again to Shaun and Cherno for 2nd and 3rd. Unfortunate ending for R0T0R. Thanks everyone for a memorable season in a car I absolutely loved. Not all cars suit me but this one did. And of course congrats to my team "Team Turtle Beach" for the teams championship win! Legends! Thanks to QC, Anon, Koastr and any others behind the scenes making it all work like clockwork.
Oh and I reckon I might make up a T-shirt that says "I survived 40 laps of Bathurst!"
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