Division 2 Season 8

Thats a fast lap Dougz. Much slipstream in that? If not, that's very impressive mate.

Yeh, there was a lot of slipstream that lap. I'll still take it though haha.

If it wasn't for Aussie i would have been well off the pace. I was doing 33's til last night.

Well, I got about the position I expected, but not exactly how I expected it. I knew I was crap at this track, and qualifying 8th proved it.
I actually got a good start and made one position into the first corner, and one more at the roundabout on the first lap. 6th! Overachieving already. Didnt last. Someone passed me into turn one on lap two, causing me the be offline and slow, then 3 or 4 more cars passed me while lagging a bit, just enough to put me off and be really slow. Ended up 10th, a few seconds behind Veno. I put in some solid (for me) laps of high 1'32s and caught up to him, but every time I got within slipstream distance, he lagged all the way through sector 2, putting a up a smokescreen, blocking my view and costing about 2-3 sec. Rinse and repeat. Cunning plan Veno!
Anyway, pitted on lap 12 hoping to jump him that way. I came out of pits a solid 12th, and caught Sid just as he went to the pits, then went past Jairo as he went deep at turn one. The rest of the race was pretty lonely thankfully as I could see triangles on the mini-map lagging everywhere either side of the roundabout hairpin. I did catch Aza on the second last lap, and forced him to outbrake himself at the start of sector two. The only problem being that I had already outbraked myself even worse . I was on the outside of the corner to start with, and smacked the wall well off the racing line, accompanied by an expletive. I was rather surprised to have Aza follow me in and bump me clear.
Lag issues aside, I actually drove OK, only clipped the last chicane once and the only other solid wall contact I had was the 2nd last lap with Aza. Anyone who followed me on Thursday night will vouch that is an improvement

i guess i owe a few people apologies?? thats weird after so much practice during the week with the boys in full rooms and this happens. sorry fellas. i know what its like to have a race ruined by lag trust me, but i guess i deserved to get disconnected from what ive heard.

well quali was pretty good for me. i finally found pace about 20mins before the room opened and my time was good enough for 3rd. (did anyone see me lag during quali? pitty cause if so it would have been worth it to wait for me to reset and come back. would have been better for everyone)

thats what is weird. for 9 laps Dougz, Zamps and me were nose to tail and everything seemed fine. yeh lap 9 Dougz came out of the hairpin with a little slide and then vanished! then i sat on Zamps and was telling him im not going to attack for the lead, lets just work together and get away from these guys. it worked and then i made a small mistake before we pitted and lost a couple of seconds to him.

after pitting i could see lag smoke behind me, i think it was Aza. caught flood and one lap gave him a tap from behind at the bottom of the hill. not lag Flood sorry but not realizing your tyres wouldn't have been too good your braking mark caught me off guard and couldnt pull up in time. i turned my car into the barrier but still ended up in the back of you. next lap i think i made what i thought was a clean pass into turn 1. (could see flood in my rear view in the braking zone) then i was pretty much on my own about 3 seconds away from Zamps and the same gap infront of 3rd. then all of a sudden "Disconnected"

with only a couple of laps to go before i got disconnected all i can say is i need to buy a new controller. not happy! taking 2nd on my worst track would have really set up this season for me. sigh*

anyway sorry fellas i guess if it was my connection then ill start resetting my router every week.

oh... dont forget the paint nugget LOL

I said to my wife before the race, "what is your prediction my princess, where will I finish tonight?". "10th" she replied.
Well if Nugget hadn't disconnected she would have been spot on. She is so negative.

Apologies Barra for lagging. I had no idea I was.
I have struggled to get much practice in this season which is really showing. I plan to tough it out like Narian Karthikeyan. What an inspiring driver he is.
Anyway, off to reminisce about when I won the Division 4 championship in the Tamora. Oh the Tamora.

No need to apologise. The only apology I would be after is from the *&%^ who designed the GT5 network. For all I know I was lagging even worse, but since I drove basically the whole race on my own, no one would have noticed.

what are you on about E???

Another race to forget.

As usual I was off the frontrunner pace, qualified 7th I think.
Pretty sure I lost a spot to Barra through turn 1 and only just managed to hang onto the back of him and Dutch. That was until Dutch went too deep into the double left-hander and went nose first into the wall; Barra had nowhere to go and ran into the back of him while I snuck past the both of them. Dutch showed good speed to catch back up and make the position back on me.

Some lost focus and a feeling of a million other things i'd rather be doing led to some mistakes and back towards the grasp of Veno. I put in some okay laps, not quick, but enough to get away from Veno and started thinking about a pit strategy.
It was about lap 11 and I had only used maybe a quarter of my tires so I decided to try a no-stop. I was surprised that noone else tried it and that everyone ahead of me pitted, putting me in first. My thoughts were that being such a tricky track to pass on and my lack of pace, at least if I was in front those behind would have to work for the position.

Had about a 10s lead over Zampli. Slowly but surely he closed the gap, maybe 1-1.5s per lap. In the end he sailed past me. I held him up for maybe half a lap, and let him through too easily.

Nugget closed in next.. No worries about the hit at the hairput Nugget, I expected something like that would happen as I was slow through into that corner anyway. When you got past into Turn 1 I did get a small tap; it was tight through there so theres every possibility I got the tap on my console and you didn't. Anyway, it was just enought to put me off line and into the wall with wheel damage; and enough to get Dougz right up on me. No hard feelings.

Nugget got away and with the tell-tale signs of lag I knew I was going to get taken out sooner or later. And thats exactly what happened. I got spun out, with engine damage and 3 wheels full damage.
My strategy of making those behind work for the position was out the window as I watched them drive by my wreck.

Limped home in, whatever place it was I finished in.. 6th or 7th or 8th, something like that.


Looks like I'll be moving house in the next few weeks. I'm not sure when I'll get internet organised so I will probably miss the end of the season. I'll continue racing up until it's time to pull the plug at my current address, but won't be any chance of the championship (not that I ever thought I was).

Once again had no practice this week until late sunday afternoon. Every weekend just feels so busy these days with jobs around the house, shopping and the girls room. But its necessary to at least get that hour in before hand just to figure out just how dreadful you are and how to reduce that. So from 'lucky if i can get a 33' i brought that down to the high 31's by qualy so was pretty happy with myself. In qualy, first 2 sectors were blue, often up by .2 at least on dougz qualy time, but just couldnt hook up the third sector. Dont know if it was the hairpin or the chicane that i wasnt getting right, but would always end the lap about .4 off, so there was something significant going on there....

In the end, happy with 5th place, which i think is where i started. Had a kerfuffle off the line as i was quickly trying to change my brake bias, bit of a balls up and cob gets me down the straight. Tried to keep it clean first lap but wasnt long before i plunged into the wall at the bus stop. Got hit by someone (barra- sorry mate) and flood went on past. Had very enjoyable first stint though.

Pitted on 15 as planned, doug was well ahead by the time id exited and set about catching up to the leaders, i could see cob and stu always just ahead and not sure who was leading at that point but i was reducing the gap every lap so i just kept on as fast as i could thinking i was up for a decent mid pack result. Stu might have had a problem somewhere and got close to him, we both navigated past Aza. I had a few chances maybe but nothing close enough obviously. Sorry about the lunge at the bus stop, thankful the game ghosted you Stu, but i really didnt brake that much later from memory. Having said that though that corner was a bit of a problem for me.... Overall a good battle i think.

Redressed a tap coming out of the bus stop (soz again) but that was my last chance and eventaully fell behind stu till the end.

Really enjoying the racing this season, lot of talent in the mid pack. Slowly getting better with the Toyota as well.

Fastest laps from Madrid.

1:30.532.......Dougz
1:30.936.......Stu
1:30.958.......Zampli
1:30.985.......Nugget
1:31.053.......Cob
1:31.240.......Dutch
1:31.900.......Flood
1:32.003.......Barra
1:32.456.......Veno
1:32.686.......Aza
1:33.742.......Jairo
1:34.060.......Sidfire

No worries. Happy to help where i can.

Qualified 2nd. Couldnt get near my PB of a 15.7. Got a 16.2 or something.

First race was pretty smooth sailing. Had Nugget infront of my and Zampli behind me. Zampli made a mistake early which i think slowed up most of the field a bit and Nugget and myself were able to gap the field. A few laps later Nugget made a mistake and i was able to get past him. I slowly increased the gap a little bit lap by lap, i won by 6.7 seconds.

Well race 2 was a bit of a fight. The start was glitchy and cars were going everywhere infront of me. I tried to go around Veno who then lagged across and put Zampli and myself into the fence and we'd barely gone 50metres. By the end of the first lap i was up to 9th. I went to make a move on Natman around the outside of turn 1. It gave Zampli a sniff though and he went for it. Not real sure if it was on Zamps. You didnt give me any room at all. I got squeezed into the fence and found myself back in 12th.
On lap 7 i got up to 6th, but hit the wall coming onto the start/finish straight which allowed Natman past me again. Was only for a short moment though as he had a spin in turn 2. Later the lap Nugget also had a lose which put me up to 5th.
I now had Flood and Never a few seconds up the road. I knew i had pace, so i put my head down and tried to reel them in. They were battling with each other and i got within reach on the last lap. Never ran wide on the last corner and touched the wall. I had the run, just had to find the gap. I found it and almost snapped the trigger off my controller i was pressing the accelerator that hard haha. But Never then moved over and gave me a bump or 2 which ruined my run.. Was .035 in it in the end.

Was pretty disappointed with the last race. I cant complain too much though, still taking the round win