Where do I start?. My pre race plan was to one stop and I concentrated on my lap 10 to 15 lap pace during my preparations for this race. I thought if I took it easy and avoided the dreaded time penalties and kept out of everyone's way I might get a reasonable result. Just before qually started I noticed I was very slow down the straight like I was down on power and then noticed my brakes were a quarter on. It seems the brake return spring has lost some tension and was not returning the brakes to fully off. I only wear socks when I race so I experimented with hooking my toes over the top of the pedal and pulling it up after I finished braking, I found this very distracting and I was all over the place. Luckily qually was delayed and I had time to grab a neck tie and tie my foot to the pedal so I could pull the brake off as I exited the corners. This was still distracting but during qually I managed to qualify 8th.
I gained a position by passing Haze off the line and kept to a very tight inside line through turn one and gained some more places but my slow compromised exit allowed Ad2 and Haze to breeze past me on the way to the first left hander. I think I was about 6th (not sure because Hr31 was invisibe to me and I have no idea where he was). I managed to hold that position behind Ad2 and Haze as they fought ahead of me and sometimes I got too close and tapped them so I settled back to my strategy and gave them some room and hoped they might gift me a position with their struggle. On lap five I was following them to the left hand 2nd corner and had just passed Evil I think as he got a time penalty out of turn one which put me 5th?. Then T_B arrived on my tail at turn 2 as he recovered from his first corner incident on lap 1. I wasn't going to struggle too much as he was obviously much faster and I thought he was probably going to two stop and I would see him again later. Unfortunately the Lag God intervened and I was punted off the track mid corner and did a 270 degree spin into the outside wall at very high speed. There was damage all over the car. I recovered now in last place and T_B slowed and let me pass on the run to the chicane. Next time T_B don't stop under those circumstances, we have had a number of lag issues in the past and I don't think it is fair that you had to stop if you didn't actually touch me. It wasn't your fault and it ruined your race.
Over the rest of the lap I gained two places as I passed two cars going up the hill after they evidently had an incident and finished the lap in 8th?. I had lost over 20 seconds to the leaders on that one lap and knew a good result was now out of the question. T_b ran off track behind me at the last corner and fell to last.
A few laps later I lost the tail as I braked for the second left of the lap and cut the corner for a 10 second penalty (DOH) and T_B passed me while I served the penalty. Before the two stoppers started pitting I was in eighth? ( Ad2 had DSCed) and the BJ, T_B and Evil were within range for me to get them by one stopping. Sure enough after they had stopped I was in 5th? and knew that was the place I was racing for. I had originally planned to stop on lap 16 but the big accident had taken a couple of laps out of my tyres and I struggled to get 15 laps in before I pitted.
After my stop I was back to 8th and stroking along trying to keep BJ, T_B and Evil in range. After T_B and Evil did their second stops I was 6th? behind BJ and waiting for him to pit.
He didn't and I eventually caught him at the last corner somewhere in the mid 20s laps. He seemed to be struggling a little and I was on his tail as he charged up the straight, he initially started to pull away but half way down the straight the draft caught on and I catapulted past him well before the first turn. I was in the middle of the track giving him safety room to my left in case he braked later but he still caught my left rear corner in the braking zone and sent me spearing to the left into the wall.
He waited and as I had stopped facing the track I was able to recover fairly quickly but T_B had sailed past. I spent the rest of the race trying to keep it clean and over the last lap I had Evil on his fresher tyres closing fast. By now I was past caring whether he caught me or not but managed to bring it home 2 seconds ahead of him for what I thought was 6th place.
It turned out it was seventh as Hr31 was 5th ahead of T_B.
My poor results over the past two rounds have taken me out of contention for a good result in the championship. I feel really sorry for T_b though as he has a lot more pace than me in this car and deserves far better than he is getting. Ad2 would also be well in the hunt if not for 2 DSCs.
Last edited: Nov 11, 2013
