Division 4 Season 5

Wow, what a surprising result. I was dreading this round big time as I have never been competitive here.

Decided to start on softs as I didn't want to chase down in the 2nd stint. Qualified in 4th spot which was pretty good. Held the position after the T1 shuffle and slotted in behind Jim. Followed Jim for 2 laps until small little errors just let him break away. Soon after I was being monstered by Grassies, but I managed to hold him off for several laps, just holding my line, which became increasingly more difficult as the laps wore on and the softs wore out. I was surprised to see Watto pit lap 11, i knew he would definately need to stop again. Konnor pitted the next lap and I thought there would be no way he could make it to the end either.

I pitted the end of lap 13, when my right front was all the way down to 2. I was thinking of 1 more lap, but once it hit 2, the grip just fell away, so decided to pull the trigger and pit for the hards. It was going to be line-ball on fuel to the end by my calculations, but should be ok I thought. Grassies continued on for another lap.

Back down to 7th after the stop, now was time to really concentrate on the slippery hards. After his pitstop grassies had dropped way back, and then a few laps later all the hard starters pitted for their softs.

I was clean enough and consistent enought not to drop much time and towards the end I could see the top 3 ahead of me. Watto pitted for the 2nd time with about 10 to go, so up into third i went. Then Konnor must of had a moment of some sort and allowed Jim through. I could see myself slowly but surely closing the gap to Konnor in second, he must of been in fuel conservation mode or something.

On the very last lap with about 5 corners to go, my prayers were answered and Konnor ran out of fuel, so I managed to snatch 2nd! Considering how much I despise this track, it was a bloody good result.

Gratz to Jim and to grassies on their respective results. Spa next week. I've got a lot to live up to here, it's been a place of good results for me.

I tried going for the undercut in order to gain some positions, but it really did backfire. My right front tyre was shot.

You will have to look at your connection Fubbles, as i was chasing you last night i was driving through clouds of smoke from your lag, then when i passed you at the end of lap 10 you lag punted me into the wall coming onto the straight and i lost all steering and power. i was a few car lengths in front of you then Wham! i'm buried in the wall. I watched the replay and i know it wasn't intentional on your part but it totally sucked balls from where i was sitting.

Was looking forward to Tokoyo but the f...n continual DNS error nearly resulted in my Samsung TV being made an Art piece with a ps3 and G27 jammed threw the screen....

That sucks Tank, but I'm definately sure your absence improved my finishing position!! LOL

I'm sure you tried resetting the PS3 network settings (rescanning etc). That usually fixes it for me if I get rubbish errors like that out of nowhere.

One more thing a few of us have done in the past, is to manually set the DNS entries in the PS3 to google's:
Primary: 8.8.4.4
Secondary: 8.8.8.8

After doing that, never saw that error come back.

Great run Jamie, don't worry mate, I saw you coming over the last few laps as I was pushing way too hard to catch Grassies. 1 more lap would have been very interesting. Still kicking myself for running with a 2 stop strat but not unhappy with the result.

Wowee!! What. A. Race.

Started in 3rd after not my best, but a decent qualifying lap and set about keeping my nose clean and in the front few of the 'soft' starters. The opening laps saw a major tussle between myself & turbo, including a side-by-side run through the kink on lap 2, before I was finally able to break free after a slight error on his behalf.

I settled into a nice rhythm behind McCracken & SickSkillz and we were consistently pushing and punched out some good lap times till the grip started to drop off around lap 9. I was surprised to see McCracken pit at the end of lap 11, promoting me to 2nd and when SickSkillz pitted lap on 12 I had clear air. But he certainly made me earn the pass as we ended up going side-by-side through the kink TWICE on lap 11 & 12. As I continued on lap 13 my RF went down to 2, leaving me no option but to slow slightly to keep it pointed straight.

As I pulled away from the pits, Turbo was still being serviced, so my aim now was to keep Fubbles behind me and hopefully he would hinder Turbo’s progress in catching me with his used ‘hard’ tyres. I once again settled into a new rhythm and was able to reel the leading pack in fairly quickly after the stops thanks to the ‘hard’ starters and their worn tyres.

As I caught the back end of the front runners with my fresh rubber, Gary (unexpectedly at the time, but makes perfect sense as he had little grip left) touched the brakes on me coming to the double left, not wanting to spear into him I tried to avoid, swerved right and smashed into the barriers. Crap. Got going without too much of a loss and went about putting the head down again, Gary (totally not at fault) was quite gentlemanly and pulled over to the side and let me through, as all he saw was me closing up and then in the fence.

I had good pace in practice on the hard tyres and it showed as I closed in again on the leading 3, I thought to myself Ad needed to pit and I would have the other two towards the close as I had around .5 a lap on them. SickSkills hit the wall on the outside of the final turn and gifted me 2ndplace, it was time to look ahead. McCracken dove into the pits again and I couldn’t believe my luck. My only thought at this point was that he was mistakenly going for a second stint on the softs, but after seeing him not make too much progress through the pack, a smile was starting to creep onto my face.

I kept my pace up, building a solid lead while trying to not push my tyres too hard, setting consistent 1.40’s lap after lap. The fuel light came on as I crossed with 2 laps to go, and with a lead nearing 10 seconds, I knew I could let off a little. I didn’t know of the drama unfolding behind me as I rounded the last lap, but saw the split was still growing so let loose around the final turn and across the line.

I didn’t have high hopes for this race, as last time here (albeit in the normal direction) I was at the back of the field being lapped. I’m looking forward to Spa, hopefully the good form continues.

Just watched you on the replay, I don't know how you kept going. I certainly would have cracked it and rage quit.

Rage Quitting is for the WEAK!!

Yeah, much for fun to drive the track in the wrong direction and take the other bastards out!

Wait, did I just say that out loud?

Like Damo said, rage quitting is for the weak. I will finish any race that I enter no matter how far behind I am. But I can say that my soft tyres copped a thrashing in my second stint.

Please don't move me to 10th. The contact was unintentional, I swear it was lag. And besides, why have you given me a penalty and you haven't even consulted me? I feel cheated on. Do not kick me out of the div for saying this because I don't feel as though this has been handled properly.

Sorry for missing Tokyo,that bl$$$y storm in NSW took out a tree outside my place,along with the power pole,lines & transformer,only 45mins before I would have logged on! Bugger,bugger,bugger!!
Oh well there's my drop round,lol,have to put in another good showing at my fav world track,Spa