Welcome to the final part of our race reports from Daytona Road Course. This time we will hear from our Division 6 reporter. Here is PurpleDog with the final report: It was with heavy hearts that drivers lined up at the Daytona International Speedway on Sunday night. Several cars had been repainted on the journey from Japan to honour the memory of one of their own. RIP Bruce. Qualifying saw Peach and Neemo on the front row, with Dog and Motho in the middle, and Pat and Colin filling out row 3. As the lights went out, Neemo was having an electrical problem and couldn’t get the McLaren off the line, and watched futilely as first Dog, then motho, Pat and Colin went streaming past him down to Turn 1. Up until Lap 5, the race was fairly uneventful, until Dog missed his braking point exiting the Bus Stop, opening the door for motho to glide past in to second place. Lap 9 saw Dog run inches wide at Turn 4 under full throttle to put the number 7 Macca into a flat spin, with Neemo close enough to pounce and get past Dog, starting his chase for motho a few seconds up the road. Lap 14 saw the start of pitstops, with crews scrambling madly to get fresh boots and a drink for some thirsty V12s. Lap 16 saw the sky start to lighten as dawn approached Daytona Beach, which meant that shadows would start to creep over the track, obscuring brake markers and starting a fresh round of challenges for the drivers. Was the changing light the cause of motho’s small but critical spin through the Bus Stop on Lap 17 that allowed neemo through to grab second spot? A catastrophic engine failure coming out of Turn 5 on Lap 23 saw neemo’s race end prematurely, elevating motho to second, and lifting Dog onto the podium. By this stage, Dog was trying valiantly to avoid the dreaded “+1 Lap” which Peach was trying to impose upon him. By Lap 24, the pressure coming from Peach caused him to go wide through the Bus Stop and allow the race leader to pass him as he spun out of the chicane in similar fashion to his earlier capitulation to motho. As the race drew to a close in the bright mid morning sunshine, the bottoms of the fuel tanks in the remaining McLarens started to show. Peach finished the 27 laps with vapours, motho brought his Macca past the chequered flag with enough for a couple more flat out laps, but the beleaguered Dog ran out of juice at Turn 6 on his 27th lap, leaving him high and dry with a DNF as he tried to coast the number 7 car to the flag. RACE QUOTES: CPTNPEACH (1st): Well another race over. Had a lot of fun with this track. Lots of testing points and great open speeds. Qualifying goal was to go hard and absolutely shred my tyres to get up the front. Paid off and saw me and Nemo at the start of the grid. Knowing I have t/c on 1 and nemo on 0 I knew he would blow me off the line but with a start glitch on nemos end gave me a hole-shot to the corner with the dog following. My goal was to be consistent I didn't want to do record lap times for the first half of the race I just wanted to stay on the black be smooth and clean. The dog and I were battling for the first 4-5 laps before a spin saw him off. I built my lead from there and just tried my best to nurse my tyres to the pit-stop. After the pit-stop I gave it some "Jandle" for the first 5 laps to build a bit more of a gap then just nursed my baby home from there. It was unfortunate to loose nemo on lap 22 when he had done well to fight his way through the pack. Good race and even better fun. Tokyo here we come!!! Motho (2nd): Another weird race with a heap of DC's and other weird behavior on screen. Qualifying I couldn't get a hot lap in at all, spent the whole session trying to leave a big enough gap ahead but still ended up getting caught behind someone at a bad corner. Race start for me was rubbish, nothing unusual there, then settled in to move through the pack and that's when the weird stuff started. For the first 6 or 8 laps I must have had an invisible car right in front of me, would see the odd flash of a rear end or a puff of smoke then it went away after a while, might have been Clevo? Around lap 8 or 9 Peach dropped down to last, giving me the lead, I figured he was trying a sneaky 2 stop strategy. Neemo was hot on my tail but I felt like I was maintaining a reasonable gap. A touch of grass on the way into the bus stop saw Neemo come sailing past while I was nose into the wall, by the time I got back on track he had a lead I was never going to get back. Was all down to praying he'd make the same stuff up I did. After Neemo DC'd lap 23 I was back in front with a real fuel concern, nobody looked even close so I nursed her home with Peach a distant second. 2 seconds from the finish line Peach jumped to 1st place and my dreams of glory were shattered! Seems I was never actually in front and when Peach had started lapping cars the leader board had dropped him to the bottom! Well done again Peachy, I've been in awe of your pace the past couple of weeks. PurpleDog (4th/DNF): Daytona had a stunted start for me. Saw the 5 min warning for qualifying, and thought "toilet, smoke, qualify" got to the smoke part, lit up, looked back through the door and we were off on qualifying. At least I had clean track and no one to trip over trying to set a hot lap. Sorry if I got in anyone's way when I didn't move off the qualifying line. Ended with 3rd fastest to start the race, which I was pretty happy with considering I had struggled to get it under 1:40 late in the week. As the lights went out to start, I got the best start under the new system I had ever gotten and shot past neemo, which was a surprise to me as I knew he had his switch off, while mine was on. Didn't realise he had screen issues until a couple of seconds after the lights went. Set about chasing Peach for a couple of laps before I overcooked a corner and lost a place to motho. Was happy with my pace up until then, but that just started a chain of errors from not concentrating. Was keeping myself ahead with Peach slowly gaining on me to lap me, trying to avoid the dreaded red +1 Lap, when I got caught out checking how long it would take for him to get me and calculating whether I would last the last 4 or 5 laps, put a wheel on the grass, and that was that little game finished. Was a shame that neemo DSCed so far into the race. Touch wood I will never get that myself, but it is going to happen sooner or later. neemo55 (DNF): Congratulations to peach motho and purple dog for the podiums. Had a real bad qualifying session only managed one lap in the 10 minutes without going off the track. I knew peach was the man to catch so I thought if I could keep up for a few laps and put some pressure on he might make a mistake, but unfortunately it all come undone at the start where my screen wasnt fully loaded which caused a false start and then slamming into the wall. From there on I strung some laps together and got past pat, purple then motho. It was a shame that purple and motho ran off the track as I was looking forward to battling them. I didn't like the track at all but was happy to be in 2nd untill I d/c on lap 23. Nice write up there PurpleDog. Well done CPTNPEACH for the triple crown, pole, win and fastest lap. Congratulations also to motho and patg65 for the final podium positions. Another weekend of racing over, and a new suspension setup forced on to the drivers in the latest update from Polyphony Digital could throw a spanner in the works. Word from the drivers has been mixed, some liking it, some hating it. Find out next time! R.I.P Bruce. Division 6 Reporter/Photographer: PurpleDog Final Photo: ranok3n Tables: DRZ-Hatfield Editor: Jamie (Ad2mny)
