ROOZ NEWS Season 16 (GT6 Season 3) Rd 1 Deep Forest (part 2)

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Welcome to part 2 of our League racing reports from Deep Forest. In this part, we will hear from our Division 3 and 4 reporters.

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We will jump straight into it, with the Division 3 report coming from DoogleDave:

New and old drivers from division 3 made their way to Deep Forest circuit for the first race of the season, sporting their newly race-trimmed Mazda MX-5’s. Coming off the back of last season where drivers tried their best to tame the mighty McLaren, this season would be all about consistency and less about outright speed.

During qualification drivers did their best to find the fastest lines around the circuit but it was Groover who took out pole position with a time of 1.19.060.

As the lights went out the field of MX-5’s buzzed off the line, creating a nice formation as they entered through turn 1.

Pinoy managed to out brake Stumbles to gain a very early position change. The field stayed close together, jostling for position as they made their way around each turn. It was Sparklehead who was the first victim, as he ran wide coming through the final turn, driving onto the grass and sliding out - dropping back to last place.

Lap 3 saw Turbo get his car sideways and although he made a galant attempt to recover, the MX-5 fish-tailed across the road and spun out as Carbon avoided a collision and moved up a position.​

S54ved and Moozer begun a nice battle, and on lap 4 S54 took Moozer under brakes through turn 1. With Moozer eager to reclaim his position he kept the pressure on S54, with Hatfield and Doogle slowly closing the gap behind.

The following lap coming through the first tunnel Moozer and Hatfield both spun, with Doogle collecting them both. Doogle & Moozer managed to get going again but Hatfield dropped a few positions as he turned his car around to get going again.

Lap 7 saw more action on turn 1 as Stumbles managed to pass Pinoy, with Moozer doing the same over Floodsim not far behind.​

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S54 and Stumbles decided to pit early and jumped in for fresh tyres on lap 10. A few laps later the 2-stoppers (Doogle, Groover, Floodsim, Carbon and Pinoy) pulled in for their first set of fresh tyres.

Doogle managed to catch up to Stumbles after his pitstop, and on lap 14 took the popular move at turn 1 to pass Stumbles.

Groover who was out in front continued to push the limit in order to stay ahead of S54. Coming through the first tunnel, Groover ran wide and hit the wall, spinning around and allowing S54 to gain and take the lead.​

Further back, Pinoy and Turbo battle it out for 9th place. Pinoy eventually gets past Turbo with a nice move under brakes, again through turn 1.

Lap 16 sees S54 still out in front with Groover and Doogle closing his gap. The group finally close right up and the race is back on for lead position.

Moozer uses turn 1 to his advantage and makes a nice pass on the inside, and upon exit all three bunch up and keep the pressure on.​

With the trio battling for position it is S54 who turns slightly early coming into the final turn on lap 17, forcing him wide out onto the grass, allowing Doogle to pass by down the straight.

Lap 18 sees Carbon chase down Pinoy. Through the first tunnel Pinoy runs wide, giving Carbon the chance he needs to catch right up to Pinoy. A costly mistake through the double left-hander sees Pinoy hit the inside wall, gifting Carbon the front position.

Lap 19 sees S54 make another mistake on the final turn which this time ends badly, with his car stepping out and putting him into a slide. Although he manages to get going again very quickly the dramatic loss of speed allows Moozer to catch up and pass by as S54 pushes to get his MX-5 back up to speed.​

Lap 23 - 25 sees the second pitstop for most drivers for some much needed fuel and more fresh tyres. Upon exit, Doogle drives out right behind Stumbles who is pushing to stay ahead. Unfortunately for Stumbles, Doogle’s fresher tyres win out and he manages to jump past to some clear air ahead.

Lap 30 sees Carbon and Pinoy continue their battle, and Carbon uses the slipstream to jump ahead of Pinoy as they exit the second tunnel.​

The penultimate lap sees Sparkle take Turbo under brakes through turn 1 to hand the last-place baton over. Turbo, not keen to take the baton fights hard to regain his position but spins the car around, losing any hope of passing the baton back to Sparkle.

In the end it was Groover who crossed the line first, with Doogle taking out second place (and fastest lap: 1.19.001) and Moozer coming in third.​

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With a great start to the season for team HTO (claiming 1st and 2nd in Div 3), the drivers look forward to the next round at Grand Valley East (Reverse), where the close, hard-fought racing will no doubt bring about some great victories for some and bitter heartache for others.



Race Quotes:

groover33 (1st): Good racing to all div 3 guys it looks like all had good pace according to the fastest lap times and congrats to doogle and moozer for the podium. The next race should be closer. Me and doogle did the same pit strategy last night and it looks like it paid off for both of us claiming a 1st and 2nd spot banking a heap of points for team HTO. Pushing out that first stint helped us by the end of the race having pretty good tyres to still push at the end. I feel bad for moozer being the only one supporting his team last night but he still had a great race starting 2nd then having a bit of trouble in the opening few laps to fall back to 6th only to push his way back to taking 3rd on the podium good race mate hope it's like that again next race I know I'll be looking forward to it.

DoogleDave (2nd): Well done to everyone, what a great start to the season with so many on the grid - fantastic! Commiserations to you Turbo, I know you're faster than that and look forward to seeing you battling up the other end of the field in the weeks to come. If I am honest I wasn't feeling it last night but even so I am absolutely stoked at achieving a second place for race 1. My qual times were OK but nothing spectacular which saw me attain 5th on the grid. I managed a reasonable start and held my position for the first few laps until a bit of carnage saw some cars in front of me spun out going through the first tunnel. After I made my way through I picked up a position or two and tried to push on to try and catch my team mate (Groover). In practice I had tested both a 2 and 3 stop race scenario and knew that a 2 stop worked better for me, so I stayed out when a few others dived into the pits around lap 9. My pitstop plan seemed to work well (on laps 13 and 25), and had some good battles particularly with Stumbles, who tested me as we flew around the track as fast as we dared go until I finally managed to get past him. Thankfully I had a mistake-free race which no doubt contributed in my final placing. Looking forward to GVE-R now where hopefully team HTO can again secure good points for the championship!

Moozer81 (3rd): Had pole until late in the session...knew Groovers pace at this track was too great to stay there though. Made too many mistakes on the first two laps (rookie errors) and after some good battling with skywalker lost the spot. Got turned around into the tunnel on lap 5 and fell back to 7th I think so then just concentrated on making my tyres last and very happy to come home in 3rd after that. Heart stopped on the final corner last lap when disturboed spun back in front of me and I drove through his passenger door...lucky he was ghosting! Looking forward to GVE. Great racing all.

S54VED (4th): Well looks Im the only one from NLR rep'ing in div 3. Was fairly happy with my first flying lap which ended up putting me in 3rd. I pushed a little too hard for the other laps and kept making little mistakes, so even with less fuel I didn't beat it. Groovers time was amazing, and I knew he was the person to beat. Race started and I was dueling with moozer a lot, which took any pressure groover might have had off. I'd never done a full race practise, just 10-12 lap sprints. So figured I'd short stint the 1st and then split the remainder. I put too much fuel in on the first stint, and also made a host of little mistakes (guess already driving for 6 hours was taking its toll on my focus). Ended up doing a massive slide onto the front straight. Fortunately, didnt spin, but I did slow down ~80km, which hurt for that whole straight. Moozer slipped past. We pit on the same lap (moozer and I), this time I decided to take a little less fuel, as I thought it would be enough. Was gaining on moozer and it was looking like it might come down to the last lap, however with 5 laps to go I realised I wasn't going to make it with fuel. So had to go into fuel saving mode to try and keep my 4th position, crossing the line on vapors. Well done to groover, and thanks for the gift of letting me lead for a few laps! haha but you were too quick, even with your spin. Doogle - Mr consistent, and super pace too. I was really hoping to be dueling it out with you again Next round its on! Moozer - Well done too. Definitely kept your cool and got the job done.

FloodSim (5th): I thoroughly enjoyed the racing on Sunday night; even though I struggled for pace I really enjoyed being back this season and finishing 5th. I was slow at Deep Forest during the meet'n'greet and nothing had changed during the pre-race practice. I was doing 1:21s and struggling to get into the 1:20s while the front runners were doing low 19s. Things didn't look promising.. In quali I was still trying to figure out my lines and which gears to use, but it was slowly coming together. I managed to get into the 19s with a 19.9xx, which got me ahead of gary (a minor victory) but still only good enough to start 9th. Got away okay at the start, I hadn't raced with the start lights before but I like it, it's a nice feature. A few laps in and things were going okay, I wasn't making any mistakes at least; sparklehead got on the grass in the last corner leaving gary nowhere to go, this gave me some breathing room behind to focus on Stumbles and Pinoy ahead. Coming into the first tunnel and there was an incident involving a few cars that bunched things up and moved me up a couple of places. I found myself right behind Moozer, and after he got a slow exit onto the back straight I was able to get past him on the outside coming out of the second tunnel. I knew he had better pace, so I put up little resistance when he took the place back into Turn 1 a lap or 2 later. I seem to look after my tires pretty well so was able to catch Pinoy towards the end of the first stint and make another nice pass outside him going into the final corner. Credit to both these guys for giving space. Second stint was all on my own, Moozer 6secs ahead and Hatfield 6secs behind. Gradually lost time to Moozer, but was able to keep the gap to Hatfield between 4-6secs. It wasn't until lap 15 or so that I had finally figured out what I felt was the best gears to use up the hill onto the back straight and up the hill onto the front straight. I could either be in the higher gear and let it struggle up the hill, or be in the lower gear and rev the guts out of it, reving it felt faster to me. Set my fastest lap, which was still only a 19.5xx so there was still pace out there somewhere, but I couldn't find it. Even now I don't know how best to approach the first tunnel. Made my second stop a lap later than Hatfield. He must have had a good outlap because he was right on my tail. I really didn't want to give the position up, and Hatfield was keeping me honest but he wasn't able to make a move and I could slowly build a gap, probably due to my better tire use.
Skywalker was 9secs ahead, but I was reeling him in with 2 laps to go as he had to save fuel. Got the gap down to around 4secs and might have had a chance at him if we had one more lap. Well done to the podium, they were fast and consistent. Hoping the simplier layout of GVER will make the racing even closer next time.

DRZ-Hatfield (6th): Ups and downs. Qualified 4th, was spun off into something like 10th, clawed back up to 6th and set the second fastest lap by about 0.02.

Stumbles01 (7th): After doing about 1000 Kms of practice and still failing to find where people were getting into the 1:18's, was skeptical about getting near the front around Deep Forest. During qualifying, I just couldn't put a great lap in and started 6th on the grid. Got away from the line well and braked slightly early into turn 1 but Mario (pinoy) made a great move around the outside and slotted in front of me. I hadn't had any real time on the track with other cars (got left behind in the meet'n'greet race) and wasn't expecting the draft understeer into the final turn and it took me 4 laps to get it through my head to take it easy through there. I shadowed Mario and got a good run on lap 7 and passed him into turn 1... Finally. I managed to make a bit of a gap but had decided on a 3 stop strat so pit after lap 9 and resumed my chase from last position. As everyone else pitted, I made my way up to third behind S54VED. Lap 14, Groover had a spin in the first tunnel and let S54VED trough which brought Doogle and myself right onto his tail, but with those 2 on fresher tyres, they pulled away. Hindsight is a wonderful thing. My tyres were going off but I think I should have stayed out and changed to a 2 stop strategy. S54VED had pitted after lap 9 as well, and I was keeping pace with him, but I went in after lap 18 and came out in 9th position about 7 seconds behind Pinoy and Carbonfibre. They were having a good battle which slowly but surely allowed me to catch them up. I got a better exit from turn 1 on lap 23 and passed Carbon on the way up to the bend at turn 2. Right on Pinoy's tail, I got into the side of him into turn 5 so backed off to let him back through, almost letting Carbon through as well. I managed to draft past Pinoy on lap 24 and I was back up to 3rd about 32 seconds behind. I made it past Doogle as he exited the pits on lap 25..
Woohoo, 2nd place.. then reality set in as I had to pit again in a couple of laps. Doogs caught me quickly on his brand new tyres, and dived down the inside of the final turn on lap 26 as I was getting set to pit, so did another lap. I still had an 8th of a tank of fuel, so no drama. Got the new boots on and set about doing some fast laps, but it was evident that everyone was still really quick on older tyres and I came out just in front of Pinoy (phew...lol) and about 15 seconds behind Hatfield. He was right on Flood's tail, so with that slowing them down, I managed to bring the gap down to 4 seconds by the end of the race. All of my laps after my last pitstop were low 19's, but just too far back. Grand Valley East Reverse next, and from the bit of practice I saw post race, Groover and Moozer are gunna be damn quick again.

garyw61 (10th): Not a good night for me. Got major damage in a bingle on 1st lap, putting me 20 seconds behind. I also had some pedal issues and a general lack of pace! Well done podium, way too fast.

disturboed (12th): Wow, how bloody slow was I?? Couldn't believe it. I knew I didn't have race winning pace, but I thought I was in with a shot for top 6. It all went pear shaped when I qualified dead last with a 1:20.2!! WHAT??! a 20.2 gives me dead stinking last! From there it just seemed to get worse even though I was hitting my marks and doing consistent times I just kept seeing the gap get bigger and even the guys just in front of me pull away. After about lap 12 I started to just go through the motions and made a few mistakes here and there sending me backwards to last again after making up a few spots to about 8th or so at one point. I'm hoping it was just the track, because that was no fun at all. GVER should hopefully bring some better results. I do like that track much better. Well done to Groover, Doogs and Moozer at any rate, just too fast for us all.

Nice work there DoogleDave. Congratulations groover33 for pole and the win, with DoogleDave and Moozer81 for the final podium positions.

Now we will hear from our new Division 4 reporter, pykeybraa145:

The grid, Pykey secured pole with a 1.19.3 followed by molch and SPL.


Lap 1, The opening lap saw a little bit of drama with a few bumps mid pack but nothing bad. Pykey had a lead of around 1 second back to molch followed by SPL. The field was very close and mid pack had a nice tussle.



Lap 2, Pykey built a lead and is now out of the picture for a few laps as he ran 1.19’s for the first few laps. The battle was very tight midpack with 3vilmoon, SPL, kiwi and emmo having a good battle.



Lap 6, 3vilmoon was in pursuit and the gap decreased, but just behind them emmo and OTS were very close aswell. The field was spread out now.



Lap 10, Molch has dived to the pits. Being the first to pit, now stratgeies would start being noticed. SPL had been running on his own for a while, making up ground

Laps 11-12 the majority of the field started pitting with only a few left out on track. Pykey pits lap 13, but comes out ahead of Molch still.



Laps 15-20 The field was very spread out. Molch was gaining on Pykey towards the end of his stint, while 3vilmoon and kiwi were lurking behind emmo and gaining. Not far off the midpack, Dbn26 in his nice looking machine was out doing consistent clean laps.



Lap 25 MOLCH HAS THE LEAD! He has overtaken pyke in the pits.



Laps 26-28 Molch continues to lead but Pykey Manages a staggering 1.18.921!! Pyke then overtakes Molch the next lap.



Laps 29-the flag, The battle between Kiwi, 3vil and emmo was over. emmo secured 4th, followed by 3vil and KIWi, but meanwhile SPL was in a world of his own putting out quick laps and making a bit of ground! Pykeys lead was too much for Molch. Molch brought back a second within the last laps in a last attempt at the Gold but it was too little to late. A highlight of the race for me was Ad2mny’s drive. He had an early incident and recovered for 6th. It certainly was an amazing drive, well done mate. It was pretty quiet down back but very clean racing by all, and it was a really great turn out. Congratz to the podium and the rest of the drivers was a very tough race for all.



Race Quotes:

pykeybraa145 (1st): Great race by all was very tough. Well where to start it was a perfect race and an even better build up. Build up to race 1 I was in Div 6 then Div 5 and here I am Div 4 , I found pace very early in the week I was finding low 20's then I found high 19's and then low 19's and I could consistently smash them out. Went out in qualifying confident I could snag pole and I did with a 1.19.3 or 4 I was happy with that. First few laps were actually really scary because the field was still relatively close and I knew Molch behind had some good pace and he was trailing me but I managed to make my first 6 laps all 1.19's trying to build a lead and it worked. The tyres depleted alot during the race the first stint was alright but my second stint was a little worse. The strategy was to have fresher tyres towards the end of the stint so I sacrificed my lead to do an extra 2 laps after molch pitted and it payed off. The last stint, Molch got past me just when I was exitting the pits but I had the assurance that my tyres were 2 laps fresher than Molch's and I got around him next lap round. Pole Position, Fastest lap 1.18.921, I am happy with my performance and now its all about this Sunday now no time to celebrate back to work.

molch_82 (2nd): What a race with so many on the grid was really exciting to start to season 3. Was glad to quali in 2nd behind Pykey and going into the race I was going to be happy with a 2nd place and would of been over the moon with a first. Jumped off the line really well and was closely following Pykey. noticed some lag glitches and throttled off to let the gap out half a second or so. Ive been lag punted in prior seasons and didn't want this to happen from a team mate who had better pace then me anyway. While following pykey there was alot of clouds of smoke and skids marks so was glad to make this decision. First 7 or so laps i was pretty consistent holding off SPL with the gap between Pykey and I growing out to around 4 seconds. Then SPL slowly by slowly caught on me (outbraking me everytime into corner 1). I was getting a little worried and was going to try and push out some more laps but remembered to stick to my plan of 10. Going into pits was really hoping to not come out amongst a nest of racers and was lucky on my first pit to come out clean with big gaps on either side of me. Put in a few hotlaps, passing SPL as he came out of the pits and I think by lap 13 I was back in 2nd place with Pykey again about 3-4 seconds in front. Continued to follow like this until lap 22 which was my 2nd planned pit stop. Came out again really cleanly having no cars around that I remember. Then really hit my pace getting mid 19's for consistent laps i think about 4 in a row. This closed the gap on Pykey who came out of the pits around my lap 26/27 just in behind me. I ran a good race for 2 or so laps until Pykey went past me around lap 29/30 when my times rose back up into the low 20's. Again i was on his tail but throttled off to give him and I a gap so I didn't get caught in any lag. Finishing in second place with a decent gap behind me I was very happy with. Had a really clean race and from memory don't remember having too many laps in the 21's or higher. Great start to my season, and hoping I dont fizzle like last season after a repeat 2nd place start to the season.

SPL_Racing (3rd): What a great race, I still can't believe I snagged a podium on my first race. All week I was running mid to high 1:20's with a fastest of 1:20.2 and knew I was in trouble. In a practice race with Pykey yesterday afternoon it just clicked and I started running 1:19.3's using less tyres than I was in the 20's. My plan was to hang back and play it safe but when I qualified on the second row of the grid I knew I had to attack and find some space up front. I had a great battle battle with evil moon who passed me in the early laps but I got him back a few laps later. I was managing my tyres really well and caught Molch just before he pitted on lap 10 but I was on a different strategy. I did 2x13 lap runs at good pace (half dozen laps in the 19's with a best of 19.3) leaving only 8 laps on my last set of tyres which had me reeling in the leaders and keeping Emmo a good 15 seconds back for a comfortable 3rd. I had a lot of clean air and ran my own race which paid off. Well done Pykey and Molch that was an amazing drive by you guys and I cant wait for GVE next week. See you all at practice!

emmo46 (4th): I qualified 6th and got a reasonable start to hold position over the first few laps, I eventually caught and passed K1WI and moved to 5th before the first pit stops. I came out of the first stops in 4th with Evil behind and I had him stalking me for the remainder of the race. I was doing PBs and he was still closing, he got right up behind me on the start of the last lap but clobbered the wall after the big left hander and fell a couple of seconds back and allowed me to run to the flag for 4th place. My lap time in the race was my PB and was still only good enough for ninth fastest overall. Great pace from the podium guys and I really enjoyed my battles with Evil, KIW1 and a couple of other challengers on the first few laps. Looking forward to next weeks race, I hope I can find some speed to match the lap times of the front runners.

Ad2mny (6th): Well done pykey. Started low down and filtered my way backwards on lap 1. Right on peachy's tail lap 2 and got stopped dead with a lag punt. Fell back about 5-6 seconds by the time I got going and my panda went away, and just put my head down. Neemo got punted couple laps later and I passed him by, and by lap 11 was back on peachy's tail, cringing every time he spiked. My plan was always to run a long first stint, and peachy pitted giving me clean air for couple of laps. Pitted end lap 12 just as my teammate emmo come out. Rejoined in 11th just ahead of Jim Aka but there was peachy just ahead again too. Rano must have been on a 3 stopper, and as we caught him, he decided to pit. Peachy must have gotten distracted a little and did not slow enough for the final turn, running wide and spinning. Lots of fresh air till lap 20 when first kiwi then WTF messed up the double left before the back straight. WTF ran wide final turn, bouncing along the grass and moving me up to 7th. Slowly pulled in kiwi inch by inch each lap, and he pitted end lap 23 while I stayed out 1 more lap. Was in my highest race position of 3rd for a whole lap, with molch closing fast on fresh tyres. Exited the pits right on kiwi's rear bumper, with Rano right behind me. Kiwi got a good run out the double left before back straight and held a 1.5-2 sec gap for the next few laps. Pushed as hard as I could but could not gain any ground, I seemed quicker in first 2 sectors but lost it again over the back straight. Disaster struck kiwi lap 29, running wide in those double lefts and gifting me 6th place. A bad run by kiwi onto the start straight gave me a huge buffer behind, and I was catching glimpses of the evil/emmo battle on my map up ahead. That's how I finished, from dead last to 6th. I think my consistency paid off, and a 19.834 FL was a personal best too. Awesome racing by everyone. Well done podium.

X-WTF_MAN-X (8th): Great racing guys! Next one is mine haha and battling with kiwi and (accidentally) had traction control on was chewing up my tires really bad .

neemo55 (11th): Pretty intense opening few laps as it was bumper to bumper midpack. I thought there was going to be some carnage as myself, dbn and jim I think it was were approaching the 3rd tunnel 3 wide. Mistakes on the last corner cost me as it allowed WTF to get a good run on me to make a good pass at turn 1 and then ranok3n the following lap. Lap 5 I was lag punted in the tunnel which pretty much ended my race, spent the rest of the race cruising by myself. Congrats to guys on the podium, well deserved.

CPTNPEACH (13th): Little practice due to my NBN problem and having to use a mates Internet so I could race tonight just didn't help this week. Found good time but the time I was in lap 20 was coming 9th with my two pits complete and plenty of tyres left to then spin on the final turn of lap 28 and was able to keep spinning into a automatic pit stop so 3 stops for me tonight which blew the whole race up. Sorry for my lag problem should be sorted once I get my NBN up and running. Well done pykey well deserved.

Congratulations pykeybraa145 on your maiden race, taking pole, the win and fastest lap. Quite an achievement. Well done also to molch_82 and SPL_Racing for the final podium placings.

Stay tuned for part 3, with the Division 4 and 5 reports.

Division 3 Reporter/Photographer: DoogleDave
Division 4 Reporter/Photographer: pykeybraa145
Tables: DRZ-Hatfield
Editor: Jamie (Ad2mny)