Season 11 - Division 3

Great racing guys, looked like fun up the front end (not that I was there...lol).

Frustrating night for me. Came to the hot-lap qually, left a decent gap to Moon for a clear track... Planted it only to have Venda turning into the chicane as I got there??? I was already committed, so I followed him up the pit straight, he sorta messed up the chicane at the top of the hill, so I backed off so as not to hit him... Bit of drafting up the straights would have caught up some time, but then I bumped the back of Venda into the 90 degree right after the straights after he braked earlier than me.

Sat behind after that, lap was stuffed anyway.. ended up with a 4:11.3 and in 7th spot.

Ok, long race, plenty of draft to be had.... Wrong!!! Jump start and end up 100 yards behind at turn 1...lol

Caught up again, did some passes, got passed, made some mistakes, put 30 litres in at pitstop, few more mistakes and finished 5th after Turbo ran out of juice half a lap from home.


Results..

1. S_Close
2. Ad2mny
3. Daninline
4. Evilmoon
5. Stumbles
6. Emmo
7. Disturboed
8. Venda (DNF)
9. Rumbles (DNF)

Fastest laps...
1. Turbo - 4:04.229
2. Ad2mny - 4:04.313 (pole)
3. S_Close - 4:05.550
4. Stumbles - 4:05.857
5. Dan - 4:06.395
6. Evilmoon - 4:06.940
7. Emmo - 4:10.167

Venda and Rumbles DNF

Well, what can I say, firstly congratulations to S_Close for a well earned Championship, you showed real style. Secondly congratulations again the S_Close, Ad2mny and Daninline for great results at Lemans.

Now as to how my night went, it was mostly horrible. I was confident/hopeful of a good result as during my practice sessions I was lapping very cleanly and consistently at 4:05s and 6s in my lounge and practice room, I thought a podium could be on with an outside chance of that elusive first win of the season. I felt even better when with one lap in prequally i did a 4:06:3 to top the board. Then qually started and the little mistakes crept in so that I could only get a 4:08 something to line up 4th on the grid behind Ad2, Disturbo and Close (no biggie I thought, I can recover from here). I got a great start to pass Disto before the Dunlop Curve and be challenging Ad for 2nd at the dunlop chicane.
Down Mulsanne straight the first lap it was a four car train as we all got the draft to gain on S_Close and at Mulsanne corner I tapped Ad2 a little which caused me to baulk, run wide and let Disto pass into third up the inside along the run to Indianopolis. From there to the Ford chicane at the end of the lap it was a great 4 way battle as we ran bumper to bumper through the Porsche curves, very good fun. At the Ford chicane I had a little tail out moment entering the second part which dropped me a few car lengths back from the leaders. Then on the entry to the Dunlop chicane just after the start line I got my braking wrong and the tail swung left and I ran straight on into the sand. Daninline caught me as I recovered and soon passed me to take 4th onto the Mulsanne straight with Evilmoon right on our tails. I managed to draft past Dan before the first Mulsanne chicane and held him out with an inside run to the second chicane. Down to Mulsanne corner he got another run on me and I held the inside line to protect the corner but he drove around the outside of me to run side by side towards Indianapolis with Evilmoon still pressing to get in on the act.
I was on a tight inside line for the right hand sweep to Indianapolis and ran in too hot too narrow and slid across the track into the sand, then did the usual wheelie on the way out to run off the track into the fence on the other side. (DOH). By the time I recovered Ven and Stumbles had also passed me and I was back in eight with only Rumbles behind me. At that stage I knew it was all over and all I could do was press on and hope. I knew that if Ad2 won and Disturbo came second then I would be back to 5th in the championship. It was while I was watching the leader board that I missed the entry to the Porsche curves completely and drove off into the sand, I thought I was never going to get out!!!. I eventually crawled out at walking speed on full throttle. I was just going to crawl back to the pits like a whipped dog and wait there for the race to finish but as I approached the pit entry I decided to press on.
I then ran last in a very lonely race where I couldn't string a good lap together and with a few more visits to the sand traps. The only guy I could see ahead on the track display was Rumbles and he decided he didn't want to play anymore and left so from then on I only saw glimpses of other people on the edges of the track display. On the last lap I was glad to see S_Close had saved my hide by holding off Ad2 and I passed Disturbo as he trickled home out of fuel on the last lap, so my third place in the championship was safe. I would much rather have defended it with a solid result.
The sixth place I eventually took in the race really flattered my performance on the night and is my worst result ever in a ROOZ champ race. I can only hope I can make amends when we go to LeMans in the World Tour season.
Thank you to 3vilm00n for conducting a wonderful championship, very professional. It has been a very exciting championship and I really enjoyed the close battles. especially at Madrid, Monza, Trial Mountain and the ring. Thanks to all of you for a very competetive season. I am looking forward to taking on Disturbo, AD2, Stumbles, T_B, Dan and evil in Div 3 in season 12, with Darko and cwhelan and maybe Sparklehead thrown in too it should be epic.

Sorry Venda, I left the pits LAST, followed moon around a full lap and left a DECENT gap, only to find 2 cars waiting at the last chicane... If you're going to do that, then at least wait until all cars have passed before you take off, would another 15 seconds been that hard?

Thanks Clevo, but it is wrong, Venda was first at Trial Mountain, he came second in the championship. The rest look OK

[h]Division 3 Final Standings (again)[/h]

Code:

Ps. Driver:                         Finishing positions         =Points tally
                             R1   R2   R3   R4   R5   R6   R7
                            ROME DAYT MADR MONZ NURB TRIA LE M 
01. S_CLOSE-------------:   *^1   ^4  *^1   ^1  (8)  *^2    1   = 138 (142)
02. vendalism-----------:     8   *1    2   *3 (*^10)  1    8   =  94 (97)
03. emmo46--------------:     2    5    4    4    3    3  (6)   =  82 (90)
04. ad2mny--------------:     5  DNS    5    2    4    6   ^2   =  77
05. disturboed----------:   DNS    6    3    7    1    4   *7   =  73
06. stumbles------------:     7    2  DNS    8    6    5    5   =  56
07. X-3vilm00n----------:     4    7    6    5    7  (8)    4   =  54 (58)
08. t_b_williams--------:     3    9    8    6    2    7   DNS  =  53
09. inline6-------------:   DNS    3  DNS  DNS    5    9    3   =  42
10. Aza2672-------------:   DNS    8    7    9    9  DNS  DNS   =  14
11. rumbleshorts--------:     6  DNS    9  DNS  DNS  DNS    9   =  12
12. GrayFoxZR1----------:   DNS  DNS  DNS  DNS  DNS  DNS  DNS   =   0
13. hsv_butters---------:   DNS  DNS  DNS  DNS  DNS  DNS  DNS   =   0
14. jordy105------------:   DNS  DNS  DNS  DNS  DNS  DNS  DNS   =   0

Thanks emmo, fixed again :8 was only looking at the results for last round, am getting the spreadsheet re-hashed, was first season using it and was bound to be teething issues, and me rushing not tripple checking what it spat out didn't help.

I will tidy up the thread now to remove all the quoted and repaired tables to save confusion.

Well done for what looked like a great season guys. attendance looked great all races and lots of good pace, well done.

Big rap for the podium in the championship, huge improvement from a lot of you guys in the short time I have been out of the loop.

@ vendal, as frustrating as a mess up in qual can be, stumbles has been around for a million years and is one of the cleanest racers / qualifiers I know. I am sure he would have been horrified and embarrassed when he messed up, but rest assured It would have been a pure accident. Sometimes these things happen, and his apology should be taken as genuine.

Cheers stu.

Possibly one of the last posts in this thread but I'll do it anyway.

GRID:me, disturboed, S_CLOSE, emmo46, 3-vi1m00n, VENDALISM, Stumbles01, Rumbleshorts, daninline6



4.07 pole? Didn't expect that with some of the times I had seen, so was pretty happy to come through Ford Chicane and see a 4.08 as the best time and to just beat it for pole. It was a mixed blessing though, cause now I had to try keep them behind. Didn't last long lol.





Got a good start but S_CLOSE got a blinder and was ahead before the first chicane. emmo46 ghosted up through me at the chicane then dropped in behind as we exited with disturboed behind him. The following pack got tangled up with Rumbleshorts as he rejoined the track after running wide at Tertre Rouge and dropped back.



We ran like that all the way along Mulsanne Straight until we hit Mulsanne where emmo46 gave me a little tap then ran a little wide losing some momentum with two wheels in the sand trap and let disturboed past. We continued like this with S_CLOSE slowly eeking out a gap until Dunlop Chicane where emmo46 messed up his braking and speared off into the sand. Disturboed and I drafted back up to S_CLOSE and I gave him a little tap entering the first chicane on Mulsanne Straight, then into the second chicane I drafted up the inside and disturboed passed S_CLOSE around the outside on the brakes. Disturboed drafted past me entering Mulsanne and S_CLOSE came up alongside too but chose to wait for a safer past. Did my best lap this lap of a 4.05.313

S_CLOSE ran a little wide at Dunlop Chicane losing a little time to disturboed and I. I drafted past disturboed on the first Mulsanne straight and he returned the favour in the next section. I got alongside and we had a little braking battle into Mulsanne, but with me having the inside line, he had to concede or risk running wide. With his more conventional entry (as compared to my inside line) he squared the corner off nicely and got a good run onto the back straight and we ran side by side all the way along the back straight till we hit the braking point at Indianapolis, where he managed to get in front.





This was, I must say, the most exciting and also scariest part of the race for me. On the replay you can see there is enough room, but at 250-260km/h with a car on my right and grass on the left, it didn't feel like I had a centimetre to spare.

I got a hold of his slipstream and passed around the outside entering Porsche Curves, then he got a good run out of Ford Chicanes, coming alongside at Dunlop Curve lap 4 but backed off entering Dunlop Chicane. By this time S_CLOSE had caught back onto our slipstreams and rejoined our dice. I ran alittle hot into the first chicane on Mulsanne Straight and had to ride up on the wrong side of the rumblestrip on the inside of the chicane and thought for sure I'd get a penalty but got away with it and disturboed did the same behind me. My hesitation through the chicane allowed disturboed alongside down the next straight and S_CLOSE drafted both of us and split us down the middle into the second chicane and disturboed followed behind him putting me in 3rd.



S_CLOSE and disturboed had a braking battle into Mulsanne and the latter got the pass done. We started lap 5 alittle spaced out, about 1.5 secs gap between 1-2+3, but S_CLOSE managed to catch some of disturboed's slipstream and got past before the first Mulsanne Straight chicane. Disturboed tried to outbrake S_CLOSE into the chicane but ran in too hot and into the sandtrap with a penalty to rub salt in the wound. Was just out of reach of S_CLOSE's draft so we stayed like that till S_CLOSE and disturboed behind me pitted end lap 5. I had hoped that by staying out an extra lap I would gain an advantage with better tyres at the end but on my wearing tyres I made a mistake in the final part of the esses and spun on the grass, and then totally missed my brake marker for the first Mulsanne Straight chicane and drove straight into the sandtrap. I now had X-3vi1m00n, VENDALISM and Stumbles01 leapfrogging each other and slowly catching me till we all pitted end of lap 6. S_CLOSE and disturboed passed me while waiting for my 38 litres to go in and I exited the pits with X-3vi1m00n right on my tail and 17 seconds to the leaders.

X-3vi1m00n drafted past me after the first Mulsanne Straight chicane and I drafted back past into Mulsanne. He gave me a good shunt into Arnage but we both got away with it. Lap 8 after the first Mulsanne Straight chicane he got a hold of my draft and got past me but I outbraked him into the second chicane, then he drafted back past again but I managed to outbrake him again into Mulsanne. He drafted back past me on the back straight and this time I could not fight back for the spot. Got a good run out of the Ford Chicanes and was alongside around the outside at Dunlop Curve when he ghosted across in front of me and straight into the sand on the inside of the chicane, and that was the last I saw of anybody until I passed disturboed limping home with no fuel and took second.

Congrats to S_CLOSE for his win and Championship title, and daninline6 for the final podium position. Praise also to X-3vi1m00n for hosting and Clevohead for his work behind the scenes with the ladder. Fourth overall in the Championship is not too bad in this company. Looking forward now to Season 12, and maybe a better overall finish.

Great write up again AD, fantastic, and bad luck Disturboed. Fuel is a killer !!

Another great report Ad, I just wish I could have held onto you guys longer than one lap, It was so much fun I really wish I was there for the duration.

This hasn't been put into the HOF.

Waiting for Div 1 results to be finalised to do all at once

Waiting on Zamps to extract his digit and get the results to me