Season 11 - Division 3

yes mate all info should be on the first post

Bad luck Ven, you were fast tonight.

As for my race... Qualified 3rd, stayed around there for the first 19 laps, went to pits and went to hit "up" to change the fuel and press "X" instead... ARGH!!!!!! A second pitstop after another 10 laps, threw in 15 litres and ran out with 3 corners to go... Last!!! Nice way to start the season...lol

Well done to S_Close, Emmo and T_B Williams, great racing guys. TB made a 2 stop strat work too, nice.

Great pace Close, congrats mate, you have picked up just where you left off at the end of S10. I really wanted to give you a challenge but unfortunately could not produce the speed I had on Friday night. I qualified 4th and got through to second and close enough to give you a little tap going into the right hander before the back straight, that was the last I saw you. I had to wrestle with Venda to get to 2nd by that turn and when I had a compromised entry to the turn and an ugly wheelspin exit it left me vulnerable for Ven and Ad2 (good first sector Ad) to storm past me on the run to the wiggly corner of death. I backed off to get behind ad2 but when he braked I ended up sticking my nose up the left hand side of him into the deadly right hand part and with nowhere to go I clobbered the wall big time and got 2 circles of damage. Stumbles and T_B got past me OK but poor Evil couldn't avoid me and gave me a big whack in the back, another circle of damage for me and a time penalty and major damage for Evil, sorry mate.
I was then in 6th place about 5 seconds back from the leaders who were a tight group of 5 until Ad2, Stumbles and T_B started tp slip back towards me a little. T_B pitted early on his 2 stop strategy and I gradually closed on Stumbles and Ad2. I passed Stumbles before he pitted which put me fourth. I was the last to pit and had a lap or 2 in the lead before I pitted and then came out of the pits back in 6th. I started to close on Stumbles and Ad2 again and when Ven had his disconnect ( bad luck Ven, you were on for a sure 2nd place, maybe a 1st) and T_B pitted for his 2nd stop I was back in 4th again. I passed Stumbles and then AD2 over a couple of laps after they had poor entries on to the pit straight allowing me to draft past them. At that stage it was the three amigos from S10 Div 4 filling the podium places but then AD2 fell behind T_B on his fresher tyres and a crash on the final corner lost 4th place for him to Evil. All in all it was satisfying to to get the 2nd place after such a stupid mistake on the first lap. I hope to do better next week but we have Disturboed and Aza returning and perhaps Jordy, so anything could happen. It is going to be a close championship.

OK 5th place is not indicative of how I thought my race went, which was really well. I was in 3rd most of the race, S_CLOSE was on a different planet with VENDALISM till he DQ'd ( ), emmo46 was consistently consistent again as usual and 3rd thrown away to t_b_williams then 4th to Bluemoon was disappointing. Grab a coffee and have a read if you like!!

Qualied 5th, and held that till Turn 5 (hard right after colliseum) where both VENDALISM and stumbles01 ran in hot and I snuck under stumbles01 while emmo46 had a slight moment on exit and i followed VENDALISM past. We came up to the kink all together with emmo46 trying to sneak around the outside ( I spoke with emmo46 and we both agreed that it is a corner you must commit to early and he maybe should have backed off a bit, I could see him there but nothing I could do to avoid contact and that it was a racing incident ) and we clipped sending him wide and, well, he said already what happened to him. End of lap 2 VENDALISM had a bad run last turn onto straight and I got close but not close enough. All the time I had stumbles01 hounding me and I clipped the last turn's inside wall which gave him a good run onto the straight and past me, then t_b_williams tried a move at turn 5 but was too hot and ghosted through me wide into the turn. Got a good run on stumbles01 lap 6 at end of main straight double right hander but ran wide and then all of a sudden S_CLOSE and VENDALISM were just in front of us, but they pulled away again within 3/4's of a lap. stumbles01 got a bad entry into the kink lap 8, clipped first inside on entry then the outside on way out, and I gave him a bump up the backside but still managed to pass around the outside up the hill, then he tried to come back up the inside last turn and hit the wall on the apex and fell back to t_b_williams. Pulled a good gap from 4th but was struggling a bit with concentration trying to work out on the fly whether I could manage a 1-stopper and trying to work out how much fuel I'd need. My laps were floating around high 10's to high 11's by this stage but held 3rd so decided a 1 stopper would work. Passed S_CLOSE when he pitted lap 19 then I dove in lap 20. Put 30 litres in ( could have gotten away with 25 I think ) and rejoined.

Came out in last place just behind stumbles01 again and was cursing myself for putting so much fuel in and spending so long in the pits. Perked up a bit when I passed emmo46, Bluemoon and Rumbleshorts in the pits next lap. Lap 22 stumbles01 clipped the wall top of the hill after kink and I snuck underneath but he got back past end of the straight around the outside at the colliseum ( nice move ) then I got back past at the double right hander end of the lap when he ran in too hot and wide. emmo46 appeared in front of stumbles01 lap 26 so I put my head down but I guess I was trying too hard and he caught up quickly and got past after a bad entry onto the straight. stumbles01 got past again breifly lap 28 but passed him in draft down straight and t_b_williams in the pits for 3rd again. Tried to latch on to emmo46 but he was just a little quicker than I could manage and pulled away bit by bit, and stumbles01 pitted lap 30 so was on my own again. About midway through lap 35 the phone rang and I got badly distracted for about 5 corners then onto main straight I ran along the wall and lost about 4 secs to t_b_ williams. In my rage at my stupidity, I outbraked myself into turn 5 and grabbed a little handbrake to avoid a head on into the wall which slowed me to nearly 40km/h and t_b_williams cruised past then last lap when I thought it couldn't get any worse, ran wide out of last corner and somehow caused a spin which I had to reverse out of and Bluemoon got me right on the line.

Congrats to S_CLOSE, emmo46 and t_b_williams for the podium spots, great battles with stumbles01, and I'm turning the damn phone off next race!!

Good report Ad2, you certainly had an eventful race, you also deserved better than 5th. We'll have to lift our game a bit to stop Close from running away with this. He already has a big points lead that will take some doing to get back.