Season 11 - Division 3

Perfect, thanks,
Clevo, I apologise for being a pain in the A, from the sidelines it looked like a simple data entry error, I can now see how the spreadsheet set to give equal points for race 1 and 2 would have upset the table. Sorry I doubted you, should have known better

I have a little offseason championship planned to follow on the week after this season finishes. Those of you who may be interested in running should vote on a few options that need to be sorted before the season begins, voting ends this Sunday night. Please go here World tour if you are intending to run in this championship.

No probs emmo

Thanks Clevo

Great race tonight with 9 guys turning up. Epic race with lots of close dicing and S_Close did it to us again. I gave away 2nd place a couple of laps from home DOH. I had a tremendous dice with Vendalism for the first part of the race and also Disturbo mixed it up with us as well for quite few laps, thoroughly enjoyable as were the other dices during the race. More details later.

A better result this round but I have a confession

I have just watched the replay from all the different angles and I believe t_b_williams may have a right to protest against me. Third lap coming into Lesmo i was right behind him and he had a slight lag spike which made it look like to me he was going faster through the corner than I was, so I kept the foot down and made contact which may have caused him to leave the track. He beeped at me too I saw on his view so I'd say it must have been my fault. He ended up being passed by bluemoon and then stumbles when he went off track again for the second part of Lesmo. I had a moment myself into Ascari which had me fishtailing up the next straight and fate it seems righted my wrong but I see now I should have waited.

More to come...

What an epic night, I qualified 6th and that immediately became 5th as disturboed was slow off the line (start penalty?) and then I managed to get an inside run through Curva Grande to be in third right behind Close and Ven at the first chicane. A messy remainder of the first lap, running wide at the first Lesmo, Ascari and the last corner saw me back in 7th just behind a swarming pack. Close and Venda started to pull away from the pack of five filling third to seventh place with Stumbles and Aza dropping away a little in eight and ninth. Aza seemed to have a wretched night, he sat in the sand at the last corner for a number of laps and then the next two times I saw him he was in the sand a each of the Lesmos.
Going into the second lap TB held third from 3vil, ad2mny, Disturbo and me as we disputed the order for a couple of laps. Those couple of laps were really thrilling, a swarm of five cars barrelling into Curva Grande at max speed is really something to be involved in. Disturbo made his way through the pack and I followed him and we built a gap back to 5th place as TB, Ad2 and 3vil fought over that. Disturbo was flying and towing me along and as Close and Venda fought over the lead we reeled them in. Venda was in 2nd when we caught them and as Disturbo and I mugged him for second, Close pulled out a lead we couldn't get back. Venda, Disturbo and I had a great
fight over 2nd until Disturbo had his wobble in the Curva Grande and dropped back leaving Venda and I to battle on for a few more laps.
Eventually Venda seemed to be having a little trouble with grip and I was able to pull away a little to a reasonably comfortable 2nd place. I pitted behind Close on lap 13 and we came out mid pack as some of the others ran longer. By about lap 15 Close was back in the lead with Disturbo second and me in third, we were spreading out a bit at this time. Disturboed went to the pits for his second stop and left me running 2nd behind Close with Ad2 and Ven a liitle way behind. I was able to hold the gap to Ad2 and just as I thought I had 2nd in the bag I ran one stinking
wheelwidth wide into the sand at the 2nd Lesmo and it was like an antelope being dragged into the waterhole by a big croc (Aza can probably back me up on this). I ran through the whole length of the sand pit until it ended and then when I finally got it back on the tarmac it was like ice. I speared off the track on the right hand side and clouted the barrier and then when I got back on the tarmac again I speared off the right hand side again. I could imagine Ad2 and Ven's big grins as they sailed by, it sure removed mine.
I put in two clean laps to the end but had no chance of catching Ven at that late stage so another podium was sacrificed at the side of the track.
Podiums are very hard to get in this company and it has come as a shock after a run of 14 straight podiums through the end of S10, the Celebration season and the first race of S11. Eight drivers have been on the podium in this series so far which is testament to the closeness of the field in DIV 3.
Close has a firm grip on the championship now, Venda would have to win all the remaining races to even have a chance of prising Close's hands from the prize. Next week is the 'ring and I'm not really confident of a good
race there, I know Ad2 is quicker than me there and the rest are unknown quantities, I'll give it my best shot and see what happens, maybe a podium will come my way.
Finally congratulations to the podium finishers, it was almost the three amigoes but I let the team down.

Sorry t_b_williams. I will try to be a bit less aggressive next time. Your lag caught me out a bit, there's not much it just happened at a bad time.



Qualified 3rd behind S_CLOSE and VENDALISM and got a small jumpstart penalty but still pulled away pretty well. Right behind VENDALISM as he had a look up the inside of S_CLOSE at Curva Grande but he decided against it and tapped the brakes and I hit the back of him which slowed me just enough to let emmo46 and bluemoon up the inside with bluemoon pushing me wider and wider towards the grass. I held my ground but was a little less brave on brakes into Roggia and t_b_williams got through on the inside there. Aza2672 came barrelling up behind too but too hot and into the barriers.



Coming up to Ascari emmo46 ran in way too hot allowing t_b_williams and bluemoon past but he held me off with disturboed bump/pushing me up until the Parabolica where emmo46 ran wide again allowing us both to run 3 wide up the inside.



emmo46 drafted back past me on the main straight and i decided to hang back a bit and pick up any scraps I could for lap 2. There was an awful lot of place changes and skidding and smoke but they all stayed together. bluemoon ran wide into last part of Lesmos and I got up the inside putting me in the train behind t_b_williams, disturboed and emmo46. The latter 2 drafted past t_b_williams on the main straight but I didnt have enough speed to get past before Curva Grande and the way they were bouncing off each other looked like someone was gonna go off so backed off a bit and followed them around. t_b_williamshad a bit of a lag-spike coming up to Roggia and I closed right in on him on exit. As we come up to Lesmo he looked to be running in hot and I cut tighter to sneak up inside and he lag-spiked again jumping forward then back and we collided, unfortunately pushing him wide. I didnt realise how far out I had pushed him and with no mirror only going by my map looked like he was still behind me and I paused a bit at the last part of Lesmo to let him catch up but it was bluemoon and distracted again wondering where he was and watching bluemoon run hot into Ascari i ended up running wide on exit and then hitting the wall causing light damage to right front. Trying to rejoin track ended up fishtailing down the straight which allowed stumbles01 and t_b_williams past.

Followed stumbles01 and t_b_williams for the start of lap 4 where stumbles01 drafted past t_b_williams along the straight then ran too hot into Roggia which let us both back past and with t_b_williams slowing to avoid stumbles01 we were nose to tail again. Bit more cautious this time into Lesmo and got alongside for Ascari but ran a bit too hot and he got back past. Got alongside for the parabolica and this time he was a bit hot and ran wide into the sandtrap. I was now in 5th place with about a 2 second gap back to bluemoon and t_b_williams and about 4-5 seconds to disturboed so I put the ole head down and started pumping out 1.40's and started to pull him in and got to about 1.5-2 seconds before he pitted lap 10.



emmo46 and VENDALISM were changing places more times than I could count up ahead but when VENDALISM hit one of those solid markers at Lesmo I started to get close to him. emmo46 and S_CLOSE pitted lap 14 which put me in 2nd behind VENDALISM till we both pitted lap 15. Put 30 litres in (was gonna put 25 but decided to put bit more last minute luckily) and somehow managed to leapfrog VENDALISM in the pits putting me into 4th behind emmo46 with S_CLOSE and disturboed ahead. disturboed pitted again lap 20 which put me up to 3rd with VENDALISM popping in and out of my map and emmo46 just too far away to catch. Got into my rhythm again and into the 1.40's and started to reel emmo46 in slowly with VENDALISM always just far enough back to be out of my slip stream but close enough to make me push. Got to within about 2.5 seconds of emmo46 when on lap 24(?) I think he ran wide at Lesmo and fell right back behind VENDALISM trying to get going again and thats how we finished with me on the last red line of fuel for the Parabolica, S_CLOSE 15 seconds ahead and VENDALISM about 2-3 secs behind me.

Well done S_CLOSE and VENDALISM, bad luck to emmo46, and I'll try to avoid any controversial moves next round.

Being such a long lap and having to do an out-lap before the timer starts we are most likely going to need 20 mins just to get a timed lap in. It will probably pay to start a bit earlier if only for that reason, let alone the length of the race.

BTW - YAY no rain. no night