Welcome to the penultimate League Racing round, Autumn Ring. With its blend of technical bus-stop sections, up and downhill braking and fast sweeping bends, this track has just about every corner in the book. The battles up front in the racing is raging on, with a different race winner every race for the Division 2/3 Championship, and Warrior already starting to walk away with the title in Division 1 but nobody is laying down yet. Our first report will be from warrior2167, filling in for Jono who is still suffering with network gremlins. The 6th and penultimate race of season 13 saw drivers congregate from all over Australia to the historic Gran Turismo track known as Autumn Ring. Qualifying was another hotly contested battle as always, with the winning pole time of 1:08.008 determining the Grid order as follows 1. Warrior, 2. Mustafur, 3. Anon, 4. Corzza, 5. Joe, 6. Stu, 7. Teknique, 8. Cyber, 9. Vend, 10. Gary, 11. S_Close and 12. Cob. As the lights went out, Mustafur made an amazing start with a 0-100 KPH time of less than 2 seconds and was able to hold the inside line taking the early lead from Warrior. The early part of the race was driven with great skill and precision by all drivers as they fought hard to maintain and improve their position around this tight and twisty track. Soon disaster struck leader Mustafur on lap 5 when a HDMI cable decided to be faulty, leaving Mustafur totally blind. That left Warrior, unaware at the time of the mechanical dramas plaguing Mustafur's car, crashing into the rear of it opening the door for Anon to take the lead of the race. The start of lap 16 saw S_Close take the lead from Anon and Warrior who both were on a 2-stop strategy. S_Closes's much older tyres proved no match and was overtaken shortly there after. Teknique and Cyber were also having their own enthralling battle for 4th place, as Cyber manages to sneak down the inside of Teknique, who was making an overtake on S_Close, who is still trying to make it on 1 stop on his now heavily worn tyres. Lets not forget about 3rd place man Corzza, who is once again driving a very solid race, albeit a very lonely one. Just before the 2-stoppers make their final stop on lap 27, Warrior takes the lead from Anon who was driving like a true professional, absorbing the enormous pressure handed out by Warrior who had been glued to the rear bumper for the last 5 laps. The race for 7th position between Vendalism and Joe was an epic one, with numerous passes between the pair of them. As they crossed the finish it was Vendalism by a car length to Joe. The race win ended up going to Warrior from Anon, and class B winner was Corzza rounding out the podium. 4th and biggest mover, up 4 places was Cyber. 5th Teknique. 6th Stu, 7th Vend, 8th Joe, 9th Gary, 10th S_Close, 11th CobMcCool, 12th (DNF) Mustafur. Next week it's onto the 7th and Final race of the season at Deep Forest. Great read Warrior, a hectic race for Division 1, and with Warrior's now 69 point lead, takes the Division 1 title. Congratulations!! Only a complete disaster can ruin Mustafur's 2nd place, with 3rd placed Anon666 23 points further back. Corrza7 and Cyberstig could also move up to 3rd position, within 10 points of Anon. Now we move on to the Division 2/3 race, brought to us by Tim (t_b_williams). Div 2/3 Round 6 - Autumn Ring The penultimate round of the season was held at one of Gran Turismo's originals, Autumn Ring, which only weeks ago was invaded by aliens of a questionable nature.10 Drivers lined up with the honour of filling the first grid box going to Disturboed. BJH the first of the Div 3 runners. Grid:- Disturboed, Overdrive, T_B_Williams, 3vilmoon, Ad2mny, Emmo, BJH, Darkace, HR31GTS, Hazeone. Everyone got off the line reasonably well up and down the field and immediately started fighting for position, with BJH dropping to last before laps end. Disturboed maintained his 1st position and crossed the line for the first time ahead of a field slightly different as to when they lined up. The top 6 remained as they were, but darkace jumped up to 7th ahead of Hazeone, who had gotten by Hr31gts and Bjh was last pushing to catch the pack back up. But it would change VERY quickly, as once again PSN decided to interfere with proceedings and Ad2mny was cruelly dropkicked from the event. (edit GRRRR) Overdrive (right) and T_B_ (left) dice for position early. Lap 2 and T_B_ was all over Overdrive, and at times ahead here and there as the two raced hard, while Disturboed blazed on building a gap. But it all went wrong at the 270 degree loop, when T_B_ got too close and turned the No. 25 while sticking his nose up the inside when Overdrive ran wide coming into the long left hander. No amount of opposite lock could save this regrettable incident. The incident cost them dearly, as T_B_ redressed, they fell 3 spots to 5th and 6th. The push was now on to pass the front running Div 3 car of Darkace, now in 4th, and try and get back to the podium. But this time, lag had thoughts otherwise as the two came together at T9 with Overdrive (OD) again coming off second best, and T_B_ again having to redress. And just like the first time, they fell two positions, but this time it was positions 7 and 8 that they filled. Lap 5 and T_B_ managed a clean pass on OD at T1 and set off to take 6th from Hazeone, but ran wide into the loop and let OD back in front. Lap 6 and Hazeone unfortunately lost two places at Turn 1 as the two Div 2 cars ran around the outside and had eyes for Hr31's 5th position. OD (left) and T_B_ (back right) in their fight back through the field. (Hr center) OD got the move done at the second hairpin and T_B_ was through at the next corner. With no other action to report on, next on their list was Darkace, 7 seconds up the road. Out in front and on lap 8, Turbo's lead had now grown to over 10 seconds ahead of 3vilmoon and Emmo. Darkace was an impressive 4th just in front of the hard charging Overdrive and T_B_. Hr was 7th with Hazeone right behind willing to take the spot should Hr make a mistake, and the Div 3 championship leader Bjh having a night he would like to forget, a fair margin behind in last place. With passing a tall order here and the field spread, action was scarce, so we go back to the charge of OD, finally now only one step away from the podium, getting by Darkace at the second hairpin on lap 9. Lap 10 and running only 1 second behind Darkace, T_B_ was too early on the throttle and spun on the exit of T9 into the wall, undoing all the hard work over the last 6 laps. T_B_ checking the state of the armco. Managing to hold on to 6th place, T_B_ was now over 30 seconds behind the leader and 4 secs behind Ace. Turbo's massive lead. Lap 11, HR and Haze were still at it and at T11, the red 33 of Hr ran wide allowing Haze by as they would run together, continuing a battle to keep an eye on. T_B_ climbed one spot on lap 13 passing Ace at T1-2 on tyres now coming to the end of their life. So who would pit first??? Turbo did that very lap, as did 3vilmoon, Hr, and Bjh. Now in 1st, Emmo pitted on lap 14, shadowed by OD. Darkace also came in on lap 14, while T_B_ peeled off on lap 15 relinquishing his interim lead, with Hazeone following suit. So now with the first lot of stops out of the way, the order now on lap 16 is:Turbo more than comfortably in front, 3vil holding 2nd comfortably, Emmo in 3rd with OD right behind on a blinder of a run, coming from 7th at one point, T_B_ was 5th, Hr making the two lap undercut work now in 6th ahead of Haze, with Bjh 9th. OD passing Emmo, drive of the night. Nothing could stop OD's charge forward, including the red No. 8 of Emmo, as the No 25 easily moved forward at T1 on lap 17 and set his targets on his qualifying position of second. Bjh pitted early on lap 20, maybe changing strategy to run to the flag? But we will never know as again PSN saw fit to ruin another drivers night with Bjh's dsc on lap 22. By which time OD had closed the gap to 3vil and was pushing to take 2nd, but a near spin at T9 on lap 24 saw him drop back and it was another 3 laps before he got this close again. 3vil did what he could to hold out OD, but again, the No. 25 just drove around the outside as 3vil protected the inside line at the loop. Overdrive takes the long way round 3vilmoon. This prompted 3vil to pit, as had Turbo in the lead which now went to OD. Hr also came in on lap 27 while Darkace, as well as OD and Emmo, now a lap up on 28. T_B_ came in on lap 29 followed closely by Haze 1 lap down. So 10 laps from the end, Turbo still leads by 18 seconds over OD, 24secs over 3vil, 29secs over Emmo, 40secs over T_B_, and one lap over Hr, Darkace and Hazeone. The last 10 laps would be uneventful as the drivers were now all spread and chasing the gap in front. OD did well making great progress forward toward Turbo, clocking a fastest lap of the night, a 1:08.775. T_B_ was also closing fast on 4th placed Emmo, taking a sec a lap over the last 4 laps of the race, but not as fast as OD, lapping at one point 2.5 secs faster than the leader. Turbo takes a win. So with 41 laps run and won, Turbo came away with a well deserved victory, with Overdrive flying home to finish second only 3.2 secs back, great drive. 3vil rounded out the podium. Emmo just managed to hold 4th with T_B_ right on his 6 just 3 tenths behind. Hr won Div 3 in 6th ahead of Darkace and Hazeone. So with just one more round, who will take the title???? Till next week, keep it on the black stuff shiny side up. Thank you once again to Tim, another great report on a brilliant race. With lap times up front comparing closely to Division 1 times, it was an epic battle for the top podium position. Congratulations to disturboed for victory, and to OverDrivve and X-3vi1m00n on the final podium positions. OverDrivve has the lead in the Championship, but with disturboed just 16 points behind, it is still anyone's for the taking. Any one of five drivers could finish in third place overall. On to the final League Race for GT5, which will be held at Deep Forest. Thanks for reading Division 1 Reporter/Photographer - warrior2167 Division 2/3 Reporter/Photographer - Tim (t_b_williams) Editor - Jamie (Ad2mny)
great as always, frustrating round for me with my hdmi issue, but you can't always get a clean break.
