ROOZ NEWS Season 14 GT6 Round 4 Trial Mountain (Part 3)

Ad2mny · Mar 11, 2014

Welcome to Part 3 of our League races coming to you from Trial Mountain. In this part we will give you our Division 5 and 6 reports.

Lets get stuck into it, with our Division 5 report coming from another new reporter, T_Vue:

After the long straights and sweeping corners of the Spa Francorchamps circuit, the championship heads to a more compacted circuit: Trial Mountain, the second fantasy track on the calendar. Drivers still need to be at their best to tackle this circuit’s undulation, blind corners, walls of rocks, flickering shadows, and risky final chicane.

Qualifying was tightly contested, where the top four were within one second of each other. TOVEY_4SAKEN, who took top honours in the past two races, secured pole position with a blistering time of 1.26.443, three tenths ahead of T_Vue. The rest of the lineup was JAKO155, ranok3n, xxDARKOxx, alzoroz, feenix777, patg65, CWhelan85, and webnomad.

Lights out!
As the top nine bolts away, webnomad shifts too early into second and gets bogged down.

TOVEY_4SAKEN leads the pack into turn one.

Lap 1
Tovey_4saken leads into turn one as the chasing pack behaves, slowly moving from double to single file. Before the race settled and tyres warmed, T_Vue decides to attack the first-turn curbs and pays for it, spinning out to the left and flying into the concrete wall. Second to last in a moment of blunder.

T_Vue's first-corner mishap, sends him off-track and, ultimately, to last position.

Exiting turn four, JAKO155 goes too deep and wide, hitting the rocks on the right and surrendering second spot to ranok3n.

At turn five, webnomad and CWhelan85 have an argy-bargy moment for eighth spot, rubbing side panels more than twice—they can count their lucky stars as they both exit the turn without serious damage or major loss of time.

CWhelan85 and webnomad argue for position eight on lap one.

As the field exits turn nine for the first time, feenix777 drops the slightest bit of rear tyre onto dirt, causing his car to fling sideways across the track, hitting and leaving his front grill full of rocks. He loses a chunk of time, ultimately rejoining in last spot.

feenix777 being slung around by the unforgiving track edges after exiting turn nine.

Lap 3
CWhelan85 loses balance after exiting tunnel one and spins violently, allowing T_Vue to shoot past to take seventh.

Lap 5
xxDARKOxx, sporting a new coat of paint, spins after exiting turn five. He waits and waits and waits, for what must’ve felt like an eternity, before traffic cleared to point his BRZ in the right direction again; alas, he drops from fourth to ninth.

xxDARKOxx parking for eternity, letting traffic through, before he could rejoin the race.

Meanwhile, on the back straight, a fast-charging T_Vue slipstreams past alzoroz, moving into fourth—a gain of six positions in five laps (although with help from others’ mistakes).

The gap between leader TOVEY_4SAKEN and second place ranok3n is now 5.7 seconds.

At the tailend of the pack, feenix777 and patg65 are pressuring each other, ultimately overcooking the final chicane, flying into the left-hand wall and lifting their rears in synchronised fashion.

Lap 6
T_Vue over-rotates and spins after turn 12, gifting fourth position back to alzoroz.

Laps 8–9
A tight arm wrestle between CWhelan85 and patg65 for eighth position—sector times are equally matched.

Lap 11
TOVEY_4SAKEN now has a healthy lead of 8.1 seconds ahead of ranok3n; however, the battle for second is ramping up as JAKO155 is now only 1.4 seconds behind—and reeling in ranok3n fast.

Lap 13
As JAKO155 drafts ranok3n down the hill after turn 13, he brakes a tad later and taps ranok3n—a tap strong enough to send ranok3n on an off-road detour. JAKO155 moves into second spot while ranok3n tries to regain as much as speed as possible before the all-important chicane and front straight.

A controversial moment: JAKO155 soldiers on after tapping ranok3n off-road.

The scuffle between these two adds two seconds to TOVEY_4SAKEN’s lead.

Lap 16
At the halfway mark, TOVEY_4SAKEN laps webnomad and leads the field as follows:

TOVEY_4SAKEN

JAKO155: +10.72

ranok3n: +14.75

alzoroz: +34.07

T_Vue: +34.25

xxDARKOxx: +39.18

feenix777: +1 lap

CWhelan85: +1 lap

patg65: +1 lap

webnomad: +1 lap

Laps 15–19
After spinning on lap six, T_Vue has managed to loom large over the rear of alzoroz’s BRZ again. As they cross the start-finish line four times, T_Vue struggles to pass alzoroz’s wall of resistance, ferociously defending fourth. It’s a battle working in favour of xxDARKOxx, allowing him to creep closer to the battling pair. Any hopes of a three-way dogfight are dashed as T_Vue finally passes alzoroz on the inside at turn nine—just in time, avoiding any contention with xxDARKOxx’s raging yellow BRZ.

Laps 19–22
Having been harassed by T_Vue’s green machine, alzoroz is now under attack by xxDARKOxx, who seems frustrated as he weaves almost uncontrollably after tunnel one and drifts through tunnel two. He finally dispatches Alzoroz at turn nine.

Meanwhile, the frontrunners remain unchanged: TOVEY_4SAKEN is 10 seconds ahead of JAKO155 while ranok3n is a further 11 seconds adrift in third. Positions 7–10 are one lap behind.

Laps 23–26
JAKO155 mounts an attack on TOVEY_4SAKEN as the margin is reduced to seven seconds. On lap 26, though, he starts to drop off. Likewise, ranok3n in third is now 26 seconds behind the leader.

In 10th position, Webnomad disconnects from the race.

Lap 27
With four laps remaining, T_Vue gets it all wrong at the exit of turn four and slams front first into the adjacent rocks, damaging the right front wheel. xxDARKOxx, seven seconds behind, breezes past—thank you very much!

Laps 28–31
With the podium looking settled (TOVEY_4SAKEN now 15 seconds clear of JAKO155 and 30 seconds clear of ranok3n) and the mid-pack evenly spread out, little action is left except at the back where CWhelan85 and feenix777 are still racing for position seven. In the final chicane, feenix goes all out and attacks it with maximum power but comes off second best—he goes airborne, crashes back down to Earth in a ball smoke, then limps home for eighth.

feenix777 takes it to the air for a last-gasp attempt at seventh position.

Result
It’s a dominant win (16 seconds ahead of the field) for TOVEY_4SAKEN as he never looked in trouble, streaking away from the field after lap one. This is his third consecutive win, stamping his authority. As a newcomer, beginning in round two, it’s the perfect way to consolidate his championship assault.

Selected post-race comments
TOVEY_4SAKEN

I wasn't expecting all that [dominant driving] from me at all. I know I had been improving this week especially my consistency—I'm just blown away.
ranok3n

I'm pretty stoked that I finished that race without a major spin! There were a few ‘oh ’ moments, but otherwise very very clean! Albeit a lot slower than you [Tovey_4saken] haha.
T_Vue

TOVEY_4SAKEN was just too fast. As for me starting second, another shocking first-corner blunder. Shouldn't have attacked the curb so hard on cold tyres. Enjoyed a clean, tough fight with alzoroz during the middle laps of the race—it was one of the cleanest battles I've had (only one minor tap from me). He was defending well and I passed only when Darko caught up to us—just in time because I know how fast Darko is.
feenix777

I started off with 1.32 laps and then got them down to 1.28; I thought I was doing well until qualifying and saw 1.26 laps—that was very disheartening. The race itself was good fun; CWhelan85 and I had some good tussles. Getting overlapped was a bit embarrassing though. Once we were overlapped we turned into ghosts, which was really bizarre. CWhelan85 and I were battling over the last few laps driving through each other. We had a bit of back and forth for P7 but I had smashed my tyres by then and couldn’t quite get it down. I threw everything at the last corner in an all-or-nothing attempt; it didn’t pay off, it just got me airborne instead.

Great report T_Vue. Congratulations to Tovey_4saken for the win, and to JAKO155 and ranok3n rounding out the podium.
Unfortunately we don't have a Division 6 report, so here is a brief wrap of their race. Rumbleshorts: O has some weird happen at the start of last nights race. 2 cars went ghosted from the line. Made for a very difficult start as they could have un-ghosted anytime, and they were driving (at least on my screen) very erratic as if they were lagging horrendously. Btw, way to quick on that track bjh... Capa too. I didn't help myself by clipping ripple strips under heavy acceleration, causing mt to spin off a couple times (damn it, still have trouble courting). Early on there were some issues, whether it be server or just net, but alas cannot blame those. About half way through tho, I started to get in my rhythm but by that stage it was way too late with bjh about 45s ahead and Capa prob 30s ahead too. In the end, my fastest lap was close to Capa but a way from bjh so the tale of the tape for me is I suck at TM Congratulations on the triple bjh1012, pole, win and fastest lap! Well done also to capatowned and Rumbleshorts on the final podium positions.So that's it for another round. See you all again for the next round, Motegi!!
Division 5 Reporter/Photographer: T_Vue
Division 6 Contributions: Rumbleshorts/Clevohead.
Editor: Jamie (Ad2mny)