Welcome to Part 2 of our race reports from Daytona Road Course. This time we will hear from our Division 1 and 2 reporters. We will start with our Division 1 report, brought to you by warrior2167: Round 5 of the championship was run with heavy hearts for all the drivers. Our community had lost a true friend, Bruce J Hale or "BJ" as known by most. Some of the drivers this week raced with special livery on their cars to pay their respects. Coming into this round, it was announced earlier that the Championship leader, Mustafur, was unable to continue for the remainder of the season. Having been in his best position so far into a season, it was definitely a tough pill to swallow to not be able to finish. Also during the two week break, new sporting regulations where brought in to see more stops during the races. The smallest field all season and for quite a while now of just 7 drivers, which included ROTOR-AU86 on debut, took to qualifying around this 6.13 km layout. Anon had led for most of the session, only just overtaken in the closing stages by Mint. In 3rd was warrior followed by Smithy, ROTOR, Cyber and N64. As the revs began to rise and just before the lights went green, Smithy had an issue and jumped the gun which meant he had to take his small penalty watch the rest of the field thunder away. Mint was able to hold position as the field made it through the tricky turn 1 for the 1st of 27 times. Lap 4. warrior and ROTOR have been in a fantastic battle for 3rd, swapping positions countless times, however by doing so are losing time to Mint and Anon up front. warrior is eventually able to pull a gap and now starts to focus on chasing the leading duo down. Lap 6. Anon has now upped his pace and drafts by Mint into the lead of the race. He is carrying over the form from the previous race and has a good chance to gain back points from warrior today. Also the 1st of the 2 stoppers are in when Smithy enters the pitlane. Lap 9. N64 is not adjusting to the new regulations well and is having a troublesome race. He pulls over to the side. Lap 13. Anon, warrior, ROTOR and Cyber all come in. With a high percentage of the lap spent at full throttle, fuel is very marginal. To make the end from here, some fuel saving is required. Mint stays out for an extra lap. Lap 14. Mint needed to be perfect on his in lap to try and jump Anon in the stops, but unfortunately he came unstuck through the bus stop and also ran out of fuel 300m before the pitlane. About 10 seconds was lost in the process. Lap 15 Positions & Intervals 1. Anon 2. warrior + 6.372 3. Mint + 10.5509 4. ROTOR + 14.796 5. Smithy + 33.994 6. Cyber + 1:29.009 7. N64 - Out Lap 19. As night turned into day the early morning shadows were becoming a nuisance and were making spotting the braking zones a tough task. fastboysmith is in for his final stop, his 2 stop strategy did not work out today. Lap 23. Mint was pushing extremely hard to make up the time he had lost. he had brought the gap to Anon down to 5 seconds, however all that hard work is undone when he goes in too hot into turn 1 and now falls behind ROTOR in 4th. Lap 26. Mint had worked his way back up to ROTOR and was now in a real fight for the 3rd place. The fight would have gone to the flag had lag not interfered, which sent ROTOR's car way off into the infield. Final Lap. Considering the day that Cyber and Smith have had, they amazingly find themselves together racing for 5th place. The race would have also gone to the flag had they not come across cars who had finished on their cool down lap. Cyber managed to wheel in through the grass, but Smithy wasn't so lucky as he lost control swerving between the two. Anon crosses the line for a well deserved win, he drove exceptionally well to manage the gap to warrior while saving the necessary amount of fuel. The result is exactly what he needed to keep his hopes for the championship still alive and sits 10 points behind warrior. 3rd place and fastest lap went to Mint, a great result but probably not the one he was looking for after starting from the pole. Mint is now 17 points behind warrior. Results: 1. Anon 44:03.518 2. warrior + 0.637 3. Mint + 19.046 4. ROTOR + 32.828 5. Cyber + 1:51.343 6. Smithy + 2:03.588 7. N64 - DNF With just 2 rounds to go, the championship is still wide open as we head into the only street course this season, Tokyo. RACE QUOTES: Anon666 (1st): Gotta say Mint had the pace tonight, but didn't have the luck. Warrior consistent as always and a good result for our new boy. I reckon we'll see you at the front pretty soon Rotor. Good to see so many lads showing BJ's colours, I thought I heard him groaning a few times when I got loose through the bus stop?? warrior2167 (2nd): I came in to this race without driving the car for the last 2 weeks and as I was so dialed in to the GTR, it just felt so foreign. I managed only a couple of practice laps before quali so I knew I was a bit off the pace. My speed kept improving during the session and I eventually put it in 3rd place. The race started well and I had a great little battle with Rotor for the first couple of laps, but that did cost us some time as we fell back 5 seconds off the lead. After I broke away from rotor I was able to hold pace with Anon and Mint and the gap remained around 5 seconds. Fuel was so marginal and I was not saving any during the 1st stint, thus I wasn't going to make a 14th lap. In the 2nd stint I needed to save some fuel and try to catch Anon. A delicate balance, but it was working and I was slowly closing the gap, but it just wasn't enough in the end, finishing 0.6 behind at the end and having only fumes in the tank. MINT_GTR (3rd): Another race I leave with what could have been.....Qually was extremely tough as Anon laid the pole lap down very early and in my usual fashion, pipped pole on my final lap by 0.022, honestly felt really bad, got to stop doing that. The first stint of the race was an amazing wrestle for the lead between Anon and I with the gap within 1sec all the way to the first pitstop. As Anon pitted on lap 13, I gambled it all to make that extra lap. Fortunately made it on fuel, unfortunately staring at the fuel gauge while going through the bus stop resulted in a crash. Pushed as hard as I could to reduce the 11sec deficit out of the pits to crash again at turn 1 near the finish. Battled with rotor at the end and escaped luckily with 3rd over the line. A massive congratulations to Anon, amazing pace and the most consistent, a well deserved and fitting win as I am sure Bruce was watching as you crossed the line, couldn't have asked for a better winner Warrior always consistent, well done Great effort to Rotor as well, I really don't know what happened between us on the 2nd last lap but I don't think that will be the last time we will be battling so congrats on a solid 1st race here at ROOZ ROTOR-AU86 (4th): First ever race under the belt, I must admit I didn't really do any practice or had much time with this combo... I had a OK start and was fighting with warrior for a few laps untill I touched the grass and he started pulling away... Improvements to be made I don't know what happened 2nd last lap with mint... was right behind him and out of know where it sounded like I hit him went straight through him and into the wall??? and was no where near the braking point... lol strange... any ways all good Thanks for the clean fast racing boys, this is what i was after!!! looking forward to the next race! fastboysmith (6th): Having no speedo to start was not good. Then had a 2 stop plan. Would have gone good if I just kept it on track. Oh well the last lap battle with cyber was going to be good but didn't happen( Anon and Warrior got in the way), oh well next week I guess. N64TheStig007 (DNF): Due to school assignments being forced onto me left right and centre, a lack of practice was always going to harm me on this rather odd circuit. I didn't mind it so much in the TVR but I never got to race that night. Immediately I discovered I was miles off the pace, my qualifying time was over 4 seconds down. My only highlight of the race was at the start, getting ahead of fastboy and Cyber, but after getting lapped very quickly and being over 3.5 seconds a lap slower than the field, I thought it would be more fun to retire and see if warrior could catch Anon and win. Surely Anon is the favourite to take the title now, you're driving superbly. I'm not a fan of having to conserve tyres and fuel, mainly because l'm rubbish at it, and since I'm not going to be able to get any practice in for the remaining 2 rounds due to assignments, sadly it seems Motegi and Monza will be my peak. I didn't do a very good job of honouring Bruce by giving up, something I'm not particularly proud of, I know Bruce would have gotten out and pushed the car over the line if the game gave him the option to! That being said, I will stick with the black and white livery for the remainder of the season, and hopefully put in two drives worthy of his honour. Nice work as always warrior2167. Congratulations to Anon66 for the win, coming good late in the season. Will he catch warrior2167? Well done also to warrior2167 and MINT_GTR for the final podium positions. Now we move on to Division 2. This week it was a joint effort, with words by stuart170773 and pictures by t_b_williams: Round 5 of the Division 2 league had 10 cars in the practice session, ready to take on the daunting dark Daytona track. With just a few minutes to go before qualifying, Greasy decided to forgo the race as he couldn't see Natman on the track and didn't want to cause any issues. He parked the Macca in the transporter and started to make his way towards Tokyo where hopefully PD has sorted its out! This left a total of 9 cars for qualifying, with Joe, Frzn, Firewind and 560 all unable to make the grid. With a few new liveries taking to the track, all in memory of our friend BJ, the 10 minute qualification session once again saw faine take top spot with a very quick lap, closely followed by razor, Comeandgetme, and Cob. TB lined up 5th on the grid, Crunch 6th, natman 7th, stuart 8th and Jim taking the final position of 9th. The lights went green and after some jostling in the first few corners, all the cars got through ok, however Comeandgetme had a moment in the bus stop and had fallen to 5th. The biggest mover on the opening lap was Jim, who had moved up 3 spots to 6th, while crunch had a moment at turn 1 and had fallen to last place. Lap 3 and faine had a rare moment off track and relinquished 1st place to razor, with Cob also taking advantage. stuart had a moment coming out of the bus stop and had fallen 17 seconds off the leader after just 3 laps, still sitting in 8th place, with crunch now just 2 seconds further back. Lap 4, and again faine makes an uncharacteristic mistake and loses another 3 spots at the bus stop, now sitting in 6th, behind TB. Natman has pushed hard and is in a solid 3rd spot, up 4 places from where he qualified. Lap 6 and after a slow exit onto the straight, Cob seizes the opportunity to take the lead with a neat pass around the outside, making it stick into turn 1. Natman and TB were having a ding dong battle, split by just half a car length fighting over 4th and 5th. faine was coming at them quickly in 6th place however. Lap 7 and disaster for razor in P2, when a gear box issue meant he could only find reverse. A chat to his pit crew and an attempted reset couldn't fix the issue and he had to retire the car to the pits. Lap 10 saw the first of the 2 stoppers head down pit lane, Comeandgetme the first to pull the trigger. This dropped him to 7th, not before faine followed him in a lap later, losing a position. It was clear there was 2 different strategies being played out, all other drivers deciding to chance a 1 stop and gamble on fuel. Lap 13 saw Cob with a 6 second lead over TB, with Natman a further 8 seconds back. stuart had fought his way back to 4th, after Jim had made a small mistake in turn 1, while Comeandgetme and faine were on a charge with fresher tires back in 6th and 7th. Lap 14 saw the first of the one stoppers come in to pit lane, with stuart, Jim and Crunch all taking service, dropping them down the field. Cob, Natman and TB all followed a lap later. By lap 16 a drivers had pitted and the shake up had Comeandgetme leading by nearly 10 seconds over faine but both were clearly needing to stop again. Cob was 27 seconds behind the leader, TB just 3 seconds further back. It was shaping up as a close fight on strategy. Lap 20 and a pivotal moment in the race when the race leader pitted for the second time, but spun on pit exit costing around 10 seconds and falling to 5th, only to make another error in turn 3 running too deep into the grass. Lap 23, faine pits from the lead, which promotes Cob, TB and stuart to the podium positions. Unbelievably, faine goes too deep in turn 3 as well, gifting Comeandgetme 4th place. With 2 laps to go the running order was Cob out in front with a commanding 12 second lead over TB. Both had driven great races making the one stop strategy work. stuart was back in 3rd after a solid recovery drive, but Comeandgetme was closing fast with stuart in fuel conservation mode, just 3 seconds back. faine's troubled night continued, another small error seeing him 9 seconds back in 5th, while Natman, Jim and Crunch had fallen way back. The final lap would see the top three all in fuel saving mode, however it was Cob who managed to cross the line for a well deserved win after a great drive. TB took second place 10 seconds back, while stuart would lose out to Comeandgetme, getting passed for the final podium position coming into the bus stop for the final time, just 0.2 behind in 4th place. faine was 5th, 26 seconds behind the leader, followed by Natman, Jim (who showed glimpses of pace), crunch who stuck at it in what was a tough night and finally razor who claimed 9th with his car tucked up in the garage. On to the tire shredding streets of Tokyo, where faine will be looking to come out to protect his lead in what is a very close championship for the top 4 positions. RACE QUOTES: faine555 (5th): I was too inconsistent and made too many mistakes good racing from everyone! Good win, and see everyone next weekend. natmanscoop (6th): I did the same (ran out of fuel) on lap 14, had to trawl from bus stop back to pits at 80. Aaarrggh! Then saved fuel for 2nd stint only to find its 27 laps not 28! Aaaarrrreggghhhhh!! Jim_aka_TheMan (7th): Not enough time to practice over the past 2 weeks showed last night for me. Too many errors when the grip got a little low, and the inexperience of refuelling & fuel saving caught me out on the last lap, limping home from the bus stop and being flown by. crunch630 (8th): I'm disgusted with myself. razor4797 (DNF): What a f*****g joke. Was coming 2nd on lap 6 behind Cob, and what happens?!!?? My f*****g controller goes spastic, putting the handbrake on, review mirror view and puts it in reverse... I'm buying a new one during the week and throwing this piece of out. I could not be more aggravated right now Nice work there stuart170773 and t_b_williams. Congratulations CobMcCool on the race victory, and well done also to t_b_williams and COME_AND_GET_ME7 for the final podium position. Stay tuned for Part 3! Division 1 Reporter/Photographer: warrior2167 Division 2 Reporter: stuart170773 Photographer: t_b_williams Tables: DRZ-Hatfield Editor: Jamie (Ad2mny)
