Oh, my that stunk.

Qual:

12-flat on the first hot lap. Had been in the high 11's but ripped off the front wing on the next lap. Used the remaining time to test a low downforce setup. :-)

Race:

What can I say. For whatever reason I had to brake hard to stay off of Tommy coming up to the arch. Looks like it was just a bad set of circumstances and maybe Tommy's power-braking (throttle+brakes) engine noise throwing me off. Regardless, I was pleased to successfully keep from hitting him.

Then I got drilled from behind. Thanks for the post race apology Vance. I know you were in a bad spot.

As a result the toe-in on the left rear got completely screwed. When I came to the next turn, now back at pace-lap speed, the car wanted to turn right under braking. My correction put me outside my apex and then out into the tires. This, of course, ripped off the front wing but it also trashed the toe-in on the right front.

What a mess.

So at the end of the pace lap I pulled into the pit, content to try and work back through the field. It was really nice to see that rfactor handles all of it well. Admittedly, I had no idea what to do or what was going on but by simply following the lights and lollipop, everything worked as it should. The car was serviced only after the green fell, I was held at pit-out, only briefly and then I was on my way.

But there was a catch. Turns out that they can't fix the rear suspension geometry in the pit (naturally) so the car was still a complete mess. I kept moving the brake bias to the front but nothing could over come the rear-end's need to step out under braking thanks to the left-rear toe-in.

So it wasn't long until I drilled a wall again. More front suspension damage, no wing again, it was ugly. But it worked out nice because after giving up on driving that way I pitted just as the leaders were coming around.

The rest of the race was just hanging on as the car would turn right into the wall on all the left-handers.

The things we do to avoid a DNF... :-)