Monza 385k

I honestly had better hopes for this one. (I seem to remember this same distinct feeling after the Season 1 Monza race.)

Qualified 10th with a time that was mid-decent for me. I crashed my first flying lap and managed one or two timed laps before Q ended.

The race started with the group around me making a clean rhythm for about 10 laps, then for the rest of the first stint it seems we swapped places from about 7th to 10th depending on who went off last.

Also made a couple of stupid mental errors late in the first stint. I had fallen behind the pack after checking up for a couple of spinning cars to do their thing while I picked a way through, then a few laps later I went off at Parabolica (it's diabolical, I tell you) ... When I came back on and got up to speed I got a blue flag ... I didn't think I had fallen that far behind but, huh ... In a lap or so a car starts catching up with me ... I picked a spot and breathed to let him by ... Only to discover it was Enis passing me for position!

Enis claims I was being a gentleman, and I'm seriously thinking of having him sued for such libelous public statements ... In reality I would've made him work a bit harder and get alongside me before conceding.

Then to top it off, another mistake so many laps later and I think, "OK, this time I really am being lapped" and I do the exact thing again for a couple more positions! By mid-race I suddenly remembered the HUD would tell whether those cars were for position ... Smack!

I think by the first pit stop I was back to 12th or 13th.

The next stint went much cleaner for me. The last stint I got sloppy a couple more times, but by then the field was too spread to make a real difference. I think I only passed one more for position, then a couple more spots by attrition.

Ok , time for a race report...

Found out 12 hours before race , that Darin can't participate on this race coz of the RL work load . After getting a green light from Tim to substitute Darin for this race it was time to do some practice and setup work on Viper.

With Kent's setup and tips i tried to get into the speed again , but due the limited learning time (and my thick skull :roll: ) i wasn't able to get the best out of the car and the setup , so finally i turned back into my old setup and did some light changes to it... wasn't actually any faster with it , but it felt more like 'me' :) .

Took a few hours nap and then it was almost race time already. Too bad i miscalculated the timezones and almost missed the whole race , was pure luck that i decided to check the lobby and saw the league server packed :shock: . Anyways , had a few mins to do some installation laps and did some last minute setup changes for the race set.

Qualifying went poorly , had some traffic on my 1st try and did some mistakes on 2nd try , eventually got the 14th ( i think) place on the grid and that was quite disappointing.

Race start didn't go much better and lost a place or 2 there before 1st corner , got through in one piece anyway but then at the 2nd chicane braking it all went wrong .
There was some early braking ahead in the pack and of-course it fluctuates (is that a word :P) backwards with extending rate , i braked a bit earlier than usual , but i was so far back in race order that i prolly should have been even more careful , coz there were so many cars ahead of me.

Already described the accident there earlier in my 1st post , but the outcome was that Enis went into a violent spin after i hit his left rear corner and ended up into the gravel-trap.
Felt that i have to wait him and luckily Enis could continue his race , all-thou we were about 20 seconds behind the rest of the field now after the accident :oops: . Race continued anyway and there were some good fights and great sportsmanship while going up to positions , thanks all for the fair and friendly driving there 8).

On some point of the race we had a hilarious team meeting with Kent on 1st corner :lol: ,we both parked our cars and changed few looks before continuing again :mrgreen: . No problem btw Kent , things happens and after i managed to stop the car just before T-boning you , i actually laughed out loud...it was somewhat hilarious moment , all-thou you prolly weren't laughing at that point :).

Car felt pretty good and my confidence went up while i was catching car after car before 1st pit-stops , after the stop there was a long great chase while i was trying to catch Nuno , great driving again mate 8). Just when the gap went down to under 1 second , i happened to check out the engine temps and what a shock that was :shock: ... Oil temps @ 105C and water temps @ 100C :o and still over an hour to go.

This was really scary , coz imo the Viper engine is one of the most fragile engines in GTR , started to shift a bit earlier and lost some ground to Nuno again , but temps seem to hold just in the limit and i could continue the race , just had to be careful and keep an eye on the temps all the time. After this i couldn't catch Nuno anymore, but didn't actually loose any ground either , then it was time to do 2nd pit-stop and just before in-lap Nuno lost some time while lapping a car and the gap was down to a second or so , when we pitted.

Crew did an excellent job and send me away clearly ahead Nuno and i was up to a 3rd place already :o . One more engine failure ahead gave me the 2nd place and when Nuno lost his engine , there was no pressure from behind anymore and things were looking amazingly good , considering all what had happened already in the race.

Steve had already lapped the whole field :shock: and 2nd was the highest place i could hope for , but in my last lap the engine started to gave away after the 2nd chicanes :shock: , didn't actually realize this before closing in Ascari and while checking out the rear view i saw this big smoke trail behind me . After Ascari exit i felt that engine lost a lot of power and i was sure it will explode before Parabolica :shock: , but somehow it kept together and at the Parabolica exit i knew i'm going to made it to the checkered flag after-all :D .

Hair raising end to a race which had almost everything... big disappointments , good fights , lots of luck and technical problems to mention few things :roll: . I'm very pleased to get the 2nd place and important points to the GTNDC team , all-thou it came partly by some bad luck from others and i was a lap down to Steve who did amazing race with his F550 . Congratulations mate , you were on a class of your own today 8).

Congrats to GT2 winner Tommy Regan too , looks like a great fight building up in GT2 class between many drivers.

Well done other podium finishers too , likewise all who get to see the checkered flag.

Was fun to race in TMcA league again and i have to seriously re-think my summer strategies = breaks sux big time , i need my own car as soon as possible :lol: :wink:

Cya around and have fun...

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Samuel

As much as I hate to admit to my own stupidity, I once again brain farted in the pits and took it for granted that when you set up in the garage your fuel stop to not put fuel in on your first stop that no matter how much fuel you have listed on your 2nd pit. I had the garage set for 3 pits, 26.4gal,0gal,15.3gal and an extra pit with 15.3 gal just in case there was a mishap like the one I had at Monza...well guess what ,I just figured out that whatever the last pit fuel amount was is what the next pit will be no matter what the garage pit strategy says! I've only had this game for what 2 years now? DOH! Rolling Eyes
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Theres Porsche.. And then everyone that wants to beat them!

This was a bad race for me. Qualified a surprising 5th in class. I also made a good tire choice for the start of the race. The rain let up and the track was basicly dry from the drop of the green. I had softs on which i quickly and stupidly overheated trying to keep up. I ran as high as second before my tires were shot and I had to pit after a spin. In the pits I found I could not adjust anything, so I was stuck with softs. In the second stint I kept a very close eye on tire temps and slowed down when they got too high. Was working great too, running 7th in class on my own private laps. Then on lap 40, right before my last pitstop I get the connection lost message in red. My race is over, and I miss points by one place. What a way to start the season.