Dubai 400k

Just fricking terrific. Drove up to third during first stint. Came out of first stop in between Smith and Stegger in 6th and blamo! Disco.

Of course, cable comes back up about a min later.

Between thurs 79 and today's Invite, I probably should have stayed off the computer and played with something else.

Congrats to whomever won and finished.

I'd like to forget about this race propmtly. Qualified terribly. Decided to stay on intermediates til I could make it to my first stop window. Got drop-kicked by George. Probably stayed out too long, but about 2/3 of the way through my second stint, I started passing cars. Not sure if they were on a 1-stop or not, but I got up to around 18th, then my computer locked up. Peachy.

Well that was a disaster. Qual was crap well below my practiced times.

Race started and I was hanging right with Ari and Darin until Mark had some issue and I had to back off, dunno what that was about but it cost me about 4 seconds by the time it was done. Then DAve Pike came under me an another shitty spot and I slid out of a corner and crashed the wall taking damage. This allowed Scott to close up on me but I pulled away and was gaining on Ari again. A few laps later Nuno and CJ came up on me in the long left sweeper and Nuno decides that is a good place to pass NOT! so I go off again, this time no damage but now I am 8 seconds down.
Had another small off and now John Dixon gets by me.

I tried to take the spot back a couple times but John fought me off well, we had a couple touches and I figured I better back off a little. GT cars got us close again and about 8 laps before the pit stop I took advantage of a missed turn and got by again. The gap was pretty equal to John and I had no clue how far down I was, the GT cars were really playing hell with the nGT's.

I pitted and saw Ari already there so I knew I was down a lot. Left the pit about 8 seconds behind Ari and Darin just went by. I rejoined the track with Scott just ahead. I pressured him and in the second hairpin he got wide and I was able to get inside, sounded like he spun the tires and I saw him slide across the track behind me.

Now I am 10 seconds behind Ari and I am pressing hard running my best laps of the race with my fresh tires. Closed the gap to 9 seconds when by screen froze? Dunno what that was about other than "Sticky Keys" popped up on me? All I can think of is I assigned a key in Teamspeak to chat directly with Darin. Last time I will use TS, this is the third DNF I have had and I believe all where cause by TS so I am done with it.

Personally I think some of the GT guys need to take a chill pill and seriously think of waiting for the next straight to make a pass. Or at the least Flash your intention.

Disaster for me. Had a good battle with Kent in the first half of the race. Pitted at the half way mark but left my self about 10 litres short of making the finish. I was in a good third position with 4th 50 seconds back. I decided to do a splash and dash with 8 mins of the race left, but made a mess of it and came out just behind Scott in 4th. Was closing in when my pc crashed again! Thanks pc for making me do 95% of the race and then crashing.

Agree with Kent about some of the GT's passing. I spun twice being forced offline. I dont include everyone in this.

Wow, I've finally got a GT-I podium! My life is complete...

Anyway, the race itself was pretty crap. I'd never practiced qualifying, so my first lap was a little conservative. On the second I was well up when I got a call from work and had to press esc :( Probably would have been pole, but quali doesnt matter too much...

The wet weather really screwed me though. I made the cardinal sin of trusting the so called 'forecast' which said rain was to come, so I went for inters. Of course, 5 minutes in and the sun comes out and the track dries. I decided my car was handling like a piece of crap in comparison to how everyone else looked, so I pitted for slicks. Of course, i came out and it was still handling like a piece of crap (much worse than in practice), so I pretty much just drove around as hard as I could to make up the time.

John and Kent where very unlucky, but without them retiring I would have been 5th, which would have been very disapointing (but it would have better reflected the terrible race I had). Oh well, one of these days I'll be able to compete for the win in one of these...

Cya next time

Wot Scott said! Thought the rain would last, so I went to a full wet setup. Then the track dried after 10 minutes & I was stuck with driving a snow-plough for 2-plus hours! I'd planned on a one-stopper, but that went out the window with the early stop for slicks. So I just drove the balls off it, but I sure would love to have had that second or so a lap I was off my dry setup pace. Thanks to others misfortunes, I'm pretty relieved to have made 4th. A better result than expected after the rain stopped.

Sorry about that spin Kent! I was not comfortable in the rain and went off fairly early on. Then I ended up behind you and Ari and Boyd and after overtaking you, I spun off again and I was really sorry that I got onto the road so that you hit me!!!
I also had an incident with you Dixon, where I thought there was enough of the straight left to overtake you, but there was not! My apologies!!
Even though this was a fairly wide track, with some options for overtaking, I had some difficulties sometimes to decifer the GT2 cars motives when the went wide in sweeping corners and not being sure if that was the cornering style or a granted opening. ..

Well, Q went ok, but was down the list! The rain did not do me any good at all and was all over the place. When I went dry I was stuck in 22 or 23 position. A long fight up to 7th ..... Dubau: See you next year :-)

Congratulations to the winners!

And Joe, I really felt sorry for you went I heard that: disconnected on TS and then saw your name in the screen in GTR2 just seconds later! You were really good out there today!!!!

Same boat as most. Didn't practice any wet laps, and the forcast was for a wet race, so I just did the logical thing and changed my race setup into an on-the-fly wet setup. Worst setting was picking hard wets. I only lost 1 position up until a dry line started, but then really started to fall back after. Once most everyone else pitted for drys, I had moved up to 14th or so, and decided to ride it out until my first stop. But trying to maneuver through Turn 4 making sure I left enough room for a trailing GT car to pass thru, I locked the rear tires, overcorrected, and it snapped left, right off the track. I managed to not hit anything, but I got a puncture in the left front and had to limp all the way around to pit. I was on my heels the whole rest of the event. Hope I didn't make too many wierd moves today, I was just trying to get out of the way. And thanks to Tim for the shove home.

Don't know where to begin.

First off, aplogies. Sorry for the touch Craig, misjudged the situation. At least I waited for you and then some, as I was already wondering maybe I should just Esc.

Ari, sorry for that little touch which made you go tiny wide and loose valuable time to Darin.

The event report.

Quali:
Went suprisingly well. Maybe better was possible, but it was good nevertheless.

Race:
Started with Hard wets, really bad choice. Nevertheles I decided to make best of it. Pitted at the same time as Steve, few laps into the race. Here comes the first surprise. I accidently switched to AI! Great! Marvoulous! So I had to pit once more. Even better! Spent one lap as AI guided me through track. Race haven't even started yet and I was already in the pits twice. I was so happy that words can't describe.

Again, I decided to make best of things. In the process I had small touch with Craig and Ari, and good battle with Craig. He was slowing me down though, around 2 sec a lap, but passing wasn't very easy on already used tires. Obviously I had to pit when my fuel burned up. Here I go into the pits, full of joy as it was 3rd time I'm pitting in less then half of race gone by. And when I thought things can't go any better, I forgot, in a hury, to change tires, so I only took fuel! So I had to, once more, go into pits 2 laps in a row. Again I was so thrilled about it that I can't find words to describe it.

Only 1/3 of a race gone by and I was already in the pits 4 times. Am I a record breaker or what?

Here I was, ready for new adventures that lay ahead. Come end of 2nd stint, while approaching braking for T12 my pedals decided to act up. So there I was braking as hard as I can, while accelerator was still pressed despite my foot being off the accelerator pedal. Lambo, meet wall. How car survived that I really don't know. Nevertheless I decided to carry on and limp back to pits. Too bad it was end of my 2nd stint, as it killed all the fun of going into the pits 2 more times. Spent around 2 mins on reapirs.

And 3rd stint was quite uneventful. Only thing that happened was that my car spun on the braking, by itself, right in front of Tim, sorry Tim, it's wasn't me. Was it pedals acting up again or consequence of kissing the wall, I really can't tell. At the end of race, 7 mins till the end, I came to lap Dixon and Michaels, only to see they're battling so I backed off. Too bad your PC crahed John.

Here's hoping for more races like this! Brilliant!

Congrats CJ on yet another dominant win, my team mate for being best of the rest and Ari on his GT2 win.

Thx to our magic duo for making it all happen.

Pretty straightforward race for me.

Woke up a bit late today so I kinda rushed practice before the race. Qual was pretty decent but I could have had a better time if I had chosen med-meds; softs overheated quickly. Still, I qualified 6th so that is okay for me.

Race started in the rain which really made things complicated. In warm up, I tried driving in slicks and the car was fine but because the track was only damp and it still had a forecast of race, I went with wets....bad decision. The rain stopped within 10 min of the start of the race and the track was dry soon after so I had to come in for slicks. After the stop, the first stint was all about coming through the nGT field who didn't come in to change tires so that made things interesting. I did manage to catch up to Steve who was in the same boat as me.

2nd stops came and went and I found myself in 6th with Steve farther away from me. After Joe's disco, I moved up a spot and tried to track Steve down but lapped cars slowed me. Later, Steve spun and I took 4th away from him but he never lost sight of me and kept the distance close. It was a pretty good battle up until the last stop and while he did try a few maneuvers to get around me, I still kept him from passing. Right before the stops, Kent discoed in front of me going down the front stretch and managed to only clip him. Steve hit him too but we didn't have much damage after the little incident so it wasn't a big deal, but it sure scared the shit out of me :).

The final stops came and after the cycle, I found myself farther ahead of Steve in 4th place. That distance never really shrunk or extended a wide margin which made the 3rd stint pretty much of a bore, racing-wise. However, with a few minutes left in the race, John Dixon discoed before the final turn and I just barely missed him after finally realizing what happened to him. It appeared that caused some problems as Nuno, behind me, spun out because of it and a lap later, I saw Craig on his roof adjacent to where John discoed....not sure if he hit him but it made sense to me. Discoed cars are f'in dangerous :P. Other than that, the final part of the race was not too eventful and basically cruised home for a 4th place finish. Not too bad but I was hoping for a better finish since I enjoy this track...oh well...can't beat those damn aliens :).

Grats to the winners and cya'll next time :)