Spa 500k

About 30 laps in, while pitting Joe and I think Tim locked up,once I hd my fill with new shoes, right after guy told me to go, the game locked up.

It was one of the more difficult races... First dnf here in all spa 3 hour events since s1

OMG that was difficult. Was going to do two stops but ended up doing two with two full 90 second rebuilds.

Had an 1 fps or such and crashed to wall very hard. Left a ghost on track and Nuno hit that so that I saw a somersaulting Lambo in the air. Had to pit for extensive repairs, took full tank and now intermediates. What's the point with these intermediates when slicks are faster in wet?

Some hour and 15 minutes left I had to pit for second time for extensive full repair. This time I took full tank and original med-med tyres. It started to dry and car funally became very ood to drive, unfortunately it was too late.

Got a second "1 fps" or such on last lap when businessman was pushing a lawyer. When I was approaching this train fps started dropping and dropping and just before last hairpin it froze again. Luckily nobody hit me this time and there was just few hundred meters left.

I cannot remember another this difficult race in my career.

Thank you T&T for series, thank you fellow racers, grats winners, grats champions.

GRATS TO PETE BUNCE FOR SECURING 2ND PLACE IN SERIES

Put in a few mistake-free laps, but nothing spectacular, in Q and it was good enough for P2. Was holding that spot pretty comfortably for a few laps at the start. Then, two laps in a row I put a tire in the grass before Blanchimont. I saved it the first time. The second time, not so much, and I collected Pete in the process. Really sorry about that. By the time I regrouped I had lost several spots. Had some good racing with Jerry for a few laps, but I was losing time back there. The track was starting to get slick so I decided to stop early. Took on inters and just did my thing. Eventually I got back to the front of GT since most guys stayed on slicks I guess. I filled the tank for that middle stint and ran it dry. By the end, my tires were shot and I was losing a lot of time again, and dropped a few spots before pitting. I only needed about 65 liters at that point, so I should have pitted earlier. However, the rain stopped, so I took slicks. I think Jeff pitted right near the end, but I didn't have quite enough time to catch him. One less mistake and I could have probably had a podium. Nuts.

Congrats to CJ and Ari on their wins and Championships!!!

A most enjoyable final race for me. Thought I had a pit stop strategy that would help me work my way to the front. It did. The rain didnt help me though, it allowed the front runners to maybe do 1 or 2 more laps, which got them to the end. I will take 3rd anyday against this group.

Hope to be back for Season 5!

Determined to save as much fuel as I possibly could right from the start, I was short shifting and just going easy. Decided I didnt want any pressure from behind and let everyone pass. I had bolted on some extra downforce and softened the setup in anticipation of rain. As the track started to get wet I was amazed at how med slicks were OK. But it wasn't long before I had trouble keeping the tire temps up, and it was raining pretty hard at this point, so I decided to pit for wets. Big mistake, they had to come off in 2 laps becasue the rears had already gotten to 250 degrees F. Pitted for inters. After that mistake, I was in trouble of falling to last place with Tom Rue now right behind me, but I managed to pull away every lap. My race was pretty uneventful after that, until Dean went wide and his car made it's way back onto the track with nowhere for me togo (sorry Dean and anyone else that got caught up in that!) I pitted fo repairs, but she wasn't the same car after that. Just kept it on the track and limped home.

Congrats to Claus and Ari, and to everyone else I say "thank you" for an awesome S4. Even with all the other series to run here at R2P, the racing with this particular group is second to none. NOTHING COMPARES. Thanks to Tim for inviting me for S4, and I hope my conduct on the track this season will allow me to be invited again for S5.

Bob, you already signed up for next season, you are now contractually obligated to participate!

Shhhhh! I was hoping Tim and Todd hadn't noticed.

Woo! What a blast. As always, told myself that I just had to keep the nose clean and be patient when passing guys. Long 3 hours.

Mr Chen, meet Mr Stibling's elbow. :P I'd like to protest the zebras, that was no way a clean hip check, more like a slew foot with a good elbow thrown in! ;)

Just kidding Jeff, no worries. :D That was real fun holding you off there.

Saw forecast was for drizzling only, went with medium slicks all the way around. My race setup was pretty soft, so I wasn't worried about running in the wet with slicks unless it started to pour buckets on the track.

First 10 or so laps, had a blast battling with Adriano, Jeff, and Dean. I think I had the best speed through Eau Rouge out of all 3 of us, I got a really good run down the front stretch each lap, but it seemed Adriano and Jeff could just reel me in through sector 2. Memory is kind of fuzzy, don't remember who went where, I think Adriano and Jeff realized they were being held up a little bit, and pitted early. I look up, and half the 1st stint is over, and I'm having a blast rolling along on my medium slicks.

Come into pits, roll through after a 60 sec stop for fuel, and come out right behind Dean, Tommy, and Richard fighting like a pack of wild dogs. :) Great stuff to watch. Then I stuck my nose in and mixed it up with them a little bit as well, had some nice door to doors going into turn 2 after the long straight with Dean and Tommy I think. This went on for a few laps, until some GT1 traffic stretched out a gap between the 3 of them and me. Little did I know, that was a huge lucky break for me, as I come around Pouhon, saw a huge plume of dust and smoke, carbon fibre bits strewn across the race track. Just buried my head and charged through the debris and carcasses on the side of the track. :D Then come around, and see Johan struggling out of Stavelot... score! Picked up like 4 places in 3 corners! ;)

Just cruising along until the end of my middle stint. The medium slicks were starting to grind down, had 28% on the front lefts and Jeff closed up fast on my ass. Had rearview mirror full of Jeff's 360 for a good 4 or 5 laps. Then coming into Rivage, my toasted tyres meant a slow entrance speed, while Jeff just hammered the throttle and got the slightest nudge on my rear right bumper as he initiated the pass. Tried to hold onto it, but in my haste, reaching down for the clutch button with my thumb, hit the speed limiter instead. DOH! Stalled the bitch, and lost a big chunk of time to Jeff and Adriano. And almost smoked Barry as he barely avoided me as I'm trying to get the car going.

Did my last stop, and just cruised from then on for the whole last stint. As the track dried up, Adriano was able to hold a pretty consistent lead, and I just backed it off to make sure I could get the car home.

I think someone here needs to paint Tim a AAA paintjob since he did such a good job on pushing cars out of fuel to the finish line. :)

Awesome finish to the season guys, it was a pleasure.

Edit: Fixed the names of those damn Spa corners, keep getting their names wrong in my post races. :P

Congrats Claus Juel and Ari Nieminen on their wins, and wining championships.

Race Report
Quali:
Qulified 3rd. Could've been better as in last 3 mins of quali track had significantly more grip, only I decided to pit an didn't have time to do one more lap.

Race:
Dismal race, much like the whole season really. I decided to setup up car little more ovesteery, took a gamble, which didn't pay of as it was raining all through my 2nd and 3/4 of 3rd stint. Spun 2 times, which in total lost me somewhere around 35-40 seconds.

I must be unluckiest guy on earth when it comes to lapping guys. EVERYONE did excellent job, I just caught most of them on completely wrong place. :/

Ended up running whole race on slicks, which several other guys also did. Inters may have been better choice.

2 laps befor the end, I menaged to overtake Marc, but ran out of fuel 2 corners before finish line. Jerry along with Tim pushed me over the line.

All in all not a single race this season that worked out good for me, even when I took 3rd @ Imola I had some probs. Have no one but me, and a bit of bad luck, to blame though.

Onwards and upwards!

Looks like you guys had a challenging race. Sorry I couldn't be there. A new job 200 miles away, a house to get ready and sell, and life in general, has interupted my weekend racing. Not seen hide nor hair of my team mate since the first race either. Where's Bjarne when you need him, lol?

Doesn't look like Team Lister is going to get an invite into S5 either, with so many no shows. Well, I'll keep an eye on this series anyway, because I enjoy racing with you all and it was the only endurance series when I started, thanks to Tim and some creative modding.

Too bad we aren't using the new prototype mod that just came out. I've wanted to drive the open cockpit Panoz since it was in SCGT.

Good luck to all.

Jerry