USA G2: Donington

what a load of krap ..

bullsh*t start got me boxed in between 2 cars and i had knowhere to go, so frustrating, than just idled to T1 *yawn*

Sorry mark for the tap going down the hill, you lifted because of action infront of you and i had no reaction time .. You lost 3 places so i did a drive through..

Race over

Quali was not too bad, the start was ok, but T1 wasn't. Tom had a bad start and pushed me "significantly of the racingline" which eventually threw me back to 11th. It brought me behind Dennis and Bobby for a while. In the end I finished 17 secs in front of them so that makes me wonder what my result would have been without the T1 incident. Normally I wouldn't make a big deal out of it but this time it has significant impact on the driver- and teamstandings in this series. I will sleep on it and decide what to do tomorrow.

My time settings for r2p are 1 hour off after the daylight savings time. so i thought i had about 50 minutes to practice. so i joined the server with 5 minutes to go in quali, so i did 3 laps to get used to the M3, which i havent driven in months. did ok with 9th on the grid, since i know donington pretty well. Got a crazy start, gaining one spot over dennis, but by t4 i was on 10th. then i just decided to take it easy on my mediums. i had some great running with george and dennis, each of us doing a couple of mistakes that lead to some position swapping. but it really got interesting when my left front got a rating of 30 wear in GTR2pd 12 minutes to go. so i took it easy, kent flew by me, but dennis was closing in, so those last 12 minutes or so was a great battle with dennis, fighting for 7th. we did some great overtaking and swapping positions, until the last turn, where i had a backmarker who i planned to overtake, since he went wide. didnt see you Dennis, when you dove tot he inside, so we touched, dennis got the position, but i set up my car for a fast exit to catch up with dennis again, drag-racing in the straight and gainign the position back with about 3/4 carlength at the finish line! WOOHOO!!! great racing and sorry for the last turn incident dennis

Congratulations to Ryan with another win for Eagle Race Team, and to the podium finishers!

Great race for me and thanks to everyone that was courteous throughout the race.

In practice I got down to a 129.6 and thought for sure I could beat the record in qualifying and well like always I did worse in qualifying than in practice lol whatever. The race was good Kent got a great start and made his way past me a couple of turns into the first lap and I got the position back on the next corner. From there I tried to conserve tires and my engine and was just barely pulling from Kent. With 20 minutes left my lead went from like 8 seconds to 21 seconds and then I began to go even easier on the tires. With 10 mins left I was getting the warnings and just ran it in very easy to the finish. I tried very hard all race to conserve tires and not worry about my lap times but still ran into some interesting closing laps.

I am sorry guys, that really sucked...

I did not get near enough practice for this one and it showed. The car did not handle right all race long. It was better than practice though. I lost it three or four times in the last 15 minutes, giving up two or three spots.

I hope no one had a problem driving around me.

See you guys at the next one.

Well, at least now I know why Tom O' loves the Mosler so much. ;-)

Did about a dozen laps in it beforehand since I'd never driven it, and it didn't seem all that bad. Pretty benign handling wise, just a bit slow and lacking high speed grip. Got it down to a high 31 in Q trim, about a second off that in race mode, and I figured I could manage with that.

Had traffic in qualifying and couldn't match the offline pace, but probably couldn't anyway. FPS sucked anywhere near the pits online and it was screwing me up in those corners - ended up 12th, one spot behind Rob who was 1st Mosler. C'est la vie.

Start was a bit hectic with some guys getting off slow and the ensuing weavery. Rob got a killer launch and grabbed a few spots right off. I was just trying to avoid problems and got through lap one in 10th, where I stayed for a bit. Moved up to 9th when Gary almost looped it off the last corner, then slid back to 10th when my teammate George went by into the chicane. The same chicane where I was crawling through again tonight just like I was in the Elise race. I really suck at chicanes! Not as much as I do at pitting, but still...

As the race progressed I moved up to 8th, and had a nice go with Gary who had caught back up to me after his mishap. Have to say thanks for his patience, as I was slower and surely holding him up. There were several times he could've gotten me but he waited for a cleaner opportunity to come. The chance came, but it wasn't so clean. We'd caught John R who we were lapping, and going into the old hairpin after Craner he just about stopped, right on the entry line - with me going full tilt close behind. I'm guessing he was wanting to let us by, but that wasn't the best place to stop. ;-) I slammed on the brakes and went straight off into the gravel trap, losing three spots and about ten seconds. Was pretty pissed for a bit and had to work to get my head back into it.

Was trying to get collected and cope with the changing balance as my med/hard tire combo wore down when Heinz came up from behind, as I'd caught Kevin who we were lapping and gotten stalled a bit. Kevin was on it, driving hard enough to go off trying to stay ahead, so it was taking some effort to get by his BMW. I saw an opportunity out of Redgate and tried the inside of the right hander at Craner, but caught a bump wrong and got into a nasty tank slapper. No doubt scared the crap out of Heinz! Managed to get it gathered up and got by Kevin then, but went off again the next lap as that near-death experience had cooked the tires pretty well.

All there was to do at that point was dial it back and get home in one piece, so that was the rest of it. Well done to team BMW up front. Grrrr... ;-)

Hey George, I understand where you're coming from, but I have two things. One is Barry was trying to go inside me and I was trying to leave him room. And two is, if I recall the rules correctly, the first lap punt rule is defined to apply only to "front-to-rear" contact. We had side contact due to close racing.

The race was really fun, tough though. Quali had me on the front row, behind only Ryan (awesome lap, man) but my start was HORRIBLE. I was all set on launching off the line and getting into T1 first, but I just blew it completely. Barry went to the inside in T1 and we were three wide, almost 4 I thought. Kent and Les both got through as well, so I was sitting 5th by the time we got out of T1. Ryan and Kent kind of ran off, and I was in no hurry to have a full-on battle with two teammates, so we ran at a safe distance from each other at a consistant pace. The battle for 6th looked pretty intense, every time I looked back I saw a new person in front. I just didn't want to become part of that, I wasn't comfortable with heavy racing in my car. Too unstable. Somehow we all got in fron of Kent, I thought I was 4th for the longest time. Then Les let me by (I think, might have been a mistake?) and I was in 3rd (thinking I was in 4th) The last 10 minutes I started going as fast as I was comfortable and I caught up to Barry for the most part. Then I just lost concentration and he was gone. Race finished like that.

Great win Ryan, and good racing with Barry and Les. Congrats to all CanAm guys, awesome result tonight for the whole team. And George, I'm sorry about what happened. If you feel it was more than a racing incident or needs to be dealt with, I understand.

Got a great launch (practiced a few in warmup) and tucked in behind Tom O, but wasn't able to keep up their pace in the Mosler.

Got hit which caused me to spin -- got going again but it appeared to have caused some rear end damage as the car suddenly had really bad oversteer. Tried to hang on as best I could but eventually just had to call it a day and quit.

On to the next one...maybe I'll get lucky and can go back to the real cars.

I got a late start to this one. I entered with about 5 to go before qualy and headed out to check the setup. To my surprise, someone had changed the course from the National to the GP as I was heading down the back straight! All that practice on the Nat course for nothing. Darn it all.

I choose to run my race setup in qualy to see if it would be okay. My start position shows.

I had a decent start and bobbed and weaved my way to 12th at T1. I held steady there for about the first half of the race when I lazily 1/2 spun out of the chicane. That dropped me to 16th. I ran alone until the end pick up places after folks spun and DNF'd.

Rob: Looks like you're getting your wish for the last race. I'll still be in the zambonie for the final race. Ironic that I was in or near the T5 all season and may finish below that after the final race. I drove the Bimmer once and the Porsche once. The rest of the way has been in the Morgan or Mosler.

I enjoyed that, but i was too slow on my laptimes to catchup with anyone...but i did have fun having you guys fight to pass me smoothly. ;) Great racing with Pro's.