The IGR Birmingham 350k

*laughs*

Murphy's law never fails, gents!!

I was having a great race and competing for the lead most of the time. The whole final stint I was challenging Jan for the lead and rarely did the distance between us go over 1 second...extremely close battle. With 5 minutes left to go, I was slowly creeping in on Jan after a brief stint in traffic when all of a sudden, the LS1 V8 goes KABLAMOOOOO!! on the back straight. Figures...

Unfortunately, I had a hunch the thing was going to explode. I was really liberal with the engine today, so its no wonder. On the rev limit, I raised it up to its maximum so the upshifts would be higher in the power band and also (by mistake), I had a radiator opening of 2 which I used for qualifying...forgot to change it. So the engine was running around its optimum temp and was working harder than usual, not mention that I was revving pretty high...so with all that mixed in, and explosion was bound to happen. But of course it had to do with 5 fucking minutes left!

Anyway, that was a great battle there Jan. Lots of fun :)

I'll cya guys later...

That was a fun race :)

Got 3rd on the grid after a pretty ok lap, PB by 0.1.
Got past Conor in the opening laps and tugged in behind Milan for some laps. Then saw an opening in T2 and went for it. Was along side him when he turned in on me and hit me in the driver door. Dont think he saw me, but I'm sorry the battle had to end like that.
Then, a few laps later, i pound it into the inside wall on exiting the downhill chicane in the only mistake I made all race, but what a noob mistake it was. Thought the car was done, but amazingly it soldered on. Phew!
Had a trouble free 2nd stint with Conor slowly eating up my lead. We entered pitlane on the exact same lap and came out about 2 secs adrift. That got caught up pretty quickly and a 30 lap battle would begin. We were never more than a sec apart, as Conor says. Was feeling the pressure a little as was evident on my many tiny mistakes, but none big enough for him to sneak by or make an attempt for it, fortunately.
With about 5 laps to go, he unfortunately blew which ended an epic battle. Sad to see it end that way, was an awesome battle. And thanks for not rearending me :)

Glad to see a low 1:18 isnt far off the pace in the Viper...

2 turns..... away from my first GT-Open podium. And I couldn't stick it. Radoslav, nice comeback at the end to get on the podium. My left front had nothing left on the last lap. 2 hours, 2 turns.... But glad to have completed the race on 1 stop.

And bummer that Conor and Sam blew up as they had excellent runs. Congrats both podiums!

Stupid friggin pit lanes!

One good thing is happen, the race in Birmingham is over.
Very difficult track for 2 classes racing as I expected.

Got a pole and leading race first 10 or so laps when Jan passed me after my slightly wide line in T2, I was surprised when saw him beside me and already got me, and my reaction wasn't fast last night, so that slight side by side contact lounched me widely into the grass and Conor past me also.
Anyway my rytham was not back till the end. I have tryed some different tyre tactics that almost finished with disaster when I start to lose it front grip due overheating. I settled on 3rd just waiting to finish this hard race.
But unlucky Conor lost his engine few laps to go and I taked 2nd., that was a more then I expect after all things happen.
Bad luck Conor and Samuel.

Grats to Jan for victory and George who spent his last lap to help Conor :), and also to nGT boys for clean raceing .
Grats to Matjaz, Conduruta and Rade :)

Milan

Pretty boring race for me tbh. Too bad only 8 of the 12 who entered GT showed up. Didn't have the speed to follow the top-3 and after Tom left there was noone pushing me. So it was all about making safe passes and doing clean laps. That went fine. An unexpected 3rd came when Conor's engine turned my view into nighttime for a while. Too bad when that happens after such a long race, but ... it was spectacular. Grats to Jan, Milan, Matjaz and the rest of the nGT-guys. No big problems when passing them.