Oschersleben 400k

Well talk about being gifted a win. That was one lucky arse race for me. Qualified 4th, a full 1.5 seconds off of Barry's pace - the dude was flying! Managed to screw up the first turn of the first lap, but lukcily no damage. First stint was awful for me, I spun I think 5 or 6 times. BUT, everyone else was spinning off the track as well, so I didnt lose as much time as I could have. Had some series battles with Dave Pike, going into the triple he decided I was too slow I guess and gave me a love tap. I have no idea how I saved the car :). Second stint was a little better, only 1 spin I think. Managed to gain some time to the leaders. Dave I think had a problem and put me in 3rd behind Kent and Tim. Kent blew up and gifted me 2nd place behind Tim. Then Tim pitted I think, and some how I managed to get in front of Tim. Both he and I thought that he was a lap ahead of me, so he cruised along too much. I still dont know how I got in front of him, but the third and final stint was jsut all about keeping the car on the track. Came home with a victory. Not bad for a slow as cold syrup Porsche driver! :) Hey, I'll take the wins any way I can get them.

Grats to Jeff S who drove a perfect GT1 race!

Tough track, again if you saw the checkered flag - congrats to you!

Bah another Engine failure. There goes my ranking :D

Had a decent qual considering I did zero prep for this race, started 2nd. T1 lap 1 Barry decided to go through the gravel and I figured what the hell and followed him through. Barry got the worst of that and dropped to third with Tim getting by both of us. FOllowed Tim for a number of laps before his missed T3 and let me by. I started with Hard rears and they were a handfull to say the least. Tim, Barry and I each had at least 2 offs by the time we pitted. Somehow I managed to have my third off on my in lap and that cost me 3 spots dropping to 9th overall. Managed to get up to Steve and he let me pass only to watch me drive straight into the T1 wall. Caught him again and he let me by again. Then I could see Dave ahead and was thinking...maybe I can overcome this deficit...kaboom race over.

I opened my radiator before the race to avoid any chance of overheating and I was barely reving at the time of the blowup. Guess I will need to drop the rev's for the next event.

This race serves as a good example about how just one mistake can be so costly in this league. Qualified 6th so I was able to stay away from the GT2 guys. Having a grand old time following a train led by Jeff, Conor, and Claus and we get to the last corner and I miss the apex. I go off across the gravel trying everything to stay off the tires but no, I slide into them. So on L4 off to the pits and about a min or so later I am back on track all the way down to 15 or 16. Before long I am lap down to the GT1 crew and now I am totally out of sequence. Got back up to 5th and had a cup of coffee w/ 4th but still out of sequence. Ended up 5th but just goes to show that if you have to hope for someone else to make a mistake, they dont make them in this league.

Anyway, I had about 60 to 80 mins w/ Craig H during the last 1/3rd of the race on very long runs. What a blast! Thanks for the courtesy and for the fun. That Craig drives the Bull also made it even more enjoyable. Thanks Craig.

Jeff Stibling is crazy fast. He denies it but the man is indeed an alien. Steve Smith can drive anything. Congrats also to all competitors and finishers. Everyone I encountered drove hard but smart. Great job guys and thanks to HRH for making the race happen.

A pretty good race for me (two in a row... thank you). The first stint was sloppy but the rest of the race went pretty good. For the final hour I thought I was in the lead... Steve tricked me into believing that he was a lap down to me (you bastard) so I backed way off to finish the race in the top spot. It was until the final 20 minutes that I saw steve on the track and he was the car in front of me... for position, but had a 30 second lead... because I backed it down for a half hour. Not much I could do at that point but settle for 2nd. This is where GTR fails is all... we have no clue where the other cars are in our class, otherwise I would have charged at Steve early on and maybe come out with a win.

Im not really upset with Steve, he didnt know any better then me. And in all reality, it was a great race and a great finish considering how difficult the track is.

I have to applogize to Dave Pike who *I thought* I was racing for the lead in GT2 at the time. dave, you and I were having a great battle and you slid wide in turn-2. I got under you and you came back down to your normal line. We touched, you spun, and I slowed up waiting for you to catch back up so we can get back to the racing. I guess something more critical happened as you were getting back up to speed, because you DNF'd out right after. I was heart-broken... you where having a fantastic race and I hate being the guy that ruined it for you. Again, my appologies and great racing with you for that hour.

Holy cow... I look at the standings and look who is creeping up the ladder in sleath mode! Goran, out of no where with some good podium finishes (another here at Oscher) is right in the think of it all. Great driving Goran, glad to see it :)

My race... Well once I got over the starting jitters all went well, started 2nd fell to third for 2 laps while pressuring craig and he bobbled and I took the spot graciously, I tailed bjarrne for 3 more until his big off on lap 8, I led the race from there & I built a 18 second lead thru my second pit stop, I think my crew had a mechanical failure because it took them an eternity to get the impact wrenches going to remove the rear lug nuts. There were a couple scary moments on my behalf, Jerry nearly gave me a heart attack and then there was the car that cruised thru the corner coming out the other side just behind me in turn 7 & 8, whooo, I was really worried that I was a sitting duck when he comes out the other side, then there was lap 60, three abreast on the back stretch...totally unplanned but wild... I will say I was getting complacent near the last 20 laps and Connor made me earn the finish... he kept me honest and raced clean. Steve...congrats on your win, the ultimate sandbagger, I am learning... and to all the competitors...great job of racing...clean and fun, In the end I had one sole off (and this was my cleanest race yet) and that was trying to pass I believe claus, this guy is a alien in a gt2 car racing a gt1 field...sorry claus...BTW, I had my player display option off at the start of the race and I didn’t want to risk hitting the ESC instead of the TAB key, so if I forgot to mention anybody...sry. And Joe...dude, go to pep boys...I hear they sell 36 lap gas tanks, you have got to dump that that four quart version and upgrade.

Well, didn't end up with too bad of a finish. Started on the pole (suprized) because after I ran my Q, I was watching Tim and Kent, and Kent was on a good lap with a 1/10 or 2 going into the last sector but in the last turn he got kinda warblee and that kept me on the pole :). TQ blues for me into turn1 lap 1 and off to the gravel I go! Came back onto the track behind Tim and Kent but only for a few laps and off I went again only in turn 2 and backed it into the tire wall. Must have done some damage to the wing because 7 or 8 laps later I did the same thing and barely touched the wall, and the rear wing came off this time. Struggled to the pits and had repairs done. Now a lap down in my class for the rest of the stint knowing I will have to pit again and have to make it last 40 laps on the 3rd stint so I put enough fuel for just that, but the engine started smoking with about 20 laps to go. I nursed the engine and trans for 15 laps when it finally gave up with 4 or 5 laps to go so I pulled it off the track and sat on the side of the trap when Chip pulled up behind me and pushed me out of the sand trap(THANKS CHIP) and after Tim finished he pushhed me across the line to finish again! (THANKS TIM AGAIN) Ended up in 5th place, Got rid of that bagel in my poles stats though so I'm happy. Congrats to Steve and Jeff on your wins and to all finishers.

I would also like to THANK ALL for the courtesy and sportsmanship of this great group of guys and league.

What.A.Race. Man-o-man this was one of my best races of all time in this league and was definitely one of the more fun ones i have had. Finishing 2nd with a very good chance of winning in the final stages of the race really had me focused at the task at hand. Usually i would get lazy and just cruise for the final stint in 8th place but not this one. Once i saw Jeff appear in my windshield with 30 mins left and closing, i was eager for a win...never won a GT1 race before and winning one at one of my favorite tracks would have made my weekend. Buuuut....Jeff and his damn Ferrari were too good for me :D. I did manage to close up to his bumper with a half an hour left but didn't get much closer to that. So i spent most of the last stint just sitting 1 sec-2 sec behind him waiting for him to screw up but that never happened and i eventually got tired and finally drifted back to 8 secs from him in the end. Still a fun battle though :).

The rest of the race was also fun too. I spent most of it in 2nd but never really had much pressure from the rest of the GT1 field. So i got most of the fun out of avoiding all the GT2 cars out on the track :P. Man, by lap 5, it seemed like the track started exploding GT2 cars all over the place. I saw a lot of them flying off the track or spinning out and avoiding them was pretty fun....well maybe not for them but making a split second move in a fat-assed viper with a car spinning out in front of me really made me busy. The weird thing was that it felt like the field was larger than it really was. In the GT-I race, traffic didn't seem to be a large issue as far as im concerned but in this race, traffic tended to be heavy and making passes stick in questionable passing zones through the congestion proved to be challenging. In that regard, i thought i did a pretty clean job of passing people today. There were a couple of instances where i had to shove my way through but i didnt cause a wreck and it didnt seem to screw up anyone else in the process. If i did cause a ruckus, please let me know :). So all in all, i thought it was a pretty damn good race with a pretty damn good result to finish off a pretty damn good weekend.

So congrats to the winners, Jeff and Steve! Good job at navigating your ways through this tough course. And a special grats to CJ for making that piece of shit porka onto the podium. It may not be a surprise to some but i thought you did a hell of a job. If you would have won that race, you probably would have made all the GT1 racers look like fools :D. Also, grats to my teammate Dan for coming home in 6h in GT1. Looks like you had an eventful race but at least you finished, man. Great job :)!

i spun few times in front of faster cars , trying to *help* passing , very stupid from me ... apologize to all

very hard track for mixed_class_race

Congrats to Jeff, Conor and Claus in GT1 and Steve, Tim and Goran in GT2. :)
My apologies for holding anyone up during my miserable drive at Osher. It was only by my bone headed refusal to give up that I managed to finish this most difficult race. I don't know why I struggle so much in GTR, but I find this sim very hard to run at the limit. I am very happy to have finished this race. :)
The 1st half of my race was spiced up with first my brake foot cramping up, then my throttle foot and leg started to go numb! It then worsened into a full on cramping of my right leg!!! This made driving extremely painful to the point I had to pull over and stop. The discomfort was quickly forgotten after coming up on Enzo Trede in his GT2 Mosler. These several laps running behind Enzo made this terrible race worth it. :)
Lap after lap we ran with my LA Viper Motorsports Viper unable to make a safe pass. I'm sure Enzo was just cruising to the finish but I was having the time of my sim racing life running behind him. This went on lap after lap with my being able to finally get past him going into the Shell Esses, only to slide wide exiting the SE letting Enzo regain his position. This finally came to an end when Tim and someone who was right on his tail came up on us approaching the Bilstein chicane. I pulled over as far as I could to let them by but there was some contact and I went off to do some more lawn cutting. I think I'll send a bill for all the gardening I did at Osher.
My troubles weren't over yet, on my last pit stop I only added enough fuel for 15 more laps, well it was about a lap short! When Jeff went by me I thought I might make it but there was still over 1:30 to go so I knew I would have to go 2 more laps. :( I drove the last lap at a slug's pace (I'm usually snail pace already) and crossed the finish line with .8 liters of fuel left in the tank. I ended up running out of fuel just as I entered the pit entry after cutting the course to try and make it back to my pit stall.
I've never had any kind of fatigue problems before ( FFB settings very high for high effort with steering input). In fact after the 3hrs at Spa, I was ready to go one more! I have been pretty sick all week with some kind of stomach flu so guess that had something to do with my wimpy body problems.
With all my problems during this race, I can say the laps with Enzo really made this on of my funnest races yet - looking forward to many more with you guys in the future.
Special congrats to my teammate Conor for a great drive in 2nd place, way to go champ! You'll win one soon I'm sure. :)
Dan LAVM