Estoril 400k

Sadly, on lap 20 the server dropped 5-6 of us. The race continues with the remaining cars still on track.

I got pole by only 2 tenths over my team-mate Barry. I really wanted that pole for the extra point, and wanted a good finish of 1st or 2nd to further increase my points. Things were going well when the green flag dropped. Myself, Barry, Finn, and Tracy stayed nose to tail for a good number of laps. None of us were applying pressure to the others and we just cruised off some laps in the mid 1:43's.
Barry made a quick spin and Tracy began to fall off the pace that I was now setting with Finn close on my bumper. I couldnt allow Finn to stay too near me so I started laying down a tick faster lap times each lap. I was pretty blown away by it actually because on lap-5 I ran a 42.7, then a 42.6, 42.5, 42.4, 42.2, and finally a 41.9 on lap 10. The next 8 laps I stayed in the low 42's with Finn bouncing around in the high 42's and 43's.
By lap 15 we had GT1 traffic beginning to over take us and Finn had fallen behind me by 6 seconds. My pace stayed very consistant and my tire wear was perfect. I was seriously considering doing another 1-stop race because of it and had another 10 laps to consider it before I had to make the choice. I had enough fuel onboard, just in case.
Lap 18, the big disco... from the lead :(

Congrats to Craig and Tim on the poles! Way to go guys!

My day started off bad, I had a feeling there was going to be a maulfunction earlier in the morning within this race, and booted I was.
Arrgghh,

My qualy went terrible, I had what i thought was an awesome set-up only to fail me miserbly, I couldn't keep it on the track to save my life. :( So I just loaded up my race set-up to get a time in and I grid fourth.

The race started of goofy, no grip and I had a small off in turn 7, no biggie, I just figured I should just chill out put the head down and turn some laps, I maintained a 1.37.0 pace which was good enough to keep steve in eye sights and 3rd place, then comes the big massive disco @ lap 19...I think 8 drivers were dumped off the server and i was one of them.

Congrats to the winners!!!

It was all Steve's fault that we all crashed I bet! I was just gonna cruise through the whole race. I somehow cooked the front tires with about 10 laps to go until my first pitstop and was having some trouble getting the car to turn. All of a sudden I was looking at my desktop with the error report thingy to send to Microsoft. Ah well, time to start training for Barcelona.

Hoh, Ive been one of droped guys. I reckon that my GTR droped down after message error on the screen but now I see what actually happened.
So unlucky us couple dropped.
But however graet expiriance for me that 20 laps and who ever win congrtas from me.
Cya

I started out not too thrilled with the car or the track. As the race progessed, I found I was actually getting around without crashing into anyone or anything! That's a first! 45 mins from the end the weather changes (and my graphics get real jittery when that happens), and it starts raining. Perfect! I had practiced in the rain a few days earlier. After a couple laps in the rain I pit and put on soft slicks all around and finish the race on those. The very last lap the radio guy says "Tires worn, take it easy". Perfect timing, finish the race without any mishaps, only a couple minor excursions into the gravel, but no crashes. That was my best race yet!

Very sorry so many got disco. :(

Until that disaster I was barely keeping up with Mr McArthur but my evil race plan would have started to work at later point. I hope. After the discos I managed to keep some sort of a racepace but my laptimes started to fade and Mr Nolte started getting closer.

I pitted halfway (sooner than planned) and went with same soft-med slick combo although I would have needed softs at the rear too as they were not getting up to temp. Soon after that it started to rain. Well, it wasn't proper rain, just a moist breeze. I was not willing to risk another pitstop for wets in case it would dry up soon so I stayed out and started to pull away from Mr Nolte so I stayed on slicks until finish.

Very sad that my S3 podiums are results of misfortunes of fellow racers but I'll take it nevertheless.

Grats to all survivors and hats off to Gentleman-Steve.

Rather cruddy race on my part. Was totally disappointed to see more than half of the GT1 and GT2 field get discoe'd - and for no apparent reason - one of the strangest online things I have seen. Was looking forward to the battle at hand. Finn's pre-race prayer for rain worked. My pre-race plan not to screw up did not pan out.

Craig got a deserved victory for hanging on in difficult conditions and Finn, well, he just got lucky. ;)

Barcelona - here I come!!

Fellas Today was a blast. It was nice to have a dry track up until the end.

I had fun hanging in with the front 3 for a handful of laps at the beginning...then there was a massive disco? Sorry for the "wtf" chat, but I saw so many people disco I just assumed that I was going to get kicked as well and we would start over.

Fortunately, the server god says to me "go race my son" and so on I went...struggling to bring down a 40+ second lead that, I think, Jeff had over me...I brought it down to about 20 seconds then had to pit for fuel and tires.

Then when the rain started...sheesh...i took wets to start, but then pitted for fuel and switched to Monsoon - they seem to heat up better and have more grip, but by that time I was 3 laps down to Jeff and just struggling to maintain the 20 second lead I had over 6th place...hitting the sand a couple of times didn't help my chances any...but i managed to hold on.

Don - I tried to help push you out of the gravel, but you seems to be pretty buried in there...I couldn't budge you. I'd like to see that on replay, it prolly looks ridiculous...trying to intentionally arse ram ya!

Good clean race fellas. Hope I got out of the way of the leaders quick enough. Certainly keeps a person on their toes.

mog

very sorry about the disco problem for the drivers in question. led me to a podium followed by an asterik. more than anything, the race was an exercise in concentration. the discos happened early and the absence of traffic made it very easy to be tempted to lose concentration. when it began to rain, it actually made it fun. track got wet but not wet enough for wets. i had to pit just before the rain fell and was on slicks. ran about 20 some odd laps on slicks and braking began to be very adventurous. switched to wets and felt less comfortable and slower on wets than on slicks even though the track was wet.

everything else aside, very happy to finish only one lap down to craig. and more than the finish, got 80 some odd more laps of experience.

steve smith showed great class, as always. a gentlemen racer. congrats to craig, mr finn, and all the competitors and finishers (non-discoees seems more apt). thanks to HRH for making it happen.

as for tifosi #1 and tifosi #2, prancing ponies indeed. the Bulls are after you punks. craig and i made a pony sandwich on the podium. il duce, il duce.

Well for all i know, i may have caused the mass disconnection with my departure from the server just 5 seconds before the incident happened. I dont know if i caused the server to become unstable or what but its sure an odd coincidence that it happened right after i left. So, sorry in advance if it was my fault....i have never seen this happen before in any other game i played online with so this is pretty weird :(.

Anyway, my race wasn't too good which answers why i had an early dismissal. I messed with my good setup too much and i ended up with a piece of shit. Oh well, i guess i intentionally treated this race like a testing session so now i know what NOT to do for the next race :). Basically, all i changed was a few damper settings and it was enough to make my setup change from a nice and snugly tight feeling to an annoying loose condition. So while struggling with a loose car my tires wore down with a lot of laps left in the stint and with worn tires, i began spinning and eventually i crashed which resulted in my departure and the rest is history............

SEE YA ALL AT BARCEONLA!!! OH BOY I JUST LOVE THAT TRACK YAY!!!.....................bah!