USA nGTx: Estoril

Man, that was a lot of fun. I haven't drivin those NGT's or Estoril in a longtime. I remember know how much of a blast they are to run. Good run holding off Mr. Jackson(Ferrari) until my tires went away. Did everyone witness the carnage on Lap 1 with all of the people with packet problems? Were there people logged in at the wrong date rate? Who knows? Great Time and we will see you next time. Mikie

That was a disaster!

Decent qual position although I had a lot left but couldn't find clear track.

Got a great start too but got spun around in T1 back to 24th or so and with damage. Okay I'll just deal with it. Quickly caught a group of 5 that displayed some really really sad driving. Watched one guy that has raced here a long time plow through 3 cars in 2 laps...well done!

Anyway things are looking better about 2-3rds into my stint I am now running 10th with 9th just ahead. Unfortunately I came throught the second hairpin and the was a car parked on the inside and Jeff was spunout on the outside. Naturally I went outside and clobbered Jeff, luckily I was able to continue.....until the next corner when the crew informed me I had a flat front!

After a lengthy pit stop, I rejoined in 24th! Made my way back to 18th I think when I passed Garrett. Naturally right when I was in front of Garrett my computer starts lagging REAL bad and when I could see again Garrett was spinning off the track. Real sorry about that Garret, I knew passing a lead car was a bad idea but I really had no choice. After a few more corners and all the sudden I am looking at my desktop! Toggle back and rejoin again in 21st.

Make my way through all the stops and I catch George Pol and pass him for 10th. Wow this isn't turning out to be that bad. Caught up to 9th and was on his tail into the hairpin again and again there is a car parked. 9th slams the parked car I hit him and I see his wing fly off but we continue until the kink where he finds out he has no wing, spins inside I go outside and here he comes into me.

Meanwhile Andrew Carson is coming behind us and avoids the spinning car but comes out of the grass at me and I brake and swerve to avoid getting collected, end result, Andrew gets a easy pass on me.

Few laps later while making up some ground on Andrew, I get my second view of my desktop, toggle back in 15th but again with a flat tire and I say to myself....thats enough of this crap!

cya at Nurb.

Hey I just realized I should be able to run the RSR for 2 races :)

I already wrote an email to Kent to apologies for punting him in T1. What happend there was completely my fault and the result of missing my brakepoint on cold tyres. Here I also want to apologies to everyone who got into trouble because of that. I did my drivethrough and after that it was pure damagecontrole. Two stupid spins made me lose some valuable positions but given the T1-punt the endresult could have been worse. Grats to the guys who made it to the podium.

This was my first race. I've also never driven the track till practice, but I had a great time. Had to do a drive through because I hit someone on the first lap. It was a glitch or somthing because I never saw him till he was 2 feet in front of my car. Congrats winners.

i feel dissapointed...

I accidently tapped A Brunet, sorry for that... I was locking up and couldn't do a whole lot...

I spun Dennis on lap one - accidental punt, felt horrible watching other cars slam into him knocking various parts of the back of his car... Didn't know wether to stop or not so i just continued on... battled with a car until pit time, went in from 11'th place and came out 21st.

Fought to 9th and tried to hold my position, Jhonny came out of the pits and i stayed up behind him within 2 seconds for a while... he then gained a big 30 second lead when i downshifted to what i thought was 2nd gear and ended up in first...
Made the mistake of backing up on the track, and eventually made it back onto the track.

Then I kept driving, noticing that 2 cars had spun on turn 4, and i just drove by, unaware of what to do. I noticed a slower yellow porsche (kent) and i thought he was offering me my spot back, so I made that cheap pass on him. Sorry for that kent... I really couldn't for the love of God, figure out what was all happening there, I just wanted to avoid it all.

The one thing that dissapoints me is that I finished ninth, but the official standings here on Race2Play say 18th. I assume this is because I punted someone... I was under the impression that if you accidentally punt someone, the race steward tells you that you need to do a drivethru penalty...

I would have taken the penalty that i deserved, but i never heard from the race steward... So i must of done something wrong...

Nice finish everyone.

not a problem Andrew, I am sure I would have done then same, then posted that I got a cheap pass :P

Punting: Actually the rule is something like, even if you feel it was an accident you do the drive thru on your own. Remember the stewards cannot see everyone so they will not always call you for the drive thru. End result is what happened to you, loss of a lap.

That was my first race here at Race 2 play, and it was awsome. I dont run estoril much but I was please with a mid pack finish.

Mike, thanks for a good run throught the race, you were hard to pass. I hands where glued to the wheel. I dont care much for estoril, but that made it very exciting. I was able to make the tires last longer, but it wasnt easy.

Not sure what happened at the begining of the race, I just saw alot of porsches sideways. I hope I didnt cause any problems.

Clean race from what I saw after that, this was definetly signing up for.

Grats to the podium,
Came into this racing feeling I had a great chance at a respectable finish...wrong :(
Got home 7 minutes to qualy :(

Qualy went terrible, never got a clean lap in and had to settle for P6.

The start went astray, I couldn't see the lights and was a bit slow off the line, entered T1 cautiously and was forced into the playbox, exited T1 P12 :( at this point something was wrong with the car, I am not sure if i was hit but the car wouldn't turn anymore. I soldiered on and a few laps later when I entered parabolica we were three wide and another porsche spun right in front of me and I clobbered him, I had no place to go, sorry bud, I am sure I took on heavy damage b/c my left front never dipped below 110, and your bumper got disintegrated on impact, I finally made my way up to Gregg, we had a good battle for many laps and found his weakness, T3 & 4 so I timed it accordingly to get him on exit and he broke early on T4 and I turned him around, I am sorry friend, as I was sitting there in distraught waiting for him to rejoin, contemplated the ESC button as I was not a happy camper with my action :( but I decided against it, soldiered on. I pitted just past half way and my crew did an awesome job on putting this piece of crap back together :) but as the laps ticked off the damage again took its toll on the left front killing my lap times by 2.5 per lap :(

Well that was kind of fun, I think...
until next time...
Cheers,

Guys, I was the root cause of the mess in T1. Apologies all around, especially to Kent. I'd gotten a harder launch from 3rd grid spot than Rob and we entered T1 nearly side by side, me on the inside. Couldn't really see him out there, but figured he was going in hot so I braked really hard to make sure I could stay tight and not slide out into him on cold tires. A bit too hard, as the rears got a touch loose and the car rotated too soon so I got onto the inside curb. Kept it in hand, but lost a lot of momentum and got a light tap from behind. That was what started the accordion further back - the cars up front were slowing more in T1 than they would have, then the mess ensued that got Kent turned.

After that, it was very straightforward. Didn't see the qualifying times before the race, but it was obvious within two laps that Maciej and Rob were going to disappear, so I didn't even try to stay with them - just wasn't gonna happen. Wasn't sure who was behind me, but figured it was either Kent or Matjaz (who it turned out to be). I managed to very gradually pull about a 3-second gap by about midway, when he pitted. I stayed out until lap 20, which is what killed me. I'd been in 3rd with about 3 seconds in hand when he pitted, but I came out of my stop more than that down on Matjaz who taken 3rd in the transition. I figured my usual pit suckage was to blame, but our pit laps were nearly the same. I did lose about a second and a half, but that's super for me! The main loss was slow laps running around on shot tires - plain bad strategy.

Chased anyway thinking I'd been a bit quicker in the opening stint, but he had a better second leg and we stayed in lockstep to the end, with only traffic really causing any changes. Amazing how close we were on pace; dumped the laps into Excel, and taking out the opener and pitstop laps, our average laptimes were within .03 of each other.

Happy to get 4th in the end, and glad to get Estoril out of the way - at least the GTR2 version. This track and my PC just don't get along. I was getting really bad stuttering at a lot of times, and my framerate was getting slideshow-like in T3. Something about GTR2 when you get near the pits just kills the framerate; even during races when everyone's on track. This on a system that was passing 200FPS in places at Putnam in rFactor the other night.

Really never on the pace again.Started 17th,got turned around in t3,waited til i couldn't see any cars coming and turned only to bump into Kent,srry,just thought all cars had gone.Then got bumped into the kitty litter next corner.Things were going well from then on and came out of my pitstop in 12th i think.Eventually moved up to 10th with Kent looming up and then made contact with that spun car.Just before the sweeper,i'm told the rear spoiler is gone and found out that you really need it as the rear just left me.A couple of pathetic spins later,waiting for Tim to tell me to park it,i made the pits and got repaired.