Anderstorp 330k (GT/nGT)

I lost connection during the warm up lap. Hope you all had a good race.

Race totally sucked for me. anderstorp is the least favorite yo me. I hate the track, I hate the pits, I just hate it. Not to mention I suck there. Last place , crashed out of course.

By the way did I tell you I hate the place.

Of course my real problem was my setup. I went too light on the rear wing, thinking I could do a little better. I used a the lower setting for practice but raised it for qualifying due to a lighter fuel load. that was the mistake that cost me position after position and eventually made me lose it mid race.

I simply could not keep the tail on the track. I was practicing in the low 31s last night and got into the high 30s, so I thought I would do ok. But in the longer run, the lighter wing setting just didnt work out. Lessonn learned.

By the way...did I tell you I hate Anderstorp?

I must start by making a massive apology to Tolga. He was in the lead at about half way, and coming around the penultimate corner we where nose to tail (him a lap ahead) with an nGT car ahead. I was much faster at the time (one extra pitstop I assume?) and I was on a charge to catch Darin and Kent ahead, so I tried to go around the outside, but at the same moment he tried to pass the nGT, and we warped together, which sent him flying into space.
I'm glad to see you didnt have to retire Tolga, but I wish you'd stayed on track at the end (and not pitted) when I caught you, because I really wanted to give you 3rd as a sorry... but i didnt know if you'd pulled in to retire or what, so I just carried on. If my driving is seen as incompetant, I will gladly take a DQ from this race, because it was a stupid error of judgement on my part, but thats up to the officials to decide...

Anyway, other than that the race was fantastic. I had a 'booted because of possible cheating' problem during practice and qualifying so didnt get to do a lap in either (it was caused by an FIA GT 2002 mod I downloaded earlier, so I had to reinstall GTR2 from my ridiculously crap DVD drive, which took an astonishing 30 mins!!!), and chose the Lambo at the moment of joining the server! So I was going in cold, and had to start from the back. The start was interesting, trying to pass those nGTs and slower GTs as fast as possible.
I think 2 full stops was too much pitting, but I wasnt really thinking about that too much at the start :P it did allow me to get on fresh tyres a lot though, which helped me almost get the lap record... 1 more tenth!!!

Anyway, I'm happy with the result, but I wish I hadnt had that one incident with Tolga... I dont know what else to say...

Its np Scott but i should say that it killed my race, lost 12-13 secs there and adding that i got a damage, after this incident i still 30 secs ahead of 2nd driver, till my pit it reduced to 25 secs and i had to add less fuel to not losing my position but this time with my fault i added very less lol, then had to pit again while entering last lap. I got 4th place but i think i deserved a better place but i think with my lack of experince these kind of very long races caused that. My pit stop strategy was useless lol.

Actually it was an interesting race and i take this race as an experince :))

Btw great pace Scott and grats to Kent and Darin

Well that was my first... and most likely last... endurance race. Qualified well. Since this was the first race of the season I was thinking who might forget that the series uses a manual rolling start... and since my teammate was behind me on the grid, wouldn't it be just the worst thing if he was the one who forgot? Sure enough -- BONK! -- and there he goes! Luckily I don't think I had any damage from that little incident. :)

So let's see... got loose on a curb on the first lap and fell way back in the field and had to deal with some folks who seem to think that this race was only 12 minutes long instead of 120 minutes long. Finally was able to pull away from them after they made some mistakes and then I was able to just do some laps. Later in the race Ari lapped me while racing for position with GT cars! Absolutely insane!

At the 90 minute mark I was just waiting for the race to end. I was sore ALL OVER... I don't think I could do another one of these again.

Scott, I think I was the NGT car that you were talking about. I pulled wide, saw you go by, and kept waiting for the other car I swore you were battling with, but there was no one else around me. I thought maybe I was hallucinating or something. So that explains a lot...

Wow another nice race. Had a pretty decent qual lap althought I had a couple other times where I was -.350 but ran into nGT traffic. But I ws able to hang onto pole so I am pleased.

Race started and I got off to a nice pace pullig away from second at a steady pace. After a few laps Darin got by Tolga for second and I streched out to 7 seconds. Then I was lapping nGT cars and the gap was up and down but pretty much stagnent. So I come up to 2 Porsches at sector 2 line, minding my own business and they collide with each other and park blocking most of the track. I come to a complete stop, ALMOST stall it, and finally resume with Darin right on my ass. He gets held up too so now my lead is 1 second and his is 5 over 3rd :(

Okay I start putting it down again opening back up to about 3 seconds and another nGT decided to spin right in front of me and we are back to 1 second again. That's when I decided NO MORE Mr NICE GUY. I opened up to 10 seconds again and pitted.

I must have double tapped my ignition cause I stopped grabbed a smoke and all the sudden I hear my crew telling me to turn it off! WHAT? I DID THAT. So I hit the starter thinking (for some dumb reason) that I needed to hit that button instead of ignition, and it started? IT WAS OFF! I hit ignition again and the crew does there job FINALLY but wait now they want to do repairs from the nGT damage!

I rejoin right in front of Tolga and I am struggling with the car, I open up a breather hit some traffic, do some more poor driving and he is on my bumper again. I see I am in my pit window and figure I dont need this pressure and pit. It is a short pit and it goes flawless.

I rejoin in 5th 15 seconds behind Darin after his stop. I procede to set my best laps and slowly close the gap until the others pitted and Darin and I are 1-2. But I am faster and eventually he gives up the position with out much fight.

I am a little reserved about my aggression but at the same time there were a lot of situation where I was in a tight battle and didn't feel I could slow up to wait a little longer. I don't think I took anyone out besides Pete but that was a unique situation involving another car. I did see another guy go off as I went inside him but I think he got on the grass in T2 ending his race.

Grats to Kent & Ari
My race went okay,I qualy'd 5th with my fastest lap on this sim here, I wasn't expecting too much considering running a new game, new PC and Wheel set-up, disliking this track and too boot going skiing for 6 days leading up to this race. I would like to say the GT2's showed great sportsmanship, Finn,Pete & Ari always a pleasure to race with you guys, but except for a few that thought they should race GT1 car when there wasn't a chance at winning that battle, I was also a bit disappointed that on 2 separate occasions i was hit out of the way by GT1 cars, it may have been I was 1/2 to 3/4 a second slower but its your job to pass me cleanly, not knock me out of your way :( .

I had a lot of fun battling a lambo for many laps, don't remember who it was but a lot of side by side stuff and pleased it was kept clean :). An apology to Mr. Rue on a bump in T2, I was caught off guard when you checked up and i tapped you into a spin, Sry, Also to Mr. Dipino, Sry about the bump when you spun in front of me blocking the exit of T2, Sry bud. Again, I hope i raced everybody cleanly, from my perspective, i was.

That was the longest race I've ever done on a road course and I have to say that I sure do feel it. It was a good time though and hopefully next time it won't hurt so bad. I knew going in that I wasn't going to be very quick and the plan was to just get a good start and not make too many mistakes. Starts haven't always been to kind to me and I wanted to change that here, I was ready for it and when the light went green I was off. I tapped the car in front that hadn't moved yet and went flying around him passing several cars through turn 1, woohoo...DOH!!! I feel like an idiot, very sorry to whoever I tapped, every race I been in so far has been standing start and I never caught it in the chat that this was rolling. That won't be happening again. Hopefully no harm done. After putting that behind me I managed to run 2 clean hours and never left the racing surface once breaking my Anderstorp tradition of trimming the weeds and plowing the beach. Thanks to all the nGT cars, you guys were great the whole time, never a problem to get around at least for me. Im glad to be done with that track for a while and look forward to next time.

The race started badly for some, it appears there were several offs before green flag flew.

7th in class for me was very good considering I did not practice at all for this event. My goal today was to just get more experience in the GTC. I hardly pushed the car and was pleased to keep the car running at the end of the race. I got a lot of practice being overtaking by GT (and faster nGT cars).

As for Jeff's suggestion that he was at fault for tapping my rear bumper after I erratically cut in front of him and slammed on my brakes causing him to leave a tiny mark on the No Speed Red Bull GTC, not only is it inaccurate (I did not spin!), but the suggestion you were at fault is purely fantasy (from a land of make believe) ;) It was my fault plain and simple.

I also accidentally almost caused Kent to crash due to me braking so early slowing more than he expected... Oh yeah, kinda gave a fright to Ari as well when I slowed more then he expected

I think that Pete may have been the cue ball today. He must have been hit 5-6 times, each time he would end up 15 or so secs behind me and slower catch up to me, pass me, than shortly after get punted. He gets the Hard Charger award for
Today!!!

There will be some apologies in this email once I get through some race commentary - Pete, Wayne and Yuri deserve an apology. I'll get to them in a minute.

I blew qualy - let's just say that. Was running 128's while practicing and consistent low 29's, but through a combination of wrong tire combination and just poor driving I could only manage third.

With the race, as much as it should not have happened, whoever the nGT that took off like a bat outta hell looked so hilarious that I nearly pissed me pants of laughter...fortunately, I had some minor damage but some random particles when flying when he hauled ass by :)

The warmup lap was fine - thought that I just wanted to take it easy - had full tanks and tires that could last about 25 laps so I planned to triple stint it taking tires each time and fuel on stop 2 - enough to get me to the end.

However, it all started to go wrong on Lap 1...this is where the apologies begin. While in after race chat Pete, you mentioned getting knockered on Lap 1. At the time, I didn't think it was me, but reviewing the race replay it most certainly was. In doing that little shindig - i think i put us both on the wrong foot for the rest of the race. I was close and had a bit more speed entering turn 6 and went inside. I don't think you saw me and i think my move was somewhat optimistic but i couldn't stop in time.

As if I hadn't already made enough enemies I had a run on Wayne going into turn 5 on lap 3...well, a slightly differnt but nonetheless stupid mistake. I was behind you and was just going for the inside while both of us were on the brakes - I tried hard to miss you and so i swerved deep inside, but i caught your left rear and there you have it. I think you got going okay, i sort of bore the brunt of it as a GT car just behind us tagged me and I was over the burm into the sand...hope there wasn't too much damage.

Well, after an eventful couple of laps things settled down and I was chasing Yuri making up some places along the way cleanly at the same time trying to get out of the GT's way...Lap 13 with a run on Yuri into Turn 6...poked the nose inside and not seeing me, Yuri shut the door. Both of us were then clouted by a GT car who couldn't stop in time...I lost the rear wing and I think you had some damage too because I saw you in the pits by the time I was able to turn around and go get repairs..

Now ater repairs and taking full fuel thinking incorrectly I could make it the rest of the way I ran like hell...pushed to make up ground on Pete, trying to unlap my self from the leaders...but with a GT car pushing behind me on lap 49 I had a run into turn 4 and sent you flying Pete - this was nother case of me poking the nose in where i shouldn't have - i thought it looked clean, it was anything but intentional...but we connected and Kent connected my rear end...I waited for you to pass as again, I caused it...

Finally getting close to the end I pulled in for tires - somehow selected intermediate fronts and a splash of fuel, got a stop and go penalty for speeding in the pits and dropped from 2nd to last to last on the last lap.

So - this race sucked...don't mind the track as it takes lots of concentration but it sucks ruining other folks racing and making stupid mistakes. I feel had it not been for my idiocy on track today, i may have been able to stay close to a podium.

So congrats to the winners on the hard fought race!

Tracy