Bristol Shootout

Nice win Pete. Yet another early DNF for after another dreadful race. I suppose it's to be expected that Bristol is going to chuck out a few disasters but my disaster seemed to unravel pretty quickly. Was doing well up until lap 15/16 when I hit a spinning car (read as: lost concentration and wiped the poor bugger out) which right there effectively ended my race. Car developed handling problems from there and after two more spins, a quick pit stop for new tyres and a final big accident involving 4 or 5 cars I was fed up and quit.

Did my first ever oval race and...I LOVED IT

Maybe it was the track, but man that was fun! Was very cautious in qually but still got 2nd, which was very surprising for me.
I could keep up with the nr 1 guy and it was looking better and better, untill someone pushed me off and I had serious damage. Aero was all messed up and I lost my rear bumper thingy. Had to crawl back to pits to repait damage. I forgot to no change the tyres which cost me some more time.
When I came out I was 3 laps down and blue flags everywhere. I was faster than most however, so I was trying to unlap myself. Got behind Jon again, with few laps down and was following him around. Few laps later there was a massive crash infront and later behind me, I was lucky to get away unharmed.
After that I was trying more to get back, but the damage probaly damage my airintake, as I was overheating on the straights. So after that I was only using 50% throttle, so I didn't blow up.
Was good to get back in 6th after being behind for a few laps.
Can't wait to do another one in 2 weeks

That was insane!!! Bristol at it's finest. Exactly what I expected. I had a car capable of a podium tonight, and was as high as 5th when disaster struck and was involved in a huge accident. Had to pit to fix damage and that put me 3 laps down. I battled my way back up to 7th place and was reasonably happy with that. The thing about Bristol is only one guy leaves happy (the winner) and everyone else leaves pissed off ... lol. gotta love it! Imagine doing this in 43 REAL CARS like the NASCAR guys do. Crazy!

That says it all.(The only guy to leave happy is the winner)
I Had fun.....Is that bad?

Ill start by saying that im sorry to anyone i hit. now this had to be my worst race ever. and its sad to the car was great. started 4th was running 3rd and gaining on the leader when it all started to go wrong. 50 laps latter the car is smashed up and im 12 or so laps down. i don't ever want to race here again. this track is just way to much carnage. its a shame the season has to end at this track it could just really mess up the points.

Race stats/graphs, for those who interested :)

I got decent setup and managed to make good laptimes in practice. Qual lap was quite good and I grabbed the pole. At that time I felt a bit relaxed, as I already completed "secondary mission" :) for the week-end.

I felt "a bit" scary before the race. The track is very narrow and it's hard to overtake and avoid. The race started OK. I kept my P1 and was maintainin nice pace. Not the fastest, but OK.

Around lap 13 I catched up lapped cars and another race started :) It was easy to overtake first guys. They were slower and were happy to let the leaders go. So for a while I was @comfortable state.

The first problems came ~lap20. I got stuttering for a half lap. And another one a few laps later. This took me out of the rhythm.

By that time many runners-up have met the problems and dropped down to the end of the peloton - Jeffrey got punded and spinned. A few laps later Brian self-spinned and Jon Weal crashed into him. Sir Pete, who was sitting on my tail since lap9, also self-spinned on lap21.

On lap26 Tom catched me and overtook. It really wasn't 100% clean pass as Tom tapped me slightly so I had to go high to "catch" and then stabilize car. But I'm fine with this, Tom. This happens and partially it was my fault as I was a bit too slow entering that turn.

I still couldn't catch the rhythm and Sir Pete was catching me too. With 5 sec gap on lap26 I got Pete on my tail on lap45. And on lap48 I lost another place and got 3rd.

On lap 50 I was frightened by David Anderson, who was 5 laps behind and hit me quite hard in the rear quarter on the straight while changing lines to catch his car.

With just 2 laps to go I saw that the gap to Tom and Pete has decreased and Tom lost his pace. I overtook Tom, who was racing on 3 wheels, in T2 on the last lap and brought my car on the 2nd place.

Congratulations to Sir Pete for winning today - he really deserved it. Congratulations to Tom with his 3rd place. And congratulations to me with a podium :)