Vertigo: Zhuhai

Lost connection...

Damn good race! Figured it would be from the entry; shame about Matjaz discoing from the lead.

Suppose this is one I could be disappointed about, but the racing was too good and way too much fun for that. That was a blast, even if I choked a little from being a bit too keyed up. Seeing how tough the field looked, I made sure to get some practice in before, and 15 minutes before joining had gone 37.1 in race trim and 36.6 in qualy trim. Felt pretty good about that judging from the Euro race times, and dropped a 37.5 my first lap of online practice. Looked good until...

Qualifying! Got out 1st as intended, but instantly had cars on my tail gunning for it on the outlap. Normally I'd ease over and let 'em by to get some space to run in Q, but it looked pretty busy in the mirror so I stayed up front. For a bit anyway; it was really distracting with people being so racy in Q, so after mucking up my 1st flyer watching the mirror for cars trying to pass I did ease over and lay back to get some room. Might have worked if my darn PC didn't start stuttering like crazy. Drives me nuts when it does that, and having just dropped for 2GB of high end RAM I was not amused. Scratch another lap, and then traffic took care of the rest. Was a bit bummed to be 6th, a full second off the pace I'd just done a few minutes earlier, but was still looking forward to the race since the grid looked great!

Start went fine, and then I lucked into a couple of spots when T1 got hectic and I came out in 4th. I struggled the first few laps from cold tires and nerves, but finally things calmed down a bit. Was still outbraking myself in almost every corner and killing my exits (which is what I do when I get fired up ;-)), and Rob was all over me at first. Kent and TomO were wailing on it tooth and nail just ahead of me, and it was so fun to watch I actually screwed up a couple of times from spectating!

Right about then Matjaz discoed and we all threaded around him bug-eyed in mid straight. Not long after, Tom dropped a wheel off and I squeezed by into 2nd. Tried to get on terms with Kent, but was still overdriving and just couldn't get settled in. That soon had Tom on my back again, and after several laps he got by when I barely slid off in T1.

That minor off also put me back in Rob and Heinz's clutches, but I think Rob had as much going on in his mirror as he had trying to get by me. That had to be busy! Gradually eased out a tiny gap, and then finally started to drive instead of watch everyone else. That seemed to do the trick and I set my FL as I was closing a little on Tom.

Unfortunately, he dropped a wheel off exiting T1 and spun in front of me. It was like "Days of Thunder" all over again, except I ain't Tom Cruise and I didn't come out the other side of the smoke with the lead... ;-) Wasn't sure where he would end up but I thought I could miss him if I went far left, but dropped a wheel myself and it had the same effect on me as him - it turned me right. Into Tom. Crunch! Wish I'd managed to slip by as he could've still had a shot at a top finish. He was flying and might well have ended up in the mix again with me, Rob and Heinz. That would've been a hoot.

Got it going again in 4th and before I could get bummed, Mark was on my butt and it was back to racing, post haste. Car was a bit the worse for wear from the hit, but not nearly as bad as it could've been since it was a good whack. Stout cars, these Vertigos! Didn't want to turn in so well though, and Mark very nearly had me a couple of times - excellent, clean driving on his part. Kept shifting the brake bias back and got it sorted enough to just stay ahead of him to the end. Whew!

Crap, I've written a book again. Oh well, a good race deserves a good story.

Congrats to Kent, Rob and Heinz - well done guys. And to UKNL for taking the team title despite the boss' apparent abduction by aliens. Or maybe he went off to the pub with JD... ;-)

EDIT - darn, thought this was the last one for some reason. Looks like Barca will be the showdown - Rumble Time! ;-)

Unlucky Matjaz .. you were very strong..
Grats Kent on the win

Quali went well, Set a Very fast PB 01:37.197 but was not the fastest lap for very long, Matjaz broke a 1m36,9, very fast lap. Then Tomo squeezed in 2 faster laps to secure 2nd on the grid... happy with 3rd.

The start saw Kent take off like a rocket and take 3rd from me, at T1 i saw some contact and took to the outside of T1 (which im slowly starting to get sick of, because everytime i avoid trouble and go outside i just end up on the grass, and loose places)
So i lost 4 places by the time i managed to get back on, and found myself behind Garret D. Swallowed hard for the battle to come and tried to not let any demons from the past haunt me.. Things were going fine chasing Garret down, when after 4 or so laps, i attempted to look down the inside for the right hand uphill hairpin, but garret lost it under braking. Unlucky dude.

Then i knuckled down and started my hunt for Rob A. was in chase for a few laps till i caught up, and when i did, it was a white knuckle ride.. The Vertigo is a grippy little beast, but a very equal car i think for alot of competitive drivers, and when you have 2 on the the same level, it makes it really hard to pass. I was maybe slightly quicker than Rob, but could not get any real tow down the main straight so was never able to really commit to a pass into T1. It took a few laps to learn how Rob was driving the car, and once i had his brake points and lines figured out, i tried harder every lap. i cars dissapear on me twice during this stint with rob, which didnt help my cause.
After a long battle trying to find a way past, i thought maybe my tactic should just be, try a dive and see.. 2 laps to go i tried, and got inside rob on the right hander uphill hairpin, but he completely dropped me to the next corner again, was starting to wonder if wing made all that difference, i think i know what he was on, and i had more..

During this time aswell, tomo spun out and Steve collected him, that was a pretty nasty way to loose podiums, unlucky guys.. Me and rob drove right through the centre of it, it was wild.. felt stuntlike!

Anyway, Rob proved to be more than up to the challenge, and didnt let his guard down, got a little ragged once or twice, but i wasnt able to capitolise ... Great racing with you Rob .. well done

and from what it looked like.. there was some good battling ALL over the grid.. Great to see

Cheers

Dang Matjaz -- 36's in qual, ouch! Bummer about the connection.

Congrats to Kent for the win, great job as usual.

I gotta mark this up there with some of my all time favorite races. Major bummer about Tom and Steve - just bad luck! Ugh!

Surprised to find myself in 2nd for this one, but what a great battle I had with Heinz. He was ON me, espeically the final corner onto the front straight, he just seemed to know how to drive thru it better. It was a constant battle with several side by side moments, all clean. Excellent drive Heinz!

I ended up going with a Med/Soft combo and didn't do fuel calcs so I was a little heavy (finish with 3 laps of fuel in the tanks). I think Soft/Soft would have been the better choice but I was concerned about my fronts going away. I was constantly playing around with brake bias during the race trying to make the Med/Soft work for me. With Heinz on my bumper, there was really no room for error and I had to defend by going in real deep.

Fortunately this time the aim for point of incident worked, the cars parted just as we arrived. Phew, it was CLOSE!

Managed to hang on, but that was a epic battle between Heinz and I. Great job everyone.

Jumped in with 15 minutes before qual and found I had no Vertigo setup for this track. Also couldn't remember what track I ran a few weeks ago so I just scrolled through tracks until I found a vertigo set in my Imola folder.

Did a few shake down laps, adjusted gearing and found myself lurking mid pack in practice. Threw soft/soft on it lowered fuel and we went to qual session.

Qual was basically just more warmup for me. I came out of my stall and waited for the light to go green, something I never do because of the traffic it creates. Lights went green and I saw a car coming up the outside on the pit lane passing others who were patiently waiting. This kinda fired me up, but nothing compared to when that person decided to get racy with me on my out lap. Then when I was outbraked into the hairpin and there was contact I was really pissed.

Dropped back to gap the car that was now ahead, did a couple laps only to catch that car (sigh). Fortunately he escaped when I caught him and I was able to go and do a few decent laps finding myself 4th on the grid and feeling more comfortable with the car and track.

Got a good start passing Heinze and getting inside of Tom with Matjaz to my right just ahead. Not wanting to repeat my last race here I backed off a little too early and when I released the brake I rolled into Tom sending him into a slow spin. I remember thinking, "Comon man, save it!" which Tom did, whew. This allowed Matjaz to get by Tom and got me off the corner real poorly. I could hear a car to my right into the T2 sweeper so I gave plenty of room and managed to hold 3rd into and through T3.

Had an epic battle with Tom for a lot of laps. I think I was a little faster since I kept reeling him in but as it was stated above, these things are very hard to pass in with equal cars. Matjaz was pulling ahead a bit but not as far out as I expected so I was still encouraged.

On lap 5 Matjaz's car flickered and stopped as Tom went left and I right around his stationary car. After about 6 laps I was finding where I was faster than Tom and I think he saw it too since he was getting a bit ragged. So I tried to keep pressure on him and then he lost grip coming out of T1 and he had a wicked correction going off left handing me the lead.

Not sure who was behind me at that point but I was just a little faster and slowly began opening a gap. Then I looked up and found that gap went from 4 seconds to 9. The rest of the race was cruise mode not wanting to make any stupid mistakes.

Bummer to Matjaz, disco is always a sad way to go and I was so looking forward to see if I had anything for him although I admit catching and passing would have been 2 very different stories.

In the eurorace en during practice all was fine. But in quali the car seemed to get a will of its own between T3 and T5 and became undrivable. Very strange experience I must say and I re-entered quali to try to solve the problem. That's why my qualitime was more than 1 sec slower than in the eurorace. In lap 1 of the race I immediately felt the problem was still there. Guys behind me must have thought I was drunk or so. :-) When I had a big off in lap 3 I decided to hit ESC to prevent me from taking someone out. Will replace the steeringwheelpot this afternoon ... hope that solves it.

Too bad I had to miss all the fun. The battle with CanAm already had started before the race when Heinz offered me to drive for UK-NL to get a level playingfield in the number of drivers. That was turned around again when John Dixon decided to enter this one too. But in the meantime Barry had shanghaied Matjaz to drive for CanAm. :-) And you call me a dirty dog Barry ? Hahaha. Well ... looking at the final raceresults UK-NL managed to extend the lead a bit more so let's see what happens in the last one. :-)

Last but not least ..... grats to Steve Blankenship on securing the driverschampionship with one race to spare. Great job Steve !!!

All in good fun George and company. I didn't know Matjaz had recieved the invite in time as he is in Slovenia and I have no idea which time zone he is in. I didn't know he signed on till the results were posted.

A rough outing for CanAm last night. First with the disco of Matjaz then Tom O and Steve had gotten together, I was having comp problems and would sieze up for a second or two and sent me off the track a couple of times then Garret was doing great when his engine let go on him, then Les discoed which left it all in Garrys hands and me trying to keep the car on the track and coming from the back...all the way back too! In the closing laps I'm coming up on a group of cars (the second pic. That's me all the way in the back) and ended up slamming into Bill M. Sorry Bill and I will admit I was just plain over zelous.

Anyway a BIG CONGRATS to Kent the man, Rob and Heinz. Great job

Lots of fun.

Got on the server fairly early and was trying to dial in a qual setup without much success. Made some final adjustments right before qual and managed to drop a qual lap of 38.3, good for P8.

Did not get a good start (again... sigh), but managed to only lose 2 positions through the first couple corners. Then, I got just tapped in T4... saved the car without fully spinning, but lost 8 positions making sure I didn't spin in the grass and re-entering safely.

The balance of the race was spent trying to chase guys down. Made it back to P11 by the end after what seemed like the whole race chasing Kris. Made a couple attempts to outbrake him, but we were so equal that I couldn't get far enough beside him to avoid being side-by-side on turn exit. Good stuff.

The last couple laps were fun trying to make positions on P9 and P10 (as shown in the pic Kris posted -- me in the third car in line). Fun finish as P9 through P11 was separated by something like 0.4 seconds.

So, fun race. Would've liked a little more pace, but I'm happy with essentially an error free drive and consistent lap times as I come to grips with GTR2.

See everyone in Barcelona!

Rob T.

Man, I'm so stupid. I just...spun. Shouldn't be doing that. And I brought Steve down with me on top of it...sorry Steve :(

I pulled a lap out of my butt 1 sec. faster than I did in the Euro race, but Matjaz still beat me for the top spot. I had a good start, and we were 3-wide in turn 1. Suddenly I was a Formula-D drifter and then all by myself. Matjaz took off, and I knew I'd only ruin my car trying to keep up with him. So I kept a steady pace and worked on making sure Kent didn't get by me. I had to run very defensive, and the defensive line is never the fast one, but the brakes on my car were stellar and Kent couldn't outbrake me.

I caught a break with Matjaz's disco, but it wound up being me throwing away the lead. He left the room and my computer hiccuped and...well its very hard to hold a line side-ways when you don't actualy know what your car is doing...So I went off and dropped back to 3rd.

I flicked on the inner good driver in me and caught up to Steve and we had a good race going. He ran wide in one corner allowing me by, but then...I just lost it. For no reason, just a silly error and I went around. I was so dumbfounded that I did actually just throw it away that I forgot to stop turning and put my car right back into the racing line, and right into Steve. It was COMPLETELY my fault Steve, I'm glad you didn't get too injured by it.

Anyhoo, I had a flat left rear and no spoiler, so the car was impossible to drive for the last 5 laps. I pitted and dropped to 14th, last finishing spot, and one lap down.

Congrats Kent, Rob, and Heinz for the podiums. To Steve for the Driver's Championship. And I think to UK-NL for the Team Championship as well?

No worries at all Tom; it was tons of fun racing with you guys up to then and as we all know well, when you're on the limit sometimes you slip over it. Lord knows I've done it enough... ;-)

I looked at the replay of that incident a bunch of times trying to figure out how I could have missed you and feel like I should've. I think I was just feeling a little too much pressure from behind to back out of it as much as I really ought to have done.

But it's under the bridge now, so on to the finale. Team champ's are still very much up for grabs, so I hope we get another crowd like this one at Barca.