Spa SuperCup

What a screw up, did not remember about the 2X fuel, never got a chance to open my PD for visual tire wear, Doooohh

Qualifying was fun, happen to like the rain now,makes me concentrate more. with only one good lap I was able to get 6th.

Start of the race was awesome! The first stint I had close pressure from Garret. He was able to close in on a few sections but as my tires came in supporting a faster line through Eau Rouge I was lengthening my lead each lap.

The Viper handled flawlessly around this circuit, and was destined for a class victory, until the pit crew never got the fuel strategy aligned with the car. We were not sure what other were doing in the garages, but in haste, we opted to load up on fuel and made a bad decision to take on 4 tires which I think was the deciding factor representing the time gap to the class winners.

Congrats to George P (sorry again George for the spinner) and to Garret on their victories.

Good race everyone.

Ditto on the fuel fiasco, Gregg. Amazing, me messing up a race in the pits; hard to imagine!

My mistake was different though. I knew about the 2X and how much it would take to go the distance, but not having done many pitstop races lately I forgot that in GTR2 you set to desired fuel load rather than how much to add. So when I came in a lap earlier than my fuel strategy was set for, it meant I couldn't go the distance and had to do another late stop. Which I compounded by getting a stop-go when I didn't get it slowed quite enough on pit entry. So I ended the race on pit row, serving a penalty and having made two needless stops. DOH!

Aside from hosing myself in the pits, the race was a real pleasure - some excellent racing, and of course Spa is always a treat. Had a bit of an issue in Qualy though when GTR2 locked up. Hit ESC and whammo; back to desktop. Wheel was locked in full turn with FF on full, but GTR2 wasn't even showing in the task manager anymore - not even as a process. That was a new one, so I clicked the game icon to relaunch, not expecting success without a reboot - but it went fine much to my surprise. Weird...

Can't remember the last wet lap I've done before that, so I was tiptoeing around in the rain and only got one Qualy lap in due to the game crash. But no matter; I gridded in 6th, with plenty of room and time to sort it out at Spa.

I was hoping for a wet race, but sadly the sun came out. Got a good launch, but backed out to keep from hitting the car ahead and Rob went flying by. I followed his lead up the hill and was up to 4th by Le Combes. Had a good fight with Barrett for 3rd early and then got after Rob while George was up the road in the lead - it was looking good for UKNL! Then I nearly bought it when I followed Rob wide out of Radillon the next lap. Seeing him lose momentum and sensing a chance to get by him up the Kemmel, I got greedy and got on the gas too hard on the loose stuff and nearly spun. Collected it, but kissed the wall and lost a few spots. Felt lucky to espape that one, since I'd blown a team championship for UKNL not too long ago doing the same thing in the same corner. Plus it put me back in the midst of a good bunch of guys to race with, so it was all good.

Tossed that by almost repeating the next lap (struggled in Eau Rouge all race in fact) and Kent got by. I finally settled down, but decided to pit at the end of lap 9 since my messy driving had left the tires in pretty bad shape. That spelled doom as I soon figured, and things went south from there. Managed to get as far back up as 5th I think, but it wouldn't matter with another stop on the menu. Uhh, make that two more. Obviously too stupid to think and drive at the same time... ;-)

Sitting 3rd on the grid overall was a shocker as I was in the G3 class. Nothing fancy about qualy as I just put wets on my dry setup and went up 1 click on the rear wing. Spa and wet still fresh in my memory after the 3hr soaker a few weeks back. So I guess I had a small advantage with that.

I had mixed feelings about being so high in the grid as the speed differential is quite large. I was praying not to get slammed from the back heading in and up Eau Rouge. Luckily, everything went swimmingly and I didn't get touched. A couple of laps in and Gregg M got a run on me in the Viper and took over class lead. I could stay right on his bumper except down the straights. We had a nice, friendly battle and he slowly picked up his pace and increased the gap. Gregg and George got a bit tangled up in the bus stop and George slid out and Gregg pitted leaving me with clear track and the class lead.

I just put in steady laps conserving fuel and tires and held on for the win.

Grats GP on the win! Donni's going to be a barnburner for the championship between John, Les and myself. See you guys there!

2x Fuel? I finished with 6 laps in the tank. Wish I hadn't pitted. Also wish I had some more dev time on the setup before the race, way too much wing for spa. But it was fun, somehow my amateur skills are better suited to the Lotus. ;)

Fine race and some very nice action in the 1st stint with lots of drivers , thx all for the good fair fights. Got into 2nd place before the pitstop and gained few seconds there , then tried to chase George on the 2nd stint for the lead but some unfortunate events and some traffic at bad places made it too difficult.

George run well and dunno if i would have catch him anyway , but it was a exciting chase and a fine race by George.

Didn't realize that the race was only 18 laps so that was a bit bummer , but anyways thx all and grts to podiums.

-----
Samuel

Hey Samuel,
The best thing about having Euro & USA events, is you can get a preview of the race by looking at the Euro results for lap times and total distance. That was a fun race. Sorry I'm going to have to miss the final one at Donington.