Longbeach Grand Prix

My car was slow and I spun 3 times...A few got caught up in there, sorry, though I tried not to do the "U" turn, the track is so narrow that I had to in 2 of those spins... Bob, sorry for your incidents, every time you got close to 10 secs, you'd loose the car...I think that "Cop" was chasing you and that's why u were fast... :P

Congrats to the Top 3 and nice to see T&T...Never understimate them...:) These guys don't like fenders, cause with wings they can fly... :D

Cya next race!

I trashed the front wing and suspension just a half a lap into the race. I made up 4 positions right after the start as others made mistakes. I just got to the throttle too early on cold, dead tires. Car was a piece of shit after that the whole race. I've never continued on in a race with such a ill handling car. But I'd gingerly drive it around and somehow actually catch Todd and Omar. As soon as I could see them and try to get on the car to move up to them to challenge, the car would just give up and the backend would break loose. Every single time. Just could not get to the throttle. Looking back, I should have just continued on as if I wasnt challenging. I probably would have done much better. Just a bit pissed off at myself right now.

Tough race!

Qualifying went ok, I had another half a second in my grasp but I binned it on my final flying lap.

Race went near flawlessley. I was convinced that we were running 89 laps for some strange reason, and so had worked on a two stop strategy for that distance. I could have gone for a one stopper had I known otherwise as tyre wear was minimal here.

I got a good start after bunching up the field going into the final corner and set about trying to get into a rhythm. I knew from experience here in the FABCAR last season that consistency and endurance are key here. I wasn't pushing 110% like I normally do, instead I was concentrating on hitting every one of my various marks around the circuit - every lap.

The consistency paid off and by the time I came to make my first stop I had built up a big enough lead to come out back in front. I think it was either just after my first stop or just before my second one that I near ran into the stationary cars of Nick and Omar in T2. Fortunately I was able to squeeze through the middle and continue on my way.

Thanks to all the lapped traffic doing a difficult job on a difficult circuit, much appreciated. Congratulations to Allen and Tim for rounding out the podium.

Bring on Mosport!!

At speed I was feelin' the rhythm, feelin' good. But at 3 mph I have a problem.

Dropped to 11th on the first straight, but soon made my way up to seventh and was chewing away at the gap to sixth. Then in in one of those medium-slow corners I used a little too much pedal and looped it around ... but didn't touch a thing! Yeah!

All I needed was a back-and-forth and I'd be pointed the right direction and on my way. Big gap. No rush. I squeeze forward to the wall, and there goes the front wing! Ah, jeez. What the hell.

By the time I made it around, had repairs and exited the pits I was two laps down and pretty much last. Did have some good runs and battles here and there in the remainder, and made it back to seventh by the checkers, so that's all right.

Tough race, Made 3 mistakes which proved costly. 1) With Tim behind i felt i had it under control, he was faster but maybe not fast enough to get alongside as long as i kept it tidy but clouted the wall on the exit before back straight and bent my steering. Could still keep it in the high 1.03's. i wasn't going to repair but forgot to tell pits not to repair so lost an extra 15secs in pit. 2) Second pit stop i forgot to put limiter on and exceeded the limit as i left pit bay which earned a drive thru. 3) Smacked the wall at t1 again bending my steering, Tim pitted unexpectedly which gave me 3rd but he soon caught and passed me relatively easily, although i had little in the way of defences due to my steering. A good recovery Tim (i'm guessing your last stop wasn't scheduled?).

In 78 laps i dont think i ever cracked the last corner always lost time there.

Grats to Jon, Allen and Tim

Spun on lap one through the fountain section and dented the front wing, managed to pick up some lr suspension damage early as well, so dropped from 6th to 13th.

But was only running a second or so off the lead pace, so stuck with it and set about picking up places.

Reeled em in one by one and had a cracking chase on for 5th at the end with Barrett, finally managing to get past into T1 with a late braking move up the inside. Probably would have been miffed the other way round so apologies to Barrett as we did touch wheels on the way in, but fortunately no harm done.

Enjoyable race all in all, and good to see Pinnacle up there already!

Grats to the podium.

Great fun, this one, especially the final laps of battle with Nick.

As he said, we did have a bit of contact when he got by, but nothing significant. He was moving inside just as i got on the brakes and we had a slight touch which moved me slightly off my turn in point and we touched again at the apex when i wasn't quite sure how much room i was leaving because of that. No damage.

You worked hard for that position, Nick, and you deserved it.

And the truth is, from my perspective, i lost the position several laps earlier when i missed my brake point at the end of the back straight and did a sideways slide just short of the tires, but killing the engine, giving up about 10 seconds of my already shrinking gap to Nick, and seriously putting my tires off.

The slide was the result of letting myself get distracted by the damn pit board coming up several times while i was trying to just maintain my rhythm and manage my car. I made the mistake of canceling the "pit request" i hadn't made a couple times, only to have it return a half-lap later. I still had 30L of fuel on-board and no intention of stopping again, why do they keep calling me in!

It really pissed me off to have to keep cycling back to the graphic i wanted and then have the "Pit Crew is ready" message pop up again. That eventually - inevitably - led to a huge mistake.

I'm thinking this annoyance was caused by the fact that i had a third "splash and go" stop "planned" in the setup? But that doesn't explain why it pops up when i have 4 laps of fuel remaining before the first stop, and then with 8 laps of fuel remaining before the 2nd stop.

Very distracting at critical times.

I've had that in the last few champcar races also Barrett, drives me round the bloody bend!