rFBMW: Sonoma

Congrats winners.

Well, another mistake that put me out of the top 10 having to make a long pitstop to repair "crooked nose" & steering damages.

At qualy I just could not make any close to my PB (1:15.2) and did a whole second slower lap than that, putting myself in 10th place. After formation lap & rolling start my teammate Torquemada lost it in the first right hander at the top of the hill and crashed showing us a nice plank.

In a couple of laps other mates went wide and I found myself again in upper positions (P6), Boyd was pushing hard behind me and he outbraked me at the hairpin, but I was prepared for that and had already began my recovery move: let go & quick turn exit (picture). Sadly it didn't last long as two laps later I lost it in the firs climb of the hill and crashed a wall.

Tried not to pit but I was loosing 2+ secs. every lap, so finally made a 106 secs. pitstop but I had already lost my concentration and, althoug at first I climbed again a couple of places, lost them quickly because of some mistakes.

Good race everyone, and sorry to Nuno for being in the middle of the track. I think you crashed when trying to avoid me (I thought it'd be better to stay freezed there than try make any move).

Cheers.

MAN!!! Nice race to everyone, good and clean and fun! The trick here is to stay on track, less than it is to go fast. I was lucky, only spun 3 times, and second is where I ended! Woohoo!

You gotta love this track, rubber tracks everywhere as we spun left right and centre, like a dance at the ballet! Nice dice with Francisco in the beginning, then got past, then lost it, then Fransisco lost it, and we were back to square one. Then, right at the end, it seemed McRoberts was down on lap times, looked like car issues, so squeezed past him, who then in his excitement, on my tail, spun it coming into the straight for the last lap. Was looking forward to a nice fight for second. Hard luck!

Well done to Barney! You were so far up the track I had to settle for second. I wasn't gonna make up 28 seconds. I console myself with the fact I made up 4 before I slowed down to get it to the end.

Thanx to [edit] Rick (teammate) [not Nick, sorry Rick] for letting me past so easy. Some of you put up more of a fight being lapped, but that's cool, it was a lotta fun!!

Now, where do I get the rest of the tracks? Gonna start practicing now to catch Barney!! Manfield is v1.1 on R2P downloads, but Pukekohe and Eastern Creek and Kyalami 79? I see Kyalami (my home track) is in the GP79 pack. Do we do all the downloads, all gazillion megs? Can someone make just the track available somewhere? In SA bandwidth is flamin' expensive (and slow), we gotta sweat it!

Boyd, check the pre race thread for each event mate, should sort you out!

Good result in the end for me, 15th to 4th, really could not get the double right hander sussed and seemed to be a lot more twitchy through the first one than in practice.

However attrition helped me more than anything and got as far up the field as I could.

Seemed to be a lot of spins but it was always going to be one of our tougher venues.

Any issues or queries please PM me so I can take a look at any incidents.

Replay is now uploaded to the Chapter Files Area.

After a shocker last week and very little practice I decided it was a case of churning out laps without wrecking the car; lap times sucked and decided not to qualify and rather start at the back so as to keep it clean at the start and also not mess with others races.

Bottom line it worked for me; I won't win races this way but 20th to 6th reflects the extent of spins and damage on this track

Well, that was fun, but didn't turn out that well. I didn't think I was even going to get in the race, but I took one last look just before practice.

I had 12.8s in my personal practice, but I didn't want to say anything in pre-race because I knew if I did, I would automatically be unable to break 1:14 during the actual event ;)

Anyway, qualy wasn't perfect, but I got in a reasonable lap that was enough for pole. I don't actually have a lot race experience, especially not recently so I was little apprehensive since I had the manual start. I then spent a stressful 30 seconds trying to determine what the final "chicane" was :)

Anyway, from that point on everything went smoothly, I didn't even really have any really hairy moments, but about 10 laps in I started to wonder about fuel. After the 10 minute left mark, I relaxed... maybe too much. I was passing a lapped car and I took way too much curb leading up to the second right hander when he let me by. I had plenty of room for my normal line, so it had nothing to do Carlos Garcia, but I guess it was probably that inexperience I was talking about... I'm not really used to lapping cars.

In the end it was a lot of fun, and congrats to Barney. When I was in the lead I could see you guys all fighting for second, you came through not only ahead, but still in one piece after the battle so it was a well deserved win.

Hey, I forgot, at least I don't need to eat my car!! Did anyone do a 1:12? Yeah, I didn't think so...

Usual for me Quali in the top 3 as normal and then efff it all up in the race. As normal my car went off in a place which for 40 laps during practice and Quali it had never even twitched. 123 second pit for the damage and then got a stop and go so came in next lap round. Awesome stuff not lol.

Gratz to the podium :)

Gutted my connection died on me and I didn't get to complete the race.

Was very happy to get 7th in Qualy and even with my 10 Grid Position demotion for my indiscretion at Birmingham, I reckoned I could run a good pace for the race. Start was fine and settling in for the long run, or so I thought, I screwed up and spun at the top of the hill - seems like I was in good company LOL! - taking a big hit. Pitstop for 90+ secs and then D/T for speeding.
Resumed at least a couple of laps down and then buggered it up again, needing another long stop. Along with another spin I at least got to the end with a clean slate for the next race.
I've got to say that I really liked this track and enjoyed the running I did get in. Grats to the podium too!

Grats to all finishers!

I've done millions of mistakes, had to pit for long repair, had to do D/T penalty for speeding in pits, so finnally happy with result.

Sorry again to Jussi for ruining his race.

See you all on next one.