GT4 Cup

Ugly one to start the GT4 season off with; lots of crashing and banging out there on the opening lap. Memories of GPL came streaming back; Monza... T1... ;-)

Actually started before that in Q when my "gold" lap got nuked by someone who decided to park in the middle of the track in the final corner. Thought maybe they'd frozen and discoed, but then I tagged them! Weird.

Started from 8th, using the National set from S10. Got a good launch and went into T1 in 6th with a clear line around the outside, but Pedro and Rafael's banging on each other suddenly sent one of them hard left and out into me.

No bad damage fortunately, so I rejoined in 17th and got after it. As close as the times were with the cars being relatively slow, I knew progress would be tough - and it was. Had some good racing along the way though, until I got to 7th and there was about a 9 second gap to 6th. Didn't think I had a prayer of closing that gap and mentally stalled out for a couple of laps, but got focused and finished off with a string of decent laps in the 33's, closing it down to less than 4 seconds at the end. You never know when someone might slip up ahead, so you have to be close enough to pounce. No such luck though, as the guys ahead kept it on track and out of my reach.

Wasn't a great outing from my seat, but I've sure had some fun races in GT4 before so I'm looking forward to some more this season.

1st turn monster bit me in the ass (literally, watch the replay) again. All downhill from there. Looking at the lap data I probably would have at least finished in my starting spot if I'd have made it though lap 1 cleanly as the rest of my race was uneventful. (translation I drove by myself until Cristi lapped me).

I was happy with qualifying. 12th in a field with this much talent, in a car I haven't really raced, on a track with no real history was personally gratifying.

Congrats to Cristi.

My race was over on Lap1, T1 as well. David Poel hit Brandon Warren who, in turn, hit me spinning me around facing traffic. I was hit hard head on and sent careening into the wall backwards.

This sent me to the back of the field and with enough aero damage to kill my laptimes. I couldn't do anything down the straights and was basically left for dead. I only squeaked into the top 10 by others misfortunes. Wished I could have this one over.

Grats Cristi!