Longbeach GT

Whatever could go wrong did go wrong in the race :(

Quali: I had spent some time practising and trying to develop a good setup for the Viper, it seemed to pay off and I set a new Viper record for the track on my way to grid 4th.

Race: Oh dear. Got a better start than I was expecting, had the inside line into T1 before something hit me and I slammed on the brakes and dropped to 4th. Kieron made a mistake and I went up to 3rd. Had Bas crawling all over me in the twisty bits but as soon as the car had a whiff of a straight I easily pulled away. Binned it myself at T1 which caused Bas to hit me, sorry if you got damage from that Bas. I damaged the splitter but it didn't seem to affect the handling too much. Then I was trying to hold off Rogier, but as we came up to lap some cars one of them spun me at the hairpin and the other hit the front of my car which damaged the suspension and made the car horrid to drive, tried to continue but spun so I pitted. Lost a load of time, then after the pitstop something got caught under the brake pedal which I kicked, only to knock out the force feedback plug and I was without FF for the rest of the race. Drove like a man possessed for the end of the race, passed a couple of cars but finished a frustrated 11th.

Practice
Could never find a good balance in any of the cars but then Barney sent me a setup and it was nice and stable.

Qualifying
Rubbish. Set an okay lap and then on the next lap I was 4 tenths up in sector one until I binned it at the tight 90 degree left.

Race
Bad start, bit of a freeze from my graphics card dropped me to 11th so I set about making those up again. I managed to get into 9th or so, but had Barney all over my arse so I just kept my head and kept her on track. Made a mistake at one corner though so he went past, but then it looked like he was struggling on his tyres and he couldn't pull away as easily as I thought he would. That said, I screwed it up and he zoomed off.
My tyres dropped off and I pitted, expecting to blast past people on worn tyres while I was one fresh ones, but that never happened.
Been a while since I finished lower than I started!

Qualifying
Delighted to qualify 10th although I think some people didn't set a time.

Race
Started with the wrong tyres when calculating fuel required and realising my mistake got completely flustered. During the first lap I clipped a car in front and dropped to nearly last. I then climbed back to 16th, but tyres went off and by lap 10 I was lapped and couldn't stay on the track. I then knocked a red corvette sideways (sorry for that).

Once I had pitted sorted out damage from my several offs, I was two laps down. Managing to do more consistant laps I had cars lapping me and held up Waldow's volvo as we were very similar pace even though he was a lap ahead.

Can't emphasize how disappointed I am enough because my plan was to avoid contact and do some consistant laps and I had such a scappy race, due entirely to my own mistakes. I will do a better race ASAP.

I loaded the Viper setup into the Vette it seemed good in practice did not feel like qually made a couple of last moment changes in the warmup did not test which seems like it could have been a good idea lol

Hung back at the start :/ did make up some places I knew early on I could not live with the top guys so I did not put much of a fight up to Kieron who past 2 of us great move :) likewise Tellbom made a great move alomost turned in eeek kept making small errors then over heating the rear tyres so had to take a cool lap to let them return to normal at the start of the last lap the back end was trying to come round in 5th gear almost all red bars gone was the hardest lap to drive

Great fun though

See you next time

Very good race, got pretty good start and freaked out before T1, LOL. Backed off, getting alittle more confidence, real enjoyable race today, had alot of fun with Richard Roberts... then i think one more lap to go and i had to look in mirror... dam, hit the wall in T1 not to hard but it killed engine and wouldn't restart, LOL. Still alot of fun, next time will be better.

I had no intention to say anything, but I received a PM from a marshal saying :

"This has been in the rules for 1.5 years now;
NOTE: As of September 2007, drivers are now able to use additional paved areas to the outside of the corner (curbing, run-off, etc) without it being considered a course cut"

lol, LOL and mega-lol

I WAS PENALIZED IN Jul 17, 2008 BECAUSE CUTTING PIT LINE IN THIS TRACK IN QUALY. It was less than 1 year ago. You can see how I made the fastest lap in qualy but I started the lastest. You also can see my postrace report...
http://www.race2play.com/schedule/show_event/2294#results

You are right Pablo. It is an inconsistency that we [all the stewards] have been trying to correct for some time. I apologize for the confusion.

Didn't get a good lap in qualy. Got 2nd on the grid, but the time was more than half a second off of my practice time. Had a so so start, since i really don't have much influence over the 4wd Volvo off the line. Fell back to 2nd before T1, but was able to squeeze past the early braking leader into T1. Then i had trouble finding my rhythm for couple of laps with Pablo on my rear bumper, until he finally overtook me on the front stretch(damn those Volvo's are lacking top speed), but then he immediately made a mistake in T1 hitting the wall. I guess he picked up some damage, as he couldn't keep up with me after that. Anyways, after about 25 or so laps i had to ease back on my LF tire, since i overused it a bit fighting for position on the first laps. Made it to the finish with no problem. Lappers were great, thanks.

hey, no problem Tim ;)

your work trying to solve the inconsistency is much appreciated

Do you think in 2020 we have a uniform rules for all people?

What is the deal with that extra pit lane space anyways? If you see everybody using it, use it yourself, unless stated otherwise by the race admin. Don't try to be a smart ass now.