WSC: 1.5h of Suzuka

Great race guys. Unlucky Mike and Garett, it was close for the final 10mins, I put 25litres too much in at my 3rd stop. I was starting to get a bit worried.

Fantastic work from the back markers as well.

Its 4:30am, time for bed I think.

Thanks guys.

Congrats class winners and podiums.

I'm my own worst rival on track. Lazy spin in the hairpin nosed me into the inside wall. Required new nose, so pitted early for fuel and tires too. Came out all better, but about a minute down. Worse, and this wouldn't really sink in til later, it screwed up my remaining pit strategy to the point where I had to recalculate final fuel on the go. And got it waaay wrong. Pitted again to make up the shortfall and it *still* wasn't enough. Went into emergency hypermileing mode (ie, slow as snot in the tallest gear) but determined I was in serious danger of DNF. My team mate Ted managed to pull up behind me on the last couple laps and I asked him to stick around in case I needed a push to the checker. Fortunately he had a healthy gap so stuck around. I reached the chicane on 0.1 gal, and the car sputtered and quit just as I crossed the line. Ted then gave me a full throttle nudge, 'just to be sure'. ;) Thanks Ted. That last lap was the best part of my race.

Good race guys. I've been under the weather with a cold again. I wasn't really concentrated as my mind wondered every few minutes. Went out into qualification in my race setup, D'OH.

Everyone raced well. Road behind my teammate Mark for a few laps. On one occasion, Ryan and Steve were in back of me while my mind wondered about my taxes I had done today and how much money I was getting back. That threw me off and I ended up taking the last right turn wayyy to early and ended up on another part of the course. Anyways, Suzuka is a interesting track to say the least.

Congrats to all the winners.

I was also not feeling well tonight or the two days behind me so didn't get to practice as much as I would have liked but still felt fairly comfortable.

Steve beat me in Q and we started race out like normal, me following him closely. From about lap 1 until the end of race I had a massive head sweating problem, rest of my body was fine but head was sweating like I was actually in the big Vette. Either way I concentrated on staying close to Steve until pit-stops and we battled no more than 1.5 seconds apart for the whole first stint. Somehow I managed to get out in front of him from the pits which puzzles me and drives Steve nuts! We spent the next stint nose to tail pretty much and on the last stop I was able to gain a few seconds on Steve through pitting. After this I watched as he steadily pulled me down from about 9 seconds down to 3 or so at end as I safely brought her home for my 100TH RACE at R2P!! I forgot about it until late in the race but am pretty excited with my result on my 100th event at a very cool & special track. Only took me a shade over 3 years :P

Congrats to podiums and I appreciate everyone involved in the traffic today, we are getting better as a group it seems nice work! :)

Well done everyone, all the podiums, and Ryan on your 100th race!!
Yes, like Ryan says, as a group we seem to be getting better, but tonight (or for me this morning) was strange. Suzuka is a difficult place to pass easily, the big swooping bends spell possible disaster if you try passing. The guys who were brave anough managed to get that right won through today.

Several GT2 cars are still moving over for the faster cars, which is much appreciated, but often it spells disaster for the GT2 driver, and personally I would prefer it if the guys stayed online, maybe just flash lights and lift off gas for a second if you want to make it marginally easier for the passing cars. Wait for faster car to move offline first :)

Other than that, this race for me was exactly the same as most of the previous race reports here. Not enuff practice, poor concentration during the race, 3 spins AND a stop-n-go for cocking up the pit lane entry. [edit: and I forgot to mention a pistop where 51 secs was added for damage repair I forgot to disable!!]

When you wake up at 4AM in the morning, qualy starts in half an hour and you just feel rotten, then you know it's gonna be a bad day!

Great race everybody. Took me awhile to learn this track. Haven't ran it for years and never did a race.
Qualifying went ok and I found myself near the middle of the pack. Had a good start and was making up some ground when I got tangled up with Brian Cox in the chicane, sorry about that. Ended up way down the order and had to work my way back. At the 1st pitstop I forgot to turn off the damage repair so I sat in the pits for an extra 40 seconds. Decided to double stint my tires and try to make up some time that way. Came up on Pete and found out he was low on fuel and stuck with him just in case and finished suprisingly well.

I was pleased to find myself on the front row for this one. My plan was to run a few clear laps without traffic at the start to conserve fuel as it was going to be tight.

My plan quickly evaporated when Kevin took me out our first time into the T1/T2 complex. I lost gobs of time and re-entered somewhere in the middle of the GT field. I wound up having to push really hard to keep pace and pass cars. This, in turn, drank fuel faster than I had wanted.

Along the way, I caught up to Omar in 5th. We had a very nice battle for several laps. He must have had a much lower wing than me as I could make up a lot of time through the esses. Omar would blow by me, or make up time, down the straights. We battled through lots of traffic and everyone kept it super clean.

I was a lap short on fuel at the end of my first stint and knew I had to conserve. I came out in 4th behind Tim, Barry and Mike. Barry and Mike must have had trouble in traffic as I was able to catch them. I made my way around Mike when he spun in the final chicane. A lap or two later, I passed my teammate Barry when he had some trouble with lapped traffic and went off.

At this point, I was about 25s behind Tim. I knew he was going to have to pit for a splash near the end as he was pitting a lap earlier than me. I managed to save a bit of fuel on my second stint, but I was still going to be short. I ran my last stint on boost 1 while trying to hold off Mike.

We had our own great battle for quite a few laps. I knew our battle would be for the lead if we could make it to the end. Sure enough, that played out as Tim pitted for fuel leaving the two of us up front. Mike got passed me for the lead when I ran into traffic. I got the lead back when he went off. From here, I had to cruise to the end to take the win. One problem, I didn't have enough fuel - rewind to the first lap punt. I was going to be short 1 lap.

I wound up pitting with 1 to go letting Tim and Mike battle it out for the top spot.

Congrats Tim, Joao, Ryan and Johnny! A special congrats to Ryan on your 100th event with a win!

Congrats Ryan! What a way to mark your 100th event at Race2play.
I heard someone say in practice that Vett’s are pigs and they can’t understand how someone can drive such rubbish! You showed them lol.

I was able to run consistent 2:04’s in race trim off line and thought I could have a decent race. But as usual it is a reality check when you get on line and pole is a sub 1:58! I tried to get online for some additional practice, but I was on the waiting list and had no password.

So I hung around pit lane with the guys and waited for the race to start. Everything went as anticipated and even had a few good battles.

“So I’m a just minding my own a business … having a cigarette, when all of a sudden I see a smoke in the cockpit, and it’s a getting worst! I look around and I see the passenger’s floor a carpet is a on fire!! So … I take my Coca-Cola and dump it on the floor to put it a out.” Explanation as to what happened to his car from an Italian Volvo GT driver whose turbo exhaust flange broke when someone bump drafted him and the leaking exhaust heat was focused on the passenger’s floor box catching it on fire. Kind of sums up my progress.

Good Job to the Winners and Podium Finishers.

Ryan. Grats on your Race #100. Thats a great way to Celebrate.

Qual: That went about as well as could be expected. I turned a 52.550... damn. How did I do that? It got me 4th in Class, on the grid, for the start, so I'll take it.

Race: Had a pretty good start ran a few good laps then started to put tires off here and there, and spun about two or three times. Got to my first pit stop and things were great. My tires wear was matching up to my fuel usage perfectly. Cleared the pit and had the battling P1 front runners overtake me. Very shortly after, Barry Hedrick had a spin after the hairpin, with little or no time to react I hit him head on. Thats the 3rd Race in teh WSC and the 3rd tim Barry and I have had some kind of incident. LOL. Barry, we have got to stop meeting like that. So Barry's car is broken and mine has an Aero Push from hell. With understeer in tow, I decide to just drive it balls out. Made it to my 2nd pit stop, and took on plenty of full... way more than I needed. That way I could turn the Turbo up to 4 and not worry about it. Its a good thing I did, because Boyd was able to reel me in down to about 4secs. Thanks God Boyd forgot to turn off his damage repair.

I got third in class... and I will take that too.

This race was tough. It seems to me that it required an awful lot of concentration. Especially when you were trying to get past traffic in the Esses and the Dunlop Curve.

Good Job guys. Great Racing. See you all at the Hungaroring.

Good driving Matt. I had been a lot closer, but a bobble and close call with about 2 laps to go spelt the end of my dice with you. Settled for 4th. Good show!