GNS: Daytona

My car was great in practice but was extremely loose once the green flag came out. I was sitting in 3rd when all of a sudden the back end wanted to be in the front coming out of turn 2. I was heading straight toward the wall when I was able to get it to turn right and missed hitting the wall. Later on I touched the apron and almost lost it again but saved it. The caution finally came out and I was able to tighten it up. I made up several positions and got a longest line penalty. I worked my way back toward the front to have someone ruin the race by coming direct from the pits onto the track going into turn 1. From there on it was just click off laps to the end. I feel lucky that I finished in 10th after the wreck.

Congrats Jim on the win.

It was a really good race for me, I led about 25 laps thanks to Jim, but later I had a pretty poor pit stop.
After the pit stops I was behind Jim with about 20 laps to go, I decided to stay behind Jim until the last lap(last turn) but I wasn't fast enough to pass Jim in last turn, but I'm happy that I helped my teammate win this race.
I wasn't confident with the slow cars, becasue I didn't know where to pass them becasue they were moving all around the track and one of the cars caused a crash and the worst thing is that this accident took many fast cars out of the race.
Congrats to Jim on the win

Superspeedways aren't my favorites but still always find it very challenging and demanding. Didnt had that much time to set up a car perfectly but it was drivable. In the first stint I found out that I had to much tape and when took some off maybe was a bit too much and lost some speed. I'm very happy with the result and had some very intense moments out there with people spinning right in from of me :) Tom almost took me out when he touched the apron and when he lost it at T2 i'm still to find out how the hell did I missed him, ehehe! That's NASCAR fever!! Love it!!

See ya Next wed.

Take care!

Thanks guys. I never in my wildest dreams ever think I'd win at Daytona, too many things that can go wrong & usually do.
I was perfectly happy pushing Brad & he was doing everything right to keep me behind him with Kevin's multiple attempts to get by me. Don't know what happened at the pit stop, but I got the lead by a couple of inches & after that it was just hang on & don't do anything stupid. Luckily I managed to thread the eye of the needle & squeeze past that lap car on the front stretch, which took out most of the fast cars, or it might have been a totally different ball game. So, thanks to Brad & Tom Malanga this is a race I won't soon forget. Hope I didn't use up an entire seasons worth of luck, but if I did, it was worth it. :)

Was really looking forward to the season opener. Had a great last season and I was looking to extend that streak.

Qualy went very well. Made a few last minute tweaks and was able to pull a PB for fifth. I took a gamble on the one lap qualifying strategy. Being on a few hundredths of a second off Tom's time felt pretty good.

The race got off pretty well for me. For most of the race I was in the top five and felt like I had a shot at the front. I swapped a lot of paint with Joao to the point of taking damage that I didn't even know I had until the first pit stop.

After the pit stop it look good to take it all the way to the end and a very good finish.

Unfortunately, you can't fix stupid and that car coming out of the pit nearly took out most of the top 10. Here's a little tip: go low, go high, or go home! I for one hope that there is a stiffer penalty than just a talking too.

At any rate that little debacle pushed me down from 4th to 13th. I made up a few spots on the guys that took more damage than me but my car wasn't quite right either and I ended up losing the draft on the last lap falling back to 13th.

Maybe next week will be different.

Congratulations Jim!

Yikes.
Thought I was ready for Thursday’s race... had a nice comfortable competitive setup, did some long runs to gauge tire wear and fuel use and tape/temp, got TeamSpeak working, no worries.
Forgot to create a profile with my real name, scrambled to make one with my controller setup and all in about five minutes, barely made the start of qualifying. Nudged the wall out of 2 on the qualifier, lost a half-second and wound up like 12th almost a second off the pace. Somehow got a black flag on the first start even though I swear I was right where I was supposed to be and never more than a second back of the guy ahead. Came out of the stop and go after the first lap yellow in last place but still with the pack. Got too low maneuvering in 1-2 and clipped the apron and self-spun like an idiot, caught it lucky as bleep without any contact, pitted for tires, ripped around to the back of the pack, dead last again but still in contact. Got plowed into from behind at what appeared to be full speed and my car totalled while still under yellow... must have really made somebody mad, lol... and then spaced out and broke silence and posted a message under the yellow.
Yikes.
So, sorry for mucking up your race the other night. That was ugly ugly ugly ugy. Ugly in ever way. Sorry.
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