Pacific FB: Essington

Nice racing but man thats a long straight in these Bimmer Buzzards. I did not have strong top end and so pushed hard in qualie and had a damaging off after two laps. Started well back. Exciting first lap and still real tight with others on 2nd and I got loose at the far end's first turn, had some contact as result, sorry to any victims if it hurt. Up to 7th at one point thanks to some offs of others and the last lap was way close with Gregg and Pete - we finished within .5 second. Good fun, congrats to podium!

Don Fleming

This and the last race I did were the best fun in the Fbmw's for the whole season. The only time I had finally worked out a half decent setup that was trustworthy at limits and thus able to race without being in high danger all race.

It was also the first time I found how much the drafting from a car ahead lowers your front downforce! Chasing close through high speed turns and the car just can't turn enough as per when alone. That was sort of fun, until one area made me spear off that corner and lose it in the grass!

Even better was that I had near zero effect from having a lot of cars online. Though that is very often linked to various tracks, as some show it up far worse than others for some unknown reason. And that also made it easier to run at near offline pace and safety.

Then a tough neck and neck battle for the final laps with something like a 0.024 gap finish trying to steal 6th from Gregg at the finish line! If only my 4th gear would have lasted one or two more car lengths to the finish line, and thus not need one more gear change to lose that 0.1sec more that I needed!!

All in all a great fun event, even if I ended up a fair way down from where I really should have ended up. Sigh.
Not quite one of the many "5th to 15th to 5th" sequences, but still somewhat similar. "5th to 3rd to 10th to 7th". lol

Not that great of a race for me but it was pretty fun.

Started 3rd. Battled with Agustin in 2nd for a while, swaping the position back and forth. After a few laps of battling hard, I got a upper hand and held 2nd without losing it again. Started making gains on TC but screwed myself up by catching the inside grass in the fast esses which sent me into the wall. It bent up my suspension pretty good but I still kept going. A lap later, Peter spun out in the same area and I was back up to 3rd. I tried my best to catch up to Agustin and TC but since they were fighting really hard, but I just wasn't that fast, especially with tweaked steering. Chris soon caught up to me and passed me so I sat back in 4th. I was just an onlooker from there. The top 3 battled hard to the end and I thought I had some chances to get up there but the car just wasn't up for it. 4th place it is...

Anyway, grats to Tommy on the win and I'll cya'll around.

Still same miserable cold, on drugs, blah blah blah.

Qual:
I knew Agustin was "Tristan-fast", was surprised to nip him for pole and beat Richard's track record by 3/10ths.

Race:
Shot out to a lead while Agustin, Conor, and someone else hashed it out behind. Agustin broke free and chased me down, was a helluva battle for a while. Probably unwise as CC and I were going for the Team Champ while I was running for the Drivers Champ, but my excuse was I was on drugs and should not have been operating heavy machinery.
Agustin finally made a draft down the long straight pass stick, and as I followed him I noticed he was making a lot of small errors and seemed to be on the ragged edge. So I waited out a few laps, looked in my mirror, and who should be behind me? Where in the hell did Chris come from??
2 from the end Ag put a couple wheels off again and I repass him for the lead, he and Chris had a photo finish for second.

A person of more class would not mention that he beat Conor in a race of equal cars. I am not such a person :P
Sorry, only happens once in a blue moon, gotta enjoy it while I can :-)

Chris ran me down from out of nowhere, congrats to him and Agustin for a good race.

This win brought to you by:

The best "Jam Band" music of our current era. Warren Haynes is prolific and untouchable.

My presence in this race can be attributed purely to me wanting to support my teammate and my team. On any other day I'd normally be in bed when the green lights get turned on.

As an added bonus, it was a fun race, too. I narrowly missed a careening Tommy Gunn as he tried to pass me on the outside entering the corkscrew on the second lap (!), and once I heard the crunching of wing against armco I knew all we had to do was 'not wreck' and the Team points would put us over the top.

But I began to really enjoy myself when I started catching the top 5 cars. I passed Peter during his off, and as the laps clicked off I caught Conor, who made it clear that he was not going to fight for the spot - at least not right away.

An off by Agustin entering the back straight allowed Tommy and I to catch him as I stayed tucked in and drafted my teammate to the point. Agustin and I had a pretty good battle for the runner-up spot, which he won when he muscled me out of the way as we made our final exit from the woods.

Congrats to Tommy for the win and the Driver's Championship!