Atlantic nGT: Valencia

I finished the race!
I wouldn't have guessed I could have finished the race on this track, but I made it. With virtually no practice, I managed to limp around the track and have a top 15 finish.

Congrats Barry!

Good Race. Congrats to Barry, Tom, and Dennis.
Tried hard tires for the race. They fell off bad in the end. It saves time in pit but I don't know what is faster. I ran a couple of seconds slower with the hards. Had fun.

That was another awesome race here in GTR2. I started from 2nd, pleased to be the top Ferrari, behind only Ari Nieminen in a Porsche RS. Great lap, Ari! Unfortunately he jumped the start and was forced to take a stop/go. Then I found myself leading Dennis Morissette, who was putting on the pressure like no other. He finally got by, somewhere, I can't recall where, and then I decided to return the favor and put on the pressure. I started to see the signs of a mistake, but it never came in the right spot. I finally just got a great run out of turn 1 and put a textbook up-the-inside pass into turn 2. We conitinued to run that way until I pitted, for fuel and tires. The only problem was, I took WAY too much fuel. I was in the pits for 56 seconds, when it should have been about 45. That ended up costing me the race. I came out and the pitstops sorted themselves out, and ended up in 2nd, with about 5-6 seconds to make up on Barry Hedrick. I started telling myself "He still has to pit" and convinced myself I was okay running in cruise mode. I slowly came to the realization that he didn't have to pit and I had to catch him. Then I went into full chase mode. I finally caught him after a little bobble lapping a car, but I just couldn't get by him. The Ferrari was way down on straight-line speed, which was a pain becuse of the front straight at Valencia, and I just couldn't make up enough time through turn 1, 2, and the chicane. We ran like that to the finish. In the end, it came down to strategy and pitstops that determined the race, and Barry out-did me. Good job. Awesome race Barry and Dennis, this is getting to be way too much fun! And I can't complain about 2nd and 1st Ferrari, represtin' for the Prancing Stallions! I must admit, I'm sick of Valencia National though :p

Well, evidence suggests I was creeping very slowly on the grid. Either a badly calibrated throttle or I was inadvertently holding it a little down. After servering the stop'n'go I was around 15th. When I did my stop, I was in 5th after some nice battles. There I did my other mistake which I'm much more annoyed about: I forgot to skip new tires. Without that I probably would have come back out right behind Barry, and ready to fight for the podium positions, but now I was chasing Dennis and ran out of laps.

Fun race! I was pretty consistent throughout the race. That was the goal, and I'm pretty happy with my performance. At one point I had a bit of a connection issue and it cost me a few seconds, but I was fine other than that. Given my level of experience, I couldn't ask for much more...other than maybe some advice on pit strategies :)

Bummer - 1st drive I've managed to get in for a couple of weeks, and I get nuked on the grid by a PC lockup! Barely made it home from work in time to turn on the PC and mount my wheel. Entered the race and got stalled waiting to go out in Q since my PC was stuttering like mad. Thought that was odd until I realized I hadn't had it on all day and my McAfee AV was updating itself. Nice! It finally settled down and I got 4-5 laps in during Q trying to stay out of peoples' way while learning the National layout. Hadn't seen that one before, but I kind of like it. Got a midpack grid spot, but I didn't care - just wanted to race. Couldn't remember what the series fuel/tire rules were, so I tabbed out to check the R2P site, remembering too late that GTR2 is not very tolerant of alt-tabbing in and out. Sometimes you get by with it, most times not. Tabbed back in and crossed my fingers when I joined the grid, and sure enough the countdown clock wasn't moving. Nor was anything else. Lost all control of my PC which had locked solid - had to finally hit the reset button, cussing like a sailor.

Gonna keep trying though, too much fun not to! Next time...

Thanks Guys. Had a great night at Valencia!

Tough luck for Ari. A blazing effort in that RS

Qually didn't turn out so well for me and started in the 8th position. Had a good start and first lap then things started single filing up. Rode there for a few laps and started working my way up the field to 5th and before I knew it, I was up to 3rd. Hey this is going better than I expected ;-) I was about 10 sec behind the leaders Dennis Morisette and Tom O'Gorman. Couldn't close the gap up until about 3 or 4 laps before the pit window I had it down to about 8 sec.

Went in to pit and had a good one coming out in front of Dennis. Then he pitted on the next lap. I figured I would come out still behind about 4 or 5 sec. But surprisingly I passed him while he was coming out of the pits and had about 12 sec on him but had no sight of Tom. I figured he must be in the pits and sure enough the next lap I see him right in front of Dennis and I had about a 10 sec gap. Slowly he closed in when we got to some traffic and I got a bit sideways. Right on my tail is Tom and it stayed that to the end along with some great racing and some great traffic! Good job guys and congrats to Tom and Dennis for the podiums.

Had a decent start and was able to manage to hold good position for a while and even picked up a few spots during my first stint.

Pretty clean race for everyone.

Ended up wit a couple offs and was in 9th when my router overheated and crapped out.

Oh well...

Ok race for me, alittle off pace maybe trying to hard to stay off the green surface.
Grats to the Podium & Dennis has sure picked it up a notch with alot of top 3's, nice job!

I thought I had a good chance to finish in middle of pack because of practice times and confidence. Then on I guess the third lap I see two porsches stopped, one off in the grass and the other right in front of me and I am over a hundred mph at that point. I barely got by on the left without t-boning the car in front of me. Then I hear my pit chief say I need to come into the pits for a stop and go (I think thats what he said?), but I figure it doesn't apply to me because I haven't done anything wrong (or did I), so I blow by the pits and get a DQ. What a bummer! Can anyone fill me in on what I did wrong? Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks