Pacific nGT: Imola

Great race!
Woke up at 4am and thought "WTF am I doing? GT-I in 12 hours and I've only had 3 hours sleep!". For some reason I then got out of bed and joined the server! :P
It took me a while to get my head around the whole deathly quiet thing, and the whole driving with blurry-triple vision thing, but by qualifying I was pretty much right on it. My lap was solid, could have been better, but I was never going to beat Kent, so I was extremely happy with 2nd place :-)
Off the grid I saw Kent jump way before the lights, so I knew he was getting a drive-through (very unlucky Kent, the race was yours if it wasn't for that). I got a good start but backed off before T1 because I didn't want to get messed up with Kent while I knew he would be pulling off. I took the lead on lap 2 and held it while Fishman closed in on me. I held him back for a few laps but I was only delaying the inevitable, and eventually I ran wide on old tyres at Villeneuve and he got through. A few laps later I pitted, came out and put down some nice laps. Fish got caught up with Barry (who hadn't pitted) in Variente Alta a few laps later and that let me close to within a second of him, but then he dropped the hammer and left me for dead, so with 10 minutes to go I saw the gap back to 3rd was big enough that I could cruise home (the TVR has been marginal on reliability in the past so I was all too happy to short shift to the end). Kent closed in slightly quicker than I was expecting at the end, but I still had enough to ease it to the flag, and a very relieved 2nd place :-)

Nice race guys, see you when I wake up :P

Wow that turned out to be a LOT of fun.

Qualled on the pole, and when 10 seconds rolled down I engaged the gear........but the engine was dead? I tried starting it, got flustered, escaped to the garage and rejoined with all the lights lit, stuck it in gear and let out the clutch........except it wasn't green yet DOH!

Got a decent start, Scott gave me T1 and I slid around lap one barely maintaining the lead and asking Tim on TS how to do a stop and go. End of lap 2 I pitted to serve my penalty and rejoined in 15th. By the end of that lap I was 12th and then screwed up after someone flashed me past and dropped to 14th again.

Finally I settled down and started driving. Made some nice passes, had one touch with a Porsche in Tosa when I had just passed someone and they tried to under me but I had already out braked and they slid under me, through the corner and he just touch my bumber as he went by and that sent him around.

Pitted from 5th and about 13 seconds down to 4th. Since I was driving the crap out of the car I decided I should take fresh tires. The extra time in the stop really hurt and I rejoined 9th and 16 seconds behind. After the rest of the pits were done I found myself in 3rd but stll 13 seconds back.

I chipped away at Scott's lead but I needed about 5-10 more laps before I could have had a chance but I closed to within 3.5 seconds which really made the entire race a pleasure because I really pushed all race long.

Grats to David and Scott on the podium and to all others for assisting with passing.

Great race guys! I was the slow yellow Ferrari which at times passed you lappers back! XD

Seriously though, its only made better by the fact that this is the first race I finished. I'm not sure who came in 15th, but whomever it was I was so close to getting you on those last laps! I figured out right at the end how to drive the 360 and was ripping up times on a lose rear end and worn tires that were not sticking for anything.

In any case, congrats podium! the 1-2 battle looked hot from where I was--I envy you guys!

See you at Brno!

What can I say about a win?

My only regret was not giving Barry Kennedy enough space in the chicane. When he got loose and lost momentum, I was right there to finish the job of putting him around. Very sorry for that. I hope it didn't cost you too badly.

Fun running with Scott. You gave that TVR hell, kiddo.

I'm reasonably happy with that race for me as it was the cleanest race I've had in GTR2 since shifting (no pun intended) to the H-pattern and no auto-clutch. I nearly had to pull out but thankfully my appalling hangover really cleared up in the half-hour leading up to the race!

My qual times in the TVR were pretty shocking and seven seconds per lap off Scott in the other TVR. I can't believe he got that to second! Well done.

I was very cautious for the first couple of laps because I've made bone-headed mistakes within the first two laps of my last two races. Thankfully I avoided that this time and I'm impressed that everyone was so cleanly through the first lap with such a large field.

Anyway, over the course of the race I only spun once and was reasonably consistent(ly slow) but by the end I got down to nearly within a second of my pre-H-pattern times and wasn't too far off the midfielders lapping me in quicker cars.

Congrats to the guys at the pointy end.

Guys, that was both the longest race I've ever run, and the most enjoyable. Coming from lobby races, I used to count myself lucky if I could complete 10 laps without getting punted by someone. Now I can drive an hour, and the only real threat is my own poor tire management!

You guys race clean and hard. It's a complete joy to be part of it, even from a lap back.

good race guys, this is a verry hard series for me. since im such a newb.. jeez yalll are fasttt