OPAKRACING Pacific nGT: Dubai

well....that's better.

At least I ended up with a top 10. Had 1 contact incident resulting in damage which I was not happy about, but that's how it goes some times and the car seemed to actually get a little better LOL. No sense in getting upset over it.
Qualie'd 11th. Was thinking I was fairly fast, but man the field was smokin. I was over 1 second off the top 3 qualifiers, and couldn't shave another .5 off my time if my life depended on it.

Got to 7th after the turn 1 incident and was able to hold it for several laps, but the inevitable mistake cost me a couple spots. Thankfully, I had very little troubles, mostly cause I was all alone for a while. Spun her in the final turn about midway through, and skimmed the sand exiting the same a little later. Had a minor slip up in the double right hander before the chicayne which also cost me a bit of time.

All in all, could have easily ended up with 8th if not for a couple minor incidents, one with another driver and one without. But I survived the race and got a top 10, which I am pleased about. Am I on mission impossible? I would like a top 5 one of these days this season!

My apologies for not unsubscribing. Set the alarm at 04.45 AM ... do remember I heared it ... but found it in the corner this morning. Guess I needed my sleep. :-)

I had a good race going. Had another great start this time, gaining 3 spots by the end of the straight! thats 2 in a row now! I was pushing for 5th-6th positions during, having some consistent lapping and fighting to keep my position with a couple of faster guys behind me. I dont feel like i slowed you guys down (Barry, Les, Scott and Dennis), it was just that you were coming at me in parts of the tracks, and i was getting away in others. Anyway i had my Ferrari setup for maximum corner exit so it was hard for you all to pass me. Had some contact with Barry, thanks for waiting for me and letting me by. Then, to avoid another incident, i decided to do an early dive for the pits a lap or two later. So i filled up my tank and got new tires, was doing great until i tried to be overly nice to Connor when he was lapping me, resulting in a misunderstanding. We touched pretty good, sending me to the armco, im glad he didnt lose position and went to win the race. Sorry Connor, and i will try to do what i am supposed to next time, to hold my line and let the faster car do the overtaking.

That was a blast! Things were looking grim at first as my computer was shutting down after a few minutes running. My brother to the rescue! He had me download and run C Cleaner(TM) which got rid of 2.2 gigs of just plain crap on my hard drive along with a defrag and it worked like a champ.

Qualified 3rd but with a real crappy start I found myself all the way back in 9th place. With 4 wide going into turn 1, I decided to back off of that one and let it go. Going into the long banked left Daniel went real wide. I went under him as he came down to try to protect the position but it was a little too late as we made contact. Now I was right behind Don when going into the last turn, he went sideways and spun moving me up another position. Now it was Dennis, Scott, Bobby, Me and Les all battling for position. Scott had an off going up through the National chicanes. It took a few laps to catch up with Bobby and I couldn't shake Les off my tail. I couldn't get a run onto the front strait on Bobby and knew I would have to try a pass in the infield. Bobby went a little wide and I stuck my nose in there and we made contact and he spun. So I waited for him and let him back by but also had to let Les and Scott by too :-(

A couple laps later, I see Bob go into the pits, kind of early I thought but that gave me the position back. Now I could still see Scott and Les and tried to stay consistent and made some ground up on them before I went into the pits.

My plan was to not take tires if the wear was 10 or around 10. After a quick look the highest wear number was 11 on the left rear tire and opted to not take tires and it worked! After all the pit rounds were done, I found myself in 3rd place. In my mirror though I could see Dennis creeping up on me little by little and I knew he was on newer tires. I just tried to keep my cool and save my tires the best I could for the battle that was soon to be. Sure enough he caught up to me and was puttin the pressure on pretty good. I knew he was just a tick faster getting onto the front strait (my downfall turn) so I kept breaking the draft on him which worked out as we crossed the line in 3rd and 4th with Les in 5th. A great race for me and I really needed a good finish.

Congrats to Conor for the win and Kent for 2nd place. You guys were flying out there.

Very good pace but on the grand scheme of things, it was a crappy race and I probably lucked out in winning it.

This this car was the best handling Porsche I ever had and because Dubai is one of my favorite tracks, I knew I had a chance to win this race :).

Qual was very good. Kent knew I was going to get a 1.21 but I just wasn't expecting it. A 1.21.8 beat the old record by about 6 tenths and I still think I some on the table :).

The first half of the race was quite good. My pace was consistent in the high 1.22s and low 23s so I pulled out quite a bit over Kent. Late in the stint, I had a little run in with a lapped car when he lagged right in front of me. No where to go so I just slammed into his ghost which gave me some damage but nothing serious.

I pitted halfway and took on some gas and fresh tires knowing that I had a good lead to spend some more time in the pits. Came out behind a gaggle of cars and successfully made my way through them. With about 15 min left in the race, things started going downhill for me, however. Kent pitted pretty late in the race so around that time I grabbed the lead back with about a 15 second gap between us. I was coming up on Bobby on one of the double apex corners when I saw him wiggle a bit, get onto the grass and then spun out right into front of me. Once again, I had no where to go and slammed pretty good into him. By now, the car had a good amount of aero damage but the suspension was okay. Still, it really hurt me on the straights and Kent closed up to about 8 seconds behind me. My troubles still continued. With roughly a few minutes left, I closed up onto another lapped going into the long right hander right after sector 1. He braked a lot sooner than I thought he would so I slammed my brakes and went off track and onto the high grip asphalt. Almost spun out but I kept it straight and got on the track...but it kept Kent closing in. I kept running as fast as I could but with all that damage, Kent kept creeping back in. Luckily, the race finally ended and I won it...barely. If there were about 5 more laps left, Kent probably would have gotten me.

It wasn't pretty, but a win is a win and I'll take it anyway I can get it. I was very pleased with the pace and I just wish my RS could handle like that for GT-I :).

Cya'll next time.

Really a pretty good race for me. I tested in the RSR and was a good 5-7/10ths faster in it but I wanted to be in the race. When Conor joined in teh RSR I knew he would wipe me clean, but I still opted to drive the GTC.

Sure enough in qual I did a pretty decent lap, good enough for me but way behind Conors blistering 21.8.

I saw Conor was lapping about a second faster than me in practice so I figured I was in a race for second. Conor got a real good start and that was good for me because it meant I could take any line I wanted into T1 and at the end of lap 1 I had a comfortable gap behind. I was lapping in the high 23's and losing about a second a lap to Conor, but I was gaining almost as much from 3rd.

My strategy was to take care of my tires and then just pit for fuel, hoping to make up some ground on Conor. About 1/3 into the race I saw the timer coming down fast to Conor and sure enough there his car sat half buried in T1. I drove around it cautiously and thought I would get the easy win with his disco. But by the time I got back to the National chicane timing showed me back in 2nd again.

Conor pitted early (halfway I think) and I motored on running really consistant lap times in the 23's. When I pitted at the end of lap 30 I had about 34 seconds on Conor and he had been taking some good chunks out of my lead. Knowing that I couldn't get out in front AND still keep the lead on old tires I decided to change them.

Conor wen by as I started rolling and well the race for the win was gone for sure. I did manage to pick up a fair amount of time by running longer but no way to even challenge Conor, he was in a class of his own.

Grats to Conor and all that finished.