Pacific G3: Dubai

Was cruising in 3rd most of the race with my teamm8 John behind me. Then it seemed to be paybacktime for Imola. :-) Went a little too wide and had to let John pass. No problem there because his ranking in the championship was already better than mine. Garry came very close in the last lap but I managed to keep 4th in the end. Grats to the guys on the podium.

I spent my practice time trying to get a decent race setup in the Bimmer and figured I could drop the wing and add some softs for qualy. THAT was a mistake. I wound up near the back of the pack. Thank goodness there were some no shows or it could have been worse.
At the start, I worked my way up to 7th behind Garry and Tommy C. I enjoyed watching them scrapping for 5th. I really didn't have anything for them as I was pushing 110%! I'd get on Garry's bumper every now and then but that was it.
Garry finally made his way around Tommy. Tommy then made a mistake shortly after and I took the chance and passed. The Bimmer is a bit slow exiting corners and Tommy had a better exit out of the left hander after the squggly chicane. He just tapped me and spun me around. He waited on me (very gentlemen like Tommy) and gave me back the position. I was fully expecting him to battle me like he did with Garry, but it never came to fruition. We cruised until near the end when I was held up in the chicane and, having worn tires, Tommy caught right up but didn't attempt a pass before the end.

Tommy, you must of had some tire issues or a bad handling car after Garry passed you. What gives?

After last nights Elise race on this track I decided to try the Porka tonight. I downloaded Tims setup, practiced with it for an hour or so, made 1 change to the rear toe-in, and set a fast lap of 1:27.something. Great! This'll be good tonight!

Qualy went okay, not able to get that fast as in practice, but did manage to qualy 8th, my best qualy ever! Cool! Should be a fun race!

The race itself - well, For whatever reason I just couldn't get the car to go well through the esses. It was a struggle on every lap. In the garage setup screen I set my fuel level to enough for 47 minutes. Figured that would be good for a 45 minute race. Guess what? It's not, not in the Porka! With five minutes left I get fuel low warning. I back off, short shift, try to conserve and make to the end. Last lap I have .3 liter left so I stop just before the finish line with about 20 seconds to wait. When I saw the checkered flag I crossed the line, a fraction of a second before the car 1 place behind me passed me, dropping me from 10 to 11th, at the last second. Oh well.

Seems I can't push the Porka around corners, do some corner-braking, like I do in front-engine cars. It was an education tonight. Yeah, that's it, an education, it was good for me, yeah, that's it. Heheh.

Congrats to the winners, good racing out there tonight.

Had to drop because of a video glitch with gray triangles radiating from the center of the screen. Never seen that before and impossible to drive.

I was happy with my qualify time. Thought I'd race the elise since I'm comfortable with it.

(Sorry this is so long, but it was awfully exciting!)

Wow, what an unbelievable race. Quite likely the most intense race I've been in thus far! I started out in practice running the 911. Unfortunately, I was barely any faster in it than I was in the Elise the night before. So after futile attempts at getting the Volkswagen to turn....and at the prodding of Tommy C....I jumped out of the 911 and into the powerhouse Elise. ;)

Without a lot of practice laps, I was initially a bit off my pace. Nonetheless, I assumed I'd get into a rhythm and I also figured tire wear on the Elise would be in my favor. So I stuck with it. Into qual we go...

Got onto the track and promptly realized as I exited pit road that I had a full tank of fuel!! ARGH!! I did the same exact thing the night before for the Elise fun run. I made two laps, scored a 27.1, and returned to the pits for less fuel. On my one timed lap I was up nearly half a second by sector 2, but time ran out. Ah well, such is life. I was 3rd on the grid so no complaining from me.

The green lights came on and we were off. Much to my surprise I got a holeshot! I'm guessing Augustin and George (both in 911s) had tall gearing or something, but we were side by side by side entering T1. I broke pretty late on the outside. George and I were side by side in the middle of the corner, but I guess I got on the power just a hair earlier and got the position. Definitely didn't expect that!

I held the lead for several laps. But once Augustin got past George for 2nd my lead started to twindle. Finally, Augustin had caught me and easily passed on the front straight a bit before mid-way. My only hope at this point was that the 911's tire wear would be pretty bad and maybe I could catch him in the closing laps.

Augustin had opened up a lead that at one time was as large as 5.5 seconds or so. I was pushing pretty hard to not let him get *too* far away, but I also was trying to conserve my LF tire. At one point about 2/3 through, he had a half spin at the final turn. I took the lead briefly, but he easily motored by for the position. That was the encouragement I needed to push harder 'cause maybe the Volkswagen's tires were wearing.

I'd reel him in in the infield. He'd motor away down the straight. It was the epic battle of big power/weight against little power/weight! At this point, I was warming up pretty good. Literally! The ceiling fan was just not keeping up with the heat I was generating. :)

Two laps to go.... I got a good run out of the T1/2 sequence. I got along side as we approached the very first chicane. I had the inside line and maybe half a car length ahead. We dove in and I grabbed the position! We negotiated the remainder of the "infield" and entered the front straight where....you guessed it....Augustin just motored on by! UGH! I pushed really hard that last lap. my left front tire was screaming for mercy...I didn't care. :) We were nose to tail for most of that last lap. I got a fair run onto the straight, but Augustin just put his foot into it and took the win with me behind.....by .274 seconds!

Great racing, Augustin! That was truly a LOT of fun! Thanks to everyone (as usual) for the considerate driving. There's no way we could've raced as tightly as we did last night without incident in a pick-up race.

Tommy

Yeesh, who's stupid idea was it to run an Elise? That's my excuse. Never mind the OT (Original Tommy) and his result in same, he uses illegal fuel. Again, that's my excuse.

Wish I would have known these things were down 20 kph top speed, I had no idea.

On the plus side I had a great dice with Garry and Garret :-) Sure beats running around by myself like in the Elise race.

TC

Heh, I'm the flaming car on the front straight on lap 1...sounded like an awesome race! I'm really sorry I missed it.