USA PPRC: Nuerburg

Race was good. Sorry Aubrey for the contact early on in t1, I stopped and waited. The rest of the way was scary there were wrecks everywhere. I was able to squeeze through.
Geez I am a bonehead. There is a spelling error on the picture.

Conratz to Tristan for a heck-of-a-job.
I knew you could do it. :)

Thanks Jim! Pulling it for the Panoz guys... who needs a flat, toned six when you've got a big, hairy eight?!

That was a fun, fun, fun race. I saw you leave room for me, Tommy, on the entry to the shortcut corner on lap 2; Thank you.

As my rear tires began to fall off after five laps, I couldn't quite match Tommy's pace; I was only managing to 'keep in touch.' Somehow I knew though, the final chicane would catch him out, because in every lap before, he was locking up tires into it.

After that the 'ol game-o-consistency reared its head. The rears continued to fall off even more, but I adjusted every lap by attacking many of the corners with more mid-corner speed, so as to put more load on the fronts and give the rears a chance to cool down after powering out of the corner before.

I knew the Panoz could do it! I am now uploading my race setup here for all other Panoziders (rhymes with "suiciders," haha pun) willing to give it a whirl.

Congrats Tristan on the win and for sending me the setup. I thought I would give it a try so I loaded it up. Just then we went to quali so I thought what the hell its gota be better than mine right so I decided to qualify with it. before I hit turn one I realized this setup is all wrong, I can't control it and the gearing is fubar! Next lap I pitted and tried to change the gearing at least. Went back out, had about 3 self spins so I parked it and blew quali off. It wasn't till the end of qualification and saw your car that I realized I was trying to make your Panoz setup work with my Porsche! My bad.

Qual went great. Barry Hedrick gave me a tip on wing settings and I improved on my PB by about a second. But Tristan and Tommy are fast SOBs!

At the start, I was hoping for Tristan to get ahead and hold up Tommy but it didn't happen that way. Tommy got the lead and it looked like they were both going balls to the wall. I slotted into 3rd with no close calls. I could tell something bad had happened behind me when I looked back and Barry wasn't in my mirrors anymore.

At that point I was just trying to get a rhythm and it wasn't happening. So I decided right then to settle for 2nd in class. But then on lap 8, Tommy had a problem and I took over P1 in class.

Tristan was still 5 sec or so in front, but I was finally starting to get comfortable in my car. My times didn't really drop much, but I was getting around with a lot less drama. Dmitry was getting closer in traffic, and at the same time I think Tristan's tires were getting greasy.

So I pushed hard for about 10 laps, and the gap to P1 started coming down. With 3 to go I had the gap under a second, but I had a little bobble coming onto the main straight and just about pooped my pants. Dmitry was still charging, and I couldn't gain any points by passing Tristan so I just tried to hold position after that.

Great drive by Tristan and nice job by Dmitry to keep pushing me.

I didn't expect much from this race, I just was going to have some fun.

Qualified 6th with very close laptimes - Top7 in PCC class sprayed within just 1 sec, and still didn't expect more than Top5 in class.

But on Lap1 Richard and Barry had an accident - one of them was sent off-track and lost a lot of time, and aniother served the drive-through and I found myself running 4th, around 2-3 sec behind Mike Waltz.

The gap from 5th, Kristion Mardosas was slowly increasing and when on lap5 or lap6 he made a mistake and Patrick-Patritti appeared on 5th, 7 sec. behind, I felt that I can feel pretty safe and concentrate on trying to get to Mike.

It was hard - I couldn't get withing attacking distance and stayed 1-2 sec behind until for 15 laps, until lap15, when Mike turned on some kind of boost system and got +2 sec. in 3 laps.

While pursuing Mike I passed crashed Tommi's car, who succeeded in mini-quest for saving PCC class from shame in qual, but failed the main quest in race :)

So on lap 17 I accepted that I won't be able to do anything and settled down, consolinf myself that I still have 0.000001% chance that Mike will make a mistake :) He didn't and I finished 2nd in class.

Quite an intense and fun race, I'm glad I forced myself to wake up @5 a.m. this time :)

Thank you everyone for racing, I'll try to attend USA races more frequently, but can't promise.

Detailed race stats/graphs, in case anyone is interesdet :)

BTW, Mike and Barry, which wing were you running if it's not a secret? :) I was using Tim's setup for Nuerburg GP, which has wing set @10.

Dmitry, I ran 9 wing. I had been running 4 wing which worked really well at Montreal, but was bad for the rear tires here. It was funny watching F1 practice today, and hearing the drivers complain of the same handling problems I was having. :)

Enough time has passed where it's not so painful, and I can talk about it now ;-)

Qual:
Went out early and put down a mid 30, not best I could have done but thought it was ok. Saw P1 on the hud. Still circulating and letting tires cool I noticed I went to P2. Uh oh, gdi Tristan. Then it went to P3! More than my fragile ego could take, getting beat by Waltz and a Panoz.
I knew time had to be out, I crossed S/F one more time on the gas and did not get the checker, proceeded to put in a near perfect (FOR ME) lap, and completely R2P legal. Never even came close to 4 wheels near the white line, most corners barely had 2 wheels over. Last lap, time runs out, cross the line, P1 again. Whew :-)

Race:
This will be short- I am an idiot.
TB and I took off like a shot and gapped the field at probably 1 sec/lap. I drive the GTS in the Euro series so I know it, and know that even with TB at the wheel it would not be possible to keep up that pace. We were inches from each other for 5 laps (as mentioned balls to the wall), then the smallest gap started growing. By lap 9 I had a 2 second lead.

Then, for some insane and inexplicable reason, I screwed up the chicane and turned it around. I wasn't even driving 100%.
There was no way TB could avoid my stupidity, that Panoz just can't brake and handle that fast, and he clipped me. I was hoping I didn't damage him, and it doesn't look like I did because he kept his pace.
I was missing my splitter and tried my best for damage control, running 5 seconds a lap slower.

I'm not sure what's worse, being beaten by a GTS or losing the points lead to Waltz :P

It's on now you 2. Not gonna get beaten by that Panoz again.