Elise fun-run

hell of a race you all!
had some good tight raceing!
congradulations to the podiums!

Fantastic fun tonight! Had some great battles in the 8th and 10th positions. Congrats to the winners.

I thought that was the shiznit! I went wheel to wheel with a few different guys, racing in a tight formation for most of the race, and everyone kept their noses pretty clean! Who says you can't have fun with a four-banger?

That was way too intense!

Epic battle for a top 10 finish. Chip went ahead of me on lap 4, I think, and for 15 laps I tried to get my spot back.

With 2 laps left, I could see his tires were shot. He was sliding into the 1st turn! I had him. But, that slippery blue Elise evaded my advances. On the last turn he got loose, but I was so suprised I checked up instead of going inside!

No problem. I would get him this lap.
Again he managed to keep me at bay. I was patient, though.
I had forgotten we had been lapped!! This was to be my last chance.

As we came through the last turn, Chip went on a wide arc as I skipped underneath. I drove hard off that corner, seeing the checkered flag fly...

0.313 seconds.
Damn, one more lap...

Great re-cap, Clay! I love reading about the battles that went on during the race. We all get so involved in our own fights for position that we can't often pay any attention to what else may be going on. Thanks for the play by play!

I'm not really sure how it happened. I usually don't like these little pieces du garbage. I also never really fare well at this track, but for some reason I managed to get a setup that really, really worked well especially in the higher speed sweepers. On top of that, I had something in my head "click" with regard to the layout of this place and I felt way more comfortable than I ever had before and I saw lines I hadn't before. No, I'm not really sure why!

Anyway, I managed to qual on the pole with my personal best of a 1:26.4, which to be honest was quite surprising! But in a good way. :) It's actually my first and only track record (I think).

I got a rare good start at the beginning and held the lead into T1. Maciej was quick, though, and he was challenging me within the next lap or so. He had a bobble here and there, though, and that let me gain some breathing room while I settled into a rhythm. Soon, however, he exited out. Not sure what happened for sure. That let Tommy C. inherit 2nd place.

I owe an apology to Tom Rue and Chip Wiegand, though. While y'all were battling for 9th (I think) I approached rather suddenly under braking. It was rather unexpected on my part. There were only 2 laps left at that time and I had a comfy lead over 2nd so I had every intention of just biding my time and let y'all battle it out. I'd only pass if a very obvious situation presented itself which would not interfere with your battle. But, it looked like Tom backed out of it at when I first approached, but so did I! This let Chip gap out a bit. Later on, in the last sequence of corners Tom let me by. I felt bad that he lost so much time to Chip on my behalf. Later, though, Chip made a similarly nice gesture to let me by and it looked like it allowed Tom to reel him in a bit so maybe it all worked out? Anyway, my apologies! :(

Thanks to everyone for the clean and considerate driving. I really enjoyed this one! Congrats to the rest of the podium: Tommy and Les!

Tommy

Tommy said "Later, though, Chip made a similarly nice gesture to let me by and it looked like it allowed Tom to reel him in a bit so maybe it all worked out? Anyway, my apologies! :("

Yep, Tom was able to close up the gap and got around me, finally finishing about 4 1/4 seconds ahead of me. But that's ok, no apologies needed. I look at it as part of racing.

I qualy'ed 14, finished 10th (barely)heheh, and set my PB lap time at 1:31.something.

The recap Clay provides is great. I set my fuel to be just enough to finish, so the last two laps there was very little left, plus the tires were wearing, thus the car was very squirrelly. I had a heck of a time fending off Clay's advances, he was persistent.

I had a blast in that race last night. Had to be one of the funnest I've driven.

That was an -amazing- race! I wish I had a better setup, as the Elise wasn't quite handling how I'd like, but I had a great race as I was for the most part just about trading paint with Aubrey Windle. Absolutely fantastic. Also, this happens to be the first race which I both didn't spin out, didn't mess up severely, and finished on the lead lap. How awesome.

Congrats to the podium. You guys were ripping it up out there, and really deserved it!.

Who's going to be at G3 tonight?

fun race till I ran out of fuel. Thought it was a 20 min not 20 lap race :(