End of Year Enduro - 200km of Magny Cours - Thu 16th Dec

Damn. Connection lost. First time I've ever lost connection in a race. Was running reasonably well in the Jag too. Bugger!

Bad luck there Glenn.

A fine festive gathering to end the GTL year for us all,in the end i got fed up pitting and throwing more fuel and tyres at the Jaaaaaag,still glad i chose it for a comfy cruise around until spluttering to a halt on 43 of 45 .

Many Thanks Stu-Carlos & RD

You ran out of gas?

Oh, mate :frown:

Lol really no biggy Thommo,i knew it was going to happen,problem started on first pit when i only put 60L in for some daft reason and it needed the full 100L and still another fuel stop was needed,this event was more a case of "being there",innit .

It was very nice to do GTL again after such a break , what a pleasurable game.

I always wanted to drive this little Porsche so it was an easy choice with the car but not so wise it seems lol. 2 stops needed in the race as 50l went up in smoke in 21 laps. But it held very well on tires, should not have changed them at my pitstops. Confusing times at the 1st one as i completely forgot how to do it GTL and have lost unnecessary time while my pit crew awaited instructions. Haad a nice fight with Dmytro in the 1st half until i spuned.
After that i never knew where m,i going to finish as people were pitting at different stages. 3rd place in the end and i take itarrot:, even last would have been worthed this pleasure of driving the Abarth:love:.

Congrats to Ryan for the dominant win:trophy:, thx all for racing:good:

This turned out to be a popular event, maybe everyone was in a festive mood.
I was expecting this one to be a very relaxing and cruisy affair in the Jaaaaaag, one arm on the window sill, the other tuning the radio in that huge walnut dash. In the end, it started to become bloody hard work and the fun drained away a bit. For some reason, the old barge became more thirsty and chewed tyres faster as the race wore on.

Based on limited pre-race testing. I knew how many laps I could do on a full tank. During the first stint, as I approached my planned pitstop point, I still had just under half a tank of fuel left, very weird. Of course the tyres were pretty shagged, so I came in a few laps later, and filled the fuel again. For my second pitstop, I added less fuel (since consumption was appearing much better), only to find that I was running out of fuel and wouldn't make it to the end. Stopped for an additional splash and dash, forgot to turn off tyre replacement, so ended up waiting for a new full set of tyres for the remaining two laps, DOH!!!. :frown:

Sorry to the guys in the nippy cars for holding you up, I know I was a pain by being faster in the straight and then holding you up in the turns, but the Jaaaaaag is like the Queen Mary to get around a tight turn. I know I gave Nigel plenty of grief as he took about 6 laps to finally get past. :sorry:

Thanks to Stu for organising, it was different. Best wishes to everyone for a happy and safe Christmas.

I enjoyed myself, was good to be back with the old GTL crew - haven't raced with many of you fellas for quite some time.

Ran the big Jag, to offside the other Aussie in the field (Warren). Wasn't expecting too much, and with my setup (soft as buggery at the front, stiff as possible at the rear), I was definately gonna be in for some sideways fun.

Quali - Ran a 1:08.5 or something with full tanks. Suprised the bejesus outta me, but the tyres were shagged by 3 laps... The lap put me in 8th or something like that for race start...

Race - Good start, but took it very easy. Let quite a few cars go past, and then benefited from the usual bingles in the first few laps. Used the straight line speed advantage of the Jag to get a few people down the straights.... To be honest, I reckon the Jag had alot going for it in this event, particularly early in the stints, when the tyres were still quite good. I only suffered towards the end of a stint...

Ended up being nose to tail with Mr Lennon in another Jag for maybe 10 laps or so, before I looped it. At which stage the tyres were shagged. Battled on, and ended up nearly running the old bus out of fuel. Pitted just in front of Stu, and he managed to get out just in front of me in the drag to the exit. Took a few laps to drag past the Abarth up the back straight, but then I think Stu ran wide and I managed to nip through, I don't think we made contact... Apologies if we did though Stu...

After that, I was just trying to chase down the pack ahead. Got close to the stragglers at the back of it, when I copped my first ever disco. Bugger!

Ah well. Next time maybe!

Thanks Stu for organising, was a pleasure to come and race in a relaxed atmosphere. If only every place was like the RD GTL Club.

Have a great and safe Christmas everyone.

It was good to get an endurance race and some pitstops under my belt. Things went relatively ok but I perhaps went a little early for the first pitstop. Chased Bruce for a bit and then had a good old battle with Ondrej for a while until he had to pit and then I was mostly a lone except for the lappers. Disappointed not to see Senad present at event time. Enjoyed the strategy of pitting... deciding when and what and how much. Have a happy holiday all and thanks to Stu and well done to Ryan, second place(?) sorry can't remember, and Dariusz.

I'm not very good at the whole pitting thing, so my main goal with this enduro was to see if I can do the whole thing without ever visiting the pits. During my offline practice, I realized that I can do the whole race on just one tank if I kept the revs low. But I didn't actually try to do 45 laps at 2x tire wear to find out if my tires would hold. I just did about 20 laps and figured I could do it based on the current wear rate. I was right! I had to drive slow as hell but I was able to stay away from the pits. My lap times weren't stellar thanks to the conservative driving, but I was able to pass some of the much faster guys because of not pitting. In the end, I was surprised and very happy to finish 7th. I think I could have actually driven a little bit harder and still have made it, but as Lenno said, this event was more about just being there, and I'm glad I was there and happy I finished.

P.S. I had about 3 laps of fuel left at the end, tires had about 12-15% left, and my engine health was at 95% lol

Major thanks to Thommo for cooking it up and to everyone who showed up and made it special.:good:

Was fun to be there last night.

A bit of an inauspicious start to the event. Didn't actually test the TVR before choosing it, with the Abarth and briefly the Elite the only cars having experience with. TVR didn't seem to be popular, went with it because of that, and got very lucky.

During testing it seemed to hate changing down to 2nd gear (not liking 3rd gear much either), so I devised a technique around the track which saw me only use 2nd in one place, at the hairpin. This left my gears a little short for the straight, but it seemed to work as I was fastest during praccy once I saw other's times. The fragile engine also meant I couldn't flat-shift with no auto-clutch, so instead of going full auto clutch, I learnt to lift briefly on the changeup and that gave me enough leeway to last a race. Pleasingly I saw that the TVR could do almost the entire race on one tank with the way I drove it, so only one stop was required thankfully, having never done a pitstop in rage in GTL.

In qualifying I gained a CTD and then a BSOD which left me with enought time to get 3 hotlaps in. The first lap was ruined by traffic (don't think they had my car loaded), the 2nd I managed to run wide and gain a cut warning, but I managed to sneak pole with my 3rd lap, despite some hairy moments.

In the race I lead well off the line until towards the end of the lap when I understeered into the gravel a little, meaning I dropped behind Yves, Dmytro and Alex. Some fierce battling was going on, but I tried not to get too involved, confident my superior pace would get me past eventually. Alex and and Yves battled, I got held up behind them, picking up a place from Alex but losing out to the other Abarth of Dariusz. Pleasingly the TVR was excellent in the secondary stage of exiting corners, meaning passing was not much stress. I got past Yves into T1 on lap 3 and then Dariusz in the same lap towards the end. I shadowed Dmytro for a couple of laps before passing into Adelaide.

And thats where the action ended for me. I pulled away from the squabbling Dmytro and Dariusz, with only some scary traffic for company, so I amused myself by watching oher's races via the time splits on XD. Ran slightly wide and dropped a couple of seconds around lap 10. My pitstop came up on lap 28, I decided to make it a nice safe one, having no experience, with around 6 laps too much fuel. Emerged with a 22 second lead after that shook out. Put some nice laps in, managed to spin it briefly on lap 41, having changed to 2nd instead of 3rd, losing 7 seconds. But eventually won by 30 seconds.

It was slightly boring after I got away but it was educational, needing to run in a higher gear than optimal and also conserving that engine. After my atrocious driving at Roeun, it was a welcome tonic.

Thanks to Stu and everyone who showed up.

A pleasant and relaxing race between 23.00 and 00.30

Not bad qualifi, 2nd position. Could compete for the pole, but Ryan's breakthrough in the last seconds deserves respect. I'm in the last three minutes of qualification already decided not to create too much traffic. Especially given the lack of warm-up before the race, I've dicided to focus on the upcoming race.

Start turned out normal. After Ryan's mistake, I went, even in the first place, but I understood that would not be able to keep behind Ryo for a long time. I drove too cautiously, as I now know, was afraid that I can ditch the car because of frisky start.
Because, I deliberately gave Ryan beat me in Adelaide, but the rest I decided to fight :tongueanyway, we were with Ryo in one team :rally: :wink.

Then there was a big fight with Dariusz. Sometimes I'm a little slow down his pace. Then I realized that I did not need so keep the car and could go much faster (as I was going after my pit stop), since the end of the race left me with another 35% of the engine resource.
At one of the laps in Adelaide, Dariusz was wrong with the braking and not divided highway with Norman.
On this, my direct fight with someone over until the end of the race. My task was only to gain advantage from third place and did not give completely relax Ryan. But Rio was simply unbeatable.

Thanks to all for the race and Stewart for the organization. I began to realize that I like Endurance.

Was really looking forward to this, the Elite handled well around Magny-Cours, and although slightly down on the TVR's pace, it was still able to bang in the 2.08 laps consistently without damaging the engine or tyres.
Qualified P3, got a fair start but had 'Rocket Bob' alongside into T1. We sorted ourselves out into T2, but on the exit while i was on the outside of the track, whoever was between me & Bob bumped me off into the gravel and continued. I rejoined 2nd last and had a massive fight on my hands to get a good result.
Had some great battles along the way, and it was a real test to plan moves on cars that were much quicker in a straight line and not as good on the brakes, but i eventually got up to 4th and was on the trail of Bob after my pitstop and looking good for a podium. However, as i was trying very hard to whittle down the gap. i binned it into T2, skipped across the gravel, into the barrier, and knackered the car, forcing a 2min+ pitstop. I rejoined and toured round until the end, trying to unlap myself and catch up the pack. (thanks to those who noticed this and let me through!) It was a really interesting race in terms of planning overtakes, and i think the cars were actually fairly well balanced on this track. ANother enduro like this would be quite nice i think.
Well done to the finishers, and well done to the two TVR's at the front for not blowing up!

Cheers Thommo!

I was lagging a lot sorry for those two faults Nigel and Hans

I also had 7 times stop&go penalty (10x in pits)... LOL, still catched Hans and Norman

Happy Christmas

Slammed the car after the last exit barriers at lap 9 I think. End of Year for me.

Great race, good cars for an enduro & not a bad track. Well done Thommo for putting this together mate, well thought out & executed, top marks from all judges.

Thanks to all drivers that attended the race, you were all in top form & it was great to have the last enduro with so many of you.

Well done to Ryan on taking the win, good driving also by Dmytro to take second with Dariuzs taking the final podium spot. But the biggest thanks goes to all that attended to make this one great GTL enduro.

Happy holidays to you all & hope to see all of ya in the new year.

Complete forgot to post it here,

My report as a slide show ,enjoy:

Cheers Hans, good job!!

Now i know who knocked me off the circuit on lap one!

High class Hans m8!.