Yes these were great! The track is quite demanding, and as with the Boss' race on tuesday, consistency was king tonight. And as this little Opel is such a breeze to drive, I had a great time doing some practise with Peter and Jacob on wednesday.
The North version of this track however, reminded me of something; IIRC it was Stuart who referred to some other track a while ago as being "..as twisty as a snake with stomach cramps.." and I think that phrase was very appropriate here as well.
Come race night, I had a good P1 and Q1 and started from 2nd place behind Eck. A good race start got me into the lead for a while, until a mistake cost me speed and Eck got by. From then on I could only watch him pull away from me at a sec. per lap until fate hit him in the penultimate lap and I inherited the lead again, and the win!
In P2, on the full track, I struggled with the longer gears, but still managed 3rd in Q2 albeit 2 sec. behind both Stuart and Eck.
In the race Eck went off in L2 so I was in 2nd chasing Stuart, who at some point struggled in the final corner, losing quite a lot of speed, allowing me to get really close on the home straight and as he mentioned on TS that T1 was not his favourite corner I figured there might be room for an overtaking manoevre, which unfortunately was not a clean one.:oops:
Sorry about that one Stuart, but please look at it this way: In the about 11 months I've been racing here, I've become quite experienced in BEING overtaken, and since a few months I've felt confident enough to actually start DEFENDING my position against people wanting to overtake me, but being in a position where, at full race speed, I could actually OVERTAKE people myself is a whole new ballgame to me, and there's still a lot to learn.
After that my not being consistent cost me a possible 2nd win, as my big lead vanished when I had a spin at the end of the long straight. Jacob came by and Eck was breathing down my neck again; managed to pass Jacob but Eck got by me and won..
Grats to Eck, Jack and Jacob for the podium, thanks to everyone present and of course to Stuart for managing the event - please ignore my rather crude way of showing my appreciation this week...