Couple of very nice races (well, one good, one brilliant) in these cars.
It's weird to think I used to avoid these Muscle cars like the plague, but now I find they're almost relaxing to drive, because everything has to be done so soon, but so slowly so as not to upset them.
Race 1 - I had a stinky quali lap putting me down on the last or penultimate row. I got a good start, immediately compromised by whomever was in front of me getting a poor start, causing me to have to come right out of the accelerator.
On reflection, it was probably for the best, otherwise I'd have had no real racing in this one. Started working my way through the pack in front, getting into a really nice three-way (oo-er missus) with Hutcho & Phil. They had a bit of a tangle going into Maggots, leaving my pretty much on my own in 4th, and it stayed that way until the end. The three in front were slowly pulling away, as I was pulling away from the chasing pack by roughly the same sort of amounts.
Race 2 - that's a whole new ball game. Good enough quali for P2, Eck was away solidly enough from pole, but Nige got a proper kung fu start up into P2, and Hutcho was right in the mix as well. After a few corners, it settled down to be Eck in the lead followed by Nige, then me then Bob. I was slowly catching them in front, while Bob was constantly waiting for any mistakes on my side. I left the door a bit too wide on entry to Stowe, and he dived down the inside, but I had a inkling he was coming, so I cut back across his tail as he ran towards the outside under braking and took the place back straight away. After that, I closed up on Nige, who himself had closed right up on Eck. There followed some seriously close racing, with various place changes, until Eck went a bit wide into Club, with me on a tight line and we had a bit of a touch which cost him that 5 sec he mentioned (although Hutcho is now going to call Club Corner "Thommo's Laundry" because - apparently - I hung Eck out to dry
). This allowed me to concentrate on getting to Nige, now in the lead. Like last week in the Minis, I looked down at the lapcounter, and simply couldn't believe we were on lap 11. Nige was obviously struggling with his tyres, I managed to catch up quickly, but by the same token, mine weren't exactly fresh out of the box either, so any advantage I got through my lines or in the braking zones wasn't quite enough to get past safely, and so we crossed the line 0.2 sec apart. I ended up with the fastest lap of a 1.41.0, which I was more than moderately chuffed with.
Gratso to Eck & Nige for the wins, and all the podium kiddies - a fantastic night's racing.
As for next week's event, I like both of these cars, but I'm finding them a little similar, to be honest. I enjoyed the contrast we had with the Boss & the CSL, and also the contrast between the Shelby 350 & the Merc 300SL when we drove them round Spa. Maybe as a counterpoint to the Vette, the Ferrari 275 would be a good contrast? There's loads of skins for it in the GTC65 pack now... Just my €0.02 though - you know I'll drive whatever's on offer.
RD is my dealer, GTL is my crack, and my lips are welded to the pipe.
