Well, a pretty meagre turnout again - and as always is them that don't show up that miss out on the fun.
Those of us who were there had a whale of a time again. As Knut & I said afterwards, they might be pigs to control at times, but you can't help but smile with these big old muscle cars. They're like a massive St. Bernard that knocks you flat on your arse, but only because it wants to play. You can't stay mad at them for long.
Birmingham GP
This track - in both GP and Sprint layout - is rapidly becoming one of my favourites as it is so adaptable to whatever car you drive round it. I picked a Corvette, which weighs about the same as Greenland. That really told off the line as the relatively lightweight Cobra, TVR & Daytona leaped away like scalded cats around me. I went a bit wide in T2 righthander as my braking distances and efficiency were nowhere close to being a match for them, but just went wide enough for me to get over the crown and I spun - serves me right for being so considerate
. Started my drive back homing in on Hans' Daytona which, even in this company, was brutally quick on the straights. I managed to nip inside him into T2 on the next lap after he kept the line completely closed, and attempted to reel in Simon's Cobra. He had a small moment and allowed me past. Kris was next on my list, and he was setting a good pace, but a couple of Birmingham's apparently easy, but in reality tricky corners allowed me to sneak past uder accelleration, setting me loose to try and close up on Bram, Knut & Christian, who were close together up front. Bram was first on my list and I closed up to within a few sec of him, but he had to leave as a visitor arrived, leaving me to have Knut as a target. He was pushing hard in the TVR, and that doesn't always react well to the stick instead of the carrot. He had a little moment and suddenly the gap closed from 15 sec to 5 sec.
Because I am so very, very stupid, I didn't work out that he had an off because he was pushing hard, and so I pushed a bit harder, getting the gap down to 3 sec, and then I had my own inevitable off, Gap back up to 10 sec. Then I set a couple of my fastest laps, gap back down to 5, then we both had a minor off each, gap stayed @ 5 sec, I set my fastest lap, gap down to 3 sec, but we ran out of laps before we could get any closer (he probably deserved it IMO) Christian kept everything completely under control and won at a canter, with Knut 2nd and me 3rd.
Jops
A slight change of personnel for this race Ben replacing Christian. There were a couple of car changes - I stayed with Greenland, which turned out to be a colossal mistake. Got a decent lap in, but Knut's TVR was just so much more agile and pointable in the mid speed corners (Birmingham is either slow corners or very fast curves - Jops isn't, it's mostly the medium fast bends and the lighter cars were so much better). So I was again mugged off the line by Daytonas, TVRs & Cobras. I tried my best to keep up but the Corvette was wallowing around like drowsy hippo who's just stumbled across some of the finest mud it's ever seen. Trying to get the nose round with the throttle was a dicey proposition, as the crests made it difficult to judge whether you were in control of it or not. The big crest was an absolute horror story, never knowing how I was going to land. One of the early laps, it threw me off to one side I tried to correct and ended up spearing towards the trees. I hit the hedge/wall and went over it. When I came to rest I was pointing directly up a hill, unable to accelerate up it while being tightly wedged against a low "wall" behind not letting me reverse. So, basically I was totally stuck. :doh:
Quit to garage and went downstairs to get a cup of tea, when I came back, only Knut & Hans were still driving. Ben had disappeared, and Simon & Kris were in the pits in red with a retirement. Hans had a crash followed by a retirement too, so I called Knut in as he was on his own by then. Kris called it a night at this point.
After a quick discussion I threw up a TC65 server with 3 shortish tracks on it, Birmingham Sprint, Lime Rock Park & Monza Junior (I think).
Birmingham Sprint
Knut & I went for the Jags, Simon the Cortina, Hans the Alfa.
I stuck the Jag on pole, but Knut got a superb start and was in the lead by T1. I slowly closed up on him over the first 2 or 3 laps, finally getting past in the same T2 that caused my grief in the Corvette race, 3 nip and tuck laps later I managed to eke out a 2 or 3 sec lead and held on for the win. Knut, as his post suggests, bowed out here to let him have half a chance of meeting his train.
Lime Rock Park
I stayed Jag bound, Simon went Mini, Hans went Cortina. Simon stuck in an absolute scorcher for pole, but had a bit of a nightmare start and I managed to get away into first, he immediately started to reel me in, and I obliged under pressure of taking too mcuh kerb going up the hill letting him through on the 4th lap out of 6. I just about managed to stay in touch, but then he had a stinker in T1 / 2 closing us right up again, me just nipping ahead, I then made a mistake coming down the mountain, allowing him throughn into first just as we started the last lap. It was nose to tail stuff, until I went wide in the same corner and thought "oh well". And then I saw Simon properly go off just short of the finish line, and I drove back on to basically burgle the win.
I called it a night then, but as always, great fun for me, win, lose or spin. Thanks to those who turned out :good:
