That event can only be described as scary. I thought some of the default street circuits were tricky, but Surfers takes the cake as damned breathtaking to drive quickly. Most of us agreed before the race started that this track was
EVIL :evil: , and so it proved.
I thought Yves selected this one to attract some Aussies, which it did (Rhys and I), but we soon learned that Yves knew this one backwards, and the rest of us didn't. Gary gets the "eternal optimist" award (or was it blind stupidity
) for turning up cold and in a BMW E46. Mind you, it didn't look like a beemer by the time he had finished with it.
ound:
Qualy: I was all prepared to plod around at the tail, but after some practice I had improved my PB by about 4 secs. As usual, I gave up qualy half way through, put in my race distance fuel, went out for a test and beat my best time by another 0.4 secs.
So I started midpack in P5.
Race 1. Gary jumped a few of us off the line in his Beemer ( as usual), but all I wanted was some clean air so I could see what was coming (mainly concrete walls), so I tried to stay back a tad. It was still very scary, expecting someone to have a huge crash. I moved to P4 by the end of lap 1, thanks to some concrete casualties ahead. I settled in behind William and just tried to stay off the walls. This paid off fairly quickly as Gary played concrete ping pong, letting me through. He filled my mirrors for a couple more laps until he went to play ping pong again. :amen: It then became a case of hanging on to William and waiting to see if he would make a mistake (pretty likely here). He obliged on lap 6 coming through the tripple chicane, so now I had P2 with William's Seat in my mirrors. It was looking pretty ugly though, no front end, so I knew he wouldn't be able to stay with me. I then drove as carefuly as I could and pulled away for a comfortable P2. Yves was having dinner in the pits by the time we finished though.
Race 2. Oh Oh! Rhys car spawned on top of mine on the starting grid. Looks like he then escaped to avoid any problems, thanks Rhys. By lap 3 I had moved to P3, again plenty of demolition up front, but I kept understeering off that rotten left hander at the end of the long straight, and this time I went nose first into the wall. It didn't do the handling much good, but the car was still driveable. On lap 7, I caught Yves (must have had some drama) and just after lapping Chris, he tagged me under brakes after the straight (yep my favourite spot again), sending both of us through the barriers and down the escape road. Now the car was very ordinary, but the Honda still wanted to continue. I set out after Gaynall and reeled him in but ran out of time to pass before the race finished. Finished P3. At last I could relax. Phew.
Thanks to all who attempted this dastardly track. Grats to Yves for two easy wins. Next time, pick a track where you are at least challenged. Actually, that was a very impressive drive from you Yves. :thumb::thumb:
See you all next time.
