A relatively mixed night for me, 2 decent results, 2 fairly lonely races, but (and I think most drivers will agree with me here, judging from the feedback and some comments on the night) no matter what track we're on, the Cortina, with it's exquisite balance of power and handling, can make every event great fun irrespective of track or position.
Amaroo
Great little track, this. I love big gradients on tracks, they will always have an advantage as to whether a track is genuinely great or not. That's not to say some flatter tracks can't be great too, but they have to be extra special to make up for the lack of vertical interest.
I got 2nd to Sam in Prac by a clear 0.4 or so, but double checking my setup, I only had 15 laps worth in the tank. I filled up some more and the difference I had was gone. Quallied about 5th or 6th behind Sam, Luc, Amir & Warren. still, from 2nd down to about 9th was less than 1.5 sec, so it was all nice and close.
Got a pretty good start and managed (unusually for me) to avoid getting drawn into any of the early corner shenanigans, and so all of a sudden I was clear and away in 2nd. I managed to pull out a few seconds fairly quickly and pretty soon I was on my own following Sam. Again he was a fecking metronome, banging in lap after lap, at or better than my best. Everytime I got a fastest lap, so did he. The Swine
. As usual, the best I could do was to keep him honest, and hope he'd get pounced upon by his neighbours rottweiler again. Needless to say, my canine affection strategy didn't pay off, and he eked out to a 10 sec lead and took the chequered flag, with me in a comfortable P2. Olly, who had a Stop n Go, was constantly "encouraging" me over TS - "You're in 2nd and I'm last, but you're not pulling away from me, Stuey!", and that actually helped by giving me something to aim for. :good:
Melbourne
I'm not a big fan of Melbourne for the reasons I mention above, but it was good enough in the Dagenham Dustbins. For some reason, I kept getting a gdb mismatch, but not getting kicked off, I could see all the other cars and go out and drive on the track.
In the end, I quit out of practice, uninstalled and re-installed the same version (the one in the thread link) and all was well. Who knows what happened there
but it was fine anyway.
Sam & Warren were knocking P1 between themselves, laying down marker after marker only for the other to beat it, all with some seriously pretty times. I knew I simply wasn't in that sort of time frame, so I just concentrated on learning the lines & layouts. My one criticism of Melbourne is that a lot of the corners can look very similar - its all a bit "straight -> right/left -> straight -> right/left" but the right/lefts (and the occasional left/right) vary quite a bit in layout and radius, so it took me quite a few laps to get any sort of handle on what was coming next. Quallied down in P9, but again, behind the very front two, it was pretty close for the rest of the grid, so nothing to worry about.
I got a really nice start and was up to about 7th or so by the time we got to the second set of right/lefts. The final left / right into the S/F straight there was a bit of drama, and I managed to slip through into 5th. The field held positions for a few more laps, Luc had a moment, letting me up to 4th, and then Sam had his disco, and I was somehow in 3rd. No-one was more surprised than me
.
A few laps later Luc closed up after finding some real pace, he tried to pass, gave me a bump (nothing serious) and dropped back as it would have been messy, but a couple of sections later, he got past cleanly and he was off like a scalded rabbit. By this time we weren't too far from halfway, so I expected some pitstop action fairly soon. I looked @ XD and it was showing almost no tyre wear, so I decided to press on for as long as possible and do a late 2 tyre change hoping for others to have some complications. After watching Warren, and then Amir & Luc pit, I was in P1, and I was now doing personal fastest laps quite regularly, but on about lap 14, I started wandering a bit wide in turns that were previously nice and tight and quick, so I decided to come in. I forgot to change the menu, and ended up changing all four tyres as opposed to just the front's that I intended to.
Not that it would have made any difference whatsoever as first Warren, then Luc & Amir all passed me while I was still up on the jacks.
I came out back in 4th and I was able to throw in a few more quick laps, doing my pb on 17th or 18th, breaking into the 2.27's, before taking it nice and easy to finish 4th.
Some excellent driving on view, as always the good sportsmanship that marks GTL as a cut above the rest, and another great event.
I'm massively looking forward to the June finale next week, as Road Atlanta Short & Charade have been some previously superb event venues, and with the Cortina to make them that extra bit special (like it seems to do everywhere), it promises to be a magnificent evening. I hope to see as many of you as possible there.
