A very enjoyable clean hard fighting night in the mini's.
Practice and quali was a little of a mixed bag for me as I just couldn't replicate my offline pace which was a little frustrating, which in turn translated into an even slower lap time. Got back into the groove a little towards the second half of qualifying and managed to stick it into 9th with 30 seconds left on the clock with a 1.07.427. With the exception of Pole sitter Ben who put in a blinding 1.06.775, 2nd to 14th were all in the 1.07's so I was going to be close at the front.
Race: For me it was an absolute blinder of a start for a change. I made up 3 places off the line and was tucked up behind Dave for the first lap until he pitted for his S&G which put me up to 5th by the time I crossed the line.
I then spent a good few laps trying to hang on to the guys in front but they were just way to quick for me. I came under intense pressure first from Danny who slipped by me after I ran wide at T1 then Dietmar. This carried on for a few laps, then suddenly we were passing Lee who was recovering from a roll in the final twisty bit. This made an already tense chase even more exciting as Lee had amazing traction and set about passing Dietmar then myself. A couple of laps after that I let Dietmar pass me, as I had a poor exit from the hairpin and not knowing exactly where Dietmar was,decided to conceed the place rather than wrecklessly try to defend the inside of the corner.
After some time Lee must have gone off track as suddenly he was in front of me fighting with Steven P. Had a good racing with them for some laps, Lee got pass Steven than I was fighting with Steven. Really good! Close racing, but at some point he let me pass, at least my impression, was I pushing unfair?
No mate, just good clean pressure. I hope my defending was OK with you and Lee?
After that it was a case of keeping it together until the pits, Dietmar pitted a lap before me and I had a nice clear track to get a good inlap in. Pit went perfect and noticed just as I was pulling away Dietmar coming in again, unlucky mate.
This brought me out 9th about 5 seconds behind Neil whom I managed to reel in. We had a bit of hairy moment passing a back marker, when Neil had to take a mighty swerve (nice reactions) which enabled me to get closer for the long run down to T1 with an extremely late brake (you might have got a credit card between us, just) and then an excellent drive out of T2 and passed on the inside of the fast chicane. Managed then to just slightly increase the gap every lap and got into a nice steady rhythm to see me through to the end and a
4th place finish, which I was well chuffed with.
As mentioned in other post some excellent blue flag moments by those being lapped, a great club racing night by all.
Congrats to podium, Gary, Lee and Ryan (nice to see you back) thanks to Andrew for a classic Mini night, and all the
RD racers for an enjoyable evening. :handshake:
