THANKYOU YVES & RD FOR ANOTHER GREAT EVENT !
Joined for official practice, had a phone call from a friend half way through saying he had arranged for a 'race night' at my place - happens about once a week when someone arrives with either a PS3 and GT5 Prologue or an XBOX360 - tonight it was the 360 and Forza 3 - how could I resist! Told him it was ok but I had a race and would not be able to leave the PC for 45 mins once race started so get here before or after but not during the Race.
Then I decided to fire up the laptop, next to my desktop so someone could have a look at the new High Speed Ring on Rfactor - as I plugged the laptop in I heard a strange buzzng and my monitor went blank and the wheel suddenly went dead - EEK - quick mess around with the surge sockets and power was back to wheel and screen - but the wheel was now not working..... my race was beginning to look doomed...
Exited and restart game, re-enter server in Qualifying - clicked RACE, only to find the wheel still totally dead and not responding - Arghhhhhh! - its a Superpole qualifying, so once I restarted and recalibrated AGAIN - I had lost my opportunity to qualify and was starting 23rd on the grid.
Race began with me 23/22! I was so far back I didn't see the big crash but I did get to pass a few delayed by it..
From then on I had a relatively uneventful race - very little close racing because with such a long track once the field spread out only crashes and spins would provide any opportunity to pull people in, or for people to catch up.
Had some good racing with a few other cars, at one point Yves caught me, passed me, and then proceeded to just drive off into the distance - I think we should glue his brake pedal DOWN for the next race, your just tooo good Yves. Some closer racing with Peter and Manuel, at different points during the race when mistakes allowed us to catch up or be caught by each other.
Manuel and I were just getting into a battle for 7th/8th on the last lap and its was fun, trouble was the last lap turned out to be the next to last lap because the faster drivers at the front crossed the line before the timer hit zero - unfortunate for me because although I had added extra fuel, I had not added enough and so I ran out of Fuel less than 20 seconds from the finish line and it was all over - results showed me as finishing 11th, because I had put in an extra lap to those further back...Couldn't beleive I ran out of fuel....
Finally thanks to all for a great night, and for the clean racing - had fun with Forza and three friends later on, although I have to say - the one who brought Forza and his 360 round did end up spending more time racing GTR Evo with this Porsche Mod around Abu Dhabi than he did on Forza. He also said, before he left, that he will be having another look at GTR Evo and shall be bringing his laptop round for me to install the Porsche Mod, this track and a few others. He watched the full 45 minute race and was most impressed with the skills and respect that he saw in the RD Server, I guess thats why we all like it so much too!
