Hello all.
It has been a while since I raced regularly, so I expected to be quite rusty, especially at an endurance event. But as luck would have it I was in the zone (reasonably anyway) and during practice, putting in laps that put me in the top 10 and not too far off the pace....spot the happy rusty person!!
Alas in Qualifying the wheels came off...metaphorically speaking of course. I jsut could not get a clean lap...and when I did, I got a bit too deep into one of hte haripin turns and wreaked the lap. So p12 (I think) for me. But I was happy that I could get a decent race pace, having added my sector times to gether and felt I was more 6th on the grid.
Funny thing about not racing for a while is you remember how to do a staert, but the muscle memory is a bit more sluggish...Sluggish...great word from my start....I dropped the clutch and then just sat there....right out of the rev range watching as car after car sped past me. Finally I got some traction and made grounds to catchup to the middle pack at the first corner. By now, the rear pack had dashed and dived around and I found myself with no room to drive. Early on the brakes into the first corner whilst on the right meant I stayed clear of the carnage....But by the second corner, I got caught up in another drivers accident...
Bang, ping, bash, crash..I seemed to find myself slipping from over steer to understeer whilst bouncing off spinning motors all around me!! The track cleared and I settled into a nice place and started to fell the fisrt lap carnage was over...I was wrong!! Just after the left hand hairpin, I saw another driver tank slap it and turn straight into my path.
Where as before the contact was light, this contact wass not....and I found myself with a bent front suspension. I am not adverse to driving with a bent front suspension, so set about keeping to my allocated pit strategy and started to put in some lap times.
I managed to pick up the pace in a rather crabby car, passing a few, enjoying the experience. I tried to pick up the pace some more, going for a rather ambitious pass on the outside of T1....past 2 cars and I manageed to hold it, clean pass...well it was clean and successful for a few hundered yards, until I rode the kerb on the exit of T2....crabbing steering and high kerb are an unhappy combination and around I went...staring as the 2 that I had just passed retook their positions....I can almost hear them laughing now!!
Recover spin, and bring the pace down a fraction, I continued to crab around catching an errant slide here and there. After only 12 laps I got the "tyres worn" warning, apparently the crabbing was wreaking my fronts. My pace died..I lost 3 seconds a lap and struggled to hold onto the car infront....
I was gutted. Pitted early to see if it sorted the problem....It didn't I crabbed straight into the pit wall and totalled the car!! I made it to my pit, but was stationary for about a minute. Despite the best efforts of the pit crew, I still had significant damage and the car was virtually undrivable. I drove out into a distant 22nd and got blue flagged immediately. I moved to the side, but nearly span and collected 4th (sorry about that). At this point I decided to ease back and make sure I didn't wreak anyone's race. But after a few more laps with my pace once more becoming horrific, I did what any decent driver would do and exited with dramatic flair!!
Race over, game done...and a harsh lesson that I need to drive more to be out of the mid pack and get a clean race/...no offence intended
Thanks for hosting and thanks for the racing...really enjoyed it and hope to see you next Friday
