Another intense STCC affair on a new track for me. Wasn't really looking forward to this one, I had decided to give the Puegeot another try after hating it the first time I drove it. A brief test run confirmed that I really struggle with this little car, the back end is as slippery as hell. To top it all off, I woke this morning with another migrane.
I knew who would be a pacemaker for this one, since I had tried to follow each driver to check some pings, but I couldn't keep up with Matt, who was obviously on song. William turned up later and put in a faster time than Matt in practice, so he was also primed.
Qualy: Shocker. Was actually putting together a pretty fast time until the back section and managed to spin it, TWICE!!!. So, start safely at the back and work on getting pole for race 2. :rotfl:
Race 1. Fluffed the start and dropped to last. Picked up some spots thanks to spins in front and got to P4 behind Marcel, made a mistake, dropped back, then caught him again. Rather than plan a pass, I decided to pit early.Yikes!. Came out well behind Marcel (note to self to lecture pitcrew for next race
). I managed to catch Marcel again but yet another mistake ended any hopes of passing him. Finished 4.
Race 2. Bit slow off the line, allowing Marcel through, but Olly had gone to sleep, forgot to take off and blocked Tyson. This gave me P3 early. Tim missed the second last turn, allowing me to slip into P2 but yet again I was looking at Marcel's rear end. I was getting to know it well :worship:. This time I managed to complete a very long pass involving us being side by side for at least two turns and most of the straight, but I finally got through into the lead. I pulled a reasonable gap and stayed out as long as I could to build a gap before the pitstop. I even managed a couple of PB's, so surely this time I had sufficient buffer to cover a slowish pitstop. Nope, my lazy pitcrew was watching TV and took an eternity again, so I came out behind Matt and Marcel. While they were dicing, I sneaked up to join them and things were looking good for a fierce 3 way battle for the win. Then I stuffed up big time. At the end of Lap 13, in the high speed left hander, the PUG suddenly decided to let the rear end go (never had that before there), I over-corrected and she slewed sideways towards the right hander. I planted my foot on the throttle hoping to pull off a spectacular recovery into the middle of the track, and nearly did, but unfortunately I tapped Matt and sent him off track. Very sorry Matt. I waited and let Matt recover, but in the meantime, William had passed him. While I was typing my apologies to Matt, I completely missed the next turn and spun it again. From this point I hung my head in shame and just cruised the last lap to finish P4 again. Grats to William and Marcel for the wins, but also to Matt who was very consistent on the day.
Pity the numbers were small, but another good event with STCC. These events are so good, I wonder why we don't get more interest in them.
