Grats to Ziu and Geoffers for stunning pace, no matter how hard I tried ( probably trying too hard I guess!!?) I could not get within 1.5 secs of those times during qually and I doubted that the race would be any better.
The only hope I had was that my qually was on race fuel, so there might be an outside chance of being a little closer during the race.
I never got the chance to find out! I must have been half asleep on the grid, because not only had I forgotten to check the % health of the car ( I actually discovered after the first lap that I was on 40%!!) but the "GO!!" caught me so completely by surprise that I dropped the clutch and stalled the engine
. Initially I wondered if I had actually blown the engine ??
I braced myself for rear impact as cars swept past and then it all went quiet and I tried the starter. Mightily relieved as it burst into life, but spitting nails about going from 3rd to last before I even crossed the start line. I think I would have been justified in putting my headlights on just to see through the thick red mist that swirled around my car.
I hauled in the field and set about picking off cars one by one. I had to change my gearchange points once I noticed the engine health and how my aggressive driving was eating a couple of points off it each lap. It took a few laps to settle into the new pattern and still maintain a fast pace.
Tony proved to be very reluctant to let me pass and we had a few laps of side by side action with misnomis getting involved as well. If the red mist was thick before it became positively opaque after I got past Tony and made a monumental braking mistake one lap later, just as I had got Bob in my sights and a chance of 5th place, and span the car into the kitty litter, only to watch Tony and misnomis sail past
Another chase, some more dicing and made the pass again setting off after Bob who now had a 12 sec lead. Just got him in sight again and made the same mistake in the same place!! Just got going as Tony arrived AGAIN.
The last 6 laps were tense as I hauled in Bob and finally got on his tail with about 1.5 laps to go. Like a true gentleman he made a small mistake ;)and I was able to steal the lead up through the Esses.
No chance of gaining any more places, so concentrated on not making another mistake on badly worn tyres to get to the flag. The change in driving made a huge change to the health of my car and at the end I still had 25% of the 40% I started with, so a lesson to be remembered there.
My screw up at the start might have denied me some points, but it made for a much more eventful and interesting...honest it did