Announcing a new series of Monza Junior races.......
48 laps on this track is close to torture in my book, but the race turned out better than I could have hoped for. Picking a car wasn't easy. Big Cobra was fastest, not surprisingly, by about a second compared to the TVR. Wanted to use it, but when testing yesterday, there was hardly a place on track where the rear didn't try to overtake the front. Surviving 48 laps without repeated incidents seemed unlikely, so in the end I opted for the TVR instead. With more practice, the difference between the two was only 0.3 sec, and even less with new pb in qual.
Very fortunate in missing the lap 1 turn 1 mayhem - or rather, the mayhem missed me
Thus in an unexpected 2nd place. Geoffers was soon gone, while I stretched the gap to the following cars over the early laps. Fully expected DD to come charging past, once he had slogged his way through the field, but never quite happened. Gap went to 16 secs, then started dropping, getting down to 11 secs with some time lost by me, but then suddenly jumped to 20+secs, and shortly after to 30+ secs.
With this I started hoping to hold on to 2nd, as the gap was mostly holding if I didn't lose time by mistakes or passing backmarkers. Still took a lot of concentration to avoid the classics - running wide at Parabolica, or getting the chicane wrong. Late in the race, with the gap already achieved, and gaining a sec each lap, it seemed entirely possible that Geoffers would lap me, and thus the entire field. I was sure that would be his ambition, so mine of course became thwarting it
Had Geoffers in my mirrors so tried hard to keep up the pace on worn tyres, when the inevitable happened: Got the chicane wrong, clouting the wall. Damaged the car and surely meant game over, but Geoffers only gained slowly, so I kept trying. Got very lucky when I happened upon a stuck-in-the-chicane DD. He had just reversed, creating a gap I could slip through, but when Geoffers arrived, it was closed and he had to brake - thanks for the help DD!
Grats to Geoffers on the win, grats & commiserations to DD