I almost missed this race entirely. I think that maybe because we did a run on Monday, I felt that I received my "fix" of GTL for this week??
The penny dropped at around 7:45 and some frantic downloading and installing got me onto the server at around 8:00, breathing heavily!! I always look forward to these older cars and was relieved to have got myself organised.
I had obviously done no practice, or preparation for the race, so deciding which car to take was a meaningless choice. I literally clicked on the first car that I saw on the list that I recognised as being valid and that was the Healey 100. So practice was all about tweaking the default setup to make it at least predictable and more suited to my driving style
.
Eventually a lowering of the final drive and some clicks on the springs and dampers yielded reasonable results. In fact I was quite impressed with my grid position, but was under no illusion that it was unlikely to be where I would finish. lol.
I had zero chance of living with the speed of the DB1's in my 4 speed Healey, but I planned that if I kept things steady I might have more rubber left in the later laps...….actually it was not even a proper plan, more of a desperate hope!!
Things were very tight and close for the first laps until Daz performed his aerial ballet and I was able to drive straight underneath him
The ensuing chaos allowed the fast guys to escape at the front and I settled in, trying to maintain a steady pace.
At around half distance Dimitar, Erling and Geoffers were distant memories and I was circulating on my own. Then suddenly Dimitar was struggling off of the grass and only a couple of seconds ahead……..ooh!!
The rest of the race was all about Dimitar's lack of tyres, my lack of outright speed and a rapidly recovering Daz. Daz decided that he did not want to play in a 3 way battle and presumably went to look for Erling??
For maybe 20+ laps Dimitar and myself had great fun battling each other until he made a major error with only 5 laps to go and gifting me a 5 second lead and a perfect chance to steal 4th spot. All I had to do was drive steadily and manage the gap, so that I finished just ahead of Dimitar's faster DB1....perfect!
Except...
I was focusing too much on the mirror and not enough on the road ahead
Then with just 2 laps to go and still with 1 second in my pocket and feeling quite comfortable, I put a wheel on the grass and pushed just a little too hard spinning the car around and gifting the place back to Dimitar
I just got going again before Dominick demoted me further down the finishing order.
The result was not as important as the huge fun of the race.
Thanks and grats to all those involved in the race, the podium and the organising.