Wow! another awesome reversed track! This one needs to be in our normal calendar
Sam gave me some fantastic competition for both Qualifying and Race with some very fast times here - also in a 312.
It was lucky for me he started putting them in when he did, as I was just about to go back to my race setup for the final 10 minutes of practice, and would have ended up nearly a second behind him on the score cards
Dropping the rest of the time I needed to pip him involved some seriously careful thought and driving to keep the speed and slip angle up while maintaining precision - something I only really achieved in the last 4 minutes or so when on the last couple of gallons of fuel.
In the race I managed to hold first and even open a small gap while on cold tyres, so thought I might get away with this one relatively easily - then I put a wheel on the beach entering the back straight and got sucked off in the sand.
When I rejoined Sam had enough of a run to pass me before Moss, so I settled in to watching him for a lap or 2 and then started thinking about passing him.
Barring a mistake there's only really one place to pass here in the 69's - and that's the back straight and into Moss, a hairy proposition even when not battling for position.
We exchanged places a few times here and I sampled the sandpit a few more times while trying to ensure I gave Sam room before I finally made it stick.
Then I span off bigtime while trying to defend from him on a particularly close run into Moss about 12 laps into the race.
I caught up the first time within a few laps and then put a wheel onto the grass somewhere in the T1-3 complex and let him get away again.
I let the red mist descend a bit at this stage and went hell-for-leather to catch him. Watching the time gap on my pit board showed I would catch him about 7 laps from the end so I continued to press on.
Sadly Sam managed to also put 2 wheels in the sand on the outside of T3 just as I got to within a second from him - time-wise it's the worst point on the track to spin so I was long gone when he eventually rejoined.
Well done to Sam on an excellent display of pace and a great fight, also to Tris for 3rd, and to all the finishers - I hope you enjoyed Moss as much as I did
Now to wait for the replay as mine didn't save for some weird reason....