I think Mike's bad luck with PCs has rubbed off on me. First my sound card died just before the Mazda race last week. Then on Friday my SSD stopped working.
This meant a frantic reinstall, and with 30 minutes to go before qualifying, I had yet to set up my headset, steering wheel and pedals.
On top of this, all my setups had been lost (yes I know... backups
). I joined the server totally unprepared. I wasn't expecting anything and was just there to boost the numbers...
Qualifying in 7th, way off the pace, I knew had to hang on during the early laps. I was surprised to see Simon pit early, but thought it was a good strategy if he felt he was being held up by the traffic in front. I know now Simon wasn't trying to be clever.
Lap after lap, with the help of slipstream I was able to hang on to the back of Dave. I was planning on following Dave into the pits, but he took me by surprise when he dived into the pit lane on lap 23. This gave me a clear track ahead of me. So I pushed really hard for a couple of laps to try to gain an advantage. Luckily it was just enough to enable me to jump Dave via the pit stop. (now that's a first!
)
The second half of the race was intense. While slowly catching James in front, I had Dave camped on my back bumper. I knew he was faster, but there was no way I was going to make it easy for him. As the laps ticked down, Dave became more aggressive. He was trying every trick in the book to try to get me to make a mistake.
Unfortunately our little battle came to an end when there was contact @ T1, spinning us both out.
Luckily I didn't receive too much damage and was able to limp home to an unexpected podium..
Congrats to Gary for the win and for the Championship. Well done James on a well deserved 2nd.... It's nice to finally see a Shark FREE podium.
Thanks guys for a great season 4. It's had quite a few ups n downs but I've enjoyed it...
See you in season 5...