Well, many thanks to Erik for that little gem.
Congrats to Federico and Happy Birthday to Burt.
I had the help of two good setup gurus, Erik and Giuseppe, to finish up with something that let me play a tad nearer the sharp end than usual. There was even a danger that I might end up with pole until Federico pulled one out of the bag in the last few minutes. I thought that a 2:03.7 would have been enough, as I hadn't seen a 2:03 from anyone so I guess that Fed dug deep for that one. Grats.
I wasn't convinced that the qually setup would last a complete race, engine wise, so I went a click longer for my race setup. I had done a 2:04 with it on race fuel in practice but in the race I couldn't quite find the sweet spot.
Federico made a good start and was not headed all race. Giuseppe passed me after a couple of laps and for a while I thought that he was going to catch Federico and that that would let me sneak up on them whilst they knocked lumps out of each other. But that didn't happen. After an initial gain, Giuseppe seemed to be falling back towards me and Federico was still in sight too.
As I caught Giuseppe at the second sharp corner, he made a mistake on corner exit and seemed to find a very resilient fence post that attacked his Alfa with some purpose!
That left me second and after a while it appeared that Federico was coming back into range.
The real puzzle, was that whilst Federico was presumably running out of tyres in his Alfa, Geoffers was closing in on me at a rate of knots in his Alfa! What he was using for rubber will be interesting to find out!
By the end of the last lap I was on Federico's bumper but still second. I had suffered a spot of brain fade a few laps from the end which probably lost me the chance to have a proper go at taking the lead.
Still a good gallop and it's just as well as I shall be missing from next week's grid on account of it being our wedding anniversary.
Many thanks to Erik for turning out and gaining us some much needed points. How you fixed next week mate?
PS I'm sure it said that my Escort was Group 5? And it's '68 so unlikely to be in the 70s group.