Absolutely corking way to kick off my return to iRacing. New PB in qually bagged me fourth on the grid behind two of the Leg Ends and Brendan. Good start from all of us, and it was no surprise to see Paul immediately start to gently pull away.
More of a surprise was that not only was Brendan glued to Darren's gearbox, but I was hanging on to the pair of them with very little effort. After a few laps Brendan got enough of a run on Darren to challenge him into turn 1, and I couldn't say no to the chance to try and follow him through. That ended up with Darren and I side by side down into the evil left hander - he was on the inside so I braked early to give him the corner, but unfortunately we just touched (0x Contact) and he lost a place and a few seconds making an amazing save.
I figured it wouldn't be long before he got back into 4th and then caught me, and I planned to offer no resistance, but sadly he went off a few laps later and quit. I hope I didn't give him a puncture or something.
I thought that after that Brendan would start to eek away, but instead I could see he was taking big risks in places and soon I was being happily towed along by him at qualifying pace. I wasn't at all sure I could pull away if I passed him, but it was very clear that I had a very good car on the brakes; I could brake a good 40-50 yards later into T1, and I planned to simply follow him until the last lap and then spring a little surprise when it was too late to fight back after it.
However, as we started to lap cars, he went very defensive on the run down the main straight, so I threw caution to the wind, outbraked him round the outside into T1, then won the drag race up to the fast left hander and swept into 2nd place. The question was... could I hold it, or would he simply breeze back past?
Turns out it was the wrong question. The real question was... in his desire to wrestle the place back, would the risks he was taking in that fast left hander pay off? The answer... "no"!
Looking at the replay it appears that he just touched the grass on the outside and went into a big spin.
That left me in a very secure 2nd place, so I backed off into the 23s and cruised home, finishing close to Paul that I expected - only about 14 seconds behind.
My only concern with these cars is that is very difficult to overtake without risking it all.
It's a big risk if you can't trust the other car(s), but as long as everyone is aware of what's going on, and are prepared to give each other racing room, the Skippy does produce really excellent racing.
