This version of Silverstone is the one from the original GPL, so I had no excuse for not knowing the track. Knowing that this is a "power" track decided which car group to use, but which one of those beasts?
In the end, I reasoned that maybe knowing the track might allow me to extract a result from that 'orrible Capri balancing one against the other.
Grats to Ziu on a dominant pace and to Misnomis and Matt on the podium.
I found that a few tweaks to the setup made the car a little more driveable and I was able to get sub 1:40 on race fuel....well I say "race fuel", but as qually progressed I realised that I was actually carrying almost 40 laps worth??!!, so just before the start I dropped about 20 litres of fuel and hoped that the loss of that weight did not upset the handling.
The start, 4 abreast, was a real elbows out event, with those big bully Boss guys muscling down to Copse was exciting...and scary!
Made it through Copse with John doing his best to ease me out of the way in his Boss, but I was keeping pace with the leading cars.
Lap 1 was really intense with plenty of paint samples exchanged until I finally got clear of John and set off after Misnomis who was running 3rd, with Ziu already stretching away and Matt who was in 2nd. Matt later had a computer issue and we passed him grass cutting on Hangar straight, so we were up to 2nd and 3rd.
The race was huge fun as I used the slightly better handling of the Capri against the power of the Boss Mustang ahead. I don't think we were ever more than 1.5 secs apart, for almost the whole race. I got alongside a couple of times as the tyres on the Mustang appeared to be wearing down. (I was amazed that the tyres on the Capri just did not seem to be suffering? I think at the end of the race the HUD showed the green had dropped by only about 1mm!!). Just when I felt that there was going to be an opportunity to steal 2nd place in the last laps, I made a dumb mistake and clipped the inside wall at Stowe, throwing me wide and losing valuable seconds. It was worse than that, because the handling was not quite right after that and the car seemed to have a little too much oversteer into the fast corners. Matt caught and passed me and any dreams of 2nd place were dashed.
In fact after yet another spin Tony rushed into view and I was in danger of losing yet another place!! But in true gentlemanly fashion he elected to demonstrate his aerial car skills and performed a double spin with airborne two and a half rotations complete with smoke and fire on the exit of Abbey
. I then had a quiet cruise to the flag....still with 7 galls of fuel left???