I have missed the entire season to date but did want to show up for at least the last two races on the off chance I might be invited back for season #34. I'd never seen Bremgarten before and really didn't have much of a chance to practice except for the last couple of days. An hour or so before qualifying began I was managing consistent 2:15s and an occasional 2:14. I wasn't entirely comfortable --- the track is like an ax murderer waiting in a dark alley for you to pass by --- but I felt I had a fighting chance not to embarrass myself completely.
Was I ever mistaken about that! In my first qualifying lap I did a 2:18. After that all sense of where I was and what I was doing escaped me altogether. It was as if I had been playing GPL for all of 20 minutes. Each lap was worse than the last. By the end of qualifying that first ugly lap from a standing start had been my best. Good Lord! I seriously thought about giving up at that point, mainly because the way I was driving was so incompetent and so inept that I was certain to take out every car that had the misfortune to cross my path. But qualifying in the rear meant that at least for a while I wouldn't be much of a danger to anyone but myself, so I tried to calm myself with a couple of deep breaths.
My race strategy consisted of simply slowing down and enjoying the view. I have no idea what my lap times were, but at least I was staying on the track and not hitting anything. Speed was an utter irrelevancy to me. All I desired was to finish, even if I had to do a SHFT-R with a SnG. It didn't matter. I just slugged along, as carefree as anyone can be at this deadly place. Around lap #3 the pit board showed that I was ahead of John Hammonds. Excuse me? In the three years I've been racing with John, I think I can count the number of times I've been ahead of him on the fingers of one finger. I ignored the information as some sort of aberration. When I could, I tried to take a peek at Pribluda, but my font is so small and the track is so demanding that I stopped bothering.
The last time I passed by the pit board it advised that there were but eleven laps to go. I was overjoyed. For the first time I began to hope that I could truly finish the race without the assistance of an ambulance and a medical evacuation helicopter. Moments later I was coming up to the 2d gear right-hander before the underpass and my screen froze. This hasn't happened to me often, but I understood instantly that my visit to Switzerland was history. Pribluda seemed to indicate that there were perhaps only five cars still running, but I'm not sure of even that.
I'd like to say that "all's well that ends well," but until the results are posted, I'm not sure even now how things ended. Anyway, it's off to Canada. It's ordinarily a tough track for me, but after Bremgarten, Mosport should seem like a walk in the park.