A new circuit for me. Managed a few short practice sessions over the past few days and was quite pleased to be getting the new green thing down to the 1:20's, but had no idea if that was anywhere near competitive.
Qually was interesting , and it looked ( for a while) like I was in with a shout of pole position...then Hristo put his oar in! followed by Tim.
I tried a few banzai laps, but was still learning the circuit and decided that my time would be better spent running on race fuel.
3rd spot on the grid looked under threat from Goran who was going well on his pre-warmed tyres but I survived.
The start was ok, still not used to getting the green thing off the line, and I pulled alongside Hristo as we went to T1. There was no way I was going to get around the outside of Hristo this early in a race so, a quick glance at prib showed 0.5secs back to 4th so I eased back and followed H around the inside.
It was obvious that Tim and H were very evenly matched and were going to put on a good show for 1st place.................. until..............T3 where things got very scary with metalwork flying in all directions.
Using the tried and tested technical avoidance procedure of closing both eyes and holding on tight!! I aimed for where one of the cars was, in the hope that it would not bethere when I arrived. ...It worked, and although I was forced to run a very strange and wide line through T3 I emerged unscathed and in the lead.
I figured that this was going to be my only chance of beating Tim and H if I could build a big enough lead and keep the pressure on with laps in the 1:20's. I needed about 15 secs lead if I could squeeze that much out of the green thing, to keep me in with a chance of the chequered flag. As an extra incentive Goran was also on fire and for the first half of the race kept pace with me and only about 3 secs behind....far too close for me to relax.
At half way i think Goran eventually made the mistake I was praying for and dropped back by another few seconds... and still no sign of Hristo or Tim on the prib readout.
From then on I tried to keep it clean and neat checking my lap times to maintain that 1:20 time. 3 laps to go and I eased slightly and started short shifting just in case
I was really gifted this race my Tim and Hristo's T3 tangle, and a good slice of luck. Still not totally hooked up with this green thing but we are getting better.
Grats to all finishers and I think at least for the 65's this is a great little circuit.