Well..... the most important question is who is the mole at Waza headquarters??!!!!! Kiki Nakawaka is already applying her gentle skills to the squidgy bits of the anatomy of various employees to find out.
Coincidentally Arnold and Mabel Glutbucket have been looking a little furtive lately, and I have not seen them since the race on Friday!!!
Where did Art learn the ancient secrets of the subtle Waza technique of Hiki Flipikawa, whereby any particularly persistant opponent is left on his head whilst you escape unscathed?
I made the mistake of trying to adjust the setup that I had built on Wed evening ( and which was good for a low 1:22 ) instead of controlling my driving and as a result was almost a second off my PB. A lesson there I think.
So I started the race behind Art who had set a very fast pole time, but I was confident enough in my race setup to be able to challenge him. The first few laps Art eased away but looked a little unsteady on those cold tyres so I allowed a small gap to develop whilst I tried to force some heat into mine . I really struggled to get my tyres out of the dark blue temps all race??. Once I had settled in I eased up behind Art and waited for a mistake or an opening to make a pass...always difficult around Monaco
I was quicker through some sections and he had the edge in other parts but it seemed that we were evnly matched for pace. Ron had slowly dropped back in 3rd but was still close enough to capitalise on any errors from us.
For lap after lap I tried to work an opening, the best chance seemed to be out of the final hairpin onto the S/F straight but Art's line always seemed to prevent me nailing the gas early enough to gain the advantage. Another place was on the exit of Casino square and over the bump where he got a little ragged sometimes, but never quite enough for me to stick my nose down the inside.
Eventually he pulled that ace which Wazas keep in reserve and accidentally deliberately clipped the kerb just to make his car spin and reverse across the track. Ha!! I've got him now I thought just drive around him and disappear into the sunset
But the sneaky, sneaky, underhanded, secret stealing, deviant little s*d, bounced off the Armco just enough to get his nose under my front wheel and flipped me onto my head!!!! I had no option but to Shift-R, which put me in front of Art but needing a SnG. Did Art reset too?? would he have to perform a SnG?? I gave it everything on cold tyres to build a gap before we got to the pits hoping to build a small gap and praying that Art would have to stop too. But the swine had the temerity to sweep pass as i performed my SnG and retake the lead.
I have to confess that the dreaded "red mist" decended across my eyes for the next few laps as I forced tha pace trying to close the gap back to Art. But on coldish tyres and some serious over driving on my part I collected a few Armco and straw bale samples which slowed me down and caused a half spin which dropped me to 3rd behind Ron who had maintained his steady pace.
Closing on Ron was not a problem, but passing was because one of the brushes with the barriers had caused some damage to the rear left tyre. Although this upset the handling very slightly, it did cause the temps to rise on that corner
Ron defended his position well and I thought I would have very little chance of regaining second unless he made a mistake. Unfortunately Ron got caught out by a backmarker and although he tried to emulate Arts dastardly move I was able to bounce through and escape. With only a few laps left I pressed as hard as I dared in the hope that Art might just have a small off, or even run low on fuel, but instead he simply eased through the final laps to take a comfortable win. Grats Art
I payed the price in this race for forgetting the rule at Monaco where you have to beat the circuit before you can beat the opposition and that means very controlled driving and avoiding other's misfortune.
It was still great fun and grats to all the finishers.