Had a promisingly looking race that ended in disappointment.
Made a slow start on my slippery vintage tyres. 1st lap seemed to contain the usual mayhem, despite 'take it easy' recommendations before the start. I regained a couple of the lost places, thanks to the misfortune of others. Then encountered a strange braking problem over the early laps. It wasn't the missing black stuff on track that Clive mentioned, as I relied on trees & telephone poles for brake markers, but the car simply wouldn't stop in the distance I had worked out in practice - I kept overshooting the corners. Later it became normal again (all in my head maybe ?)
Caught both Clive & Franky overshooting the final corner and had a golden opportunity to overtake both, but the above mentioned brake problem caught me, so I head butted the barrier instead. Franky recovered quickly and was gone. I had Bob & Clive behind when I got going again. Clive got past Bob after 1 or 2 laps. Managed to keep him behind, until I stuffed it in the barrier in the same place again. This time Clive joined me, but I was stuck on the barrier and took a long time to pry myself loose, now several places down.
Decided to invoke my early pitstop strategy. Rejoined in 5th, all by myself, but then I could at least concentrate on just driving. Regained places as others pitted, finding myself in 2nd, 1½ minute behind Franky. He would have to make a very long pitstop, if I should catch him. He did, and I went into 1st, just as he was on his way out. That gap would never hold against a monster Mazza. Lasted longer than expected though, as I believe he went off a couple of times while chasing me. He was biting 5 secs out of my lead on his good laps however, and eventually passed me down the main straight. He then spun under braking for the final turn and I couldn't avoid his car. We got going again, unfortunately with me in front, as Franky now pressed an overtake through the fast right-hand kink after start/finish. Had to stay on the outside lane and thus couldn't make the turn. Drifted onto grass and grazed the fence, which caught and destroyed the car
Race over and an almost certain 2nd converted to 6th.
Disappointed over this, as with such a massive speed advantage and 3 laps to go, Franky could easily have passed in a safer place.
Commiserations to my fellow DNF'ers and a partially lukewarm grats to the podium
Cheers,
Erling