Only managed to get to my wheel once the race session had started & with about 90secs till the green light, so no praccy or qually for me & no driving since Thursday.... not my normal pre-race routine
, so loaded a setup with a full tank aiming to do a very late splash & dash as I was starting dead last (24th).
Managed to get past the all seven of the GT3 chaps by the end of lap 4. Some of them flashed me straight past rather then slowing themselves down & a couple of them defended most valiantly which was actually quite a laugh as it was only a mater of time & I was just overjoyed to have made the race at all.
I set about catching Goldtop up first, it took five laps to catch him & as I settled in to follow closely for a bit, he ran wide & through I went only to find JPV & Bob parked on the grass a 100 yards further up the road. So that was ten places made up to 14th quite nicely. It took another 5 laps to catch & pass Jure, who made it a bit harder but I think I got past under acceleration out of T1 (great corner that
).
Then it was Stew's turn... I closed down the 4.5 secs in under 4 laps, but I couldn't make a pass as he was strongest where I was strong & looking to make moves on him & he defended where he needed to also. An opportunity might have presented itself as we caught up to lap somebody, but I was off my line & misjudged a bump & binned myself onto the grass rather then take Stew or the back-marker out. I'd lost 8 seconds to him, by the end of that lap but set about making it up again. Chipped away again & when he had a minor off I was back on his tail, instantly realised that for the time it might take to get past I'd lose too much tame for a chance of a higher finish, so made a last second dart into the pits for a much earlier then scheduled stop, but stuck to the splash & dash strategy. I knew this would leapfrog a few people, but I might pay the penalty later as my tyres wore...
Got out about 10 secs ahead of Spanner (one of the guys I'd jumped) & was getting nervous as he quickly had the gap down to just 5 secs & was announcing on teamspeak that he could see me now
. But I think I got lucky with traffic & managed to hold him off while his tyres were still at their peak & if anything Spanner's car faded more then mine
That was it really, 27 secs to Jimmie ahead with 16 laps to go, so nothing to fight for.... then 27secs dropped to 10secs to Jose must be having problems with one lap remaining
. Gave it my all to catch him (on my now somewhat slippy original tyres) & was shocked to zoom past an empty Jimmie & then TT on the line too as I was just one sec behind Jose by now & at full tilt! Unlucky TT, I had no idea what was happening as I had to swerve slightly to miss you even.
I reckon just one more lap & I could have had Jose who must have been nursing problems, then I could have had a quite ridiculous 24th to 6th place finish. Still, 7th wasn't bad either