A thousand pardons for the late filing, chaps.
Grats to Al for a fine victory! From P2 on the grid, he drove smart as well as fast to claim the top step on the podium. Further, he nailed down the FTD, had no ‘64' laps and was most consistent. It doesn’t get much better than this. (BTW, in checking GPLRank this morning for some reference times on other tracks, I note that Al has recently set two WR’s in the CanAms. Well done, Al!)
A fine run from Andrew to claim P3 at the finish with Eagles sweeping the podium. Great job!
A P2 finish for me is most gratifying. My race was relatively uneventful. Racing only gets really exciting when things go wrong!
From P7 on the grid, I got a fine launch and passed a number of cars that were slow getting away and claimed P4 by the time we got thru T1. Most unexpected.
I was getting a modest but useful tow from Bart’s Eagle running in P3 and this helped me stay out of the clutches of Attilio and Triple-A running not far behind me.
The only real trouble I had all race long was mis-judging the shallow right-hander about 1/3 of the way round the lap. This is the one where the roadway drops away part way thru the corner. I consistently went in a little too deep to find myself perilously close to dropping a wheel off onto the verge on the left and having to soft-pedal it. Down on my knees praying there.
After several close shaves, I finally got wise and slowed my entry to get a good, fast and proper exit.
Lap4 was key in that the first four runners were within five seconds and with Bob leading, he spun in the first of the slow rights. Al was barely a second down and managed to squeak by safely. Not so Bart from P3. He clipped Bob’s Eagle and spun wildly. I arrived a moment later to find an Eagle slalom as a challenge to negotiate. Bob was on the left and only just managing to get up to speed. Bart was on the right and probably still wondering WTH just happened. With what could only be described as the greatest luck, I skipped though the hole to claim P2. While Bob recovered pace nicely to give chase to me, poor Bart had his engine go sour just 3/4 of a lap later. Bad luck.
Starting Lap5 some four seconds down on Al whom I could readily see up ahead, I was determined to protect a potentially good finish by not doing anything radical. I was only a couple of seconds ahead of Bob. Lap6 and a 360 from Bob in the ‘hairpin’ set him back several more seconds and it looked like I was in solid for a P2 finish. Not so.
Bob started to push very hard and he reduced the gap to a mere one second starting Lap11. Al had become just a small dot in the distance ahead with a lead of some seven seconds. Now catching my slipstream, Bob steamed by easily in the lap. This wasn’t a major blow to my chances as I figured that his faster pace might just pull me along with the possible prospect of catching Al for the lead. Hmmm...
MON DIEU! At the very same corner that had Bob spin away the lead earlier, he ran wide, got buried in the sandbags and struck the end of the barrier at speed. He ricocheted across the road directly in front of me. Only a moment to close my eyes and hope for the best. MADE IT! PHEW! Only by a whisker did I avoid getting collected as Bob’s Eagle caromed across the road to strike some palms on the infield. Adding insult to injury, one of them promptly inverted his Eagle. Fini. Bad luck after a nice comeback, Bob.
I wasn’t aware that Bob had been KO’d and partly expected to see him marching back up from P4 but that wasn’t the case. Andrew was consistently shown as P4 some 18 seconds down. For the balance of the race, I just cooled it and played it safe, quite satisfied with a P2 score.
I crunched some numbers for the pace of the event and came up with the following. Al’s average speed over the distance translated to a cool 170.3 mph(275.9 kph). Not too shabby.