Of course I knew that my decision to run the Cooper exclusively again this year was going to exact a price at places like Rouen, Tripoli, and (tonight) Kyalami. My qualifying of 1:22.9 was within a few hundredths of the 90 percentile rank of the marque here, so even though I qualified dead last, I didn't feel the car was letting me down as much as I was disappointing it.
Billy's spin at T1 and the collection of cars on the side of the road at Jukskei on the first lap raised me to 4th, a happy status that lasted until Billy finally caught up to me on L11. His Eagle couldn't shake me, however, and we stayed within sight of each other until Francesco caught me on L29 and Dave slipped by me on the lap after that. I held on to finish 6th. Facing two Loti, a couple of BTs, a pair of Eagles, and a red car, how much better could the poor Coop expect to do? At the end there were just 13 seconds between 3rd and 7th, so I'm feeling pretty good about the entire season tonight. This was hard but clean racing in this season finale, and I'm proud of everyone for their concentration, effort, and skill.
But next year I'll start playing the car swapping game. Statements of principle are nice, but being competitive might be even better.