I know that you won't believe me Erling, but there were no tactics involved last night. I was trying the Escorts in practice simply to compare the cars I still had available. I already knew that the Boss would be the fastest option, but I needed a relative comparison for the Escorts.
I was almost stuck with the FVA, which I was trundling around in the last minutes of free practice, and it was only by chance that I glanced at the clock with about one minute left until qually started. A frantic jump back to the transporter and grabbed the last drive in the Boss.......sorry Erling it could have been fun.
TBH I get a little scared at the start of the season when I read on the forum that many of you have tested/worked out the cars and circuits for all of the races!!
My system involves looking at the track on race day, taking a look at what cars I have left and choosing what might be the most promising. Inevitably this means that as we get to the tail end of a season I have a collection of cars that either I just don't like. or that are totally unsuitable for the tracks that are remaining. As you will see for the rest of this season!!
During qually I was struggling to actually adjust from the handling of the Escort to that of the Mustang, with multiple "track cut" warnings. It was only in the last few minutes that I hooked up a decent lap to get me onto the front row, with Geoffers claiming pole.
I managed to get a good launch , but Tony was even quicker and led towards T1. I was just close enough on the inside to prevent him getting in to the apex and I was able to take the racing line and get a better exit. I was in the lead but on cold tyres and with the pack close on my tailpipes. Full concentration for the first lap pilled me a little gap and I was able to take a glance at the positions.
Geoffers, who I had expected to be making my life extremely uncomfortable was back in 4th place, I decided to make the most of the gap that I had and turned the wick up for several laps whilst Tony kindly bottled up Geoffers. Then I saw that he had passed Tony and was in pursuit
, I had eeked out around 7 seconds and I worked VERY hard to maintain that cushion.
I was very conscious that just one mistake would be the end of my lead, so I was not at max attack....hoping that I was just quick enough that Geoffers was having to take risks to catch me. I was doing multiple mental calculations as to how many laps I had before Geoffers would catch me at the current rate.
But all of those predictions were thrown into chaos when I started lapping the slower cars. It was in no way their fault as the Mustang is just so much quicker, but each time I was losing precious seconds. Then Geoffers dropped back and suddenly the gap was up to around 15 secs and Tony was playing cork in the bottle again
We were now into the last 10 laps and I was watching my tyre wear carefully as in the past I have been known to throw away a possible good finish when I run out of rubber
. Geoffers is nothing if not persistant and bl**dy quick!! and soon he was past Tony and taking great chunks out of my lead.
Again I was doing the calculations and reckoned that I could give him a second a lap and still finish ahead, but again catching slower cars at the wrong place was proving very expensive and I just had to hope that Geoffers was getting similar problems, although he seemed to be dealing with them better than me!!???
5 laps to go and he was getting closer lap by lap, and I was treading very carefully trying to save a little rubber in reserve for what I expected to be an intense last lap battle. With 2 laps to go he was only 2 secs behind and looking very intent on taking the win. So I now had had to push and use any remaining grip if I was going to hold on to the win. Then luck played a part when Geoffers got caught behind a lapped car and I grabbed an extra 0.5 secs ( not much, but very valuable!!).
Going into the last lap it was "win or bust" and going into Hangar Straight I was beginning to feel that I might just have done enough. Braking for Stowe highlighted the poor state of my front tyres and was a little buttock clenching as the front end dived and wobbled in protest. A small powerslide on the exit to get the tail around and we survived.
A glance in the mirrors saw Geoffers only a few hundred metres back with half a lap to go,,,should be Ok if I don't screw up?? I did not look again until I took the flag and the win amazed to find that there was no one behind???!!??!
As we know it transpired that Geoffers had run out of fuel somewhere around Stowe?
Grats to Tony and Erling and commiserations to Geoffers, who made my race very uncomfortable, but definitely exciting!!