A fun evening was anticipated and almost materialised....but not quite lol. I knew the track, if not this particular version, and I thought I knew where I was with the cars.
Grats to all finishers and podium places.
In all the races thus far in the series I have found the Corvette an absolute sod to drive and the Cobra much more driveable. So I figured, " let's get that Corvette out of the way whilst I learn the finer details of this track and then we can give it beans in the Cobra".
After the somewhat unusual start in Race 1, which relegated Geoffers to a safer position
and Dan's appetite for "Cut Track" warnings I found myself tailing Erling and surprisingly not losing ground
. Just as others have mentioned I found the braking and grip levels very difficult and I was almost afraid to apply any pressure on the middle pedal as the car just squirmed and threatened to dive off the tarmac....which is exactly what Erling did!! allowing me a clear move into the lead
. As the laps counted down the tyres and the handling deteriorated, but I had a few seconds in hand over Erling, who was also coming under pressure from a fast recovering Geoffers. I confess that I was hoping they would occupy each other until the end of the race!!
Then I "did an Erling" and threw away that safety gap with about 5 laps to go
. Now that I could see both the chasing cars in my mirrors, I could see that they were also struggling with grip, although Geoffers did not appear to have read the script and insisted on going too quickly!!
Erling made a mistake and Geoffers was through, and closing on my increasingly unstable Corvette.
When the car defeated my best attempts to wrestle it around the final corner and I ran wide, Geoff was through. I am not entirely sure what happened next
, I managed to avoid the barriers and point the car down the straight and get on the gas to chase Geoff and also hopefully keep Erling behind.
I expected to watch Geoff's Cobra slowly ease away over the remaining laps and that my fight would now be with Erling, but somewhere around the S/F line I swept past a Cobra
and regained the lead!! At the end of the back straight he had a "moment" and re arranged some sand castles and that gave me just enough of a gap to hold on for 1st place by excessive buttock clenching each time that I applied the brakes and gently teasing the gas out of the corners.
Race 2 would be a breeze with that lovely predictable and stable Cobra...for sure.
But despite using the same setup that had worked so well at Laguna Seca and Willow Springs, where I could pour on the power and the Cobra just found the grip and was a joy to drive I found that car did not exist at Stardust!! The brakes were a nightmare ( equally as bad as the Corvette!) and getting the power down on corner exit was an adventure at every corner. My only consolation that Erling's car ahead, which in any other race is normally a perfect example of composure and control, was twitching it's rear end and wobbling under brakes with locking tyres.
But my control wavered before his and I ran wide losing valuable seconds. After that it was a lonely race with concentration solely on avoiding a race ending mistake, whilst hoping that maybe those ahead might gift me a place
These overpowered, under gripped beasts are huge fun, but the grip levels at Stardust were a real challenge. Maybe the track builders programmed in a layer of sand on the tarmac??