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After championship leader Hristo Itchov was mysteriously locked in the Waza team bus (Clark-Hill have strongly denied any involvement), Al Heller picked up an important victory which takes the title battle down to the wire at Mexico City.

Race list	iGOR
Server	UKGPL_GPG
IP address	NB Was 62.195.32.131 is now 77.249.239.123
Date	02-12-2012
Race time	Race starts at 21:30 UK time
Qualifying time	Between 30 and 60 minutes, starting no later than 21:00 UK time
Track	Mexico City (mexico)
Mod	67
Damage model	PRO
Race length	28 laps
Replay	Available here (ftp://ukgpl3.dyndns.org/replays/Archive/Season23/Grads_Works/S23_Grads_Works_R10_2012_12_02_MexicoCity.rar)

Reserve drivers please note; you must leave the server with 35 minutes of qualifying left, for a total of 5 minutes, to allow full timers to join.

The red zone will be fully moderated for lap 1 only. For this event the red zone will be from the start line to the exit of the hairpin. Other moderation will be on reported incidents only.

The chassis token system is explained on the Works (https://www.simracing.org.uk/smf/index.php?action=LM2R&group=360&theme=6) standings page. Please ensure you choose a chassis that is within your budget, which can be seen by hovering the mouse over your points total in the standings.

May the better Waza win!  ;D

GPG server is set to 28 laps Long race.
Ciao

Sorry guys. I probably ended several races, my fault entirely. :death:

HUGE AMOUNT OF THANKS TO ROSS FOR MODERATING THIS SERIES. HE IS HAVING A BREAK, BUT HE HAD BETTER BE BACK SOON!

WELL DONE AND THANKS MATE.

Because it's a flu season here at the North Pole, I've woke up with a fever. It's safe to say, that it wasn't very helpful. I had big problem, with my concentration and I almost lost it at L1T1. Thanks to my extraordinary driving skills I've managed to regain control, just so I could crash on the next lap :laugh:


Here are the first 10 laps of yesterday's race - link (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSMRBiaQz7c/)(editing is a little bit crude in few places, but I'm still quite sick and I didn't had the patience to fix it).

I would like to congratulate Hristo for wining the title and thanks to Ross and the rest of the mod team for organizing this great championship.

Thanks, Bartosz, nice job with the video, bad luck about the spin. If I may suggest something in such situations, it's not to jump on the brakes because that just maintains the direction of spin and travel, and you end up hitting the wall anyway. It helps more to apply throttle and thus force the rear wheels to push the car towards the inside of the corner, or at least force it into a quicker spin so you can regain some steering once the car goes backwards towards the direction of travel.

Grats to Al for keeping up the challenge all the way until the last race, you've really improved your pace and race craft, Al!

And of course grats to Art for the win, you were too fast and consistent this time! If you maintain that over the whole season, I don't think anyone would be able to stop you.

Thanks to Ross for organizing the season, it's been an exciting one!

Really one of the most difficult races for me, as even if at times I had Hristo dropping off a few seconds, it always felt as if he was there snapping at my heels. Theres also that silly hairpin where you can see the other guys coming while you are accelerating away, and inevitably you get a reminder of how close your chasers are every single lap...Got the umptienth pole of the season, but this time my main opposition was Al, whos not normally much bothered about top spots in qually. This just goes to show how good motivation positively affects your practice time  ;D ;D. At the start, I got once again the shy flagman, who could only be spotted using lateral view, this time (unlike Tripoli..) I managed not to mess up the slightly more complicated procedure required in these cases, although it still wasnt enough to fend off Al's rocketed Lotus. After the first few cautious laps, while I was already starting ruing having discarded the more speedy Eagle for my solid Fezza, I had a good and unexpected opportunity with Al running a bit wide and having a bad exit out of the last corner, and could put in a nice clean pass using the slipstream on the S/F straight. I hoped I could motor away putting some distance from me and the two battling chasers, as I knew Hristo was right behind me the previous lap and would soon start pushing for a way past Al's Lotus. It wasnt to be, coming out of the hairpin that very same lap I could see H was already right behind me..and from then on gentlemen, it is just a blur  ;D ;D.

Now, when you are running on your treadmill you dont notice that, because you are staring into the distance, probably listening to some kind of brain washing music through your headphones, with your mind floating freely to some kind of parallel universe. However, you do notice it when you are staring at a laptop's screen for the good part of an hr, trying to thread your silly pair of virtual wheels through the polos of a rather demanding track with a very angry looking waza big in your rear mirrors. Yes, those furry, rather funny looking bits that you have plonked on your face, the eyebrows, do have an actual use, which is diverting sweat drops coming from your forehead falling into your eyes, in those crucial moments of your existence when you are completely depending on their perfect operational level. It took me to take on GPL to really fully understand the wonder of this simple yet amazing mechanism, million of years of evolution to make this win possible. Astonishing.  :o

So, the rest of the race was just a game of cat and mouse, trading small mistakes here and there that werent enough to change the final result. Although I had a car which is well over a second faster, it is still a  win that feels good, much more than Spa, as I didnt have any time to rest the entire race. Grats to Hristo for the championship and the usual great drive, and to Al for taking the fight till the very last race. Thank you to Ross for the moderation, I think he is going into de-gpling mode for a few months, hope to see him back soon on the track. Looking forward to next season, hope the rumors about 66s being dropped are only a misleading attempt of some worried competition  ;D, as I was having plans about that series..See you at the next one guys.  

Congratulations to the podium of Art, Hristo and Al. Grats again to the three of you for first (Hristo), second (Al) and third (Art) in the championship.


No problem Clive, sorry your race ended as well.

Thanks to Ross and everyone else for organising, moderating and competing this season.

Funny how our chassis choices inadvertently equalized us here; me in a Lotus, Art in a Ferrari & Hristo in the Honda all ended up very closely-matched - in qualifying at least. You're right Art, I was unusually fired up in qualifying though that was mainly because Mexico is a GPLrank track & I was desperately trying to beat my ancient PB :D (which I did by the way - hurrah) My 2nd place grid spot was a classic case of flattering to deceive though as this is not a track I relish... I got a good start to steal the lead & tried to use the Lotus power to my advantage in the opening laps, but I could see Art's Ferrari gaining huge chunks through the first 2 turns where I was far too tentative, so it wasn't looking like my lead would last too long. A couple of tiny mistakes were all it took for both Art & Hristo to get past & having dropped down to 3rd within 1 lap, the "hairpin of doom" was now revealing Bob's Brabham barrelling towards me. For the next few laps I focused hard on some consistent lapping to try & extend the gap back to Bob until finally the aforementioned h.o.d. showed nobody approaching. All my efforts to escape Bob served to keep me in touch with the leading duo but try as I might to catch up, they always seemed to remain tantalisingly out of reach.

Congratulations to Art for a very well-deserved victory under pressure. Congratulations to Hristo on taking the championship - no mean feat in a Honda. Thanks to H for the kind words - I'm pleased with my progress this season as my race pace has definitely started to improve relative to my qualifying pace. And thanks to Ross & all who helped organise - it's great to see the 67's looking so healthy & hopefully we'll have a few of those  Privateers moving up to join us next season.                 

Haha, I never thought about it from that perspective!  :o

BTW, Al, our Q times were exactly the same down to the thousand of a second!

Well that was a disappointing end to the season. Not sure how many incidents of other people's making I avoided in the early stages of the race, but I was happy to still be there on lap 3, only for my engine to give out soon after.....

Interesting prep for the race - wasn't sure which car to take, so tried em all. Something clicked inside on the Saturday and my Monster rank went from +3 to -8 in an hour or so, as I nuked my PBs in all cars. Nice....

..or so I thought going into qually. The connection was appalling and I felt like I was going backwards. The same thing happened at the last race too. Disconnecting and reconnecting, the usual solution just wasn't doing it, and I had to reboot the pc. Coming back in with 9 mins of qually left I was happy to find myself 6th after a slightly desperate couple of laps....

Anyway, thanks to all for the competition this season. Well done to H for the championship, Al for running him close....and ME for being top points scorer for Team Barf :-) I'm sure I wouldn't be if Baab could finish a race or two, but hopefully he'll be used to fatherhood by next season!!!

Thanks to Ross for modding. See you in a few weeks for the new season

Arf

I have to confess that I am too embarrassed to even look at the replay of my "incident". I will have to await Ross's wrath on that one.
Ross has done a great job with the modding for this series and will be missed in that role next season.  This comment was in no way meant to reduce any penalty that fine fellow Ross might choose to impose on a grateful driver in the Works series  ;D

Ha ha...yeah well done Arf, a full 6 points clear o me!  Not my best season, my racecraft seems to be going backwards.  I worry about my eyes when driving a full race.  I enjoy the races but find em tough. 

Despite that, I did manage to finish this one, not entirely sure how, must have set a record for the number of goes on the barriers and my car being seemingly unaffected...if not faster (says summat about my set-up?!).  There was no way I could compete with the top 3 after a couple o laps and thankfully wasn't challenged for 4th as most pursuers seemed to bite the dust.

WD to H for yet another championship (you must have more than Schumacher, Fangio, Prost & Senna combined!).  WD to Al and Attilio too, you guys were the class of the field this year, quick and consistent.

Thanks for hosting the championship guys and moderating Ross.

Cheers,

Bob.

Congratulations to Attilio on a fine victory!  Driving hard over the full distance.  Well done.

Ditto for Hristo in giving chase and certainly mounting a threat for the lead til a slight bobble late in the game.  After my retirement...bungled T1 and tore a corner off..., I watched the duel up front and it was treat to see. 

A fine job by Al to score a worthy P3.  Well done.

Grats to Hristo on emerging as our S23 Champion!  Was there ever a doubt?  Well, Al certainly did his best and made it an interesting finale.  Kudos to him for an inspiring season and a close P2 in the final standings.  A hearty ‘well done’ to Atillio for taking the third spot on the championship podium

I quite like Mexico and took out the Eagle for this final round.  Set a new PB not only for the car but across all makes.  In qualifying, I missed that PB by about ½ second to start well back but it was plain to see that despite my best efforts, I was not terribly competitive here.  I will review my performance next to others in GPLRA to see where I might gain some time.

I mentioned above that I bungled T1 to retire with terminal damage.  That was around mid-distance.  It didn’t help matters that I rim-rode the barriers there on the opening lap.  From a very cautious start, I dropped to the tail of the field but went into T1 on the outside and picked up two slots.  I cruised in there with full confidence but was shocked to find that my Eagle just skidded up to the barrier.  Cold tires.  A rookie mistake from a GPL vet.  Sigh...

For sure, I was not in a position to threaten many in this round and my march up to P6 early on was exclusively down to the misfortune of others.  Bart spun in T1 on Lap2 to prune off the RR corner.  On Lap3, a major shunt involving Evil and Ronnie in the Paralta with both calling it a day.  As Andrew was also involved in a side-swipe and spin, it lead to my picking up fully three rather undeserved positions.  Bad luck there, fellas.

Then I came across A-A-A and his smoking Ferrari on Lap6 to be promoted to P5.  Lofty stuff!  Bob was well clear up ahead and Fulvio didn’t seem an immediate threat.  As we approached mid-distance, I decided to up the pace a bit to see if I could whittle down the gap to Bob.  My reach exceeded my grasp.  Bombing into T1 on Lap14, I thought I had everything under control so was shocked to find the tail of the Eagle swinging out rapidly to the left.  So fast, in fact, that I didn’t have a ghost of a chance of catching it.  As per Bart in Lap2, I backed it into the barrier and the RR wheel went bye-bye.  Putz!

Greed is a terrible thing. :)

I see that I finished a pretty reasonable P5 in the final standings.  With two events missed, I’ll set my sights on making the full slate of events in S24 and gun for a top three finish in the final standings.  Til then...

My thanks to Ross for organizing and keeping track of everything.  We are in your debt.

Mod published. Sorry for the delay.

My fault - completely forgot about it over Christmas! Apologies everyone, thanks for covering for me Paul :)

No problem and MANY THANKS for your Modding efforts. Come back soon ;)