Grats to Sam for snagging a most-worthy victory in the season opener! Well done.
Great jobs by Evil for a fine run to P2 and by Alex showing terrific pace in the big MkII to grab the last podium slot. Impressive
speed indeed for the Big Mutha.
Gutted to see that Juha had a problem on the pace lap and then got disco'd for his pains. Scant justice there.
I'm quite pleased to have scored a top 10 with my MkII though it was somewhat lucky to be sure.
I've taken quite a few rolling starts in my time in GPL and other sims and this one has to go down as one of sloppiest on record. I
checked the direct replay and confirmed it via GPLRA that I crossed the S/F line to start racing on L2 fully 17 seconds down to
the leader. Holy smokes! We gotta tighten this up, fellas.
I caught a break on this opening lap as Kiro slipped off the road in the twisties complex to promote to P12. I then took up the
chase of my team mate, Jason. On L6, Jason slid wide on a corner and let me through for position. Next up was Axel well up the
road and also aboard a MkII.
It took 15 laps to reduce the six-second difference to Axel and once on his tail, I could see that I wasn't going to be able to pass
him easily. He was driving with admirable precision being near line-perfect everywhere. I seemed to close significantly on braking
but lost on acceleration onto the front straight. Out of that last corner, I was being very conservative having had a few spins
there in pre-race trials with over-exuberance getting on the throttle. I needed another break.
L31 and I got it. Nigel, not far ahead of Axel and I, had a bad pass through T1 and got onto the grass verge on the left. Not hard
to do, in fact. In coming back onto the tarmac, Axel tried in vain to avoid the errant Porsche but there just wasn't enough room or
time to do so. WAMO! A big collision. Nigel went for some barrel rolls and Axel worked hard to maintain control on the verge on
the right. This was my chance and I immediately seized the opportunity to squeak by going into T2. Not proud of that but it's dog
eat dog out there.
For the balance of the race, I had Axel counter-attacking well and applying heavy pressure. Too, I was starting to fade and my
vision was giving out a bit. Only a late-race off by Axel ended the duel. Too bad as it was some splendid racing.
I pulled a bit of a boner by misreading my pitboard and came into the pits with one lap still to run. DOH! Lucky for me that Sam
had lapped everyone behind me up to point else I would have fallen down the order a ton!
Good fun and I'm looking forward to our next round @ Spa.