A real shame that the gremlins screwed your race Tim. Even more so, because I was stranded behind your stationary car!! lol Eventually the grid got away on the rolling lap but not before sneaky Al had poached my place
I had been hoping that I could get up behind Tim's Mk4 when the race started and get towed along because one thing was certain, there was no chance of my Lola keeping up without some serious drafting!!!
I thought that Mark did a good job of getting the whole grid lined up before the kink and when he took off, along with Alex Tom and Axel, I knew that if I was to have any chance of keeping in touch I needed to get past Al and pick up the tow. So on the run down to T1 I decided that I was going to have to pass Al whether he wanted me to or not!!
That put me on Axel's tail with a small gap up to Tom, Alex and Mark. But that gap was stretching ever so slowly and I was concerned that the leading trio would get away.
The big problem was that although Axel's Mk2 was faster down the long straights, I was much later on the brakes and quicker through the corners but it was hopeless trying to pass him because he would just blow past on the next straight with his higher top speed.
If I risked everything and took the revs up to the red line I might have just made a pass in a couple of places, but that would almost certainly screw the engine before the end of the race
So I sat behind Axel and and waited as Juha began to close from behind.
I had no answer to the extra speed of the Mk2's except to sit in the slipstream of the 2 Mk2's and wait for a mistake
Even when Axel and Juha managed to do a formation detour into the sand at the hairpin and I got a 400mtr lead they caught me within a lap because of the extra speed down the straights. Then Axel dug himself an even bigger hole in the sand and left Juha and me fighting over 4th place. Juha closed and then had an argument with one of the few barriers around her and I was away again, this time with 800 mtrs lead
Maybe I could hold this lead??
But slowly Juha was eating away at my lead and then I was looking at prib when I should have been looking at the road and I went off at the hairpin. By the time I had climbed out of the sand Juha had swept past, but what was worse, was that he was beyond slipstream range by the time I got going and I was stuffed!!!
The rest of the race (almost another 30minutes!!) was spent pressing as hard as I dared without risking the engine and hoping for some problems for the front runners....which did not happen
Grats to Mark who was the most consistant driver in this series and really had that Mk2 sorted for almost every race and to Team International for getting (just) enough points to take the Team Championship..subject to moderation.
Thanks to all those who took part in this series and for the very high standard of driving shown by everyone. There have been very few incidents reported and even fewer unreported ones.
