So my plan to preserve the Shelby for a future race was foiled by.....everyone else!!! lol
I was astonished that the whole grid (except me) had selected the same car. Then I was worried that I had made a huge noobie mistake and chosen what was the wrong car. My only reason for taking the Roadrunner was that in the few practice laps that I did it was about as fast as the others, but seemed to be easier on its tyres.
In practice my PB was a mid 2:12, so when I saw a couple of guys posting 2:11's and 2:10's I realised that I was not quick enough to be in the mix....maybe I really had chosen the wrong car??
Matt was on tremendous form and kept chipping away at his pole time. Then I hooked up an almost perfect lap ( I thought) and posted a 2:09 that was sure to be pole position wasn't it? Not according to Matt who promptly put in a 2:08!!!! geeez! The only thing that might be in my favour was that my lap was on race fuel, was Matt running on fumes for that time??
So then we started in the dark, which I think caught everyone by surprise.
2nd start went well and I got the jump on Matt to steal the lead. Postal also got ahead of Matt and I sensed a chance to stretch a lead before Matt could get up to speed. In my enthusiasm I over cooked T1 on lap 2 and just caught the outside kerb which span me around and parked me on the infield. It took about 30 minutes for the whole field to pass before I could re join!!! dead last!!
race over!
Virginia at this time of year is prone to sudden mists and fog, and particularly dense red mist descended over the track at this point and I almost turned on my headlights.
I was able to pick up a few places over the next few laps and was immensely encouraged to see a group of cars ahead AND MATT WAS AT THE BACK
Presumably he too had had an incident.
Now the race was on and I had to get onto the tail of that group and challenge Matt, Erling, Postal and Rob Burton.
Others seemed to be struggling at half distance with lack of grip, but my car still felt pretty good despite driving like a a looney in the early laps. I was able to brake later than Rob and made a pass on him into the hairpin, I had to muscle my way past Erling who was putting up a resolute defence, because I could see Matt hustling Postal to take the lead and escape again. I did stick my nose into a small gap down the inside of Erling ..I hope it was fair and I did not knock you out of the way
.. and set off after the leaders.
Matt then made his move on Postal and was away again...rats!!! Postal was quick and I had to work on a pass from several corners previous, to get a run on him. Eventually I squeezed through and looked for Matt..he was a speck on the horizon.
The remaining laps were a case of chipping fractions off that lead with each lap until I was on his tail, as Matt kept it clean and tidy..then I ran wide and lost about 4 seconds. Talk about making things difficult for myself!!
More red mist and slowly I closed the gap again, but now I could see that his car was struggling for grip and that gave me some hope. With 1.5 laps to go Matt got a tank slapper out of the hairpin, so I just nailed the gas and went for the gap that appeared. My problem now was that the Shelby was quicker on the straights than my Roadrunner, although I appeared to have a little more grip on my well worn tyres.
Matt is far more experienced in GTL than I am and I was acutely aware that I would have to keep it very neat and tidy to stay ahead for the whole of the last lap.
I confess that I was concentrating so hard to hit the apex as we approached T1 that I was unaware of Matt making a move down the inside ( until I looked at the replay
). His avoidance move sent him over that big kerb and he flipped ending his challenege, although it was a couple of corners until I realised he was no longer there.
I was able to cruise the rest of the lap to the flag.
Grats to all the finishers and I hope I did not do anything too naughty in my passes as I am finding it difficult to judge the width of these cars. I am used to being able to see all 4 wheels in GPL and knowing the width of my car so I might have been exchanging paint samples on occasions in this race.