Not a particularly noteworthy round from my quarter. Lucky to have finished at all, in fact.
I'd initially taken a shine to the BT24 for this go but after logging my best in the car, discovered in my Doni66 folder that I'd eclipsed that time with, of all things, the BRM P115. No sense spending 10 tokens on a slower car, is there?
In qualifying, I struggled to approach my PB in the BRM ending up fully 6/10 of a seconds shy. At least it felt comfortable.
Off the line, I bogged it down from last place but wasn't too concerned as I expected a bit of a concertina effect down at the hairpin. Boy! Was I right there! LOL! Cars going every whichway and I ultimately tagged poor ol' Clive who was just coasting mid-track. I hadn't realized that he'd already had the LF corner pruned off. Bad luck there, Evil.
After a little bump and grind, I emerged from the mess to find an Eagle off my tail so I eased off and just let it pass. Not much chance of holding off the Blue Bird. Strangely, over the next several laps, the Eagle wasn't disappearing over the horizon. This was Rocket Ronnie who'd sustained damage in the Lap01 fracas and was now being powered by what seemed a V-9 Weslake. Way down on power. I was holding the gap and decided to run consistant laps rather than attack as it was possible that, in his struggle, Ronnie was going to over do it to stay ahead. No, that didn't happen but I at least closed in enough such that on Lap11, I was able to sift by comfortably on the back straight. Promotion to P11.
Some additional fallers along the way...including Dean who seemed to simply pull over on the pit straight and park for no apparent reason...promoted me to P9 by Lap 17. Ronnie was my constant shadow throughout as he used the slipstream to help make up for his constipated engine.
Comes Lap20 and lordy!, here comes a Lotus blasting up in my mirrors on the main straight. This was Jethro in P1 with a tidy lead and it only remained for me to assess whether it was better to let him by immediately or if I had time to negotiate the hairpin and let him by on the straight following. I was so intent on gauging the gap between us that I missed my braking point and went sailing off into the hale bales in a cloud of smoke from the covers. Lost several seconds which was more than enough to let Ronnie pass for position. Splendid rookie gaffe. Sheeesh!
At least Jethro's arrival kept my head up for more lappers and soon, Tristan and Robert were through cleanly in close formation and not long later, in all the action, I'd managed to get by Ronnie again, hopefully, this time for keeps. Indeed, as Art and Izzy soon lapped us, I got a margin on Ronnie that broke the breeze off my BRM and he was helpless to stay in touch.
Once the dust had settled from all this, I noted that Andreas was not that far up the road in his BT24. With all the ebb and flow of allowing the hot shots through, I found that I was only five seconds adrift of P8. Hmmm... I upped the pace.
Clearly visible ahead now, with 15 laps remaining, I'd whittled the gap down to just four seconds and the prospect seemed very doable. Lap27 and for the first time, I drew into the hairpin shaving off several metres from my braking point. Bugger! I drifted off onto the grass and lost a second. I berated myself for the error and promised myself not to do that again. And I didn't for on the very next lap, I managed to thunder straight off into the bales and grind to a halt! Merde! I had to select reverse to get straightened away and fully expected Ronnie to cruise by, laughing all the way. But no... The fates were unkind to Rocket, too, on Lap28 as he'd looped it in T1 and lost a bunch of time as well. Not a lap that either of us would be proud of.
This let Andreas off the hook and from there on in, I more or less cruised it in being lapped for a second time just short of the S/F line. As I said above, lucky at all to have finished.
Fine victory for Tris! Close one for Robert and Art. Pitiful luck for Jethro. Good drives by Izzy, Tommie and Greg.
