This track seemed to favor the faster cars, so concentrated on them when trying to decide what to drive. When some practice and setup tweaking indicated I could drive the Capri without getting mugged at the slightest prod at either pedal, I decided on it - had to use it somewhere, even though I hate it, so why not here. Dismaying to return for more tweaking after a few days, and find it had reverted to being the usual malicious, disagreeable beast
Took the better part of an hour to get back 'in tune' with it again. If only this version would be as easy to drive as its fire spitting turbo cousins in the Asia Cup..
Entering the server today, I started wondering if Ziu is clairvoyant, or if he's simply hacked my PC. This is the 3rd race in a row in this series where he's picked the same car as me, in advance..
Happy with qual, as I knocked 0.3 sec off my pb, but with Ziu in the same car, it would of course only land me 2nd.
Bad start losing two places, to Matt & Clive. At the end of L1, the latter's slow entry into the chicane caught me out, so had to back completely off. Damn near lost another place, to John behind me. Also gave Clive an opportunity to get away, and I spent the next lap catching him again. Passed him approaching the chicane at the end of the lap, but forced me on a line too far to the right. Couldn't make the entry and bumped over the left part, promptly catching a cut warning.
Over the next laps, I extended the gap to Clive a little, while staying in touch with Matt. Then a couple of unforced errors increased the gap to Matt. When backmarkers next were thrown into the mix, all went tits up. Was just passing the 3rd of a gaggle, when the fastest corner approached. Its driver kindly stayed right, giving me the racing line, but I couldn't turn in where I usually did, as that would have seen us collide. Hadn't shed enough speed for the wider entry I had to take, and thus ran wide onto the grass. Took forever to get back on tarmac (forever in this case being equal to 7-8 secs..). Then had to do the work of getting past the same 3 cars all over again, which of course cost extra time.
Had been confident early on that I could catch Matt's Boss Mustang, if not sooner, then when his tyres went off. With all the time lost, it started looking bleak though. On lap 23, I caught another backmarker approaching the chicane. Resulted in a complete repeat of the situation with Clive, including another cut warning. Thus had to be very careful on the final two laps. Was getting closer to Matt towards the end, but too little too late. Grats to him on 2nd and Ziu on the win. Glad to see that Huggy apparently stayed with us for the entire race - hope you can work out a solution to those AVG problems.
Had a really annoying problem during the race, as I had to keep slamming my steering wheel back into place. Switched to a Thrustmaster recently, and while their clamping system looks good on paper, I really miss the one used by Logitech. The latter you can tighten during a race, while it's virtually impossible with Thrustmaster's. Even though I tighten it to the point of being afraid to break it, I still pull the wheel out during a race. Will have to find a solution before next Monday. (Probably make a recess or edge of sorts beneath the table, to prevent it sliding)
Cheers,
Erling
