Dear me...
Four drivers KO'd at the same instant as per Axel's post above. Add a couple of others and this has to go down as a non-event.
Canadians top the chart with a 1-2! Well! Not unprecedented but rare indeed. Grats to Deaner on a good drive recovering from early misfortunes. Fine job by Dave to score a podium but unlucky with an extra stop thanks to a fragged mill and a late off that handed me P2.
Sorry to learn that some had difficulties with their pit stop in not being able to find their stall. I tested offline and again in qualifying to verify that my board showed. It did. I checked my stop time at 9s. However, in the race, stopping at the end of Lap01 having gassed for the distance, I couldn't see it where it should have been. No worries. I simply stopped, counted a slow 9s...replay shows that I was stationary for 12s...and proceeded. Job done.
I got into some grand duels with Billy, Andreas and Ronnie Nilsson. That was great fun. However, my vision pretty much collapsed on Lap02 and I anticipated hitting the showers early. My right eyeball fogged over horribly and I was essentially driving with one eye only. Not fun and a lot of guesswork going on behind the wheel. As we got farther into the race, I decided to try and last to half distance. As people started to disappear off the leaderboard and I rose in the charts, I decided to stick with it and ended up chasing Dave for a podium spot. Most unexpected but nevertheless welcome. Around Lap30, the vision started to improve...tear ducts drained, I expect...and I was able to press an attack on DR. Not much between us in performance. A couple of small gaffes on my part...a 360 off the polos late in a lap...seemed to give Dave all he needed to prevail but a missed braking point coming off the main circuit had him in the gravel with just a handful of laps to go and I was through to P2. Dean was long gone and with my ascending to P2, it became apparent that I had spent all my energies in pursuit of Dave. Fatigue hit me hard and I started to cruise it a bit and only just held DR at the flag. Another few laps and I would have been an easy target.
Today, Monday following, my eyes are smarting significantly. Like having sand thrown in my face. Must lay off for the rest of the day to compensate for the long race. The price to be paid for pushing 70...
