Quite a surprise, and extremely lucky, to benefit from the misfortune of others and take this win.
I had done zero practice ( which is normal these days ) and no prepared setup for this race. In fact it was not until I had to join the server that I even thought about car choice. My favourite 65 is the BT11, the BT7 is fun where the straights are not too long, but I thought a good challenge here would be the old Wazamobile.
For setup I grabbed an old one from Mosport, hoping that I remembered correctly and that it was stable. qually was OK but I was running on full race fuel and still trying to find the right lines when it ended.
Robert's time on pole in the Cooper was absolutely stunning and I figured that we were all racing for 2nd place!! He had a whole second in hand over us lesser mortals.
When the race started I got away reasonably well and tried to hang on to the leaders. I pushed too hard in the early laps and ran wide a couple of times, losing places, until I got my head together and settled down to some serious driving.
One or two mistakes ahead allowed me to regain places and I got myself back into 3rd place with Tris quite a long way ahead.
Slowly, slowly I chipped away at that gap until finally I was on his tail with about 15 laps to go. Robert, at that point was so far ahead that he was racing on another circuit!! but I was beginning to feel that there was a chance of 2nd if I could find a way around Tris. That all went wrong at T2 where I was too close to Tris, when he had a wobble, and had to take avoiding action that dropped me a long way back.
It was not exacvtly a red mist, but there was a rosy glow in that air as I focused on chasing Tris again hoping that he would make a mistake and give me another shot at catching him. By now I had sorted out the quicker lines and concentrated on braking points and apexes.
I'm not sure if he did make an error but I was definitely closing quickly enough to make the end of the race very interesting.
Then I noticed that Robert had disappeared from the leader board....this was for the top step of the podium now!!!
As I got within 100mtrs of Tris, I could see some cars ahead that he would have to lap. With about 5 laps to go this could be my chance to get right on his tail. There was a coming together as Tris as the 2 cars turned onto the back straight and I came upon two spinning cars. I aimed for the empty side of the track, but could see that one of the cars coming my way and held my breath as I squeezed through................. into 1st place.
By the time I crossed the S/F line I could see that I had a comfortable lead over Bob, also in a Honda, who had also passed the stricken Tris. With 4+ laps to go I felt that I could play safe and back off.......Bob had other ideas and started to close alarmingly quickly. I still felt that I had enough of a cushion to finish ahead of him and did not panic, at least not until I needed to!
I was watching the gap as the laps ticked off and just as I was thinking that I had better push a little, I saw Bob run wide at T2, and smiled to myself. Sorry Bob, but I did
A cruise to the flag was all I had to do.
Commiserations to Robert and Tris, whose races were ended prematurely. Iestyn might have had some influence on the result had he been there, but I'll happily take the champagne this time
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