Struggled with these cars in the past, and this season seems to continue the tradition.
Picked the Opel for the first race. Thought I had tamed its end swapping tendencies offline, but still lost it under braking several times in pre race praccy + qual. Off the pace and down in midfield at the start.
Got reasonably well off the line, but a fishtailing Clive ahead forced me to back off, allowing Kurt past. Few corners later, going into the uphill lefthander, Kurt started to lose the rear. I would have avoided him, if not for a whack on the inside from an overzealous Beemer, which sent me wide and straight into the side of Kurt. Sorry about that Kurt; no way of avoiding it. I ended up sideways, parked in the gravel and down to 9th when I got going again. Kurt waited and let me past, although it was no fault of his, but couldn't communicate that under the circumstances.
Caught Bill and tried a pass at the end of the straight, but damn near lost it when the Opel tried to mug me once again. Bill apparently let me past - thanks Bill, that wasn't called for. Passed a recovering Tony right after and thus up to 6th. Remaining cars in front continued to pull away, and gap behind was growing too, so most of the race was utterly lonely. Hard to keep up concentration and motivation.
At the start of the final lap, I saw puffs of smoke that quickly grew denser, with a crippled Roger at the end. Went past and thus finished a not quite deserved 5th.
Mayhem at T1 on lap 1 of race 2; got in a squeeze between Ziu & Matt, and then had to navigate around a reversed Geoffers. With the infernal Nissans around, you can't hear your own thoughts, let alone your own engine noise. Lost more places, when I realized I was in 1st, at 9500 rpm and going nowhere..
Looked for a way past Tony, but didn't find one until the end of the straight, when I slipped in front with some late braking.
Hunted down Clive over a number of laps, only to have Matt add to the confusion, by rejoining between us, just as I was getting close to Clive. Next lap, Clive had a moment and we both slipped past. More (very) late braking at the end of the straight saw me past Matt, and then needed several very concentrated laps to build a small gap of 2 secs. Then my mirrors went empty and gap jumped to 6 secs, when Matt went off out of sight. Up ahead, Ziu was still moving away, so just focused on hanging on to 2nd.
Grats to podium in race 1, and to Ziu & Matt in race 2. Not sure I quite buy Ziu's claims about the car doing it all - the Porker I tried wasn't nearly that fast...
(And grats to Ziu for pulling all this off under very difficult conditions!!)
Can only speak for myself, but would really appreciate just 5 minutes worth of practice in race 2, to adjust to another car, instead of jumping straight to an already halved qual session. I need a fair few laps to get into my stride, and was nowhere near my pb with the Beemer (2:00.49).