.......................................... At the post race debrief............"so Arnold, where were those lovely fresh super grippy tyres we needed for the pitstop?"
After Dan's sweet little love nudge at T1, I had nursed the beast of a 917 for 20 laps and from last place back up to 2nd. After 20 laps I had extracted any grip that was available from the tyres and the left side of the car was glowing red. The car was beginning to get a little twitchy under braking and directional control in the corners was becoming more and more random. The thought of having a nice new set of boots and a reduced fuel load had a certain appeal.
" excuse me Arnold ??!! you swapped them for a case of Schnapps and a giant Apfel Strudel???"
" I don't give a rat's a** if you and Mable had a nice picnic!!. When I came in for my pitstop, there was no one there...no tyres....no fuel rig...no pit crew!!"
I was never going to catch Geoffers, he was 30 secs ahead, although I was running at a similar pace until the pitstop. I had to recruit a hot dog salesperson and a girl who had been selling programmes to help me service the car. Found the fuel rig and pumped in a tankful of go juice and then went in search of 4 new tyres........no tyres to be found!!. When I came back to the car it was up on the jacks and the wheels were off. "put those back on again!" was all I could say.
Then the dingbat of a hot dog vendor decided to repair and respray the rear end where Dan had left his mark whilst first Ziu and then Erling went past in their Ferraris...............Geoffers lapped me......I grew a beard and eventually rejoined the race.
The last 11 laps were a nightmare. Erling was already 30 secs ahead and my tyres were already well into the red zone. I dared not push beyond a 1:43 lap and even that was risking a terminal incident. With 5 laps to go HUD was indicating zero tyres left!!. We were now running on the wheel rims and it was only the heavy oversteering setup that allowed me to force the car through the corners. I was just waiting for the inevitable puncture
I was marvelling at how far I had got without a spin on the final lap and was beginning to think that even if the tyres popped I could still sneak 4th. But just 3 corners from the flag the last bit of grip vanished and the car lost all steering ability. A little grass cutting and a very cautious cruise to the flag finished my race.
Mable says that Arnold should be out of intensive care in 4 weeks and off of crutches by Christmas. He has been given a final warning, and it has been explained in no uncertain terms that the pitstops at Goodwood on the 29th December had better rival the speed of Mercedes or else he can look for alternative employment!!
Grats to the group winners and podiums. Found these quite a challenge to drive quickly even without my pitcrew's help.