Yay, GTC-65 meant GT40 time!! With Ducfreak's glorious sound mod, this is and remains one of my all-time favorite GTL cars. Could drive it all day just to listen to it
Back in the days when I raced in GBGTL however, it was always banned from GTC-65 events, due to being faster than all the other cars in the class. Thus kept a wary eye on the forum, in case anything similar should pop up here. Could just have asked of course, but didn't dare - no need to give Tony ideas if he hadn't already
As the race drew closer and still no exclusion of the GT40, it dawned on me that maybe Tony planned on using it himself, with a cunning plan to upstage the usual fast brigade, in case they picked something different..
Clive was appalled by my number of practice laps. I can now reveal that he's directly responsible for them
One of the last times we used the GT40, on Silverstone I believe, he had come up with a brilliant setup, giving him levels of grip I couldn't even dream of. Have tried to improve my setup before, with limited luck, but gave it another go here. Despite all the laps, I have to throw in the towel: The secrets to the GT40's setup is a nut I can't crack, and in the end I did only minor tweaks to my existing one, the main improvement coming from a reduction of negative camber. From GBGTL days, my best time was a 2:08.5. Did manage to shave almost 2 secs off that, with a 2:06.6 being my best, so maybe not all wasted. Have not been able to repeat it though, getting within 1/10 as the closest yet.
Pole was relatively easy to obtain, with most drivers in slower cars, most notably Geoffers & Clive. Had either of these gents picked a GT40, I'm sure it would have looked different!
In addition to setting it up, getting fast off the line is something else I haven't mastered with the GT40 (some would argue it's something I haven't mastered period..
) Thus Geoffers grabbed the lead, and while he was in a slower car, he was by no means a pushover. The straight bits on Imola are just a bit too short, if he got on the power sooner than me when exiting corners. It meant I was not quite there when the next one arrived, unless I had behaved like a bully and forced the issue, but with all the laps to go, that seemed unnecessary. As the GT40 is no braking wizard, I had to be careful not being caught out when he tossed out the anchors, accidentally bumping him off. Got past on L2, only to run wide immediately after, handing the lead back to Geoffers. Took a few laps to work up to another attempt, but once more I screwed up - started fishtailing out of the hairpin, letting Geoffers roar past again. After a few more laps, he for once had a squirrelly moment, allowing me to nip past and finally making it stick. Built a gap of 6 secs over the following laps, but when it suddenly jumped to 17 secs, it was obvious Geoffers had gone off somewhere. Quiet remainder of the race, with only spice being lapping the slowest cars.
Grats to Geoffers & Matt for completing the podium
Clive's problems does sound strange indeed and I have no idea what could possibly have caused them. Are any other folders beside GTL's suffixed with 'red' ?