Great fun at Donington even if my pitstop problems lost me several possible places
Grats to Erling on a great drive in the Metro, especially as on the 2 ( very short ) occasions when I tried that car it was beyond my ability to control under braking. How you kept that car on the track and circulating so quickly was worrying lol.
I was almost tempted to take the AlfaV6 and did actually join the server with that very car. There were only a couple of other members on the server at that time ( all in the Gr1 class with Escorts I think?) so I topped the tanks and did a couple of out laps before tweaking the diff/dampers and Roll bars to get more turn in.
Once I had some decent steering response I was down into the 1:19's and there was room for improvement on that time, but by then I noticed that I might very well be in a class of my own ……...and that would be no fun at all!!. So I quit and rejoined with the Toyota so that I could rub door handles with those Escorts and VW's. That only gave me about 10 minutes thanks to Tony's direction of Erling to edit his GTL files
which delayed the start of qualifying. Ironically Erling and Rog had joined late and were both in the class that would have included that Alfa
A few last minute tweaks during qualifying had the Toyota screamer almost on the pace for its class, so the plan was to follow the pack and ease myself into the hostilities, hopefully gaining some speed as I got used to the handling.
It almost went very wrong when the front wheel drive brigade bogged down off the grid and Matt, Geoffers and myself snuck through to take the leading places.
OK revised plan....just follow Geoffers for a few laps.
That was fine until Erling cruised up behind after about 2 laps and rather than make a pointless fight I flashed him through, followed a lap later by Rog. That did not do me much harm as Geoffers and Matt were so busy dicing with Erling that I was able to stay well within touch. So that when Erling and then Roger got to the front and pulled away I was sitting on Geoffer's boot lid
There were a couple of occasions when a pass might have been possible but it was too early in the race to risk something stupid, so I sat back and found where my car was quicker.
Geoff almost caught me out when he dived into the pits for his first stop
I was not anticipating anyone stopping that early!! So now Matt was the target just a little way ahead and I gradually reeled him in until once again I was sat on a bootlid and getting towed around in the slipstream
We were in identical cars so I was feeling good about my race pace. Then Matt also did a sudden pit entry?
when I still had about 7 laps left in my tank?? I assume that both Geoffers and Matt were going for short first stints??
So I plugged on for another 6 laps trying to stretch any advantage I might have and watching the tyre wear to decide if I might need new rubber at any point?? ( that's the problem with zero preparation!!
) I also realised that I would need 2 pitstops for fuel, but I had not done the calculation for the required "splash and dash" at the end. Some mental arithmetic indicated that I should reach 38/39 laps on 2 full tanks. so would only need 7 laps worth to be sure of finishing.......so what percentage of a full tank was that? and how much gas is there in a full tank?? I realised that I had to watch the fuel fill up at the first stop and gather the necessary data.
19 laps in and in for the 1st stop. Apologies for my autopilot but fortunately no-one was parked in my way, so that was good.
Tyres are OK so "do not replace" and just fill up with fuel. But all I got was a gallon and I was sent on my way
A lap later I am back into the pits and this time I manage to fill the tank. but I have lost a lot of time.
The next 19 laps were a great dice with Dan and his BMW. He was way quicker on the straights but I could just squeeze out enough on the corners to keep ahead for lap after lap until he went for the pits
. I was on my own again for several laps and might have been just closing on the cars ahead, but not enough to catch them.
Then 2nd stop time and swung into the pits for a splash and dash. Somehow I had determined that I needed 10 galls, don't ask me how or why, but I just did OK! which turned out to be loads more than I actually needed
. In my hurry to exit the pits and get back into the race I forgot that the speed limiter was already ON and promptly turned it OFF as I trundled down the pitlane.....so I got an SnG!! The perfect end to an imperfect pit stop saga!
I eventually emerged behind Dan and tried to make a fight of it to the finish, but tried to extract more grip than the tyres were able to give through the Old Hairpin and had a wild ride across the grass ending any hopes of a glorious pass on Dan's BMW.
Despite the pit stop woes I enjoyed the longer race format, but maybe just a little pre race preparation might be prudent in the future
PS.
I will try the "Cut & Paste" idea for the .plr file Tony, although I don't see that it is any different to what I have been doing anyway. BTW I was using the std Windows text editor and all appeared fine as I changed the values and clicked the SAVE command on every attempt.
I can only think that it is something to do with the accessibility credentials that refuse to accept any editing of the files, but why that should manifest itself as a row of "?"'s I do not know.
