UKGTR Endurance Masters - Valencia GP - Nov 5

[picnic]

Replay and Provisional Results are there for all to see

[Jeffrey]

Interesting battle in qually with Jon. I had just 1 clean lap, my first lap, and I had to settle with that time. The rest of the laps were messed up or traffic hold up.

Very very early in the race I saw a female flash her boobies at me at the sideline, so I lost concentration and spun ...that, and the fact that my car was very different than in qually. Touching a curb was hell. After the spin I was last of the GT's I think, so I had some work cut out for me.
I had a hard fight with Fozz. I sometimes had a door shut in my face, but as far as I could see, there was nothing serious. Nick gently let me past, eventhough we were fighting for position .
I also had a good battle with Greg. The problem was that his car was jittering alot. It was vibrating or something, which made it very hard to predict thing.

Then I had a big gap to Martin, and I just could not get close. My racepace was horrible and I have no idea how come. Maybe I downgraded the car a bit too much in order to survive. Even lapping NGT's on the straight was hard as the speeddiff was next to none .
In my last lap of my first stint, my tyres were gone, so I went in with 40 minutes to go. When I was almost ready with my pits, I saw Jon stop behind me. I was almost lapped at that point .

After the stop my car felt a whole lot better and I could start chasing Martin in his great looking Viper. When Martin came up to a Vertigo I could squeeze between him and the Vertigo and position myself for an overtakingmanouvre the following corner.

I could not pull away from Martin. He could hang on in the corners, and on the straight his Viper was flying. So my 3rd place was all about the last corner.
At some point we were going side by side in T1 which felt great .

Grats to Jon for a supersteady race, TT for winning NGT and CJ for making the C5R go so fast . Shame no Shark 1-2, but maybe next time

P.S Sorry for my "sorry"message during race, I pressed the wrong button. After my spin I wanted to put the driverlabels on, but I didn't see what I was pushing, so I prssed the buttong above that and chatted, sorry for that

[PaulW]

halfway through first lap, my wife wants me to setup sky+ to record something GAH......into pits and a lap down before I've even started...

Hehe! My other half is under strict instructions that, unless the flames have reached the second floor, I'm not to be disturbed

Really enjoyed the race but had forgotten how demanding Endurance racing is. I think GTR2 really comes a live with it though and so is worth the dodgy back I'll have at work tomorrow. Had a great scrap at the back with Pribeiro, leuven and Pops. NOt sure if I tapped you Prib or you span, boy you were struggling in the corners with the M£, but apologies if that was my fault. Stopeed and let you get in front again. Tarted up my first ever GTR2 pitstop in so many ways it's not true and gave away enough time to see 3 cars shoot past as I exited the pits. Serves me right for not practicing.

Glad that bloody track is out of the way, not a fan of Spanish track design I have to say!

[Minton]

By far the toughest ever...Was so hard with the GT cars, was very hard to let them past apart from the s/f straight ,Soz to greg it must of seemed like i was blocking but i wasnt.
First few laps of the race was quality had a great battle with TT and Leuven but got a tap from Leuven coming out of the first corner and lost it...Wasnt intirely your fault mate i moved across alittle bit and you had no where to go. After that just plugged away and managed to get second in class SOMEHOW!!!...Bernie caught me with a few laps to go and was putting me under pressure bigtime and i had a big slide going through the double right after the esses  but managed to correct it but Bernie clipped me and i spun... Great sport for letting me through cheers.

Grats to Jon and TT.

[popabawa]

Well, that was probably my first and last appearance in the Vertigo of Doom but it was a very enjoyable race in the end.

I was questioning my car choice in the first couple of laps as various Porsche's whizzed past me down the straight but my tactic of just being consistent (which I definitely wasn't in the RSR) and coming in very late for the briefest of pitstops seemed to work OK and I'm well chuffed with my 4th place, not that far behind Bernie and Minton.

I have to apologise to Bernie & Minton, as I re-joined after my pit-stop, as I hit the pit-limiter off point the game flipped my view from cockpit to bonnet cam  I was fumbling with the keyboard to get back into the cockpit, I think I hampered Bernie a bit so I let you past - glad we didn't crash

Grats to TT - awesome work mate 

[rant]CHAT IN THE RACE - STOP IT!  [/rant]

[PaulW]

[rant]CHAT IN THE RACE - STOP IT!  [/rant]

Man that is so distracting- I thought only "Pit IN" and "Pit OUT" were allowed?

[popabawa]

Man that is so distracting- I thought only "Pit IN" and "Pit OUT" were allowed?

It is 

[Minton]

I have to apologise to Bernie & Minton

Didnt hamper me Pops ,no worries.

[picnic]

[rant]CHAT IN THE RACE - STOP IT!  [/rant]

Man that is so distracting- I thought only "Pit IN" and "Pit OUT" were allowed?

It is and that's about it. We has some annoying chatter in the Academy race too. I expect someone will be along to chastise

[Paul968]

I was all going swimmingly, having inherited 2nd place when Ruskus spun early on. Had a fairly comfortable gap in time to 3rd but when I pitted the crew just stood there. I did overshoot very slightly, but they ignored me reversing and trying again, so had to go round again with only 0.4 laps of fuel in the tank! I drifted down the pitlane with an empty tank and just made my stall, only this time they didn't ignore me. By the time I came out tho I was a lap down on Jon and back in 9th. Had fun near the end chasing down Nick from a long way back, and managed to get the place with 5 minutes left (np about the tap later btw Nick if you couldn't see me). It was a bit strange for the last few minutes following Claus who nipped past when Nick nudged me off, as I could keep up but didn't want to spoil any elses race (mine was fairly safe at that point). It was interesting lapping the NGT hoards, which was certainly a challenge the first time round on such a tight track. Thx to all who helped me past.

Overall I enjoyed it, but a bit frustrated not to finish higher. If overshooting was the problem then fine, I'll learn the lesson, although it is a bit harsh when in reality you would just back up a few feet.

Congrats to Jon and TT on their wins.

Paul

[Bernie Lomax]

Didn't really hamper me either pops so no worries mate

[Mark J]

Jon, eek have i missed something then? Does that mean that when the clock is ticking down thats the time for all cars lining up on grid? If so, that definitely explains it.  I sat there same as the sprint race with my race setup loaded instantly ready to race and watched the clock counting down on the right.... but thought that was a 2 minute warmup session    I didnt even know it was set to go straight to race from qually  

Balls, i feel a proper numpty if that is the case. I must have completely missed it if it written down somewhere on here. Gutted.

Well done to the race winners. I'm off to smash my head against the wall until i black out for being so dumb

[popabawa]

Jon, eek have i missed something then? Does that mean that when the clock is ticking down thats the time for all cars lining up on grid?

Yes. There's no warm-up like there was in GTR. Silly boy

[Nick Phillips]

Nick gently let me past, eventhough we were fighting for position .

Much as I would love to fight you for position, my only chance would be if you were in an NGT I think

No point holding a team mate up though.

[DynoDaz]

Qualified 17th but started 18th.  Sorry Popabawa I know you tried to give me my place back on the formation lap, but I was slow to cotton on.  Thanks anyway

It was a race of 2 halves for me.  Was having a great battle with Minton, Bernie and Popabawa for the first 40 mins until I decided to pit.  Although I was trying to be careful I still received a stop and go penalty for speeding in the pit. DOH!! 

This left me firmly in last place

Over the remaining 35 minutes I slowly clawed my way back and was disappointed to see Leuven limping down the straight.  However, I soon caught up with Jan.  Very good racing Jan!!  I apologise for my first overtaking attempt; there was not enough room.  Thankfully we didn't collide.  However on the penultimate lap coming out of Curva 11  I was drafting  Jan going up the hill.  As we reached the crest Jan's car got abit out of shape.  I tried to avoid contact but I couldn't.  Sorry Jan, it was not the way I wanted to pass you.  I've looked at the replay several times and I’m still not sure if there was anything else I could have done.  I'll post a racing incident report.  If the gods (Dave etc.) decide it was my fault you can happily have my place.


Good racing at the end Popabawa, looks like I didn't quite unlap myself 

Cheers everyone, I really enjoyed that...