UKGTR Season 4 Endurance Academy - Barcelona (GP) - Feb 25

[cej]

Sorry for all the smoke 4 laps from the end, I was sure if i had pitted would have lost a place so short shifted kept the revs low and finished!

I'm amazed you managed to get through the race. There was a ridiculous amount of smoke coming out the back. Not easy to get by you   Glad you made it

[John]

I was both relieved and gutted to see what happened - it wasn't a fitting end to the championship, especially after you put in a great late qualifying lap to take pole. On the replay it looks like I just clipped the front of Will round the outside of Renault as I tried to avoid both hitting anyone and going off in the carnage. Beholder took a massive hit - I'm amazed he was so stunningly quick after that!

You were amazed,check out the damage to the front of the car to be even more amazed.
Cause i was gobsmacked when i seen it at the end.

[Edited by the Society for Proper Quoting]

[linco24]

this kind of close racing is best done in three.    

TT

I must say as I'm not usually in the position to be lapping, everyone was great tonight. The GT guys and the G3 guys when I was passing. It was great watching the little yellow Porkers fight it out in front of me as I caught them

[Reign Man]

ps. How the **** did Reign Man finish ahead of me and Beholder behind?! Non comprendé!

...erm.....I had a great race!  . After I overtook you I pushed really hard to try and catch Darren and get a gap out on you. I knew it was very likely that you would have a better pit stop so I needed as big a gap as possible. When Darren took his stop he was around 12/13 seconds (at least) ahead of me and I had a gap of 11/12 secs over you. I had a good stop but got held up as I exited the pit. 

Darren at this point was only 3 seconds ahead but he was able to increase the gap to 8 seconds. It remained at 8 secs until the last few laps. I had lead over 3rd place after the stops which stay at around 7 seconds.

I finished 3 or 4 secs behind him Darren to take second.  Chuffed to bits..my first bit o' Silver.

Thanks for the great racing guyz

Reign Man

[Joss]

Whew, finally I can relax. Bad luck Edam, at least we made it a close one! 

With one eye on the race and another on the championship, I was pretty worried after the pace of the Masters race last week. Barcelona is one of my least fav tracks and I couldn't get below a 39 on my race setup. After working on it on Friday, I was a little more satisfied with it, but still couldn't match Kerr's best from the race. I knew it was going to be tight and wasn't confident at all before joining.

Then Edam scared me silly by running low 38's in practise - I thought that was your race pace! Before qualy I thought it was going to be Kerr disappearing and me and Edam fighting for 2nd and the championship, so was very surprised when I pipped Kerr for pole. Neither of us got the best lap in (traffic was quite bad in Q2) but that calmed me down a bit 

The first half of the race went perfectly for me. Trying to be gentle with the revs and especially the left hand side tyres, me and Kerr were pretty much glued together, rarely more than 2 seconds apart. The car felt great later in the stint and the kindness to the tyres started to pay off. The stop was OK and we came out with the same gap as we had before (about 3 seconds). I then got it into my head that now would be a good time to push for a few laps to take advantage of my fresh and hot new tyres. This looked good for a couple of laps, pulling the advantage out to 6 seconds, until I got complacent and made a silly error into that 2nd gear left (no idea of the name for it). I was very lucky to not completely spin, and only half span into the gravel - Kerr was now 2 seconds behind and gaining fast. Having to push even more the front left really started to go and hit over 105 degrees. Now I was in a vicious circle - back off and cool the tyre, or push and make it even hotter. It was now I also realised I'd overfilled at the stop by about 15L   

It was no good, pushing just had me making more mistakes and Kerr was now all over me. Another mistake left the door open onto the back straight, and that was pretty much it. I thought about pushing like crazy to stay with you, but straight away the gap was 1.3 seconds, and then I realised that 3rd was over a minute behind. From there it was short-shift bring it home time. Congrats on your first win! 

Feel a little bad to snatch it at the end, then again I lost 4 points on a technicality in China, and hadn't joined UKGTR in time to race the first 2 rounds, so am pretty chuffed to take it. I didn't think the championship was possible half way through the season after having torrid first and second enduro races @ Spa and Zhuhai, then things started going my way. Good consistent results from Edam nearly took the prize 

The only time I ever won a race meeting in real life I ended taking it on countback as well...I'm not sure if that's a curse or a blessing! 

Not sure what fun races I can make, but whatever.
Roll on Sprint race 

Edit:
Forgot to mention:

Well, congratulations Freq, you deserve it - great driving!

Thanks very much! Very gracious in defeat - it'll make you stronger for next season
I doubt Dave will be putting me and Kerr in Academy next season, you and Nug may well be the favs for S5 

And hope my pace lap was better than last time! Concentrated soo bloody hard on it!

[DynoDaz]

For the second race in a row I've had to slam on my brakes and swerve to avoid Luke's car.  I'm amazed I got through the carnage unscathed.  It was a real shame that Luke went out early, because for the first time I actually thought I could match Luke for pace. But we will never know

After the initial excitement had passed I set about extending my lead over Dave.  I know Dave is a master at pit stops so that meant I needed at least 20 seconds over him by half way.  After 20 minutes had elapsed the gap to second was up to 12 seconds.  But then I got a big surprise.  That lead started to come down by 2 seconds a lap.  I was stunned.  This made me push even harder, too hard infact and my tyres soon lost their grip.  Just when I had given up hope of keeping onto 1st in class I realised the guy behind wasn't Dave, it was only Will in his GT.  

You can imagine my relief.  

I pitted after 40mins with an 18 second lead and after a sloooooow pit stop I came back out in 13th; just behind Adam..  I was expecting a tough time getting past him, but to my amazement Adam pulled off the racing line and seemed to let me by.  Thanks mate.

From then on it was a lonely race, due to the guys in front pitting one by one...  I had an anxious wait when I noticed Dave had pitted.  Luckily I managed to pass him while he was still in the pits, but even so he and Reign Man had eaten a huge chuck into my lead.

For the last 20 minutes I just tried to keep the gap to second as high as possible.  This gap never got higher than 8 seconds, but luckily it was enough for me to take my first win in an Enduro race.

Thanks to everyone for a great race.  Unlucky Luke...  Congrats Dave on the Championship...

Thanks to the GT and G3 drivers for your clean and fair driving..  

[Zacari]

That was a real handful of a race to come back for!

Qualified in amongst the other cup runners, had a good start running close with TT and MJ but struggled to get consistant laps.  The car was really unstable off the kerbs and I threw myself into the gravel a couple of times, thankfully the gravel does its job in GTR2!  Was good to have lots of mini-battles with Truetom over the race or it'd have been far more of a grind, more of those in the future would be great looking forward to jumping in a more familiar GT car though!

[Dave 'Gizmo' Gymer]

Just noticed that despite me having to drop the 350Z in favour of the TVR at Monza and Barcelona, Nissan still beat BMW for 3rd in the manufacturers championship.

[Don]

Thanks to all that took part in what has been a fun season.
See you soon in season 5.

[Adam Parle]

I pitted after 40mins with an 18 second lead and after a sloooooow pit stop I came back out in 13th; just behind Adam..  I was expecting a tough time getting past him, but to my amazement Adam pulled off the racing line and seemed to let me by.  Thanks mate.

Although it we were racing for position of sorts (I'd yet to pit), the M3 was so horribly outclassed at this circuit, I wasn't going to hold you up for long.  From memory the front drifted out again, running me wide, so I stayed there and let you round the inside.  Knowing you were leading the NGT's, I didn't want to risk knackering your race, and with me having to fight the M3 the whole way through the race, if I were trying to keep you behind me, it would probably have ended in tears.

I'm dissapointed that barring the first 7 or so laps I wasn't really racing anyone, it was a bit dull, but it was great to run an 80 minute race with no computer related problems, I've been dogged with them for the entirety of this season.  Given that it was my first "proper" season, I'm reasonably pleased with how it all went on the whole, and with more experience under my belt and a shiny new PC (Dell XPS 710 complete with GeForce 8800GTX ) behind me, I'll be coming back much stronger in season 5.

[EdamSpeed]

Feel a little bad to snatch it at the end, then again I lost 4 points on a technicality in China, and hadn't joined UKGTR in time to race the first 2 rounds, so am pretty chuffed to take it. I didn't think the championship was possible half way through the season after having torrid first and second enduro races @ Spa and Zhuhai, then things started going my way. Good consistent results from Edam nearly took the prize 

I had to miss China and Spa because my ISP (Tiscali) started rate-shaping everyone's connections in December, and I couldn't get a connection to the lobby If I'd scored just one point in one of those races.... Well, the racing world is full of 'what ifs', so I'm not going to dwell on it. Suffice to say Freq, you were much faster in most of the races than I.

I decided to stick with the Saleen for this season, because I didn't want to just take the 'easy' option of a F575 or a Lambo, but I've been struggling for pace at some circuits. Might take something else for next year - I've done my time in an 'alternative' car 

[Joss]

Sorry Edam, there was me assuming I'd been the only one with a bit of bad luck...sucks

You shouldn't feel the need to take an alternative car, take what you want! I've driven the Lambo since the day before GTR1 came out (thanks play.com! ) and it's been my car of choice ever since....I don't think I drove another car for about 3 or 4 days after the game came out!

The only other car I get on with is the Lister...still considering it for S5....not sure yet. I think it's slower over a lap but over an enduro race it might be quite close.

Anyway, take the car you actually want to drive for S5, who cares if 50 million others drive it! I can safely say I've been driving the Lambo longer than most noobs in publics 

[Paul968]

Ended up racing the NGTs more than the G3s as Tom was hanging back to fight with Mark & Zacari. Had pretty good pace, both in qual & the race (took med/hard tyres) and was quite pleased to finish on the lead NGT lap and ahead of a couple. The end was a bit tight though as I crossed the line with 0.1 litres of fuel 

Congrats to Freq and Darren on their wins and to Dave for the NGT championship (especially as it was done largely in the 350Z). Thx also the GT drivers when passing - it all went very smoothly despite the speed difference.

[cej]

The only other car I get on with is the Lister...still considering it for S5....not sure yet. I think it's slower over a lap but over an enduro race it might be quite close.

Anyway, take the car you actually want to drive for S5, who cares if 50 million others drive it! I can safely say I've been driving the Lambo longer than most noobs in publics 

The Lister is one of the best handling in my opinion. I raced with it a bit after starting out in the lambo. The Saleen can be a bit of a handful at times,but it's fun to drive    Several of the lap records in our Danish GT league is set by Saleen ,so it's definately not a slow car 

[Oliver Bateson]

Finally got to the bottom of my frequent drop outs in this season - my ISP seem to have messed up my switch to 8mb broadband and have finally fixed it. I was getting very variable bandwidth and ping rates over the last season. It seems to be fixed and consistent now so I look forward to season 5 where I hope I can stay connected beyond qualy!

Cheers.