It just goes to prove that last minute decisions are not always bad.......but most of the time they are!
I knew the Blue Mountain circuit from GPL and I think we have raced here before with UKGTL, so I did nothing in terms of preparation. My cunning plan was to use the Opel and the Alfa as they had worked well at Loch Whatsit earlier in the series. The one race where I had tried the Alpine was a nightmare and I just could not get the thing to take a corner and I wanted to preserve the Escort for a track where I figured I might have more success.
After fannying around in pre race practice I tried the Escort and discovered that with a few tweaks it was not too bad, but last minute I thought "OK let's give the Alpine a run and at least use up one of those drives".
I started again with the setup and it took a while to find the right gear ratios and I was still not sure about them when Race 1 started.
Cold tyres and over ambition early in the race and I clipped the bank on the exit of the chicane, leaving me some 12-13 secs off the back of the field. At least I had clear tarmac to settle into a rhythm and soon the pace of the alpine reeled in Daz and Tony who were having their own fun. The top speed of the Alpine made the pass easy after patiently waiting for the straight to open up. Then it was a chase after Erling in his Escort. The final time gap appeared to show that without my "off" I might have been on the podium, but such are dreams made of??
Race 2 and again a momentary lapse of reason made me select the Escort??!! No idea what I was doing as it should have been the Opel on the script that I had!.
I expected to get mugged at the start but managed to hold on to 4th spot behind Ziu's Escort with Matt and Erling up front in a pair of Alpines. As we headed down the back straight I could see that the leaders were in "close company" approaching that chicane and I confess that I eased off a little. My thinking was that they would not be able to both take that section without a lift ( which is what I was intending to do in my Escort) and if one of them did not yield/lift there was going to be some fender bending
and at the speed I was carrying taking any avoiding action was not going to end well.
It all went wrong for Erling and Matt. One vanished over the fence to the right and the other went up the left hand bank and ( thankfully for me) allowed Ziu and myself to zip through unscathed.
Tony was behind in his Alpine and I fully expected him to be a problem over the early laps and there was every chance that both Erling and Matt would chase us down by the end of the race. However it soon became clear that I was quicker through the last sector than Tony and I could slowly build a gap, Ziu meanwhile was taking over a second a lap off my best and pulling away up front. Once I had a 4 second lead over Tony I started to study where I was losing all my time to Ziu and it was that downhill right hander onto the back straight. I was trying to carry far too much speed through there and had to wait an age for the chance to stand on the gas. So I was losing all the way down the back straight. Ah well live and learn
Quite happy with a second spot in an Escort drive, even if it was not planned and gifted by other people's problems.
