This was an intimidating track with very little room for any errors... as Matt and Erling proved. I think Tony also discovered another line through corners that did not work?
My ow3n attempt was not without peril and very early in the race I totally missed a braking point and stuffed the BMW straight into the barriers, conveniently blocking Geoff's route.
So I relinquished that position, only to discover Geoff stuck sideways at T1 a few laps later.
By now it was clear that the Holden was much quicker than the Beemer and 4th/5th might be the best possible position.
But then I passed a very sad looking Tony, this lifted me to 3rd and a sniff of the champagne, A few laps later Erling challenged the barriers .... and lost promoting me to 2nd, Unless Daz made a total Horlicks of a corner that was probably the best it could get, until.............Daz went to the pits
leaving me in the oxygen starved heights of 1st place.
My plan had been to go the whole race without stopping and I strongly suspected that Geoff was using the same strategy book as the 10second lead that I had over him was not diminishing, so either he was saving fuel or he had a damaged car??
Conveniently for me, when Daz emerged from the pits he was behind Geoff and was delayed for a few laps.
I kept telling myself "you are not racing Daz, he has a 4-5 sec per lap advantage over you, focus on saving fue4l and keeping Geoff at arm's length"
A good plan that might have worked if I had not been seduced into trying to keep Daz behind..................fat chance!!! The 5 or 6 laps of wasted effort used up the few litres of fuel that I needed for the final lap and I was force to do a splash and dash, or more like a drip and dawdle.
Geoff's chuckles could be heard as he swept past the pits!!
Grats to Daz and Geoff and to Tony for nursing his lame Holden for may laps to take the flag. For me surviving and taking 3rd was quite satisfying.