Despite my earlier comments and the lack of flora and fauna, the race evolved into some good fun.
Grats to Geoff and Erling who, predictably, eased away at the start and to Fulvio who took 3rd
after I almost stole it on the last lap.
I think that it took me until the end of quali to feel that I knew where I was on the track, to know which gear I needed next and which way to turn the wheel. Once the race had started I realised that my brain had remebered the track sequence by gearshifts??!! I found myself thinking "the last 2 corners were 2nd gear the next is that tight 1st gear left hander, then it's 2nd ,3rd,3rd,etc". I;ve never been aware of that sort of thought process before, but I guess the brain finds a way lol. Or senility is limiting my options to function?
I ran full fuel from the start and was struggling against Fulvio's Merc. Then the incident with Paul, which was NOT a problem although Dave seemed to feel that he was at fault. You simply lost control and had a spin my friend ( something that I have been known to do on rare occasions
), I made a split second choice to go right, expecting your car to go left, but I guessed wrong and it was me that hit you. Racing Incident IMHO. More importantly Paul you appeared to have some real pace last night and that augurs well for the future
That delay did bring down the red mist and I now had to chase Fulvio's Merc ( again!) He in turn was chasing Matt's BMW and thanks to a little delay by Matt I was able to catch them both. Then Fulvio got past and I had to hassle Matt for an opening before setting off after Fulvio ( again!).
The leaders and Fulvio all went for pitstops at half distance, so I swept majestically through to take the lead
for around 5 laps, until Geoff loomed in my mirrors. That was not a fight that I was going to win on ruined tyres and anyway I only had gas for onr more lap, so I pitted with something like a 70 sec lead over Fulvio. Surely a splash and dash with 4 new tyres would be over on 50 secs?? WRONG!! I watched the gap click down as Erling swept past and Fulvio was getting closer and closer.
I crawled like a snail along the pitlane as he passed the pits and took a 9sec lead with around 8 laps to go. I needed to be 1 sec a lap faster at least.
But the Toyota with fresh tyres and a light fuel load felt much better and I was able to push hard and burn spare rubber to catch him. With just 1 lap to go I was right behind Fulvio's Merc ( yet again!) and ready to take 3rd place
. I did in fact take 3rd spot when Fulvio ran wide, but the stress that I had put on the tyres had turned the rears a nice shade of deep orange and 2 corners later things got a little out of shape and I gifted Fulvio 3rd spot.
So I followed Fulvio;s merc ( again!!) as we crossed the finish line.
Some great racing and I posted a much quicker PB by 3 secs, chasing Fulvio than I had achieved before.
Thanks to Tony for organising.
