Well i'm still chasing that elusive podium but it was a full Prodigy turnout and a lot of fun.
I love the Cortina's handling and I know Brands fairly well so I had high hopes for this one. Put in a decent qually stint, no idea where i'd have found that extra time to catch Mr. Minton and Bara, but chuffed to be at the sharp end anyway.
Got a reasonable start and set off with two things on my mind, do not let the leaders disappear and do not cane your tyres too early on! Think the former would have been a lot more tricky had it not have been for the intense battling between the leaders which inevitably slowed them just enough to let me hang on. Haven't seen the replay yet but Dan, gutted m8, really unlucky..not the way i'd want it but that retirement put me in second and on Bara's tail from what i recall.
Think it was a mistake that let me by and into the lead, at which point the memories of Philip Island came flooding back where I just totally bottled it and made silly errors. Determined not to have a repeat i tried to chill out a bit and focus. Well I focussed alright. Maintained a 7 sec lead but before I knew it I was exiting Paddock and starting lap 17...no problems there you might say, except i'd planned to pit on lap 16 and fuelled accordingly
Started to splutter at about Hawthorns and this continued all the way to the pit lane. Thought my race was over but my some miracle I had enough fumes to make it to the pit area - unfortunately the bad news didn't finish there. No flippin pit board! Did the usual backwards and forwards dance and no joy. I wasn't sure if this was related but Jeb had mentioned something about a mechanic rubbing his crotch in his face so throwing caution to the wind I started running over my crew which seemed to do the trick and board appeared
Exited in 12th which turned out to be sixth once the pitstops had unfolded. Tony had retired and was kindly doing a blinding job of keeping me abreast of goings on (every position in terms of distance from Clearways
) with the cars around me via Teamspeak. Had a good but lonely blast until I reached Martin! Man that was an experience. Wiped me out completely at Graham Hill, after which I caught him again but didn't have the nerve to get any closer than 200 metres! Luckily he pitted shortly after.
The rest of the race was pretty uneventful aside from catching Martin once more in the latter stages and having to drive off the racing line and judge the gap between me and Ade who wasn't far behind.
Grats to Bara, Sooty and Pribeiro, some great driving and awesome times. Unlucky Dan and sorry you couldn't quite make it Jonzo. Dave I hope that's just a knee jerk reaction!
Martin I realise if you didn't see Tony's message that you would have been oblivious so this isn't aimed at you but Pseudo/ SBG..can we make an exception and point this out in the race chat if it happens again? Think its a better option too risk a minor distraction than have the carnage that was last night!? Either that or give us red shells so we can fight back