UKGTR Season 9 Lower Endurance (GTC) - Brno - Apr 26

[Jimmie]

In all my enthusiasm I somehow started with softs and after ~10 laps I started to realize they got torn up pretty badly and thus mistakes started to slip in...

So I had to pit early and switched to meds with a full tank. Came back on track between the leader pack which was kinda awkward, but when the heat came in the tyres, I could keep up quite well, but these meds also wear in the long run so in the end it was a hopeless mission...

And then my car burst into flames, while giving space for a blue flag to purdie

[Truetom]

Someday I'm gonna take the Z4 - I'm sure I can be just as slow.  
Tyre wear was hilarious, up to 25 in each stint. Useless. Lost 3 places in the last 2 laps.    Grats to pody and MJ.  

Good race, H@l. Superb control, safe lines and all the package.  

Right, Brno is done. Monza & Snetterton. Snetter, Snotter, what?  

[Prof]

I enjoyed some good close racing until half way but then despite 2 trips into the pits I could not persuade my pit crew to 'see' me. Stopped and killed my engine but no pit board.
Could not finish without fuel and tyres so for a third time in a row pushed escape. An unwanted hat-trick.

[Roadrunner]

Was a good race...made a mess of the start which allowed Napo through..spent 15-20 mins tryin to get back past..eventually did..ran with Purdie till the pitstops..came out 5th...started closing on Lazlow & SG, had a mega race over p3 for i dunno how long...briefly spoilt when Lazlow dropped a tub of vaseline on his brake pedal  , but least did the gentleman thing of takin us both with him...sorted that..quickly got back to nose to tail...finally dispatched SG, an promptly realised there was one side of 1.5 laps to go, an i had the other side of 1 lap of fuel left..thus ran out at bottom of hill on last lap :'(, sooooooooo.....i`ll blame Gazzer for that...he goes to fast  

[Simon Gymer]

I had a very enjoyable race with so many people and I'd like to thank you all for making my full return to UKGTR league racing such an enjoyable occasion. Brno might not be the best circuit to hotlap on, but it always produces fantastic racing with the ability to use so many different lines, opportunity to slipstream and outbrake. Some of the best ever UKGTR races have been at Brno and long may we continue to use it.

I'm so happy right now to have finished 4th, but more importantly I'm so positive about having a most enjoyable on-track race.

I think I started 9th or something and had some awesome battles in the first half of the race, then gained a load of time in the pit stops and tried to hold off RoadRunner and Lazlow for the last 20 minutes. I managed till 2 laps from the end when they both eventually found a way by. RoadRunner then ran out of fuel, gifting me 4th instead of 5th, but I couldn't care less about the extra place as I had such fantastic and titanic battles it was brilliant.

iRacing has starved me for so long and this was a fantastic reminder of just how good GTR2 league racing is. UKGTR rocks.

Well done Gazza on the win.

No CTDs tonight, but I did have oddities with the sound and graphics. People's headlights were reflecting on all sorts of textures at all sorts of wierd angles and my sounds kept cutting out random effects making it hard to here the tyre scrub and often competitors cars. Was having to use look left and right almost exclusively for car positions cause the opponent car sounds were so on/off. Very odd.

[Napo]

Well I didn't have a chance to practice and have only done a few sight seeing laps way back in the days of F1c. I think I had a pretty good strategy going for the race. Only did 2 laps in qually and managed a very surprising 5th. I used the rest of the qually to prepare as much as I could for the race. I knew the race would be a lot tougher.

Come Start I think Roadrunner missed a gear or something because I blew right by him. Then I was able to hang on to Lazlow and Carl Hart in turn 1 and slipstream Carl Hart into turn 2 and take 3rd place. This is where the race happened for me.
I was able to hold Roadrunner and a bunch of cars, I think 6 right behind me courtesy of my superior straight line speed.
I was trying to look after my tires while I had Roadrunner all over me. But he couldn't pass me despite being right behind me on the straight. I could only imagine the frustration!
It was very difficult tho, looking in the mirrors, then in that one corner, sun blinding me. I kept it up for 10 laps I think then I made a mistake and they all went by me. Now I had to drive a little faster, I was barely keeping up with them. I was slowly catching Simon before his pitstop. I think saving the tires was paying off a bit there. Unfortunately I had another beamer hot on my tale at the same time and tried ducking on the inside of a corner. I gave some space in case he was trying to dive in there. and he did indeed do it unfortunately he could not hold a tight line and it turned me around into the gravel. That cost me at least 30 seconds and that destroyed my race.

Came into pits a few laps later. I came out about 3.5 seconds behind spanner. It took me the rest of the race to get that down to 0.8 seconds. Unfortunately with all that pushing the tires were going away quickly. I made a mistake 2 or 3 laps to go and that brought the gap back to 3 seconds. I backed off and just finished the race.

Ended up being a very disappointing race. The possibility to finish 4th was there. That's what I get for not practicing enough I guess...

Congrats to Gazza on another dominating win.

[H@L9000]

Very fun race I was fighting for almost the entire thing.

I had battles with TT, MJ, Legzy, Jimmie, Napo and others. Was allot of fun. Trying to slipstream Napos Lotus was rather amusing. It was like an elephant trying to hind behind an Ant hill.

& position swapping with Hal & TT. Sorry if I was a bit hesitant at times, I'm used to you two just zooming past me.

You seemed fine to me. A good scrap I thought 

Good race, H@l. Superb control, safe lines and all the package.  

Nice. Yes it was another good fight. We both seemed to have grip issues. It felt more like a boat race at times but, still just as fun Was very funny how MJ just easily passed us both after we had been so close for so long with neither able to get ahead.

Well done podiums.

[picnic]

Replay and provisional results posted

LapChart

[JPS]

What a great race...so much fun just seemed to have all the ingredients.

Great scrap with Gizmo again at the start until something happened DG then suddenly i lost you in my mirrors....good

battle with Picnic mid race as well.

[Jimmie]

On a sidenote, is there any way to kill that flickering sun? A couple of turns it was flickering all over the place... very distracting.

[Dave 'Gizmo' Gymer]

My race engineer is fired!

Great scrap with Gizmo again at the start until something happened DG then suddenly i lost you in my mirrors....

I pitted early in an attempt to jump you as you were holding me up slightly. Everyone else was crazily fast in a straight line - at one point I came out of the final corner a good 20mph faster and you still shot away from me before I could even get alongside.

Unfortunately whilst the plan was sound my fuel calculation wasn't and I ended up needing a splash and dash for another 15-20 litres. Knew that would put me out of contention with most people so I slapped some fresh tyres on too, and my new goal was just to not finish last!

Came out behind Syd but made short work of him - not surprising really because he was locking his wheels in every braking zone, his tyres must've looked like 50 pence pieces!

That left me something like 35s behind Ted's Viper so I got the hammer down and reeled off a set of qualifying style laps. Oh for one more lap - I finished only 2s behind him!

The DBRS9 might not be quick but if you actually manage to fuel it right it's very consistent over the longer runs and really quite nice to drive.

[Dave 'Gizmo' Gymer]

On a sidenote, is there any way to kill that flickering sun? A couple of turns it was flickering all over the place... very distracting.

I've never noticed it before but it was really obvious tonight. Wasn't really a problem but as I had a CTD in practice (probably due to the carpy nVidia drivers - turned anti-aliasing off and it didn't have a problem in the race) I was worried it might not be normal.

Had some strange texture stuff going on towards the end of the race. Once the price of i7 stuff starts to come down I think it'll be time for a rebuild with a new ATI card.

[Mark J]

What an awesome race that was last night ! GTC always produces the closest fights throughout the field and with a great turn out, it made for an excellent event   

I got home really late and jumped in with only 5 mins of qually remaining. I hadnt done any praccy either other than a half hour online on friday evening, and hadnt run any light fuel laps in the cup car here. I only got to do 2 flying laps hence my lowly 19th qually spot  If i had been able to do some proper qually runs i may have had a pody slot on the cards in the race.

Race was an absolute corker. Worked my way up the order from 19th to 6th in the first 40 minutes ! with some great battles along the way including a battle royal with Prof and nsfasts RS early on and several other quick guys like H@L along the way,great stuff. My car was flying and the setup felt great, allowing me to attack at any corner on the circuit. Then the first pit stops started and i found myself amazingly leading the race for about 10 minutes 
However in my haste to get to the pc for the race i had kicked out the lead to my G25 controller hat so that when i pressed my pitstop request button nothing happened  I couldnt believe it and thought my race was either going to be over or severely compromised. I trundled around a few laps longer than i wanted on worn tyres losing 1-2 secs a lap as the previous race leader re-caught me but decided i would just have to drive in the pits and take my chances. As suspected, the pit crew just stared at me for about 10seconds before doing any work and i had to painfully sit and listen as the whole top 10 belted past down the s/f straight  :'( I think i rejoined in 11th and was crestfallen after all that hard work on track 

But, in true racers style, i attacked from the exit of the pits on my nearest opponent Spanner and got by him in a lap or two on my fresh rubber and light fuel load and then set a series of fast laps in the 2:02's to catch and past the next 4-5 guys in the last 10 minutes, including a spectacular double overtake on TT and H@L in one sector of the track with only about 2 laps remaining!! i can only assume they were so fixated on each other in their duel that they didnt seem to hardly notice me catch them and steam past both without hardly having to lift  I was more than ecstatic !

Alas my pitstop and the field spread had cost so much time that the top 5 were seemingly out of touch but roadrunner suffered with fuel on last lap and i charged past, crossing the line in 5th place with only 3litres of fuel left. 

One of my best drives i think, i doubt there are many races where i have overtaken so many people on track to finish well. (23 overtakes according to the lapchart !! )  Great driving by everyone, not a single touch of contact with anyone despite some very intense battles. Congrats to the Podium guys. 

[Ted]

Despite very little practice beforehand I actually had a more consistent and enjoyable race that normal last night.

Had a fun few first laps keeping up with 3 or 4 cars in front having a close battle, then dropped back when the tyres started to go off. Was hard work trying to get the Viper round the many corners.

After the usual looooong pitstop for fuel it was a fairly quiet affair but had a brief attempt at holding of Mr Oily which was fun and then in the last few laps watching DG close at an alarming pace. One more lap and I would have been toast 

Anyway, have stuck with the Viper throughout - hopefully it will come good at Monza next time.

[purdie]

Another great GTC race and shame I joined the champ so late 

Got 6th after an average quali lap (went faster in the race!) and focused my attention on the race setup in the last 10 mins and glad because tyre pressures needed adjusting....

Start went okay, Carl unluckily lost a few positions with a small mistake lap 2 so we were side-by-side in the first corner  and I ran 5th with Napo seemingly holding up everyone hehe, he was driving well in the Lotus and Roadrunner had no answer  After almost 20 mins Napo ran wide T4 and, like Carl, lost a handful of positions due to the very tight field. Also had a good little battle with Spanner 

Top 2 Gazza and Lazlow had pulled a gap by the time me and Roadrunner got past Napo. We started battling and swapped positions before I decided I couldn't close a 30 second gap to flying Gazza, so I gave Roadrunner some breathing space and we were instantly a second quicker and pulled away from the rest of the field. RR made a mistake and I ran on my own until the end to finish 2nd  after Lazlow came off  .... not sure wot happened to him but he had pace! 

And then my car burst into flames, while giving space for a blue flag to purdie

Made me feel bad because I hung back a bit to give you space and then I look in my mirror to see a fireball! Good to see you though mate  and to see Simon in the Morgan, sounding great! and some mega driving in my rear-view mirror! ....and grats to MJ for overtaking everything he saw!