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.