UKGTL Season 8 GT Classics Cup - Jarama - Aug 20

[Simon Gymer]

18th to 5th. Not bad for a nights fun racing as always.  

Cars felt a bit weedy around that fantastic circuit, but none-the-less was interesting trying to maintain corner speed as much as possible.

VERY sorry to the Abarth I my car managed to flip on it's roof early on. Was just hustle and bustle of early laps and some side contact caused it to roll on like it was on spin cycle. My car froze for 5-10 seconds in the middle of the race and then came back. losing me a few places and quite a few seconds. Retaking the places seemed far too easy the second time around.

Tyres on the Elite didn't wear very much at all and it helped me get my lap times down about 2 seconds faster than qualifying. Desperately trying to get into the 1:45s, but I didn't quite manage it.

Well done Dan on the win and Jeff 'Slippers' Ruskus in second and Ade rounding off the podium!

[Wiltshire Tony]

Apologies to API if I held you up. Usually I get a blue light telling me I have a lead lap car behind me, but no light showed so I thought we were competing. Sorry.

[Legzy]

Results & Replay in usual spots...

[goldtop]

First off an apology to Paulo for cutting right in front of you after I spun and restarted. The angle I was at meant I couldn't see anyone approaching and didn't know whether to go forwards or reverse, so I was trying to listen but didn't hear you. I know you later lost a place that lap as a consequence  Secondly, an apology to Alex (I think it was) for knocking you off track which led to this incident; I didn't realise you were letting Jeff through on the corner and I had nowhere to go to avoid you.

That pretty much summed up my race: not too far off a decent pace, but more spins than a launderette. I've been working on a new method/style which is faster, but high risk for me at the moment, got me to P6 in quali but nowhere near consistent enough to race with. I'll need much more pracci before I use it again.

[spanner]

Hmm.. just couldnt get on around here so qualified lower than i thought i would. Got surprised by Blunder jump starting, flying straight past me but seemed to end up about 9th on the first lap but slowly dropped back spent a while trying to get past Burtoner with API. Got a bit tight there and knudged API, sorry. Seemed to end up ahead once past then seemed to be slowly gaining on the guys ahead but sadly couldnt quite keep it up they started to pull away then lost the place to API on the last lap as i overcooked it.

[Dan Minton]

Good to be back racing with you guys,
Got jumped at the start by Jeff but just about held off Matt into the first corner.  Battled with Jeff for 6 or 7 laps who was defending very well making the Jag wider than it already was. Managed to get a run off the first corner and went passed round the outside of the first left hander, This was blessing getting the pass done so early on in the lap as it gave me a whole lap to get enough of a gap so that Jeff would not blast by when we came to the s/f straight .
After that just tried to keep it tidy to the end.

Grats to rest of podium and those who finished.

Cheers

[dynosaur]

Wasn´t my race, hehe. Overdid the first right hander a couple times and went wide and lost a lot of time, then spent some time behind Matt´s whale trying to overtake but Matt kept the line well and I just had to wait. Finally got past but then made a few mistakes once again and lost some more time. Ah well, hopefully Nord is a better one for me. Grats to the podium boys, and thanks for some nice racing, had a good battle with Legzy at one point, that was nice while it lasted!

[Burtoner]

Apologies to someone i bumped off track earlier on, i was doing well around 12-13th making quite few places off start, and was pretty consistant, think my fastest lap was in 47s for 1st time. So was pretty pleased with it, just im finding it hard to complete races without losing concentration.

[pribeiro]

First off an apology to Paul for cutting right in front of you after I spun and restarted. The angle I was at meant I couldn't see anyone approaching and didn't know whether to go forwards or reverse, so I was trying to listen but didn't hear you. I know you later lost a place that lap as a consequence  

No problem goldtop, it was a race incident. 

Qualified 14th but after a good start I was battling for 5th position on lap 2. 
Was a good idea to add a nitro feature to the Abarth's engine. 
I enjoyed every second of the race, mainly because the huge fight with Geoffers and mr_oily.
Ofcourse that with mr_oily it was a team fight strategy and I just loved how we managed
to race for so many laps and we understood each other so well. Fantastic mate. 

Unfortunately a few laps from the finish when I was hoping for a mr_oily and me "photo
finish" for team's album (oily in front as he was a bit faster than me) goldtop spun on the left
hairpin, mr_oily passed well on the inside and when I was doing the same, goldtop began
to move and I couldn't avoid him, lost contact with my team mate and Simon got me.
Lost a place for Simon and after that I lost also speed. Car felt good on all those corners
but it lost some speed. Anyway, tried hard to overtake Simon, but a consistent driving
from him doesn't allowed me to do so.
Good fun with the less powerfull cars, awesome. 

Congrats to Dan and podium finishers.
Well done to all.

Cheers

[Legzy]

Great to see such a large field btw..

Yup, with 25 drivers last night it pipped our previous GTL high for the season of 24. Just a couple more to fill the grid would be great to see

Really enjoyed the race last night, was busy all race long with one car or another never being more then 2 secs in front or behind. Had some great racing particularly with Dyno, I was able to keep up & hassle him when we were together, but one mistake too many let him open up a gap & that was enough to give him the safety gap he needed to concentrate on pulling away. Was pleased to see you again in the tail end of the race, but I badly over ran at a corner before one of the double right handers & you were again able to get away  :'(

Had many more good laps with other drivers too, but usually it ended with me out-braking myself as I slipped gradually down the order. Great fun though & finished 11th with Geoffers (on badly worn tyres) in 8th in view just a couple of secs up the road.

Love that track

[Steve Holmes]

Horrible evening for me, when you expect to be fighting for wins its pretty hard to take being a good 2 seconds a lap off the pace (although Dan obviously had a great race ).  Can't even blame setup or concentration, both were good last night.

Spent the whole night going backwards from about 6th on the first lap, and trying to get the car to turn in, my usual style totally outclassed by this track, so tried to flick it into the corners more which took my times down from 47 to mid-ish 46s but made loads of errors trying to drive a more aggressive style that I'm not comfortable with, and it didn't work anyway.  

Had some good close racing early on, although managed to almost ruin Oily's race when I had a look down the inside and missed my braking point, speared into you, sorry mate, I was mighty relieved when you carried on only losing a second or so, I was the big loser from that, well deserved!

Really frustrating having such an inflexible driving style - it doesn't feel particularly unique to me, but it must be, the way most tracks I can be right up there and the odd track I'm miles off the pace and can't do anything about it.  Oh well, will stick Jarama in the box marked 'I never want to race there again', along with Mexico City if I remember rightly.  Not that it's a bad track, just it murders my driving style.  Roll on some fast flowing tracks with no tight technical corners.  

[BillThomas]

Really frustrating having such an inflexible driving style - it doesn't feel particularly unique to me, but it must be, the way most tracks I can be right up there and the odd track I'm miles off the pace and can't do anything about it.  Oh well, will stick Jarama in the box marked 'I never want to race there again', along with Mexico City if I remember rightly.  Not that it's a bad track, just it murders my driving style.  Roll on some fast flowing tracks with no tight technical corners.  

I'm with you Steve.  Right to the end I was still struggling of a couple of tight right handers, whereas some of the faster corners I could drive absolutely flat.  Well my flat, I finished the last of the runners but was chuffed with a new PB in the race.

Set new PBs in practice and qualifying but was still way off the pace in 24th.  Had a few short battles with Tony and a couple of others until in each case ran too wide on corners mentioned above.  Then it was lonely until the leaders and most of the field lapped me.

Bill

[Steve Holmes]

Yep Bill, think it was a tricky track for most of us except the very adaptable and sideways types out there!!

Unofficial Lapchart

[mr_oily]

Another cracking race - man was that washing machine amusing to drive! Unfortunately I really cocked it up big time in the early stages. Broke the golden rule and made a diff change after qually making the rear more snap oversteery on the power than I'd wanted for the race . Booted it too early and on the curb, so it bit me sending me off onto the grass and right down the pack.

Spent quite a few laps in a gaggle of cars, great fun but all the ducking and diving cost quite a lot of time - after that, had some good stuff with Steve (no worries mate, thought that was my fault to begin with!) who was very quick in places and then as PR says, some brilliant close quarters stuff with him and some great team work going on with us taking it in turns to have a go at poor Geoffers in the mobile sofa GT. We did both eventually make it past (just!!) after many laps but unfortunately that grandstand finish wasn't to be with PR being collected.

Not quite the result I wanted but after a visit to the grass and many laps in traffic it was damage limitation. I too never quite felt I got the right flow around here - I love the track and am looking forward to more practice but something about the place just kept confusing me (it doesn't take much  ) this time out, it's like the layout never really sunk in! Was definitely overcooking the first part of those double apex corners at times and having far too many scrappy corner exits!

Grats to the podium, really good drive Ade and cheers to everyone I had scraps with, only had a quick flick through the replay but it's bloomin' entertaining.

Welcome back Mr. Minton/ Jeff, good to see you chaps just please leave some points for the rest of us  

[API]

No problem Tony 

Hmm.. just couldnt get on around here so qualified lower than i thought i would. Got surprised by Blunder jump starting, flying straight past me but seemed to end up about 9th on the first lap but slowly dropped back spent a while trying to get past Burtoner with API. Got a bit tight there and knudged API, sorry. Seemed to end up ahead once past then seemed to be slowly gaining on the guys ahead but sadly couldnt quite keep it up they started to pull away then lost the place to API on the last lap as i overcooked it.

No worries about the hit. Bad luck that spin at the end of the race. Well done Dan and podium.