It was great fun while it lasted
Maybe the pre race delays and banter only added to the fun? after a forced absence of GPL for a few days it was great to get back together.
I have to confess that I was not intending to take this race seriously ( but then, there are very few races I take that seriously!!)
Qually was not too clever as Icould not get a tow to gain the vital extra second for a front end place and ended up 6th or 7th on the grid. Never a good place when you are staring at Eau Rouge with a pack of 19 cars!!!
But, I got an absolute blinder of a start passing a few cars down the hill and exiting Eau Rouge in 3rd
I was desperate to get my tow rope onto the front two guys and was on Samb's tail as fast as I could hoping that he would in turn stay in touch with Fulvio.
It all worked well until SAmb's half spin...most inconsiderate as I was enjoying the lazy life sat in the slipstream
, now I had to push hard to get my hooks into Fulvio's green thing!! Once I had accomplished that, I relaxed again thinking that at least we could ease away from the chasing pack.
But Alain had a different plan and the speed with which he closed the gap was scary!!!! He was soon nibbling at my gearbox as I increased the pressure upon Fulvio. The failure of Fulvio's engine through Malmedy almost caught me by surprise and I was lucky to avoid any contact. Alain eased past down the straight and I took up my lazy "towee" position allowing me to ease off the revs and preserve the engine...I hoped
Suddenly, but slowly, if that makes any sense!! the gap to Alain started to grow and my car just did not pick up the revs properly out of La Source. Eau Rouge I took flat in 4th with no lift as usual but the exit speed was slower than usual?? and Alain was now over a second away??? Instead of pulling 12500 rpm down towards Malmedy I was only around 11000 and in almost exactly the same place as Fulvio retired, my engine went very quiet
Alain indicated that he was waiting, but I was out and very surprised that the engine had failed as i was letting everyone else do the work.
The dice with Alain was shaping up to be a race long cat and mouse game as we were quite evenly matched for speed, probably would have come down to some demom braking into LA Source, i think, on the last lap.
Grats to the Elves and to Tim and Billy for some festive fun.
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