Due to the Rolex race and getting mucho practice in the Dallara at Road America for the DWC I had done exactly 0 laps with the skippy in the new build. I managed to get on just after 7:30 and thought with all my experience of car and track I should get used to any changes. With the DP it was a bit more throttle control and a few tweaks to the setup so didnt expect it to need too much.
Well how wrong was I! I couldn't get anywhere near the limit, it was either stay well under it or go over it in a big way and crash. I find with the skippy you need just the right amount of speed and throttle so that the rear is rotating but you are not at the point of making oversteer corrections as it bogs down too much. I was miles away from that and with the constant spins wasn't actually getting many full laps in to experiment. Setup tweaks to my normal setup didnt seem to help and being called away for a baby sick incident with 20 mins to go didnt help either! Gave up and got Darrens setup which he was doing high 47s with so I knew it was capable.
For qual it was certainly better but I crashed twice while on pretty good laps. Eventually got a lap in towards the end but I think I was overdriving to some extent and set 1.48.4 giving me 8th on the grid. Put in my usual amount of fuel which is always well on the safe side and went into the race just to relax and see what happened and enjoy racing with others rather than Paul and Brian primarily.
Was taking it nice and steady at the start and everyone was great in the opening laps and also very fast. I was having to push quite hard to stay with Ian in the first 2 laps. On lap 3 I think Simmo lost it on the exit of the double right hander at the top of the drag strip so up to 7th. I was beginning to get a feel for the car and was closing in on Ian before dropping back a bit in the final corner. To my surprise that lap was a 1.48.0 and at the start of lap 4 had closed in behind Ian in the first section. With simmo gone there was quite a big gap so as I was finding pace I was looking to challenge Ian. He got a slight slide in T10 and I probably took it the best I had done all evening and got a good run into the final hairpin. Braked just after Ian and got the car slowed down ok. The fronts weren't locked but must have been scrubbing as I turned in and the car went straight. Never had turn in understeer in the skippy so that might be that with with the new throttle mapping I was using much more under brakes than normal so countering oversteer actually made it go too far the other way. Tried all I could to keep it off Ian but gave him a slight nudge for a 0x contact pushing him wide for a clumsy pass. Very sorry mate I hold myself to much higher standards than that. Then both Ian and Bernie who was behind us all the time suddenly dissapeared so I guess something had happened on the next lap. Very sorry Ian.
Was now finding good pace and was in the 47s quite consistantly. I caught Mike who then ran wide on the exit of the long downhill left and his loss of momentum up the hill allowed me to get alongside and make the pass into the double right hander at the top of the drag strip. I was now up to 5th and was beginning to close a little on Darren ahead of me then he went off so I began to chase Gary. Paul H then spun so up to 3rd. Was chasing Gary and noticed that Mike had dropped back quite a lot. Was pushign as hard as I could and had closed in to just over 2 seconds behind. I then got a huge tank slapper in T10, somehow I didn't spin but thought I was pushing my luck a little too much and with dropping back out to 4 seconds behind Gary I decided to take it easy. With 3 laps to go I got the 5 lap warrning massage! I started short shiftind as I new it would be tight to spluttering on the last lap. Luckily it was ok and lasted until T1 on the warm down lap
Overall was chuffed to come out of that with a podium in end but still not happy with my pass on Ian to be honest
Congrats To Brian and Gary for their great races.
