What a complete turnaround!
Struggled all through practice and qualiying to get any sort of rhythm together; tried one setup after another, nothing was working, and to add to my problems, every time I thought I was testing one setup, when I went back to the garage it was never the one I thought it was.
Was getting really confused and frustrated and could barely string more than a couple of laps together. Finally towards the end of qualifying, my second attempt to pick up Shark's variation on Russell Hodgson's setup worked and despite me still be desperately uncomfortable with the car I decided to fuel it up and hope it would come good in the race.
And boy, did it. I never managed a good lap time in the race but it was doggedly consistent and safe. The start was nuts - it went green and I floored it in 2nd; both lines checked up in front of me, but rather than risk checking up myself I thrust myself into the big juicy gap down the middle, making up 3 of 4 places straight away.
Much to my surprise, the cars I passed, whilst quicker, didn't have the kind of advantage I was expecting, and early pressure from Legzy vanished when he lost it. One by one cars fell by the wayside, and finally towards the end of the first stint Pops was homing in on me pretty rapidly.
I started on 15 gallons and planned to add the same again, probably slightly too much for the setup in the end; not strarting on a full load meant I didn't have to compromise with higher ride height, and my stop was absolutely perfect, perfect entry, stopped bang on the marks, fuel and tyres, uncomplicated exit onto a clear track - I was really quite surprised to gain so much time over Pops, and after the stop I got increasingly comfortable, and was able to stretch the gap out by another couple of seconds. Backed off a load in the last 2 or 3 laps as my concentrating was going.
5th was about 10 places ahead of where I expected to be after qualifying! Especially as I thought I'd used up all my mojo winning my official Late Model race earlier.
Then we had a funny moment when we both cut the corner at the bus stop as we lapped blunder & Ross, he immediately let me through but I wasn't having that, so let him back past at the next bit.
I wasn't letting you through - I bit off way more than I could chew and got a cut track black flag - had to slow down. You should've taken advantage as you were certainly quicker. I'm gobsmacked I didn't bin the car in that moment!
