I think Tim must take this season's award for the most complicated scoring sytem yet devised for a race, and for the most enormous amount of p*ss taking ever. Despite that he organised ( for me at least) a great fun race.
I still do not claim to understand what I was meant to be doing with either my "blind date" or the guy behind me on the grid, or even if they were one and the same person??!!
. I'm sure that will become clearer when Tim has processed all the data, collated the results and passed the figures through his spreadsheet before allowing the adjudicators to equalise the positions and publish the number he first thought of!!
As this was a fun race I thought it would be funny to take the Brabham, because it is a funny little green car with only 5 gears.
Qually was a case of getting used to the new sound file I had installed and reminding myself that this was not actually a lawnmower!! even if it sounded like one at times...
So 5th on the grid was better than expected, but whether that was good for my blind date I have no idea!!!
The start was good and I jumped Al ( I think) to slot in behind Nicky's BRM with Hristo and John threatening to break away at the front.
Nicky's Brm proved very tricky to get past cleanly and it took several laps of pressure before he left an openng big enough to exploit safely. Fortunately Hristo and John's squabbling over 1st place meant that they were not that far ahead, maybe 2-3 secs.
I think an attack by john compromised both cars at some point because suddenly I was a second closer and beginning to pick up some real slipstream on the straights and soon was right with them having dropped Nicky behind.
The next few laps were a great 3 way battle between John, Hristo and myself ( all in BT11's) as we swapped places looking for somewhere to gain an advantage.
Fortunately I had geared 5th for some slipstream and it worked well as battled around the Glen. Then John appeared to lose some momentum somewhere and dropped back by about 1 sec just as Hristo took the lead. I knew that Hristo might be quicker than me if left alone so I allowed H to lap unchallenged whilst I sat in his slipstream for a few laps just to see if he would pull us away from John...and he did.
Ifelt it was pointless tring to pass H before the last few laps because defending against him would probably be hard work and anyway I was being towed along quite happily by his pace. It would have been a good plan, but for the intervention of an innocent backmarker.
Hristo managed a pass just before the Big Bend but I was slightly baulked.(.no fault of the backmarker, just had my racing line compromised because he had to be somewhere on the tarmac
) Hristo took full advantage and put the hammer down to drag himself just out of full slipstream range and then steadily drew away.
I kept up as fast a pace as I could, just in case H made a mistake and just about kept him in sight until the flag, although nowhere near making the planned last lap challenge.
Managed a certain PB in the Bt11 and was well pleased with this funny little green car, but still not sure of what my "blind date" thought about it??!!