Well that was a totally unexpected outcome after I stupidly joined the race with the wrong car. It was a particularly dumb mistake as I did the same thing in the Grand Touring race earlier and it was only dumb luck I ended up in the MX-5 Roadster and not one of the other cars for which I'd got no setup and done no practice.
As it was, once I realised what I'd done I pulled Mike's Spa setup from the TS site, and a Silverstone setup from elsewhere, and set about relearning a car I'd not driven for some considerable time. After a while it the driving style started to come back - a combination of classic slow in, fast out and not pansying about when getting back on the loud pedal - and Paul and I were trading the top spot in practice.
Brendan's lone DP just rubbed in my mistake, especially when he strode to the top of the heap, and eventually Gary stamped his authority on the Radical class.
In the meantime I'd come up with a hybrid setup based on bits from the two I'd be trying and some extra tweaks; it had the gentle understeer I prefer in the SR8 and removed the more snappish tendencies that had plagued me early in the session.
Qualifying went pretty well and I was pleased to be ahead of Paul; I figured I had little chance against Gary or Brendan. Terrible luck, Brendan, to get dropped out when you did - I couldn't quite understand why you ended up retired and not able to join and start from the pits.
The moral is , never retire from a session near its end. If it's not ready to rejoin, withdrawing won't help... (you can try restarting the iRacing Windows service but in my experience you just have to wait). If it's any consolation I'm doubly annoyed with my car selection mistake 'cause I'd have had an easy class win.
That left me effectively on pole next to Gary, but I wasn't going to push my luck at the start and risk a black flag, so let him dictate the start and slotted in behind him and ahead of Paul.
After a couple of laps he started to break away; I wasn't sure whether my fuel would get me to half distance so I pushed fairly hard to try and build a gap over Paul. At first that was working and I stretched it to 5 seconds or so, but after a while my wrists in particular were getting tired as I'd done far more practice than usual because of the unfamiliar car, and Paul closed back up to about 2 seconds behind.
The fuel was a lap shy of what I needed so I bumped it up by one click and made my stop one lap short of half distance. That brought me back out quite a way behind Mike, Paul and Gary, but luckily just ahead of Ian.
I knew I was now in a critical phase, especially as Paul and Gary might well be going long and splash and dashing, so I peddled as hard as my sore hands would allow. Success! Paul exited the pits from his stop a few laps later, just a second behind, but
behind.
Gary made his stop and whilst he seemed to lose about 3 seconds to me he was still well ahead, and finally Mike stopped and had used a short fill strategy well to come out right behind Paul.
Now the fight was on for second; I was running out of strength and Paul was getting closer, only a little at a time but inexorably. Initially I hoped Mike might put some pressure on him, but he managed to open up a small gap before Mike had a spin or an off that dropped him back.
And then I saw a yellow flag followed by Gary's car stopped in the barriers on the outside of Club.
At first I thought perhaps there'd been some sort of incident as he lapped Rob, but when he didn't move or reset I realised he'd either had a PC freeze or a disco, and sure enough after a minute the disco message loomed up.
A terrible way to lose a win when he was cruising off to victory.
There was no time for me to gloat, though - Paul was getting ever closer and I was starting to wonder if I had anything left in the tank to fend him off if he caught me. Luckily for me, I caught Rob in Brooklands and was able to get through without losing any time, whereas Paul caught him around T1 and lost a couple of seconds in the process.
With so little time left I redoubled my efforts and focused entirely on the road ahead and not the car behind to come home for a completely unexpected and frankly undeserved class and outright victory.
I'll retire it to office duties and get a Sandybridge setup I think.
I'm waiting till they can assure me I can get a SandyBridge board that doesn't slow cook its own SATA controllers.
p.s.
Results up. 
