My first raceweekend as a real driver is here and I was nervous like never before. First practice I was 14th out of the 15 in my class this race. The guy who I beat has done even less racing than me. Driver closest infront is Emma who's been doing another series for a couple of years. For some reason they grouped us up with some Danish cars and most of them was faster then all the JTCC cars. The reason is that this year the STCC is a Scandinavian Championship and not Swedish.
For qualy my aim was to beat Emma as well. I got a new set of front tires and one of my mechanics noticed that something neither I or google translate know the English word for, was broken which made the car abit loose in practice. It was quickly repaired though and I was ready for the 20 minutes qualifying session. I got a few good laps in and eventually I was almost a second quicker than Emma, 3.4 seconds behind the leader, finishing in 13th position.
Picture courtesy of Andreas Hultgren
I would have hoped to be faster but since it was my first time on this track I was happy. A lot of ups and downs around the track and those hills are way steeper than they look in Simbin's STCC The Game. Another thing I noticed is that you don't flip your car in the last turn, which I actually did just as good as the best drivers as they couldn't pass me until turn 1.
A couple of hours before the first race my nerves really started to go and got a strange feeling in my stomach, but I kept my focus on what was going to happen. The grouping for the starts was the strangest thing of all this weekend. JTCC first, then the fastest of the three groups, about 25 meters back and then the other faster group behind them. Rolling out of the first turn towards the start line got the adrenaline pumping alot more than before. Going in to turn 1 Emma had already passed me on the outside cause everyone who was on the inside was braking verry early. Also some of the Danish cars caught us in the first turn. As they all continued to pass the three I noticed on the third lap that Sebastian, the guy behind me had stopped after the hairpin on the previous lap. On the 6th lap there was a yellow flag going over the crest through turn 4, at this point I was about a second behind her but I had been catching up to here through the last few turns. As I came over and around the turn she suddenly spun right infront of me. I immediately knew the yellow flag must be cause of a blown engine so a slowed down as much as I could before the rear started to come around on me. I saved it though and continued on to see the Safety Car get deployed. When the cars were removed, the race restarted and on the first lap another car went around and in to the barrier on the inside of the same turn. He was so far off the track that the race could continue on to the end where, I was way behind the next car ahead of me. I finished 12th and even though it was last among the finishing cars, atleast I finished.
Had the 13th best laptime in race 1 so once again I got to start from the 13th spot. Standing start this time, which I had never even tried to do before. Surprisingly I got a beter start than most the drivers around me, and a car two rows infront of me stalled so I almost swerved in to another car trying to avoid it. Once again the Danish drivers caught us in turn 1 but this time I didn't let them by as easy as I did in race 1. Coming to the downhill right hander after the hairpin, I went a little too wide on entry and got the left side wheels on the grass, almost spinning the car as I started braking. I have no idea how I saved it this time. Two laps later when a Danish driver was passing me through turn 1 and as we exited the turn, he went wide just like I wasnt there so I had to go over the curbs, putting half the car off the track. I kept my pace throughout the race and with a few laps to go the last Danish driver passed me as I was still 12th in the JTCC class after a DNF cause of some issue for another driver. I kept the gap to a few seconds and on the last 3 laps I caught him quickly. With one and a half laps to go I tried a pass through the turn before the hairpin but he closed the door on me. Then I tried again on the last lap with the same result. This time I lost some time but I finished 0.7 sec behind him, once again 12th in JTCC. Since only the top 10 score points I din't score any points in my racing debute but that's not realy what anyone expected me to do this weekend.
I am realy happy with the results from this weekend and since my fastest lap was the third last lap I did, I kept improving till the very end. The team is awesome and I can't thank them enough for giving me this chance to fulfill my dream. Also my dad/sponsor for giving me alot of time for this.
Thanks for the good picture Andreas, and thanks to everyone for all the wishes and nice comments. I hope that next time one of you is at a race you come by and say hello. I will be in the STCC pit area along with a STCC BMW and a Camaro.
Next race will be at Mantorp Park in 2 weeks.
Linus Broström is a long time sim racer here at RaceDepartment and this year makes his debut in the real racing world in the Junior Touring Car Championship in Sweden. A registration of his adventures he will blog here at RD!