Well, what can I say. I knew I had a competitive setup from the last event around here, but I didn't think I could bring home the double tonight. I set the 2nd fastest time during practice just 14 hundreds slower than Yves with a 1:55.2xx. Despite having a car that I felt was capable of a 1:54, I decided to make some minor changes. In past GT events, I often had a car capable of the lap times, but always suffered on the top end. I decided to reduce my rear wing all the way down to 1 in the hopes of having the speed to not only pass, but also defend down the long straights around here. As a result, my lap times were slightly slower and I burned up my rear tires sliding the rear around.
Q: Got an OK lap in and found myself 3rd on the grid, right behind Yves.
R1: With Yves in front of me I knew I had to be prepared to either dive down the middle or slam on the brakes. As fast as Yves is, he just can't seem to get that vette off the line. So when the lights went out, I got a good start and was able to squeeze down the middle to take second. Then in T2, Eric N took it away again.
As I made chase, I scared the hell out of myself in the braking zone for the hairpin at the bottom of the hill. Both Eric N and especially Peter braked much sooner than I had expected, so I had to slam on the brakes and got much to close for comfort, but somehow we all got through cleanly. I was really close behind Peter now and was able to pop out of the slip stream and pass him on the brakes coming off of the back straight for 2nd. I was on Eric N pretty quickly and pushed him hard. He made a mistake in the hairpin and ran it wide, so I went around the inside of him, but on the exit he closed the door and ran into the side of me. Not sure if he was alright, I didn't go full throttle right away, which allowed him to crawl back past me on the way to the next turn. But then coming down the back straight my cars lack of rear wing came into play as I popped out from behind him coming onto the back straight and passed him around the outside. The little Marcos was clear of the big bad BMW before entering the corner. How's that for top end?
From here on out I held the lead. Peter came close a couple of times, but I was able to hold him off and brought it home with a 10 second gap to Eric N in 2nd.
R2: Got another great start from 8th, but had to let off as Jarrod in front off me didn't get as good a start. Despite this, I was able to follow him and still made up a couple of spots off the line. Then coming around T2 I saw Eric D and Bob spinning across the track. I swerved right to avoid Eric D just as Bob got into the wall and was starting to endo back across the track. I now swerved left and was hard on the brakes and watched Bob as he completed several 360's in mid air, just inches in front of me. Some how I was able to clear this mess unscathed and in the 3rd place with Glen and Jarrod still in sight. By lap 2 I was on Jarrod's tail, but made a couple of mistakes allowing him to pull away again and introducing Claudio and Yves to the equation. From here on until about lap 6 I was defending hard against the advances of the two. Every time they would make a mistake allowing me to get a little breathing space, I would get the car sideways or do some other stupid mistake allowing them to get right back at me. By the time I was finally clear of them, Glen and Jarrod had a good 6 seconds on me. I was able to reduce the gap down to about 1.1 seconds when I arrived behind Jeffery. I caught him at a bad spot and by the time I got passed, I had lost a full two seconds on Glen and Jarrod again. In the following lap and a half, I was able to close the gap back down to 2 seconds, but then came the big moment, as I watched Glen and Jarrod come together in the hairpin, gifting me the lead. I couldn't believe it. At this point there were about 4 laps left I think. I just tried to focus and stay consistent and managed to maintain my 4.5 second lead over Yves to bring it home for my second win of the day.
Very happy with the result. My first double on RD!
