First race I got a bump that put me into the wall, aero and suspension damage, but I had made a lot of mistakes before that, so it wasn't the bump that ruined my race.
Will, appologies that was me, I'm very late braking into that corner on my braking setup and I guess that you weren't. Also appoligies to Eric Estes for the rear ending at T1 in race 2 although you seemed to head off pretty well after I'd done my pirrouettes.
Race report.
In practice I had switched to a slightly amended AMS setup for the Leon, rather than the customs chevvy set up that I'd been working on for half the week. Wend into the 23's for the first time and in 18 month's racing felt that whilst I wasn't up at the front was at least in the ballpark rather than the bleachers.
Quali, ran wide on t1 of the hotlap which put paid to another 23, drove the rest of the lap cleanly and managed 19 of 25. Not so bad consideing how close all of the times were.
Race 1, got a good start picking up places from Eric E, drove ok, usual mistakes, I really need to concentrate Harder, but it's tricky at 3AM. I think that I was up to 13th or so until I punted William Y. Dropped back to 2nd to last and fought back to 19th which is where I started. Only other incident of note was when Bob L came flying back into track off the tyres in the last turn after a coming together with Dariusz. Whacked me clean in the drivers door for a "damaged suspension" message. Good pitstop made back 1 place i think.
Race 2, was more exciting as everyone at the back got away well and cleanly. Bumped eric e gently in the rear (as it looked from the replay) going into T1 . Nice 360 to finish facing the direction of travel with "suspension damage" again. Caught up with Eric E and we had some excellent side by side racing until i ran wide and he managed to get a bit of a cushion. Picked up some places again at the pit stop again and had some good racing with Glen K swaping places a couple of times (fortunately there was no steward watching Glen's weaving) as I appeared to have greater straight line speed along the main straight and could brake later in the FWD Leon than Glen K could in the RWD BMW. Managed to pass at later on the last but one lap as Glen K appeared to be misjudge a lagging Linus and held on to keep ahead of Glen for 19th (again).
Eric: GRATZ great track choice as always. It's been a while since we've had an oversubscribed grid and that we actually have to ask reserves to leave and they don't get back in.
Gratz to all of the other racers on Friday night. It could have been really messy with high speed entry into T1 on the first lap. It shows how close we are that even on a relatively short track as this, in race 1 21 of 25 were on the lead lap and the same (21 of 24) in race 2.
Thanks to Eric E and Glen K for the great close racing!
See you all next Friday at the wonderful
Mugello GP where you can race with the top 5 RD drivers!!! And some of the lower ones too!!!!
ps may work on a short "my highlights video" if i can get rid of that danm click when I create an audio project in Corel video studio.
