Paul Ricard Post Race Reports

[DaveS]

Qualified better than expected after not racing for a while. I really screwed up my start, I gave the car to much gas at the green and spun it around in a 380, then did it again trying to get it pointed in the right direction. Once I was able to finally get it going I was in second to last place but was able to run a fairly clean race and managed to finish in 6th place. Congrat's to top 3 in both divisions.

DaveS ;D

[BCurtis]

Qualified on the second row and got off to a little slow start cuz there were no red lights counting down, that I could see anyway.
Settled in at P4 and then a couple laps later might have nudged Paul comin off the last corner, sorry if I did. Tried to keep within shouting distance of Sandy and Don and the gap stayed about 7 seconds between me in P3 and Don in P1. Then Sandy had his problem. The only off for me came late in the first stint, missed my braking point into the final corner and ran wide left into the sand but only cost me few seconds.
Made my pitstop from P2 at about the 30 minute mark. Don made his stop shortly after and I was surprised that he came on track a second and a half behind me. We ran nose to tail for a couple laps then he got inside me for the lead. That didnt last very long as Don musta got on the gas too hard getting onto the back stretch and got a piece of the barrier.
So with over 20 minutes left I had a pretty good margin over P2. I just tried to keep a good pace as in the past I have slowed up a little to be cautious and ended up making mistakes anyway.
First win in these cars so happy about that. Congrats to Bob, very fast in the lmp2!!!

[Greg 'GP' Haley]

got into the trusty dome following the prerace car hop fracas and couldn't coax anything better than a low :14 out of it--ruh roh..
everybody seemed to be caught out at the start and i felt lucky to make t1 unscathed. had a continual battle with terry in a momo dome which got very interesting when we got lapped by the lmp1's and .. bob's screamin' pillbeam-- wow, nice run!
great circuit with a lot of places to stay clear of the leaders. looking forward to racing old ring in the lmp2 mazda and hopefully getting lapped a little less

[blackcat77]

The new Mazda did very well for itself in its opening race, qualifying with the aliens (!) and able to run consistent laps fast enough to finish second overall, matching my best result of the season. And I'm still tweaking the setups since this car is totally different than the Domes, which find themselves uncompetitive against the new cars introduced for the second leg of the season. Farewell, my old racecar friend -- you served magnificently and will be retired to a very prominent spot in Miska Museum. I think next to the old Agip Toyota GTP car would be right since they have been my two favorites all time.

Congrats to Brent and Bob on dominating wins and I'll see y'all at Old Ring.

[Bob"oldnslo"Roberson]

I agree with Paul, the Dome was totally outclassed. The Pilbeam was very quick but Paul's Mazda was unbelieveable.
The LMP1s had a little more trouble passing the lil LMP2s at Paul Ricard.
But for the Reynard fans, take heart. In testing at Old Ring I turned my fastest lap with the Reynard.
Seems like every track favors a different car. Maybe Ced should let us bite the bullet and just, dare I say it , choose one.
By the way, everyone was on their best behaviour last night.

[blackcat77]

I think two cars are still about right. In my case, the Mazda is speedy and handles well. The Pilbeam is a little slower but it handles great. Considering the wide variety of tracks we'll be racing, I think that's a nice combination.

[Ced Collins]

Well Well,

My first race of the season always sux complete A$$. Not because I'm not prepared, because I'm too stressed out...lol. I'm sure as some of you know how much I put into this so I am usually a nervous wreck at the first race just trying to make sure all is well. But last Sunday was just freakin weird. Had a decent start...Oh by the way, if you put your HUD on race time, when it clicks over to 1:00.00 left, the race has started. It is a good backup to the no lights syndrome.

Looked like a good battle at the start with the R8, Mazda, Dallara and Pesky. Don got the good jump. Good 4 makes represented.

Congrates to Brent and Bob on the class wins.

As Paul stated and that is the reason Bob, I try to pick tracks that favor different cars. That's why you have two choices...lol. Plus it looks cool in different replays.

[forddude]

Ahhh-ha, I guess I need to change cars.....maybe habits! After being able to run mid 11s fairly consistantly leading up to race day I could never get under 12 for the race. I don't think that afternoon bowling/beer drinking followed by wings and beer afterwards had anything to do with it. Hey, I took a 20 minute nap before the race - I shoulda been fine. Anyway, 8th at the start was not what I was looking for but managed to get into a fairly comfortable 6th and was riding along nicely there until near midway. When Don came by me to lap me going into 1 I just caught the side of my brake pedal, slipped off it, knocked the pedals askew and nearly knocked Don into tomorrow.....did I mention I tore the front end off the car? The slow lap back to the pits allowd me to move the pedals back under my feet and a 68 second pit stop later I was on my way.....as in way behind. Getting 8th out of that fiasco was more than I deserved.

To Bob.....congratulations on your fine run. I hadn't mentioned it because on my screen it showed you as an LMP-1 so I didn't know you won the class. I thought you had changed classes.

Back to the cars....I hope there isn't that much disparity between the original cars and the added ones because I don't really want to change and quite honestly wish we wouldn't do that all the time. It always leads to new/more problems and I wish we would just set things at the start of the season, test 'em, work out the bugs and let it be for the rest of the season. Just my opinion.

See y'all soon.

Tom

[Bob"oldnslo"Roberson]

Tom, I agree with you. I really appreciate what Ced is doing. He's made this league one of the best if not the best. However, unless you are retired like me and have handfuls of time the big selection of cars is overwhelming. I like it but I'd like to see everything remain as is.

Fortunately I did have time to test almost every car. Let me clarify that, every LMP2 car. I don't run LMP1 because I'm not an alien and I think that's the class aliens should be running.
What I have discovered is that the popular Dome is the only car that is not up to speed. It is still the best handling car but lacks the top speed of the very quick Mazda.
I've got testing sheduled for the Lolas ( both ) . However, I know that since I raced the Pilbeam I only have one more choice and I want to use it wisely. I'm not a good gauge of performance but so far the Reynard ( with some tweaking to the steering wheel ) is fastest at Old Ring.
Hmmm. which one ? The Reynard or the Mazda ?
And put the track equation in the mix and the selection gets even tougher.

After seeing what is involved in trying to please everyone and to provide great organization I think we owe Ced a big pat on the back.

And I'd like to add that I've never raced against a better bunch of guys.

[RobGuru]

Fun race for me.

Didn't have much time to test, so I put my S101 Glen set on the car and just concentrated on learning the track. Took a little while to figure out a couple nuances, but I got the Dome down to the mid 11s. Ran an 11.7 qual lap, good for P5 IIRC.

Race start was good. Couldn't keep with the Top 4 guys, but could maintain a gap to the guys in P6 and back. So, I was able to run a lot of clean laps at the beginning.

Started with a full tank with the intention of running it all the way down then just taking a quick splash at the end. During the pitstop sequence, I cycled up to P2 and was hoping that a quick stop would put me in contention with the P2 and P3 guys at the end. Would've worked well if not for a quick spin a lap or so before my pit. Made my pit and came out just a couple seconds behind Sandy in P3 (who had had a couple problems of his own). He was evidently nursing the car home with low fuel, and I was able to catch him. But, I was pushing pretty hard and made one mistake too many which made me unable to make a good challenge. Ended up P4 about 3 seconds off Sandy.

Lots of fun to race... great track for these cars... looking forward to the rest of the season!

Rob

[slyfry]

I know I did it post-race but wanted to apologize to Susan and Bob again for getting into the back of them, especially Susan who I got into really hard and booted plum off the track, no excuse for that kind of driving and I usually don't do that kind of thing.

bcurtis said:

Don made his stop shortly after and I was surprised that he came on track a second and a half behind me. We ran nose to tail for a couple laps then he got inside me for the lead. That didn't last very long as Don musta got on the gas too hard getting onto the back stretch and got a piece of the barrier.

And that was my race in a nutshell, got off to a good start and held Sandy off until we got into traffic, but just as soon as he got by me he had problems that would send him to the pits. Lack of practice cost me too much time in the pits changing tires and made me push harder than I should have to get back up front.

oldnslo said:

I don't run LMP1 because I'm not an alien and I think that's the class aliens should be running.

Hey. who you callin' "Alien", please read my member profile. it says "Alien Wanabe".....hehe

Also I didn't know we were allowed to use more than one car thru the season, so it looks like I need to do a little testing to see why Sandy is blowing me away on the straights.

Don

[blackcat77]

Bob -- read this!

The reason you are not receiving my emails is that Yahoo Mail, in their infinite wisdom, has decided that messages from my IP are spam and are blocked. If you have some non-Yahoo email that I can use, please let me know.

Sorry about spamming this thread with this message but Bob has sent me several emails and I have not been able to reply to him.