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Post by blackcat77 on Jan 13, 2008 21:52:44 GMT -5
The evening got off to a very bad start when, just as Brenda and I were getting ready to start our practice, we got a phone call from a friend saying her husband was critically ill and in the hospital. Needless to say both of us didn't really have our minds on the race from that point, but we tried to soldier on.
Unfortunately, it seems that I forgot to install one of the car updates for Brenda and after doing really well in practice all week, she had two unknown cars and could not race. It was my fault and I wanted to just skip the race but she literally pushed me into my room and told me to race -- or else. So I did.
But I only had one lap to qualify and got a 34.1 after doing a 31.3 in practice. That was a major disappointment and I started 5th. First turn was the usual mess and I lost a couple more places, leaving me a long slog to get back to the front. Never made it, finishing 4th, but considering the circumstances, it wasn't bad. Tom, you had really terrible luck with traffic. Seemed that you were at least as fast as I was but I'd catch traffic at good spots and you'd always get them at bad, but it was a terrific contest anyway.
This is a very difficult track to drive but everyone seemed to do very well about letting cars through -- congrats to everyone.
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Post by forddude on Jan 13, 2008 22:37:05 GMT -5
The best laid plans.......
Did most of my testing on hard tires and it seemed like I'd be able to run the whole race without a change. I never did a complete 1 hour simulated race but did run through a full tank and thought I had it calculated right. Unfortunately with 2 laps to go (running 3rd) it showed enough fuel for one lap. For a minute I thought about pulling off the track just short of the finish line but then thought it might cause a wreck and it looked like I was going to lose two places anyway so I went ahead and pitted.
The surprise of my life came when those who qualified in front of me had problems on the start and I had the lead! Of course it didn't last long....like 1/4 of a lap :-) but I managed to hang on to 3rd for a while. Eventually other guys who are usually faster than me caught me. I had some really good racing with Paul for a while but he slowly pulled away and I settled comfortably into 5th just waiting for my "strategy" to come into play. It came into play all right!! All in all another great race and everyone did a good job again.
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Post by forddude on Jan 13, 2008 22:42:54 GMT -5
Jeeeez, forgot about this. Somehow I've managed to miss an update or something and saw Greg Haley in a temp car. I got the message that I would not be allowed to race against an unknown car and thought my night was over. When the call to the grid came the game let me have my place in the lineup. I figured that was going to be short lived and I'd either get booted or blackflagged but it didn't happen. I saw Greg on the track one time during the race and he was still tooling along in the box car. (Maybe running short of fuel was a payback for being so lucky as to even make the race) :-)
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Post by JABowders on Jan 14, 2008 7:42:10 GMT -5
Red Weasel Racing Reports
What can I say? I got my bell rung…If you get the time to watch the race replay you my interested in watching my car launch up and across the track to land upside-down spinning and smashing and scraping and sliding. I was positive my race was over and to my shear amazement my car was up righted by the magic server race Stewarts but to my chagrin they faced my the wrong way so as I took off to reenter the track, I found myself being DQed for driving the wrong way. And so ended the race for the Head Weasel
The Weasel Wench faired far better and finished the race with her car intact. Battling for survival a few times as some of the faster drivers swarmed around her like a pick as they navigated around the track.
The Reynard just didn’t have what it takes anything for the field, as more and more LMP2 drivers change to the Mazda the Weasels will be content with just trying to stay on track and finish races.
James
Head Weasel and sometimes Top
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Post by forddude on Jan 14, 2008 9:24:33 GMT -5
Hehehe, saw that James......the takeoff was a 10 but the landing, 1.5.....blame it on the Soviet judge. :-)
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Post by greds04 on Jan 14, 2008 11:27:46 GMT -5
My race was not the best, certainly wasn't the worst either, qualified 12th with a .36, the start of the race went pretty well, was having a good fight for 12th-10th for most of the first quarter of the race. Everything seemed to go wrong after the first pit stop, about four laps after the stop I lost the car through the chicane near the pit entrance and busted off the front spoiler, and I forgot to tell the pit crew to just fix the body work and skip the tyres, a minute later I'm out the pits and moving again with slight steering damage but able to average 1.37's and finish 11th, could have made the top eight if I didn't have a bad second half.
Tough track.
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Post by RobGuru on Jan 14, 2008 12:40:07 GMT -5
Interesting night for the Sim-Gear CST Dome S101!
I've always had not so good luck at the Old-Ring, and last night was not an exception. I qualified something like P7 or so, and was running P6 early on and competively close to say P4 and P5. Early on, I was just trying to run clean and put down laps. Paul and I ran closely together for a while early, and he finally got by me with the Mazda. Paul, sorry if I was a little sloppy early, the poor mirrors were really distracting me in terms of knowing where you were behind me there.
Did my typical pitting later than most, and was running in P3 before my pit stop. Had a quick stop, coming out about 6 seconds ahead of Paul and about an equal distance behind P4 (I think it was Tom at that point). Knowing Paul had a quick car, I put my head down and was trying to run quick laps. With about 10 minutes to go, I got really crossed up under braking into T1, slid off track, crunched the tire wall, and ripped the front cowling off the car. Ugh... The car was about 10 seconds a lap slower without the front, but I had well over a minute to Greg in P7, so I stayed out knowing that the repair would likely cost me another position. I was able to maintain P6, but the driving was not pretty.
Glad to be done with the Old-Ring... great track but it always seems to bite me for some reason. Nice run Don and Brent... you guys were flying!!
Rob
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Post by BCurtis on Jan 14, 2008 15:05:06 GMT -5
Qualified front row but got off to a bad start like Don and had to jump on the brakes as he came in front of me. Dropped back to p5 or p6 I think. Tough track to pass on so I ran in the pack for abit. The stewart-fangio section has got to be on of the toughest in my race experiences.
Anyway ran pretty well and worked my way up to P2 by pit stop time. I came up on Bob and knew he'd be pretty fast so I ducked in for my pitstop a lap or two early as I was trying to save some seconds not dealing with him ;-) around the halfway mark.
Ran good consistent laps and after Don's pitstop was surprised that with ten minutes to go I was within striking distance, I think 4-5 seconds IIRC. Then disaster....I cant even remember which corner but I spun off, may have been the old chicane or rindt but I got back on track and mantained P2. Then same lap I downshifted too quickly into Adelaide and spun into the inside wall. Had to wait for Tom and Sandy to go by so I could hit reverse. Running P4 then and was able to get past Tom for a podium but not enough time to challenge Sandy.
Looking forward to Brands Hatch....P2's should be awesome there I suspect.
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Post by Greg 'GP' Haley on Jan 14, 2008 18:50:39 GMT -5
got the jump on the momos at the start and after bob and alex reeled me in we were very even until about half distance. had an untimely warp/screenfreeze which had me trying to navigate at under 10fps for 5 secs or so  stayed on track and when i recovered got within a couple sec's of bob's momo pilbeam before he spun and i got by again. he had some other dramas but these two makes are very even--wow! sorry about my miska teammate brenda not being able to make the race. hope everything goes smooth at brands hatch. cheers, greg #78 miska |
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Post by blackcat77 on Jan 14, 2008 23:06:05 GMT -5
Looking forward to Brands Hatch....P2's should be awesome there I suspect. I've got about 150 laps of practice so far -- the Pilbeam and the Mazda are within 0.2 of each other but the Pilbeam is a lot less scary.  |
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stayed on track and when i recovered got within a couple sec's of bob's momo pilbeam before he spun and i got by again. he had some other dramas but these two makes are very even--wow! sorry about my miska teammate brenda not being able to make the race. hope everything goes smooth at brands hatch.