Great night! Connected to a few games with fellow racers and had a blast!
Race1 - 2nd (2 MNR's - vrrm and myself)
Race2 - 1st (by myself with a random in a clio)
Race3 - 2nd
Race4 - 4th
Race5 - 1st
Race1 - Failed connecting twice, 3rd time lucky into a game with two randoms and vrrm. First time ever driving this car. Probably last time ever driving that car too. Hate it, don't feel like setting it up, its ugly and makes a horrible sound. Was dead last after being taken out by one of the randoms on lap 1. vrrm was well in the lead so I thought i'd drop it. Parked it in the sand at turn2 on lap 5 and watched vrrm go 'round in circles. From what I saw, he had that car pretty much wrapped up.
Race2 - Failed to connect 3 times, joined in with a random driving a Clio. Bah!
Race3 - GTLM, love the car, love the challenge it presents. Vaguely remember the race. Appeared to be a bunch of GB guys in S2000's with us MNR's in GTLM's. Pulled off the line well enough but held back going into turn 1 and rolled out of turn 2 last. Up ahead chaos broke loose with cars everywhichway. Passed an S2000, Joeninety and Stonemonkey in the mess, ended up coming out of Dunlop corner behind vrrm and synwraith and another S2000 in 4th overall. I was trying to keep in touch and get a feel for the car, still not 100% comfortable with it and my inconsistent lap times show as much. Ran a little wide at 130r, putting a wheel on the dirt and spinning it, Joeninety went by but I managed to collect it neatly and was back in the race.
Joe, complaining about the GTLM in the chat before the race, showed me how bad he was by putting up decent lap times and passing the S2000 ahead of us. Rather impressed, and disappointed he hadn't fallen off the track yet. But a few laps later, the corner just before Dunlop at the end of the essess, he got a bit of lift-off oversteer and put it sideways across the grass, ending up on the outside of Dunlop. I tried to avoid him but sideswiped on the way past to catch the S2000. The two leaders at this point were 10seconds up the road.
A lap later, I was in a position to put the S2000 down a place, attempted to draft down the back straight failed, as he clearly had the bigger balls through 130r than I did. As we approached the chicane, the two leaders had had a tangle and were within arms reach. I ended up nailing the S2000 down into turn1 with a late braking dive down the inside from a much better position that lap and put chase to the leaders who were roughly 2 seconds...
But to no avail, they had a much better pace than I did, and putting some concentration into it, i nailed a personal best of 1:53.6xx as their lead yo-yo'd from 2 seconds to 6 over a few laps. Ultimately pulling away from me. Last lap vrrm dropped it at the degner curves and i was less than a second behind rolling into split 2, but he had the measure of me and comfortably maintained his position through the remainder of the last lap. Thoroughly enjoyed the race!
Race4 - I really enjoy the 512bb and don't race it anywhere near as much as I would like to. This race could have been a lot of fun, but foiled by the weight bug which i forgot to correct loading up the car. So not only was I running on S1's, the extra power those tires afforded me was quickly lost in the pounds the car had put back on. Stone and Vrrm took off, I was left in a lonely 3rd as Joeninety had some fun with an NSX random behind. The extra weight was costing me nearly 2 seconds per lap, and after Joe had dropped the NSX, he quickly moved up to the back of me. Lap 4 he put a beautiful move down the inside of me going into turn one and held the car nicely. I tried to be annoying and fake a move into turn 2 but he wasn't having any of it. I rolled to a slow 4th a few seconds down on Joeninety. Enjoyed the race nonetheless, just must remember for next time!
Race5 - This was a surprise to me. I took the car out for a practice before the race started, got a feel for the first corner before I had to quit to join the race. I figured I could use the GTLM's corner speed as a guide and it would see me right. Using an old setup I had done myself from who knows when, I thought i'd give it a blast in the name of fun.
Got off the line well, first corner mess with a GTR random falling off the track and some interesting lines taken. I fell behind vrrm and stone into 3rd. Vrrm mentioning that the Corvette wasn't his type of car in the chat beforehand, I figured it didn't matter as he would drive the **** out of it anyway and I thought he was doing just that in 1st. But a few mistakes and a tussle with 2nd place stone allowed me to keep in touch while i figured out what speeds the car would let me do. Vrrm eventually dropped it at degner allowing stone and myself to slip past on lap 2.
I kept in touch with Stone largely due to the generous draft effect of GT5P, but I couldn't really make an impression. On my screen he was getting a bit squiggly coming out of corners while I was having no such problem, and learning the car was a lot more forgiving than the GTLM, I started to push. About lap 5 I was getting comfortable enough to overtake him, and a slow draft down the back straight allowed me to pull along side for 130r, but he ultimately took the corner and the chicane. Although I took a tidier line out of the chicane and moved down the inside of turn 1, my favorite passing spot for this circuit.
I've never been to good being in the lead of a race, haven't been there much and so I brake a little earlier as a side effect, which I think messed with Stone a little. I soon got into my rhythm again and getting used to the car, to give you an idea, it took me until lap 6 before I wasn't braking into turn 3. Stone slipped at one of the corners gifting me a 2.224 second advantage. Why I remember that number? because that number came up over the next 3-4 splits of the following couple of laps. We were matching each other sector time for sector time. It was quite crazy (pardon the pun) before lap 8 where I managed to pull out another second, I believe in part due to an error on stone's behalf. This gave me a comfortable 3 second gap where I just managed the last few laps to bring it home and give NZ a win
Joe finishing 3rd just topped off the race and the night.
Thank you for the racing guys, and thank you for reading my post, I don't know whats worse, my long winded post race write ups or my driving
Will hopefully make next week's races. Have a great time guys. 👍
