I ran GT1 slot 2 in the Americas last night, driving for Dodge. I was door #12, with 163 points up for grabs.
I had low expectations for the race. My FP time was at the bottom of my friends list. All the lobby races I'd done for practice ended with me at the back, lucky to finish before the timer ran out. Imagine my surprise when I qualified Q4 with a time of 1:33.6, a tenth better than my best FP lap. A bunch of thoughts raced through my mind, but most were along the lines of
oh, crap, this isn't the race I practiced for.
The race got off to a clean start. For that first lap, my nerves were terrible, I'd been expecting to run some relaxing laps around the back of the pack, not competing for a top-5 spot. I was braking way too early and not feeling at all smooth on the controls, but somehow I made it through without any serious problems, and settled into a 4-way battle for P3.
It was tight, hectic racing. By lap 5, I'd dropped to the back of this group in P6, but was still managing to keep up.
Then came lap 6. I braked too late going into the Esses and had to steer off into the green stuff to avoid colliding into the red Porsche -- I still glanced them, but it wasn't enough to inflict damage on either of us, thankfully. I got the re-entry all wrong and crossed the street to drive on the green stuff over there. By this point, the mob had caught up and were easily passing me. With my dirty tires, I went wide at T4 and picked up a track-limit penalty. My next trip through the Esses, I was in P13.
It came as a bit of a relief, though. This is the race I had been expecting. I settled into a three-way battle for P11 with a Genesis and a Honda.
That lasted until lap 10, when the Genesis rear-ended the Honda at T4, getting a 2-second penalty. The Genesis slowed down to let the Honda by on the straight towards Ferradura, but it seemed the Honda driver wanted vengeance more than their spot back. They rear-ended the Genesis. When that failed to knock the Genesis off the course, the Honda went full torpedo-mode on the Genesis at T8, taking them both out.
With them out of the way, I set to work catching the car ahead. They had damage, so I was steadily gaining on them. Along the way, I picked up a spot from a car that went off. Now in P10, I caught up with the car ahead going into the final lap. We had a great battle for P9 on that final lap. We must have exchanged places three of four times.
I was finally able to get the move done at Pinheirinho. Into P9.
Another car went off at Juncao, though, so I was promoted once more to finish in P8 for 116 points.
This race turned out to be a lot of fun, and a much better result than I was expecting. I'm glad I was able to do it.
) compared to the previous few laps.
