I just had a very strange race in Nations. It had all the death you'd expect from Dragon Trail Seaside (especially when there's 28 laps worth), but very little of it was at the chicane of death. I've just briefly scanned over my replay and I think the death chicken only claimed one person. The right hander before the sector 1 hairpin however, that thing was out for blood!
Kind of makes me wonder if there's some Rick and Morty-esque stuff going on and I unknowingly did my race in an alternate dimension where the track is still infamous for being a war of attrition, but not for the chicane.
I qualified P12 and wasn't expecting much from the lobby going in. A lot of names I've raced before who I greatly struggle against or know I wouldn't be able to compete with. I figured I'd just try to ride it out and see if I can pick up any places by surviving... and that ended up going a hell of a lot better than expected.
The sector 1 meatgrinder didn't wait long to start the carnage, claiming a French driver right out of the gate on lap 1. Up to P11. On lap 2 it claimed an Italian who then took out another French driver trying to catch the car, all whilst I had a front row seat just a few tenths away. Up to P9!
Shortly after I caught the Spaniard in front of me after he grazed the exit barrier on the chicane of death, allowing me to get alongside. After some fighting through turns 1 and 2 I managed to get in front, just in time to watch the kerb murder
another French driver. P7!
Moving forward to lap 5, sector 1 claimed another after a second Spaniard lost control. I don't think it was the kerb though, looked like he somehow just binned it on the approach to the hairpin.
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P6!
I caught up with a South African fighting with a Portuguese driver on lap 7. I was scared this was going to make me get swallowed up by the pack behind since it was costing a fair amount of time being stuck behind them, but then the Portuguese driver became one with the wall on the chicane on lap 8, ending the fight. It gave me a bit of a scare as I got hit by the rebound off the wall on my way past, but I got through safely. P5!
The South African had a poor entry onto the sector 1 chicane on lap 10 and I got the switchback on turn 2 before taking the position and leaving him to fight with one of the Spaniards I had passed previously. P4! From there I was just desperately trying to keep the pace up since I really felt like I was punching above my weight being so far up the order. Having the two of them fighting behind was definitely helping me do that, but it almost all came crashing down on lap 13. A third Spaniard who had started P2 had binned it in sector 1 and rejoined as I was approaching. He
really held me up through the S-bends allowing the group I was barely keeping at bay to get right on top of us.
We ended up 3-wide going into the seafront hairpin with me right on the inside. The South African who had been right behind the pack took the normal racing line and got a far better exit than all of us, ending up alongside me on the right into the chicane. My race very nearly ended here, this really threw me off. I wanted to back out and go single file, but I had one of the Spaniards right behind me so I couldn't. I ended up cutting the first half of the chicane for a track limits penalty and having to take a very slow line through the second half. I imagine I wasn't very popular there but I'm not sure what else I could have done.
I took my pit stop at the end of lap 14 and emerged back in P4. The second half of the race was pretty much just a mad dash trying to keep the position, with one of the Spaniards (who had gone 15/13) gradually closing the gap back up but thankfully not catching me before the end.
Came home in P4 for 230 points, new season best and a welcome improvement over one of the 195s it's replacing. š„³