Phew! What a couple of days.
I've been dying to reply to this thread for a while, but havent had the chance yet, thanks to an epic drive back to Edinburgh, telephone interviews, and a 6pm to 6am shift at work last night...
Anyhoo, I have obviously been reading this thread with great interest, and I can completely concur with everyone else that just attending the event at Brands was incredible, and a fantastic reward for the huge effort that the twenty finalists put in to earn their place.
At this point I would like to congratulate John (prudentbear) on the win, it was thouroughly deserved 👍 Well done to Dan for reaching the final, your speed was scary, frankly, I'm quite relieved I didn't get into a straight fight with you at any point! And also a special mention should go to David (Davissi), who I raced against in every round, and made me work rather hard for my second place in the final! Oh, and Maz, rpm and indeed anyone else for the very nice things you've said about me in this thread so far 👍
I'd like to share my take on events with you all, so here goes
Race One, group three - Indy.
I was looking forward to Indy, as I was confident about being able to set a few consistent laps, and I just wanted to break myself in gently to the competition. All was going very well, I was third, with the two ahead clearly in my sights heading into the final lap. Then at turn 5, a corner which should be taken flat no problem, the back end stepped out without warning, and my over-correction resulted in me firing off into the gravel. I finished fourth and annoyed, knowing that I had to win the next race to get through.
Race Two, group three - HSR.
With Maz's in depth circuit guide clear in my mind (it went something like "left, left, right, left, right, left") I decided that all I could do is go for it. I knew that there was a good chance, as I had seen the first two races here won by guys starting right at the back. It was a very close race, I remember being fourth by the end of lap two, and on the start finish straight the three infront were pretty much side-by-side infront of me. A gap appeared between them, which I managed to fit through with my slipstream. David managed to overtake me somewhere, then on the exit of the left-hander entering the tunnel he got a huuuuge tank-slapper (well held, by the way!) allowing me to slip through. Onto the start finish straight, he pulled out of my slipstream, I
squeezed him to the side as he was pulling past me, and I held on for the win. By 0.005 seconds.... I was through, if only just.
Semi final 2, race 1 - Daytona Road
The race I was most proud of. I followed Davissi away from the line, with a very clear gameplan in mind. Such long, fast sections allow for alot of sliptreaming, so I knew that I just had to be in touch on the final lap. I had a rehearsal for the overtake at the end of lap two, when despite a poor exit from the bus stop compared to David, I had still drafted my way onto the back of his car by the finish line. Then I followed him around the final lap, backing out of the throttle on the straights to stay behind, and picked my moment heading to the finish line, so that he would have no chance of getting back ahead of me.
Semi final 2, race 2 - Fuji.
Starting from pole, I was very defensive into turn one, which happened to bunch everyone else up behind me. I then pushed as hard as I could for most of the first lap, by which point I was three seconds clear, and then it was a case of driving carefully to the finish, ending the race about seven or eight seconds ahead.
Final - Nurburgring
I was quite excited by the prospect of no practice here, but it was seemingly John who benefited from this the most, as starting from pole, he was able to just drive clear from me with ease in the early stages. Despite Tony Jardine's comments that we would not hear him, WE COULD HEAR EVERY WORD!! This made me smile when he mentioned that I was piling the pressure onto John, at which point a split time popped up on my screen telling me I'd dropped back by a further second... Through the second part of the first lap, I started to close in on John again, and by Dottinger-Hohe, I was agonisingly close to his slipstream. This lead me to making a stupid error, driving waaay too fast into the final corners, and having a big crash as a result, costing me about seven seconds. This allowed David to get very close, and at this point he was on a mission, so fast, and piling the pressure onto me (the pressure wasn't eased by the fact that I could hear Jardine say several times, "David can smell blood now"..) I knew that I couldn't let him near to my slipstream at the straight, so I was pushing as hard as I could. Luckily for me, I totally nailed the section from Eschbach to Dottinger, closing about four seconds on John in the process, and giving me just enough of a gap to maintain second. Phew!
It was an absolutely amazing day, and there were many other highlights aside from the competition; chatting with the RJN mechanics the night before was really interesting; and myself and Guy, my flatmate, happened to be joined at breakfast by Lucas and Alex. They were both thouroughly decent blokes, and it was amusing seeing Lucas' surprise at having to pay £4.50 for a litre of bottled water... And then there was the ride around Brands
I made sure I got a lift from Alex, because at the time he was driving the slick-shod 350, and it was just incredible.
All in all, a fantastic time, and I want to thank all of the competitors, the organizers, Sony, Nissan, and anyone else I may have forgotten for putting up such a great event.
Brilliant, brings back memories of my own lap and just hows you how little of the actual feeling an on-board camera conveys!
