Report:
After a bad Saturday I was happy just to start in D1 so having 10 cars in front of me was actually a welcome sight. We got off so on-time and efficiently that the formation lap probably ended pretty close to the 'official' green flag time.
Lap 1 I'm in the GT-R with an NSX behind me... so yeah I'm caboose at turn 1 as Owens eats me up. Going into turn 1 paul's Lexus was jinking all over with lag, which was very unfortunate. He looked fine on the roll out it only started getting bad right before the brake zone. I stood hard on the brake and just hoped the lag would clear or at least that we'd both survive. Luck didn't hold out and our cars tried to occupy the same space and time. Busted RF and paul continued to slide around erratically so I fled the scene. (I'm in awe of your perseverance man, if my net connection got flaky as much as yours I would have given up online gaming long ago.)
So like Brosif and CSL I'd been planning on just trundling along for a one-stop and hopefully pass people in the pits. The wonky RF and long gap to the pack; however made me decide to fall back on the 2-stop. Ran quick pace to catch up to the train of cars covering 5th-9th and finally got the wind around lap 9... hung onto that group until 11 when my pit window opened. Got tires, I'd barely burned 1/4 tank so I left fuel at 0 and went out.
Had a great 2nd stint all alone. Clicked off 9 1:45's and ran the last two in the 46.6 range right into my 2nd stop window at 22. Fuel was over 1/4 so I left it alone and headed back out. Ansem's Supra was on the straight when I came out, me and him duked it out for position and then I eventually pulled away and sailed to the finish line uneventfully. Pretty happy with 9th coming from 11th. Everyone was quick and consistent today. Good Race. 👍
The Sprint... Started 2nd, Owens' NSX roars off down the road as expected. Stay with him on cold tires then got anxious and needed to get by when I started seeing 1:48, also had a supra and early Pagina's GT-R crawling all over me. So spent 2 laps trying to get around and stay around but that NSX had long legs.
Owens went into the pit, Ansem's Supra went round and I did a lap looking at new tail lights. He then pulled into the pit and I had some laps in clean air to try and make a pit window. I did pretty good and after Rees came in I could finally see the real gap to second. It was > 20s so I jumped in ASAP.
Coming back down the pit road I was delighted to see that my pit crew did a good job and I came back out in P1. There was the sister stealth NSX however leading the charge and Welsh dispatched me on acceleration through Curve Grande. I hung on to him and tried like mad to keep 2nd while warming up the tires. We were already starting to make a nice gap by Ascari due to Rees and Ansem doing some racing and welsh going proper fast.
Coming into parabollica for the first time I nudged you (and I may have also tapped owens early in the race)... sorry guys, your cars are so stealth it messed with my range finding equipment.
For real though that was the first time I'd been around an NSX on Monza and was ill prepared for how much lower your entry speeds are. My bad.
So after watching Welsh gather the car back together we went down the straight in a group of 4. Kept on each other for one more lap and I did everything I could to get the win. I some how broke perfectly and was maybe a foot off the NSX bumper all through parabollica and down the front half of the straight until the draft finally started to slingshot me. Spread out side-by-side and then the NSX caught up and started pulling away again as we crossed the line
GR