Firstly I'd like to thank
everyone there for giving me a great time, despite me feeling quite tired all through the weekend. I only got a few hour's sleep both on Friday and Saturday night, so I wasn't as lively as I should have been! In particular a special thanks to
Carys for the help,
VEXD for the support and help, and
Famine for organising such a difficult event. You should have seen the spreadsheet containing all the lap times he'd done on the handicap cars for testing!
When I arrived at the school at about 9:45am, Famine, Sarah (to be Mrs. Famine) and daaaaaan were the people I met up with. We waited a while for the caretaker (Mark?) to arrive in his Astra to unlock the school. You weren't kidding when you said he was a loony! We finally managed to unpack everything to get things set up. Gave Ben his rather amusing B-day card (you've still haven't told me if you liked it!), and got chatting to various other people.
After an hour or two, we were ready to go! Famine had set everything up ready to go. The RUF RGT was the first car to use. I couldn't wait to get out of it because in the bumper view you cannot hear the engine with headphones on... I few of us can confirm this.
A good many hours through it, I managed to get down to the BMW M3. We had to cut down the laps from 5 to 4 and cut down the number of cars as the series was taking much longer than expected. Various events happened that I cannot remember off-hand, but Famine has it all recorded on his spreadsheets which - I hope - he will post as results as he's done in the past. Roo was master of the handicap this time. 👍
At the end of the day the LMP series cane along. There were balloons everywhere that people were randomly popping through the weekend. Talk about scaring the hell out of you while you're concentrating hard! I done a bit better in the series, coming I think at least 3rd each time, and nearly 1st once. I spun out on the last corner! We stopped the series half way through due to time becoming short.
The evening was interesting at the bowling. I was already quite knackered, but I decided what the hell and joined in on the game as well. And the second (thanks
Specialized for paying for my second game, and
TheCracker for the drink 👍). Race Idiot was, if you don't mind me saying,
hilarious (hense the name VEXD gave him in his post), as he told be before we started he hadn't bowled for ages. It definitely looked like it!
I had never been any good at bowling myself, but I done a
bit better than I thought I would - not totally embarrassing myself! Ben's aim was way off. I'll put that down to the few beers he had had already. Diego was a good laugh too, like Sarah said above. He cheated one or twice (though he'd argue against that - tactics!) by distracting the bowler on the other lane so they'd miss. I cannot remember who they were, but it was damn funny! Looking forward to the shots you took of us in-action, Famine. 👍
Day 2, I think I was the last there. I was again even more knackered from a poor night in the Travelodge.
We started off with a smaller series, but I cannot remember the cars. I done very poorly with those though, about 13th overall...
Next was the endurance. I was on Diego's and Sureshot's team, determined by the places we came in the last series. We all did pretty well here, including me for once! After I'm used to a car and track, I can put down some pretty good laps. Me, Famine and someone else were having a good fight for a while, which I hope Famine recorded! He pulled away in the end though - he;s just too quick... Diego was following Touring Mars, followed by Specialized for a while, and Sureshot was keeping Race Idiot off his tail. I got the best lap time on the team of 1:21.287 in the end, but we were all pretty much even.
Evil Dave (VEXD) was amazing though by doing laps in the very low 20s!
Next were the Honda Beats. I liked these, as there was, in my opinion, as smaller margin of error because they were so slow. I came second a few times, and once again since
damn Famine overtook me on the last couple of corners by taking them a bit more smoothly. Sadly, only the winners count!
Last of all, just before I had to leave, were the DTM cars. This was pretty fun, but there was a hell of a lot of ramming, especially on the Nurburgring. Someone's Calibra kept plowing into the back of me. I guess I'll find who that was when the results are posted up.
So, overall, it was a great, if somewhat tiring, weekend! It was great to put faces and voices to people, and was surprising to see how some of you are different in person than online (or not!). I would say I wasn't too bad after not playing GT4 properly for a year or so, and playing arcade-style games instead...
I must give a particular well done to GTPlant, Mrs. Famine and Excelero for joining in the game even though you've never/hardly played the game before.
I hope that's everything. I'm sure some of you will jog my memory at some point. Sadly, no pictures, as I forgot to bring my camera.
VEXD
And of course the last thanx goes to Diego "The Grateful"
T H A N K Y O U !!! as he says....
It's not
quite the same without his accent...
THANKS EVERYONE FOR A GREAT WEEKEND 
👍
Although the Beaker video makes up for some of that!
And, of course to EXelero for prizes & venue.
My tummy ache has yet to disappear; it took hold of me on Sat and is unfortunately still around.
