I thought I had seen a link to this but can't find anything. Can some one point me in the right direction. (not just left )

I passed David twice, the first time he was flipping in the middle of the track and the second he had parked beautifully at the hairpin, resting his 2 front tyres on the curb, lol gotta admit I had a laugh that I passed him twice in those circumstances.

I was so glad when that was over - that last hour was so painful

The day had started badly in practice so I wasn't hopeful for the race. Like Rob, I love driving the Ring but for me, whatever the car I can't drive it quickly enough. I'd done a 7:18 in practice (Q trim) and was hoping I might be able to push a 17 maybe in qualy. Aborted my first run after going off on the GP section and that kind of set the scene for me. Impressive time from Ahmad

At the green I'd got a slightly better jump than the guys ahead and was closing (albeit not within reach) as we approached the braking. The guys in front were a little staggered in lines and I struggling to see my braking mark. Not wanting to risk hitting the guys in front in case they tangled I braked early. Unfortunately Joe hit me from behind - my fault as much as yours Joe - just one of those. Unfortunately for a moment I was beached on one of those cones but then fortunately someone else tapped (hit) me and I think knocked me off.

The car was a little beaten up after that but the damage was probably only worth about 4-5 secs although this got worse as the race progressed. At later stages I couldn't seem to lap any faster than 7:37. I'd only practiced with Hard tyres amd used one set for the whole race. There didn't seem to be any drop off in performance come the end of the race.

Had a good battle with Joe (at a distance) for much of the race - a bit unfortunate that we were sharing a pit which I think cost him a few seconds each time in. On a couple of occasions I pulled out quite a gap but for one reason or other would I have given it all away come the end of the stint. One of the occasions I'd come up on Wrecking Crew and Pumbaa who'd tangled at the exit of the Carousel. I thought Pumbaa was in danger of getting stuck on the kerb so I hung around for a few seconds while he righted himself. Then LC and Daren came bearing down on us and it all got a little tight there for a while.

That GT2 battle looked great - I made a real effort every time through to try not to disturb them too much - hope I didn't spoil anything guys.

Not sure about that penultimate stint Joe - I think mostly I was struggling to focus and concentrate by that point and I was just running a bit slower. Every now and then I'd wake myself up and for the final stint I put on a bit of a push again. By then though my car was very down on top speed and not handling great either.

A good race but not a personal performance I'll remember fondly. Looking forward to Laguna and a new challenge in GT1

Thanks for hosting Doug and to all those who raced

Grats to all winners and finishers

Jon

That's a good way to put it for me as well.

Forgot to mention, I owe an apology to Birdski, whom I tapped while attempting an overtake on the run down the the low point in the track. He braked where I wasn't expecting it, and I thought for sure the contact would sned him skittering into the armco. Thankfully he just wiggled and stayed on the track. Sorry, Birdski.

I passed part of that GT2 battle. I thought I was going to catch them at the exit of kleine karrusel, which would mean some hairy stuff into the corner that opens up onto the straight. For better of for worse I messed up that corner and ran wide entering the straight (perhaps due to lack of downforce caused by the GT cars), so I didn't overtake them until we were halfway down the straight. They were both drafting each other, I was drafting them, and given my lowered top speed from damage I wasn't sure if I wasn't going to get past. Thankfully we all managed to navigate the straight without any contact, although I changed sides two or three times trying to get the best draft and set up for the best overtaking location.

boy oh boy, talk about feeling like a newb again

Race started out great, made my way through an incident or 2 and before long I found my way to 5th (or 6th) and thought (there may have been the start of my problems) here we go, stay clean and a nice position at the end is to be had. Still on the opening lap I saw that the LMP1 drivers were closing fast already coming back from the incidents. I let one by in a safe spot and soon another one was coming and I saw there was a nice gap after that. I pulled to the side on a small straight and just as they were passing my r/r wheel must have dropped off track and it sent me in a spin and luckily I did not collect their (Jon I think) car. I quickly dropped to 10th and that is where I was at the end of lap one but once I sorted myself I was back up to P6 by lap 3/4 but that is where my race really fell apart.

I had some major damage and limped it back to what must have been the first of a zillion pit stops. After that I seemed to lose it at random places on the track and usually incurred some more damage that affected the handling of the car. After being stuck multiple times as all of you saw (including 2 on the same lap once) all I could do was try and finish. I did have a battle of sorts with Chipwich towards the end until he went out as I would pass but then go off and give the spot back up.

All in all not one for the memory book but when your lap (or even a partial lap) went right it is a great feeling flying through the Eifel.

I will see everyone at Seca or on track somewhere before that hopefully.

David K

Ok, this is just depressing. Starting Lap 8 and ending Lap 20, the final lap of the race.



A textbook example of the requirements of consistency and concentration in an endurance race. Pitiful.

I did finish on the lead lap, though.

I would eat a piece of chocolate on the straight every couple of laps

Come on Joe - I didn't think I did that badly

That drop from 48 seconds to 20 seconds was when I stopped for the Crew/Pumbaa incident - and subsequent off-roads while tangling with GT2s

That makes wierd reading exagerated by the length of the track. The gap increase/decrease always seemed very slow and steady at the time.

Right - but if I could have held that gap for most of the rest of the race, I only needed you to get in a tangle again to possibly overtake you. I know that if someone was chasing me 20 seconds back it would put more pressure on me than if someone was 30 or 45 seconds back. If we both ran clean laps with no traffic you probably had few seconds on me, but given the pit stall issue all I needed to do was beat you to a pit stop, and I would have had an instant 20-second lead. One can dream...

It was - a second here, a second there if you watched the timing displays continuously. Given the concentration required I often left the LCD page on the vehicle status display, in part to monitor my fuel but mostly just so I wasn't tempted to stare at a gap for the whole lap and run off the track as a result. When I got to the straight I would turn back to the timing page and assess the situation, and going by that method I would see the sort of big jumps that the screenshot shows.

In the opening laps using this method I could see that I could lose less than a second to Ahmad and Col. Kurtz on the GP track, and then when I got to the straight at the end of the Nordschleife I would have lost 15 or 20 seconds.

Just want to apologise for the no-show, real world issues kept me away from my PC for most of the weekend.