Well, that was a blast. Thanks!

Let me be absolutely frank. I had only two goals for the session. First, I wanted to stay on the track for the entire race. Second, I wanted to avoid ruining anyone else's race.

I should probably say that in generally, I really like to prepare. That's actually the part of racing I enjoy the best--strange I know. I like to get out on the track and run it to death. I like to be able to completely feel the car. < lying here > To a greater extent I don't even care how fast I go. </ lying here >. The fun is really in feeling the car and being in complete control.

This means, I guess, that you should be surprised that I had much fun last night. Because I rarely felt like I was in control of anything. The '63 Cobra Coupe is a heavy, lumbering beast in relation to the GPL cars I'm comfy with. Of course, it didn't help that I just installed PnG Sunday morning and that my Monday afternoon practice was impeded by what I thought at first was a sticky accelerator pedal--I kept having the throttle stick as I was lifting into the hairpins, which had me bending more metal than my fake-pit crew was comfortable with. After fiddling with it for an hour, I fell back and recalibrated it in Windows. Problem solved.

Damed Bill Gates.

Anyway, I was pleased to get on the track and settled into steady 1:25-1:26 pace that was full over-driven corners and squealing tires. One tiny off around lap 7 was the worst it got for the first third of the race, then Les caught me a little late going into the first turn and bounced out in front of me forcing me to T-bone him. I came to a full stop, but somehow the car didn't crumple too much and I motored on. No harm no foul, really. I got back to running consistent if unspectacular laps focusing only on hitting marks. My times faded as the front runners kept passing me. Actually, I kind of like being a back-marker. Allowing passes in a smooth fashion is a skill unto itself that requires trust in the other guy, and almost a special communication. You guys were great dealing with me.

While I had three little offs, I felt pretty good until about lap30 when I totally missed one of my poor braking marks and had a 5-7 second off. Oh well.

I'm looking forward to spending a full week in preparation for Spa. I'll see if I can hang with you guys a little better next week.

No promises, though. :)