USA G2: Barcelona

This one was tricky, I had originally planned to not stop, So I bolted on the hard tyres and set sail. 15 laps in I realised that the tyres were not going to make it, and decided a pit was inevitable.
Made the pit and took on a full sed of mediums, which held up better than the hards I think. Maybe because the hards werent getting up to temp, and as a result I was sliding all over. The car finished strongly, but the time I lost nursing the hards cost me some time during the middle of the race. Knowing what I know now, I should have run 2 sets of mediums.
Happy with the top 10, congrats to the podium, and Rob for the 4th, I could see you were struggling towards the end, so well done.

Awesome Race, couldn't have hoped for anything better after my Euro performance...

Grats to podium ..

Had some excellent racing, with Mark and Garret, more so in the 2nd stint with garret it was a nail biter to the finish. Good racing with you.

See you next round

well, i feel like things did'nt turn out too badly. managed to finish the race with out hurting the car too badly...lol. on the serious side, i want to say thank you to all the drivers that i managed to get in the way of. i had not raced in this series anliked the Mosler in trying to decide which car to use.proabley would have been better off in a BMW as i turned a 1;13.xx in online practice with it. anyway had a blast an hoping work schedule will allow me to make the next race.

Wasn't my night! Worked late and missed getting in any raceday practice, but made it just in time for qualifying. I was so hungry I was literally shaking and ended up almost a second of my offline Q pace, but still OK in 4th. Munched on a Clif bar during warmup hoping that would help, and then lucked into a couple of spots on lap one when others had trouble. Was still more or less waiting for the tires to warm up so I could get going when Poof! First disco I can recall in GTR2, early in lap 2 while running 2nd. Pretty awful weather here tonight, so maybe that was it. Too bad since I was itching to race!

I made A LOT of mistakes in this race -- all driver error, pretty much from start to finish.

I haven't figured out a comfortable setup for these M3's yet and the car was very loooose. But I tend to prefer a loose car but this one was a little too loose -- still most of my issues were all driver.

I was pretty lucky to come away with 4th and really had nothing to defend 2nd from Garret and Heinz.

Congrats to podium and those that finished. Job well done for my teammate Kris - hopefully the results get sorted.

Major bummer Steve, think this would have been a fun one for you.

Well, usual for me starting somewhere in the back and hanging out waiting to be lapped ;) I was attempting to not pit since that was my only hope of coming close to a top 10. After the leaders pitted, I moved on up to around 7th. With about 12 laps to go I clipped some grass and slide across the track and bam! out of the race. I feel like I could have possibly nursed a top 10 but oh well. I still had fun though.

A good night for Garret and me finishing 1-2 for CanAm Racing.

That was a tough race. All during test practice I kept monitoring the tire wear and getting not such good results. In fact I was chatting with Rob discussing that even with hards it going to be tight and tight it was. With a slight mis calc I thought I was getting worse wear using hards on the rear but it turned out they were just slightly better but not by much. I was using all the curbs I dared to, to try and help the car turn. I don't think I ever looked up to see where everyone was. All I concentrated on was listening to the tires the entire race. Ended up with a pole and win!

Again great job Garret and Heinz and was sorry to see Steve go out :-(

See you at the next one!

I am really pleased with my finish. I had struggled with a setup on the Beemer as I don't particularly care for it much. I made a decent start and had a very nice battle with Mark & Rob during the first stint. Just before pitting, I caught up to Heinz and ran a few laps behind him. We pitted together and exited together. We had an awesome battle the remainder of the last stint, nose to tail! We ran virtually the same lap times the entire stint. I was able to get around Heinz heading into T1 only because he got loose heading onto the front straight. We caught Rob with a couple to go and put him back to 4th. I somehow snagged fast lap of the race too! I don't how that happened.

Nice win Barry!

Fun race - this track is enjoyable, but not as much in nat form, skipping what is IMO the best section at Catalunya for a tire burner of a service road.

As for the 'tap' that was labeled a punt on Mr. Brennan, I find the lines and tactics used by drivers of the keys to be highly suspect as clean racing and don't think it should be permitted in a official series events.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying "your a keyboard driver and that deserves a punt" rather - should a racing series recognized and endorsed by a real racing sanctioning body allow keyboard drives to rule a line?

As for the act itself, I had an inside line, would have been in J's mirror and he came all the way from wide to curb on me at a slower pace. But I can imagine (I've never attempted to race the keys) when you're on a twitchy keyboard line, it's difficult to deviate and flow with traffic.

Interesting race. The result wasn't great, but I didn't run out of fuel and put up a couple ok laps.

While I had an off and several contacts throughout the race the biggest problem I had was fuel strategy. I somehow overestimated the fuel and what I thought was enough for almost 2/3s of the race was instead enough to get me 3 minutes from the end.

I thought about coming in earlier, but the tires felt ok(turns out they weren't) and I even dreamed that I might make the whole thing without stopping. At about 5 minutes left I realized I was going to be a little short and came in for a little fuel and soft tires. I was able to put in a few reasonably quick laps(for me), but it didn't change much.

As for the contact with Mr.Hieb, I'll admit he caught me a little unaware, I had looked back as I entered the braking zone and saw he was likely to take a position from a bmw, but making up 4-6 car lengths on a second car in the same corner seems a little optimistic, especially for the first lap which has the automatic punt rule to discourage anything too rash.

Still, there is nothing wrong with overtaking two cars, but going into the corner his car did not once pull even with me or as is normally required pull alongside my door. In fact the only point in the corner where his porsche even reached any part of my car was the moment of contact, which happened to be about 3 car lengths into said corner. I took a normal line and even left 3/4 to a full car's width available(what is required) because I'm normally a little cautious, but I still got a tap.

To be honest I didn't think all the much of it until I saw the race comment, but I would appreciate if someone would take a look at it. I doubt the actual event is a big deal to either of us, but I would like it clarified for the future.

If the corner was yours Mr. Hieb I apologize, I just seriously did not see that you had any right to the line other than you seemed to be coming in a little hot.

I'm not sure where the keyboard racing stuff comes from. I've been using a wheel since I started at r2p. I doubt I could pull a 1:15 with a keyboard let alone a 1:10. I might have looked a little twitchy in the replay, but everyone does.

Anyway, grats Barry, see you all next time.