USA G2: Birmingham

Nice Job there Heinz....Series Champ! yeah!

I didn't even remember I had signed up for this one, went to check email and BANG - 2 minutes to Quali -grab what was the only M3 in the garage file and lowered the gearing 1 click and put on the softies!
I was quite happy for not turning one practice lap here and fell into 8th P.

The race was quite boring unfortunately, after I got around Garret it was 34 laps of...well, laps. I have to say, I love this race track and in another league I must have put a thousand laps in this place , so I was very comfortable as soon as I hit the asphalt, concrete and runoffs!

Congrats to Stve on his first place finish and Heinz(mika)for his Championship!!!

Quite a disappointing season finale to a great season, for me. I drove like a goober, making too many mistakes to diserve to finish ahead of Heinz and take the championship.

The first couple of corners, Rob and I were side-by-side and we were banging doors a little bit. I think I turned down on him while I was on the outside of T2 and sent myself deep into the kitty litter on the outside of the track. I rejoined in 9th and was battling with some of the guys back there when I made another mistake and spun around backwards in the last corner. I had to fight my way back from 16th. Thankfully some people decided that a 1-stop strategy was the right way to go, or else I would have barely made the top 10. Rob came back from a 18 second gap and was right back on my bumper in the last corner of the last lap; had we had one more lap, I'd have been screwed.

HUGE congrats to Heinz on the driver's championship. You deserve it buddy, you held us up this season. And congrats to CanAm Racing for keeping MOB/APR on our toes all season long :D

Congrats to the podium and Heinz for the series win.

Well with about 3min left in quals i was in 10th and then gtr decided to crash, luckly i got back in before the race started but once again i was at the back of the pack. maybe not a bad thing with all the spun out cars in the first few turns.

Had a little bump with Tim Ricketts Jr when he started going sideways, sorry Tim. I had been trying to pass for a lap or two, but Tim was fighting a few of us off.

Race went well, fuel was good, i wasent expecting to pit but with about 15min left the tires were pretty shot, felt like a new car with some fresh rubber. I also kept it between the lines, for the most part anyway, plus i actually got to do some racing!

thanks guys
looking forward to S9

Thanks Guys

Well done to Tomo for helping me get this Team championship, aswell as being a top driver and teammate this season.. What a season! Congratulations

This Was a very interesting season, When the Seat was available for the top 5, I did not think it was that powerfull as a car, but thank goodness alot better than the mosler and the morgan.

I had some outstanding battles this season, and nothing could have complimented it more than having my nemisis Steve B hounding me the second half of the race after getting passed Rob A. Unfortunatly he had the better car, and after a couple DNF's finished on a high.. Well done

the car was horrrible in the last 6 or so laps, tyres were so far gone, but luckily had a nice gap to the rest of the field to work with and see out the season with a podium and the drivers and Team championship..

Wooohoooooo

Well done to all this season. Great job with a podium aswell Gregg :) way to go

Grats to Heinz and the MOB team! Well done guys.

This was my first time at Birmingham and my first time in the Seat. Not a good combo for the end of the season finale and it showed. I had horrible tire wear and stopped to take on tires (always a mistake in this series). I wound up putting in fuel as well to add insult to injury. I wound up in 11th, out of the top 10 for quite a few races unfortunately.

This was one of the most brutal season series I've had here at R2P. I started the season with a disco at the first race and struggled to get up to the sharp end of the points all season. I had a few races where I became a victim of circumstances, adding to my points deficit. I had to miss the Imola event as well. All the while, Heinz and TomO were putting on the miles in the Seat figuring that beast out! So, I'll take my fourth in the series with pride and hope to you all in S9.

Thanks to Tim and crew for putting on yet another fine season!

Ditto to everyone's congrats to Heinz, Tom and MOB - well done guys.

Nice to be able to get out and scrap with you guys again; between the season schedule and too many DNFs from blown engines and/or discos, that's been a rare treat of late. Hope S9 brings more opportunities like last night!

Mucked up my qualy a little by jumping straight in cold with no evening practice, but I doubt I'd have made much ground anyway since a 21.6 was the best I'd seen offline. Killer job in the Seat, Heinz.

I was a bit concerned about being near the front for the race since I'd split the points contenders, so I eased it into T1 letting Tom get clear on the outside. Unfortunately he soon had his contact with Rob and that was that - looked really odd since they barely touched but he shot off track like it was a good whack. Netcode...

After that I had good dices with both Rob and Heinz (as always with those guys!), but it pretty much came down to tires, I think. We all were really close on pace, but it looked like Rob's and Heinz's tires went away earlier than mine. Even mine were well toasted by 2/3 distance, as I was getting tire warnings with 15 minutes to go. I'd chalk that one up to GTR2-XD since it let me know how to tweak the setup to even out my tire wear. Didn't take much of a change, but maintaining the balance as the grip goes away makes a real difference in the second half of these races.

See ya's next season!

That was a blast, wasn't sure what pit strategy to use this race and thought I had picked the better strategy to make it a 1 stopper as I knew when these tires get the "worn message" they drop 3+ seconds a lap. It is a LONG pit lane, but I figured if I could get the stop done in 30 secs (tires only), I would be good.

Qual was ok, felt I could have done better, but Heinz put in a great qual time in the SEAT. I'm not good with BMW setups yet, still haven't figured how to make it work for me -- I know it should be faster than the SEAT. I had too much understeer with my setup (probably why I burned off the fronts tires to early).

I couldn't see the starting lights on the grid, so I was just kinda waiting for the DX timer to start as my queue to go -- not the best way to start a race and it made way for Tom and I to fight for T1 and T2. I didn't feel any contact with Tom in T2 and had kept a tight inside line, didn't push out -- but I saw his car suddenly dart off track - very strange. Guess it must have been the GTR predictive network code when it needs to calculate where a car is but doesn't have current data to do so and estimates position based on prior known data.

So I was having a good time behind Heinz, not trying to burn up my tires but Steve was looming. Heinz visited the grass but kept his foot in it -- I had my opportunity to pass but it would have been a high risk move and it was still pretty early in the race. But now Steve was on my bumper so I had to run a defensive line -- we rubbed a little which gave Heinz a good gap -- Steve let me repass after the contact, but to be honest it was just side by side racin' and I was ok with Steve taking the spot, but he waited. Steve eventually did get by again and I could see he was able to drop the gap to Heinz.

It was about time for me do my pit stop -- so once again I flubbed with the pit limiter (kept hittng the button but it would not engage, finally it did). So pit stop is already going wrong, then I arrive at my pit stall -- it should have been just a tire change as I had enough fuel for race distance...well my crew wanted to give me fuel, ugh -- they insisted on it!!! I didn't have my ignition off or anything since I thought it was gonna be just tires (per what it showed on my pit board) -- so I wait and wait and wait and wait for fuel to go in...finally got out the pits giving my crew the finger for stupidity. By now Heinz and Steve had lapped me and I was in 10th place thanks to a 2 minute pit stop.

Drove like a mad man, was able to unlap myself on new rubber (but was very heavy on fuel I didn't need) and even posted fastest lap of the race, but it was a futile battle. I was hoping to catch Tom for 6th but I needed one more lap.

But congrats to Heinz, Steve, and Gregg and all the finishers. Great job with the Championship Heinz, well deserved.

:P Rob ... i hinted about that pitstop dude :) :)