USA nGT: Hockenheim

Not a fun race for me, too much contact from other cars and a terrible pit stop. Happy to get 12th considering everything that happened.

Wow,think i had to taks major evasive action about 4 times.One flying across track backwards,one doing a u turn in the middle of a turn,one frozen on track,Gregg blowing up just in front of me and at least one other.

Finally killed that DNF streak. Car wasnt as fast as I had hoped. I couldnt get the car up to speed during qualifying with all the traffic, so I swapped to medium hards and hope for the best. The start was scary, cars going everywere in the back o the field, some close rubbin but I survived.

Again very sry for the contact George, I got on you and gave you a shove and it sent you into a lazy spin, was definetly not intentional as I always try to wait for the right moment. My car stuck so good in that right hander before the
left leading to the straight.

Ran a full tank which slowed things down a bit but I managed to get out of the pits and close in on Kris. I had absolutely no power on the long straight killing my lap times. Kris held me off all the way to the finish chasing you down took a toll on the tires and I had nothing for you at the end.

A great race for me since the pass 4 were DNFs. Definetly a morale boost finishing a close 6th. I only wish my teamate wouldve had the same luck.

Greg loved the side by side action, I recall the last time I was hear I spent the race chasing you down.

Dont know what happened in qual, but I had yet another CTD, and only just rejoined in time as the session clicked over. I somehow ended up starting in 4th, when at last look I had qualified 8th.
Gt a poor start, but took it easy anyway, and settled back into 8th where I figured I should have been.
My no tyre strategy paid off, altho I was uncertain whether I was going to actually stick with at the start, by the time I had to pit, I knew I had to, and realised the tyres were holding up ok.
I left the pits just in front of Aaron, and watched as he closed the gap lap after lap, untill finally with about 6 laps to go he was all over my mirrors. I did my best to hold him out, but was sure he would get through. I was concentrating that hard on keeping him at bay, that before I knew it the chequered flag was out, and I only had 1/2 a lap to go. I found myself counting down the corners and finally took a breath when I crossed just in front of him.
Full credit to Aaron, clean as a whistle, even tho he was quicker than me. Not once did I have to worry about making contact, as he gave plenty of room where needed.
Congrtas to the podium, a big well done to team mate Rob for securing max points for the round. All in all, a pretty good result for Team Venom.
Congrats to Kent and Steve also, great result for a tough race.

Pretty decent result but this event left me with a sour taste in my mouth.

Qual, I set my time lap one with cold tires and I really didn't even have a good lap. Lap 2 I was already -.3 on my lap when I encountered a lagging car. After 1 lap with 3 contacts and dropping back about 5 seconds I set off again only to catch the lagging car again finally getting slammed off the track. So my starting position was really not a reflection of what the car was capable of.

Race, I got a nice start and passed Kris Trott straight away and got to Steve Blankenships door into T1, we had a little contact but Steve kept it straight, whew no drive thru.

I settled into 5th chasing Steve when he had a little mistake and I got by. Steve was feeling the pressure from Johnny Guetierrez and I had a little breathing room. That is until I caught a lapped car early heading into the hairpin. In typical fashion, expecting the lessor experienced driver to be too late on his braking I went very deep into the corner hoping to give plenty of room. Well it wasn't and I got spun losing positions to both Steve and Johnny.

Somewhere in there Barry got a disco and I found myself in 4th. Later before the pit stops, Johnny made a mistake and I got past him and closed right up to Steve again before I dove in to pit while running 3rd.

Rob was already there and due to all my lost time with hte spin I decided to not take tires knowing on this track I would give up time on the track. Much to my surprise I left before Rob and had a nice 8 second gap and soon found myslef leading after the rest pitted.

Then I came out of the hairpin and saw a car blow up ahead, figuring he was so far up the track I just drove into the smoke. Then I realizd he was still on the race line as I caught him so I went right, and of course so did he? Why not just exit stage left and not jepordise anyone elses race?

Anyway I lost over 3 seconds to Rob as I avoided that car and then Rodrigo rejoined the track right in front of Barry Kennedy, Barry hit him and Rodrigo was all over the track, I nearly got collected there and lost another 2 seconds to Rob.

Knowing Rob had fresh tires when he caught me I didn't put up much of a fight and later flashed him past. Johnny was back there and was driving hard to catch me but again he must have made a mistake and then given up because the gap began to grow after that.

My apologies to Maciej for my being mouthy in the ingame chat, however you must understand that in GTR2 if you join a session in progress that nobody can see your car until they enter the garage, at lest that is the way I have my game configured. So if/when I kept running into you it was simply because I could not see your car and felt no contact. Clearly I would never intentionally run into anyone, furthermore in qual session I would have backed off and gapped to you so that neither of us would be distracted by the other.

I joined the server late and didnt have enough time to do a good lap. Fortunetly i was able to get second place so it was good result at the end. I understand now Kent that you simply didnt see me thats why the thing happnened well this is only a game :) I had a great first half of the race my car was perfect to drive i had a great buttle with Rob and he defended his position great as i was a bit faster than him. I stayed three laps longer on the track than Rob and i was doing good laps but surprisigly after my pitstop i was way behind him so that was very weird. THen i had some issues with backmarkes and that was it lost a chance to win this one. By the way i think some of you guys should be checking your mirrors because you were under blue flags and you didnt respect that. Apart from that it was a good race and congr to a podium!!!

Not a great race for me. During practice I actually got into the mid 40s and was fairly pleased, but it all started going wrong during qualy. I never got in a real lap, I spent the entire time dodging lagging cars, but I'm sure the same was true for most so I didn't worry about it too much.

I got an ok start, but once I got past a couple cars there was a huge gap to the leaders that seemed just way too open. As I got closer several cars just appeared in front of me. One spun, and I ran into it, but didn't realize how much I had damaged the front from the contact. I got a tap from behind a little later in the lap, but I think it was partly my fault. The car in front went into the corner a lot slower than I was expecting so I slowed pretty abruptly just to be cautious on the first lap.

Had some interesting racing for a while after that. It was close, but no one seemed to be making a clean pass no matter the differential in pace. I have to apologize to Ryan though. I rammed him right off the track. I wasn't trying to pass or anything, I just had a little system hiccup, I'm not sure why and was still accelerating well past my braking point. I took a drive thru, but that doesn't do much for him if his car was damaged badly.

Most of the first stint was pretty close racing so I hadn't realized that my lack of pace was largely coming from quite a bit of dmg on the nose. I had already decided ahead of time that I wasn't going to repair, so I automatically cancelled it, and only then saw the physical extent of it during the stop when the camera shifted.

The rest of the race was pretty quiet, but I never got anywhere near the pace I was running during practice with race fuel and tires.

About ten or so spots better than last nGT race here, so no complaints. Still have some trouble spots at this track I just haven't gotten sorted, so I knew I wouldn't be able to compete up at the front but figured if I didn't make any big errors it might go alright.

Qualy was a bit messy. Had traffic in my first stint when my tires were good; just how it goes sometimes. So I ducked back into the pits for fresh tires and tossed in just enough fuel for a warmup and a flyer. Barely got it in and managed to squeak a 4th which I was OK with, but felt like a left nearly half a second undone. C'est la vie...

Race was pretty straightforward, aside from a couple of blunders. Got away OK and eased into the first lap, with only a bit of rubbing from Kent on my inside at T1 to show for it - no harm done, just a little nudge. Nearly hosed it on lap 2 though, when I noticed my XD display was missing. Almost ran off the track like an idiot looking for it, then missed my braking point and lost a spot to Kent while trying to turn XD back on in what was a really dumb place to do it - should've just waited for the straight. Lost a bunch of momentum doing that, so when Johnny got to me as a result I pulled over and let him go by. It was early enough that I'd have felt bad holding him up for such a stupid reason. ;-)

Followed him and Kent after that until Johnny spun off of T2 several laps later, then got by Kent when he got punted by a lapped car braking into the hairpin. Hated to see that, since it was so pointless. That had me up to 4th, then somewhere in there poor Barry discoed. I felt for him, having had it happen to me recently - sucks!

So that had me up to 3rd, and I could see Rob and Maciej running in close formation up ahead. No way I was getting any of that action, so I just tried not to muck up what I had. Got a little conservative and along with some traffic, that had Kent back on my tail until he pitted.

I was planning to stop on lap 23 and take no tires, and for once managed to stay on plan. Stop went OK, but I came out in 4th with Kent about 4-5 seconds ahead. Turns out my pit lap was 8 seconds slower, despite almost speeding going in and taking less fuel. Along with a couple seconds lost to getting loose on the lap before my pit, that meant ten seconds down the tube and a podium chance lost, until Maciej had his problems.

Tried to close up to Kent and did manage to get a few tenths back, but then got out of shape once or twice and pissed the tires off, so I figured the thing to do was manage the gap back to Johnny and just get it home where I was since the chance of catching, let alone passing, Kent was close enough to nil to be indistinguishable.

Made for a less exciting finish than some others have been, but nice to get a podium, even if it was down to bad luck for some others. WD to Rob & Kent!

Wow, what a race. Got lucky in avoiding most of the carnage -- some close calls, but came out ok.

I was happy with Qual time, ran pretty much exactly what I ran testing the day before 1.39.5 -- wasn't sure if that would hold up but I took my 3 laps and was done...waited and watched. Steve let me by on the out lap in qual, not really sure why, I had actually plan to try and use him for a good draft ... :) I figured Steve would be fast so I figured we could probably help each other out...but not to be.

Got a good start, but Maciej stayed with me -- some parts of the track I was faster, some parts he was faster. But I couldn't really gap him -- and it made for a very fun and intense battle. Maciej had some different lines and approaches which was very interesting to observe -- a good learning experience.

After going over my lap times and looking at the Euro lap times, I opt'd for a mid race stop and take on new rubber. I was able to run 1.3 secs a lap faster on good rubber so with 17 or so laps post pit I figured that would be a better strategy.

I saw Kent do a quick stop and figured no tires for him. Per traffic issues I was able to catch Kent quickly. With my fresh rubber, Kent gave me the position in a very gentleman move - thank you Kent!

I fully expected Maciej to come out in front after his stop as my stop was definitely not a fast one at 57 secs. To my surprise I had about 10 secs on Maciej.

After all the incidents on track, the rest of my race was pretty uneventful.

Congrats to Kent and Steve and big congrats to my teammate Kris for his excellent result that really helps the team along.

Cant believe i missed this race .... probably the highlight track of the season for me :( Damn work!