GP79: Road America

What a race! Sheesh
I felt I had a small advantage over Chris, who got ahead after Turn 1 (I think it was) so I just sat in behind to see what he could do where. Seeing it was a long race I expected I could pass at some stage and pull away then anyway, so there was no rush.

Lap 2 (?) was a hair raiser when I braked early chasing Chris for Turn 3 but still came blitzing in very close to Chris's rear wing so I had to veer left to avoid a hit and that slid me around the turn in a big rally drift!
So a few laps needed to regain that bigger gap then. Which was more good clues on what advantage I had up my sleeve.

More sitting in behind and chasing, but then I was seeing Chris's car 'jumping' - sometimes left... right.. even into the air up the crest of the main straight! And my lap time timer kept changing the times of Chris ahead, or cars behind, so I then knew something was going whacky in my internet connection!
So I decided to sit back of Chris and await a bigger error to allow an easy pass, so that I would not need to be "near" him and the dodgy data I was seeing visually.

I forget where, but about half race he made a bigger slip up so I went for the run past. But I could not get clear of him anywhere near as far as I thought it was going to so he was very close behind coming down the back 'straight' run. But my timer said some 'no time' garbage so I didn't know the real time gap, and in mirrors he was close! So I braked early to hold a run right around the inner curbing, in case he came in deeper past my left, and then BAMMM I was shunted right off the curb and just banged the wall after the gravel trap! (the gravel traps that don't slow you at all for this track! lol)

A bad steering pull to the right from suspension damage, so I had to limp to the pits for a 41sec stop (plus limping in and out time!). It had allowed all cars still running to pass me and was a bit over 1 minute to the leader. So that was going to be impossible to regain!
Plus repairs are half useless and the steering was still way off straight, plus the car pulled and kicked under braking or power. Which a lap or so later helped me to slip off the track and hit the left side front, which actually damaged the left but evened out the problem to a far better degree anyway! So after that 'adjustment' I could run very good laps again!

One bad thing about LeoFFB (and Realfeel too?) is that if you damage the suspension you really get to know and feel about that notably!!!

It took another 5 or more laps to get used to the quirks of the car and then I resumed full pace pretty much. Though the timer kept going nuts about what time gaps there were, and even who was where.

Many small to medium difficulty times with the quirky car, over all the laps, cost me a fair bit of time every now and then, which ended up really costing me in the end as I caught Barrett on the last lap (He in 2nd) and then had to push to the max in the 2nd last chance run to possibly pass (back straight) where I then lost the rear end and slid around and that was the end of that idea! 3rd was it then.

I expect the hit from Chris was LAG effect, because of all the other whacky things I was seeing happen between us, so he probably didn't even do anything 'wrong' in the area but maybe my car 'jumped' to him, like his had been doing to me when I was chasing him.
Something was definitely amiss in the internet today!

Well I was clearly off the pace today... was doing similar times to the ones Peter was doing online... but mine were offline and without any pressure. Today I was really feeling sleepy... slept like 4 hours the night before and race was here at 3:30 PM, right after a meat loaded lunch... damn it was tough to race like that... after Chris and Peter had problems (they were much quicker than me) I had to keep Barret behind... and it was not easy since in the last laps I was really falling asleep, only thing that woke me up for real was seeing Barrett in my mirrors.

Anyway Barret did pass me with 5 laps to go I believe but it was easy to pass him afterwards sinde my Renault was a loooot faster on the straights and I sensed Barrett just wanted to finish without any issues... he was more of expecting me to defeat myself (not a bad strategy!!!).

I was in the same mode as Barret, finish the darn race since i have a lot of problems in that area, didn't know what is wrong with the mod, but, the fuel was telling me 40 laps and i was around 12 laps short???????? came in pits and it didn't allowed me to put fuel in??????????? i guess they didn't refuel in 79, so end of it, but i will be ready for next race in my hometown(Trois-Rivieres), tough narrow, short, slow track, with walls close, and i m expecting to finish with bent suspension or worse...that is if i finish!!!! i guess everybody will be very cautious...
seeya

Well i was a bit disappointed with Qualifying, but the race made up for it.

The track in Q seemed much slicker than the track in practice. So i had to add even more wing to my already high downforce setup.

My strategy was, as Emilio said, to stay on the track and just run consistent laps as quickly as i comfortable could while the rest of the field tried to be fast. Basically that's been my approach to all of these races, since i never seem to find the time to get enough practice in, and these cars are so much different than the others i race here.

Luckily i know this track really well.

And the race went really well for me. I even had my brief moment of glory when Emilio had some troubles and i took the lead for a half-lap or so. I knew it wouldn't last of course, and just to prove the point, Emilio sliced the gap from 3 seconds to about 1.5 on the front straight alone. Then i made my only mistake of the race and went into T1 just a tad too quick and dropped two wheels off. I was at T3 before i could actually get the other two back on the surface and by then Emilio was right there and simply blew by on corner exit.

But it was Peter, who really concerned me, as he came from yesterday to within a few seconds by the last lap. If he hadn't pushed it just a bit too much it may have been pretty close at the finish line.

As always, great fun guys!