GT4: Birmingham

Congrats to Matjaz for the great win and great time. Also to Mike & Barry on the podiums. 8/10 of a second faster than Tim’s short lived track record!

My race was terrible. Practiced in the mid 58’s then just couldn’t come to “grips” with this track to night. Couldn’t even get into the 58’s at all. Q15, finish 13. Spun on lap 2 and the rest was a lot of running alone. If not for the spins of other cars, I would have finished even worse. I sure hope I do better next race.

Congratulations Tim on a great win in the Euro round!

PB in qual but still well off Matjas pace.

Got a good start and ended up leading for a few laps until Matjas got clear of whoever he was battling with and he started gaining on me.

Once he caught me I got a little eager in the first chicane and looped it dropping back to 5th.

Caught up to Gregg Mulgrew and made another mistake tapping him into the final right hander sending him around. Waited for him to repass but he was having a little difficulty getting up to speed so I had to wait until the second straight to let him by.

Next lap or 2 I repassed Gregg and started gaining on Mike Miller. I got to about 1.5 seconds behind and made another spin. At this point it is 5 to go and I just settled into 4th but soon I saw that the gap ahead shrunk a lot and I pressed again and found the Barry was ahead now so Mike must have found a way past.

In the end, my 3 errors were just too much to overcome.

Grats to Matjas, Barry and Mike.

Sorry to Gregg for ruining your race.

First i owe an apology to Mike Campble an who ever it was that i got in the way of late in the race on the front straight. i got off in the grass an instead of backing off the gas an letting the two of them go by, i tried to come back on the track without making sure it was clear. the result was a tap from the unknown driver, which put me into a spin backwards an sliding across the track, right into mikes path. sorry to both of you, i assure you it was'nt a smart thing on my part, i should have backed off an let the two of you go by. up to that point, i actually managed to be involved in some close racing. this was a fun race an i had a blast, i am looking forward to the next race

Congrats to the podium - Matjaz was on fire.

I had very little practice for this race so I tried to stay out of the way. I had a little run-in with Robert after he was spun around & slid across the track where I was heading. Sorry Robert but... These cars can sure take a beating; they're like small little blue tanks with an attitude. Good thing I wasn't driving an rF3.

Great racing everyone - cya on track.

Congrats to Matjaz, Mike, and Barry.

My qual was not good, not sure what happened but I just couldn't find the low 58's I had the night before.

Got a good start and made up 5 spots into 6th, but then I looped it and was back in 14th. Worked my way back up into 10th, but I really just couldn't find pace. Just haven't figured out these imaginary Elises yet. BTW, the Elise has a 6 speed tranny, I would think SimBin would get those basics sorted.

Anyway, push push push, is all I can seem to make this Elise do -- after watching other top runners I can see they have figured out how to get this Elise to turn -- guess I better practice more and get a good working setup.

PRACTICE:
Woke up at 3:20 AM so I needed some practice time to open my eyes fully. It sure woke me up when my GTR crashed in the middle of practice which never happened before. Not again I said after "surfing the skies" at the start of my last race with these blue candies. I restarted and hoped for the best. Track seemed to have less grip or maybe it was just me still sleeping a bit.

QUAL:
There were 3 cars in front of me when we left the pits and I had to back down a bit to have some open space. It was not enough so I eventually did my PB despite overtaking a car so I guess those overheating soft tyres did a very good job!

RACE:
Kent was sitting alongside of me and I knew it will be very hard to stay ahead of him starting the race. I decided to use a button instead of a pedal for my clutch. I've tested it and it seems this suits me better. My start was not bad but Kent was amazing as always so in the first left corner I had the inside line but then came the second right corner and it was his to take with Mike diving in as well. I had to stay wide after hearing Mike's engine very close to me. I gave him a lot of room and tried to accelerate as hard as I could because I knew next corner is mine to take if I stay alongside of him. I even managed to clip the grass a bit exiting turn 2 but I still had enough speed to stay alongside and retake second when braking for the next left hander.

I was runing on medium tyres and Kent must have been on softs with his speed in the first 3 laps. After that my tyres warmed up and I was able to slowly come closer to Kent, observing his lines and trying to find my spot to attack him when I'm close enough. I soon realized this is going to be mission impossible without him making a small mistake and just when I got a bit closer to him he ran wide in the second to last turn and on to the dirt giving me a chance to take over his lead.

From then on it was just a matter of pushing hard and observing the standings (cheering up for my team mate Barry who was in second) and when my lead was big enough I just took it easy with overtakings the lapped cars and brought it home safely.

I extracted the max possible from my car today i think. It was a good result and it feels good to get a good result after a couple of disappointing finishes. I really enjoy these cars and feel like i have a good grasp on them. Looking back i believe i used too much wing, too long of gearing, and perhaps i was being too cautious with medium tires but i still made up for my qualifying woes and placed myself in 5th from 9th with some crafty overtaking moves. There was a few small moments there where some bumping from other people were going on but i can not complain too much.

Grats to teamie Matjaz and Mike for thier podiums.

Gave it all I had in Q but just wasn't enough and ended up in third place grid.

The race started off with some side by side racing as we all watched Kent just yank away. I was battling with Mike for the 3rd spot and finally had the chance to pass him going onto the front strait and took the posistion. On lap 4 or 5 Kent was kind enough to hand over the 2nd posistion and for most of the race that's where I stayed. I had a slight off all by myself (same place Kent did) but had enough to hang on to the posistion until the last few laps when I was coming up on traffic when he got a little sideways off the last turn. Bumped me just enough on the front to spin me around and had to give up the posistion to Mike. If we would have had just 1 more lap I may have gotten the pos back but not to happen. Ended up in 3rd place.

Was fun racing these little tanks around. Look forward to the next one.

Congratulations to all the top finishers.
I had hopes to finish near the top ten in this one but they were squashed as soon as the lights went out. It seems there was a bad start in front of me on the outside row of the grid. Barry K in front of me checked up and I slammed right in the back of him then careened into the wall. Looking at the replay I think it may have been a chain reaction from a few cars up. I got a good launch and did not have time to react; starting from mid-pack I felt that if I swerved to the left I would cause more carnage than if I just stayed straight.
So from then on I tried to catch up from last place and was doing a good job catching up pretty quickly. I had some great racing with all you guys, good clean stuff!
When I got caught up to about 14th I think, I thought that top ten would be possible as I was putting in some good laps. Then I made a big mistake going into turn 1, my adrenaline got the best of me and I downshifted twice instead of once. That brought me around pretty quick and off into the gravel I went. To top that off I tapped the wall trying too quickly get it turned around. By the time I got out and was headed back on track in the middle-inside of turn two I was going down a lap to the top few guys. After getting back on track safely my car was damaged a bit now and not handling right so I pulled into the pits and let the last few laps play out without me being a hazard on track.
So, it was a pretty bad result for me but I was pleased with my pace when racing and I hope to finish better at Zolder.

Yeah Mike,i got off pretty well but the car in front didn't.I am also hesitant in these situations to veer right or left as this may cause nasty accidents,althogh some do try that and get away with it,not always mind you.