GTC-West Oschersleben

Again, no DNFs

[Edit by TM - This is completely out of line Bobby]

As far as my race goes, i had a great fight with Gregg Mulgrew, for about 7 laps. Was catching him on the turns, but his corner exits were good and he was running less wing so i couldnt catch on a straight. Didnt even touch him Darin, i was 3 tenths behind him for 7 laps and he was 2 seconds slower than me. I thouroughly enjoyed it, 8th place wasnt that bad after all :)

Congratulations to the podium, with claus wiping everyone out big time!

No DNF's is cool! We need to get Sir Pete in here. Maybe his luck will change. LoL

Woot! Great race. I really like Oschersleben but I REALLY wish this place had at least ONE flippin' passing zone! There is absolutely none here....Nonetheless, it was a great race :).

Qual went really well and was able to get 2nd and be the only other driver with a 1.25...along with, of course, Claus :P.

Before the race started, I tweaked my setup a bit and got it working real well in warm-up. Unfortunately, it was slightly tighter than I wanted it to be and I knew for sure it would haunt me during the race....still went with it through.

The start of the race was real clean despite the first two turns being real tough to get side by side. I was able to clear the rest of the pack behind and trail Claus closely for a few laps. Of course, he pulled away rather quickly and found myself alone to race the track. About 3/4ths of the way through my stint (I was doing the "alien pit strategy" :P), my tires were just gone, which slowed me down and allowed Sam to catch up a bit. The stops came before he got to me, however, so I was safe for a little bit.

After the two consecutive stops that I did, I found myself behind Sam, probably because of his awesome stops :). I caught up to him really quickly since my car just felt awesome. This began a battle that lasted all the way to the end of the race; 20 laps of nose-to-tail racing and it was all great :). I knew for sure that I was faster than Sam because I had to let off a lot going through corners so I wouldn't run into him (I wasn't going to punt him for a second time in a row in two races ;P). However, there was absolutely no place to attempt a pass on him because this track is so narrow and the corners themselves are designed in a way that just prevents overtaking :S. So, I just glued myself to his bumper the whole time waiting for him to make a mistake. I also hoped that traffic would come to us so as to slow him down and possibly allow me to pass him on a straight. Unfortunately, because much of the traffic was on the other pit strategy, they were either as fast or faster than us because of our worn tires. So, we were in our own little world to say the least and never really ran into traffic the rest of the race. Anyway, once again, about 3/4ths of the way through the final stint, my car really tightened up and I found it harder and harder to keep up with Sam. Every now and then, he would make a little mistake off a corner and allow me to close in, but for the rest of the race I was never able to get to his bumper and eventually, I just ran out of rubber and talent :(.

3rd place is very nice when running in a race like that. Very pleasurable, Sam :). Great racing with ya!

Took a look at the standings and saw that the top 4 are all within 20 pts of each other and closing. Its going to be an interesting end to the season :).

Late signup I saw there was still spots so I figured might have some beemer action, luckily my generic setup worked well after tweaking the gears abit, car felt good had no idea how well the tires would hold.
Race got clean underway, I managed to slowly increase the gap in the opening laps, then around lap 10 the rate started getting bigger and around lap 14 or so I suddenly have 10s, at that point tires still feels ok, but I decide to do the "pussy"-strategy and pit twice for 4 tires. Had no clue how it would pan out but got out in 6th again on fresh tires, Dean who was in 5th right in front even gave me spot for free (thx) and soon the other guys in front pitted so I just pushed max till the next stop, after the midway stoppers Conor and Krue had pitted I had 45s lead figured it would be enuff, but close, turned out there were a bunch of drivers on the safe strategy with 4 tires occupying the next few position so when I pitted second time I had a min to spare, so my hurry wasn't needed and came out again with a good lead on new tires.

Wow , that was mentally hard race , for some reason i have had problems with every class i run here in Oschersleben with GTR2. Very hard to find a balanced setup and again i had some troubles with the long slow turns.

Qualified 3rd with a medicore lap and start went cleanly , had a good getaway but there is no room for moves here without mistakes from others and i settled in for 3rd place.

Barry H in 4th place kept me company while Claus J and Conor McC stormed away in lead , halfway of the stint i could make some gap to Barry H and started to catch Conor a bit , but there was still 3 seconds between us when the halfway point of the race was closing. Decided to pit in early on lap 19-20 , hoping to gain some time there and when the doublestops were over i had snatched the 2nd place from Conor.

I knew it wouldn't take long for him to catch me and tbh i felt like a sitting duck there in the early parts of the 2nd stint :P. This track doesn't give much chance for overtaking thou and i did all i could do to guard those inside lines on every long corner.

Problem for doing that is , that it will hurt the laptimes and makes the turns really slow to go through.

Conor did a great job to keep it close but clean , i allmost felt shame to be so slow in many corners , but it was all i could do to defend my position and it must have been a bit frustrating to follow my slow butt there.

Last laps were a bit easier when both had worn tires and Conor couldn't attact with full force anymore , but the pressure was on into the last corner.

Great stuff Conor , fully restored my trust to you , if there ever even was any doubt :)... Very patient and clean driving...thx mate 8).

Happy to take the 2nd place after dificult race again here in Oschersleben ,once again Claus was completely on a class of his own , ending up 40+ secs ahead of the rest of us :o ... damn mate , have some mercy :p :D. Big grats for the true alien pace and for another solid win :).

Thanks all again and cya in next one... ;)

-----
Samuel

Far from a good race for me, no practice and had to grab a "online" setup. First time I had to start from dead last, but knew it was the right place to be.
Race begins, I start to get a feel for the car, next thing I know I hear, "your tires are worn" huh, I 'm like I just got out here. Forgot to change tire setup to mediums. duhooo
Bobby, I must say i also enjoyed the 7 -8 laps we ran together, I wasn't really sure if I should have stayed in that battle or not, It was for position I know, but I did not want to hold anyone up that was really competing for a top spot. I was just so far off the pace.
For the rest of the race it was like a practice session for me which just never really improved, so long Oschersleben....
Tommy G, a friendly suggestion, read the blog regarding aggressive driving bud, I have driven with you a few times but that was overkill on the first lap, constructive criticism you know :)

It really sucks to see CJ so much when you know your not even close to first place position, great driving top 3
and the rest of the field. Yeah no DNF's again.

The "O",
Well after testing the night before every conceivable option for set-ups i stuck with my first one, which was fast the first 10 laps of each stint, well at least for me :) after that it fell off, but, when I hit "My Pitbox" I noticed what the password was, Holy Sheit! Sports Illustrated curse on my doorstep, I got onto TS and asked why?????? Why??????? Why????? Does Tanya harding comes to mind? :) I hit the track for my first laps and lay up my first 26, then every friggin body else does also :( so there goes my hope of being near the front, We go to qualy, as usual i screwed up qualy, I had some serious lag coming out of T10 all the way thru the front and i hit Dean S right after the SF line, sry bud, Race starts got a bad launch, Sports Illustrated playing into the mix nicely, after some laps i get my way back up to 7th, as i am exiting T2 I get spun, nice gesture on the spinner to wait, but unfortunately that move cost both of our chances of finishing well, I was hit a few more times in T2 but kept it under control. I had many battles but the most memorable was with Dean, I tried and tried for 6 laps to get past him in my second stint and finally got him in T3, I was able to pull away all the way thru the balance of that stint, I exit the pits and work my way up to 5th, then the Ultimate curse, the flicks after the Mcdonalds curve, I lose it, I squared off the car for a full impact, and to my amazement its still running :) I get out of the play box in 10th and who is in 9th? Dean, Ahhhh, Thats my position buddy :) You can't have it :) I hunt him down @ 0.5 per lap for 10 laps, ride his bumper like i tied a chain to it and he finally bobbles, I take the 9th and call it the day.

BTW...I think we need to start the naming rights beginning with the GTNDC guys :)

Great Race to all and Claus,

From my perspective, there seemed to be a little too much defensive driving going on, meaning using the two available lines for yourself and allowing nothing for anybody else, other than that Awesome!!!

Wow, that was a tough race. Holy smokes. I was chasing or being chased the entire time! Totally stressed out. And on top of that, I have to contend with my team-mate ramming me at every opportunity! LOL. Just kidding Jeff. :)

Spent several laps duelling with J. Mueller in the first half, and then several laps with B. Mueller in the second! :) Great fun guys. Too bad I drove myself off the track both times. Doh!

The last 8 laps or so were extremely intense. Saved the best for last. Bill and I chased down Bobby, while Jeff crept up behind me. For the last 3-4 laps we were all within spitting distance. Cool. That was when my second off came, and I gave it up to Jeff. Dang-it-all.

Probably one of the most fun races here in a while. And I finished 10th! LOL. That must say good things about the racing here huh?

Grats to the podiums for sure...I didn't even see you guys lap me! :)

Good Race.
ANother dissapointing finish, but fun race for me.... Some good battles throughout but I loose 3-4 spots in pits in the last 3 gtc races, horrible. Lost one spot at the end because tires were worn so I let the next guy by. Oh well just need to practice turning out carbon copy laps and get setup tweaked to do that with ease.

J Stibling... T Harding quote ??? Nice!

Good Race, see you next time.