GTC-West Estoril

Congrats to Claus, Conor and Krueger in that order and to everybody that came out tonight. I was hit and punted to last from 9th. This has happened a lot lately and it sure sucks. In the end my poor finishes are my own fault. Like pitting 3 times! This was not my stradegy. I think the key to having a good result is experience. It's just going to take time to put it all together. I'm still having fun! Thanks guys...

Grts to CJ , you sure can do back to back stoppers too it seems :D ,nice pace again.

My race was a bit compromised coz i had to take a nap before the race and didn't have any setup. Tried to make one earlier , but kept on falling a sleep while in the garage page so i gave up and took 1.5 hour naps instead LOL.

Took a F360 setup and tweaked the gears a bit , then did couple of laps before Q. In qualifying i used the same setup and soft tires , but car was too loose to get any decent time.

Ended up 5th and that was pretty much the decisive moment in my race ... when do i learn to pay more attention to qualifying setups... :S.

After following David for few laps, one car dropped out from the lead pack and we went up a place. Couldn't find way around him and had some probs with the heavy car too , got a bit too close there few times and gave atleast one bump to David ,sorry .

Finally find my way through on T1-T4 when David started to have some serious tireprobs. Conor had allready build a 11 seconds gap and was running away , but for some reason i could gain close to 8 seconds(i think) in pits and i was back in the fight again.

2nd real stint was a bit better and i could keep on the same pace than Conor , later on the stint i spend some time behind David again and Conor got away a bit.
Then with a little help from David and from Conors small off , i was closing in again , but my tires were allready in pretty bad shape coz of the hard chase.

After several laps chase we were nose to tail , tried few moves but Conor was defending the 2nd place with determination and i had to back off every time.

Tried one last late charge , but racelaps run out and Conor got the 2nd place by couple of hundred of a seconds :o... close but not enough ;).

There was some rubbing again from my part , ended up a bit too close to comfort on couple of occations...nothing major hopefully , but sorry anyway Conor.

Didn't go as i was hoping for , but the championship fight was allready pretty theoretical , only a DNF can change things anymore. Nice run there Conor , was fun to battle it out again :D.

Thx all and cya in season finale ;) ...

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Samuel

Well, i was running very strong but strategy bit me again. i didn't even think of the funky pitstop thing you guys were doing which cost me a ton of time. and no worries Sam, it was a little tap, i didn't feel a thing :)

I dunno if i will make another one of these, so good luck at the season finale.

This was tough, got off a plane 2 hours earlier from a grand prix weekend with friends, grabbed some set-up and took some laps, the tire wear was decent, so I went with it, qualy went as my usual.

Race starts and I got a good launch, much side by side going thru T1 and 2, then I got a good run on barry took the inside line into 3 and he turned into me, sry, I waited and we continued working out way back up thru the field, I ran as high as 4th and was very happy with my tire wear and adjusted my strategy to accommodate my savings, my pits went on target without snafus but needs more improvement, Overall I had a great race considering the circumstances and grats to claus.

I would like to say 1 thing, this is spec racing, you lose a spot you lose it, you must find a way to make it up, there was a car that insisted on using the entire road the entire lap, and this happened twice in two different spots and once I was nearly punted into the rail, I was forced to dive bomb this car against my will, but when you ( any person) see your counter clicking down 3 seconds per lap, meaning the car behind you, what makes a person think he can just do whatever it takes to keep you behind is beyond me, you have got to show the courtesy and let them by and continue your own race.

I really think we should bring back the names of drivers for the password :)

arg, stupid controller issues. after qual, i exited to reset the controller, and could not get back in.

oh well, there is always the next race

Well, I said the next race would be better, and it seems I wasn't kidding! Haha. What a race. That was totally fun from beginning to end.

Managed to jump up to 6th in only a few turns. Too bad two of those spots were team-mates. :( Inquiry to come. Ended up behind Garry as we both went around them and I was just thinking about following for a while. But since my car had actually "come alive" in this session, I could not stay there for long! He went wide into next corner and I was gone. Caught and settled in behind Sam and David after that and we started to leave the field behind.

I was really pushing hard in the first stint. Having Sam and David right there was good motivation I tell ya. Hoping to keep them in sight until my stops, I was determined to keep up. Couple times I could have actually went for the gap on David, but thought better of it. Glad I did because a few laps later David's tires must have been shot, as his pace dropped off dramatically. Made a couple of attempts and then finally got one to stick. Awesome! That doesn't happen everyday! hehe.

Pulled into pits for my first stop and Conor and Sammy were still there. Wow. Great. I had the last stall before the exit too, so not sure if that helped, but I did 2 quick stops, and came out just behind them after they were all done. On schedule me thinks!

Re-entered the track behind Bill and pressured the hell out of him until he went wide too. That left me in 7th I think with nobody else in sight. Those buggers were really pulling away now. lol. Kept on it though and advanced back up to 4th 1 spot at a time. Each time I passed the pits that is.:)

Pretty much stayed that way till the end except I almost goofed up. With 10 laps(or so I thought) to go, and 12 sec gap to 5th, I quickly worked out how much I could ease up to conserve fuel. I still had good tires, and hoped the chasing car didn't. But it almost backfired when the race went to 38 laps instead of 36? (on my counter anyway)! Those last two laps were interesting to say the least.

With the names on the podium (Grats BTW), 4th is pretty much a win for me! "happy times!"

Great racing from everyone that I saw. Good job guys. Looks like all the Can-Am boys did OK today too. WTG teammies

First congrats to the top 4, Dean being so excited, (which I would be to), I want to include him in the Cheers!! yeah Dean.
Now, there is only one thing I am going to say..."how can I finish 2 races at Estoril back to back in 13th?? What is going on, am I really jinxed?
I had a couple of race encounters but more like hotlaps for the most part. No setup for this car tonight, just dragged something from the "online" resources, worked ok.
I think the best part was when CeeJay passed me like a F14, I literally saw him for about 2 seconds...damn.
See ya at the finale.

LOL. Thx Gregg.
Funny what you said. I noticed another replay from here while saving this one. I came in 4th in that one too.

Co-incidence?

..........cue eerie music.

First off, grats to Claus. I knew I had to settle for 2nd or worst when you signed up ;). Absolutely dominant :). Second, I want to give props to Sam for another another close race to the end. This is the 3rd race in a row that we have had a battle to the finish but this time, the roles were reverse ;).

Quite honestly, I was struggling with the car's handling for most of the weekend. Didn't get the feel that I wanted until the practice right before qualifying. Qual itself was a little disappointing as I just went out for one hotlap and ended up settling for a time 3 tenths slower than Claus....which I guess is pretty damn good.

I got a good start at the beginning of the race but going into turn 1, Maciej got under me and I had to give up 2nd to avoid creating crash. I followed him for a few laps as Claus drove away and the guys behind me fell back. After a while, I started pressuring Maciej quite a bit and out of nowhere, he gives up the spot to me, which kinda surprised me, but I appreciated it :). I just continued my pace after that and pulled away from him. No way was I catching Claus so I just cruised for the most part to the first pit stop.

After the stops, Sam was able to close in a bit but was still about 8 or so seconds back. I started setting off my fastest laps and then had a brain fart going into turn 4; tried to take the corner in 3rd gear while I should have been in 2nd....and I went off because of it. This allowed Sam to close up right on me and the battle ensued. Initially, I had the upper hand and was able to pull away from him, but fatigue settled in and I started becoming more sloppy which allowed him to close up. I had to use some blocking moves to keep him behind me which kept him back, but never let me pull away.

For the last 10 min, he was right on my bumper, putting the pressure on....exactly the opposite situation compared to the last 2 races where I was on his tail. On the last lap, my car was really sliding around and it really brought Sam up close to possibly take the position. Coming out of the final corner, he was right on my tail, and my car was almost sideways because of the lack of grip. Going down the straight, he caught my draft and I had to block him a bit to make sure he didn't get by me. I beat him, but only by a few hundredths of a second which turned out to be one car length...pretty close :).

Very fun race ending, Sam. I was a little unhappy that I almost screwed my race over with being sloppy like the other two races, but it sure was fun :). Cya'll at the finale in Imola!