nGTX Valencia

Man, I'd like to forget this one in a hurry.

Made big mental mistakes tonight. First one was getting psyched out by my poor qualifying time. During warmup I made a last minute switch to hards on the rear, figuring maybe I could pick up a couple of spots in the pits taking just fronts. Big mistake- car was badly out of balance. I spun early, then perpetuated mistake number two for the next 20 minutes, trying too hard to catch up. Too many spins to count for the rest of the race. Later on, two yellow Ferraris were approaching fast, I figured it was Sam & Rick still nose to tail, as they'd passed me earlier in the race. Couldn't find a safe place to let them by, and the lead Ferrari spun checking up behind me in the last corner. I was convinced it was Sam, and stressed out about that the rest of the race. Very relieved to find out it wasn't (though I'm still sorry to whoever it was).

Sheesh, on to Oschers. Time to Zen out...

Good Race
Sorry Barrett Erickson, I spun you in t1 on lap 5-6. Waited for you to pass.
So I was in last!!! No more incidents after that.
Had some good racing in the 11-15 spots. I made a few good passes, and gave back some spots by going off track. Lucky for me Scott goes off on last turn to give me 12th. I'm very pleased with the result after starting 18 and going to the back later on. Fun race, see you next week.
Thanks R2P and all racers!

Had a good early run (for me anyways!) going. Tires went away badly at the halfway mark and into the pits I went....
I got a black flag for speeding on pit road, asked me for a stop and go. (not sure how as I was using the limiter) I came back in next lap, x'd out my tires, fuel, etc, and went back out. Black flag stayed up. Crew chief told me to come in to answer the flag. I went back in again, departed, flag went away until I got to the end of pit road. Then it came back again... Next lap I went past the start finish line waiting for the crew chief to call me back in to answer what I was sure was a phantom flag that time. I got a DQ message from my crew chief instead for not answering the flag.... As a newbie here Im lost. What should I have been doing? I am not as certain for the first penalty, but am positive for the second that I was NOT speeding on pit road at all. Was looking forward to a decent finish tonight, and feel somewhat robbed... To all that I raced tonight, thanks for the clean passing and hope I didnt hold anyone up tonight.

It seems every race is a lesson learned. This time?

If it is schedule for race time, turn off your automatic virus update program.

D'oh!

I was running neck and neck with Sam and Rick and had actually just passed Rick a few laps earlier for first place (my first R2P lead by the way) and the program kicks me out.

I freaked and didn't jam in my breaks immediately and as a result managed to hit the wall at the far side of T1 hard enough to puncture a tire.

By the time I got back to the game - if you see a cloud of foul language out over Lake Michigan like so much Chicago smog that was me trying to get back to the race - I was dead last.

Five (!) minutes later I was rolling out of the pits, but not after some lengthy repairs and still dead last.

Working my way back up the field was fun, but not the same as challenging evenly matched racers for first. Well, evenly matched today at least.

Hopefully, the sum result of all these lessons will be an R2P victory one day.

Anyways, congrats to Rick and the rest of the podium.

Well, I'm a bonified idiot! Pitted early (30 min) and should have gone to 40 as planned, but I guessed at fuel (I changed it to liters earlier today) to make it to the end and obviously didn't put enough. BONEHEAD!!!

Qualified 7th which was pretty good for me as I didn't practice any Q setups. Btw, nice TQ David!

Had a good start and could have got a couple positions, but decided to lay back and settle in for a couple laps. Followed a Porsche around a few laps just trying to keep some form of pressure on him and he finally had an off that allowed me to get by. Looked like he was ok, at least I didn't see any parts. :P The front 3 were long gone so I just tried to keep it on track until pit stops. Flew in to the pits and was doing 45+ at the light, but I did get it slowed to speed as I was not bf'ed. Hit the pit stall and checked fuel to make sure I would get to the finish, but boffed it up. Came out in 12th or 13th, but I knew many had not pitted yet. By the time the cycle came around I found myself in 3rd 10+ sec ahead of 4th. COOL!! Just gotta cruise to the end and keep it on track, and then....spit...sputter and out of fuel.

I was trying to wait to the end and hopefully have Tom come and push me to the finish, but I saw a Porsche kinda squirrly and on edge of the track and thought that was a bit too close, so I escaped out, swallowed my pride and took the dnf. ):

Thanks to Tom for all the help and setups and kudos to Rick, Samuel and Ray for the podium finishes!

congrats to Rick and the podium.

I'm with you Michael. i just want this one to go away.

anyone know the number for that Haitian guy in "Heroes"? i could use a good memory erase after this one.

@Ryan A:
no problem. just a racing thing. if i hadn't fumbled the last turn maybe you wouldn't have been that close :) -- that lap anyway.

i knew from private practice that this race was going to be a problem for me. balance in the chicaine was precarious at best, but my setup was quick enough if i didn't press it too hard and just focused on momentum.

but of course i did press it too hard.

and then, for some reason, i got downright stupid in the final 5 minutes or so. so damn stupid i expect to see a dunce cap hovering over my RSR in the replay.

if i can stand to watch the replay that is. i'm so profoundly embarassed by the last few laps, that this one may go unwatched.

@ Anthony:
for a black flag i believe you have to stop in your pit stall, then select the penalty on the clipboard. this then prevents the crew from doing anything since you can't use a penalty stop to do any service on the car.

the second flag was probably just the first one reappearing, since you hadn't actually served the penalty.

Despite running wide in T1 on the second lap and falling to the back of the pack, I somehow managed to pull things together and salvage a good finish. From the replay, it looked like alot of other drivers had incidents/issues as well which seemed to work in my favor.

I felt like I had a good setup and was hoping for a good finish in this race, but after my T1 incident, I wasn't so sure that was going to happen. As I worked my way back through the field, I bumped Chris S as I dove underneath in T4 (sorry). Otherwise, I drove very cleanly and consistently and gradually moved back up the rankings. I'm very happy with the finish, especially since I've struggled quite a bit with this track in the past.

Didn't have the best start to this event , woke up few mins before qualifying and when i get into the server , i noticed that i didn't have any setup :s. Took the Hockenheim National setup and tweaked the gearing a bit , then did my few qualifying laps , ending into 3rd place.

Start was good , picked up a place before T1 and when David P had an off in T5 , i was suddenly in the lead :o.

Took it easy and tried to control the pace a bit , while learning the braking points and how the car is handling with heavy fuel load. Car felt a little loose , but didn't have any real problems and tried to save the tires while maintaining the lead.

After about 10-12 laps Scott N had a better exit from T1 and he decided to try an overtake in T2 , imo it was a bit too risky move and if i would have turned in normally , there would have been accident.

Luckily i saw it coming from the mirror and let Scott through , but we still had a small contact. Rick behind us allmost slipped by me too , but managed to hold 2nd position and started to up my pace a bit to keep up with Scott.

Soon Scott went wide in T1 and i was back in lead , so i dropped the pace to save my tires again. Rick closed the small gap and we were killing laps there peacefully for some time , but then i noticed that i had too much fuel for my 2nd stint and decided to go in after halfway to not have to adjust my fuel in pits and loose some time there.

That was prolly not the best idea thou and combined with some lazy laps after the pits a think i lost it there. When the stops were done , Rick had about 4 seconds lead and i just couldn't close it up before we run out of laps :).

Pretty good race and enjoyed the fight , but jumping into strange setup straight from the bed with empty stomach didn't help my concentration and i was a bit sloppy there after the halfway point. Was a good run from Rick and he kept it together all the way , congrats for the win. Grts to Ray too for podium finish...

Thx all and cya in next one... ;)

------
Samuel

Things didn't start too well, first I couldn't get connected then after resetting everything I finally got connected for a moment then immediately lost connection twice :-( I finally got on and there was only 4 min. left in qualifying. Then I couldn't find my qualy setup, probably because I was in a panic :-0 so I just did a quick tweak to my race setup. I only got 1 not so hot lap in but it was good enough for 4th. I figured to settle in and see what happens in front. I was running full fuel and wasn't planning on a tire change as long as I didn't abuse the tires too much. If I could hang with the leaders I would have a chance. Sorry to see David and Scott's early troubles. Sam and I then ran close until pitstops and since I had the full load of fuel I ran a bit longer than Sam. After my fairly good stop I had 4 sec. lead on Sam. I could hold the gap ok when I had open track, but in traffic Sam would close the gap. So by the end of the race my tires where toast and Sam had closed to .5 seconds (yikes!). Congrats to Sam for a good run and to Ray for getting that RSR into the top 3! Thanks to all for a clean and fun race see you all next week.