Oschersleben 385k

Oscherschlefernugen rocks! :-) I like the track's rhythm ... you're always setting up for the next sequence.

I had some difficulty in the first wet part. I went off and came back on OK, hugging the inside ... but I think a couple cars oncoming expected me to go across the track and committed to the inside as well ... one went by and the other tapped me off ... I deserved it.

I settled down and just started churning off the laps. As the line dried up the intermediate wets proved a perfect choice and I was able to keep them the entire fuel load. Nearing the end of the first stint I was concerned about temps and tire choice, but they were still managable and went with soft/med. There were some periods of nursing, but that worked the rest of the race.

Just kept moving up positions. Then I was on the podium. Then second. Then I look down and it's P1! Sorry to hear about Bjarne and Samuel blowing motors. Really heartbroken about it. Really. :-)

It wasn't so easy to pass GT2 cars on the backstretch as I couldn't stay with them coming out of the McDonald's chicane ... but eventually developed a rhythm and didn't think the two classes were any more difficult here than at some other tracks.

Now I need to wash all the post-race champagne off my basement walls. Woo-hoo!

Turns out that starting the race with wets was a bad idea. They were overheating wihtin just a few laps as the track was drying very fast. I pit on lap 7 for slicks and got motoring again. Worked my way back up to 3rd in GT2.

Near lap 30 the tires were getting very slippery. I was shooting to pit at lap 35 but went off and made hard contact with tires before then. Hit pit lane with a flat and some missing body parts. 3 minute repair and just as the pit crew releases me, the engine goes "poof".

At least I didnt have a long walk back to the garage. Tough race though, I like these kind of races... keeps you on your toes.

Grats to Todd and WIll on great wins.

Qual

I went out with my normal qual set. Since the game said raining but track dry I saw no need to try any changes. I took the number 1 position and proceeded to run out of fuel so I had to esc. Not wanting to risk being demoted to the rear I stayed in the pit even tho there was about 5 minutes left in qual. I ended up 3rd on the grid.

Race

Room went to RACE session and I checked the conditions and decided on intermidiates. Then I joined the session and I had no timer I had no clue about starting from pit lane so I started asking on Vent and was told if the pit light was GREEN I could exit. I took off expecting and DQ but it did not come, but I was dead last and half a lap behind
I proceeded to drive as fast as I dared and the car felt pretty good with no major issues. By lap 3 I was passing GT2 cars and already my tires were making some scrubbing noise so I knew the track was now dry.

At this point others that took wets were beginning to make thier tire stops and I found myself all the way up to 6th position My tire temps were not bad and grip was only a little off from slicks. Steve caught me with his slicks and I inteded to hold him off as long as posible. Unfortunately for me he really wanted by me and I ended up in the gravel and lost 3 spots. My importantly I over heated my tires trying to get out. Conor caught me and I was detirmed to keep him behind me until I pitted in another 15 laps. I saw he went away a couple times then came back. Eventually he got by on a mistake of mine. My tires were now just too hot to continue and I opted for an early pit stop to get my slicks.

Like someone else said I caught a pylon and spun in the pit. Then I started the car early costing me some more valuable time. I dont remember much else about the race except that I had a nice battle with Enis the last 15 laps. I kept making braking errors behind him only to catch back up again. At one point I went off and he waited for me I remember telling Tim on Vent "I hope Enis doesn't get pissed at me when I pass him after he waited for me" well that never happened. I think I could have passed him several times but without a doubt he would have ended up off the course and I just decided to take the finish with the position I already had. 9th or something like that.

The race was just another dissappoining round in this years enduro for me. I knew going into the season that the Viper would be a huge challenge and I am dealing with it fairly well, it is just very hard to overcome mistakes with the level of competition.

Once again grats to the finishers or yet another very challenging event.

Well my race started well, on wets I went as high as third, I tried to drive the car a bit further than I should have on the full hard wets but I managed, I was giving up about a second per lap and there was still some wet out there to cool them down, I got to about lap 14 and decided to pit, on my pit in lap I was hit from behind, not a big hit by any means but enough to get me squirly, I didn't even leave the track surface, No big deal, I pit in, loop it in the entrance & then take on my standard meds/meds and hit the track, I take it easy until the back stretch going up thru the gears, 1 - 2 - 3 all at 7600 revs, hit 4th the engine stops reving at 5900, I am Confused, I click 5th same thing, sixth...I am lucky the car is at 5000 RPM Confused , I ask to pit, I check the board there is no damage, engine temp is perfect, crew guy doesn't tell me crap, take on fuel and tires and try it again, same deal...at this point its better to leave than risk any-body's race, Again, thanks guys for allowing me to hang out with you, Thanks to Marc for allowing me to fill in for his for his absence, and thanks for the lousy gearbox, but I re-lubed her Up for you,Errr waxed her back up without a scratch...Great time guys and hope to see you all soon.

1st of all , apologies to Enis , which i managed to bump again :oops: . I was hanging into your bumper to get a good ride into main straight , but i think there was a sudden slowdown while you were avoiding that Porsche and i was just getting back into throttle at the same time. At that range i didn't have time to do anything and i run into your rear bumper , spinning your car around. Very sorry about that , i should have read the traffic better there :|.

Sorry to ChipW too , i think i run into your car about 3 times during the race , some of my bad , some maybe not , but you got the short end of the stick every time :( . Slow speed exits surprised me several times and my timing just didn't work with you , very sorry about the rough ride...

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In qualifying i had some traffic most of the time but i think i had a clear lap or two and i wasn't far of the pace of the front runners , so qualifying was quite ok.

Weather was as difficult as it could when it was a race time ,wet track but no rain and didn't have a clue what tires to take , but since the track was actually quite hot , i decided to take medium slicks all around.

Start of the race was a bit confusing , since in-front both cars from my side of the track were missing and i didn't know where they are going to pop up , so i took it a bit too careful and barely got behind the lead-pack before the green flag.

Running with medium tires in wet was a huge risk , but to my surprise car felt quite grippy after only 2-3 laps and tire-temps were looking actually really good :o . As long as i kept it into dry line , car was very good to drive and soon i found myself from a 2nd place .

Soon there was a car in trouble in the middle of the triple lefts and i took an inside line , but unfortunately i run over a kerb which throw me a bit offline and into the wet part of the track , brakes didn't take at all and i went straight over the gravel-trap and into the tire wall , didn't get much damage , but i had to do some 'creative' driving to get out of the trap and into the grass. Luckily car didn't get stuck and i could continue my race , lost 4-5 places but everybody else but Bjarne were still in striking distance .

Had some nice battles there with Conor and Dean at least , while i was picking up places again , Nuno was there too in my mirror a long time and there was nice action going all the time in 1st stint. At some point i was back in 2nd place again , but the gap to Bjarne was already huge and kept on getting bigger , so there was nothing to do about that.

While coming in to the 1st pit-stop , i noticed a Porsche in my pit-box :shock: and after trying to park my car beside Tommy's car without any success pitting , i gently nudged his Porsche a bit and then my pit-crew started to work on my car :lol: . Hopefully i didn't mess anything for you Tommy...

Took another set of mediums in 1st pit and after a while the tire temps were getting unusually high , so i checked the engine temps and surprise surprise... oil temps at 100-103C again. Kept my eye on engine temps for a few laps but they seem to stay inside the limits so it was back to normal tire temp watching again.

Luckily temps started to drop while the 2nd stint progressed and towards the end , it was getting almost difficult to keep the temps up on medium tires. Decided to go on soft slicks on front and it worked nicely , had a bit of over-steer , but the braking power of softs and a good turn-in grip were more than welcome. Bjarne was already about a minute ahead or so , hard to say since my pit-board gave me some strange gap readings :o .

Anyway i just cruised there , but suddenly there was a message about Bjarne disconnecting and i found myself in the lead :shock: , i believe i had a big gap behind too , but can't be sure since the already mentioned pit-board was somewhat unreliable.
Kept on going in a good pace and just waited it to end , but in lap 80 my engine gave up without any warning , thick black smoke poured out of the car and my surprise lead changed to a not so surprising engine failure :? .

Hard to say what eventually caused it , but before the race i was a bit worried about the engine , since i had a very tight gearbox and i was using quite much high revs. Could be that heatwave too , what strained the engine and it just gave up , but in the end it was dead anyway :? .

Wasn't so big disappointment since i hadn't done anything in track to deserve the win anyhow :P :roll: , tire choices were good and setup was pretty ok for an Brno setup with different gears , but my actions in track were a bit of a disappointment , just didn't get into the 'zone' this time and made some bad calls :|.

Well , that's the way it goes sometimes , loved the challenge but the challenge didn't love me :lol: , congratulations to Todd for a nice win in GT1 class with Saleen 8) . Congrats to Will too in GT2 of-course , nice win in tough conditions :wink: 8) .

Thx for the race , had some good time there too and i like the track , maybe a next time then :wink: .

Cya on track...

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Samuel

Well, my race was pretty bad. i dunno what happened but my car was not as good as last night.

Qually: i jusst didn't have the grip, thus ran a 1:28.9 i think. not too impressive, and over a second off my race pace from testing last night.

Race: Started in inter tires, which was the right chioce, i spun in turn one avoiding others. i got back going only to spin a few more times. i pitted early to put slicks on on lap 13. there i found Mr bond sidewas blocking the pit lane. i managed to get through but i bumped the guard rail and did a little damage. i put on meidium tires front and back, which worked great. once the temp started to drop i started to lose too much temp in my fronts. after running on those mids for well over an hour, i pitted, but cliped a pylon on the pit road and spun again. finally got to my pit and changed all fours but put softs on the front. it was a great chance but the as the rears wore down the car got a little twichy. but then suddenly with around 4 minutes to go the front pushed real bad in the fast turn 3,4,5 complex. the next lap it pushed een more, off the track and into the wall. i crashed out with less than 3 minutes to go from 4th place with a lap lead over 5th, i feel real stupid.