Barcelona 400k

well, that totally sucked for me. felt pretty good about my chances for a decent finish. on L9, while passing wilfred in a GT2 on the front stretch I made the dumbest, most elemental mistake: busy looking where he was in mirror rather than looking for my brake marker. blasted the Lambo into the wall/tire barrier at the end of the straight. pieces everywhere. dumb. nice explosion but really dumb.

Well that sucked ass.

Quali was in flooded, and I hve gone out on slicks. D'OH Needed to do full lap on slicks. Idiot. Qulified 11'th or something, was a "safe" lap just to be in front GT2's, except CJ. Pirelli's suck in rain.

Race started ok. By the end of the first stint I clawed to 2nd (with help of other's people mistakes) and menaged to make tiniest of mistakes on braking. In my case that usually means immidiate DNF (car vent straight into the wall). Just when race started to look good that shit happened. :( I had Steve in 5 sec in front.

Oh well... C ya guys next time.

Grats to winners.

Screw this car!

Huge apology to Pete, I peeked to the right to see my brake area and locked up and tapped you, wasn't even thinking of passing or even getting that close. Once the wheels were locked I was screwed.

Car was basically undrivable with the hard rears, almost made it to my first pit stop after 4 spins. Came into the final section of right handers and saw Chip to right with sparks flying, figured he was heading to the pits when suddenly he is flying back across the track right in front of me. I avoided him but with my worn tires I suffered a tank slapper spin and hit the barrier. After about 45 seconds of trying to get the car out I said screw this.

Right now I think I am done with racing this league. I took a not so competitive car by choice and at this point I am not having any fun and don't see any point in limping around, spinning around getting DNF's and basically just getting in everyones way anymore.

Later

The Viper is such a lemon :). Engine let go 39 laps into the race and i guess i can't be too surprised. My brakes were awful today, especially in the first stint where i had to let Pete and Dean go by on occasion, so i had to resort to braking with my engine and i guess it stressed it too much. T'was a good race other than that. Did not expect that at all. I normally have crappy races at Barcelona but the car handled great, it was pretty competitive, and made VERY few mistakes. Im actually thinking about doing the GT-O race but i think that decision will be made last minute ;). Anyway, cya'll later.

Sucked for me too. I was running the first few laps ultra-conservative and was still able to start picking off the guys that were in front of me, with the help of some guys making mistakes. Once I realized the car was fast enough, I let her rip. I had the UPS man ringing my doorbell, my son running up to the front door yelling, and I lost my braking point going into T1. I manage to stop by slamming into the barrier and knocking off my front splitter, but it took me quite a bit to get it out of the sandtrap, not to mention I didn't want to twist up the engine getting out, so I took my time, and still got out not losing a lap. What fucked me was my pitstall marker wasn't on again!! I don't understand why it was off, I didn't turn it off! So I drove all the way around again, losing a lap before I found my pitstall. I lost another 2 laps waiting for the crew to repair and serveice the car. After that, I went out and started to pound out the laps. Clawing my way back through the field, I made it from last place to 12th. Around lap 60, I started to think about making my last stop, but Todd was in front me smoking like crazy with an engine problem, and my tires were still OK and I had a few maore laps of fuel, so I wanted to stay behind him and get a front row seat for when he blew up. What a mistake...he blows up going in T1, the black cloud obstructed my vision, I lose my braking point and crashed again, this time the motor was dead. I tried pretty hard to not DNF today, but I guess it wasn't in the cards

A black racing day for me :-(

A humble apology to Ari and Sam that I hit when my brain malfunctioned! No excuse, but I am so sorry....
I saw Sam got 3rd, which was the position I hit him in, but it looked like you lost your position Ari, to Claus due to my mistake :-((((

CONGRATULATIONS STEVE!!!!!

Kent, I had a left front flat and was heading for the pit when we came to the corner, a right hander, and the car didn't want to turn on that flat, so it just sailed across the track. Too bad you didn't try to get back to the pit. I had a couple off-track excursions due to myself, twice the radio guy tells me the race is over, I said, screw that! and headed for the pit, got the car fixed, and eventually finished the race, for 7th in class, I think, so that's good for a few points.

No worries, Kent, didn't lose much in the end - I'd qualified out of position cos of the rain anyhow!
I was on hards all round - maybe not the best choice, but at least I got to the finish for a change. That was really all I was aiming for, so 4th place was a bonus :)

What a race!

Qualifying in flooded conditions - that was CRAZY!tm, especially since I had not done any real wet weather testing prior to the race. Guessed on setup, put in a few good laps, and came in to see that Nuno had wiped us all in the Vette. Super sweet qualifying lap there Nuno!!

Race started with Nuno in the Vette on pole and me behind him in second. I was content to stay behind Nuno, as he and me were fast enough to start pulling away from the rest of the field. Man Nuno was fast in that Vette. I followed him around for about 12 laps or so, when Nuno spun in Seat. I was able to take the lead. BUT, my car would get HORRIBLE halfway through the stint. Nuno, worked his way back upto me. I pitted 1 lap early, hoping ot get back on fresh tires and make up some time. After the first round of pit stops cycled through, Nuno comes flying out of the pits RIGHT BEHIND me!! I was just able to keep him behind me, as I was on hot tires and he was still with cold tires. Managed to squeeze a 6 second gap or so to Nuno, but once again, halfway through the stint, my car would get bad and Nuno would climb right back up behind me. The exact same thing happened for the second and third stints. I would pit 1 lap ealier than Nuno and he would litterally come out of the pits right next to me as I was at full speed coming down the main straight. It was awesome!! JUST managed to hold Nuno off the last 3 or 4 laps and eeked out a win by a mere 0.2 seconds!!

Spectacular drive by Nuno - he never gave up, never tried to dive bomb me and DROVE THE HECK OUT OF THAT VETTE! Kudos to you friend and thanks for the great race!

Congrats to Wilfred on his GT2 win!

Awesome race for me, Qualifying was the best ever for me, 7th was by far better than any other GT-I. Thanks to the man formally (and probably still) known as simply the TheGrind, he helped me a bunch before the Dubai race on throttle control.

Since Tim's is on a covert mission to convince the world of global warming, I did run into some temp related issues early in the race that forced me to drive much more slowly. I think once I get just a little bit faster, I will have even more of a blast.

Tom