Not much to say. Only managed to get a few laps of practice in and as a result made two or three mistakes. By the way Karl, it was not your fault that I went off, I was simply silly enough to follow you
Fantastic last lap, in fuel saving mode, Pasha was catching me all the way. He got a better exit on to the final straight and if I read the race times correctly he pipped me at the line by 0.02 seconds. Edit: this does mean I will be seeking revenge
Nice to be back in a car. been so out of practice it felt worse than it was... very little practice and still tweaking wheel setup. loaded setup(thank you Sir!!) FFb felt good. done a few practice laps and saw i was horribly off pace. Quali Time:: i took 5 "laps Fuel" and went for it 2nd last flying lap found myself in front of Rob, (tick box) last flying lap....... personal fastest sectors of the day and........ ... run of of fuel..... Race Time: thought id stay out of trouble and nurse my crazy high ping (sorry lads) two cars tripped up in front of my group. and we passed Rob and Larry. few laps later Larry was behind me and Pasha was feeling the heat. a few mistakes from Pasha made me go into Avoidance mode. next thing i know i get it all wrong and heading to the tire wall, distracting Larry so bad he spun aswel, Sorry Man. anywhooo, we set off again and passed Rob again. few(literally 2) laps to go, fuel light comes on and i dive into the pits, grab enough to finish 3 laps and continue. then..... on last lap... i run out of fuel again. My car must had a few leaks?? but it was fun and great to be on track with the lads again. See you all soon again. K
Wow, this was a thriller from start to finish. Thanks for a great race everyone. PRACTICE I was so focused on the Audi race on Thursday that I really didn't get any practice in until this morning. I started with a lap average of about 2:17. Yikes. Roy happened to jump on about the same time so I just switched to his view and tried to learn what I was doing wrong. The answer was abso-bloddy-lutely everything. This is one of those tracks where you go faster the less you try, and I was trying way too hard. After a couple of laps of watching the champ at work, I was down in the 2:13's and improving every lap. By the time the qualification session rolled around, I'd whittled this down to a pretty dependable 2:11. QUALIFYING Um... yeah. I set a PB, but so did everyone else, apparently. Well then. RACE Norman put in an incredible qualifying run and ended up ahead of me. When the lights went out, I took off... and he didn't. So I started lap 1 by helping out the groundskeepers. The race proceeded cleanly through the first few turns, and I settled in to find my pace. Karl was behind me making me work for every corner. Up ahead, everyone was still packed in very tightly together, and I hung back a bit to wait for the hammer to fall. ...aaaaand there it was. In the hairpin, it looked like Larry got on the power and slid into Rob, and Assetto Corsa decided that needed to go from "gentle rub" to OMG JUMPFEST. Welp, that's a shame. Do dee do dee do, +2 spots. Karl was filling my rear view mirror by the end of lap 2. Our pace was pretty even, but I kept making more little mistakes than he did, and he just kept whittling off the tenths between us. I knew this was going to be a problem. I needed to catch a break. Norman slid wide into the sand at turn 9, and I was able to catch up a bit. He seemed ruffled because I stayed with him all the way to the front straight. Yeah, that's... not really the line through T1. I thought I could gas it out of there and pass Norman in the short chute, but with my tires on the curbing, and his superior line through the corner, all I succeeded in doing was allowing Karl to catch up even more, with Larry tucked in behind to make it a four-car train. And it was only lap 4. So... it turns out that it's really easy to get the braking point wrong and slide out of T12. Norman discovered this toward the end of lap 4 and cycled to the back of the line. Somehow I was inching up through the top 10. Things looked pretty good, I thought. Just keep hitting those marks, maintain that mediocre pace, and survive. Uh oh. That's not where the course goes. James H was recovering from a mishap in T6, and the train rolled on by. While it was another place gained, I didn't congratulate myself for it. I knew James was faster than me... and he'd be back. Now I had Karl, Larry, James, and Norman all lined up behind me... and probably all faster. Survive. Lap 6. Survive. Hit those marks. Stop hitting those blasted curbs and launching into the air. Lap 7. "The gap behind is closing." Survive. And then I led the train onto the outside curb at turn 6. Uh oh. This is it... IT'S A CHRISTMAS MIRACLE! Somehow I got away with it, but the Assetto Corsa gods sent both Karl and Larry into a spin. Lucky me! Now all I had to do was... oh, right, outdrive two guys who qualified a second faster than me. OK now. Calm down. Hit those marks. Lap 8. James is definitely getting bigger in that mirror. I hear two cars. Lap 9. Still there. Red arrows keep pointing behind me. Helicorsa keeps flashing. He's right there. Turn 12... did he just pass me on the outside?! But he bobbled it over the inside curb at T13! He's slower onto the chute! He's slower through 14 and 15! I have a run onto the front straight! I can get him back with an undercut! This is going to work! This is going to work! I'm going to— —slide into his right-rear corner and whack him sideways. Dangit. James took a ride into the air (thanks again, Michael Bay physics engine ) but then somehow managed to turn it back the right direction. I kept sliding out into the grass, and stayed there until James could pass me on the straight. It was pretty obvious who was at fault there, and I wasn't about to take the position unfairly. It was just as well, since he was obviously faster than me overall anyway; continuing the battle would have just made us both suffer. Meanwhile, Norman flew past us to retake the position ahead. Well, that was that, I thought. Nine second gap back to Rob, James and Norman will be pulling away. Nothing left to do but... settle in. There was something comforting about having to concede the battle. Pace was still consistent (barring the contact), fuel was good, all I had to do was make this my last mistake. Lap 10. Hit those apexes. Learn a few things from watching James ahead. Take some comfort in the corners where I manage to keep up with him. Survive. Stop hitting those stupid curbs. Lap 11. Only a second lost to James since the incident. Lap 12. Still less than 3 seconds back. Now James is battling Norman. Good... maybe I can catch up. Larry and Karl have passed Rob. Hmm. This is going to get interesting. Calm down. Hit those marks. Survive. There goes James past Norman. Lap 13. Still only a 3 second gap ahead. Pace is still consistent. Crew Chief Jim doesn't even seem annoyed with me for now. Car feels fast. This might work out somehow. Lap 14. James and Norman are pulling away. Meh, whatever. Car still feels good. About five laps to go. Fuel seems close but then Crew Chief Jim says I'm good, so I believe him. I wonder if James and Norman have been shortshifting too. Lap 15. Really in the groove. Driving in the rhythm now. Norman's still within three-ish seconds. Lap 16. Wait, within two seconds? Oh my. Keep hitting those marks. Ignore the kids shouting in the next room. Lap 17. "The gap to Bruce ahead is closing." Oh my, it is, isn't it? Is he fuel-saving? Did he cook his tires? Am I finally getting decent? Lap 18. Fuel looks even tighter but Crew Chief isn't panicking. Norman has definitely checked up. Calm down. Don't freak out. You can do this. Lap 19. Survive. Time has expired. This is it. "The gap ahead is now one point zero." Pile on the pressure. Push those braking points. He's slow out of T13! Is it fuel? Is it tires? Is it... destiny? Two corners to go. These have given me trouble all day. Don't ████ this up. He choked in T15! Another run up the front straight! And I'm not going to smash into him! I have a run! I can do this! James is out of fuel! Holy crap! I can really do this! Go, SEAT, go! I can do this, dammit! I HAVE NO IDEA WHETHER I DID IT! AC's replay doesn't have frame-by-frame advance, but I still have no clue whether I actually beat Norman to the line. But that final drag race was a heart-pounding climax to forty minutes of mostly great racing, marred only by my own silly mistakes. I can't wait to see the results! Congrats to the winners, but thanks to James, Norman, Karl, and Larry for keeping this a nail-biter from start to finish. Next up: Road MURRICAH!
Great race everyone. here is my race: https://mixer.com/L3NST4R?vod=70459824 In recent streams. I setup mixer so i could stream for a friend and it saves so enjoy.
Racereport; Free Practise; During free practise it became clear there would be 3 frontrunners with a whole gaggle of cars chasing them. Times were fast, but still my car felt “strange”. I just wasn’t able to do the times I was easily doing offline. Weird. Qualifying; Again I had the same issue as in free practise. Something just didn’t feel right… But having done a 08.2 in free practise I felt this would give me 2nd if I was able to replicate it. Long story short, I wasn’t. Alex however pulled a 07.9 out of the hat, Dzintars a 08.4 and me a 08.5… A well, 3rd it was. Race; So starting 3rd made it so that I would have to be carefull not to hit the cars in front and hope the cars behind me do the same. Getting of the line fast was imperative, but as luck would have it I did just that. Gaining on both Dzintars and Alex I was looking for a gap into turn one. But being the good drivers that we are Alex kept the door closed and Dzintars gave me just enough room to place my car. He was however on the faster line which had me having to concede the corner to him. The rest of the lap the three of us were so close that we could see the white of each others eyes. Then going up the hill both Dzintars and me passed Alex who had seemed to slow down. Was there a problem? Must have been a glitch because he immediatly hooked on to my bumper and stayed glued to that. For the next few laps it stayed this way, but I still had the issue that the car did not react the way I was used to having me make small but costly mistakes. As the result of one of those mistakes Alex was able to get by. From then on there was nothing I could do except lose more time. Very weird. By the end of the race Alex had closed the gap to Dzintars, but there was no time left to try a pass. We ended the race in these positions, 1st Dzintars, 2nd Alex, 3rd Roy. Behind us it seemed that there were some good battles going too. I must say that this race was very frustrating for me. Hopefully the next one will be better. BTW, If you’ve got the replay, have a good look at the first lap of the 3 frontrunners. A lot can be learned from that. It shows 3 fast guys that have a lot of respect for eachother. And that’s how racing should be.
Yeah, I watched that battle last night, and it was incredible. Close, clean racing by all three. This series is really heating up!
