ANZAC Weekend E-Type Fun Race - (Q3/11 P5 Fastest Lap)

Ha ha, yeah I noticed you [Sege] said "go right", and I was following you -- oh perhaps 200 metres behind -- and after seeing that considered having a lunge in the braking zone

I had my button mapping dramas as well. Somehow I lost the show labels button so I had no idea who was who... at one point I had a bit of a scrap with a backmarker which was fun because I thought we were racing, I tried to use a gap on the outside in the last turn and it got closed so I think we touched, then I let him repass by using half throttle on the pit straight.... I'm pretty sure he was doing the same, thinking 'why won't this guy just go on past!?'. Sorry to whoever that was! :embarrased:

Also had some really fun side-by-side racing over the first few laps with Jim and Muhsin I think. Really clean, giving lots of room, and no contact Definately the best online racing I've ever had, and it is a pity I lost touch with the leaders through a little mistake and then AVG update deciding that midcorner was a great place to throw me back to desktop, luckily for just a few seconds and I missed a concrete marshall post by a couple of metres.

The rest of the race was just playing catch up and trying to regain the good rhythm I had achieved offline. Managed to get a fastest lap of under 1:07, but was pretty inconsistent. I spent the last 25 laps of the race chasing down Jim but he was very consistent and we were putting in nearly identical lap times the gap sat at 2-3 seconds until the flag. Still it was nice to have a target... Good drive Jim!

Thanks everyone, this was a great reintroduction to online racing. Throughly enjoyable, and very gentlemanly.

Race 3 - Teretonga (Q9/14 DNF)

I got a reasonable start, perhaps gained a position or two over the first lap or so, then on the second lap as I was going through turn 3 all the cars in front disappeared...

Connection Lost

I really hope I don't hear "Somebody's ghosting Alfa was blocking the track at turn 3 and it ruined my race". Really sorry if that is the case. I don't know what happened b/c haven't had that problem before.

Race 4 - Queensland (Q11/20 P8)

I had a fun race. After all my GTA Jr vs Cortina talk I ended up taking the GTA Sr The line I'm going to stick to is that I didn't get any practice in the Jr, which is true, but also a bit of a cop out.

Anyway, the GTA is such a nice car to drive, and I had a really enjoyable race. Just missed the stationary mini at the start, well done to to Sam behind who managed to avoid me too.

I had a really good battle with Jack and Johan for quite a few laps. I was on Jack's tail and just couldn't get him to make a mistake and couldn't get alongside to make a clean pass. Johan caught us up very quickly and we had a great 3 way battle for several laps. Eventually both slid wide and I snuck through, but a few laps later Johan was on my tail again and after another fun battle he went past... and then pulled a gap on me at 1 - 2 seconds per lap which shows how carefully he was racing with Jack and I.

@ Johan I got out of shape at one point as you were making a very clean pass, completely of my own doing. You certainly didn't have to let me back through (that was very nice of you) but I'm glad that you did because I enjoyed the subsequent challenge of keeping you at bay

This took me to lap 20, and with the green mini tailing off into the distance I was worried I was going to get lonely. Not for long as Daveo555 was progressively getting closer and closer. I upped my pace but it wasn't enough and soon he was getting lively behind me. He took me by surprise into the hairpin and as I watched his Alfa pull a 3 second gap on me I wondered why my Alfa couldn't go that fast and with only a half dozen laps to go and tyres in very good condition I decided to put the foot down and hope for mistakes in front.

I'm glad I did! Jim Percy came sliding back up the track towards us (figuratively) and gave me a chance to catch up to the two GTAs. With about 3 laps to go our three Alfas changed positions (no dents, maybe a little paint taken off) a few times, Dave (got?) spun, I passed Jim, who I think had some issues with his tyres (?) and found myself barely holding 6th from Jim going into turn 1 on the second to last lap...

...with Jim outside I had a bad line into 2, and I realised at the time that this was going to screw both of us (Dave was storming up from behind) as I battled understeer and slid just a little wide of the line I hoped to take. There was still room outside for Jim, but if my line was bad, his was terrible by now (sorry!). Sure enough into turn 3 it was Dave that was right behind behind me, which was bad news cos he was super quick and had a crazy look in his eyes, so I decided to push at 100% to see if I could keep the place for 1 more lap. I took a defensive line into the apex and held it (awesome) and got back on the power quickly without breaking traction (awesome) and was just congratulating myself on being a clutch performer when I realized that someone had moved the exit curbing a good 2 metres closer than it usually was... I understeered out onto the dirt, tried to hold it, couldn't, spun, both Alfas zap past and I finished a happy 8th. I guess I must have taken a very early apex, but in any case I was happy to end the race in 8th, which is where I had been up until lap 37 anyway.

Thanks everyone for some great entertainment and competition this morning, very clean racing, very good fun.

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Race 5 - Hidden Valley (Q7/19 P6)

I had a fun race, some nice battles, chases, and defenses.

Qual went pretty good for me, I hadn't done any Q practice and got a 23.09, then on my final lap was -.55 heading into the final corner when the session advanced I would have got Q6, maybe Q5, but I was thrilled with Q7 anyway.

Is the session advance manual or automatic? If it is auto can we set it to advance a bit later giving folks time to finish laps?

I got a good start and gained a couple of places, but lost them again by being dog slow on the first few laps.

GaiaJohan, that was me that tapped you... well more accurately we went into turn 4 side by side and I kind of stole the racing line. I gave you room but with understeer not much, then we touched and I lifted to make sure you could rejoin but only ended up messing up ESP's thundering Mustang behind.

Had a fun battle with Jiminee and HR, then found some pace finally and was able to slowly catch up with ESP. We had a really enjoyable battle over a few laps with a few position changes, but we were falling back from the leaders, so I selflessly dropped back to let us drive at race pace (lol, you pulled alway and I couldn't keep up) until he pitted a few laps later and the battle was over

Anyway, Fabbi had been catching me this whole time and over the next 10 laps we had a great battle, with him quicker through the apices and me faster away and on the straight bits. It felt a bit mean to come out of the final turn almost neck and neck and just pull away down the straight, but then I remembered ESP doing that to me for 5 laps and I didn't feel so bad anymore. Fabbi would be far quicker into the turns than me but there was a damn red Alfa in the way I think I kept you guessing with my changing line into T3, I wasn't doing it to mess you up, but it probably did a little. The little bump was no problem but I don't have that mapped to my wheel, sorry.

Anyway, I was enjoying this battle for 5th place as we came up on a great scrap of 3 backmarkers. I could see it was going to be tough to get past Golly because on the straights he was miles faster so lifting would have lost him many seconds, and in the final sector is very difficult to let people through (well done to Heeby in this regard!) so I got a great line out of the final turn and run up inside him onto the straight but I guess he was wide and needed to come back inside from the exit kerb and inevitably we bashed into each other and tested out the barriers on opposite sides of the track.

Fabbi went past, and my car was a little dodgy, but still fun to drive (other than into T1) but I am very happy with a 6th place finish given that I thought this track would be a virtual graveyard with 20 cars.

Thanks to everyone who raced, especially the lapped traffic and Apollyon and Heeby in particular, as this was not an easy track to let someone through. Congrats to the podium finishers... well congrats to the finishers, and to ESP sorry to see your race ended early.

Race 6 - Bathurst (Q18/22 P2)

I only got about 30 mins practice in at Bathurst before the race and was really worried that I was going to cause carnage into the dipper because I had only got one clean lap in -ever- in the Alfa. Qualifying was terrible, I got up a bit late and got in 2 awful laps and one miserable lap (2:48.2), giving me Q18.

I kept a low profile over the first few laps, settling in behind Sege to learn his lines. After a few very conservative laps I realised I was way faster than most of the cars around me so instead of lifting off while in the slip stream, I kept on it and passed a couple of cars, and this is really where my race began.

I didn't have too much wheel to wheel action in this race. Had a few encounters with GaiaJohan as usual (never any contact), he was quicker, but everytime he passed me he'd run wide a few laps later and I'd be back in front. He pulled off a sensational move around the outside at the end of the straight ~lap 15, still not sure how you managed that so cleanly. Otherwise I just tried to keep it very clean and smooth, away from the walls (had one solid bump), and pointing the right way. On a couple of occaisons encountered bouncing, stationary, or upside down cars but was very cautious and probably a bit lucky to avoid any contact.

I know this report is boring, it won't get any better so feel free to stop reading

I had started with full tanks (60L) and was curious as to whether I'd be able to eek out the gas for 32 laps. A normal lap consumed 2.1 L so I figured I'd have to save quite a bit each lap. At 30L remaining I had averaged 1.9L/lap could see I was going to miss the finish by 1 lap. I tried harder to save fuel but could only do 1.85+ L laps without starting to really hurt my lap times. I had a car 15 s behind me (I was about 5th on lap 17) that was capable of lapping a lot faster than me but was quite inconsistent. I was really worried that he'd catch me up and I'd have not enough fuel to defend at the end of the straights. But the gap hovered around 12 - 15 s [I checked the replay and Daveo55 and ESP were having an epic battle and slowing each other down a lot - good work guys! ].

I was really really concentrating on driving smoothly and keeping high apex and exit speeds because I was giving up a lot of time towards the end of the straights. A few cars pitted ahead of me and coming into the final 6 laps I found myself in a thoroughly undeserved 2nd place. I could finally do the fuel calculation in my head and could see that I'd have to do better than 1.7L/lap to make the flag. Those final laps were really nerve wracking because ESP had been released from his battle and was gaining on me quickly. Going into the last lap I had 2L to play with and I managed to finish about 4s ahead of ESP with less than 0.2L left in the tank.

I would like to dedicate my 0.2L of fuel to Scott Dixon.

I am so happy to have finished on the podium . I know there were a lot of problems (connections, ESC keys, extra stops) that contributed to it, and my cheeky no-stop strategy helped a lot, but I am really happy none-the-less. I had to learn so fast to stay in this race, kept my concentration for the whole race and hardly scraped the walls at all, didn't touch another car, and managed to balance pace and fuel use the whole race, so... well:

Congrats to Apollyon, great race dude. Good to see a block larger than 1300cc taking a win. Also Heeby, well driven, and I saw the replay of your pass at the chase on the 'stang (not sure who... xk?) - sensational. GaiaJohan, my old sparring partner, another fun duel. See you next season. Hope your chest is feeling okay. Sam, thanks for teaching me those nice lines dude. Sorry your race didn't work out.

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