Its worth a damn lot of time as well if you can keep your car damage free. In longer races keeping your car damage free is easily worth 30 seconds (not joking or exaggerating) in most instances, depending on severity of course. Its in your best interest to avoid accidents at pretty much literally any cost. I’ve never had a spin or off track thats cost me anywhere close to 30 seconds.
That was an awesome race for me. The pace up front was vvvvveeeerrrrryyyy close. There was genuinely 5 people that could’ve won that.
I tweaked a few things with the setup earlier on in the week in the Nissan that aren’t really recommended to try and find a bit of traction and front end grip . It seemed to work well enough, made the car slightly difficult to drive if you went slightly over the limit but I was pretty sure I could manage it. I chose to run really aggressive on the brakes with set 1 and 2/1 brake ducts but never tested that so I was going in a bit blind. There have been enough examples online of people running out of brakes with set 1 and 4 so I was a little bit nervous about that but knew I needed everything that I could get my hands on in this race.
Qually was pretty good. P1-P-5 was a tossup so to end up second was very nice. Well done to @Jeremy Talbot on pole. Nice work.
I didn’t think I got too bad of a jump but Tez absolutely nailed it and was side by side at the T1 braking zone. I got pushed wide on the exit and chose to avoid any potential damage and run a little bit on the gravel. Dropped back to 5th by T3. The next few laps I was just sussing everything out, taking it easy on the brakes and seeing who had what sort of pace.
Marty was making plays but the gaps weren’t growing out massively so I was happy to just sit back and wait. I sent it a few times down the outside of 1 on Tez but that was more to check if my brakes were giving me the advantage I hoped they would.
Eventually I got around Tez and set off after Jeremy. I was able to close that gap down and I think Marty at this point was about 3 seconds ahead so it was still all pretty close and anyones race really.
I realised pretty quick that the Merc would be hard to overtake so I decided to pit a bit early, get some new tyres on and hope for some clear track on exit. The pitstop wasn’t brilliant. Still not great at pulling the GTR up on the marks. I came out with 9 or so seconds of clear air and set to work. I think Marty was in the very next lap and he came out just over 2 seconds ahead.
Most of the race to the end was me ever so slightly closing in then making a tiny mistake and having to do it all again. About 10? laps from the end I noticed Martys pace start to drop off. When I got close I started to realise he was a little bit earlier on the brakes than I would’ve though. Not enough to send it at this stage but just noticeable. Wasn’t sure if it was fuel saving or the porsche getting high at the front on low fuel but i was able to close right up. It got worse and worse as the laps went on and in the end there was nothing Marty could do. He had to brake at least 15m earlier than me into t1. Not a moment too soon as well because Tez had some pretty good speed and w as right on us by the time I made the move.
That was a very cool win. Bit of fighting, strategy and flatout driving made it very enjoyable. Bad luck to Jeremy and Kcender. You guys could’ve definitely been on the podium if the race had gone differently.
Well done to @marty and @tezpez85. Great racing fellas
Last edited: Mar 24, 2020