LVT Round 2 - 1997 AMP Bathurst 1000 [Apr 5th]

Congrats to Thiago on the win and to the rest of the podium as well.

That was a tough race. And although I knew it'd be tough, I was hoping to stay out of troubles I knew I'd find along the way and make it just a bit easier by doing so. However, that was not to be and though I got lucky the first time I encountered trouble in the dipper - a car sat sideways - I was not so lucky moments later. I watched in a sort of slow motion as the two cars ahead of me had trouble at the Chase. I slowed, and I even saw a small gap to attempt to wiggle through, but I ended up getting collected. The damage was moderate. I continued, avoided unwanted stop, fixed it at my regular pit stop.

I was happy, leaving the pits with a better mannered car. Not that many laps later I acquired damage, again in the dipper. This time my own doing. Again, moderate damage, and though lots of vibration and a slightly cocked wheel, I was able to continue (albeit pissed because now I have to drive this hateful thing as it tries to kill me over and over

A few laps fuel saving in the end of second fuel run, then off to the pits.  "Ah, finally.  FIX THIS CAR!....thank you"

That lasted all of a few laps.  This time the damage wasn't as bad, but the vibration returned
That translated to even more errors over the course of the final run.  And eventually, the car was fairly banged up.  Not horrible, but it was not happy.  Unpredictable, down on power, feeling like it was on it's 'last leg'....I was nursing it a lot, afraid I was going to kill it before the checkered flag.

At the same time, I was chasing Brian for P7, realizing he'd had his own issues as well.
I was having to push in all the windy stuff, because I was losing so much time in a straight line.  Tossing the car in ways I didn't want to, and it bit me a time or two.
In the end, I made one two many mistakes pushing too much.  And I'm sure fatigue played a role. It was fun chasing anyways 


Big thanks to our hosts!
The broadcast crew!     ...just been catching bits and pieces of it and it looks/sounds great. 
4-ish hours of continuous broadcasting is...well 


Already looking forward to the next LVT race!

I took a lot of time to prepare for this one, most of it by choosing the correct car. I wasn't very familiar with the mod so I had o test all the cars in this track to understand their weakness and strengths based in my driving style.
The Nissan was my 1st pick. In terms of laptime there were other cars with the same potential but I felt more comfortable with the Nissan.

The qualify was great and I was feeling already tired in the end of it. The pole lap was great, over the edge.

The start wasn't very good, Miller got a better traction and there was contact in T1. I didn't see the replay yet, I think my car understeered for keeping the inside line. I was chasing Jonatan and he hit the elbow just in front of me, I had to quickly move to the left to avoid him.

I started to close on Juha and he missed the exit and The Chase and I prepared a undercut by having a better line. Miller took advantage as well. Because of the incident in T1 at the start, I was planning to give Miller the position once we had created a gap to Juha but it didn't worked. Braking at The Chase I saw his car growing in my mirror and the had no place to go so instead of keep the race line I kept my car in the left to give him room. Unfortunately his car got loose and the contact happened.

I got stuck in the kitty litter so did he. Dropped back to 5th, 20+ seconds behind the leader. It was lap 15 or 16 I guess. Still a long race ahead.My frond damage and front tires had flatspots and it was hard to keep the car under control. I waited until the pit window to replace them. Just after doing my pitstop, I was going fast to close the gap over Coxon, who was doing his pitstop, I think I daydreamed and missed the braking point in last turn by one pole. Almost hit the guardrail!!! Very scary moment!!! Jonatan saw everything from his car.

With the vibration fixed I started to chase Coxon 7 seconds ahead. After several laps I was in striking distance at the elbow to get a good draft. It looked easy from the broadcast but it wasn't at all. Coxon left the inside line for me and lifted just in time. These car are tricky to brake at The Chase if you don't have the ideal line at the kink.

Juha was 11s ahead at this point. I started to close the gap slowly as he had a damaged car. It was lap 54, I was close but I noticed his car still had the legs in the straights and would be hard to overtake under normal circumstances. I knew the car could make up to 29 laps per stint and my last pit window was opened and also I saw some traffic ahead. I decided to anticipate my service to go for the undercut. When I left the pit I was following Parker, he had a good pace and helped me to keep my hopes high to make the strategy work.

Juha went for the pitstop, and I just tried to keep my car straight, no reason to push and lose everything. When I saw him exiting the pitlane I couldn't believe. I was very glad the strategy had paid off.

Coxon was 42 seconds ahead, and I knew the last pitstop would take at least 50s in total. So I wasn't to worried about him and more worried about Juha. Very unfortunate what happened to Coxon at the pit entrance. To tell you the truth, I had done exactly the same thing when leading the race in another league a couple of years ago.

The last 20 laps was about keep the car in one piece and open a gap to Juha to be safe just in case of something happen on the road ahead. About 10 laps to go I was lifting before shifting to try to save engine just in case too.

I'm very happy with the outcome after everything. This track is amazing, one of my favorites of all.

Congratulations to whom finished this endurance.
Congratulations to Juha 2nd for keeping a strong pace with a damaged car and Coxon 3rd for not giving up.

Thank you Jason/Alberto/Jonatan for the broadcast.

See you next race!!!!