1955 Round 5 - Ulster Trophy

Present.

I cannot join, I again suffer from migraine 🥲

Sorry to hear that Martin. I hope you're better soon.

Absent

Present

absent

Present

Present

Not able to make it unfortunately

very late but here

Hi, although Frank is awol, the event server appears to be up and running. Please join us by entering the Dundrod server with 39 car slots.

Thought I could make it tonight but unfortunately I can’t. Good luck everyone

I had a good run going, started P19, up to P12, no damage. I came across the S/F line and got a screen freeze and CTD. I hope I didn’t ruin anyone else’s race. Fun while it lasted.

Blocked by big-boy-cars on two quickest qualy laps and was about to swap over to race setup. Tried one more session and got a clear lap and.... beat Darren🥳
The git pipped me by 2 tenths at the end though.
Made an ok start and stayed ahead of Scooby. But got swamped by some 3l and 3+l litres.
Stuck in a 3l sandwich for 5 laps. Had a couple of attempts at the cars in front but very risky and they powered away on the straights. Settled into a gap of a couple of seconds ahead and behind to see what would happen.
Unfortunately, what happened was two cars in front crashed coming out of Ireland. I saw some dirt clouds, so eased a bit, but didn't expect to find them both across the road. I tried to get through a gap but just crashed into one of them (sorry).
Huge steering damage but was able to get around to the pits without getting in anyone's way. Must have missed the pit entry so they wouldn't repair the car.
Very very carefully reversed and tried again. 251 (4m 10s) seconds later I was off again.
Couldn't settle into a rhythm though and my lap times were in the 4:30, while Darren was in the 4:22s.
Despite the conservative speed, I spun out coming out of wheelers a few seconds ahead of Erwann who was leading. Fortunately, I stayed straight and out of his way.
Still couldn't get into a rythem and then ran wide and scrapped the fence out of Quarry.
Still a lap behind (or 2 to the leaders) I thought it best to quit before I damaged someone's race. I wasn't really enjoying it at that stage either but I did want to put in a full race distance, as it's been a while.

Bloody home races.

I tried to run a conservative race and didn't push at the beginning, giving up position to some 1500 cars.
After a few laps, I made a mistake but managed to avoid a crash at high speed, dragging the car across the track for a hundred meters.
Two 1500 cars overtook me but I managed to recover the position laps later.

My head was buzzing with one sentence: "Don't hit, give up the rhythm but don't hit".
That's what I did the entire race.
But...you know how old they are and I forgot to empty my bladder before the race and it filled up and I became cramped and lost concentration because of it.
Then, suddenly, I lost control of the car after the first sequence of curves, once again, I covered a long distance with the car across without hitting anything, but I ended up in the opposite direction.
I waited for the leaders and Donat to pass me and returned to the correct direction of the track, looking for a shoulder to stop the car and relieve myself.
At this point in the race, there were only 4 laps left and then, with great difficulty, I established a very slow pace of around 4:40 to finish a race that I didn't believe I could finish.

Bruno Chacon wrote:

I tried to run a conservative race and didn't push at the beginning, giving up position to some 1500 cars.
After a few laps, I made a mistake but managed to avoid a crash at high speed, dragging the car across the track for a hundred meters.
Two 1500 cars overtook me but I managed to recover the position laps later.

My head was buzzing with one sentence: "Don't hit, give up the rhythm but don't hit".
That's what I did the entire race.
But...you know how old they are and I forgot to empty my bladder before the race and it filled up and I became cramped and lost concentration because of it.
Then, suddenly, I lost control of the car after the first sequence of curves, once again, I covered a long distance with the car across without hitting anything, but I ended up in the opposite direction.
I waited for the leaders and Donat to pass me and returned to the correct direction of the track, looking for a shoulder to stop the car and relieve myself.
At this point in the race, there were only 4 laps left and then, with great difficulty, I established a very slow pace of around 4:40 to finish a race that I didn't believe I could finish.

It is a great effort to finish a race like this, congratulations Bruno!

Fortunately for Bruno, there are a lot of handy hedges and trees at Dundrod. Ideal for just such an emergency

David Purchase wrote:

Unfortunately, what happened was two cars in front crashed coming out of Ireland. I saw some dirt clouds, so eased a bit, but didn't expect to find them both across the road. I tried to get through a gap but just crashed into one of them (sorry)

Hi David. That one is on me. We didn't crash, but i gave a little shove to the car ahead. He recovered nicely and I slowed down to stay behind him. Just as I wanted to pick up speed again, you stormed to the crime scene and that was it. Sorry about that to both of you guys. I didn't really expect to finish this one, but it was unfortunate to go out like this. It actually went better than I thought before this unfortunate situation. But again, expecting to see the finish line would be extremely naive, anyway

No problem Peter and sorry I wasn't able to avoid you.
I was disappointed at the time. But I love racing on this circuit and part of its nature is any small error can end in a big accident. It comes down to a big slice of luck if you get caught in an accident or not.
Later on, I made errors that could have easily taken out someone if they were close behind me.
The trees, hedges and hills make it very difficult to see around the next corner; so you have to commit and hope
And it's so narrow and high speed, it's difficult to recover from mistakes.
I'm looking forward to the next race already.