1956 Round 1: Australian Tourist Trophy

Declan Brush wrote:

Change in plans again I’ll be present until further notice. Sorry I’ve caused any confusion

No problem at all, good to have you on board as always Declan!

I swear this isn't me being indecisive but I'll likely be missing the race tomorrow as now we're going to the US Air Force Museum instead. Again sorry to those in charge for any confusion.

Present

Present in #6 Ferrari.

Late but here

Qualifying was uninspiring as I couldn't get a quick lap. Though I don't think it would have affected my final Q position.
I made an ok start and was tempted to have a go at Gerard but it didn't seem to be worth the risk. Settled into my planned safe pace. The plan was always to aim for an uneventful race and see what happened ahead.
I did briefly get past Gerard, when he had an off, but he was soon ahead again. Mat also gave me a few moments of hope but I was never close enough to capitalise.
About half way it started to go wrong. First I missed my turn in point under the bridge, lightly tapped a titanium spring hay bale and got flung across the track and onto the grass on the other side. I got going fairly quickly but with bent steering and heavy aero damage. Geoff told me to pit but I haven't mapped a *cancel repair* key and didn't fancy my chances if I had a 5 minute repair job. So I stuck with it and finally found a reasonable pace.
A few laps later Erwann came up to lap me. I stayed wide and braked a little earlier to make it a bit easier. But I think I misjudged his speed and braking distance as he flew past me with all wheels locked and dunked the haybales. I was feeling pretty bad about it so next time around I moved over and slowed down early to let him through.
Next up was Nico who I went very wide for at the hairpin. He flew away but then seemed to have a massive moment in the right hander past the pits. There was dust everywhere and I couldn't see his car so I had to slow right down. That let Austin and another catch me much quicker than expected and left me offline. So my breaking into the viaduct was a bit wild and I think I scared the bejesus out of both of them.
After that I was a bag of nerves until the end and my lap times fluctuated wildly as I was over cautious lapping people and being lapped.
Sorry to anyone I caused a moment for. I was doing my best honestly.
I was glad to bring it home in 10th (I think) and 7th in class. My onboard is here: https://www.youtube.com/live/CepTbLYyzOc?feature=share

I didn't even intend to finish the race, as I already did 5+ hours behind the wheel of a real car and it was quite an exhausting day. Quali was a disaster, I simply couldn't put a single decent lap together. It worked out in the end and I started 8th, ahead of my teammate. Good enough, I guess.

There was some nice battling with the Jag-gang, mostly with Nicolas. Those cats seem to be a tiny bit faster, but not much, I had a lot of fun (sorry for that slight shove into Tannery, though). Unfortunately, I had a lazy slide at Viaduct, hit the fence and caused significant damage to my vehicle. Lower top speed, wheel turned to the right, compromised stability under braking. So that was the end of competetive racing, really. But somehow it was still fun to drive, so I went on. I was mostly driving alone, but my CrewChief informed me about everything going on at the track. He was quite busy with all those "yellow flag, XYZ binned it, there's a crash in..." messages Btw, it's a very good plugin. Obviously, not period correct for vintage racing, but it's nice to be aware of everything happening during the race. Anyway, the end was near and I made one (almost) critical mistake, lost it totally into Mountford and almost took out the P3 car. Apologies. Thankfully, no harm was done to anyone. I had two laps to go, but when I saw that even the mighty Godrecki went off the track at Viaduct in his very last lap, I decided not to risk anything, waited for almost a minute right before the finish line and let him pass, so that I didn't have to drive one more. P5 in the end, I'm happy with that.

Exhausting, but challenging. I guess that's what vintage racing on public roads is all about See you next time