JMF

Congrats guys!

I probably did everything I shouldn't have if I really wanted to go fast. I had a six pack of beer the night before. I didn't sleep well. I didn't practice. Nino may have driven these roads sleepy and ailing from the night before. It was still fun. I made it 20 minutes into the first lap before I bumped a wall and that was the only hit on the first lap. I bumped a wall within the first 2 minutes of the 2nd lap so I was more careless the 2nd lap. I've done so many laps here now that I might getting close to the number of times Vaccarella drove these roads. I slid nicely through one turn in the 2nd lap and I wanted to yell, "Nino!" but I just said it. Right after that I got a good laugh when I came around another turn and there was "VACCARELLA" in huge letters on the wall.

I should have practiced at least two laps during the week. It would have reminded me to tell everybody that setting your pit stall in Campofelice, the last town before the long straight, is a good way to work on your lap times. Then you can get some heat in your tires for a 1 lap run. It helped me learn sector 4 well too. I learned sector 1 long before sector 2,3, and 4. Sector 2 came next and then sector 4 after I had moved my pit stall. Everybody probably learns 1 and 2 first because it's common to abandon laps.

And had I been thinking more about this race during the week, I might have remembered to tell Don about the virtual mirrors for the GTs. http://srmz.net/inde...680

Aljones, on 14 July 2018 - 10:51 AM, said:

Congrats Alain! Nice job.

MGL66, on 14 July 2018 - 11:55 AM, said:

I was surprised too. And Burt looked like he might do 3! I went ahead and burned most of the extra 2 gallons I was carrying hoping to improve my S1 time. It wasn't enough fuel to finish that sector. If you want to set a fast lap, you need to do 2 or set your stall on or before the long straight.

BurtAugust, on 14 July 2018 - 01:47 PM, said:

Thanks Burt. I took what I consider the 4th easiest car to drive here and the one I'd most like to improve my best lap time. Michi had a good car for this track, 3rd easiest, imo. I was amazed when I set a 34:40 with the Lola in tiny fraction of the laps it took me to do 34:55 in the Ferrari.

You surprised me on lap 1 Burt. That Porsche looked like rabbit hopping onto the road. I barely missed you.

Thanks for the fun guys.

Bob Simpson, on 12 July 2018 - 08:55 AM, said:

That would be interesting to see how many would actually finish.

Bruce, is it 3 resets per lap or 3 resets for 1 and 2 laps?

You read it correctly Michael.

54 cars started the 1967 24 Hours of Lemans. 59 cars started the 1967 24 Hours of Daytona, and 58 cars started the 12 Hours of Sebring. 71 cars started Nurburgring 1000 Kilometres. And 63 cars started the Targa Florio in 1967. They had some huge fields back then. That's one of the things that always intrigued me about places like Targa and Le Mans. There were so many different cars to see.

http://www.racingspo...30&mode=results

Pepe Higdon, on 07 July 2018 - 10:07 AM, said:

That's an excellent description! My apologies Pepe. And apologies to Enrique too. He didn't deserve such a crappy fate.

I expected that situation about as much as Pepe expected that he'd be too fast at some point. Yannick often surprises me by how fast he starts. This time I was surprised by how slow he was. I was down 50hp and using a 4 speed versus 5 speed transmission. I expected he'd start much better than me. You can hear me lift quickly to set the car on the correct line. After that initial lift, I could have easily kept the pedal to the floor. Instead I'm lifting a second time to avoid hitting Yannick. I had enough time to keep thinking, "is he ever going to quit slowing?" I guess the answer was, once I get sideways.

I didn't panic but I couldn't figure out what to do with my feet once I lost it. It probably would have helped if I could have accelerated in a straight line once I was facing the right direction. I did try to steer away from the cars I could see in my mirror.

I was luckier than Masten. Being nailed by Pepe at a 90mph difference in speed, should have been the end of my day. I didn't think the car that hit me would survive. And unfortunately for Pepe, it didn't. I thought it might have been Doni that hit me because of his early exit but at the same time I never would have expected Doni to hit me so hard. It's a shame to see Doni's fortune was no better than Enrique's. After Pepe's "nudge", I slid on my top and barrel rolled several times to miraculously land on my wheels. Surprisingly the car didn't feel bad. It had suffered damaged but I didn't realize it until much later in the race.

I never took a good look at Alain's car but I did see a lot of it. I thought he was driving Gurney's car. He was running away from me on the straights with me in the slipstream. After a couple of laps behind Alain, I thought I should have started from the back with one of the fastest cars. At least then I could have passed and I might have avoided the lap 1 mayhem. It wasn't until several laps after I got past Alain that I realized my engine was suffering. Instead of 193 mph, I was only hitting 186 mph on the straight. No wonder I couldn't gain anything on Bob or Micheal. I sure tried.

I looked into the history of this race. I didn't realize I was driving about the same spec car as Gregory's. And I didn't realize his car is one of my favorites in the mod. I hoped I would get Gregory's car, the blue McLaren with green stripes. It's the coolest looking car in the mod in my opinion. Nope, I got the John Cannon car. One of the first cars out of the race. I did get some of the Masten Gregory luck. I survived a horrific wreck that gave me a handicapped car that was slow. Masten was out of the race after 20 laps for being too slow.

I was enjoying the driving until I realized how slow my car was. After that, the only fun was seeing how much easier the car was to drive with a little less power.

Congrats Bob and Micheal! I wish I'd have had a chance to try to catch you two.