FXR So City Long

[delankster]

the new combo was a bit of a unknown for me, love the car and the track but had never combined the two. first impressions didn't go well and my liking for both went off about as quick as my tyres !:sad:

but after many a tweak and test and a few setups borrowed, i finally got settled with the car and have started to remember what i loved about the car and track.
It has to be said that the car is a definate handful round here and overtaking chances are few and far between which makes the qualifing on thurs a big deal!!:blink:

 good luck to all that take part, as no doubt the hr race will be jam - packed with incidents

[Seany]

yeah its a great combo. Well fast too .  I find that when I have a bad run, hit the wall or some thing, it takes a while to get back in rhythm.  Ill be amazed if I only do one pit stop on thurs.

[BigFatCat]

I like the FXR but I think South City isn't really the place to enjoy it. Westhill is the ideal partner for this car, sweeping curves and bags of G.

Overtaking, like last week, is normally down to the person in front making a bags of it. Unlike last week, it's probably easier to pile in their accident or get pushed into it if you get someone behind not willing to drive under caution.

FXR is a scary beast though :-) so imagine it's the DTM round the Norisring.

[Doorman]

I'm stockpiling dummies. :sideways:

[Aquilifer]

...

I agree. Not a huge fan of this combo. This makes even the baby Jesus cry...or at least few racing drivers. :g:

[Deetz]

This was always going to be a tricky combo, with big powerful cars on a tight technical circuit.

Once I had tested the individual strength of each individual piece of barrier, some on many times, I managed to beg a decent setup them the ever generous Azaazaa.:thumb:

Once tweaked for my driving style, some nice quick and consistent lap times started to come.

For the race my main worry was Romus who had started to put in some very nice times, and indeed he out qualified me for the main race, with Azaazaa turning up and sticking it on pole. Aquilifer and Dee were not far behind either. It looked like being a tough race.

I got a good start to the race and put pressure onto Romus into turn two, but he didn't crack so I settled for 3rd, we all spread out a little as everyone settled into a rhythm. In the early part of the race I was just about able to hang onto Romus while looking after the car as much as I could. Suddenly at about the 20-25 minute mark, Romus's pace dropped off a bit and I was able to catch and pass him fairly easily. He looked to have some from end damage.

I was going to run quite long before my pit stop, but it looked like Azaazaa had pitted early, and possibly lost some time, so I pitted early in an effort to get track position on him, but it ended costing me a little time as I had to give way out of the pits to Aquilifer as he came through on the racing line. I hadn't got the desired track position on Azaazaa either, damn.

The middle third of the race was fairly quiet, just putting in consistent laps. Once all the pitstops where over, I was in 2nd and Azaazaa wasn't far up the road, only five and a half seconds. Even better I was catching him, at up to half a second a lap. Brilliant, a win might be on after all. :woot2:

Then someone mentioned that their tyres were getting very worn, I checked mine, and sure enough the fronts where very thin. Choices, choices. Go for glory and a high chance of a puncture, or back off and settle for second.

Well there is only one word for it, I CHICKENED out and decided to play it safe. However backing off meant that I lost my rhythm, and the lap times fluctuated all over the place. With a couple of laps to go Dee was getting far to close, and I had to put the pedal down again for the last couple of laps.

Thankfully the tyres held together and I finished the race 2nd.

A great race which I thoroughly enjoyed. Bring on the next combo. :boxing:
 
 

[Doorman]

Nice report Damian. I managed 200metres before a numpty(1st class) rear-ended me and by the time I sorted myself out the rest of the field were advancing on Poland. Lameduck, bless him, took time out to ban said numpty and was as far back from me as I was from the rest. My heart sank and my body slumped. My store of 'sisu' was depleted and off I went to the stands where I watched some bloody good tussles. Oldie and BFC and Seany and Dee stood out.
On this occasion my dummy wasn't spat, more like it fell from my slack mouth.
:crying:

[Seany]

bad luck Doorman :sad:

I had an enjoyable race.  In the first half myself and Dee had some good battles,  he put the "willies" up me and made me do a new PB, cheers .

I was watching my tires towards the end and the front right center patch was  getting really thin, but if I held back anymore I would of lost the chase with Dee.  I decided to keep pushing and sure enough on that tight downhill left hander the tire let go and I ate the wall :blink:. managed to get back to the pits without too much grief, change all 4 tires! :g: and rejoined.  I'm glad it happened though, that was the 1st puncture I have ever gotten during a race and now I know how far is too far

congrats to the winners

[delanvital]

Nice read Deetz. Sure miss racing with you guys. Only a month more or so

[Romus]

This was always going to be a tricky combo, with big powerful cars on a tight technical circuit.

I must say this again: thanks Andy for choosing this combo. I would have never even though of bringing this musclepack into this track, but hey, it was fun.

Nice report Deetz. I was doing quite ok until about 20 minutes, when the R4/R3 tires lost the grip. It took me about 5-10 minutes to accept it, and during that time I was driving at least a second slower than in the first laps. The rest of the race was better with smoother controls and a bit earlier braking.

[BigFatCat]

"Scuderia Ginsters FatCat are not willing to make any form of statement at the present time. Investigations are in progress into letting the eejit drive and the same eejit choose setup, tyre choice and fuel loading. When we have beaten three colours of Coulthard out of said eejit, the statement situation will be reassessed."
And now back to Louise Goodman, who has found Doorman in the pits...

[Doorman]

Well Louise, I thought I was pretty hard done by until I saw what happened to BigFatCat. I mean, to run out of fuel with only one lap to do....:doh: My heart goes out to him. :lmfao:




Oh by the way Louise, fancy a shag? :norty:

[Zootoxin]

Oh by the way Louise, fancy a shag? :norty:

:roflmao::lmfao::woot2::haha::lol:

[Aquilifer]

That was a boring rac...I mean drive around. I didn't see anybody after the first couple of rounds. I have never liked SO tracks so much and especially now it was even harder to overtake with FXR so I wonder if anybody can talk about racing. Anyway that wasn't my problem because like I said, I didn't see a living soul.

Because I had suffered melted tyres in 8 lappers, I put R4/R3 combo. That certainly must have worked better than R3/2 combo, but the feeling was somewhat...different. Because I hadn't tested that before I was bit lost at first. I also did the qualifying with R4s (trying to learn the harder compound), so my times were 1.5 sec behind my pb (also due to not being able to overtake slower people on a fast lap).

I was bit surprised that the R4/3s didn't show any heating, but the pit crew changed all of them at the stop. So they must have been over 40% worn at 35 min mark anyway.

At the end I was having my only battle with...myself not falling to sleep. The only good thing I can remember right now is when BigFatCat gave room really nicely. Thanks mate, I buy you a can of cat food

[delankster]

goes to prove the point that you'll never please all the people all the time,

was gutted to have missed this one as i was on the pace and really enjoyed the intensity of the combo.
but with a snooker and pool match all in one night, it put paid to any chance of taking part:sad: wouldn't mind but lost both games:doh: