I love racing in the rain. I mean, we only matched last event's 6th place and it was a miserable sodden day, but we are far more competitive in the wet.
Second round of the D4H series.
Car copped the basic maintenance during the week and our “wet weather” set up this morning once we were sure of a wet race - basically the softer rear springs and some negative camber taken out of the front.
We ran the brand new Federal RSRR tyres rather than the Yokohama AD08s that we usually run in the rain.
Paulie a no-show due to not a sore foot from crashing a dirt bike, El Wifeo late because she had to collect The Girl from a sleep over.
So qualifying and the start of the event were just Petey and I.
I went out first in quali, did a reasonable number of laps. Came back in and Pete tells me that I'm over 1.5 seconds off the pace with a 72.mid - crap. But still good enough for 7th - which is fine.
He goes out and does a bunch of laps, most of them held up by slower cars - the spread from fastest to slowest was huge, so the slower cars were being lapped very regularly and he’s dragged us up to 6th, but then another car goes faster and pushed us back to 7th.
Eventually he gets a clear lap and puts us 3rd on the grid - which is our best ever qualifying position and less than 0.4 seconds slower the pole (which was the #159 Galant that was ballistic all day).
To the race...
Pete starts from third, loses two places in the first lap but clears out from 6th place pretty quickly.
https://www.facebook.com/pheasantwood4hour/videos/164214228851149/
I take over and we lose two places in the pit stop. I hold station, not realising that the Celica in front of me was 6th place.
Then we fall into the usual routine of bouncing from 3rd to 7th depending on each team's pitstop strategy.
El Wifeo arrives and hops in - did an amazing job to get in and be on the pace in treacherous conditions.
I get in for my stint and have an ongoing 'altercation' with another car. I out-braked myself at the end of the straight and they slipped past. Quickly re-caught them and they began to aggressively block... * sigh * I put my nose up alongside them on the exit of the sweeper and he moves over to try to push me into the wall. Given the choice of running into a concrete wall or a 1990s Lancer, the Lancer was obviously the softer choice - and considering that it wasn't the wall's fault that I had to hit something, I ran into the Lancer...
A lap later and I am coming up to pass and he jerks over and I touch him again... FFS!
A few more aggressive blocks later, and I had another chance to move past and he tried to push me into the wall again! Like the first time, the choice was obvious and easy: Hit the Lancer, not the wall.
Eventually I got past, and a few turns later he stuck his nose inside on Turn 2 - so I gave him room ... and he ran into me anyway... Fortunately he wasn't in a position to make the pass stick and I cleared out.
My stint ended shortly after, and he tried to have a go at me in the pits. Yeah sport, about that: No. So old mate copped a "full and frank" explanation of why he was driving inappropriately and why I was not ok with any of his nonsense.
I later wondered if I was unreasonable and/or my perspective was clouded, but three different teams came and said "what the hell did he think he was doing?!" and "I'm glad you got the upper hand there because he was driving like a twat"...
So we finished the morning in 7th place, but two of the faster teams have penalties that dropped them behind us - so we started the afternoon in 5th.
Pete was keen to make amends for losing positions in the morning start, so he drove for the restart. And he did make amends - picked up a place and cleared out from the two cars on our lap, while dropping minimal time to the front running cars (that were a couple of laps ahead).
https://www.facebook.com/pheasantwood4hour/videos/486272099422398/
I got back in and had one of my biggest moments ever - passing a slower car I got onto standing water under brakes and fired off at the entry to Turn 5. Really thought that I was going into the tyre wall for a while there - brakes on, brakes off, steer more, steer less, grab the handbrake - but eventually it turned and slithered back onto the track... Didn’t lose any race position, but wasted all the ground I’d made car #35 that was one place ahead of us in the race.
There were a number of Double Yellow Flags through the day. Among them:
#71 Eunos managing to beach itself with the back wheels up the embankment... and at least one front wheel in the air.
The FTO erupting into a cloud of steam/smoke.
The Mazda 3 touching the wall after sliding out on the FTO's spilled oil.
Then again to clean up the oil.
The last period of double yellows was when the #5 206 GTi hit something at the bottom of the hill (almost exactly where the Eunos got itself stuck earlier in the day). This actually triggered a red flag, due to the fear that the driver had injured his neck. He hadn't, but I have no problem with caution in these situations!
ElWifeo drove for the restart from 5th place and was swamped in the traffic - losing places to cars #11 and #18. Car #18 was on a mission and cleared out, but ElWifeo re-grouped and hounded #11 for the rest of her stint.
We put Petey back in for the final stint, knowing that he'd be able to chase down #11 - but it turned out to be a non-event because we has a much better driver change and got ahead that way. He was actually chasing down #18 but simply ran out of time to catch them.
The leading car #159 has a big lose on the last lap, but saved it and held on for the win.
