In practice, the car wasn't feeling good. I lost it off the track on quite a few occasions, mostly losing the rear. I tried to soften the rear a bit, didn't seem to help much.
In Race 1, Phil.8 bogged down badly on the line in front of me and I drove around him. Half way through the first lap, I was trying to keep it tight to the right of the track at the left/right esses at the top of the hill, because I knew Simone was on my left,
but I put a wheel on the grass and it made me wobble a bit in front of him, and he couldn't avoid a contact. It sent me sliding,
and Phil.8 who had nowhere to go T boned me. So that was off to a shaky start, but I had fun in a pack with Jeremy, Benana, Chap, Phil.8, Bacchulum... Chap was warping a little, so I was glad to make it past him. In the closing stages when I was chasing Jeremy, I hit him and sent us both off, with me redressing, which cost us both a spot to Benana. He was braking surprisingly early which caught me out. It was only afterwards I realised he was on softs which had gone off on the last lap and was struggling to make the corners.
Race 2 was off to a better start, with a bit of a chase of Phil.8 until I passed him. It was all fairly uneventful, chasing Grat, until we pitted on lap 8. I came out of the pits side by side with Grat, and because I wasn't sure at what stage we'd become unghosted again, I drove out to the left of the pit exit, over the stripy kerb, to rejoin the track to avoid a collision with Grat. It seems the marshals turned a blind eye to that one
I was a little surprised when I came out from my pit stop to find myself in 3rd, close behind Matthew. I chased him for several laps, but had to keep my distance when he started warping, at one point disappearing and reappearing behind me. Because I had to pull back a little, it made me vulnerable to Jeremy, who was chasing hard. Jeremy and I had a good race for a few laps, with the slipstream giving us both close passing opportunities, but eventually Jeremy got a pass that stuck and took 3rd from me. Along the way, Stan and Grat had little nibbles at my rear bumper, but they were too far back to really make a pass stick and came off second best from the impacts. I was just holding my racing line, a car length in front. Courtesy of Jeremy receiving a 10 second penalty for repeated cutting, I got my first podium for the season, which was quite a surprise, really.
Ironically, Guybrush was that far out in front in race 2 that he got the "Loneliest" award, despite carrying 75 kg. What the hell???
In hindsight, the ballast weight was not enough to really bring the leaders back to the pack, although for many of us, there were lots of lap times in the 52's.
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