Nations Cup Final Season Round 2 Summary
This is Round 2 of the Nations Cup, featuring Gr.4 cars around the Reverse version of Kyoto Driving Park Yamagiwa. I've skipped out Round 1 at Brands Hatch with Gr.3 cars, as I have school commitments, so some people do have points already.
As expected, the lobby is a Mégane Trophy festival, with an NSX, a WRX, and two 86s filling in the non-Mégane spots. Interestingly enough, there are A+ rated drivers in this lobby as well.
I was able to put down a 1:42.704, which puts me enough in 4th, ahead of hijrah_saputra, a fellow Indonesian in the lobby. Pole sitter is a Kiwi named DoubleH with a blistering 1:41.9xx to his name. Things get really shaky with the Championship specific track limits, as no Takumi-style grass dipping is allowed on some insides of its corners, especially the first chicane-style corner (second to last sequence of corners in the Forwards version), the infamous chicane which serves as the meeting of the two tracks inside the complex, Yamagiwa and Miyabi, to which a combo course is available to race on, and the high speed esses leading into the final corner (Turn 1 in the Forwards version).
Lap 1 and things go smoothly until "The Meeting Point", which is my nickname for the chicane, or rather a sequence of corners, where said fellow Indonesian gets thrown off by me and runs wide. He then proceeds to unsafely rejoin the track, which causes tm_sprit (the guy in the NSX) to hit him, spinning him out and dumping poor Saputra into last place. And his SR tanked from S to A for his stunt (more on that later).
At the beginning of Lap 2, kaoru80 is having a battle for 16th with GTRFreak-217 and HillF1nevergiup, until the latter attempts to do Turn 1 3-wide by divebombing GTRFreak, resulting in a domino effect to where Kaoru gets punted wide. He eventually sets a Fastest Lap for a while, until DoubleH sets a new one.
Another change in positions is during Lap 2 when the guy in the NSX runs wide at the exit of the high speed turn after "The Meeting Point" and collides with the wall, leaving the door open for black-fulful (the guy in the WRX), but at the beginning of Lap 3 though, the NSX gets pushed wide by bigwigbossman (a Singaporean in a Red Bull Mégane) after defending from orion0141 (one of the 86s in the race, the other is kotyuke. The former is in the Eneos 86, while the latter is in a chrome blue 86). On the run to "The Meeting Point" however, the NSX, while battling with the Red Bull Mégane, attempts to trailbrake, which makes the NSX's weight to shift unpredictably, which slides Sprit into the wall, dropping him into last.
Said 86 of kotyuke gets overtaken by the guy who divebombed GTRFreak on the final corner. Speaking of which the Aussie causes the 86 to run wide at the exit of the Reverse final corner, dropping him into 18th.
Then, a lag causes the Oz to suddenly tap the fellow Indonesian who is the victim of "The Meeting Point" on Lap 1. After that, said Indonesian is now in the attack position, claiming the inside and in a Touring Car Racing fashion, he made contact with said Aussie, and the move stuck. The battle actually pulls Kaoru in and overtakes GTRFreak to gang up on hijrah_saputra.
DENSO25 had a battle with fatmax_mole, the latter actually started last (19th, one guy got disconnected or blue screened) and has been gaining positions ever since. An incident between the two was inevitable as said Hong Kong guy turns into Mole and made contact, sending him into the wall. Eventually once exiting the final corner the Mole had a synchronized moment with Patlamp777.
The Red Bull Mégane ends up shoving the WRX wide, but the driver of the former then serves his penalty, giving back the position to the WRX, before a blue Okuma Mégane driven by De-14RGT shoves his nose into said Red Bull Mégane, dropping Big Wig into 9th place. After that, the WRX proceeds to hold up a train of Méganes and an 86.
The battle between GTRFreak-217 and hijrah_saputra gets heated when the Oz pays back what the Indonesian did to him on Lap 3 on the long high speed turn, but said Indonesian decided to pay him back again on the high speed esses, forcing the Aussie to run wide.
On the subject of rubbing Aussies, fatmax_mole decided to push De-14RGT into unstability at the beginning of Lap 6. Things get even worse for the Japanese as he gets punted wide by a frustrated Singaporean in the Red Bull Mégane as a payback to what happened on Lap 5.
Said Indonesian on Lap 6 gets into trouble as he pretty much tanked his SR on "The Meeting Point", as another incident puts Orion in the Eneos 86 to a spin after said Japanese guy gets punted by a fellow Japanese in form of HillF1nevergiup, the same guy, again, who causes issues with the others on the grid. Then said incident occurred with Orion and Saputra, plus a ping pong effect from DENSO25 as well.
The pits are in at the end of Lap 6 with the WRX leading the charge for the undercut, followed by the Red Bull Mégane, Patlamp777, the Okuma Mégane driver who harrasses the Singaporean, and DENSO25.
Those who stayed out until the end of Lap 7 pits in, which includes myself. Orion and GTRFreak stayed out due to their own incident when Orion wants to go to the pits when he runs wide on the final turn exit and sees someone crashed into the wall, which causes GTRFreak to have nowhere to go and shunted Orion, to which the Japanese gave up his position to said Aussie. Eventually, Orion pitted at the end of Lap 9, while GTRFreak for some reason attempted a no-stop strategy.
More incidents include nori-nana7 (drives a black Mégane with purple wheels and PMMM related decals, or the lack thereof) going for a sychro-spin with Patlamp777, yasukiyoband (Yasukiyo Racing with Mikoto Mégane) gets it wrong on "The Meeting Point", the same turn as the synchro-spin of nori-nana7 and Patlamp777, and a few other uncovered incidents.
The battle between Me and yasukiyoband is pretty much a race long hunt, with ARROW-HEAD_A joining in for good measure after exiting the pits to begin Lap 8. Eventually I trounced them both, as Yasukiyo dropped out due to an error or my overtaking move, and Arrowhead has to slow down to serve his penalty on the finish line. Speaking of which, Flyman_Kr was gifted the win due to DoubleH's unserved 8-second penalty, despite the Kiwi's best efforts to pull a 19-second gap. I ended up finishing 3rd, gaining 1610 points at the end. What an eventful race, despite all of the Méganes and questionable driving standards!
Stay tuned for the summary of the Manufacturer Series Round 2! @xxxman1 is included in said race!
(Nik, Akagi, s_shohei, Kawakana, Goriraichi, ArrowCG, yukiku, Lion-Face go to those sessions almost every race of the last 2 seasons (apart from the Top 24s)) The only downside is that you have about 8-6 minutes in-between races to reacquaint yourself with your chosen car for Nations, but it's worth it if you can get a good result.
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. I guess the Megane Trophy is even more OP than I thought.
