Once again it was great to meet some GTP members in-game and an honor to race with you. (I don't remember the name of the other guy from GTP in our lobby, but hey guy, speak up if you're reading this!)
Yesterday was a mixed bag for me, which seems to be the way it goes for FIA races. I had never raced at Blue Moon Infield A before, only practiced the track once when it first came out. I'm not sure why but I wasn't in love with it back then...that has changed. Spent some time practicing and started to feel the flow of the track. I was able to come within 1s of the top 5 times so I figured that would be good enough to race. Entered the first time slot, qualified 7th I think. Standing start caught a few by surprise, and I gained a spot, but then lost a few spots going into T1 with all the aggressive bombers....it wasn't terrible though, minor contacts only. At this point I was in P9 or P10, but heading into T2 somebody with "local" in their name late-brakes and pushes a car wide right in front of me, he hits the guy on the outside of him, I rear-end the guy who already got punted.....the whole pack slows down but I manage to push through and maintain position while I hear the pile-up behind me get worse. I think that first incident right in front of me is what eventually led to the carnage that
@Mistah_MCA and
@Pfei were involved in. Check the replay from mine and "localxxx" perspective, it might have been a chain reaction of epic proportions. Several people got taken out there, it was just luck that I made it through. The rest of the race was not as eventful, I was stuck behind mecty for quite awhile and if it wasn't for that I might have had a chance to catch the guy in P2 before the finish, as my pace was faster. But mecty was NOT trying to let me pass despite him slowing the pace and causing us to lose the leaders. Heck, I even "saved" mecty from spinning out once....he was losing control right in front of me and right before he ghosted I tapped him back into the racing line. He lost the position but he could have crashed completely and didn't. Some guys just seem to have a harder time with tire wear than others. 3rd place for 1385 points isn't bad, and I'm hanging on to 5th for Mitsubishi and 102nd in the region for Manufacturer's. I gotta be happy with that. Also congrats to you
@Pfei for your 5th place finish!
Nations, ugh, another story. For some reason I get matched up in a top split lobby with guys like Deafsun, Hellzfire, Windfire, Wardez, Ant, McQueen, TG Raikonnen, Purecry, Doogy....the list goes on....like what? I'm ranked 20th when the lobby first opens, so I know my chances are slim. For reference, the winner of this race got something like 2550 points, and even if you placed 12th I think it was still 1000 points.....crazy. So needless to say my qualy was relatively poor at 17th. To help, I was on the receiving end of the ultimate divebomb on lap 1, T1, by the guy who started 19th. Seems like I'm often getting booted off track or politely squeezed off the line by guys with "AMS" in their name, but this was the first time I'd encountered this guy...._daussa. After that, I made a terrible decision to re-enter the track at a bad time and ran into another guy which landed me in last place (sorry leathaface, my bad, wish I could take it back). From that point forward I knew my race was done, so I figured as long as I can beat the guy who divebombed me that would be OK. Ended up passing him on lap3 when he overshot the final turn and ended up in the grass struggling to get out. The rest of the race was uneventful, I finished 19th and the bomber who ruined several people's races finished last. Terrible performance on my part once again. As much as I like getting matched up with really high level drivers, I wish the lobby was more on my level instead of racing against guys who have max DR, which is over 30,000 DR higher than me. Oh well, at least I've made a few appearances on these guys' streams, holding it down in the back of the pack!
Looking forward to Wednesday!
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