Well I ended up not making it home last night, so apologies for the later-than-anticipated report, but here we go:
Spec GTP: Formula Mazda
Round 2 - Lime Rock Park - Full Circuit Alt
After a short practice session dominated by Lukas and Slip, we started this race with a short grid missing
@VXR @GTracer38 and
@ClydeYellow (sorry guys! We'll all get in a disconnect-free race eventually!) which left 5 cars on the grid:
- @Populuxe Cowboy
- @prousonhairy
- @HighSeasHoMastr
- @SlipZtrEm
- @Im_Lukas
By the end of the first two corners I found myself in the lead, with
@SlipZtrEm chasing me.
@Populuxe Cowboy was still in third, and
@prousonhairy had dropped to fifth after a slower start.
We held this order for several laps, with
@Im_Lukas getting past
@Populuxe Cowboy into third fairly quickly.
There were close runners through the field for the first few laps, with
@Populuxe Cowboy trying hard to hold off
@prousonhairy here:
The first chicane was an area that saw a lot of action in this one. The heavy braking and slow corner made it a popular area to have a look, but it's fairly easy to defend the line into it, as
@SlipZtrEm found out trying to get past me in the opening laps:
As you can see,
@Im_Lukas was lurking behind our battle by this point.
A couple small mistakes by
@SlipZtrEm saw him lose second to
@Im_Lukas shortly after that picture. This set up a nice 5 or 6 lap sequence where I deluded myself into thinking I could hold off the advancing blue car and keep the lead:
That wouldn't last.
A few laps after catching up to me,
@Im_Lukas got a better run out of the first chicane than I did and forced me to the outside at the top of the hill. I tried my best to hold it around the long way, but he snuck through into the lead, never to be seen again:
At least I didn't lose second to
@SlipZtrEm in the same move...
This set up a great battle between me and
@SlipZtrEm with lots of close racing and pass-repassing:
This went on for almost 10 laps, until I glanced slightly too amorously at the painted line on the turn-in for the last corner:
And it responded to my unwanted advances by throwing my car into a huge slide:
Which let
@SlipZtrEm get through.
That left the last 12 or so laps to go by in relative silence.
@Im_Lukas had stretched an incredible lead,
@SlipZtrEm was driving away from me but not making ground on first, and I was pulling away from
@prousonhairy in fourth a little bit each lap. My goal at that stage was just to finish without getting lapped by
@Im_Lukas and that led both me and
@SlipZtrEm to set some of our fastest laps towards the end of the race, but it wasn't enough to catch the leader.
We ended up finishing in exactly reverse order of how we started:
- @Im_Lukas
- @SlipZtrEm
- @HighSeasHoMastr
- @prousonhairy
- @Populuxe Cowboy
I know that
@Populuxe Cowboy had an issue where he forgot to turn off damage and ended up in the pits after a run-in with a tire wall, which cost him a lot of time. Other than that, I think it was a fairly incident-free race. I had a slightly laggy bump in the very first corner with someone, but that was no harm no foul.
All in all, it was a super fun race, and I look forward to seeing (hopefully) everyone for the next one!
Unless I'm wrong, I believe that the next race will be:
Spec GTP: Formula Mazda
Round 3 - Brands Hatch Grand Prix Circuit - Wet
21 February 20:00 GMT*
*-Exact time subject to change
Looking forward to seeing everyone there! Again, congratulations to
@Im_Lukas on the win! The full replay is shared, file name is GTPSpecMazdaR2 with the description being "Round 2 of the GTPlanet Spec Formula Mazda Series, GTP" if anyone wants to give it a watch. Cheers!
I felt bad when I came to you and you pulled in to the grass and probably lost 3-4 seconds 
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