AMG.
Staff Emeritus
- 3,116
- NL, Leiden
- GTP_AMG
The earth has stopped spinning on its axis…..
The sun is setting at Motegi as I drive up to the S/F lane on Motegi.
Ahead of me are
1 Amuse S2000 R1
2 Opera Performance 350Z
3 Spoon S2000
4 Spoon Civic
5 Spoon Integra
No forks or knives on the table? Hmm we must be having soup then.
And then there’s me, in an Elise type 72 I pulled from the garage in a rush. I was well in to the race when I noticed I barely used 5th gear
on the longest straight. Should have fitted a custom tranny.
I entered the race to find that on S1 tyresI was offered 165 points. I ran a couple of laps and found that I was able to keep up with the pack.
So I flag down a marshal, slip him some cash and ask him to restart the race. I add a bit of weight to get up to a 200 point race.
So off we go again and oh boy, did I now have my work cut out for me. The Amuse and the 350 are fast. Adding that weight was maybe not such a good idea.
I soldier on and see that at least the gap between me and the 350 and Amuse doesn’t increase dramatically.
Lap 12 goes by and already the Integra goes in for tyres to be followed by the Civic on lap 13. Mine just barely turned green.
Hmmmmm
much more promising as I expect the others to follow suit on the next few laps.
Euh, no they don’t. 🤬
The next two AIs pit on laps 22 and 23 and the Amuse is still going. He’s the fastest car on the track.
I frantically call the pit crew to throw a couple of spiked mats (is that what they’re called?) on the track but they must be playing cards
with the other crews as no one answers my calls.
They’re fired
The Amuse and I do another 10 laps and my tyres are leaning towards yellow. More than an hour has passed by now and finally on
lap 34 the Amuse heads for the pits. My chance to overtake him; but I still have to pit
I carry on till lap 40, the S1s are bright yellow and I had by then calculated I’d have 1 less stop than he would.
So perhaps even a fairly good chance I’d actually win this race comfortably.
So lap 40 is nearly done as I head towards pit lane. I drive through the chicane on to the straight. Keep to the right expecting to
find the entrance but crash in to a wall of tyres.
. (as seen in pic 5 righthand side)
It aint April fools day and my crew assure me they have not changed the entrance to the pits.
I quickly recover to retain my lead over the Amuse and do another lap trying to figure out where the entrance is. Thankfully the tyres
are still in good shape so if I miss again on lap 41 I can continue and retry on lap 42. I actually do find it at the end of lap 41.
Thankfully!
The crew repairs the damage to the front of the Elise, throw on new set of S1s, top up to 55 units of petrol and hand me my shades.
I exit the pits and soldier on.
The Amuse decides to change tactics and pits in earlier than expected or I made some errors in keeping track cause there
are 2 "2000" 's in the race. I’m too concentrated to keep a good score. Looking at the scoreboard doesn’t help either,
yet another thing that appears wrong with this track. (pic 4)
By the time I reach the halfway mark I've managed to increase my lead to approx a minute. Not much but still a comfortable lead should
anything go wrong. Hour 5 passes by and so does hour 6.
The 7th hour creeps up and I notice my lap times are dropping by 6 to 7 seconds per lap.
, I'd nearly fallen asleep.
I decide to get some caffeine and do some exercises to waken up and finish off this race. 7 hours and 34 minutes have passed
when I hit lap 200.
Only a short stint to go. Lap 212 just started before 8 hour mark so I have another 2 minutes to carry on for the finish.
Was it a nail biting race? Yes, the first 2 hours were but after building up a cushion of time it was more of a ‘ok’ I need to finish this
for 200 pts. At this point in time, that’s my main goal.
Final results
Elise 8h 02m, NA1, S1, RC suspension, standard tranny, TR clutch, RC flywheel, aids 000 and 48 ballast.
Amuse --:-- (approx 1.5 laps)
350 --:-- (a bit more than 1.5 laps)
Spoon 2000 --:--
Civic several laps
Integra several more laps
I collect a Honda NSX type 9.999.999 or was it type 999? There are just so many of them, some 120k credits but more importantly 200 A specs.
So has the earth stopped spinning?
Well in Motegi it has, the sun was setting for a full 8 hours and my eyes hurt.
Hope you enjoyed, comments most welcome 👍
AMG.
The sun is setting at Motegi as I drive up to the S/F lane on Motegi.
Ahead of me are
1 Amuse S2000 R1
2 Opera Performance 350Z
3 Spoon S2000
4 Spoon Civic
5 Spoon Integra
No forks or knives on the table? Hmm we must be having soup then.
And then there’s me, in an Elise type 72 I pulled from the garage in a rush. I was well in to the race when I noticed I barely used 5th gear
on the longest straight. Should have fitted a custom tranny.
I entered the race to find that on S1 tyresI was offered 165 points. I ran a couple of laps and found that I was able to keep up with the pack.
So I flag down a marshal, slip him some cash and ask him to restart the race. I add a bit of weight to get up to a 200 point race.
So off we go again and oh boy, did I now have my work cut out for me. The Amuse and the 350 are fast. Adding that weight was maybe not such a good idea.
I soldier on and see that at least the gap between me and the 350 and Amuse doesn’t increase dramatically.
Lap 12 goes by and already the Integra goes in for tyres to be followed by the Civic on lap 13. Mine just barely turned green.
Hmmmmm
much more promising as I expect the others to follow suit on the next few laps.Euh, no they don’t. 🤬
The next two AIs pit on laps 22 and 23 and the Amuse is still going. He’s the fastest car on the track.
I frantically call the pit crew to throw a couple of spiked mats (is that what they’re called?) on the track but they must be playing cards
with the other crews as no one answers my calls.
They’re fired
The Amuse and I do another 10 laps and my tyres are leaning towards yellow. More than an hour has passed by now and finally on
lap 34 the Amuse heads for the pits. My chance to overtake him; but I still have to pit
I carry on till lap 40, the S1s are bright yellow and I had by then calculated I’d have 1 less stop than he would.
So perhaps even a fairly good chance I’d actually win this race comfortably.
So lap 40 is nearly done as I head towards pit lane. I drive through the chicane on to the straight. Keep to the right expecting to
find the entrance but crash in to a wall of tyres.
. (as seen in pic 5 righthand side)It aint April fools day and my crew assure me they have not changed the entrance to the pits.
I quickly recover to retain my lead over the Amuse and do another lap trying to figure out where the entrance is. Thankfully the tyres
are still in good shape so if I miss again on lap 41 I can continue and retry on lap 42. I actually do find it at the end of lap 41.
Thankfully!
The crew repairs the damage to the front of the Elise, throw on new set of S1s, top up to 55 units of petrol and hand me my shades.
I exit the pits and soldier on.
The Amuse decides to change tactics and pits in earlier than expected or I made some errors in keeping track cause there
are 2 "2000" 's in the race. I’m too concentrated to keep a good score. Looking at the scoreboard doesn’t help either,
yet another thing that appears wrong with this track. (pic 4)
By the time I reach the halfway mark I've managed to increase my lead to approx a minute. Not much but still a comfortable lead should
anything go wrong. Hour 5 passes by and so does hour 6.
The 7th hour creeps up and I notice my lap times are dropping by 6 to 7 seconds per lap.
, I'd nearly fallen asleep.I decide to get some caffeine and do some exercises to waken up and finish off this race. 7 hours and 34 minutes have passed
when I hit lap 200.
Only a short stint to go. Lap 212 just started before 8 hour mark so I have another 2 minutes to carry on for the finish.
Was it a nail biting race? Yes, the first 2 hours were but after building up a cushion of time it was more of a ‘ok’ I need to finish this
for 200 pts. At this point in time, that’s my main goal.
Final results
Elise 8h 02m, NA1, S1, RC suspension, standard tranny, TR clutch, RC flywheel, aids 000 and 48 ballast.
Amuse --:-- (approx 1.5 laps)
350 --:-- (a bit more than 1.5 laps)
Spoon 2000 --:--
Civic several laps
Integra several more laps
I collect a Honda NSX type 9.999.999 or was it type 999? There are just so many of them, some 120k credits but more importantly 200 A specs.
So has the earth stopped spinning?
Well in Motegi it has, the sun was setting for a full 8 hours and my eyes hurt.
Hope you enjoyed, comments most welcome 👍
AMG.
