This was to be our 2nd race in the car but our first dr and 12hr race in her so we were keen to see how she would be. Unfortunately Simon wasnt able to join us this time but we were blessed with a shiny new Tim, who came to us courtesy of sdij. Disappointed as we were that Tim was neither fat nor American he was a great asset. Fast in the car he hit the ground running taking everything in his stride.

Although with practice by now we have most things race prep orientated down pat, we did as is typical of TGR have a few last min technical issues the largest being the realisation the night before the race that the nice shiny new wheels we bought didnt fit the car... Fortunately, yet again, salvation came in the hairy, lightly oiled form of Andy from Power vehicles who had a rather attractive set of used advans that looked great on the car (right up until a GTR side swiped me on the straight killing one of them).

James qualified well and Tom established us in the top of the pack, a position we held for most of the race. The car performed well but around the 8th hour we started having some issues with the VTec. An O2 sensor was faulty (dirty) and vtec either wasnt coming on or we just never came off. Despite this the car was still capable of doing 1:14s in the dark (Tim). Daytime we were averaging 1:12s. with our fastest laptime (Tom) being 1:10:x)

We held 1st place with a 9-12 lap lead for most of the last half the race. The last 2 sessions were just about bringing the car home as we had an unbreakable lead so we kept the speed down and tried to avoid getting killed by the increasingly insane fast drivers in the race car class.

Highlights of the race:-

1) Me almost running another driver off the track entering C1 and said driver having a go at Sumi San
2) Said driver punching another driver in the face the next day for crashing into them...
3) Tom taking the S curve sideways on a lake of oil (spilled by the car above) followed by the longest safety car session ein the history of racing
4) Rival car on fire in the pit lane
5) James slowly being squeezed to the pit wall as he inched past under full power on the pit straight. To lift or not to lift, that was the question..

But for me the highlight of the race was everytime taking the last corner. The car just eats up the competition there.
Next race is in 9 weeks. Looking forward to it tremendously.

pics courtesy of Tim