Monza Porsche Cup Drama

What a stressful bloody race! Not sure where to start…

OK, Prep evening for the Cup race is always the night before for me, no more than 2 hours…Tried a variety of setups before settling on my decent Spa one but with wing setting at 1……set a low 1’50 which compared nicely to a couple other old geezers circulating at the time……Saved setup for 1 pitstop halfway through…job done.

Keep telling myself to go for race finishes…too much crashing (into sensible drivers) for my own good recently….and for some reason Derek Bird and I have this magnetism for one another on track…need to break the attraction.

Race morning and I have too much work to do….managed to delay a meeting until 1.00PM. Race should finish (if I don’t crash into Mr. Bird) at 12.30 so plenty of time.

Race meeting on Discord…Jeremie preaching poetically as usual…don’t crash…long race….can’t win on the first corner…blah blah blah….Figure I’ll qualify in the top 10 and go for glory!

First Qually lap….not bad……P1……….1’50.5

A few minutes later fall to P4…same OLD names…some older than others….Carlo, Chris, Noble, Bird (Stay away from me)….expected Mr. Paunov but that never happened.

Eight minutes remaining and have a strange feeling in my gas pedal……keeps making a loud clicking noise and 80% gas maximum…WTF. Came in n couldn’t find WD40, everyones #1 fix……Went back out…….3 minutes remaining….stopped on side of circuit after T1……found a cannister of pressurized air, n blew it all in the gas pedal…seemed to do the trick….

2 minutes on the clock…enough time for 1 more banzai lap…..smooth….smooooth……come on…………..

And what do you know? Pole bloody position! WOOP! 1’49.9…….

Even better, I’m 4 or 5 positions ahead of Derek, so the magnetic forces can’t possibly interfere today.

Time to pee. Yes there’s time between qually and race. I’ve seen Lewis go for a piss 5 mins before a race start, even the best need to go.

Race start, everyone appeared to give space into T1. Kept the lead and fended off Carlo for 10 laps. Tyres seemed to go off and I slid around before the inevitable mowing lawn moment and straight thru the kitty litter at Ascari, allowing Carlo to cruise by and lead. After that I picked myself up and kept a reasonable pace. Carlo drawing slowly clear and Chris B maintaining 2-3 seconds behind.

Changed tyres and fueled up at around half distance….Pulled out of my pit stall only for the gas pedal to do its 80% then big CLICK thing again. This made me vulnerable to attack from Noble and Saunders behind. My lap times dropped instantly by over a second. Seemed like both Noble and later Saunders had offs so I was in the clear. Only a last lap interference from 2 back-markers almost lost me 3rd place.

Very happy with Pole and P3, no crashing (I do feel like a total moron when I crash), magnets broken.

Great race everyone, and congrats to Carlo for the win. Always classy.

On to the GT3 race!

Fast old geezers.