I would not encourage you to watch this race. It might have been some of the worst driving I’ve done since starting this journey. I really don’t know what to blame it on. The car felt different than it had in my warm-up races, the tires took forever to come in, and went from cold to overheated almost immediately, and my driving was just uninspiring. It’s probably best to just forget about this race.
I started in 16th position and made a concerted effort not to hit anyone in the first few corners of the first lap. It wasn’t easy. The drivatars do some really strange things, especially early in the race. At almost every track, they stack up in the first turn, and they slow down for no apparent reason. Even so, I was fairly successful in avoiding car-to-car contact on the first lap, and in the process, gained four positions. Then things started to fall apart.
On lap two, I slide off the track all on my own, and the red mist started to set in. Over the next several laps, I missed turn in points, grabbed the wrong gear (going into first twice when I wanted to be in second), and there were a couple of corners that I don’t think I ever got right. My driving was so bad that I didn’t get within one-and-a-half seconds of my previous fastest lap.
I ended up finishing 8th, which is probably better than I deserved. I hope race #2 at VIR is better than the first. It won’t take much.
After twenty-five races, the points standings look like this:
- Lou Mindar (277 pts)
- Josh Pettibone (135 pts)
- Don McGowan (129 pts)
- Richard Chan (123 pts)
- Peter Ward Jr. (121 Pts)
Next Race: Virginia International Raceway – Race #2