Last weeks race was held on one of the classic LFS tracks, Blackwood GP Reversed. Not one of the easiest tracks, especially when you are driving The Raceabout or the FZ50.

Again, Gavin wrote a nice report to summarize an event with a "few"  drawbacks for him. But read the full story.

Report written by P1LOT

Warmup

During warm-up immediately before qualifying I had smashed my pb, but I didn’t get anywhere near that during the 15 minutes of qualifying. Started 7th on the grid in the middle of four FZ50s

Given the RAC had the advantage through the twisty half of the track and the FZ50 had the advantage on the straights I was aiming to do my usual tactic of ‘divide and conquer’. Off the line everyone got away cleanly and by the first drag down the back straight I had a gap behind me so that I could avoid being overtaken by the following FZ50s. Lap 3 and I had passed lococost, lap 4 and Karolis was defending against me which brought lococost close again. I tapped Karolis into turn 2 and went wide to let lococost back through. They were fighting between themselves so I stayed close. I even got ahead briefly but finished where I started in 7th. It was good, tough racing.

Race 2

The feature race didn’t work out so well. Reverse championship grid meant I was starting 17th out of 22. By the end of the first lap I had taken 4 places and another one into T2, all the while with pressure from Jouman behind me. Took another place at T2 in the following lap, but there was now eight FZ50’s in front in one big group. So I next only managed to get past one in the multiple corners section before getting to the back straight and losing it again, still I was up to 10th. Jouman and DaveWS got past on the straight but collided at the chicane, at this point DaveWS decided to pit for his missing fuel but he was on the inside not knowing I was level at the last corner. His dart into the pitlane unfortunately knocked me into the pitlane also and I slid to a stop. I got back onto the track in last place, I had lost 12 places in those 5 seconds :(

Start again; my tyres were still good and I had a decent setup for them lasting. Looks like there were others playing argey-bargey ahead as I was back in 14th two laps later. I got past a couple of FZ50’s with enough breathing space to survive the back straight and set about catching the next group. Again it was a group of those pesky FZ50’s ;) and it wasn’t long before I had Jouman, DaveWS and Niall09 queued up behind me. A couple of 3id guys had a rub at the chicane and I’m back up to 10th again which I didn’t believe I would manage. Passed Wardy at the last corner and Niall09 is lining me up for a pass on the start-finish straight, but from my end it appeared that Niall09 clipped my back left bumper as he came along side, I end up spinning multiple times and at the back of the field again, 5 seconds adrift. From talking at the end of the race, others said I just spun for no reason so it must have been lag that put him in that position, but at the time I was furious and intended to complain!

Start again; tyres not so well now, but they would cool down over time. It shows the strength of the competition that after 19 laps the field only covers a third of the lap, it took me 5 laps to catch the next back marker. A few laps later, and a few positions up and I come across I.Abbas. He didn’t give an easy pass with his defensive driving, as the best drivers do, but his driving got more desperate as the laps ticked by. He was squeezing me at corner apexes and rubbing paint as we establish ourselves on the straights. Each time the weight difference between our cars meant I lost speed and dropped back. At the third time of being nudged during acceleration I was peeved and leant on my horn, I subsequently think it was a bit of lag that had his car nudge me, so I must apologise for the use of the horn. I later get past when he went around the outside of a corner, I truly hope it was not due to intimidation from me.

Ended the race 14. I eventually calmed down and have since put all the troubles down to racing incidents since none of it was malicious.