New Dimension Racing Events // GTAL 2011 (Season 2) - Round 2
3 Hours of Westhill International Circuit
Its getting late in the afternoon while the sun set here on Westhill International Circuit, situated in the farming areas of western England, we are looking forward to have a great race on the fast down and uphill corners and fast straights. While the grid is finding their way to the S/F again for the second round of the fresh 2011 GTAL Season. There's low wind crossing the track, not that much to feel on your skin, but still enough to influence the aerodynamics of the GT9's cars and having already some drivers being annoyed by the fact that maybe they'll loose some kph's on the straights.
But still keeping in mind to have a great race again and catch some more experience, 20 year old Cargame.nl driver P. Krüger jumped into his overall, put on his helmet and fasten seat belt. The teammanager and 2nd driver for the race in once - Jos Meertens - gave him the instructions to drive smoothly his first of two stints, because in some case most of the fighting drivers in front maybe will crash and thats a good chance for the team to claim some positions. And as we will see later that article, it was the best thing to do so. The race was going to begin and the Safety Car drove away on S/F. The grid was getting some heat in the tyres and finally formating double-file right into the last turn, when green flag was waved and the race started.
Here we go, 3 hours of racing at Westhill International. And right in that moment some incident happen, involving cars #22 driven by D. Jundt, #20's car from D. Pire, #14 B. Holmberg and #12 Craven. When Jundt went left for some reason he hit D. Pire who was struggling with the wheel now, hits B. Holmberg very hard on the left rear and accidently causes Craven to have a total spin to the very right side of the track, all messed it up and #19 P. Krüger couldn't avoid any of them. Some positions ahead of Krüger some other drivers were in trouble too, when #24 Leyton was hit by #08 Piropo in the left rear end of his car, totally smashed into the wall. Some more action in the very first lap happened in the tyrewall chicane, turn 6, 6a and 7, when #18 Cullen was fighting for position 13 with #05 Runas. He just passes him and drove straight into the tyrewall. Runas tries to avoid the spinning car of Cullen, drove through the grass on the left inner side of exit Turn 7, had a bit wheelspin, came back to the track and collided with #22 D. Jundt, who's already had some bad luck when race started under green flag. The lucky one out of all that mess was surprisingly #19 P. Krüger, who had a bad start too, but now has reached P19.
When the race was running and calming down a bit, everybody had his great and bad moments overtaking, racing and drafting with the others on track, while #19 Krüger was driving hotlap by hotlap he claimed up to P17. In Lap 14 there was another big incident when #02 M. Garbolewski was fighting with the german #06 A. Falkenhain and almost passed and outbraked him into Turn 8, both were drifting to the left at the apex of the corner, #24 J. Cerny of the mpwr team could avoid them, but TDRT's #13 K. Harvey crashed into #02 M. Garbolewski and had some heavily damaged front. The fastest FXR at the moment was #07's F. Gehammar of GraVt Team everybody, especially the commentary of the livestream, was not sure and believed its spelled like Gravity Team, but some other told it was pronounced just like Craft Team. However, #07 F. Gehammar was closing the gap to #19 P. Krüger almost by 1 second each lap. He catches him but Krüger is able to keep him behind for nearly 2 laps, being a bit faster through sector 1 and giving him no chance to overtake so far he made a mistake in the chicane and so #07 F. Gehammar was able to fairly overtake him in the slipstream after exit Turn 7, being P15 so far.
#19 P. Krüger made a good race quite so far, setting his car on P16 after 1 hour and 5 minutes, driven 37 laps at all. He went to the pits, changed tyres, refueled and continued racing on P18, doing his 2nd stint and pushing the hell out of the car to claim back some good positions, because the race was quite eventfull at the moment and everything was possible. And just right in that moment some dangerous movements of the extrem heavily damaged car #14 droven by M. Martinson has been the reason for some action on the track. Somehow he drove like he's all alone and didn't even recognize some faster cars coming right around the corners. The other racers nearly crashed into him when M. Martinson was trying to find his way back to the track. Sorry to say, but finally he ends up in the grass on the left of Turn 7, and Safety Car was deployed. #19 P. Krüger was able to overtake the Safety Car after Turn 1, and all the other drivers racing behind him now have been almost 1 lap down, so the Safety Car helped a lot to keep the good position for Cargame.nl Team. The restart after 3 laps of Safety Car leading the field - was totally a mess again, when about 8 cars were fighting for positions and went into turn 8, but everything went well and the race continued smoothly. After a bunch of drivers collided each other during or after the Safety Car situation, #19 P. Krüger claimed up to P13, having a great fight then in Lap 55 with #07 N. Bjorklund and #20's v. d. Bosch overtaking him into Turn 1 which used to be the favorite overtaking spot for #19 P. Krüger this evening.
Now that he was on 11th Position the calculating goes on, which position Cargame.nl will end if P. Krüger pits again and give his wheel to second driver for the evening - Jos Meerten? He had 6 cars right behind him, #07 #20 #27# 26 #12 and #13 having a gap to them from 3 up to 20 seconds at all, with just 1 hour left to race and loosing half a second each lap now, due to front tyres loosing grip. While some racers in front of him pitted and changed the drivers, he almost reached an unbelievable Top 8 Position, coming into pits, and finally giving the wheel to Jos Meerten, who jumped into the drivers seat very fast again, getting back on track and try finishing the last stint with a big smile on his face, because he knew the race just has been great so far for the Team and a Top 15 placement is possible. So #19 J. Meerten drove out of the pits on Position 13, pushing the car to the limit, but nothing was possible so far, but doing a great job with holding his position and driving a constant stint, which has been the best variety to claim some positions this evening. He didnt made any mistakes at all. Car #20 D. Pire was closing the gap to him second by second. J. Meerten couldn't defend him anyway, because D. Pire was just too fast. Having a great race so far nothing special happened for us or the other teams. Just right in that moment Car #09 D. Jovanovic pitted in the 108th Lap of the race, which was almost the end of the race and J. Meerten claimed P13 now, while the Serbian Chromed Pistons driver D. Jovanoic was falling back to P17. Jos Meerten was driving now the very last minute, the cheqquered flag was wave and after 3 eventfull hours of great racing, they've reached Position 12 - because the guestteam is not counting - in their second endurance race for Team Cargame.nl
Facing the facts in overall this was the best race of P. Krüger and J. Meerten they ever had so far, after the team totally messed it up at their first race on Kyoto National Reverse, when they had some timeout and connection problems with S. Sietens and Joris Peters. And the Qualifying didn't went well so far for P. Krüger too, just starting from P25, they finished the race with almost no problems, expect the start, but finished on an unbelievable 12th Position. That shows being constant sometimes counts more than being fast as hell. Congratulations goes to E-Team's driver J. Törmälä winning this eventfull race, the Guestteam Adenoids Racing finished 2nd but scoring no points, behind them Sonicrealms Racing Isaac Price finished 2nd for the scoring points and The Xcite Inferno driver J. Holmes finished 3rd. The best FX9 placement was - with no surprise - the superfast GraVt Racing Team driver F. Gehammar on Position 9 claiming 5 positions forward at all. Congratulations also goes to all the other racers and for having a great race again, giving us the chance to get some more experience. Thanks to MultiBC and the brilliant commentators of the Livestream which gives us the opportonity to watch the eventull races again and again, hopefully the whole season.
Now we are looking forward to have a good race on Fern Bay Black, which is used to be a more FX9 friendly track, and maybe there we can reach such a good position again.
(c) P. Krüger (aka Marc Romboy from Cargame.nl)
Pictures also taken by P. Krüger
Thanks for reading, sorry for some mistakes in grammar or spelling, somehow they found their way into my text
Starting 2 after the guest team i knew there was people faster behind me, but i did everything i could and gave away my car in 3 place (not counting guest team). Then the sc came just at the time we really hoped it wouldnt. Anttonen dropped a few positions but did some good driving and stayd inside top-5, then our very fast driver monkeyhead how drove the quali went on to the track, it was allready locking promising for a 3 place (not counting guest team :P) but sadly when after some fighting when holmes cathed us they hitd and monkey spinnd, loosing 3 positions, still it was an racing accident so nothing to do 
Monkey did get us back to 5 position that i think we should be happy about 
