Just left the car for the final time and I thought: "Well let's ramble about the race."
I first jumped into the car in our 3rd overall stint. I had done a couple of warm up laps before and had felt relaxed and ready, but driving the car on the Grid server was a different thing. My arms felt stiff all of the sudden and I was pretty nervous on my first laps. As slowest driver on the line-up my goal was to drive somewhat constant, to keep the car on the black stuff and to avoid the barriers left and right. It somehow worked out. It was by far not the most flawless stint in history, but I was able to tick the boxes next to my goals. Only the whole schmozzle with the tracker was distracting at times.
My second stint started from pitlane as we had a major engine damaged and were in need of a fresh car. The stint was faster then the previous one. We amanded our strategy and I was getting a 9 hour break.
The next morning, the car had had some trouble during the night so my stint was slightly belated. A few chaotic warm-up laps on the other server later and back in the car it felt great. Basically the stint went by in an instant. Mensa would take the car and give it to me afterwards again.
The fourth stint: I was confident from the stints before, but it started already badly when I spun the car. But worse was about to happen: My wake-up alarm started, so far away from my rig I couldn't turn it off while driving. After 3 or 4 laps, my concentration succumbed to the sound and I ended up in the infamous orange armco pockets. The car was a total loss and I had to restart the stint from pitlane, loosing two laps from this. I was angry on myself and pushed the new car very hard. I had a pretty digital stint: I was either too eager to repair some of the damage I made, leading into mistakes costing time, or pushing the car within my limits ultimately leading to a PB on the penultimate lap.
Since I interpret the text between the lines as "this is the last DoP", I want to say thank you for organising these events. I enjoyed the DoP races I competed in very much. It is a pity the race did not draw decent crowds but then again, what did in the last couple of years?
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