herpetroleum

ORL Le Mans 4 Hours - Only 5 cars showed up, 3 LMPs and 2 GTs, so in GT class it was a duel between me and the series champ Balint Borkovitz. Well it was hardly a duel, more like a beatdown. His quick lap was 4-6 seconds faster than mine so I knew I was going to fall behind in the race. I decided to go with heavy fuel load and Hard tires, maybe with the longer stint and less pitstops I could stay closer to him rather than try to keep up with the light fuel load and Soft tires. The strategy sort of worked for the first hour; when he went into the pits for his first stop I was able to catch him and even pass him when he made a mistake. But he quickly repassed and built up a gap as expected. Sometime after my first pitstop I got tangled up with an LMP and got punted into the wall at Porsche curves. The car was badly damaged and I lost the feeling for it. I went in for an extra stop to try and fix the damage. But I was badly shaken myself and when I rejoined the race I just couldn't find the rhythm. After the scheduled pitstop at the 2 hour mark I was already 1 lap behind the GT leader. My pace had dropped off completely and I felt like I was becoming a danger on the track. So after about another 30 minutes of agony I decided to park it. A terrible race for me and a DNF to end this year.