Lots of people, killer corners: a week in review
Posted 2 days ago by
With the most anticipated event, the Van Man Challenge, on Friday night, I paid little attention to the SRS daily series. And when Friday night came, I registered well in advance for the 9 pm race. But I was in for a surprise.
At 8:10 pm, 50 minutes before the start of the race, there were 28 registered drivers.
My rating is slightly above 600, yet I was ranking 23rd in the registration list. With 45 more minutes available for more people to arrive, I was doomed to be in Server 2. Which might have been not bad news… there was going to be a third split, and probably some good competition would be there with me. I knew people were talking about monstrosities like 1:38 in the Transit at Calabogie, and I thought I wouldn’t be fighting against such times.
I was wrong. I qualified 11th, with something like a 1:42, a lap I wasn’t really proud of: I knew I had something more, but I didn’t expect to be more than two seconds behind the polesitter. The start was decent and very very busy, with 20+ vans finding their way through the track and the other vans. A crash was bound to happen: at the Beak, the first slow corner of the race, people braked into people, far enough ahead of me that I could cruise through.
However the good exit I got made me wish for more, and there I was, trying the outside of the next braking zone. Unfortunately there were two more of us doing the same, and before I knew it I was being shouldered into the grass. The brake reflex kicked in, but it was lethal in the Transit: its huge weight shifted way too much, and sent me into a spin… towards the road, of course. After collecting two opponents, who proceeded to collect the rest of the field in a comically slow version of Spa 2003, my hopes for the top ten were gone: a second mistake when I was back in P11 nailed my chances. The results show a sad P14 with 5 incident points, putting me in 41th position in the series standings. If enough people show up next week, I may be the highest-ranked man in the third split. A great way to kick off the series indeed. Next week we’ll be driving Transits around the Finnish rollercoaster known as Ahvenisto - it’s gonna be fun.
There are so many wrong things in this picture. Why are we racing vans? Why have I apparently lost control? Why am I going to strike through the field? But the real question is: why does my Transit have police lights on its roof - and why does the police one not have them?
I then turned to the 11 pm race, the daily race in 2015 GP3 cars. I like racing single seaters, so I gave that a try. Nürburgring’s GP-Strecke is not my favourite track, but I knew it well enough to debut a new car there straight into qualifying. After a horrible start (which I repeated every time in the next days), I got hit by the only car behind me, who apparently forgot the Dunlop hairpin was there. The rest of the race was uninteresting, apart from confirming my dislike for the track’s Turn 1, where I gladly spin off in any car I happen to be driving there.
Closing the race in P4, I started hoping I’d be getting better results if I tried again. While finishing in P3 twice in two races can’t really be considered a bad result, I can’t deny that the many mistakes I made mean I could have gone for a better finishing place. The GP3 car seems to dislike kerbs, especially the apex ones, being too prone to mid-corner oversteer for my taste. Of course, the gargantuan Transit made me used to acting generously on the steering wheel, which didn’t help me when I switched to a formula car, but this got better over time in the following races. Next week the GP3 series moves to Portimão: the Algarve track is famous for giving open-wheelers oversteer in the exits, so… yeah.
In the center, I am flying towards a podium finish.