NGT Sprint: Race 7 - Anderstorp

In contrast to the longest track in the GTR series at Spa last week, Anderstorp is the shortest, presenting it's own set of problems.

Unusually in the GTR series, Anderstorp has a series of long, banked corners where entry and exit speed are very difficult to get right; deep braking into the corner followed by tight throttle control on the way out.

My problems with qualifying continued with a mixture of traffic, poor judgement and the usual qualifying jitters. A very disappointing 14th place on the grid at one of my favourite tracks.

A top 8 place was imperitive, both to continue my good run of finishes but to try to grab a few more points for the team championship, last weeks excellent team result at Spa had completely cut the gap on the Kerb Crawlers in 4th place and left us only 2 points behind.

As we started the parade lap, I was one place behind greg130, who is closing fast on me in the championship standings so my plan was to try to follow him (hopefully) through the traffic.

A near calamity struck on the parade lap, a big pile-up left me nervously waiting for a call from my pit crew to see if there was any damage, as I pulled away again, it became apparent I'd dodged a bullet, no damage and I hadn't lost any places.

A tentative start saw me handy behind greg130, as the tyres warmed I was feeling fairly good, the line of traffic in front wasn't getting away, I felt I had a bit of speed to spare so decided to push on. Putting the gas down, I grabbed a little too much kerb and felt the car getting away from me, tried to correct but it was too late as I span off. Waiting 20s to safely rejoin, depair set in, I was down to 18th!

Knowing I had some speed over the immediate drivers in front of me and nothing to lose at this point I tried to relax into the race and just see what happened. Now the presure was off, my laptimes plummeted as I made my way through the field.

It was a new experience fighting my way up the field, I felt like I handled is reasonably well, a mixture of patience and aggression saw me steadily move up to the the top 10 and eventually into 8th. I thought I'd finish there when I saw Paul968 in the pits for me to grab what felt like a completely undeserved finish in 7th place, grabbing a few more vital points in the individual and team standings.

Relieved, hitting the 'Esc' after the race had finished, I was delighted to see PaulW had improved on his Spa performance last week and finished 2nd!

The combined team points saw us move ahead of the Kerb Crawlers into 4th and saw PaulW rocket up to 5th in the individual standings! A brilliant achievement on both counts!

I remain 8th but greg130 once again finished one place higher and inexorably, the gap is closing.

Endurance Div.2: Race 3 - Enna race report

After two 4th place finishes I was keen for a podium at Enna.

Having done well (5th) here in the NGT Sprint race I was fairly confident of putting up a decent performance.

Unfortunately, the NGT field was a small one, holidays taking their toll on the participants, no excuse for a poor result then!

Qualifying went well, placed in 2nd, 1s behind behind [ZiP]Tyf, closely followed by Jamera and Dave Gymer, although there was only 0.5 sec between 2nd to 4th.

I expected Tyf to pull away faily easily in the Porsche Bi-Turbo as Enna favours it's straight-line speed but I was surprised to stay with him, Tyf pulling away on the straights, I was catching up through the tricky chicane sections.

We battled for about 8 laps until Tyf lost it through the Schumacher chicane for me to pass for the lead. Unfortunately, this seemed to spur Tyf on and he caught and passed me quite quickly, only to lose it again! We swapped the lead 4 times in this way until finally I made it stick until I pitted in for fuel and tyres after 30 minutes.

I expected Dave Gymer not to pit as he'd mentioned he had a "cunning plan" before the race. I was hoping to be a couple of seconds a lap quicker so make it close despite my pitstop.

I was the first of the four to stop so watched Tyf, then Jamera and Dave shoot past, a lot quicker than I wanted. The battle with Tyf had obviously slowed me down more than I'd hoped.

Still, fresh tyres let me push on a bit and I quickly re-took the places from Jamera and Tyf as they pitted in. I was still quite a way behind Dave but catching at a reasonable rate, but maybe it would be enough if he made a mistake?

Decided to push on a little harder until the inevitable happened and I lost it, losing a lot of time and letting Jamera and Tyf through. Fortunately, Jamera span almost immediately and a couple of laps later, Tyf had to pit for fuel. Jamera chased me hard but I had a comfortable little gap to take through the last two laps for a 2nd place finish!

My first podium place, tinged a little by the low turnout but what they hell - doesn't happen every day!

NGT Sprint: Race 6 - Spa

Off to Belgium this wee for a few pints of Hoegaarden and a spin round the famous track at Spa.

Easily the longest track in the GTR series, Spa is a constant challenge. Spirts were high in the NGT Legends camp though after a hard week of practice, PaulW was looking fast, very fast and I wasn't too far behind.

Because the track is so long, you probably only get 4 laps on 'up to temperature' tyres so there's a lot to lose. Staying conservative, I put in a couple of decent mid-table laps and then went for the flyer on the last lap as my fuel dwindled. Looking good through section 2, I was 1.1s up on my best time and headed for a tasty 2:23.XX lap, hard on the brakes for Bus Stop, there was a car parked right in the middle of this section! Instinctively I avoided it but ran over the grass, losing my advantage.

Looking back, it should have been clear this was another GTR glitch, and I probably would have been OK to plough through as the car wasn't really there but too late, I'd qualified back in 12th.

Lap 1 saw a couple of cars in front of me leave the track as [ZiP]Tyf and Ginsters Sponsored left the track leaving me in 10th. It soon became apparent though that JM-Racing in 9th was pulling away quite handily and I was leaving 11th place behind me at a similar rate.

Next lap saw Paul968 leave the track and re-join behind Fozzmeister who was behind me.. I was hoping Fozz would hold him up for a while as I knew I wouldn't be hold on for 9th for long once Paul968 got up to me!

Paul968 quickly passed Fozz and began to chase me down but Eau Rouge saved me... I was gutted for Paul968 as I saw him disappear into the wall in this dangerous section.

Mo was next off the track to put me up to 8th and suddenly JM-Racing was right in front of me after a mistake! He was making a few mistakes but agonisingly still a little faster, I just couldn't close enough to make it count.

We then picked up RUF-BTR, JM-Racing passed easily but I wasn't quite able to get past before Bus Stop. RUF seemed to be having problems with his tyres and eventually he slid off, letting me past into 7th but by this time JM was well away.

So, finished in 7th, keeping up my excellent run of top 10 finishes, pretty good after a poor qualifying session but big congratulations go to PaulW with a stunning 4th place!

NGT Legends 911 - Finished!

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Originally uploaded by popabawa.

The final version sitting proudly in the showroom :)

Mmmmm... shiney...

NGT Legends V3

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Originally uploaded by popabawa.

On the track at Spa with the nearly finished design!

NGT Legends 911 GT3 RS (v1)

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Originally uploaded by popabawa.

Version 1 of the fabulous NGT Legends 911 GT3 RS!

NGT Sprint: Race 5 - Donington

Wanting to keep my good run of top 10 finishes in tact, I entered the Donington race with a small amount of trepidation. It's a tricky track, very easy to spin on the tight hairpins if you get the power down too early and very easy to leave the track on the fast first section.

I'd been practicing on a soft/soft set-up for qualifying but briefly experimented with soft/medium before the race as the softs seem to overheat very quickly here. Decided not to change things at the last minuts and stuck with the original plan.

Qualifying went badly though, traffic conspired to slow me down for the first half, then managed one decent lap which I screwed up by spinning. Starting the race back in 14th was pretty disappointing, especially as the times were so close.

Thought I was in for a tough time with Fozzmeister right behind me and he started to apply the pressure as I got off to my usual tentative start on cold brakes and tyres. Coming through the chicane for the first time Fozz got a little close under braking and gave me a little tap, Fozz span, I didn't. Phew.

Chased Aangram for a while 'til we caught PaulW, we seemed to be pretty evenly matched until PaulW span on the first hairpin, letting us through.

Spinning at Doni is a viscious circle, one spin overheats the tyres, which reduces grip....

By this time, Fozz was back on my tail, starting to get close and was mighty relieved to see him overcook a corner and disappear. Aangram was next to go, spinning at the chicane, which left me in 10th, behind Don1.

Don1 drove brilliantly, we were about 1-2s apart for about 15mins, did all I could to close and put some pressure on but he kept responding. I was faster through section 1 but Don1 was pulling it back again in section 2. There seemed to be no way through as the laps ticked down.

As the pressure and tyre wear started to take its toll, we both made some mistakes, had some contact, let PaulW through as I ran off, who promptly span again to let me though!

Chased down Don1 again who was starting to look a bit scrappy, with about 3 laps to go we caught some backmarkers, this looked like my last opportunity. Somewhere in the melee, Don1 span and finally I was through! Cruised through the last two laps for a hard-fought 8th.

Good to see both the NGT Legends in the top 10 with PaulW finishing in 10th.

Endurance Div.2: Race 2 - Magny Cours race report

Only half the NGT Legends team made the trip over to France for round 2 of the Endurance Div 2 championship as I lined up in the now familiar blue & gray of my 911 GT3RS.

Hopes were high after a decent performance at Barcelona (4th) in round 1. I see Magny Cours as one of my stronger tracks after a creditable 7th in the Sprint championship so I was looking forward to this one.

The dreaded 1FPS bug hit early in qualifying but the 30 min qualifying time (only 15 mins in the Sprints) gave me time to recover and post a fairly decent time to qualify in 3rd in the NGT class.

As the race started, it became apparent all was not quite right, [ZiP]Tyf and Iain disappeared quite quickly away and I was under a lot of pressure from as-here for the first couple of laps. The speed that I'd shown in qualifying just wasn't there and the pressure was making me more tentative.

Pushing on, I took a place from Iain (not sure how), then rounding the final bend into the start/finish straight, [ZiP]Tyf had spun, leaving me in the lead!

This proved to be somewhat short-lived unfortunately as Iain recovered and passed me easily. Got to hand it to him here, he was a class above in this race.

As I tried to consolidate my 2nd position, I failed to notice that the 1st braking marker had been clobbered and entirely missed my braking point for the first hairpin, hurtling into the gravel at 'splitter-crunching' speed. It's a long way to the back of the gravel trap here and even though I hit the barrier fairly hard, nothing was damaged. Phew. However, it's such a long way back to the track that I got 'lost', almost re-joined at the wrong point, then had to back-track, losing about a minute in the entire process. I'm not sure what my little diversion into the gravel did to the tyres but they weren't feeling too secure for the remainder of my first stint.

After the pit-stop at half-way, I pushed a bit trying to catch [ZiP]Tyf but to no avail, he was pulling out 2-3 sec per lap.

So, a little disappointed with my 4th place in the end. Maybe I'll be able to push onto the podium at Enna in two weeks time.

Magny Cours - Endurance championship Div 2.

After my 4th pace showing at Barcelona in round 1 of the Endurance Div 2, both NGT Legends drivers will (hopefully) on the track at Magny Cours on Sunday night in the NGT class.

First thoughts on Donington

This is a tough track and a complete change after the wide track of Brno. Narrow, bumpy and unpredictable, it feels like a different track on each lap.

With a best lap of 01:34.776, we headed into the jungle of the public servers for a team practice session yesterday afternoon with the hope of getting a few laps under our belts in preparation for next week. Unfortunately, only a 10Tacle server was available and only allowing Italian cars so I was forced away from the 911 to the Ferrari 360.

After the inevitable carnage of the first lap (damn the general public!), a decent performance by both of us with only about 4s splitting us after a 36min race.

I have to agree with Paul on the merits of the 360 v's the 911 at Donington, it does seem more predictable and (dare I say) a little easier to drive but hey, if I wanted 'easy to drive' I can go buy 'Need for Speed'...

NGT Sprint: Race 4 - Brno

Brno turned out to be somewhat of a mixed bag for the NGT Legends team.

Some amazing qualifying times saw PaulW in 11th and me in 12th on the grid, I was looking forward to an NGT Legends convoy but disaster struck on the parade lap when PaulW span off over-enthusiastically trying to get some heat into his tyres.

My pre-race strategy was to not push too hard in the race, keep it nice and consistent, hoping to pick up some places toward the end after Brno's punishing tyre wear begain to bite.

With Paul's status unknown at the end of the parade lap, I felt I had to see the strategy through, I had to pick up some points!

A few spins in front of me and I'm up from 11th into 9th with JM-Racing chasing me hard but not gaining. So far, so good.

Coming into T1, there's a car off the road, it's Paul968 re-joining the track, I'm up into 8th but now I have to worry about Paul968 breathing down my neck.

Fortunately, I didn't have to worry long as he easily caught and passed me which I was somewhat relieved by as I'm not sure my skills are up to keeping a driver of his calibre at bay.

In the meantime, something had happend to JM-Racing as there was now a 10s gap to the car behind. Time to dig in and keep going, there was a similar distance to the car in front of me.

Kept my pace consistent and eventually saw smoke in the distance and RUFBTR re-joining the track about 2s in front. 5 laps left in the race, time to use the rest of those tyres and push a little.

We were very evenly matched, RUF was faster on the last turn, I'd catch up again on T1, otherwise, there was nothing between us. The gap hardly moved from 1-2s.

I was steeling myself for one last effort with 2 laps to go when RUF span, enabling me to take the (unfortunately non-existent in GTR) chequered flag in an excellent 8th place.

Exiting from the track my delight was somewhat tempered as I discovered that PaulW had run out of fuel with half a lap to go and failed to finish. It's a mistake that anyone could make and I was hugely disappointed for him.

In the team standings, NGT Legends remain 5th and in the individuals, PaulW and I swap 10th & 11th position overall.

On to Donnington next week for round 5.

NGT Legends are born!