Juxtaposition In June (Pt. 1: A Stellar End To May)

Hello, Welcome to the blog. It's been a while - I hope you are all well.

I'll be honest, I've been longing this blog off - waiting for a time I'd have the mental strength to write/tackle this blog.

These past three weeks have been a rollercoaster of emotion - the week 22nd May - 28th May going exceptionally well, the following week - starting June - going absolutely abhorrently 22nd - 28th May, 2023 ("The Stellar")

As mentioned before, the week of the 22nd - 28th May was absolutely stellar - it was just one of those weeks where everything...WORKED.

Monday (22nd May)

In retrospective, Monday was probably the worst day of the week - ending 8 races back-to-back in the Aston Martin Vantage GT4 by racing in the Sausage Dodgers launch event.

Upon seeing everyone else pit, I thought pit-stops were mandatory (doing so many leagues, I lose track!) and lost 6th/8th because I pitted - but it was a good event all the same.

That evening, it was supposed to be the Varano British GT Championship, but the series has been postponed due to a lack of numbers.

Tuesday (23rd May)

After an enjoyable driving lesson in the morning, that evening it was time for the penultimate round of the QRT GT3/GT4 Battle Tour - just from the fact that it was Charlotte Roval (2018), I knew that all hell was going to break lose - but I didn't quite expect things to play out the way they did...

Come qualifying, only 9 cars showed up - of these, there were only 3 GT4's present - this had absolutely HUGE consequences for the championship - we 3 were playing for a MINIMUM of 55 points (3rd place) - with the top 6 being seperated by 107 points - even 3rd place could half my gap to the championship leader.

Ironically, the two other people who showed up (in GT4 class) were the people "sandwich-ing" me in the championship

6th - Neil Massey

6th - Robin Truswell

7th - Denise Pope

Miraculously, I managed to steal pole position by 0.4 seconds from Denise - this was going to be a tight race!

Pope initially got the better start and lead away from Lap 2 - pulling out a gap, before I'd close it back down again through the notorious "Chicane Of Death"

The lead would only change on Lap 9 as Pope would spin out of the lead at Turn 4. From here, Pope's race would come undone as he'd get a penalty for crossing the pit-exit line.

Upon exiting the pits, Pope was only a couple of seconds behind me (but a lap down)

I would lead the race for the next 16 laps and with less than 10 minutes to go - and a lap up on both Pope and Massey - I should have had it in the bag...

But we were running two completely different races.

My pace had dropped significantly - and I was just "cruising" home to victory - Pope had nothing to lose - Massey was a further lap down - so he could push as much as he liked.

I only gained on Pope (significantly) through one chicane - the rest of the lap, he pulled out a good few tenths.

With me now...not sending it through the chicane (and Pope getting ever braver through the chicane) Pope and I were in a checkmate - he was faster, I was a lap ahead, and with 5 minutes to go, the inevitable happened.

I took the wrong line going into the chicane - and just like that, my luck was up - an unforced error - caused by the pressure of a car that was a lap down.

I wasn't expecting to crash out (nobody ever does!) so when my car was reset to the pit - I had to wait for the pit-crew to re-fill the fuel tank and change tyres - by this point, Pope had unlapped himself and pulled out a 20-ish second gap - with barely a handful of laps left, I accepted 2nd place.

Heading into the final round, the championship standings were insanely close.

Realistically speaking - there were only 4 in with a chance of grabbing the championship - but as Gergely had won 3/4 races he entered (finished 2nd on the other occasion) Gergely didn't have much competition.

Whilst it was tough losing out to Denise, I would have only been a point ahead heading into Hockenheim - and had I beaten him at Hockenheim, it would have made up for the loss at Charlotte - and if he beat me at Hockenheim (and not crashed at Charlotte) things would have worked themselves out - and if Denise beat me at both tracks - he is fully deserving of the position of "Best Of The Rest"

Thursday, May 25th, 2023

Skipping a mediocre Wednesday,(nothing overly interesting happened - got crashed out/crashed out during a pace-lap in the Delta Motorsport League - that was fun)... Thursday's league race was VRG at Imola - and both races were HECTIC! Race 1 had a late safety car and a two-lap sprint to the finish (rolling start) and I somehow ended up with the "AM" win in race 2. (VRG has PRO and AM classes)

No, the broadcast team didn't recognise this (and ultimately announced the wrong driver as the winner and then of course, I left my headset on "Push To Talk" instead of "Detect Activity" and I didn't even get an interview... but the following week was about to get a whole lot worse.

But I knew that I won AM (due to a few lucky accidents from others) and that's all that matters.

To round out the week, I headed to the mainland to see a few friends of mine.

That weekend, it was the Creventic Endurance Series (12 Hour Endurance Series) at Monza.

The Creventic Endurance Series (CES) races are few and far between...so whilst it was a shame to miss this one, I know there's another rapidly approaching in August.

Round 1 - Spa

Missed due to being on holiday in Devon

Round 2 - Monza

Missed due to being on mainland (I'd rather see friends than race!)

Round 3 - Barcelona Catalunya

We'll see!