big al 515

Surely this can't be right? When moans were made about night racing earlier in the season, we were pointed in the direction of the pdf fixture list - but this shows no night racing at these 2 fixtures?

A pretty enjoyable meeting - I had a couple of battles with cars mid race which was the best bit for me. Plenty of room here although it tended to mean I was going a bit wide to let faster cars through once they were big in my mirror. Or maybe I was just driving a poor line anyway. Was quite fun starting on pole for the closed grid 3-a-breast Final. I wasn't particularly surprised to end up on top of the earthbank on the 1st bend.

Big Al 515 white top

Nice write up. 1st Tom 2nd Johno 3rd "Mr Unlucky"

Cracking issue, and excellent monologue by Skeet, some great laughs and memories in there. By the way, Nelson is the World Final venue for Legends this year Skeet. I am somewhat shocked to win the Driver of The Grading Period, but it's great that this proves the award is not just for high point scoring (I couldn't be a better example of that fact). Cheers guys, I'll be there Thursday.

Nice pics guys.

Certainly a good read again and it looks great too - just a shame about the two spelling mistakes on the opening headline which kind of jump out at you.

It was a strange one that - I'd had a bit of a misfortunate race and after my second infield excursion/spin, I was lapped by FastTrack who was leading. I wanted to be back past him fairly sharpish but bearing in mind we were nearing the end of the race, I didn't want to touch him incase it went wrong and took him out've the lead or something - so just sat behind him and made my presence felt. He let me past on what (turned out to be) his last bend but when I saw the 'One Lap To Go' signal, as stupid as it may sound I didn't know if it was meant for him or me! Hence when I caught yourself and others up I was still treating it as though we might be on the last lap. Not a situation I'd had before in rFactor but at least I know now the last lap signal is for the individual regardless of where the leader is. The chequered always seems to come out so suddenly for me that I often worried whether my position was safe or I needed to do another lap in my early meetings, it's only now I feel I can pull up straightaway after the chequered, although the fact you kept pushing after it meant I kept going myself too just in case (you passed me of course but luckily for me it didn't matter).

My first meeting at Cov and I was impressed. Adapting to night racing there was no problem for me, in contrast to say Sheffield or Scunthorpe where I could not pick out corner entries properly due to being so dark. It was nice to make the Final. To be honest I fancied I could beat 2 drivers to take the 8th place (although I would have been wrong if I'd betted on the two I'd beat) so I took it steady and let faster drivers pass til I was in my comfortable 8th which I held ok. Nice to not be pointless, with another successful GN for me. Corny mistook the last lap for the penultimate lap - I suspect otherwise he would have got past me one way or another. That's racing. Thanks for running it Johno and also thanks as ever to Kev for stewarding etc. The meeting ran really smoothly - brilliant.

A good read as usual, and excellent to hear of the sponsorship from Roothost, nice work everyone involved.

I'll vote for Corny as he seemed to pick up rFactor relatively late but has come on a bundle and now seems a genuine threat to the top drivers. He is also always a fair respectful driver. I'll vote for Birmingham for best meeting as there was such a buzz having so many drivers and a full format meeting, I really enjoyed that one.

Did not get chance to practice beforehand, but I remembered the track seemed ok previously, so just turned up and hoped to be on reasonable pace. I was surprised to find that even the slowest drivers were considerably quicker than me, seems like setups don't stand still here. My perseverance of keeping going despite being dire paid off with a lucky 8th place in the GN, which gave me one of my best ever scores of 3 points. Well done to GoingInStyle for top scoring - he just needs to watch his passing other white tops when going to the grid, there again he won't be white anymore which will help.

Lovely jobely mate, some good action shots in there and you managed to include a couple of me going well, nice work m8.

Yep, a very good read. Well done.

Thanks for the compliment, I respect you even more too now.

No I don't need to say sorry, you are right that you weren't at fault the bend before but that's racing. I am happy to talk myself up as noone else is likely to when I score nil points at most meetings from White top. I have watched the replay several times thanks. I do cross the outer part of a few rumble strips in the middle of the bend but I also did that regularly when I was nowhere near another car. I stand by my "a well executed but a-bit-long-distance hit by me" - for me to retake the lead from so far back behind a flying yellow top who later won the Final, and hit your BACK bumper (freeze the replay at the point of contact if you want as you obviously enjoy watching replays) just hard enough to induce such a good driver as yourself into a spin rather than just hit you into the armco which would have been much easier to do and would have justified your response of "theres no skill in keeping you foot up it and hitting someone". I suggest you "get a grip" and by all means repay the compliment - which if you are any good will not involve keeping your foot on but instead attempting to recreate such a skilfull move as the one I pulled off. See you at Ipswich hopefully and congratulations on your brilliant Final win. Nice to have a bit of interesting discussion after a meeting.

This was my first meeting at Buxton and I certainly found it tricky. If I go too fast and over-drive then I make mistakes, if I go too slow I just go too slow, but as usual I somehow managed to glean enjoyment from the racing. I know Munis wasn't best pleased at a well executed but a-bit-long-distance hit by me; I had took what seemed a hefty punt when I was leading as soon as a yellow got near me, then I saw Munis hare past my inside so assumed it was him, next bend I thought I would have a lunge if I could do it without fencing the bloke, I managed to bring it off perfectly so that he ended up spinning himself, that's racing - unlucky for Munis if it wasn't him who hit me first. In other races I lost control a couple of times and hit a parked up car on one occasion and up the centre green banking where I got stuck in another, so as usual I guess I kept a few drivers on their toes just avoiding me, but when leaders were lapping me I think I generally succeeded in moving over. Thanks very much to Spike and Kev for doing such a sterling job, as ever.

Big Al 515 (White)

You make a good point, Corny - maybe you are right and it is actually a leveller.

Nice read and looks splendid. Re "Some people have even moaned during the meeting when it has been clearly advertised as such." Fair enough, although I was not aware until turning up that it was impossible to set the server to dark for practice & warmup, so if I was one of the moaners, that was why I did not fancy it much. At least I know which meetings to miss now.

Very nice pictures Walker, your camera must have great sensitivity as looks a heck of a lot brighter than it did when racing. Only complaint is you seem to have avoided me completely in your pictures, I can't see me causing mayhem anywhere on there.

Nice poster Tosh - well done. Couple of nice pictures in it too.

A quick look at it suggests it's a quality website, well done all. The roof colours on the Booked In list (including British/Euro winners) is very nice.

I really like Sheffield but I did find it very hard to adjust from the daylight of on-line practice and daylight of warmup to very dark night-time races. Having not realised in advance that this was going to be the case, I am relieved to see, having now checked the fixtures pdf file, that there are just a couple of night fixtures in March and then no more til Autumn. My main memories of Thursday night are, over-cooking the last bend of the last lap to clip a tyre and go spinning round for cars approaching the last straight to desperately avoid hitting me; hitting something (a post I think) for me to apparently going flying through Drumb's cab and over a couple of cars (any pictures available of this? ); and of leading a few laps in the GN, with Leek on my tail and having a good clean battle, before the higher grades caught up with us. Great stuff.

Great read, and thanks about announcing the server numbers.