Racing Isn’t Easy.
Ten drivers assembled for this week’s race, the third round of the new-for-2024 Slot.it DTM class. The top three spots went to Julian from David from Simon, Julian taking an early lead and steadily extending it as the heats progressed.
David and Simon were barely separable in the final three heats of their battle for second, crossing the line within a tenth of each other, but Simon had taken a while to get going in the early heats, falling seven seconds behind David before the mid-race tea break, a gap he wasn’t able to close in the second half of the race.
The midfield punch-up for fourth to sixth places between Ed, Neil and Alex was much closer, Ed fighting back from a poor start to climb from sixth to an eventual fourth. Neil had initially looked the strongest and clung limpet-like to fourth place for the first four heats, but eventually both he and Alex fell victim to Ed’s charge, Ed putting in his fastest heat of the night in the final heat to take fourth place.
At the bottom of the field, Mario had a torrid time. He’d apparently “lost” both of his DTM cars, so had borrowed an unbuilt Merc C-Class from Jim. As Jim said in the club’s WhatsApp chat before the race, “I’ll put it in the box now and I’ll have everything you need to build it with me, so might take an hour or so to knock one together, but at least you’ve got a car to use.” Judging by how far off the pace Mario was and how bitterly frustrated he appeared to be driving the car, he’d taken Jim literally and knocked it together with a lump hammer.
Ahead of Mario, Graham and Jim enjoyed a great scrap, swapping places numerous times. The two went into their final heat with Jim leading by a mere 0.37 seconds, but while Graham stayed calm and drove his fastest heat of the race, Jim succumbed to the pressure, crashed twice, lost seven seconds and dropped to ninth overall, only saved from the ignominy of finishing last because Mario’s race had been even worse.
Nobody has ever said racing is easy, and tonight both Mario and Jim learnt that the hard way. Still, it can only get better!
