[To set the scene - last night mine and Open's boxes were just barely talking to each other, and I saw some massive lag on his car to the extent that I managed to lose a whole lap - I ended up asking if he was leading because he showed in 5th for the entire race on my screen! The "debris" in the commentary is me running into the back of Open as the lag took him to 30mph, then didn't accelerate
]
BT: An incident-packed race for the first showing of the Monotremely Slow Racing Miura - Spiny can you shed some light on what went on out there.
SA: It all started to go wrong off the start. Before we'd even crossed the start-line I hit some debris on the start which damaged the front aero and led to the front end sliding around. Although it ultimately only sloweed me down by about a tenth a lap, it took me a while to adjust to that and I ended up sliding wide in Turn 2 and spinning as I avoided the wall. That put me plum last, and I had to push to close up with the rest of the field.
BT: That wasn't the last of the incidents either was it?
SA: No. Before too long we'd closed up on Bimmer who appeared to have had an off of his own. We were running faster and got a good run out of the hairpin. Unfortunately, there seemed to have been a miscommunication between the crew chiefs and "On your right" got interpreted as "Keep right" or something - we tangled and sustained more damage. Even worse, it seems that Bimmer may have come off worse as he struggled for grip after that. Then it was a case of pushing to close the gap.
BT: You made an early pit-stop - can you explain the reasoning behind that?
SA: In testing, we had found that our car gained more from the lower weight of carrying less fuel than it lost from running on slightly work tyres. We were hoping to maximise the time gained from that by running the second stint close to the maximum. Unfortunately, we hadn't reckoned with the extra tyre wear at the front from the loss of downforce. Initially the strategy allowed us to close right up on Fender before I made a slight mistake at Turn 2 which lost me 300 metres. Ultimately though, that extra tyre wear caught up with us at the end as I was really having to hang onto the car through the sweeper on the last 5 laps or so. I think with an undamaged car we would have been ok, but in the end the front aero damage got us in tyre wear rather than lost lap time. It's a shame we lost the duct tape pre-race as it could have been useful at the pit stop.
BT: Snyder had a huge incident which brought out the yellow flags. How do you think that affected your race?
SA: It certainly made it more exciting - it was quite unusual in this race to be actually racing someone rather than just trying to catch up. But, even though we were trying to get past Pete, we just lacked the straight-line speed and always seemed to catch up in the wrong part of the lap. In the end though, we couldn't even hang onto the field at the end as the tyres started to go away from us. I think the net result was neutral - we ended up in 5th which is where we would have been without the flag anyway.
BT: So, are there any lessons you can take from this race? Was it a positive or a negative for you?
SA: The obvious lesson we will take is that of the tyre wear being affected by the damage on the front aero. In future, if we suffer aero damage, we might not push the fuel envelope so far. We always knew this was our worst track as the crests do not suit our car - it actually handles the crests worse than the bumps at the Nuerburgring. So, although we were disappointed with 5th, we weren't too disheartened bearing in mind that we ran the whole race with a damaged car. It was also encouraging that we have some pace too - our best lap time was only bettered by Snyder so we're looking forwards to seeing how we go on a track which better suits us and where we avoid the carnage. As the old saying goes, better look next time.
BT: Thanks Spiny. It was good to see two so far absent entrants in the form of Spiny and Snyder finally making the race. Rumour has it that the Monotremely Slow Tunes team may struggle to fulfil the full roster, but Spiny tells me that there is a good chance they will be able to get to Road Atlanta. And with that, back to the Studio.
