Anyway, here’s the video:

It was quite difficult to find an onboard lap on Youtube that I could use and after contacting the poster (who turned out to be the rights holder – woohoo) of a lap in the Corvette C6 I decided that was probably as close as I was going to get. I then asked our testing team to supply a replay of a decent lap in iRacing’s C6R and one came fairly quickly with what he described as more of a safe lap than a quick one.

Because of the fact that the driver of the real-world video was pushing a lot harder than the sim driver I had a little bit of work to do to get things to match up. As these videos are about showing the track geometry more than anything else I extended the real-world video just a little at each segment to make them match up.

I think it turned out well, the only differences really are very minor and most will be because the in-sim footage was recorded from a single car testing session while the real-world video is from race day (more trackside objects).

The first race I slotted into the grid in ninth and held the number 16 on my car, this meant I was the lowest rated driver in the event. Still, looking at everyone else’s qualifying times I figured I’d probably be able to finish in the top-three if I didn’t make any mistakes…

I got a decent, safe start, but as usual I made the mistake of driving too safely. This always seems to happen to me and it’s incredibly annoying: I was much, much faster than those ahead of me, but they were all over the race track (and off it – I managed to avoid someone who span across the racetrack having ran wide out of the final turn), so with them being all over the race track, I stand back and wait for them to sort themselves out.

But, by waiting, by not shoving my nose into a multi-car battle, I leave myself open to the people behind because I am being forced to lap slower than I am capable! How annoying is that? To get passed not because you’re slower, but because you’ve reasoned that nobody infront of you is actually going anywhere! Honestly, on that first lap, they were crawling.

So, basically that’s the story: I dropped a few places, got annoyed at losing those places, made my own mistake running wide, slapped the wall under the bridge, damaged my left side and of course the person behind went to overtake on the right in the downhill… I had to stay left, with a damaged left side, and went off-track and into the fence.

I reset and rejoined the race in 12th, gradually making my way up to eighth without passing anybody on the track. My fastest lap was on lap 11 of 31 and was a 58.797 and this was especially annoying because I came out of the pits with the leaders and lost almost no time to them at all in the 26 laps I ran after the reset.

I also tried to join the race after and jumped the start. That race was done for literally before it began and I finished with less points that the race above netted me, so the race was dropped.

I am now standing eighth in Skip Barber Race Series points, 164 out of first and 80 out of second-place.

Firstly though, here are some scientific facts and figures:
Scientific name: Puntius tetrazona
Name: Tiger Barb
Size: 7cm / 3″
pH range: 6.5 – 7.5
dH range: 5 – 19
Temp: 20–25°C / 68–78°F

Although the above information may state 7.5 as maximum for pH, and although many Web sites may state as high as 8, I have to say that Tiger Barbs to prefer a low pH. Once a tank gets old the pH naturally drops and to combat this I put Limestone in the tank, this raised the pH up to 7.8 and although the Guppies sharing the tank were absolutely fine (as were the other water parameters), the Tiger Barbs began to struggle. I would therefore recommend not keeping Tiger Barbs above 7, while contrary to the information above my Tiger Barbs have been absolutely fine as low as 6.2.

Tiger Barbs are very difficult fish to find friends for. They have a mixture of personalities and they will bite even the largest of tank companions. Below is a list of the fish kept with Tiger Barbs in my tanks at one time or another, and what happened with each:

Ramshorn Snails – Yes, my Tiger Barbs have attacked and eaten snails. Ramshorn snails are usually pulled straight out of their shell and the Tigers then do their ‘game‘ which I will explain below.

Mystery Snails – This type of snail is too large to kill, so they simply nibble on them. At times I wonder if I should remove the snails, but as it is usually not the same snail twice in a row I let them be. Occasionally they will appear bored and a group of the Tigers will attack.

Ghost Shrimp – The Tiger Barbs are absolutely fine with Ghost Shrimp and I still have at least one in my largest tank from almost a year ago (I know because I haven’t replaced any and still see him coming out when I feed), however, Tiger Barbs will also attack and kill Ghost Shrimp as a part of the ‘game‘ I’ll explain below.

Peppered Corydoras – These small Cory catfish were treated similarly to Mystery Snails. The Tiger Barbs would seem to get bored and nibble on these fish for amusement. This got bad enough that I no longer keep these fish in the same tank.

Rainbow Shark – This fish was a danger to the Tiger Barbs rather than them being a danger to it. When the shark reached maturity it took to head-butting the Tigers in the gills and this caused visible injuries and two deaths from the 15 Tiger Barbs I had in the tank at the time. The Rainbow Shark showed no signs of aggression when young, but I had to return the Rainbow Shark as it was not a suitable tank mate for Tiger Barbs once mature.

Oscar Fish – Tiger Barbs are no threat to this fish from my experience. However, my Oscar started as around 4″, so a smaller one may become a target. When the Oscar gets larger he may start to attack and eat the Tiger Barbs though.

Guppies Female – Although the Barbs may be interested in Guppies either when first introduced or when bored, the huge majority of the time a large female Guppy will not be bothered by Tiger Barbs.

Guppies Male – Fancy Male Guppies are like a dangling carrot to a Tiger Barb, that swishing tail seems far too attractive to ignore and although I have never experienced any deaths I do not consider them compatible.

Zebra Danios – Zebra Danios are simply too fast to be concerned with Tiger Barbs.

Longfin Zebra Danios – Longfins seem slower than regular Zebra Danios, but I still never saw any issues. There was a definite difference in how much interest was paid to the Longfin Zebra Danios though and I think the Tiger Barbs were interested in biting the fins – but were never fast enough to catch one.

Giant Danios – I have never had a problem keeping Giant Danios and Tiger Barbs together. Of all the fish I have tried and had to either move or sell back to the Pet Store, these are the only one I can confidently say I find a safe bet on a good tank mate. My Giant Danios were added at about 3″ and have since grown to about 4″, smaller fish could be a target but are probably too fast to ever be.

Snowball Bristlenosed Pleco – Tiger Barbs seem scared of fish with black coloring. I never saw them approach this Pleco once to nip fins. He was a small fish, too, and never grew very large.

Common Pleco – The only common Pleco I have had with the Tiger Barbs was added to the tank at about 5″ and is now (at time of writing) about 12″. Amazingly I have seen the Tiger Barbs nibbling at him whenever he goes over ‘their side of the tank’. The Pleco, however, completely ignores them and does not seem irritated. Half the time they seem to be playing with him like this, the rest of the time they actually seem scared to go near him: It’s quite comical and underlines the differences in personalities between Tiger Barbs.

Dragon Goby – This fish was sold to me as a Freshwater semi-aggressive which would have no problem with Tiger Barbs, I soon discovered (with no thanks to the fish store) that not only is it not Freshwater, it is not aggressive in any way. The Dragon Goby was picked on quite horrendously by the Tiger Barbs until I was able to move it into it’s own Brackish (partly salt) tank. It was disturbing to see how they would not give up the chase and would not allow this fish to be free of them.

Neon Tetras – This was probably the most surprising tank mate for Tiger Barbs. These small, mouth-sized fish were never even looked at by my Tiger Barbs and I have had two sets of Tiger Barbs in tanks with two sets of Neon Tetras. If I didn’t think it a risk to have Neon Tetras with Giant Danios, then I would certainly consider Neon Tetras an excellent choice for tank mate alongside them.

Cardinal Tetras – I had Cardinals mixed in with Neon Tetras, see above – same reaction.

The Killing Game

So, as mentioned in the compatibility information above, Tiger Barbs do like to be aggressive. One of the interesting things though is how they actually play with their kill and parade it purposely through the rest of the Tiger Barbs almost inviting them to try to take it.

I have seen a single Tiger Barbs on one end of the tank pick up a Ghost Shrimp and swim all the way over to the rest of the Tiger Barbs at the other end with it in it’s mouth, seemingly to start a game… The other Tigers then chase the individual fish and try to take it away: It does usually end up looking like a game is being played. This behavior has been repeated with a baby Guppy and many Ramshorn Snails.

Tiger Barbs will eat anything… ANYTHING!

As I said above, I’ve seen Tiger Barbs eat Snails and Ghost Shrimp alive. I’ve also seen them nibble on other fish and snails quite often.

Tiger Barbs in my tanks also eat algae wafers, sinking catfish wafers, frozen bring shrimp, frozen blood worms and live blood worms without problems or hesitation.

Perhaps most surprising is that I have often seen them eating Pleco feces (I am guessing there are plenty of undigested algae still to be had).

Keep them in groups!

Tiger Barbs need Tiger Barbs. Even with large groups they will nip, eat, play – do all the things I’ve said above – but in smaller numbers, they’ll be even worse.

With a large enough group and a large enough number of males, the huge majority of their time will be spent sorting out dominance. Males will go nose-to-nose and look like they are kissing but infact, they are fighting, see the video below:

As soon as the loser swims away the fight is normally over and the victor gets to be the Alpha Fish until the next challenge is made.

I would recommend no less than five Tiger Barbs to be kept in any tank. Because of this, Tiger Barbs should never be kept in a 10 gallon tank, it simply isn’t large enough for five fish of their size.

Other behavioral weirdness…

Tiger Barbs sometimes are not very active: They’ll group together at one side of my tank and just stay there for hours, only occasionally chasing one another out of the group.

Also depending on how the water flows around your tank, Tiger Barbs will either ‘head stand’ or ‘tail stand’. I have an upwards water flow at the back of my largest tank and a downwards one at the front, so when resting the Tiger Barbs will point their nose down at the back and up at the front so they use as little energy as possible. This can be worrying at first and some Web sites and forums will tell you there’s something wrong with your water parameters – and there may be – but not always: I’ve had Tiger Barbs doing this for the whole time I have kept them, while I have had good water parameters and while the Barbs have been 100% healthy. I think there’s some mis-information out there.

Conclusions on the fish

If I were able to make my choice again (a choice made on the bad advice of a fish store), I probably would not have started to keep Tiger Barbs. They are so restrictive that it actually makes it difficult to keep any other kind of fish.

If you want to keep a species tank (one breed), then the Tiger Barb is probably an awesome fish to have a tank full of, but I wanted to explore the hobby and don’t feel this fish allows me to do that.

On Saturday 13th February, 2010 I was unable to run the 500, but got in a quick qualifying session for my race on the 20th just 15 minutes before the race session: I set a 48.075 and this would put me in 11th-place to start the race.

With 30 minutes of warm-up, it gave everybody plenty of time to check their setup, practice put stops, etc. I personally just practiced getting into and off pit road at speed and missed an opportunity to notice and correct that ‘terribly important’ thing once again…

The start of the iRacing Daytona 500.

We raced through a few cautions in the early laps, but things remained fairly constant for me until lap 15: It was the first time I’d really had to slam on the brake and when I did so it must have knocked my calibration off (recalibrating was the ‘terribly important’ thing I’d forgotten to do). At that point I was running 12th and just biding my time, but unknown to me the brake was now dragging and I hadn’t noticed the tiny sliver of red on the brake indicator.

Over the next 100 laps or so I just went backwards. At the time I believed I had lost an engine cylinder and was down on power, it wasn’t until about lap 114 that I realized what had happened, having finally noticed that the brake indicator was showing applied brakes.

Initially I just pulled back on the brake with my left foot while pushing on the throttle with my right, but after I began to experience cramping I managed to fix it for good on lap 164. However, during those last few laps I had had enormous fun: I normally wait until there’s ten laps remaining before I push really hard to get to the front, but knowing my position I used a combination of strategy, aggression and good luck to come back from two laps down to one, and come back from 22nd-place on lap 114 to 14th as the race ended.

Three-wide at Daytona.

So I ended with mixed emotions, just like everyone else: At one point I had resigned myself to just running for safety rating with a damaged engine, but I ended up having a lot of fun in some really tight racing. I had very few incidents (scraped the wall on lap 100, car contact on 190, the wreck on 194 and an off track on 198 while I got out of the way of the other cars on the final restart), but I still can’t help but think what might have happened had I not been trailing brake for half of the race!

My only real solace is that if this were real life, NASCAR would have probably forced me to start at the back anyway due to an ‘engine change’ in my PC… Starting back there I probably would have gotten involved in one of those early accidents and wouldn’t have had the fun I did during the race. Maybe next year I’ll be able to finish on the lead lap!

I like the track, so missing qualifying wasn’t that big of a deal but the number of registrants was really large. I ended up in the third of four splits! My race had 15 drivers, of which I was iRated as fifth but would be starting back in 12th.

I got a decent start and as usual in the Skip Barber Series saw some patient driving into the first turn. Due to a few errors from other drivers I had climbed to ninth-place by the end of the lap.

I made a pass for eighth out of turn one on lap two, but half way around the lap had to brake hard to avoid a multi-car crash ahead… Luckily I didn’t hit anything and when everything shook out I ended lap two in seventh-place.

It was very early in the race and I had quite a bit of speed I wasn’t using. I could see that many people around me were pushing too hard and starting lap three I let the car behind pass, figuring that his car number of 15 meant he would probably make an error later in the race.

A lap later I took advantage of an error by the car ahead into the first turn and slipped ahead, up into seventh-place now. Seventh became sixth half way around the lap when the #15 spun his car onto the grass.

After an error in the final turn of lap five I saw the car I had passed with a mistake it turn one close up behind me… Again, with it being early in the race I didn’t fight and let him go.

One lap later I was flipping through the screens of data available to me to see what my last laptime was, basically seeing if I needed to speed up, when I noticed I had passed my braking point for the first turn! I quickly locked it down but slid into the sand anyway, losing two positions! Luckily half way around the lap I was able to overtake one car who had spun, but I ended lap eight in seventh-place.

I pushed really hard for the next seven laps, setting my best lap of 1:22.339 during the run. It was now lap 15 of 22 and I had closed right in on the pack I had been leisurely following before my mistake…

Between then and the end of the race I led a bit of a charmed life; people just kept falling off the track infront of me! By lap 16 I was sixth, 19 I was fifth and 20 I was fourth – but it was then that I realised my trip to the sand had probably cost me a much higher finish as the car I had been following at the time was up in second-place… I had no time to catch them now and ran across the line on lap 22 in fourth.

It was a great run though. Coming from 12th to fourth isn’t easy for me… The only kind of annoying thing is that I really didn’t have to fight to finish where I finished… Still, maybe I’d see better luck on that front in the 500?

Fastest lap was 13, a 1:22.339. I had two incidents (trip into the sand and running wide once out of final turn).

55 gallon tank. September, 2009 (prior to the move).

Feeding before the move
I did not feed the fish since Saturday 24th October. (Why not feed them before leaving on the 28th? Because they would have pooped in the water during travel and the ammonia levels would have killed them long before starvation or lack of oxygen would have.)

Water change
The day before moving, I did a 50% water change and cleaned the tank.

Moving day
On October 27th I finished my last day in the office at Bedford, MA at 3pm. We collected our moving truck by 4pm and went home to finish packing and loading the truck. About 8 hours later we had almost done, so I began siphoning the water out of my 55 gallon fish tank into two trash bins so I could throw the water away. I had bought a number of buckets from a company called US plastics and was planning to transport the fish in those.

Bucketing the fish
After emptying the water down to about 40%, I began catching the fish and placing them in buckets (I used tank water which I had done a 50% water change on the previous day and which had good water parameters).

I placed the Zebra Danio, Dwarf Coral Platy and Neon Tetras all in the same large bucket with a minimal amount of water (probably about 20% of the bucket depth). I put the Tiger Barbs in their own large bucket, the Ghost Shrimp and Crayfish in another bucket (with a very low water level so the Crayfish would be able to breathe air if he wanted). I also put the Peppered Corydoras and Snowball Pleco into another small bucket. None of the buckets had very much water.

Bucketing the filters and snails
The filter sponges all went into another bucket (filled) with water and the snails I like went into another bucket with minimal amounts of water (they breath air). I also did not wash any of the filter equipment, I just put it in a plastic bag.

Bucketing plants
I then put plants in another bucket (that one almost full of water) and also put some plants into the Crayfish/ghost shimp bucket, figuring these would help him get out of the water and breathe air if he wished.

Removing substrate from tank
After completing the tank siphoning, I scooped out about 80-90% of the sand substrate and threw it away knowing I had another bag (of Childrens Play Sand – what I use for substrate) in storage in Illinois.

A little bit of warmth for the fish
I then put the Corydoras, Tiger Barbs, Tetras, Platies, Pleco and Danio buckets into the cab with us, the other buckets all went into the back of the truck. The fish tank itself (containing a tiny bit of water, about 20% of the substrate and some snails) went into the back seat of the car which we were towing.

Travel time
We were on the road from 1am Wednesday morning until 11am Thursday morning. The fish were in those buckets for over 30 hours.

At location: temporary tank setup
As soon as I was able to, I put my 10 gallon tank into operation on the kitchen counter of the new apartment in Illinois and filled it with about 50% tap water (which I treated with Kordon NovAqua+ Water Conditioner). I then poured the plants (and that buckets water) into the tank along with everything else except the Crayfish.

The fish looked very, very poorly. The Tiger Barb black stripes were a very pale blue, the Neon Tetras showed no bright colors whatsoever and the Peppered Corydoras were a pale, pale grey. The Pleco actually looked like it had a bacterial infection as there was a white area all the way down the middle of it’s back.

Obviously as upsetting as this was, I didn’t panic. I knew the 10 gallon tank was too small for them, but it was going to take some time before I would be able to get the 55 gallon ready. I fed the fish a very small amount of food and continued bringing the boxes from the truck into the apartment.

About an hour later I went to go take a look at the fish and was absolutely amazed. The Tiger Barbs looked perfectly healthy, the Neons were starting to get their color back and although still poorly looking, the Corydoras and Pleco were starting to become more active.

Setting up the main tank
By Thursday night I had my 55 gallon in the house. I removed all the snails and unfortunately one ghost shrimp I had missed when emptying from the tank. I filled the tank to about 75% with fresh tap water and treated it. We then went to our storage and got the sand I would be using to replace the old substrate I had thrown away.

I use play (childrens) sand for the substrate. For a similar weight of sand from the fish store I would have had to pay about $130 rather than the $2.50 I paid for this sand. I’ve used the sand since July in my tanks and had no problems with it, it is pre-washed and sterilized (the sand from the pet store usually isn’t). I turned on my filters (I have two 60 gallon filters on my 55 gallon tank) and started to pour the sand into the water. It obviously immediately clouds up and this is why (contrary to every other bit of advice you’ll read) I have my filters on as they’ll suck up and filter out a lot of the floating particles. I obviously had my heater running by now and I left the tank like that over night on Thursday.

I woke on Friday to find the tank looking fairly clear. The fish looked great in the 10 gallon, but I still had my concerns for the Pleco and what looked like Fungus or Bacteria. He was eating, but I was being careful not to over-feed while they were in such a small tank.

I put the large (fake) rock into the tank and positioned it where I would want it, then began to siphon out about 50% of the water. This removed just about every bit of floating sand which still remained and when I replaced that water I made sure to pour the water directly onto the rock so that the sand wouldn’t be disturbed and re-cloud the tank. I made sure to leave enough space so that I could take water from the 10 gallon and put it in the 55 gallon when moving the fish to hopefully preserve enough bacteria.

Adding fish
So, that’s what I did next. I setup the tank with plants, air stones, etc and started to transfer the fish, taking the water they had been used to with them. Both tanks were reading to be about the same temperature and chemical readings, so when I got them to the 55 gallon I simply poured them in with the water. One of the most amazing things was to see a Zebra Danio is actually capable of swimming up a stream of water being poured out of a bucket!!

I did not transfer the shrimp, snails or Crayfish back into the 55 gallon, I instead setup the 10 gallon for them. This is so that I could start treating the 55 gallon with medication if I needed to later and not risk them dying from it.

Fish suffered no effects
To my great surprise though, by Saturday morning the Pleco had lost his huge white stripe and actually looked back to normal… I believe this was a sign of extreme stress he felt, which quickly vanished in the new tank.

As I said above it has now been about four months since all the fish were placed into the 55 gallon and these fish have absolutely amazed me. They survived not being fed from Saturday to Thursday, they survived without heating, they survived probable low oxygen and obviously with no light. They survived a very stressful experience. Amazing.

I think the keys were not feeding them before travel so as to reduce the waste produced in the buckets during transit, keeping the filters unwashed and the filter media moist and (due to the bumpiness of roads during travel) agitated, keeping some of the sand substrate in the tank during the entire process, keeping the buckets containing the fish in the truck cab to give them a little warmth and of course the quick setup of the 10 gallon when we reached Illinois.

Keys to our successful move (the short version)

1. No feeding during days prior to the trip: Reduces fish waste in buckets during travel.

2. Water change in days prior to leaving.

3. Keep filters unwashed and filter media wet in their own bucket: Helps bacteria survive.

4. Keep some/all of the existing substrate in the tank or a bucket and keep it wet.

5. Keep buckets containing fish in warmth, the truck cab (room temp) was enough for mine… But remember very warm water means less oxygen, so look for that ‘room temp’ balance.

6. Setup a temporary tank (only require water, filter, heater) as soon as you can if delayed setting up main one.

I qualified a day earlier, setting a decent time of 15.718. I didn’t even finish the session cleanly, spinning as I took the white flag – so I didn’t hold out much hope for the race.

Starting third on the grid at Oxford Plains I first of all tried to stop the second-place starter from being able to get down to the bottom of the race track. I almost managed this but when he almost spun and swung into my front end while I was underneath I backed off a bit and settled into third.

I stayed in third until lap 19, when the highest rated driver managed to sneak his nose on the inside of me into the turn. I’d made it pretty difficult for him to get his nose under there, but he did manage it eventually. Into the next turn I did run right into the back of him as he slowed for the car ahead, this gave us both light damage but I settled down into fourth-place to start lap 20.

On lap 28 I had fallen back a little and was starting to come under pressure for my fourth-place when I saw contact ahead between second and third: One spun to the inside, one spun to the outside and I ran straight through the middle and up into second-place.

I had light pressure for second for a few laps, but eventually settled into a rhythm and was able to pull away enough that I held the position until the end of the race.

Pretty pleased with the result, especially in a field of fairly highly rated drivers. My iRating has gone up by about 400 within recent weeks and I’m starting to get some incredible racing from it. I was the fourth rated driver and finishing second was a good result.

I had no recorded incidents, set my fastest lap of 15.829 on lap five and took a large points haul of 102.

I put in a qualifying time of 2:12.597 the previous day and felt pretty well tuned with the Skip Barber Formula 2000 around VIRginia International Raceway. The qualifying time put me second on the grid and being the tenth-rated driver I knew this was a field rated well above me… I was looking forward to taking advantage of my liking of VIR.

I noticed the third-place car creeping shortly before the green light and knew that he had jumped the start, I knew that I just needed to concentrate on not screwing up the first turn and I’d be in a great position to challenge for the lead later in the lap. Unfortunately that perfect start was taken from me when going into the turn I noticed the second-place car getting closer and closer to mine… I had no choice but to run off the track. It was either a spin or certain car contact followed by probable damage – and a spin.

I recovered and rejoined in last-place (12th). I quickly set about catching the pack as I knew that at this stage they’d still be bunched together and forcing each other to run slower than they were capable of alone. It didn’t take long before I caught the pack and moved past two cars going into the final couple of turns; Unfortunately into the final turn the car ahead had to brake sharply to avoid the car ahead of him, forcing me to react and yet again I was spinning off into the grass to avoid them. I crossed the line to end lap one in ninth-place, infront of the driver who had damaged their cars in the final corner.

I crossed the line to start lap two in seventh-place and considering I didn’t pass anybody, assumed this was due to crashes ahead of me I didn’t see.

Ending the third lap I was closing in on the battle for fifth when I saw them both spin ahead of me: Very similar to what I had to do in the NASCAR Class D race I ran this week I split the two spinning cars, missing each by a very small distance and crossing the line to start lap four in fifth.

I pushed really hard from lap four to lap eight, setting faster laptimes on each lap. By lap eight I caught the battle for third-place and after seeing how quickly I had closed them down, was given fourth-place by one of the cars ahead. It took another lap before I got close enough to the third-place car to make a pass attempt and when I did, he simply ran off the road. I think he didn’t think there was room – although I left him plenty – but whatever, I was in third-place.

I continued to push hard, hoping something might happen to the first or second-place cars to move me further up the finishing order, but it wasn’t to be. I finished third and still think that was an awesome result.

I set my fastest time on lap 14 of 14, a 2:11.932. I had four incidents (from two spins) in the race and took home 84 championship points.

I ran a qualifying session earlier in the week and was really just looking for a decent time. I set a 1:51.624. It wasn’t a great time, but it would get me infront of those who don’t post times in qualifying prior to races.

I joined the session and found that I would be seventh on a 13-car grid where I was rated as being the second best driver. Looking at these numbers I knew that I should be slightly better than most of the drivers I was racing with and with most of them I’d just have to be patient. After all, the iRating is calculated from finishing positions, not necessarily how fast someone is… Most of the time I find that if a driver with a larger number overtakes me in a race, he will make some kind of mistake later in the race which causes him to be back behind me where the iRating predicted.

Anyway, the race started and I got a pretty good start, holding my seventh-place. I did have a bit of trouble with one of the cars ahead who ran into the side of me out of the corkscrew and then almost spun coming out of the final turn on the first lap. I did manage to hold my position, but I became desperate to get away from him, lunging to the inside into the first turn to start lap two and again being turned into… He then spun as we came to the end of lap two, and along with a spin by the leader I now found myself in fourth starting lap three.

I began to come under a bit of pressure now from the car behind and for four laps held him there before finally pulling over to let him go. I figured there was a chance he would spin and give me the place back and if not, at least he wasn’t going to push me into making an error. He lasted from lap seven to lap eleven infront of me before spinning, giving me back my fourth-place.

One lap later I saw the second-place car spin ahead of me and managed to sneak around the outside of him before he rejoined. This put me up into third-place. I now felt a lot more comfortable with the car and track and had now started to lap in the 1:49’s. I decided to try to push and catch the new second-place car.

Over the last five laps I did get closer and closer, but simply ran out of time. I was slightly disappointed that I had started the race in such a leisurely fashion, but still with a third-place I had brought in 75 championship points – a massive haul for me.

My fastest lap was 8 of 16. Laptime was 1:49.325. I had two incidents: One when diving to the inside in turn one on lap two, the other when running wide out of the corkscrew.