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Overstear

Do. Or do not. There is no try.
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I had really thought I'd be able to find something useful to put down here a little more often, but if I'm not careful, the only journal entries I'm making are the ones around New Year ...

It's just that I'm rather busy with other things at the moment and painting cars just isn't very high on the priority list. Or not yet actually, because although I'm the only Corvette driver in our team at the moment, we will be moving to another car set and chances are that more of us will get back into the Vette's again.

So who knows, we may need more cars for the team and that makes clearing time for putting in the effort less tricky.

Thanks for the few messages I've got, you know who you are.
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Happy New Year

1 min read
Happy New Year people, make 2009 a good one.

One of my officially non existent new years resolutions is to actually make the GPRT (my sim-racing team for those unfamiliar with us) a new car paint for the Corvette C6R.

The last serious item I put up here was dated from 2005 so I reckon it's about time something else showed up. :)
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Watching an A1GP series race is always a good thing. This great new open wheel racing class is a absolute winner. All teams get the same material and basically all that decides who wins and who doesn't is the setup of the car and the quality of it's driver.

Watching this fantastic show live, including a brand new Dutch driver, on a Dutch circuit is awesome, absolutely awesome. And boy did we watch it live. Over the past weekend we got spoiled with two whole days filled to the top with superb motor sport events, live at the track of Zandvoort.

Team Netherlands had a last minute driver change when their number one driver, from now on referred to as 'looser', decided to screw all his fans over and stay away. To hell with him, never liked him anyway.

Their (or rather: our ;-)) new number one driver was Jeroen Bleekemolen who more than proved to be the right man for the job. That guy is my new hero, it was such an absolute joy watching this man at work.

This series is divided into 2 races: one short sprint race and one longer race, called the feature race. I'm still not entirely sure on how the qualifying system works but the results of the sprint race count for the starting order of the feature race.

Our guy Jeroen was starting the feature race from tenth position and finished in an amazing fourth place. But it wasn't the final results that will stay in everybody's mind, it was the way how he did it. I don't think I'll ever forget watching this one. It was fantastic to watch.

In the old days when you watched a race live you could see the cars go by and than had to wait until they passed again to see what happened that lap. Nowadays we have the aid of big screens around the circuit which allows us to see just about everything that happens.

So whenever Jeroen overtook a car (and he did so a lot folks :-)) simply everybody could see it and at those moments all hell broke loose on all the stands around the track. The roar of the cheering crowd was sometimes even louder than the noise the race cars made. It gave me goose bumps all over, I've never experienced something like this. The sound then thousands of people make when they cheer on their favorite driver is very intimidating.

After a number of laps he worked his way through to second place and when he then passed the car in front of him to take the first position they must have been able to hear the cheering all the way in that TV helicopter. That was such a incredibly cool moment. Every time he passed by everyone was at their feet and cheering him on.

In the end it was an unfortunate tire choice that prevented Team Netherlands from winning the race but it was a brilliant drive from Jeroen nonetheless. And boy did he get his share of applause and cheering when he stepped out of the car. It couldn't have been any better when he had actually won the race. The crowd went nuts, completely nuts.

Apart from the A1 there also were a couple of other racing lasses present from which the Porsche GT3's and the BLR class were my favorite. Specially the last one was fun to watch. They had no less than thirty seven cars on the grid, divided over two types of chassis.

When that many cars come storming over a hill towards both you and a pretty tight corner you have trouble deciding where to look, there's just so much happening at once. And I'm such a big fan of large grids. When after a couple of laps the field spreads over the track a bit there are cars passing by constantly. It's great to watch.

Looking back on the weekend the only thing that wasn't too much fun is me straining a muscle early Saturday morning causing me to limp around the place during the entire weekend. Walking from the camping to the track and back again at the end of the day, and doing that again the next day. Right now I'm completely busted. Yesterday my right leg hurts just about as much as the left one, from trying to spare the other. It's getting slightly better though, all I need is to take it easy a bit ...

I hope. ;-)
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Rear enders

2 min read
Getting hit twice in about 2 weeks time, what is the world coming to?

I just don't get it. I must be driving around with a easy to read 'hit me' sign on the back of my car because this morning someone bumped into the back of my car again.

Unlike a week ago this was a rather small bump but the girl who drove into me was pretty shaken up and wouldn't stop telling me how sorry she was. It took me about 15 minutes of explaining that there was absolutely nothing to worry about before she finally believed me. I mean I, was fine, she was fine and no other harm was done. So no problem.

Looking at my rear fender I could see where she hit me but since my car is due to be repaired from the first accident the 18th anyway I told her that there was no need to fill out a lot of forms and let her insurance pay for anything. Besides, I was already running a little late for work so I could use the time filling out the forms would take a lot better. ;-)

Hopefully this is the last time for now. Either it's still the guys from my racing team who are still bribing those people to keep on following me, or it's just bad luck. Before last weeks encounter it's been years since someone ran into me so on average it's not that big a deal. So I really hope this is the last one for some time to come. Getting hit from behind is no fun at all. Come to think of it, getting hit at all is no fun.

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The 24 Hours of Le Mans, or my 22 hours of it

This year I've seen more of the 24 hours of Le Mans than ever in my life before. Apart from the usual highlights we get on TV over here (read: a few lousy snippets with loads of commercials in between) the whole event was broadcasted live over the internet, 24 hours long, non-stop and without commercial brakes of any kind.

I tell you folks, for a motor sport fanatic and Le Mans series fan like me, this 24 hour race is heaven. Absolute bliss. If only one day I could be in one ... Just once ...

Before I was able to relax and start watching it though, it took quite some arranging this time.

Cutting work a little short last Saturday and making absolute sure I was at Bas' place in time didn't prevented me from almost missing the start of the race. As it turned out Bas had taken the opportunity to enjoy the nice weather a bit and was cruising on his motorcycle so when I was there, he wasn't ...

Then, in a moment of sheer brilliance mixed with a flair of desperation (please bare with me ;-)) I decided to get the laptop out, plug in my wireless card and see if any of the neighbors were kind enough to share a bit of internet with me.

To my enjoyment this worked and I was able to watch the start of the race and the first quarter of an hour until Bas arrived and we could continue watching it on TV. Got to love these modern times people, this wireless thing is a Godsend!

Now I was able to watch the whole race, from start to finish and that's exactly what I did. Apart from tow hours where I dozed off a little I saw the complete race and I now know absolutely sure that this is by far my most favorite class of racing.

Awesome!

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Featured

Still alive and well, thanks by Overstear, journal

Happy New Year by Overstear, journal

World CUP of Motor sports by Overstear, journal

Rear enders by Overstear, journal

24 Hours of Le Mans by Overstear, journal