Throwback Thursdayn't - S1 R1 GT Review

Note: the article was supposed to be released this Thursday, however due to an early release to the public I've decided to post it on a Tuesday

Today we're doing our first Throwback Thursday, where we'll be looking at some of the older MCRO races - we'll start off with the very first GT race, the S1R1 hosted at the old circuit.

Quali

During the first ever GT quali we had some of the most popular CDT racers at the time - SorJarwai, jakexander, quacksinoodle... However it was eventually the hobryder_3 in the Dodge Viper ACR who got pole position by just 0.1 sec over Sor! A suprise to many, as hob wasn't as experienced as Sor or quack. I'm dropping the results below (sorry for the poor edit):

Race

During the grid line-up, we saw Vark_33 and Based_guy123 (aka thejohn) come late. They started at the back of the grid, however both of them had decent cars (Vark was in a Dodge like Hob, john was in the Lambo) so there was promise for a comeback.

The race started - despite the pole position, Hob dropped outside of the Top 5 on just lap 5 and wasn't doing well due to connection issues. Sor was leading at that moment, however not for long, as john overtook him on lap 7 - but Sor didn't slow down. He took the lead back only a lap later, with john being really close to Sor.

Gaps between drivers were really small - P1 and P4 were serperated by ~5-6 seconds, and to everyone's suprise, the GTR driven by quack was P4 - I don't think that would happen today if we hosted a race like this one. Back to the race - john was building a gap, while quack was getting close to the Aston of jake. It was going well for him, however on lap 16 he hit the infamous pit enterance wall at the final corner, slowing him down and promoting Sor to P1.

Meanwhile, the battle between quack and jake was on. Both cars were really close to each other for many laps, with jake being often ahead of the GTR. After john crashed on lap 21, they were both in the podium positions, but not for long, as on lap 24 john overtook them both while catching up to P1

Lap 30. John was still catching up to Sor with quite a gap to gain and jake was getting away from quack. However, we saw the first DNF in MCRO, as Hob crashed so hard he flew outside of the circuit. He didn't consider respawning, but knowing the struggle he had that day I'm sure he wouldn't get a satisfying result.

A lap later, jake crashes, promoting quack to P3 - meaning that he'd get a podium finish in a GTR, which was one of the slower cars at the time. Meanwhile, Sor was still leading, but john was slowly catching up to him. Eventually - he overtook him on lap 37. And he was getting away fast.

The battle for P3 was still intense, with both quack and jake being really close, especially at lap 43. They were switching places all the time, we didn't know who would eventually get the podium - quack was really fast in the GTR, but the Aston of jake was a faster car, and he was an experienced driver too. On lap 50, john crashed (again), but kept leading.

Lap 53 - jake started slowing down, which promoted quack to P3. The gap was getting bigger and bigger each lap. Eventually, on lap 59 jake retired from the race, which meant that if quack kept the pace for the next 15 laps, he would be on podium. However as night fell, disaster happened - quack's internet decided to say goodbye in the worst moment possible - on lap 69 (nice), with 5 laps to go, he froze, losing him a podium. He continued about a lap later, however he was thrown back to the back runners.

After 74 laps, john wins the first GT race, with Sor coming in second. Since jake DNF'd and quack froze for about 1 lap, this meant that Vark, who was P5 was promoted into P3. Lucky podium? Sure, but a podium after all. Gogo (aka KOTTONKAT) finished P4, 3 places above his teamate, cyborg_dinosaur. Quack's teammate, skyehigh500, finished P5 with himself finishing P6.

Altrough we'd see more interesting races in the future, I'd say this was a great opening for an another chapter in CDT racing community with no bigger messups from me. The next races of Season 1 would create a battle between EGGNOFF232 and thejohn, which went until the final race at the Circuit, this time on the new map. But that is going to be a material for an another article.

Also, the full race replay of GT S1R1 will be going to the official MCRO channel today.