Team Shark is an active on-line racing team run by co-founder Simon 'Shark' Gymer. The team is currently racing with the Simbin games of GTR 2, GT Legends and RACE 07, Papyrus's Nascar Racing 2003 and ISI's rFactor. In 2005 Team Shark merged with it's long term partner Phoenix Racing to form a powerful cross-game team line-up. Nick Phillips now runs the Race2Play branch of Team Shark whilst Morten Strauss heads up the remaining NASCAR Racing 2003 operations.
Round 8 - Donington Park 31 May Driving - Lister Storm
For the final round, the start time moved back to a more standard 14:00 local time and the weather conditions brightened to dry but overcast - a nice lift after the last dark, wet race at Oschers. The championship was up for grabs in GT1, with me on 64 points and Gazza on 65, meaning that the driver who finished in front of the other would win the title. Shark was once again present in a second Lister with Jon in the Lambo to fight against Busi from 24/7. Prof and Picnic continued their challenge in GT2, Picnic managing 4th in class.
Practise and qualifying was thankfully dry, which made things much better for me, as I wasn't happy with the front end of the Lister and carried on running a race setting to tweak the suspension. Jon and Busi were immediately fast and began pushing their times lower and lower, with Shark doing a good job to pip Gazza to 6th spot; this gave me a nice buffer. Jon was a full second clear of fourth; Busi had a few problems but returned right at the end to put in a fantastic lap of 1:24.177 and ended my season long run, just after I had gone to pole with my best ever lap. Well deserved!
Busi GT1 Pole - 1:24.2 Ginsters GT2 Pole - 1:29.7
The race began with a bang as the first lap unravelled and most positions were kept fairly static, until Busi made a mistake from the lead at the Foggy Esses, putting him offline and de-stabilising the car. Unable to gas it as normal, he was slower than usual and I could pull alongside to the outside as he defended into Melbourne - this went on for three more corners until Redgate, where I finally got the inside line and pulled ahead.
This wasn't in the plan, Busi was faster over a single lap and I only needed to beat Gazza who was a few spots down on the lead battle and by now Busi was buzzing all over the back of me with Jon not far behind. Surprisingly, Busi was the next runner to make a mistake as he put the power down a little too hard coming out of Melbourne, spinning him round and out of the podium places and letting Jon up into second. Shortly after Busi was out.
This meant it was a straight fight between me and Jon. He closed right up on me but wouldn't pass given the offer from me; I think he likes getting held up or something to that affect...
The pit stops had begun and once again Shark was consistently quick enough to pull himself up to second following the stops...Jon having had his usual mid-race crisis strike (pet Cat gone missing...) and forcing him to quit. Ho-hum.
Meanwhile, TT and Hal were having a great fight as TT had made the decision to race the Marcos round here (which is either extremely brave, or extremely stupid). Hal could not get passed until Hal's mistake under braking for McLeans saw them make contact and cause each other some headaches. Hal managed to keep third in the standings, with TT claiming fifth overall.
The rest of the race was more sedate as everyone started to take care of their cars; Gazza was now up to third as well, after keeping it together where others lost out.
The Lister's came through for a final 1-2 and took the Driver & Team titles for GT1, the Team's being especially sweet with starting the race behind the Pseudo's. The Manufacturers title was a bonus on top, with GT2 third overall in the teams championship.
With some fun races scheduled and S10 on the horizon, all that is left is to take some time out to prepare wrestling the Viper for next time. Congrats to all!
Round 7 - Ochersleben 17 May Driving - Lister Storm
With the race starting at 19:00 local time, this race was going to be a dusk-night race. Just for good measure, it's raining - a lot!
Practise and qualifying started out with a damp track that favoured soft slicks, as most people tried out running slicks, inters and the odd hard wet. Most set their fastest time on the softer slick as the surface wasn't too slippy and the track got faster and faster as the session wore on. It was a real lottery as to who was going to end up at the front as everyone knocked tenths off their fastest time every lap. I had fuelled longer than a normal qualifying run to try to get more heat into the soft tyres and was effectively doing short race runs. Jon got very close with the Sharks lining up on row one. Ruskus gained P5 on his return and Shark lined up behind a GT2! More of that in a moment...
FreQ GT1 Pole - 1:21.6 Ginsters GT2 Pole - 1:26.0
The race began with the light even darker than expected, but with the same damp track. Soft slicks right?
Me and Jon had a great start and began to pull away from the field. I felt comfortable in conditions that were slightly wetter than qualifying, but still manageable on the soft slicks. Busi (Racing24/7) it became apparent had bet on the inters being the right tyre, which made it tough for him in the opening laps, having a small collision with Jose. He would feature later on however.
The rain stopped briefly and this (I thought) had made my race. Almost within the lap however it started coming down heavily, and a lap later when it was clear the rain was here to stay; everyone was diving into the pits for full wets and it was getting very dark. It was confusing and with Jon already pitted I was keen to stop, but the Lister pit box already had a GT2 in there due to my haste in pitting.
After the "drive through", the track was now flooded and slicks were impossible. Two offs in one lap lead to a very long stop to repair damage and losing a lot of time, dropping me to 8th place just in front of Ruskus.
Whilst Ruskus was on the soft wets, I had picked hards which were giving little grip and on my return to the pits, I slid into the inside barrier, wreaking my engine. An embarrassing way to exit a race!
Meanwhile, Shark had managed to jump from 13th on the grid, to lead the race. He ran for 17(!) laps in the lead due to a great call on the strategy and was looking good until Busi caught him up on his own full wets and took the lead. Busi's inters had helped marginally when the track was getting wetter and the change to full wets had come at the right time.
Meanwhile, Ruskus had fought his way up from as low as 8th place to challenge Shark in the dying laps of the race and for a while it looked like Shark might hold on to 2nd until a small mistake at the long, double left hander let Ruskus pass.
A great race from Busi then, who survived the chaos and came home the winner. Team Shark had a good race as Ruskus had a great comeback drive from almost nowhere and Shark took 3rd from literally, a different race! Gizmo had plugged away quietly as well to steal 3rd in class in GT2 to make it a positive race overall for the team. Congrats to all who finished that gruelling race.
This now means that the final race will decide the championship for GT1, 1 point separating me and Gazza (Pseudo) and second place still very much up for grabs in GT2. It should be good!
Team Shark recent results L8S@Silverstone, 02 July 2009: LigelC 17th (13th in class) U9SC@Edmonton, 28 June 2009: picnic 3rd, Dave 'Gizmo' Gymer 4th U9@Edmonton, 23 June 2009: FreQ 1st, picnic 10th, Dave 'Gizmo' Gymer 14th U9SC@Brands Hatch, 21 June 2009: Dave 'Gizmo' ...
P1 All Classes 1st Virtual Drivers Alliance 62.0pts; 8th Gentlemen Drivers Club 6.0pts; 9th Team Shark 1.0pts; 10th Team RVS 0.0pts 21st LigelC 11.0pts; 26th picnic 7.0pts
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Team Shark is an active on-line racing team run by co-founder Simon 'Shark' Gymer. The team is currently racing with the Simbin games of GTR 2, GT Legends and RACE 07, Papyrus's Nascar Racing 2003 and ISI's rFactor. In 2005 Team Shark merged with it's long term partner Phoenix Racing to form a powerful cross-game team line-up. Nick Phillips now runs the Race2Play branch of Team Shark whilst Morten Strauss heads up the remaining NASCAR Racing 2003 operations.
Team Shark took more honours in season 9 of UKGTR with an impressive total of 7 trophies during the season.
not far behind. Surprisingly, Busi was the next runner to make a mistake as he put the power down a little too hard coming out of Melbourne, spinning him round and out of the podium places and letting Jon up into second. Shortly after Busi was out.
The race began with the light even darker than expected, but with the same damp track. Soft slicks right?
After the "drive through", the track was now flooded and slicks were impossible. Two offs in one lap lead to a very long stop to repair damage and losing a lot of time, dropping me to 8th place just in front of Ruskus.
Meanwhile, Ruskus had fought his way up from as low as 8th place to challenge Shark in the dying laps of the race and for a while it looked like Shark might hold on to 2nd until a small mistake at the long, double left hander let Ruskus pass. 
