After not doing almost any kind of simracing since GPL the swedish TV channel TV4 announced a simracing competition with a first prize of 100 000 SEK. The qualification to six quarterfinals, with 6 drivers in each quarterfinal, was done in the demo of the sim Race07, which simulated the WTCC (World Touring Car Championship). I could not resist but had to download the demo and try a couple of laps. I was a bit late in the competition, do not remember why now. The track to qualify on was Brands Hatch and after a couple of laps I compared my lap times with the currently fastest in this competition. I was 15 seconds of the pace??? What the… I hoped that there were something wrong with my calibration of the throttle, so I recalibrated, and tried again. I immediately noticed a difference 
. I was now 5 seconds of the pace, which seemed more appropriate for the short practice I had and after such a long rest from simracing, or any racing for that matter. I hadn’t even started to fiddle with the setup yet.
You could qualify in one of two cars; The Seat Leon or BMW 3-series car. I picked the Seat for two reasons. First this was the car the rest of the competition would be run in, and second I really don’t like the looks of that BMW.
So… More practice, some setup fiddling and suddenly I had the 54:th fastest time in the Seat – Excellent ! I did some calculations and realized that I only had to be among the first 18 to get to a quarterfinal. The first two quarterfinals I missed, because they were finished around when I had the 54:th fastest time, and they were televised when I actually managed to qualify for quarterfinal 3 and 4, but had to go on a company conference instead of participating, so I had to turn down the offer given by TV4, but was allowed to try to qualify for 5 and 6 quarterfinals. By this time I was starting to get really fast and finally ended up with a lap that was the third fastest over all in the Seat. The competition for the last two quarterfinals had such names as Roland Ehnström, but he drove the BMW, and Robert Björkman who got the fastest time in the Seat, two tenth of a second faster than mine. My last laps were done in my newly bought Logitech G25.
I accepted the offer from TV4 to take part in one of the last two televised quarterfinals, but now I just had to buy Race06 and try to learn all the tracks which we could end up driving in the quarterfinal. I had a very short time to do all this and come race day I made a mess of it. Long story short, my setup ended up being almost undrivable with incredible oversteer and I didn’t manage to fix it in the qualifying session. I qualified last of six drivers. Now I only concentrated on not screwing it up for someone else, luckily they managed to do that themself, a bit, and I ended up fourth in the race, actually gaining on third on the last laps. The two first made it to the semifinals. Roland Ehnström won the final and the 100 000 SEK. This was my first experience of televised competition, and my first experience of competing for such a large prize, and my first experience of competing eye to eye against other simracers. I can’t remember ever being so nervous. Probably a big part of me making a mess of my setup. On the plus side it was really nice to meet eleven other really good sim racers.
