Grid/server capacity: 22

Track: Road America 60's Download this

Cars allowed: Can-Am car pack Download this

Drivers are reminded that they are limited to only two drives per manufacturer. Check your status HERE

Practice: ~19:20 (60 mins)
Qualifying: 20:20 (20 mins)
Race: 20:40 (18 laps)

Time of Day Setting: 14:00
Start: STANDING
Tyre wear: Normal
Fuel consumption: Normal

Server: simracing.org.uk Monday
Password: see above

Notes:
(1) It's best if all drivers can make sure they are connected before the Qualifying session as drivers on track during qualifying will not see cars that join after they are on track until they go back to the garage.
(2) Please make sure you are fully aware of the SimRacing.org.uk Rules.
(3) The AI control should be turned off so that you have control of the car at all times, including pitting. Your player file should therefore read
Autopit="0"
Force Autopit Off="1" // Forces autopit always off
No AI Control="1" // AI never has control over car
If you still finding pitting problematic, experience tells us that its less to do with positioning and more to do with approach speed. A slow approach to pit crew chief has proved most reliable.

Special Notes: None

Have to say that I'm enjoying muchly testing these awesome beasts out in preperation for the first race of this much anticipated series (it says here  ).

The engine sounds are fantastic and I think the starting grid will be deafening with all those big engines at full chat.

One thing I have noticed tho. One of the cars (may be more but it's only one that I have noticed) has a tendency to have it's screen blacked out when running through shadows. Not a huge problem here as there are shadows only under bridges and alongside some trees.

Anyone going to post some times?

Where did you find that pic??? That pink Vauxhaul looks eerily like the car driven by someone I worked with back in the 1970's.

There surely cannot have been too many PINK Velox cars around even in their 60's heyday, and one still running daily around 1976-7 was already a curiosity and a museum piece. They were notorious for rusting away as you watched them!!

The index plate sounds vaguely Bristol/Glos, so it just might be the car owned by a Mr Bill Street, estimator, gentleman and a thoroughly decent chap RIP.

The Chapparals were a real oddity back in the 60's opting for a torque converter for their massive engines and the 2 speed box. The engine developed such massive torque that they did not require any more gears and competed quite successfully with more conventional machinery. It did take the drivers at the time a while to get used to the auto box, and of course lack of engine braking effect available with a conventional box, and I guess the same is true for simracers.

Over at GPL where we have had the 67 Chap 2D and 2F for a couple of years now they have been tamed by some drivers and on any circuit where there is room to stretch their legs, they are formidable. Down the Mulsanne Straight they just keep accelerating...imagine the Massa 5.7 litre from GTL with brakes and some handling and downforce and you are getting close.

I have yet to try any of these cars, only downloaded and installed the carset this morning, but no time to even test the install. Maybe I'll get a chance before Monday evening 

On the Chapparal,, Jim Hall was a very "out of the box thinker" in his cars.  The reason I have read that he wanted the auto trans. was because the variable pitch wing was operated by the left foot.  They had a lot of problems getting a auto to hold up to the horsepower of the big motors and gave up on it later.  Later on in Can Am, he came out with the famous or infamous "Hoover" car which used a snow mobile type motor to drive empellors  to suck the car down, reverse principal of a hover craft type vehicle.  After a few races  it was "outlawed" by the sanctioning body.  Hall was quite the character, always trying to messauge the rule's... A true Hot Rodder in road racing.......

OOps sorry Clive didn't mean to step on your post, was typing (slowly) the same time you were. I have tried the 3speed Chappy in the auto mode and didn't find it much slower on average.  Think I will drive it that way Monday, just to be period correct. Also on my many spins it doesn't kill the motor!!!!

Bob M.

Having never tried a Chap in auto mode, GPL does not give that option I cannot offer any advice Tony. It is 3 speed manual or nothing in GPL, and 1st gear is only usable at the start and in the very tightest hairpins. Starting the Chap is like trying to push a supertanker with Trabant! , then the engine comes into its power band and the problem is avoiding massive amounts of wheelspin.
Once up and running it is an awesome beast and the comparatively low revving engine just growls away like an angry bear as it propels you towards the horizon. Inevitably arriving at the next corner far too quickly!!  
It will be interesting to compare the differences between the GPL66 Can Ams ( the Chaps 2D and 2F are in our 1967 Sports GT group alongside the Ford GT 40's MK1, 2 and 4, T70 GT Lola and the 330P4 Ferrari etc.) and this new offering in GTL. I suspect that both versions can still hit the scenery with predictable consequences???
No worries Bob, always good to hear other peoples knowledge about classic cars.
As Bob says the wing on the 2F was seriously ahead of its time and the concept of the driver having (even limited) control over the angle was something no one else had even considered in 1967. It is actually a bit like the F1 DRS flap, giving max downforce under acceleration and braking but not producing drag at 200mph+. I can imagine that it took a different sort of thought process from the drivers, to work the wing in conjunction with the gas or brake pedal!! Once Jim Hall had committed to the movable wing, an auto box was essential, but as Bob rightly says it was the Achilles heel of this monster and it had many retirements with a mangled transmission.  When it was on song it was a serious contender, but sadly the song was usually very short.

Coincidentally I recall that during my slotracing days in the 60's and 70's one of the guys at our club raced a 1:32 scale Chap 2F with working wing. He had a clever pendulum and lever arrangement attached via one of the pylons to the hinged wing in such a way that if the car accelerated the wing would tilt down, and under braking even though the pendulum swung forward, the wing still tilted correctly.

As I recall it looked absolutely fantastic as it circulated our custom built 120ft 4 lane track, but did not give him any great advantage in performance against the aliens of the time and anything but the smallest "off" would cause a malfunction. Not so different from the real thing I suppose.  After several months of repairs and rebuilds of the wing mechanism, he chucked the pendulum away and epoxy glued the wing at a fixed angle..................and went faster!!

2.17 in a Chapparal is the best Mr.Slow here can manage They make a nice noise though.   I had a two tone Velox when I was a lad; rusty old nail with the three-section rear window, and of course the ability to smack your knee on the projecting wrap-round bit on entry , take skin off your knuckles on the umbrella handbrake, and special bonus, empty half a pint of water into the tank after rain, if the drain holes in the pop-up filler were blocked!  
That was slow, but sounded nice too

All this talk spurred me to try these new cars this evening. So, I fired up the 2G Chapp and promptly did a 360 spin...twice in the pit lane.

I had real problems driving the 3 speed 2G at any pace and the best lap I managed out of about 6 attempts, was a 2:24 with much grass cutting and swearing.
Rather than start working on the setup changes I felt I needed  to make the 2G go where I wanted, I decided to try another car from the list.

So I picked a car at random from the garage and ended up sitting in a Lola 350 Olds engine projectile...with 5 proper gears!!!  Just changed the steering ratio to suit my wheel settings and left the pits in a controlled manner. 

I only had time for about 3-4 laps but was down to 2:15 with default setup and tyres on full fuel. Not sure if the posted lap times are on full tanks or not, but I am guessing that with a little more practice and learning the track properly I should match Erling's time.

I have to agree that these cars sound fantastic and the whole grid at full chat is going to be awesome. The only downside is those "racing slick" tyres and the excessive grip 

You would think I might actually know what I'm doing with these beasties  given the amount of time I spent trying to get things right but if I'm honest I don't even know which car I'm taking for the 1st event yet..

So many different variations of tyres, chassis even engines trying to match these to the real life figures during the development of the mod it's difficult to recognise what I ended up with and what was abandoned.

Regarding the Chappy's....  They are configured to be semi Automatic just like the real versions, so can (Perhaps should) be driven with no clutch. The "clutch" pedal on the real ones controlled the wing angle but I've not found out a way of replicating this in GTL so the wing in game probably gives some drag on the straights but also some stability - Understeer?? in the corners. I spent a fair amount of time with these adjusting the driveline parameters in the files specifically the clutch engagement, torque and timings to try to replicate the slower but smoother characteristics of a Semi Automatic box.

They definitely need some thought given to the gearing and I've not found a set up yet for either which works at Mosport. But other than that track I'd take the 2G everywhere if it was a free choice.

The default set up's are if I'm honest very poor and were developed for a previous tyre set. Most will understeer something chronic apart from the M1B's which I find really lively when using the default.

Regarding Tony's comment about the screen going black under bridges etc.. Yes, Really annoys me too. I tried a few other GTL Can Am mods, 1 from the "Revelations Modding" team and also one converted by someone else over at Evo Modding and they all have the same issue.. probably because they all use the same donor car models (From "Sports Car GT" I think). Strangely the original "Absolute Can Am" mod for GTR2 doesn't have this issue so it must be something related to the conversion to GTL. The sounds in the GTR2 version are much better as well and were developed by "Midrew" I didn't use them as I couldn't contact him for permission but have since found a post by him giving anyone full permission to use them as long as credit is given so if we should move onto later season I will almost certainly use them next time.

So.... My times are fairly similar at Road America for all the cars at the moment (Low 2:12's - High 2:11's - other than the Olds powered M1B which seems to run out of puff on the long straights). I'm probably going to make my choice more based on eliminating cars from other tracks rather than the best car for this track.

TTFN
John.