SimRacing.org.uk

event password = see above (released 24hrs before the race)

(https://i.postimg.cc/BnSrzCFp/Screenshot-ks-ford-gt40-le-grand-circuit-1967-1-0-122-10-39-30.jpg)

Prototype Potluck Round 4
24Hrs of Le Mans/16

Welcome to Round 4 of the Prototype Potluck series - As it's Le Mans, this will be a time certain race of attrition.
He who has the largest brick on their accelerator will prevail ;)

Keep in mind the advice from last time regarding driving to your own and your competitors cars strengths and weaknesses and this one should turn out to be quite a close challenge.
I'm sure we'll have a few brave souls plump for the 917, providing you make it to the end without crashing you should be guaranteed a good position - but can you survive for an hour and a half here?

Ensure you read the instructions further below regarding use of the pit lane!

Qualifying etiquette
To match most race events of the late 60's we are having a combined 1 hour practice and qualifying.
Due to this the track will contain drivers who are practising and setting up and also drivers who are running a qualifying lap.
If you are on a hot lap please turn your headlights on - and remember to turn them off again once finished.
If you are simply practising or working on setups please keep your headlights off and try not to hold up drivers who are on hot laps if you can avoid it - you'll want them out of your way when it's your own turn to try and qualify. ;)

Please note that the start time has been moved slightly forward from our traditional time - this is to allow the race to finish at a similar time to normal

Practice/Qualifying: 19:00 (60 mins)
Race                  :  20:00 (90 minutes - no extra lap)

Cars allowed:

Drivers must either post their car choice here or PM it to me by 18:00(UK time) on Tuesday the 11th. This is so I can ensure the server has the correct numbers of cars available. You can inform me in advance if you wish to do so.
Drivers who have posted/sent their preference will get priority, so turning up without 'booking' your car could result in your being being removed from the server to make room for someone who has booked. You will then have to rejoin in something that is available whether you have practised in it or not.
You can see my own car choice listed in the Series announcement thread.

Ford GT40
Porsche 908LH
Ferrari 330 P4
Porsche 917k

Track:  Le Grand Circuit 1967
https://www.racedepartment.com/downloads/le-grand-circuit-1967.17288/ (https://www.racedepartment.com/downloads/le-grand-circuit-1967.17288/)



Live Timing: stracker.simracing.org.uk:50041/lapstat (http://stracker.simracing.org.uk:50041/lapstat)

Time of Day Setting: 13:00 (Of course! - Time factor is set to 2x)
Weather: Mid Clear
Start: Standing
Damage:   80%
Fuel use:  100%
Tire Wear: 100%
Pit-stops: Not mandatory - but you will probably need them ;)
This is a 1960's version of Le Mans - so while there is a pit speed limit as it's required by AC, there is no pit wall - For this round you will be permitted to enter and exit the pits from as close to your pit bay as you dare to emulate the racing of the day. Cars exiting the pits will bare the responsibility for safely exiting onto the main straight so be certain to use your mirrors and keep to the right while getting upto speed!
When entering the pits be sure to check for cars already being serviced or leaving

Server track settings:
SESSION_START=96
RANDOMNESS=2
LAP_GAIN=0.035
SESSION_TRANSFER=80

PLP App - Not used in this series. Cutting will be monitored on replay and penalties issued for excessive cutting.

Notes:
(1)PLP App - Not used in this event. Cutting will be monitored on replay and penalties issued for excessive cutting.
(2)Please make sure you are fully aware of the SimRacing.org.uk Rules especially the
rules about in-game chat messages.
(3) Please exercise caution when pitting as some tracks have a speed limit.
(4) Please follow the SROUK guidelines for using kerbs etc. Please keep 2 wheels on the track surface (kerbs do not count as track surface)
Excessive cutting of corners will seen as cheating and the results may be altered to reflect this.

Car use so far:


Jari has used the 908 3x so is now unable to use it further!

I used to think that this race gonna be a tragedy. But now I realize, it’s gonna be a comedy...917 please.

Kimi throwing down the gauntlet   :rockon:



I might have test some cars before I decide, havn't even driven this version of the track in AC yet  :o

It's based on - but enhanced from the exceptional Virtua LM Le Mans from GTL/GTR.
Very nice as a result and nearly up there graphically too.

I had a surprisingly good race against the AI while getting the picture for this round :)

Camt join the server - checksum mismatch. Track downloaded from the link on that page, extension added. Dont know whats the problem...

Same here.  ???

cars tested, will decide one of these days



meanwhile I found Kimi

(https://www.classicdriver.com/sites/default/files/styles/full_width_slider/public/article_images/steve-mcqueen-le-mans-documentary-01.jpg)

Try it again - I think I found the problem.
The original release was called V0.5, and the latest release? V0.5......

I've re-made the server files from the download link so it should be fine now, I have to assume that my 0.5 was one of the earlier ones ::)

Least I got same attitude...  :taz:  :shifty:

oooh, 60's Le Mans  8) :tt1:

if i can find enough spare time to do some meaningful practise i'll be there in either a GT40 or a 917, probably the latter.

Server seems to be fine now, btw, 917 drinks more than all Finns combined, I'm shocked...

Well - there's a reason the Long Tail versions were nearly 50 MPH faster down the Mulsanne you know :scooter:

GT40 for me again   :)

Great track this, has a really good atmosphere about it. Of course, we're all going to die  :eek:

GT40 please.

LOL, not another spec race :D

I feel I should add that my laptime was a qualifying setup - all 3 of the 'slow' cars are actually pretty similar. I'm also sticking to my prediction from after last week on the most likely winner ;)

I think this newer version of the track must be a bit smoother, I was able to run less wing in the 917 than previously - as a result I've gone nearly 3 seconds faster despite lower grip when compared to offline.

hah, considering the difference in top speeds of the 3 normal cars the laptimes were shocking in my testing, and the highest top speed might not be the fastest lap....


ignoring the freak mobile of course, thats gonna be funny(or terrifying) passing the slower cars down the mulsanne with the speed difference  ;D

(http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-x0vxg8Ek8wg/UUM9Eikz4zI/AAAAAAAAADU/57oYL3YwsM8/s320/I+see+Dead+People+1.jpg)

After a lot of work I got the GT40 to 202mph in Qualifying trim.
It's around 195 in race trim once upto temp.
Think the Porsche is around 190-192 and the Fez is in the mid to high 180's.

Ferrari is probably easiest not to die in as the suspension and brakes are so much better than the rest, but you have the challenge of gearing the blighter plus the fuel range to contend with.

The GT40 could run qualifying trim in the race of course, but I have the fuel numbers now to compare the 2  ;)

I must be seriously missing something in the 908 setup, I can only get it to just over 180 on the straight & 12s (!!!) slower than Tim over a lap.  ???

What a nicely done track this is, a great job by the mod creator  8)

Got some laps in the gt40 today and quite enjoyed it. Will try the 917 as well just for the joy of it but may end up in the Ford if more similar cars to race against.

Doh, found the problem. I was not getting full throttle on my pedals, now found 10mph on the straight & 7-8s over a lap!  ::)

Next race Le Mans. 917 to me.

 ;D Will wreck the 917...

908LH for me please.

908 for me, thanks!

917  thanks!

GT40 for me please

906 for me please. Still, cant guarantee if i will be able to race, lots of work, no time at all.

GT40 for me.

GT40 for me please. Do love the 917 but think i'll have more of a race in the iconic GT40  8)

GT40 please :)

Is it possible for me to have my third outing in the Ferrari, cant manage two laps in the 917 without destroying it.

 :D

lol, no Probs Bob. The 917 is mental here ;D

Sorry guys once again my health or lack of gets in the way of enjoying anything in life. Have a great race. I really hope to see you next time. :)

Firstly, apologies to Syd for the first lap incident, I braked a little too late & just could not get the car stopped. It was one of those things where it all seemed to happen in slow motion & there was nothing I could do about it. Luckily I don't think it did any serious damage to either car & probably didn't really change the outcome of the race. Must be more careful in future.

The rest of the race was pretty much uneventful in a car that I just cannot really get to grips with, although I did get a bit more acquainted with its handling as the race progressed. So basically just happy to get it to the finish.

Congrats to Kimi on the win & to Tim & Jari on the podium.  :clap: :clap: :clap:

Poor car choice, sum up my race in one word....solitude. On the plus side, ate two packs of crisps and drank one bottle of juice on the long, long, long boring straight, but I finished. :thumbup2:

Great event last night, cars looked and sounded superb. Those drive by's were something else when sat in the glorious 60's pits.  :wub:  What a combination of car and track!  8)

The only pity as ever, was lack of numbers. How an event like this doesnt attract a bigger grid i'll never know, i thought some SRO regulars would be up for this event/series?
In hindsight i wish i'd gone for the 917K as an experience as i ended up racing on my own for 85% of the race anyway, but competing in the GT40 at LM also ticks a lot of boxes so still fun, just wish it wasnt so clumsy in the 90 degree corners.
When Syd got thumped at T1 i think that effectively ended a challenge for position for me as we were on similar race pace i think. Stefan and Max kept me honest in the first 20mins but gradually fell back and then in my distant mirrors i saw Max mounting the sand bank at Mulsanne corner so that was another car down. By the time i pitted i think i had a 20+ sec lead over the nearest car and Tim had long ago disapeared off into the distance.
@Tim, did you use the shortest gear ratio? - you shot away from me each time in the early laps at the tighter corners despite me treating the throttle like a turbo car by getting on the gas mid turn allowing a little for the lag of the longer gear ratios. I only appeared to close on you slightly on the long straights which made me think you were topping out sooner.

Race itself went well, no off's or contacts, just the odd clumsy corner exit, just needed a bit more 'racing'. Did get cramp in my leg on one lap but luckily on the Mulsanne so was able to wiggle my leg about  ;D

My pitstop went smoothly (For once!) and i rejoined behind Syd, which concerned me slightly as he didnt pit for a long time after me and i wondered if i had lost a position when it showed him now 45 secs ahead !  But eventually he stopped and i retook the lead with a 19sec ? gap. I did have another GT40 for company late on but must have been a lapped car, dont know who. I finished the race with over 40L of fuel so somehow cocked my fuel levels up again  ::) but at least it was too much, not too little  :P

I thought i was on for 3rd overall position but a recovering Jaari in the 917 passed me very late on in the race and i brought the car home in 4th overall, 2nd in class  :clap:  Happy with that  :)

Really enjoyed that although things didn't quite go as planned.

Thought I'd worked out a decent strategy for this. I started with a full tank and split my stop into 2 for fuel and tyres as I was worried about tyre wear and with the pit lane being so short and fill time so long the extra stop seemed like a small penalty for the fresher tyres. I'd even set up for a late splash/dash to account for extra laps if any of the 917s finished without incident.

Had my usual bad start and to my surprise had Max behind me who took a couple of laps to catch me and pass. My plan was to hang onto him and get a good exit onto Mulsanne for some drafting but I messed up the exit of Tetre Rouge and spun. Later that lap I came across Max hitting the armco in front of me and then disappearing over the sandbank at Indianapolis. Reminded me of this.....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8VP6Ly9I3k   (at 23:15)  :lol:

Sorry mate, but it had me laughing so hard I could hardly drive.

I then had a recovering Syd chasing me down and we had a good few laps together, just about holding my place until I decided to pit for my first stop which went perfectly. Unfortunately I misjudged the lack of grip on my cold tyres on my outlap and went over the sandbank at Tetre Rouge and then damaged the car in my efforts to get back on track. Think I caused Geoffers a bit of a scare rejoining but no harm done thankfully  :-[

I had right front suspension/steering damage and limped around to the pits but must have pressed the wrong buttons and had to crawl around for another lap. This time I made sure I ticked the correct boxes and saw my pitcrew at work with a spanner. Unfortunately in repairing the front right they somehow damaged the front left so I had to limp around again this time with damage on the opposite side!  ::) Pitted again a couple of times for them to finish repairs but they'd obviously given up on me and gone down the pub.

I wanted to finish here.....it's Le Mans. I had to keep one eye on the leaderboard for gaps to lapping cars and another in my mirrors as they approached. I think I managed to keep myself out of the way but apologies to anyone I may have caused a scare.

On my last lap I understeered over the sandbank at Mulsanne corner landing on my roof and was teleported back to the pits. I think I must have lost a lap because my display now said "Final Lap". I set off from the pits expecting to have to crawl around again but my car was now miraculously fixed. Like new  ::)

Well done to pody and finishers  8)

LOL, it felt like that too.

I was already trying to limp it back to the pits but failed as you saw - because I had also decided playing with the sandbank at mulsanne corner would be fun,  but it turns out the price for that is a car that steers like the average shopping trolley at tescos (you know - the ones with 1 wheel off the ground half the time).

I did pre-race testing and had a lovely setup (similar times to Tims qually lap), so I know its going to sound crazy but last night in qually it was suddenly like a different car, and then the same in the race  :(.  I'd swear that sometimes AC just effs up online and you get some weird alternate universe physics. Its not the first time it happened to me but it is rare.  I dont believe its track grip because at most races I can feel and adjust to that after a couple of corners, this seems like something else [/excuse #86856 from the race drivers handbook].   Or I just sucked last night :P

Conversely I thought the track was faster last night - especially by the end of qually when I dipped into the 26's :P

Because you had suspiciously not posted any laps on the server I worked on an alternate strategy in practice, and used my qualifying gearset with a normal rev limit for some extra oomph and top speed (once the tires were warm and the fuel had dropped a little I was generally doing 198-200mph at the end of the Musanne).
As a result I had better laptimes than I had originally banked on, and after your disaster of a qualifying run I had a very lonely race - I didn't even get to be passed by a 917 on the circuit as I was in the pits when Kimi lapped me (WD on the win Kimi!).

To Mark - I was still accelerating at the end of the straights and only puling about 6,500RPM so no, I wasn't on the shortest gears ;)
The straights and your exits onto them are critical here, they are all late apex and epically early throttle - so If I pulled away you were going in too deep and getting on the power too late or just getting sideways :yes:

I've only got one run left in the GT40 and have to say I'm going to miss in once that's done with, she's a heavy boat but once you have the balance sorted she's a great drive :)

Well done to the guys who had disasters but pressed on to finish anyway - that's exactly what Le Mans is all about :angel:

Exactly,  I dont believe it was a track grip thing but some odd bug as I did a bunch of offline testing and was doing consistent laps, not throwing it into the scenery every lap like last night.  Wasn't trying to hide anything by not going on the server - I was messing about for hours on tuesday trying to make the 908 competitive (had debug apps on checking ride height and testing ride height / aero for speed differences etc and just didn't want to be doing that and continually stop/starting while other people were doing full laps), and also wasted a bunch of time seeing how hard I could get that 330 to run LOL. By the time I'd done all that it was too late to do any real server test in the GT40.

Would have been fun to race that 908 just to see what stupid result I could get with it, but in the end the ford was just too much quicker down the mulsanne where you'd get swamped by the GT40 pack on lap1 and waste time fighting them, so it wasn't worth doing...

Nothing to report here, after other 917's were out or far behind I just went to grandma-mode and cruise it home. Last lap I was too lazy to drive another lap so I waited 20 secs 'till clock hits zero and finish the race.

Actually that hit put me into the wall and damaged my aerodynamics. I was around 5-6kph down on the straights, which was costing me around 1-1.5 seconds a lap, besides 15 or so seconds  lost getting going again. I was pretty mad about it the first half hour or so of the race. After I pitted I selected to fix body damage so at least I got the top speed back for the last 30 minutes. As Mark J said, we probably could have  had a race long battle if it wasn't for the t2. We should really drive more carefully on lap 1 of a 90 minute race.
Other than that, right after my stop Stefan was behind me, and we had a long drag on the straight. I was on the inside for the kink, and I think we were side by side. I lifted a bit through the kink to stay on the inside. I'm not sure what happened, I didn't feel contact, but Stefan was gone, and I think I saw a dust of cloud in the distance in my mirror.