UKGPL Season 44 (Spring 2024) 1966 CA - Spa67 - Feb 6

[PaulV]

Didnt like my car much either only 2 gears and someone had left an ikea flat-pack wardrobe strapped to the back.

Quite enjoyed this evening.  had some fun laps. all was going well until I had a spin. dropped me back, but not a problem as everyone else is much faster so would have regained their places anyway.

the start was a bit iffy. I was at the back as usual and had to stop n start a few times as the cars infront were bunching up. Congrats to all the drivers as no one hit anyone else. But i sat there watching the leaders take off up through early part of the circuit like Rabbits with Rockets up their Asses !!

I thought then it was fair too at least try to get onto the back of the cars ahead but backed off when i was doing 120mph plus and not catching up.

when you know your driving with some very fast guys, then being left behind at the start particularly at Spa then I know im in for 14 lonely boring laps.

other than the excellent racing I had with David R, it would have been bloody awful.  

[Cookie]

Fran, you as a mod team member should know that such physics are only on the player pc, the server has no idea how you shift...

But Axel,if you remeber,in the past with Phil we have tested the 2 server.In 1 all was Ok in the other no.I 'm not able to find an explanation but i remeber this test.

Ask Richard Cooke the physics Guru he should know! ( or PTRacer who also tweaks such code...)

[Dimitar Dulichki]

I believe one more guy attacked from the go. Could you please check?

[Doni Yourth]

I must give serious consideration to reducing or even curtailing my GPL online participation for a time til I can lick a physical handicap which is proving not only a restriction but downright painful.  It involves a left shoulder injury which I sustained some six years ago and with physiotherapy, I thought the problem was behind me.  Lately, however, it has reared its ugly head again and long radius, right-handed corners have become quite literally painful to negotiate.  And what do we have here at Spa?  Burnenville and Stavelot.  Groan...  I took two pain pill medications well in advance of today's race and they did nothing to help me.  I will not blame my departure at the Masta Kink on this malady but it does figure into my concentration.

I could not even begin to match the pace of either Axel or Greg in qualifying.  I thought turbos didn't arrive in the CanAm til 1972? 

I see that Greg was a DNF and this is just as well, I suppose.  A DQ was on the cards for him for disregarding the pace lap procedure.

I was surprised that Axel didn't leave me for dead in the opening laps.  Based on qualifying, he certainly should have.  I had my hands full of Evil Clive going great guns in the customer McLaren M1B.  Goodness me but he was flying!  Only the extra ponies under the hood of the works M1B kept me ahead.  On Lap05 and approaching La Carriere, off to my left on a table loaded with electronics gear, I caught out of the corner of my eye a flashing light.  This had me bungle this critical corner and Clive was by in a flash.  I wasn't too worried about this figuring that my power advantage would come into play on the Masta but I never got the chance to counter-attack as I went off badly in the Kink and decided to call it a day.

Axel recovered from his off in Burnenville to come through for the win.  Clive scores a brilliant P2.  Tom full marks for making the podium.

[Enrique Farina]

hi guys
   First of all I want to congratulate Axel who is having a great season in this mod and to those who stopped by the podium yesterday.
    My race was a miracle since I made more than 7 errors and a shift R among them, after the 4th lap and in last place I concentrated and was able to drive with zero errors and with enough luck I was able to reach 5 after being 15, that It's what I call a true miracle hehehe.
   On the other hand I want to ask a question about the rolling star system
   In today's race we had to accelerate after the curve and while we got to that curve we had to go at an average of 100 mph, right? or am I wrong??
    I started in 5th position respecting that speed and obviously the arrival at les combes, but the 4 cars in front of me left very quickly and after eau rouge, I was overtaken by a car and I lost 5th position because of it...... I don't know if it's me who was coming slowly, respecting the 100 mph thing or the rolling star means starting at full throttle but without overtaking those in front, until reaching the point where it's real full throttle....??
    Sorry Dimitri for the contact at the finish line, but I did it to make a joke, nothing more, our positions were already written, hehehehe but the scare was good, right??? hahahaha.
   See you in the other race and I hope you can resolve the rolling star issue well.
   thank you

[Tom Johnson]

After finishing a race with GPLRACER in the 65's I joined this race. I spent the entire practice making a setup and even made a few changes before going to the grid. When the flag dropped I thought it was odd that the polesitter took off and everyone else was slow off the line. Finally as I saw a gap developing ahead of me and the driver in front of me seemed even slower, I thought he was letting me by, so I went. However I still couldn't catch up to the cars ahead, so I settled in to drive to the finish. Sorry Dimitar and Enrique for passing you on the rolling start, I totally forgot that these are rolling starts. Please DQ me for this race. To ensure this doesn't happen again, I am dropping out of this series. Thanks for the races, they were fun, see you on track again sometime.

[francesco]

It involves a left shoulder injury which I sustained some six years ago and with physiotherapy,

An injury is a problem.I have experimented a knee sprain Sunday with the 55.2 mistake in 2 laps.Is really annoying and unfunny to race in this condition.Good luck with your sholder Doni.

[Phil Thornton]

I've recently swapped my graphics card (a cast off from my son's computer but a better one than mine) but despite using all the tricks I know I suffered some very bad FPS drops in the race. The start was particularly bad, only 20 FPS  . Thankfully it was a rolling start so it was much easier to negotiate Eau Rouge at a gentle pace. As the field spread out the FPS improved and I could follow Tris and Pete down to Masta where they both crashed out in separate incidents. I managed to miss Tris but Pete's car bounced back onto the track and I couldn't avoid it. I could carry on but the engine was damaged so I had to perform a reset. That dropped me to the back of the field. The rest of the lap was a bit hairy whilst the tyres got some temperature in them but I managed to get back up to speed. I'd picked the big Lola Ford for this race, it only has 2 gears and I struggled a bit out of the slow corners. I also found it easy to go too fast into the corners, the low revving engine made me feel I was travelling slower than I was. It is surprising how much influence the engine note has on my driving. Anyway I pressed on and started to pick up a few places until I got on the tail of a train of red cars. I was settling in to a steady drive when I got another FPS drop and I lost control of the car and ended up in the trees. I had to quit becuase I'd already used my reset.

Overall a bit dissapointing. I like this track and the cars, with a good FPS it would have been a great race. Hopefully I can sort out the FPS problem ASAP.

[Dimitar Dulichki]

What a race!

I was about to make one of my best laps recently during the quali and go up to P4 at 3:21 just to spin the car on the exit of the last corner.

The start of the race was weird as few people started fighting, so I dropped 1 place.

Then the mistakes happen. Few people driving just behind me were killed at the end of Malmedy, then Enrique span in the middle of the road at Stavelot (come on man, you can't park there! ) and I had nothing but to clip him at 200 km/h and go for an excursion into the wild.

I believe I dropped 3 position and went down to P10. However, my driving was clean and I did not make a single mistake during all 14 laps and at the end I was able to take P4, with which I am very happy, as I needed plenty of points, using one of the fastest cars, especially after only P11 in round 1.

Grats to the podium guys, they were too fast for me that day.

Full stream replay: https://www.twitch.tv/turboracing39

[EvilClive]

Grats to Axel on his recovery and his win.
Commiserations to Doni and so sorry to hear about your danaged shoulder buddy. If I had known I might have been kinder to you in the race....but then again maybe not lol. TBH my car did not have the raw horsepower to pass you and I was intent only on keeping my slipstream tow rope attached to that Lola as it was pulling us away from the chasing pack. When you had your "moment" I quickly changed to brown trousers as I thought that you were going to invite me to the party!! but I squeezed through with an extra boost of exhaust gas.  After that I was just waiting for Axel to catch me as he was clearly so much faster. I did not offer much of a fight as there was zero to be gained, but his slipstream was very useful lol.

Once he had broken my tow rope, he was clear and I settled down to just stay safe. 2nd place was way higher than I expected to be in the underpowered Elva McLaren, so I did not want to throw it away. But I did my best to screw things up on the last laps!! I must talk to myself and NOT try to cruise in these cars. Each time I try to drive with a little less aggression things go wrong very quickly and I had 2 "offs" in the last 2 laps, one of which required a S/R. Fortunately my lead over Tom was big enough to keep things comfortable and take that 2nd spot.
I hope you don't quit the series Tom even if you get a DQ for this race. The DQ is the punishment for getting the start wrong and there is no need to beat yourself up for the rest of the season.

I have just watched Dimi's video and it clearly shows the insane nature of these cars. Way too much power, treaded tyres with no sticky slicks and not much aero downforce.
I had the privilege of visiting the Mclaren hHQ in the UK on a couple of ocassions and they had the M8B on display, so I was all over it at close range.
I walked away with HUGE respect for the drivers of these cars ( and also a big question over their sanity!). The car bodywork was constructed from material that would make a coka cola-can feel strong. No carbon fibre safety cell, just a seatbelt and a roll bar. No visible crumple zone at the front, just a tube space frame to carry the suspension and bodywork. Then, right behind the driver is a monster of a V8 engine intent on trying to hurl you into whatever barriers are ahead of you at Mach 2.
So I think that the GPL physics for these cars is not so far from the truth, but we don't die when we get it wrong......


PS  Interesting that you suffered some frame rate drops Phil, because I also had a couple of moments at sub 20fps, which is definitely not good in these beasts!!! Normally I expect 59-60fps around this track even at the start.

[Rainier]

I cannot understand why every time there is one driver (or maybe more) forgiving the rolling start.

That means several drivers are not reading the rules at the top of the topic.

[GregT]

Congratulations Axel, Clive, and Tom! Nice work gentlemen!

I apologize for forgetting about the rolling start. I read the race post a hour or two before qualifying. I knew what I was supposed to do. I just forgot. It might have been a bit of shell shock or something.

Practice didn't go well at all. Slight mistakes were devastating. I ripped my left rear well off at Holowell my first two times out of the pits. I almost did it the third time too. Late in practice I was starting to get fast until I caught Clive after an accident. I went to the inside hoping to slip by but Clive tried to get off the racing line and it was too late for me to avoid him. That lap would have gotten much closer to Axel's great pole time and I had another lap of fuel to go for pole position. I tried again at the end of practice and ran into to too much traffic.

There's not much to say about the race other than I was trying to drive too fast and I had two accidents that ended a rather frustrating outing. It sure wasn't my day.

I needed to practice more than 3-4 laps prior to qualifying and I think riding the motorcycle I recently bought is having a real bad effect on my GPL driving.

I hope you come back for more racing Tom. Doni, if you can take aspirin for the pain, try it. When I broke my arm the opium the doctor prescribed did not work well for the pain. After 3 days, I started taking aspirin and it did a much better job with the pain I was feeling. The only good the opium did was it allowed me to fall asleep the first two or three nights after the break. I quit taking it after that.

Thanks for letting me join gentlemen. I hope I don't look so stupid next time.

[Cookie]

I am a little worried about the big gap in laptimes, maybe it helps to understand these cars better to see what others do:

[Walter Conn]

Congrats Cookie, thanks for the set up advice and for hosting.

I should have practiced more. I had a great time. I thought that I wanted to drive the Ford 427, but I changed my mind after a quick test. I decided on the Chev 359, and I was very happy with the choice.

My FPS dropped to the 40's at the start, but it was ok for the race. I am using 1080 resolution on a 50 inch TV, lol. My first big incident was likely due to my 55 inch TV. I have to look far away in the right corner to see how far back to the next car. I will edit my prib.ini so that the important info is next to my virtual mirror in the center of my screen.

Doni, sorry to hear about your left arm. It reminded me that I used to steer almost solely with my left arm, and my right arm rested on the shifter. So maybe put the shifter on your left side and rest your hand on the shifter to see if it helps?

Greg, I bought a CRF300 motorcycle two years ago. I only go riding on the weekends in the morning hours because I think it is safer, less traffic.








 

 

[Enrique Farina]

for TOM :
  From my point of view, they are fun races and that is what I focus on since my work absorbs me and running any race in any way and arriving (but arriving) anywhere, is for me a moment of relaxation and turning off my brain from everyday life.
   I don't want you to retire friend, you are an excellent runner and you may have a chance of finishing well.
   I don't share a DQ for forgetting the rolling star, I would rather share a BOG (back on the grid).
   Please, among old LPG drivers, don't stop racing, I need someone at your level to crash better hahahahaha.
   Come on friend, stay with us, I ask you from the bottom of my heart