Fun Race - 4pm Saturday 7th May 2005 - Monza (Wet)

[Simon Gymer]

Track: Monza
Cars: Free car choice
Weather: Rain (not monsoon)
Race Distance: 18% (32 mins)
Server Name: UKGTR (will be broadcast in the lobby)
Time: Qual2 - 4pm, Race - 4:30pm (approx)
Rules: General rules are the same as for any race, e.g no speeding in the pit lane, please familiarise yourself with the rules from the website if you haven't already. Start procedure will still standing start followed by 1 pace lap led at moderate pace by the pole sitter as per normal rules.
Sessions: Are set to non time scaled, so orderly voting is required to move between sessions.

** IMPORTANT NOTES: **
1) The server is up broadcast in the lobby all the time so feel free to join at any time. Please note as part of the testing, outside fun race hours we may need to restart the server to change configuration or update the game in some way. We will try to keep this to a minimum. The password and server name will not change throughout the 3 days unless stated otherwise.
2) This is a trial so if you experience anything wrong, e.g. high pings, can't connect, can't see game in lobby etc, please post in the forums. Try to refrain from using in game chat for reporting this as with large numbers of players this becomes difficult and we would like a record of the problems found. The server will be available for 3 days so don't dispair if you can't connect or join in tonight.
3) During the fun race times, please watch out for messages from one of the admin team. We may be providing instructions during the sessions.

[AdrianD]

Oh, I rather enjoyed our thundery northern monsoon race that time

[Smoothy]

The server has just crashed.

[Aagramn]

The server is running now, I've just connected to it.

[Vekiq]

Hi,

This one is too early for me, i may be able to join around 5, if race has not started jet i will be there.

[Simon Gymer]

Server has been restarted a couple of times today to sort out the english and replay/export configurations.

[Zacari]

Hi all,

Not quite sure what happened but second time around (after server reset) I had the same problem as the first; all on my own on the grid.  All I got was a "SMOOTHY: Carl Parker "FORCEVIPER.HDC" mismatch" come up as it loaded into the race from pre-race practice.  I'll try looking at the firewall's I've got running in case it's something weird there, but it was all fine during quali.  Any ideas?  Can you glean any info from the server? 

Hopefully I'll be ok for the race later on, I'll have to get the replay of the Monza race to see the action later!   

Carl

[Dave 'Gizmo' Gymer]

Qualified on Monsoon tyres as nothing else really felt like it had enough grip. Reading the pre-race warmup chat I figured they would overheat so I switched to normal wets. I really should know better than to change my setup just before the race.

The net result was a wayward rear end which caught me out on the pace lap. :'( Spun again on the first racing lap and then settled down for a while until being bitten again whilst trying to keep touch with "Jihad Joe" (that name's not inflammatory! ), spinning in the Lesmos and leaving poor Locutus nowhere to go. Decided to spare everyone else the danger of lapping me and retired to watch Paul Smith stuck behind Joe who was barely ever fully in control.

[Aagramn]

Was glad to finish the race in the end, that was hard work.

Not sure what happened at the first Monza start. Looks like we found another bug, possibly triggered by a driver leaving the game during the countdown? Maybe this is something we could test sometime.

[Smoothy]

The server ping was 36 in the lobby before I joined it.
It seemed OK during practice apart from the odd period of slow updates.
However, when I joined the grid for the start I was alone.
I waited in vain for a long time for others to arrive but eventually left the server and re-joined.
I forgot to check pings to other drivers during this event.

After the short replacement qualifying session I started the warm-up lap in 5th.
I didn't have a wet setup for Monza and still don't.
My times were well off the pace of the leaders.
The best I can say about my setup is that it was predictable and consistent.

At the start proper, I got a good run down to turn 1, passing 4th and getting alongside 3rd.
http://compage.ath.cx/gtr/UKGTR-2005-05-07-Monza01.jpg
But it was a narrow line into the turn and I played safe and backed out into 4th place.

3rd place spun exiting the first chicane on lap 3, promoting me to 3rd.

Approaching turn 1 at the start of lap 4, Aagramn in 4th place found himself bearing down on me too fast.
He did a wonderful job of avoiding the collision by going onto the grass on the left, the resulting spin making his car give the gentlest of touches to my left side.
http://compage.ath.cx/gtr/UKGTR-2005-05-07-Monza02.jpg
Fortunately, I had seen him coming just in time to move a little to the right.
Well played Aagramn.

The rest of the race was uneventful for me.
The leaders were on a different planet and no-one made a significant challenge from behind.

Interestingly, while watching the start on the replay from Aagramn's point of view, my car isn't visible as I passed him before turn 1.
All that is seen is an overtaking ball of spray though the sound was OK.

Aagramn, could you see me?

[Aagramn]

Only just seen your post Smoothy.

Had a problem with invisible cars at Barce, which I fixed by increasing the "maximum cars displayed" option in the graphics options. Don't remember seeing any invisible cars at Monza (I had the name indicators on, so I would have been able to tell  ). Glad my evasive action at Monza pretty much worked, sorry I wasn't able to repeat the trick at Barce. 

[Smoothy]

That's OK Aagramn.  I could see from the replay that you'd plainly missed your braking point and could do nothing from there on.