SimRacing.org.uk

Season 26 Professionals Trophy, Round 8, Syracuse

The 8th race of the season is at the home track of Sergio in Siracusa Sicily.
This is a real Road Course with lots of stone walls and hay bales you have to avoid.

Division Moderator	=	Badblood
Race List	=	IGOR
Server	=	UKGPL_8
IP Address	=	tba
Race date	=	13-05-2014
Qualification Time	=	~20:45  UK time -> 30-45 min
Race Time	=	race starts at 21:30 UK time
Track	=	Syracuse (read the full thread for fixes and addons!) (http://srmz.net/index.php?showtopic=3339)
Variant	=	65F1 the 2.02 Release of the 65mod should be used
Damage Model	=	PRO
Race length	=	~50 min -> 28 laps
RED ZONE	=	From the start to the Curva Carpinteri
Password	=	see above (#post_event_password)
Replay	=	you will get here (ftp://ukgpl3.dyndns.org/Replays/Archive/Season26/Pros/)

Driver lists and series rules can be found on the championship standings page (https://www.simracing.org.uk/smf/index.php?action=LM2R&group=430&theme=6).

The full time drivers can start to practice as soon as the server is available.  Reserve drivers can also join as soon as the server becomes available but must leave the server with 35 minutes of qualifying left, for a total of 5 minutes; this will allow any remaining full timers to join.  If there is enough space on the grid, the reserve drivers will be able to rejoin when there are 30 mins of qualifying left.  

Please restrict chat to pit messages including at the end of the race until ALL drivers still racing have crossed the line.

Moderating The red zone will be fully moderated for lap 1 only.
Whilst I would like to moderate the full lap, I only have one life so for this event the red zone will be the first lap up to the exit of Curva Carpinteri.

Other moderation will be on reported incidents only.  However any incidents that occur in the red zone that are not reported by the drivers will be reported by the moderator.  This will allow all affected drivers the opportunity to present their case before the incident is moderated.  This should ensure there are no surprises when the moderator's report is published and hence appeals will be less likely.  If you haven't received a PM about an incident before the link below the results table is removed, you can be sure that you will not appear in the moderator's report.

 ;) Have a nice race all !

Cripes, how big are the cats over there?!!

Report moved to Oulton Park in England, as that is where the track moved to for the Friday Trophy.  :P

LOL, yes that's my crappy english ;D

In German we say Heuballen

Must't confuse hair-balls (that cause a lot of grief to moggies) with hay bales (good rabbit bedding or horse food), for which I hope Cookie's English grammar has improved! ;D

Race is 28 laps long? Pffft, let's try to win it from the start!!! Yeah!!! 3 wide on the very narrow grid? What could possibly go wrong??  ::)

Indeed. Thanks for that Ronnie....

Re Anderstorp above and ditto here.

Apologies to whoever got caught up in that. After the ridiculous grid at Anderstorp the other night I really did not think this could get any worse!! My heart sank as I appeared on the grid. An absolute no win situation for me with a close grid like that. Starting on top of the car ahead with no room to brake and hold position or chop left/right to avoid the car ahead without getting clobbered from behind or interfering with someone on your left/right respectively. I despair that the moderators seem to live in a world of their own at times. I just hope someone, they are prepared to listen to, suggests loose grids in future which both reward good qualification and help to avoid start line incidents.

Good luck all still running.

The lap one chaos was eye-opening and I will observe a server replay to establish exactly what happened, I can't help but feel I was a part of it when I jinked slightly right to try and avoid somebody. I ended up hauling on the anchors to tip-toe through, and myself and Arf emerged (him after a barrel roll or 3...). Ended up 5th after a few laps after runners dropped like flies in the Arctic, which became 4th when Arf disappeared. Then on lap 19 I found myself permanently wedged in the hay-bales at the fast left-hander.

Hardly any gpl since Kyalami as I have a new pc & its taken (Clutch) ages to get GPL working on it with windows 8.1. So qually time was what I expected. Didn't see the accident but avoided the wreckage. It was all going well, lying 7th, when the screen went blank & eventually "No Signal" appeared. This has happened once before & I really tightened the connection but obviously its worked loose again!. Heard Dave pass but no alternative but to hit escape before the fast boys arrived. Probably hit the wall as well anyway driving blind. Still its good to be back but no points i'm afraid. Well done to the survivors!

Norm H

I'm not doing very in this series of late.  An early faller at the Nurb and I probably didn't get much more than about 300m down track in this one before being tossed...quite literally...over the stone wall.  That's life...

For many a year, I have re-written grid layouts providing more comfy spacing for the ADC and the oAo.  At your service should you decide to meet my retainer.

Yes this is my fault!
There is no official "loose grid" track.ini for this track, I had edited it last year and did not think about it...

BUT
We are driving PRO Series with well experienced drivers!!! 

Shame for the start incident, but IMO when there is a tight grid, you should be even more cautious not to wreck.

Anyway, was a new track for me, and today found a good setup. As it's a fast track, pumping up the tires was the answer to laptime and being king on the straights, kind of a Steve Cloyd trick, together with his diff choice. Turns were a bit slippery though.

Quali was exciting, and hoped for a 42 but couldn't put all sectors together, great lap Uli. Had a good start, but already scraped the wall after a few turns, car was difficult through the turns, but really good straight line speed, just had to make my exits reasonably well, and Uli couldn't get a run, until he blew up an engine I think.

After that I could manage my enginetemps and keep an eye on the gap with Axel, who was very fast early on, but I was able to gradually increase the gap. Hit the wall, but not too hard, and the car was still good. Towards the end I pushed for a laptime...

Happy with my drive and win, too bad for all the attrition. Well done Axel and clive for podium, and David for finish and P4 ;)

A new pole again - but very close and exciting – got me hard done, didn‘t find my rhythm to make a 42 time :( . After all it was a nice battle – THX to you Robert!
So i was looking forward to continue this fight in the race.  :)
Robert to the lead with a better start and i followed in safety distance, everything fine ...
BUT then out of the blue, already in the 5th lap my engine explored on the long straight.
i'm frustrated of losing this race so early an this way again after Laguna.
GRATS to all survivors, especially Robert, Axel and Clive
cu at Brno

Sorry to see you retire Uli, you prolly would have pushed me all along. I made sure to prevent the engine temps to go above 110. Always setup the car for that, and drive certain turns in higher gear to manage the engine. Not good for laptime though.

Not to say you overrevved or had high engine temps, sometimes it just blows at random it seems. Tough luck Uli...but to me you are still the fastest driver and favorite for the title ;)

Wished Tristan raced again as well.

Not to me  :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'(      ;D

Yes, well done David anyone who finishes a race around Syracuse is a champion.

It was quite obvious to me that I was never going to have the pace to trouble Robert, Uli and Axel for quali as I had no real race setup.

Past experience of races around here has taught me that survival is more important than one or two blistering laps. So even though I benefitted from the tangled machinery at the start I was quite happy to allow Axel to re-take the place as soon as he caught me.
The rest of the race was a lonely affair. Arfx3 threatened to close the gap for a while, but he came to grief and I was left to pick up places as one or two dropped out ahead. Once I was up to 3rd place, I was only going to get better if someone ahead dropped out, gradually all those cars behind ( except David) dropped out, so I just maintained a steady pace around 1:45-1:46, until the last lap when I tossed caution to the wind and tried a quick lap netting a 1:44. But I was never going to maintain that pace for a whole race, so 3rd was as good as I could expect.

Grats to Robert who controlled the race from flag to flag, to Axel who was close enough to benefit if Robert made a mistake and David who scored points by making sure he got to the flag  ;)

er....Arf closed the gap many times...and you pulled away from me many times! I couldn't work out what was going on just ahead of me Clive - one minute I couldn't keep up, the next I was hauling you in. My preoccupation with trying to work out what was going on caused my crash - not your fault of course. When I came round the tight left hander I thought you were slowing ahead, as if maybe your engine had gone. Instead of focussing on the entry to one of the trickier corners I was planning what I'd do when I had to pass your broken down car....or something...clearly I was not thinking about the right things, and lost a wheel as a result..

Ronnie, thanks for the PM.

Arf

… SRY and of course especially to you RAINER – well done :D – just do it again!

How the hell were you lot doing 43s and 44s, and there's us normal people not able to faster than 47s or 48s!

For me it was pumping up the tires to 25psi. Sacrificed handling and cornerspeed in order to have "superior" straightline speed...same like at Spa (but there even 26psi)...

If you close your eyes at the scary places and just keep your right foot on the floor, it is amazing how fast......................................................your race comes to an end  ::)

Strange that Robert went for outright speed, whereas I was trying to find a very stable setup for the fast corners i.e. something that I knew would not snap into sudden oversteer or suffer suicidal understter when I applied the power. I think the  6 speed box on the BRM ( and possibly on the fezza too) allowed the gear ratios to be set just right for selected corners. It still took me most of the race to gain the confidence to "not lift" through some of the faster bends and I only risked a true 100% effort on the very final lap.

I think the perception that I was slowing and then speeding up Arf, was because I was still feeling my way through the setup and I know I made countless small errors in the early laps. On any other track I might have snapped on some extra lock and hung the tail out to get around a corner...but definitely not here! So there were occasions when I simply dropped the anchors and concentrated on missing the walls or hay bales even if I almost stopped. There were a couple of hairy moments when the front wheel vanished from sight in those hay bales and I just about wrenched it free.  In the 2nd half of the race I was just settled into a nice easy pace waiting for those ahead to make a big mistake...........they didn't!!  :-\

By my count, that was 5 drivers caught up in that out of 12 starters. Well and truly a case of last idiot standing, especially after lap 10 when by then 2 or 3 more dropped off!

I feel a self-flagellation for my jink right that collected Doni and sent his race skyward. Sorry about that one! :(

Hi Robert,
thank you for the flowers (hope my word by word translation is ok)
thanks for making me the favorite driver very gentle but with 32 points ahead it‘s you who is the favorite now!
I only had a theoretical chance but as long as i had this i will take her ;)
Even after 2 days I'm still frustrated for missing a fine race/fight with you and Axel, like we had in spa or monza :D
not for loosing the championchip
to get a champion you need speed and constance but
most of all we need luck and that is what I missed a bit – that's racing …
GRATS again to your fine victory!!!
and GRATS to the other 3 finishers!
looking forward to Brno – kind of circuit I like
uli

Uli, this means you virtually lead the championship, and have things in your own hands ;)

Uli 255 (-0 -0)
Rob 249 (-19 -18)
Tris 242 (-0 -0)
Axel 222 (-0 -23)

ups – that changes the title fight situation, didn't know this rule ::),
pardon me and THX for your kindly mutivation – now it's really up to me.
such a rule is what i missed all over the years when I race with the GPL-Racers – there, with about 20 or more races per season it makes really, even more sense – fine, that we have it here in the UK GPL League!
hm – but then I still have to practice much more, what a hassle ;)
… and most important is a serious talk with my mechanics!
looking forward to a thrilling championchip final  ;D
and all the best to you Robert, Tris and Axel!
uli

You're welcome Uli :) Also a heads up as it's Brno 49 we race next week (not an other version)!

https://www.simracing.org.uk/smf/index.php?topic=12131.0

I know its a long time ago. But I feel fortunate to have escaped the moderators wrath on this one. Many apologies again to anyone who was affected at the start.

LOL - I haven't done Kya yet.... but you haven't got much to fear there either.

This was clearly your fault Ronnie but you moved left in response to another car. It was just all way too tight. Track geometry saved you.

I did also consider whether you should have been more cautious but then you would have got hit up the rear! Difficult one.