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Pages: 1 [2] 3 4 ... 12
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16
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UKGPL / UKGPL Announcements / Re: END OF SEASON REVIEW
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on: December 05, 2016, 07:12:08 AM +0000
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Shame the Friday league is coming to an end. It's been a great challenge and great fun. Big thanks to all the organisers, and fellow competitiors over the years.
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17
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UKGPL / UKGPL Races / Re: UKGPL Season 30 (2016) Specials Series Trophy - Nürburgring - Nov 18
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on: November 19, 2016, 10:19:52 PM +0000
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I was glad to see Mark on the server after the recent earthquake in NZ.
Crap! I did it again. I wrecked Mark. No, no you didn't. I crashed by myself, and for me you managed to dodge through without hitting me. I wanted to take the 330 as it's my favourite car. But I needed to spend more time setting it up than I had. I think I needed more ride height, it was pretty good but capable of suddenly snapping away in various spots unexpectedly. It was a pretty intense pole lap (although I totally missed the Karussell). One of those laps you probably couldn't do again. I was getting away during the race, but one of the jumps finally caught me out after a couple of laps. The car landed awkwardly, grounded out hard and shot off into the fence. I had to do a reset and a stop go, and then on the next lap somehow the car got totally sideways through the corner at the end of the straight, and before I could catch it it crashed into the end of the fence, damaging the engine. Shame, and it's been that kind of season. Loved the tracks and cars, didn't have the best of luck. Hearty congratulations to Greg for winning the championship, he's driven very well. Big thanks to Axel for all his work. |
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19
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UKGPL / UKGPL Races / Re: UKGPL Season 30 (2016) Specials Series Trophy - Watkins Glen 71 - Nov 4
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on: November 04, 2016, 08:10:20 PM +0000
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Hey Guys,
We had a power cut last night that was going to last through the whole day, so this morning I decided to pack up the computer and move it all to a friends house. But on plugging it in there's some kind of problem with the power unit and it won't run. So that's that, for the foreseeable future. Good luck to everyone else.
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20
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UKGPL / UKGPL Races / Re: UKGPL Season 30 (2016) Specials Series 69X Trophy - Zeltweg - Oct 21
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on: October 24, 2016, 05:12:21 AM +0100
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Er, yeah. That was unfortunate. I was feeling fairly comfortable, but still pushing like mad while keeping an eye on the mirror. Couldn't seem to break the tow at all. Had a small slide into turn 4 lap 20, and Greg came in, but slid up the track towards me, the bump was enough to knock me over the fence. I couldn't get back down to the track so had to do a reset, and a stop and go penalty. Amazing how much slower the car felt with the full fuel in it again.
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21
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UKGPL / UKGPL Races / Re: UKGPL Season 30 (2016) Specials Series Trophy - GT - Brno65 - Oct 7
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on: October 10, 2016, 09:03:37 AM +0100
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Wow, great result for me. The race rules caught me out as well, I figured we'd all be in Ferrari's so I had to quickly figure out which Ford car would be better. Spent ages with the Mk4 but I couldn't get it to stop. The Mk2 was much more drivable. It ended up understeering a little bit though, and I was quite concerned when I saw Greg's qualifying time. However I got a good start and managed to get past Axel at the end of the straight. I had a small silly spin on lap 3 but considering everyone else's woes it wasn't a problem, so I just had to nurse it home. Great track!!
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22
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UKGPL / UKGPL Races / Re: UKGPL Season 30 (2016) Specials Series Trophy - CanAm 71 - Spa67 - Sep 23
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on: September 26, 2016, 08:40:21 AM +0100
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A surprising result for me. When I annoyingly crashed at Stavelot on the opening lap I kind of gave up. I did my penalty stop and then the stop and go, turned up the music and committed to picking up points. But then others started to have problems too. I managed to get past Carlos and was very surprised to find myself in the lead. So I kept the same relaxed attitude and drove carefully to the finish. Finally a win!
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23
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UKGPL / UKGPL Races / Re: UKGPL Season 30 (2016) Specials Series Trophy - 69X - Isle of Man - Sep 9
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on: September 11, 2016, 05:39:20 AM +0100
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Fortunately I had spent some time a month ago trying to learn this crazy track. I'd tried to use the Ferrari but found it far too twitchy, so I used the BRM instead, which was much more drivable. I'd planned to do a bit of a test to see which car was actually faster but then my pedals had to go in for fixing (that's the 'before' picture). Got some refresher practice in the night before. Felt good in qualifying but then was stunned by Greg's pace. Then the engine blew at the start. Managed to get back to second but it was apparent Greg was too quick to catch, and I was paranoid about the engine blowing again over the many hops and jumps round there. Everything felt pretty good, I think had 1 quick spin, but really playing a waiting game. Congrats to Greg and Andreas.
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UKGPL / UKGPL Races / Re: UKGPL Season 30 (2016) Specials Series Trophy - Le Mans - Aug 26
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on: August 27, 2016, 06:17:21 AM +0100
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Just a terrible race for me. Very sorry Axel for the bump at our first pit stop - I started to have trouble with the handling in different places. Things seemed to finally settle down and I banged out some good laps, did the stop and go, then came around to do the pitstop and something really went wrong with the throttle trying to exit the pits -on and off constantly. I thought maybe it was an engine problem, and it took me a moment to figure it out. Greg went by as I finally found that I could press the left side of the throttle and it would work - so I did that to get to the finish. Gutted.
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27
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UKGPL / UKGPL Races / Re: UKGPL Season 30 - Chris Amon Memorial - Le Mans - Aug 5
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on: August 15, 2016, 11:05:04 AM +0100
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Yeah I read that Ickx's slow walk in 69 was in protest of the start procedures, which he felt led to his friend Willy Mairesse's terrible crash on the opening lap the year before, causing him career-ending injuries (and eventual suicide) due to not having his belts done up in time.
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28
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UKGPL / UKGPL Races / Re: UKGPL Season 30 - Chris Amon Memorial - Le Mans - Aug 5
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on: August 08, 2016, 09:05:01 AM +0100
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Congrats Greg, you got amazing speed out of that Ferrari. I was a bit rusty, didn't see the post for this race until the night before. Things started out Ok, but I started snatching my front tyres, and they started overheating. I was getting a bit more erratic, and then finally I locked up and went off at Mulsanne, and then kept doing that again and again. In the end the car was just wobbling around and I was lucky to get 3rd. I've read a lot about Chris Amon over the years, naturally. He was a pretty relaxed dude. People would say to him how unlucky he was to never have won a championship race, but he always said that instead he considered himself very lucky to have made it through those times alive. A classic Le Mans tale, from the book Forza Amon, has Chris at Le Mans in 1967, stuck on the side of the track with a flat tyre on the Ferrari: “There was a sort of jack, a torch (flashlight) and a wheel hammer to knock the centre-lock spinner off. The first thing I discovered was that the batteries in the torch were flat but there were plenty of cars coming past with their headlights blazing so I had light on and off - occasional illumination at 200 miles an hour.
“I got the jack out and started to crank it up. It actually worked after a fashion and the next step was to get the wheel hammer, wait for a blaze of headlights, and take a shot at the centre-lock wheel nut. I swung at it and the head flew off the hammer, disappearing into the night and the track-side ditch. So I’m crawling around in the ditch, looking for the head of this bloody hammer at 1 o’clock in the morning.
“I was obviously going to have to drive it back to the pits somehow so I packed the kit away, got back in, fired up and drove away relatively slowly down the straight - but I was still probably doing 100 mph and the tire was disintegrating, flapping wildly. There were sparks showering back from the suspension upright and I assume what eventually happened was that a fuel line was knocked off one of the fuel tanks just in front of the rear wheels. The whole car just went up in flames - BOOF!
“I had been tooling down the right-hand side of the track anyway and I aimed it for the ditch. It was getting bloody warm by that stage, so I jumped out, thinking that I had almost stopped, but I was probably still doing 50 mph and I ended up somersaulting down the ditch while the Ferrari rolled another 100 metres along the road before it came to a stop not far from a marshal's post.
“The marshals could see the flames from the car, which was now well alight, and they came running. There were four marshals and three Gendarmes and they soon had the fire out and were searching frantically for the driver - me. They were looking around in the ditch, wondering where I was, and I remember walking up the ditch, feeling a bit battered, and tapping a Gendarme on the shoulder and saying, ‘Here I am.’ Poor guy. He bloody near died of fright!” |
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UKGPL / UKGPL Races / Re: UKGPL Season 30 (2016) - Monza - Jul 22
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on: July 25, 2016, 10:31:37 AM +0100
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Bad race from me, not too much fun in a fun race  Man Tristan was insanely fast! I tried to hang with him but he just pulled away, gradually and then more and more. I couldn't figure it out, how was he so fast? I finally overcooked it into Parabolica - trying to brake later - and ran off. Then another small mistake let Axel and Greg past, and clipping the curb caused them to pull away. Such a frustrating race. I made a mistake with my fuel figures, couldn't read my own writing! So had about 8 gallons extra. Hopefully that's all the problem was, car felt great, but just couldn't pedal it fast enough. Well done to Axel for the win, and to Greg, and commiserations to Tris. |
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