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Setup constraints: None

Pit stops: None

Resets: Unlimited

Start procedure: Standing

Please make sure you are fully aware of the UKiR Rules (https://www.simracing.org.uk/smf/index.php?topic=3349.0) before joining - particularly those concerning general conduct and in-game chat messages.

Never done a reverse grid tournament so don't expect this to run smoothly but we'll have some fun all the same! Hoping the reverse grid will be the finishing order of the first race, just backwards. Can anyone confirm that's how it works??  ;D

No idea how it works Oily  :-[ I'm sure we'll have some fun, with added ribbing if Legzy turns up ;)

Ok, I'll try and make this so I can further play with my new 3 monitor setup (courtesy of Gizmo upgrading to even bigger monitors and offloading his old ones to me). :)

Good race with Jake in round 1. Avoided the collision at T1 and found myself in 2nd place. Jake was glued to my arse the entire time though, but with so little opportunity to pass on that layout I held him up for a good 11 laps. I lost concentration looking at the fuel and whether i would finish or not and cocked up the braking for the first silly tyre chicane. This was all he needed as I bunny hopped over the grass back to 2nd position. Looking forward to the second one.

Three monitors makes the chicanes a bit easier as you can see where the tyres are a lot more easily.

Nope, my LM mojo has definitely gone with the NTM.

I tried an old setup but it had no steering feel at all. Tried Jake's shared one and that was better, then tried Oily's and that was better still.

Managed to find 4th on the grid in race 1, and got a great start to fly past Jake ahead, then reached T1 alongside Nigel and unfortunately we both headed for the middle of the track at the same moment, bounced off each other and ended up 10s or so behind everyone else.

Pushed on trying to claw my way back towards the leading cars but was finding that the tyres were quite unpredictable lap to lap - sometimes I could identify when they were overheating and back off for a few corners, other times they'd just catch me completely unawares and almost put me off.

Found myself in third but Oily was reeling me in and Nigel wasn't far behind him; a few laps from the end I made a little error and Oily nipped through, and I even managed to clip him turning in too early after he passed me into turn 3 :-[ luckily not doing either of us any lasting harm.

For the second race I lowered the rear shock collars by a click each hoping to get more consistent performance out of the rear tyres, but the car felt worse (and the change of layout caught me out too). I hoped it would come back as the fuel burned off but having gone backwards at the start being too conservative with the cars ahead I continued in that direction, the tyre overheating worse than ever. The only interest came from Nigel who dropped off twice to my once which is the only reason I finished ahead of him.

Somewhat frustrating though perhaps with more setup work I could get enough feel back to understand what the tyres are actually doing before they're actually melting on the rim. ::)

I warned Oily on TS that I was going to struggle to jump in the car and be competitive and I was right. 3 laps in the warmup was nowhere near enough after an afternoon on the M1, especially when everyone else had just completed a race. I got a decent start and went round the outside of Jake at T1 but then looked to go round the outside of Dave at T2 and let Jake get back alongside instead  ::). It then seemed from my view that Jake moved across before he was completely past me and he was nudged into a spin. A look at the replay shows that was not what happened. He held the middle line and as the track gently curved right I came back towards the middle - sorry Jake  :oops: From the cockpit view I thought I was dicing with the track edge, hence the move left, but there was more room than I thought and as it coincided with the curve I ended up much closer to the middle than intended.

After that I was chasing Dave, who made a small mistake at Druids, allowing me to get down the inside into lodge and nick the place. I then chased Simon for a lap but was struggling to hold on and so pushed a bit too hard, understeering off at the hairpin into the barriers and then transported via a wormhole back to the pits. This left me with several minutes to wait for tow and pit + a full tank of fuel and tyre change. Once completed though I had some fun just lapping on my own and by the end my laptimes wqere quite decent considering the fuel load. just a shame we didn't get back earlier in time to prepare better  :(

Love the late Model though - the fast right hander at the end of the back straight was epic!

The 2nd race was equally exciting for me. With Picnic on pole the first lap was highly entertaining with the front 3 trying to be very kind to Pete and not fall over each other at the same time. Unfortunately for him he lost it in the double right hander near the end of the lap and that part of the fun was over. Oily, Nigel and I proceeded to follow each other for a while, but Oily was just a bit too fast and as Nigel went off mid way through I inherited 2nd position and had a lonely second half to the race.

Have to say I was loving my new 3 screen monitor setup, it makes the tight corners much easier to judge and I was grazing the tyre stacks on most laps as I was able to get close (too close on a number of occasions, one of which I thought I'd really hit them quite hard but it seemed to make no difference). One of the other main things is that everything is sooo much bigger even though I've gone from a 1x 26" monitor to 3x23" monitors I can see so much more because I'm not looking through such a tiny viewport. It's a lot easier to drive when you're not squinting at the screen searching for your braking markers or whatnot.

I dunno how anyone copes with a single 24" or below in iRacing. It's the only game that makes things look so small.

I was on TeamSpeak with Oily and Paul, Oily seemed quite surprised how slow I was  :-[

Any one for tiddly-winks? Actually forget that I probably suck at that too  :'(

Back to work today, not that there is much to do, hence being on the forums.  ;D

Results posted...

Hi guys

Thanks for the races last night. Good to get a bit of LM road action again, especially at such a fantastic track.

Judging by how many times I get a mention on the preceding posts, I obviously had an interesting time.  :)

First race got a great start, though I thought there was someone on my outside as well as Dave on the inside, so kept it in the middle, only to squeeze Dave who had bounced off the apex. I then proceeded to do two donuts on the grass, to Dave's one, and set off in pursuit!

Second race started in second place thanks to reverse grid! :) Had a great time chasing after James. Managed to keep up with him just until I had a tank slapper at Cascades and went for a scenic drive across the grass. Rejoined at the back and had a great time chasing down Dave again! Tyres felt really odd in this race for some reason - seemed to have a lot more understeer. Maybe I was just pushing too hard and overheated them.

Really ought to do a bit more racing, my rustiness was only too apparent.

Cheers

Sorry chaps, was out having a few post-xmas beers last night & so missed this one :(
Sounds like there was plenty of fun action 8)

Looking forward to starting the new UKiR season ASAP!?

I wouldn't say no to a Late Model series rather than another multi-class GT series which is getting a bit long in the tooth, but I'll do both if I have time and if someone were to run them both.  ;) Is there a Club England race tonight?

I rather fancied the idea of putting the late model in as a slower GT.

That was a lot of fun although I didn't deserve anything out of race 1 after making a couple of really stoopid errors.

Have to say the iRacing tournament management is absolutely spot on - so easy to configure a reverse grid or any permutation you fancy really, I hope it starts being used more. With bigger grids it'll be hilarious.

Thanks everyone for turning up anyway, I'll run another one of these at some point soon!