SimRacing.org.uk

Season 23 is upon us and the first of the GT Team races is at Silverstone.  There has been some shuffling of drivers between the teams as plain brown packages change hands in shadows behind the pits. There are some new teams and some old teams with new members, but the star drivers in GT's are all present and looking for podiums.

As we avoided many lap 1 incidents last year we will still have rolling starts and the details for this race are below.

This season we are trying to add some extra fun and tactics to the races with the introduction of pitstops which are calculated to bring the racing closer in the final laps. In every race there will be one car that does not need to stop, but all of the other cars will have to visit the pits.

Teams can choose to run any cars they like, but in any race each all team members must drive different cars, so only one driver can drive the car that does not need to stop.

Pit stop times are listed below with a choice of a single long stop or two shorter stops... the choice is yours.

THIS RACE WILL HAVE A ROLLING START AND CARS ARE EXPECTED TO MAINTAIN THEIR GRID POSITIONS FOR THE FIRST LAP. THE POLE CAR WILL LEAD THE PACK AROUND AT A STEADY SPEED AND RACING WILL START AS CARS CROSS THE START/FINISH  LINE AT THE END OF LAP 1.

Race list	iGOR
Server	T7_2
IP address	62.149.202.168
Date	24-06-2012
Race time	Race starts at 22:00 UK time
Qualifying time	Between 30 and 60 minutes, starting no later than 21:00 UK time
Track	Silverstone
Mod	GT
Damage model	INT

(Each driver is allowed a single Shift-R)

Race length	34 laps
Replay	Available here (ftp://ukgpl3.dyndns.org/replays/Archive/Season23/GTs/S23_GTs_R01_2012_06_24_Silverstone.rar)

Silverstone- GT

	Single Stop Time		Double Stop Time		Post Race Time Penalty
Ford GT40 Mk1	No Stop		N/A		0
Mirage M1	14		N/A		39
Porsche 910	19		N/A		44
Ford GT40 Mk2B	38		14		63
Ford GT40 Mk4	50		20		75
Ferrari 330/P4	53		21		78
Chaparral Mk2D	56		23		81
Lola T70 Mk3	60		22		85
Chaparral Mk2F	67		29		92

 First Pit Window is: 27 (to go on your pit board) to 18 (to go on your pit board)
 Second Pit Window is: 25 (to go on your pit board) to 9 (to go on your pit board)

Some useful information about pitstops. If you unsure about anything please post  a question and we will give you the answers.

1) We recommend the use of the small programme   "GPL WAIT"   .....link here This will time your stop for you and is simple to set up and operate.

2) Pitstops must be taken by coming to a halt in YOUR pitbox. That means where there is a black board with your racing name on it in pit lane.

3) To be sure that you are correctly in your pitbox approach your name board carefully with your car close to the pit wall. Just when the board vanishes STOP and you are correctly positioned.

4) If your stop is LESS than 30 seconds you can be a little less precise with your position as GPL will not disco you automatically.
    However, if your stop is MORE than 30 secs you need to be correctly parked in your pitbox otherwise at 30 seconds GPL will retire your car. THIS IS WORTH PRACTISING OFFLINE.

5) Stop n Go after a Shift-R must be taken as a seperate stop and cannot be combined with your mandatory pitstop.

6) Proirity in pitlane is given to cars that are moving. If you are about to leave the pits after your stop you MUST wait if another car is about to pass you in the pits.

7) Cars leaving the pits must stay OFF the racing line until they up to racing speed. Blocking cars that are still at racing speed will attract the attentions of the Moderators.

IMPORTANT!!!
Just Keep your GPLWait program open on desktop after you've set it up with the wait seconds needed and the keys necessary to activate it, otherwise it will not function during a GPL race.

Ehm wrong server Clive, I guess you mean T7 server, GPG hasn't GT mod installed.  ;)
Ciao

He was just checking to see if anyone reads the posts ;)

OK, T7 server is set to 34 laps Long race and listening on Igor on Console session.

Any chance to see the end of England-Italy?  ::)
Ciao

I can say that I'll not be present if the football match England vs Italy will overlap the race. So keep in count there is an important sport event to schedule the race. This is the only occasion in which GPL can to give way to TV for me.

Thanks.

In view of the fact that there is a football match that seems to be attracting a lot of interest both in the UK and Italy on Sunday evening, I propose that we delay the start of this race so that both of these important events can be enjoyed by everyone.  ;D

I am thinking that we should postpone the start of the race by 30 minutes?  which should allow the match to finish provided we do not go into extra time etc.

I don't think we can reasonably schedule the race to something like a 22:30 start time that would cover extra time and penalties, that would be too late for many drivers by the time the race ends.

Would everyone ( OK, most people  ;) ) be happy with a 22:00 race start? It might mean that those who choose to watch the football would have only a few minutes of qually, but enough time to at least get onto the grid for the start?

I like football but where on earth did you get the idea that watching England play is enjoyable?

Ops, I see now that F2 will use T7 on Friday. I'll restart it on Igor with OpenGl_V2 after the F2 race.
Ciao

Thanks Fulvio. I was counting on doing that myself but I am glad of the assistance

So if I'm taking one stop can I use either pit window? i.e., can I stop anytime from 27 to go until 9 to go? Or do I have to use pit window 1 ???

 I have problems...... :cursing:
 My car is always taken from the game in the pits :hang:

It should not, if you stop at your pitboard!
Slowly move forward until it goes away!

Did you use GPLWait program?

  Not use GPLwait.

  the board has to disappear?

I always have stopped when I was in front of my pit board and all went good until now.
For what I've understood the second window have to be used only by those whose want stop twice, does it ?.

For a single stop use pit window 1.

If you are taking 2 stops, you make 1 stop in each window.

YES !!!

Well, wish I'd raced. Second Silverstone race I have had to miss...

Wish I hadn't. Well done Italy.

At least my nippoti will be pleased (my sister married an Italian!).

SUPERNANDOOOOO :clap: :clap: :notworthy: :lol: :notworthy: :clap: :jumpjoy: :hammer: :thumbup2: :thumbup2: :thumbup1: :thumbup2: :hammer: :hammer: :yes: :lol: :jumpjoy: :jumpjoy: :scooter: :scooter: :jumpjoy: :punk: :punk: ;D ;D ;D ;D

And then yes, Italy as well in the football match, well done boys  8) 8) 8). A bit unsure if I am really all right with being represented by a group of chaps with dubious haircuts and green arms though...Commisarations to the Brits, but really really curious to see how many people started the race. If it is more than 10, it must go on as another achievement of GPL to be remembered alongside its already numerous records.. ;D ;D ;D Good night all chaps, brill day to waste in front of the tv if you are Italian ;D ;D :scooter: :scooter:

 :thumbdown:

Ah well. Back to reality.

Results are in as are the replays. I'll sort out the teams tomorrow.

 I wanted to inform you that I have problems with the forum.
  I do not return e-mail when asked for the password that was forgotten,  but this is not the problem... I found the password :w00t:

  but the concern is that a friend did not receive the confirmation email :helpsmilie:

  I'm warning you because we had a problem like this in GPLBRASIL, the prejudice was that we lost 15 to 20 beginners to discover that something was wrong :eek:

LOL BadBlood..."The Italian"...what a laughter. What can I say...fortunately your sister made the right thing LOL.  ::) ;D ;D ;D

WOW...look at that guy !!! Axel has been the Poleman !!! Congrats Axel Cookie but now, let's move on !

I hope when you make a race calendar you will take care about events that will have a planetary relevance, I'm not speaking about birthdays of my boys obviously but the final match of the European Football Championship I think may be one of those. I think 1/3 of the participants has been lost for this opening race.

P:S:: nephews = nipoti

Can you let me know who by PM Jonny.

Well I joined after the regular times and watched the extra and penalties on the other pc during Q and early laps. Not easy to drive and watch TV, luckily I got distracted loosing only some sec. here and there and doing my first pitstop 15 sec. longer trying to find my clock.  ::)
After the Italy win my pace increased and I unlapped myself from Juha  ;D
Ciao

Hard race that. I thought I'd give one of the Fords a try this season. I felt the MKI was too gutless, and found the braking bug too severe when using the MKII, so that left me with the MKIV. I spent practice getting used to the car and was very surprised to grab 3rd on the grid. When the race began I was in a grandstand seat watching H's and Axel's battle, with Clive nipping at my heels. After Axel's half spin I was promoted to 2nd, only to have a half spin myself a corner later, handing 2nd place to Clive! From this point on I had Tim hounding me in his Porsche. He was all over me under braking but the lack of grunt from his motor preventing him from passing. It make me realise however that I was going to struggle to finish on the podium at this rate, given the long pitstop on the MKIV in comparison to the Mirage and Porsche driven by H and Tim.

After my pitstop, I was demoted to 10th, and proceeded to fight my way up to 4th by end. I couldn't quite catch Juha in time but I've got to be reasonably satisfied with that result. I noticed a couple of people were caught out by my early braking this race. Apologies for that I was struggling on the brakes all season race long. Congrats to H, Tim and Juha for their podium places. I need to pick up my pace by the next round.

Rather like Fulvio, I improved after the match and sis what I am best at...


...admin  ;D

I was suckered into watching some football, until it got into extra time and I could see the dreaded penalties looming at which point some GPL  GT racing seemed a more entertaining option  ::).

Just for the sheer hell of it, I went for the 2D Chap and was reasonably happy to get myself into a good 4th grid spot with full race fuel and very little practice. I just wish that I could more easily identify the different Fords from behind. Because I thought Sam was incredibly quick down Hanger straight in his Mk1 Ford!!...now of course I realise it was the Mk4!!  :-\. Somehow I was gifted the lead as each car in front made a mistake and allowed me to pass.......but I knew that the pitstops would end that moment of glory  :-\.

I thought I would try a 2 stop race (thus avoiding the 30 second disco problem  ;)) and things were looking good after my early first stop, dropping only to about 7th place with all but one car in front still to make their timed stops.
Then I came up behind Phil in his Mirage.... which sort of ruined my game plan for a few laps as I had to find a way of getting onto his tail as we hit the straight, so that I could use the extra power to make the pass. Then I tried to leave Phil room inside at Stowe and succeeded only in running onto the grass and letting him past again!!
A couple of laps later I finally managed to get a clean pass and set off after the leading quartet, but I still had my second pitstop to make. In hindsight I should have made that stop instead of fighting with Phil!!  What really scuppered my chances was a being hit by the brake gremlin for the only time in the race on the entry to Woodcote. I almost saved it, but just drifted onto the grass and instead of merely clipping the fence the car decided to become embedded and I had to Shift-R. Luckily I was able to dive straight across the track and perform my SnG immediately, but that lost me a good 25-30 seconds I reckon.
After that I pushed hard but with full tanks I could not keep the speed and the tyre temps balanced. Plus the 2nd stop dropped me back again and I was lucky to eventually get a reasonable points finish.

Grats to Hristo, Tim, Axel and Sam  for the top places and to Doni for bringing his Fezza home for HER team.  ;D

Hehe, this honor belongs to Juha!

Yes, even I had the pole and a wonderful WR setup (by StuBart 1:28:2!) for the Ferrari, this race showed me my limits!
Making just a minimal mistake under acceleration out of Chapel and Hristo passed me into Stowe,
but I could stay close behind until I had a brake block some laps later.
Never had any before under testing this setup! But in the race I got some of them.
My 54 sec pitstop went fine, but in the middle of the race my engine blew and I had another pitstop that threw me to the end of the field.
Regaining some places I finished as last unlapped ;D

Apologies to Juha ......................and hard luck Axel  :-\

Yes I quite enjoyed that ;D.  It is one of the reasons I like this season's format.  The pit stops mean there is racing all the way through the race, how else would I have had the chance to fight with you in a Chap?  In a normal race you would have disappeared at the start and I'd never have seen you again.  If I was a better driver that battle could have been on the last lap when I might have had a chance to hold onto the position. 

Just checked on the championship table, Team Green ARE TOP!!!  :jumpjoy:  Grats to Tim and Steve (Fester), enjoy it lads we might not be up there for long  ::).

no problem evil ,

good race for me anyway with poor performance car . I tried to make clean race as possible without mistakes but after half the race i see Hristo on mirrors and make one. Thats it i dropped 2 places behind Hristo and Tim. Tim was very fast with porky , and Hristo with mirage.  Evil was behind me somewhere end of the race but i was not able to keep he back as he used fast chap2d ,soon he was making close contact with walls on the main straight and i was able to pick one place up.   :) 

Grats Hristo for win , great comeback !

Bad luck for teammate cookie ,better luck next time !

Thank you - at least you knew what I meant  ;D

 ;)

I've watched out your replay file for this event and if may I say something about, also this time it seemed that wait times at pitbox were a forced move. Maybe it could be better to have 2 or 3 or 4 stop&go instead of only one of 40 or more secs that is way too much hard to manage because each time there is a so long pitstop all the cards are mixed again in a way it is difficult to understand without an help like pribluda that shows who is in front or behind you and most of all what is your actual position. In other words it is difficult to have an idea of where you are and where are your direct opponents, that could be far away but with a long pitstop to perform or near you but with no pitstop to perform. I should say anyway that the race has been very fought but because of the mistakes made by almost all drivers. The reality is that evaluate a correct value for all wait times for each track it is not so simple like it can seem. Fast cars on a slow track have a weight on the calculation that is different from the one they have on a fast track. This is why I would prefer drivers on a fixed car for the entire championship and tracks mixed between fast and slow in equal parts so each car type can win. Otherwise you have to put hands on cars choices, handicaps and so on to level the field and more...for a driver to be specialized on a particular car is not a bad thing and last but not least, in the reality teams have had a particular car not all cars.

P.S.: what about reset on site in the pitbox, did you know anything from Stefan ?

Hearty congratulations to Hristo for a fine victory aboard the Mirage in this, the first round of the S23 GT Championship Series.  An admirable run by Tim to score an oh-so-close P2 in the little Porker.  And a typical standout job by Juha to bring the speed-challenged GT40 home on the podium.  Great job, gys.

A somewhat disappointing P7 pour moi as P5 was within my grasp late in the race til I bungled Abbey by vaulting the kerb, spun wildly and dropped about 15 seconds by the time I got the GT40 mobile again.  Bugger!  Those kerbs are so deadly.  Three spins during the race thanks to them.  SHE was not amused.

Actually, I was contemplating easing up to let team leader, Clive, scamper thru for P5 but the gaffe set me down behind Phil and I couldn't match his pace in the Mirage.  Well done, Phil.  And yes, Team Green on the point!  Take a bow.  :)

Looking forward to Brands!

Thanks for your thoughts Sergio.

I have actually been working on a solution for the long pitstops because of the issues with the GPL disco after 30 secs stationary. It seems that quite a few drivers have had a problem with disco's in the pits and I have to admit that it is not satisfactory to get booted out without warning in the middle of your race.!!

So , what if all pitstops would be a maximum of 20 seconds wait in the pits, but the faster cars might need to make 3 stops at somewhere like Spa. Slower cars might need no stop, a single SnG or only a 10 second stop. I can factor in the time lost going into the pits and getting up to speed again for each track, that is not a problem. It might take some of the guesswork out of where you need to park your car in pitlane?

I realise that the pitstops make it more difficult to know exactly where you are in the race..but that is the intention. What you should know is that you have to keep racing at max pace until the final laps when all of the stops have been completed before you can truly know what position you have. So, another improvement I would like to make is to ensure that all stops are completed BEFORE 10 laps to go shows on your pitboard.

I had no trouble figuring out where I am. That's what the pitboard info is for, it only takes a lap to see your position and who's in front and behind.

RGR that Hristo but...who is in front or behind you can have a stop just before or just after your, or in the same lap...I would not like to need a pocket calculator to figure out where I am.  :)

To be honest it never happened to me to be kicked out on the pitbox...maybe because I've never tried a so long wait time (max 19 secs). I will make my trials to know if there could be a problem. I've used both rasterizers OGL and D3D and I've parked my car when I had the black pitboard with my name just in front of me and all went fine.

It seems some drivers did not use GPLWait.exe. Why ?

I waited 54 sec with the pitboard just dissappearing.
GPLWait works perfect for me as I have tried this several times and never had a failure.
I would prefer a single loooong stop more than 3 or more short ones!!!
The possibility of a dangerous situation leaving the pits is minimized by that.

I'm too lazy to install it and have a stopwatch  ;D

I'm not sure it's too hard to keep track of where you are throughout the race - generally you know where everyone qualified and can gauge your speed relative to them. For instance as he was in a faster car I knew that at any time Hristo was behind me he'd be gaining while, say Juha, in the GT40 was in a car that was slightly slower than me (Hence his not having to stop).
As a result I was able to guess roughly my position and where I should finish.
Of course I can't be sure so I had to press extra hard - which I did  :D

As for the race it nearly went perfectly, I qualified slightly better than expected with my biggest concern actually being Juha who was next to me on the grid - I knew I had to not only stay in  front but build as much space as possible to ensure I held position after the pitstop. Looking at the qualifying times I was feeling confident for the race as I had a much shorter stop than the cars ahead and wasn't much slower than many of them.
As it turned out I could pretty much match them when sneaking along in their slipstreams (For instance recording second fastest lap of the race while shadowing Hristo) so as long as I could keep a decent speed up after my stop I felt I should leapfrog them.
Amazingly this is what happened, I nearly managed a win thanks to Hristo's many spins - but he managed to catch me again and once in range the Porsche simply had no defense.....
And then I managed a 360 when I clipped some curbs and lost the slipstream, despite a couple of minor mistakes Hristo was too far ahead for me to latch back on properly again and start annoying him before the end.

Good fun race, I won't be in the Porsche next time and look forward to the random results we get at Brands :)


IMO the time penalties seem about right looking at where the individual drivers placed - especially given that the ones who arn't quite where you'd expect had incidents/spins drop them down the field. It may not be perfect yet but certainly seems good enough to race to  :yes:

I'm a bit confused by all the discussions about being disco'd in the pit lane.  The results table shows all drivers who started actually finished.  So nobody got disco'd, so what's the problem? 

As far as knowing where I was in the race, yes it is quite a challenge but that is what makes it interesting.  Without pit stops everyone ahead of me would have disappeared into the distance at the start and I would have hopefully left everyone else behind me.  So it would have been very easy to know where I was but it would have made for a very boring processional race.

I agree with your assessment Phil.

I was just a little concerned that very few drivers appear to be risking the longer stops.

Yep but...the Porsche is better than it seems. I've seen you from your camera car and, I've noticed you constantly were forcing the corner entry point when you were near and behind Hristo and this had 2 bad effects, the first one you were often long on braking and often you were near the external border of the track. The second one that is a consequence of the first one, you had a bad exiting line and had to press on the throttle later than Hristo. This is why you didn't catch him also if for me, you could do it ! The Porsche is slower than the Mirage on straights but it turns faster, this is why Hristo didn't fly away if he was at max performance and he was not only keeping the control on you.

P.S.: GPLWait.exe doesn't needs to be installed, only unzipped and launched from where it resides or better from a link on the desktop but it needs to be left open and 2 keys have to be set for: 1) Pit IN Warning; 2) Start the stopwatch when in the pitbox. The Pit OUT Warning will be sent by itself when the Wait time has gone.

Yeah, I was pushing to hard Sergio, especially after my spin  ;D
I was enjoying the chase too much to actually nail the braking and turn in points each lap, although I think I was starting to calm down by about the last lap when the gap did drop due to Hristo making an error.

Moderation complete for this race.

Maybe the drivers should post their pitstop lap number after the race in the race thread ;)

You expect us to remember when we stop!?  :o

In most cases that isn't necessary; it should be pretty easy to determine when a driver took their pit stop.  A quick check through the GPLRA report should reveal 2 adjacent longer than average laps; one with a slow entry into the pits and the following lap with a slow exit.  Which lap the pit stop is counted on depends on where the finish line is with respect to the pit box.  So if a driver was slow on laps 8 and 9 then hopefully the moderator would find that the driver took their pit stop at the end of lap 8.