SimRacing.org.uk

The summer slumber is over, but there's still time to hit the beach as we head to the sand dunes of Zandvoort in Holland. Three wins out of three so far for points leader Hristo Itchov, who is already looking hard to catch in the title battle.

Race list	iGOR
Server	UKGPL_GPG
IP address	62.195.32.131
Date	02-09-2012
Race time	Race starts at 21:30 UK time
Qualifying time	Between 30 and 60 minutes, starting no later than 21:00 UK time
Track	Zandvoort
Mod	67
Damage model	PRO
Race length	35 laps
Replay	Available here (ftp://ukgpl3.dyndns.org/replays/Archive/Season23/Grads_Works/S23_Grads_Works_R04_2012_09_02_Zandvoort.rar)

Reserve drivers please note; you must leave the server with 35 minutes of qualifying left, for a total of 5 minutes, to allow full timers to join.

The red zone will be fully moderated for lap 1 only. For this event the red zone will be from the start line to the exit of turn 4, Hugenholtzbocht. Other moderation will be on reported incidents only.

The chassis token system is explained on the Works (https://www.simracing.org.uk/smf/index.php?action=LM2R&group=360&theme=6) standings page. Please ensure you choose a chassis that is within your budget, which can be seen by hovering the mouse over your points total in the standings.

GPG server is already set to 35 laps Long race and listening on Igor.
Ciao

Thank you Fulvio.

AAAARRRRGGGGHHH!!! the season re-starts !!! what happened to the break?????  :o

It has already been  broken!  So did it get thrashed, before it gets trashed?  :laugh:

The proper way to overtake at Zandvoort: link (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ov4fTxevLX4&feature=plcp) :D

lolol It looks even more impressive from where i was sitting....in the cockpit of the Honda!!!!

Oh dear,

Very early bath for me, the first corner incident resulted in my car becoming a three wheeler.  I limped roond for a lap but there really was no point as no-one else dropped oot in that lap.  Art ran wide and spun at T1, I tried to avoid but couldn't quite and the mayhem ensued...just like in the real thing...only different! 

I don't think anyone was to blame, one of those things.

Interestingly for me Zandy was my first race in 2008 and my times are almost identical  :(   Not too pleasing on the progress front, even though I am sure my practice has improved...

Bob.

Well at least the other half of Team Barf had a better day. As ever I couldn't Q in anything like the pace I can do at other times, and was frustrated to start 7th. I avoided the mess at T1, only to be taken out by someone else trying to avoid it, and that left me dead last.

That meant I had fun chasing down Sky and then Al, both of whom made small errors just as I got close, which let me by. I then spent the rest of the race chasing Ronnie down. Quick enough to catch him, but not enough to pass.....

It didn't help that I made a couple of small mistakes that gave him breathing space for a few laps. All in all though, it was great fun, and I finished less than a second behind him. Well done Ronnie.

Grats to all finishers, shame about Baab

Arf

Results and replay uploaded. Incident reports by 9th September please.

I approached this round at Zandvoort more or less from the point of view of just collecting the ‘starting money’.  I don’t get on well here for some reason.  I find the layout very tiring and the main straight does little to relax me.  The constant wheel work has seen me retire with fatigue from much, much shorter races.  I find, too, that my pace can be all over the map.  I can go out for five or six laps of qualifying or hot lapping and each lap feels much the same yet the last tour will be 1-1/2 to 2 seconds faster and I don’t know why as it feels every bit the same as the others.  Don’t get me wrong.  It’s not that I don’t like the circuit; I just don’t quite ‘get it’.

Congratulations to Hristo on a fine drive!  A very profitable weekend for H. :)

Well done and congratulations to both ‘Tillio & Bart for taking the other podium slots.

The start.  Well!  Quite a scrum down there in Tarzan.  I took off from the grid without revving up the H-16 and dumping the clutch; just puttered away not wishing to get too close to the potential action down in Tarzan that so often occurs.  Turned out that it paid off.  Cars going every which way with a Ferrari(Andrew)on its lid and a BT24(Bob)minus a corner.  Heavens!  I picked my way thru the debris to gain all manner of positions but immediately started to hand them back as there was no way I was going to be able to defend against runners so much faster.

The upshot of all this was to have me placed P10 at the end of Lap2, running on my own and happy to do so.  I just settled down and looked to turn consistent laps without falling off the road.  On Lap8, I flashed thru Scheiviak to see a white car off the road on the outside.  This turned out to be Evil who’s Honda was handling, well...evil.  Clive had taken a hard hit in the Tarzan business on Lap1 and a further knock from JR on Lap3.  After passing, I thoroughly expected to see the Honda roaring back to pass but the gap seemed to stay relatively stagnant.  For sure, if Clive’s Red Ball Special had been healthy, I’d have been easy meat.

The laps reeled off.  Evil closed only slightly as in the last 1/3 of the race, I upped my pace to try to hang onto that P8 placing.  Hristo came blasting thru to lap me around Lap22.  Clive had me in sight only four seconds off my tail til, sadly, a spin on Lap29 ended his threat.  Made it home without any dramas.  A bit annoyed with myself that I scored one ‘64' lap(off track)as I let Bart by for position on Lap1.  Ah, well...  Can’t have everything.

Guys, apologies for that T1 mess. All my fault of course, although I am still not totally sure of what happened, as I had tried the standing start with full tanks and my braking point at the end of the row of people on the right was on the safe side. Since I could see in my mirrors Hristo's Honda well behind on the straight, I decided to go for the apex at T1, but I must have been still half checking if the guy behind could slow down enough while I was turning, so both line and braking werent what they should have been, and I started to oh so slowly drift toward the grass and the dreaded first lap spin. When I clipped the grass it sent me straight into the middle of the track, leaving absolutely no one (apart from that stinky Honda, he is even lucky ...;D ;D) the chance to avoid me :'( :'(. I was hit three or four times while desperately trying to accelerate away from the maelstrom, each time forcing me to lift and reposition the car. Really sorry for the two guys I forced to retire (Bob and Andrew), and to the ones who ended up with a bent car (Clive for sure, not sure about others). It was a genuine mistake, but being L1 the mods will certainly look into it  :).

By the time I had managed to regain power over the directional decisions of my car (in relative terms of course..), Hristo was 4 secs ahead and I knew I had a mountain to climb, as even if I managed to reel him in, I would have needed to find a way past him on that joke of a straight, which doesnt even give you the time to glance at prib with some ease. But all that was academic, as I managed another spin at lap 5 or 6, which added another 10 secs to the tally. From then on, it was just about trying to keep focus and limit the gap as much as I could. Thanks to the guys I came across to lap, who were all rather collaborative. And grats to Hristo and Pod for win and podium. Commiserations to all those who had to limp around for 50 mins thanks to me..I am disappointed by not being able to fully match H in the race, even with a car which is a full second faster, that first sector is so difficult to get consistently right for me. Still, a good improvement from last race here, will be back for more in two weeks.

Cheers guys, see you at the next one.

As I said in chat after the race..."that was painful".

I thought I had almost avoided the carnage at T1 by hugging the inside, but fate decreed that I was to get some "treatment" too and a heavy head on clunk stopped me in my tracks.

I managed to scramble through the scrap metal and emerged in about 3rd spot...."this could be good" I thought until I glanced at prib and saw everyone closing far too quickly from behind.  When they caught me, I was a passed easily on the straight, far too easily...something was not right! :-\   Then as the pack caught me at Tarzan I wondered if I could hold them off with some defensive driving but obviously I was too defensive, because someone punted me up the bank at the Esses!! and the whole field swept past and into the distance. I think the two impacts did something to the Waza technology that was not good, because I could not close the gap to the cars in front no matter how hard I tried.
Braking for Tarzan ( in fact braking for any right hand bend!! ) was a lottery as the car would suddenly snap into a spin if I got it even slightly wrong.

In off line practice I could get down to almost 1:25 dead with race fuel,  but I struggled to even hit a 1:28 in this race no matter how hard I pushed. It was not until I was lapped and I managed to get a tow that I broke into the very high 1:27's in the last few laps  :-[

I struggled all race but kept going "for the team" and the points.

Grats to Hristo and the podium and to all those in front. I hope I did not hinder any of those who lapped me, I was honestly going as fast as I could!!

How strange Doni - precisely my feelings too. I don't think I've ever managed to get on top of this circuit & to compound matters hadn't turned a wheel since the summer break. Am in the middle of moving house at the moment so didn't think I'd make the race at all. Despite my woeful lack of practice, all the first lap incidents elevated me as high as 5th but a trip into the sand dunes allowed both Arf & Sky through, which was just as well as I doubt I had the pace to fend them off anyway. Congrats to H & Art & also to teammates Bart & Ronnie. 

I can't call this race one of my best, but it's definitely one of my luckiest ;)

For the last few days I was struggling to find my pace and all I could do in qual was hi 1:25 witch was about 0,5s slower than my PB.

I've survived T1 crash without any damage and restarted my race from the back. I've found my rhythm and started catching others, who were kind enough to let me go by crashing or spinning ;)

Afther some laps I've realised that I was on lonely 3rd place and all I had to do was to keep my rhythm and stay on track. At about 15 laps to go I had 15s advantage over my teammate Ronnie. That made me little bit to relaxed and afther few corners I've spun loosing about 10s. Afther that I've started to push again and bring my lucky 3rd place to the finish.

Grats to Hristo, Art and to all finishers.

A tiring race as usual on this track. I couldn't quite do a perfect lap in Qualifying and thus ended up 2nd on the grid, but was expecting to be able to challenge Attilio during the race, although tires were always going to be an issue, especially with a car as heavy as the Honda.

I dropped the revs too much at the start, but managed to keep 2nd on the run down to T1, then saw Attilio go off on time and reacted by taking the inside line, avoiding any carnage that happened soon after. Much to my surprise Attilio had continued and was in 2nd place, just 4 seconds back, so there was no time to relax.

The car was handling really well early on and once Attilio had his off, the gap increased over 10 seconds, just in time for my tire issues. The issues were bigger than expected though and that resulted into a full spin, costing me 9-10 seconds. The gap was back down to 5-6 seconds, but the car handling improved enough for me to start doing some fast consistent laps that helped me increase my lead.

I had 2 offs at T1 but without losing too much time, maybe 1-2 seconds at most, but then right at the end of the race, with a gap of around 15 seconds over 2nd place, the tires were really on fire apparently, and it was next to impossible to put the power down, so I was fortunate enough that the race was about to end. It turned out I had fuel for 12 more laps, so that probably played a role, but overall I'm not sure I could have dealt with Attilio had he not spun at T1 after the start.

Grats to all who finished this exhausting race!

Congrats to the podium of Hristo, Art and Pod.

Considering the mindless violence at T1 this race was very enjoyable.  Having survived the worst of the mayhem I was just about to set off in second place after Hristo when Art came back for seconds and spun me round in his haste to catch Hristo himself. Such is life so I got my head down and tried to make up a few positions.  Clive was a sitting duck down the straight, with his Honda seemingly underpowered. Having got into third a spin gave Pod the spot and try as I could he would not be caught. More of a concern now was Arf who was clearly faster. He should have got me before the end but must have made a mistake which gave me the breathing space to hang on for fourth spot.

Zandvoort is weird. I don't like the track but always enjoy the racing here? Yeah I don't understand that either. See you all at the next round.

Surely so, Ronnie, I came after you and spun you to take back second place  ;D ;D. I was in a haste to get out of there of course, but truth is had you kept a straight line instead of cutting across the track, you wouldnt have spun yourself by hitting the front of my car. I couldnt have avoided you erven if I had had the time to actually brake or steer. I can tell you couldnt see I was there, still dont lay the blame at my doorstep, if on anyone, that one is frankly on you. I would suggest people flick to other driver's cockpit view when watching replays, at least before posting their comments on here.

Strange, I posted a report and it did not appear. All the writing for nothing!

Well, I won't repeat all again, but just want to say it's been a very tough race, with Art having the upper hand in Qualifying, although I never quite managed to put in a really clean lap. The start was not so good as my revs dropped down, but with Art doing his half spin at T1 and everyone else behind me getting tangled up with him, I was handed over the lead. Much to my surprise it was still Art in 2nd when I got the pitboard information, just 4 seconds behind.

From there on it was pushing on the limit all the way, but as expected, the tires played their role. I had 2 offs at T1 and one major spin on the exit of the long right-hander in the middle of the lap, losing 9-10 seconds in the process. Fortunately for me Art also had some issues so the gap kept fluctuating between 5 and 15 seconds. Near the end the rear tires were so hot that I could hardly put the power down at all, so I lost a lot of time there, but then the chequered flag took care of everything. Turned out I had fuel for 12 laps more, so that must have been a factor as well, but I don't think I would have had an answer for Art had he not lost the lead early on.

Grats to all finishers, it's been a tough race here as usual!

I have looked at it from several views and I have to disagree with you. You messed up and then you messed up again, in my opinion. But you still drove a great race to finish second. Let the mods decide if they choose to look at it. Personally I have moved on from this one. No hard feelings on my part.

The server replay is here (ftp://ukgpl3.dyndns.org/Replays/Archive/Season23/Grads_Works/)

You must be reading my mind, I was just going to ask for it!  :o

If you are talking about the contact between you and Art on the exit of T1 after the start, IMO it was a racing incident. Art's fault was losing traction under acceleration and although he caught that on time, it still positioned him a bit closer to the right. Your fault was accelerating diagonally across the track disregarding Art could still be overlapping you on the left.

Well, I hadnt even registered this thing before you mentioned it in your comment, so no, no hard feelings  ;D. As for the mods, they will certainly look into this, especially now you took such a good care to highlight it ;). Still, I would be surprised if you managed to scrape another place through this, I hit the gas when you havent entered my field of view  (it can be seen by the rev counter), when you do, I am still catching the car trying to go straight at minimum revs and we collide because you are cutting across, otherwise the contact wouldnt have happened. All of that happens in one single second, so I would need to be given a convincing alternative behaviour to adopt in that kind of time frame, you know for future instances of similar situations  ;D ;D. Take it easy Ronnie, see you at the next one.

To H and Art.

Art spun at turn 1, it could happen to anyone. But, he has brought the entire field, bar yourself, to a standstill, some permanently!!! Bearing in mind the guidelines on etiquette, he could wait and let the remaining cars through before recovering and rejoining the race, some people would.

"Rejoining the race
When rejoining the race after an incident or having left the track, rejoining drivers should stay off the racing line and give way to faster cars until they are fully up to speed. Rejoining drivers should not attempt to keep anyone behind them until they are fully up to speed. Any driver who rejoins a race and, owing to negligence, causes another car to crash or take severe avoiding action, will be penalised."

But he decides not to and instead sets off in pursuit of you no matter what or who happens to be in his way. To suggest that I got in Art's way and spun myself around... maybe I should report myself LOL. 

I hardly mentioned the incident in my original post compared to your original forum comment. I have not reported any incident and have no intention of doing so. As you pointed out yourself, the mods will probably look at this because it was a lap 1/ turn 1 incident, not my decision. My comment of  "when Art came back for seconds and spun me round in his haste to catch Hristo himself. Such is life so I got my head down and tried to make up a few positions." is hardly a cry for a gain in position at your expense.

As for your comments on "scraping places and take it easy, they could be interpreted as arrogant and condescending so I will ignore them.

The rules about rejoining is if you have went off the track. Obviously Art didn't and he's not obliged to just wait until everyone passes him. I don't know what kind of etiquette you demand about this, but it's not in the rules and since we're racing in a championship, not just for fun, you don't have to let anyone through out of guilt if you don't want to. It's not like he caused the accident on purpose, he just made a mistake and spun in T1. What happened afterwards was not 100% his fault though.

It was a simple racing incident where one driver loses control and the other assumes the road is clear. I don't see how you can dismiss your fault in what happened just like that.

In my opinion and how I interpret the guidelines, you don't have to be off track to rejoin a race! Last words on this one guys, I at least really have moved on.

What is meant by rejoining a race then, I'm puzzled by your interpretation. If you're still on the track and especially if you're pointing in the right direction, what do you do, let everyone through before you accelerate? Move off track? Seriously, no logic at all...

Lol, rather timely late afternoon forum check, you are all here  ;D ;D!

Ronnie, you seem to be ignoring a lot of my post, including, rather conveniently, the description of what actually happened (in a nutshell, when I see you are cutting across me, it is late to do anything about it..). Maybe your problem is with what I did in the second before that? As I assume you are not suggesting I should have sat in the middle of the track whilst I kept being kicked from behind, I am kindly left with the option of taking to the grass and wait for the field to go by. Can you give me one single example of someone actually doing that?  Because I have been rammed out, wiped off on a straight, involved in other people's accidents more than once in my racing, and not one single time I have seen the guy at guilt (?) slowing down to hand back a position. I dont expect that, and, actually, the rules even discourage it, suggesting to get on with your racing on safety grounds. 

Besides, the bits of the rules you are quoting apply in this case to pretty much the entire field, as they all have been involved in an incident and are trying to rejoin. This of course includes you, why havent you taken care to assess no one was there when you cut across the track to take the racing line  ;D ;D?

As Hristo said, this is obviously a racing incident between two drivers scampering away from a massive mayhem, unaware of each other presence until it is too late. Of all the people involved, you are the only one being anal about this incident, which in the end hasnt even damaged your car or your race results. That is maybe why I can sound condescending. Arrogant, me? Never  :nono: ;D ;D

Sorry for the incorrect replay link, I've fixed that now. Thanks to Axel for helping out on that one.

Mod published.