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After scoring his maiden win last time out, can Attilio Artiglietti mount a late title challenge? The points battle is a lot closer when dropped scores are considered, so it's still all to play for as the Works drivers head over the border from Belgium into France.

Race list	iGOR
Server	UKGPL_GPG
IP address	62.195.32.131
Date	04-11-2012
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	Dijon-Prenois (dijonp81 (http://gpltd.bcsims.com/?dis=D#13))
Mod	67
Damage model	PRO
Race length	37 laps
Replay	Available here (ftp://ukgpl3.dyndns.org/replays/Archive/Season23/Grads_Works/S23_Grads_Works_R08_2012_11_04_Dijon.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 Parabolique. 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 set to 37 laps Long race and listening on Igor.
Ciao

Sorry Arf, my engine went bang right in front of you. Hope your okay and good luck in the race!

Well, rather short race for me..Engine popped even if I wasnt particularly pushing it, was even careful not to wheelspin much up and down the hills, probably not enough though. I think poopers were very fragile around here anyway, I had an engine failure during practice in one of the mock races earlier in the evening. Tough luck, Hristo was going to be a bit quicker in the race I think, and there were other very quick guys like Pod and Bob, but I still had track position, and was doing a good job with keeping my tires cool.. :'(  :'(

This track must be brilliant in the 69s or 65s, not much so in the 67s I think, as it feels like you are driving on eggs and you are quick only when it feels you are slow.. ;D ;D Grats to whoever wins it, see you at the next one guys, thx for the (short) racing.

Bugger!  I mis-read the lead post.  I thought that PRACTICE opened at 21:30pm, UK time.  Dashed back from a visit with my 94-year old uncle in Toronto expecting to just make the end of Q.  Opened iGOR to find the race well underway.  Now I notice that the post says the RACE is to start at 21:30.  Sigh...

Tought luck, Art, I just saw the black smoke before T1 and your car being parked on the left. I inherited the lead afterwards, but with the quickly-made setup I made in the last moment in Qualifying wasn't good enough, with the gearing too short or long for some corners, and with the tires overheating way too much, so it didn't took long before I had troubles with the handling, losing the rear end suddenly and barely managing to catch it. Eventually this led to a spin at T3 and contact with the armco at very low speed, but it was still enough to rip off the front left wheel. I could have tried to continue on 3 wheels, but there were too many laps remaining and I decided to park it instead.

That explains a lot. I'm sorry that's what happened to you, but in a way its a relief. I didn't think I was going to get near you that lap, so I was looking at my over-active red bars. When I looked back down at the track I saw the distance closing way faster than I'd have expected and threw the car to the right. I didn't think we had contacted because my car wasn't damaged, but then I saw you rolling in my mirrors and groaned - I  assume warp contact took you out... Bad luck on the engine

History was made tonight gents. No, it wasn't the world's longest drive from Manchester to London (5.5hrs, due to amateur's day on the M6/M1), it was far better - I made it through a race without spinning once!!

Still had a wobble or two, but the nose of the car spent almost all of the 37 laps looking in right direction. It was touch and go whether I'd make it home in time though - unlike Doni, I knew exactly when the race started, but didn't think I'd make it - I could have sworn people were crashing just to slow me down.

A busy week meant I had done little preparation for this race, and went into it using the basic Mosport setup, with no changes. I think I only got 3/4 qually laps in before the race started, so wasn't surprised to start at the back. Wasn't expecting anything tonight with such little prep, but ended up having a brilliant race with Al, whose Cooper couldn't quite get close to my Brabham on the straights. He made sure I didn't relax by staying close enough to keep me honest. As I said to him in the chat after, I assumed he wasn't bothering to risk an overtake cos it was only a matter of time til I span  ;D

I even dared to hope that Bart had spun...not very nice of me, but 8/9 laps from the end I saw a red shape behind Al, and from memory could only recall seeing Bart selecting the prancing horse. However a hard charging Raoni had come from nowhere to storm past both of us and take P2. Slightly disappointed, I settled down to defend P3 from Al, but some kind of keyboard malfunction seems to have ruined R's race, as I saw his 2 wheeler stationary just when he was starting to put a lot of distance between us. Bad luck R.

Hope to see you all for the next one, but it'll be another rush down the motorway, this time from the airport. Plane lands at 1945........

Yes, when we approached the end of qually I was wondering if you were ever going to show up...Ronnie was out early as well, so I assume theres another different winner this season, although results not imported yet. It is a pity though, it could have been a fun close race..My rear tires were never going to be a problem, I had to be careful to the fronts, had my break ratio down to 48 even for the race  ;D ;D. See you at the next one.

I'll post the results later on today.

Lack of practice for this track and a hastily tweaked setup.... I even changed the bump/rebounds just before we went to the grid!! ... did not help me at all.

I had a car that was good on the straights, well when I say good, I mean that when I could get the thing pointed in the right direction it sort of went quickly (ish)  :-\.

I had real problems with the rear wheels wanting to overtake the fronts if I applied any power in the corners. The front refused to bite and turn in, so to carry any speed through the bends I was forced to try and use the power to force some oversteer, with the inevitable result that the left rear tyre suffered badly....very badly!! ::)

I just could not maintain any real pace even when I passed a car and eventually the hot rears let go and I slithered across the track and surrendered the place.
At least I survived to the end and picked up a few points, but it was hardly "fun"  ???

Grats to the guys who got hooked up and actually raced each other. All I succeeded in doing was to hassle Sky's BRM for a few laps. :-\

Most of my race is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEcTRrneJBM&feature=plcp (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEcTRrneJBM&feature=plcp)

After Hristos retirement, I've just concentrated on keeping safe distance between me and the next driver.

Well done to finishers, esp Podium and my team mate Arf.

I was surprised to qual 2nd, a pb but still a good chunk behind Attilio.  The flag man was too quick for me, I'd only just seen him when the flag dropped and Attilio shot off into the distance!  I was lucky to only lose 1 place in a tight first corner, but then settled down a bit.  A lap or two later Bartoz ran wide and I slipped by.  I started pulling a gap but prib told me H was looming and I knew I'd soon have him to contend with.  I then had the first of three spins and H got by.  After spin two I let Bart back past, then spin three allowed Al past.  I did manage to settle down though and caught Al painfully slowly.  Coming into the final corner I was a little bit caught out by Al's breaking point and we ran side by side into the corner.  It was a bit close but the move seemed to be on when Al's car jumped sideways into mine and sent me into the barrier, losing both right hand wheels.  A look at the replay confirmed the warp and thankfully Al seemed unaffected (was this the case?).  Slightly gutted to then find out that both H and Attilio had both retired, could have been a good chance...

Just like in 65's a few seasons back, I couldn't really get to grips with this track, though it did provide some enjoyable racing for me, not to mention an unexpected podium. The Cooper did indeed seem particularly vulnerable to popping its engine in practice so I spent a bit of time tweaking the gearbox & for once, more by luck than design, got the ratios just about right. With both the championship heavyweights Art & Hristo retiring early, I found myself elevated to a podium spot though it soon became clear that holding onto that was not going to be easy.

Had a bit of a Spa deja-vu moment, squeezing past Bob's car as he rejoined after a spin at T1 which took me up to 2nd. I knew from the practice times that Bob was mighty quick in his Cooper & sure enough he was soon back on my tail. As we approached the final corner I checked my mirrors & saw Bob shaping up for an overtake around the outside, so I stayed as tight to the inside as I could hugging the kerb & expecting to see Bob poke his nose ahead any second... but nobody appeared. In fact I was so busy looking in my mirrors down the straight to see where the hell Bob had got to that I sped right past my T1 braking point & ploughed into the barriers at high speed. Miraculously (& presumably because I'd hit the barriers head-on) my car was completely undamaged however by the time I'd counted all my wheels & rejoined, Arf's Brabham was now all over me. Arf swept past pretty easily down the straight & although I could stay with him through the twisty bits, the Coop just didn't have the legs down the long straight. Well done to Bartosz on his win & congrats again to Arf on an impressive error-free run (but no more of that in future, OK?)

I checked my replay to see what on earth happened with Bob & I'm still rather baffled (server replay might reveal more but that's not available yet). Me & Bob don't even get close - I mean we're almost a car's width apart when Bob suddenly seems to spear off into the barriers. I didn't feel even the slightest impact during the race so if Bob didn't spin off of his own accord, I guess it'd have to be some kind of mega-warp. You're not still using that dodgy wireless connection are you Bob?    

Oops I see we posted around the same time Bob. So as a technical question, if your replay shows me jumping sideways & my replay shows nothing at all - which one of us provided the warp factor? Or is the server replay the only way to find a definitive answer?

Either way, I'm sorry you ended up in the barrier as it looked like we were going to have a good scrap :(

Ever more annoyed with myself now for missing this round after seeing the results posted...

I did some pre-race testing and with the Eagle, I see that if I matched my PB, I could have started P2.  Grrr...

The server replay (not available via the thread link btw) matches mine & shows the full horror of the warp between me & Bob (screengrabs from server replay):

Me & Bob seem to leave each other plenty of room here...

(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-K556waYx65g/UJkN7S8_13I/AAAAAAAAATY/PlAc4STUzik/s1600/dijon+1.jpg)

yet on the very next frame Bob gets thumped sideways

(http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ayDiQ8AEmE0/UJkN-DwHx8I/AAAAAAAAATg/oi9Ig-_iCLQ/s1600/dijon+2.jpg)

I don't remember seeing a warp collision with cars that far apart before. Is that normal? I've got a wired connection to my router but I know Bob did use wireless in the past - might that be a contributing factor?

When a driver sees everyone around him warping, but others see only that driver, then it's that driver's connection end which is at fault.

BTW this race was yet another example that without the 50-75% distance rule for point scoring, the championship does not reflect very well what happens on the track. Myself and Art retired so early in the race, yet because of the small grid, we still score a substantial amount of points. I imagine this makes it rather frustrating for those who go on to finish the whole distance and still don't reduce the points gap by much. I've been in that position and it was the main reason I was asking for that rule to be introduced, so I don't quite understand why we don't apply it to all divisions.

Honestly I have never quite understood that idea, it always seemed to me somewhat artificial. With the 50% distance rule, you end up giving an excessive advantage to someone who crashed out at L20 instead of L15. Also, if you consider the people who were wiped off by others' mistakes at T1 in some races (erm erm.. :-[), that would be a further undeserved punishment. Maybe theres something I dont see, but I think the 50% rule feels a bit like an on/off switch which is forced upon your race, and is not going to reflect the real values showed on track anyway. There is always going to be a random element in the points you get when you hit trouble in a race, but I think the best thing would be getting rid of this system that allows everyone to pick up points just by taking the green flag. We had this discussion already though, and I seem to remember the overwhelming majority was in favour of the new point system...

That's why I'm more supportive of the 75% distance rule than the 50%, especially since we don't do full GP races. The main thing is that with smaller grid, it's next to impossible to recover gaps in the points because drivers just have to enter a race and then even if they retire, they'll still score well.

Judging by the speed of some of the Privateers I would hope the Works grid will be getting bigger next season...

The scoring issue struck me after one of the F2 races this season when my internet connection went down soon after I'd joined qualifying - I missed the race entirely yet still managed to score 13 points - not a bad return for a couple of minutes of practice! 

The idea behind a closer points scoring system, was to encourage slower drivers to join in?  Adding a requirement to survive beyond half way, seems to discourage unskilled drivers, who struggle to make race distance. These 2 ideas conflict with each other.  The middle ground would be to abandon both, and that would be my choice. 8)

I agree it is very fortuitous to pick up good points when retiring early from a race with a small grid. But this could be helped if people who register for a series actually turned up on a regular basis. There are 14 full time Works drivers and yet only the first two races of the season have had more than 14 drivers turning up including non FT drivers.

I fear a 50% distance rule would thin the grid, just look at the Historics

and a 75% distance rule would more or less empty the grid.

One for further discussion in the season review I suspect.

Yeah a cheeky bit of warp, I had to laugh when I saw your pics, I'm laying down a proper amount of rubber for a good few yards...do I tend to drive more sideways than most?

I am using a wireless connection, although I did use a cable a while back (until our rabbits chewed through it).  I generally have a good connection these days, with low latency.  All other cars appeared warp free so I didn't suspect anything.  Did anyone have any concerns about my possible warping from qual/the start?  Please feedback any concerns at the next race, I certainly don't want to spoil the fun of others.

Afterwards I obviously rued the situation and thought I shouldn't have been so hasty, but as you pointed out, we were a reasonable distance apart.  I still enjoyed the racing.


Bob.

Although I have raced mainly on a wire this Works season, this was largely to do with a problem with my wifi (now cured with the removal of PowerDVD which would switch it on and off!)

As such I can, and have, used wifi/wires interchangeably with absolutely no perceptible difference in connection quality.......inasmuch as I get massive warp on both sometimes.........

...and whilst we're on the subject, I only race on a laptop. I have to use GPL PowerMonger, otherwise warp is guaranteed, and I have to double check every time that my router knows that my GPL profile is associated to the laptop (it sometimes drops this association for reasons I've never been able to work out). However, I have raced many times on wifi, on a laptop...........

That's why we have separate divisions. When I said I would like to see the rule introduced to all divisions, I should have specified that I meant the divisions I race in, so that doesn't include the privateers/novices/heavies.

As for the points system, I'm totally supportive of a more spaced out point system as the one we had in the past. Finishing higher up should be rewarded better compared to a lower finishing position.


Racing shouldn't be just about speed, but consistency and not making mistakes. Scoring by just hotlapping in the beginning and retiring early (for whatever reason) doesn't make sense to me. I very much doubt the thinner grids have anything to do with the 50% distance rule.

Apologies Al, there was a typo in the link. Fixed now.

Mod published, apologies for the delay.