SimRacing.org.uk

THIS POST IS FOR THE LIGHT & HEAVY RACES

Round III of the Formula 2 Trophy is back on British soil at Brands Hatch. The circuit  hosted several British Grand Prix between 1964 & 1986 & is something of a regular “add on” track for the GPL community.

The series will run on two separate grids ~ The Lights will run on T7 & the Heavys on UKGPL 3. Please ensure you join the correct race. The Driver list is shown below & the Championship Table can be found here F2 Trophy  (https://www.simracing.org.uk/smf/index.php?action=LM2R&group=389&theme=6)

In the series registration it states that handicaps will be introduced from Round III. The purpose of handicaps is to keep the series competitive until the late series. The Lights are tightly bunched at the top. In the Heavy’s Rainier has a small lead, but the boys from Brazil were absent at Riverside. Accordingly there will be no handicap at this race.

For this season only one reset is allowed per race & must be followed by a compulsory Stop & Go in the pit lane. If you Reset on the last lap a 30 second time penalty will be awarded.
Incidents should be reported in the usual way.
In line with other divisions the races will be subject to full moderation in the red zone which will be as far as the tunnel after South Bank. The Moderator may chose to investigate any other incident, in addition to reported incidents & red zone incidents.

Please note that for UKGPL has introduced a system of penalties within each series for drivers accumulating yellow cards – see here
Penalty Points (https://www.simracing.org.uk/smf/index.php?topic=10879.0). Drivers incurring these penalties will receive a PM advising when a penalty has been applied & what race it should served.

LIGHT	HEAVY
Ard Arf	Badblood
Cookie	Bernie
Evil Clive	Billy Nobtrakes
Fulvio	Bilto
Hristo	Dave Curtis
King Hiro	Geoff
Magic Arisoulle	Giovanni
Natan	Il Lupo
Phil Thornton	Jonny O
Bartosz	Nigel Smith
Raoni Frizzo	Paul Villers
Ronnie Peterson	Rainier
FMG	Boggy
Skymole	Francesco
Al Hellar	Pierre D
Doni Yourth	Vosblod
Dean Logan	Adam Cooper
Dean 0	Ed76
	Tin Tin
	Du Fossa
	RogUK

Race List = IGOR Server = UKGPL3 & T7 Race date = Sunday 17-02-2013 Time = 21:00 UK time (21:00 GMT) Track = brands 67 (http://srmz.net/index.php?showtopic=6810) Race length = 26 Laps Variant = 1967 Formula 2 Damage Model = Intermediate Qualifying time = minimum of 30 minutes

looking forward to this one... Brands is my local track.

trying the lotus 33 for a change,  setup coming on nicely but with race fuel can only get just under 1:40 secs.

not sure 1:39.xx is gonna see me near the front of the grid.

not that I know what thats like anyway :0)

Paul V.

enjoying the practice though which is more than can be said of "the green hell" recently !

Will be giving this one a miss , going having me internals examined so will have to look me best for all them nurses  :)

Paul - this is an F2 race so you need a Lotus 41 or a Lotus 48.

If you find the front of the grid can you send me directions.

HaHa...

Well spotted Billy.   just shows what Im like eh.

OK, will try out an F2 car now I have learnt my way around a bit in the Lotus 33.

did I mention I like to use 65 F1.s as trainers for my F2 races ?  eerrr didnt think so !

PV

In 1969, I crossed the Channel for the 1st time. I got almost killed when I left the overcraft terminal in Dover. 1st lesson, you must look on your right first when you cross a street !   :o
I ended up in the Seven Oaks youth hostel in time for the BOAC 500 at Brands Hatch. Like so many people, I fell in love with the circuit at first sight.  Standing at the ground level at Paddock Bend, we could see half of the circuit, five bends if I remember well. Access to the paddock was still completely free at the time and I had a chance to take pictures of one the most beautiful racing cars ever - The Ferrari 312P.

I couldn't imagine in 69 that in 2013, I would be racing in Brand Hatch with a 67 Matra from my canadian basement .

Well, so much for souvenirs, Brands Hatch was and still is a driver's circuit and I'm not much of a driver. I'll try not to be too much of a nuisance.

1:35.7 on race fuel....more to come yet, still a bit.....untidy.     ;)

Hi Pierre!  I was the 2nd guy to your left, at Paddock bend.  If you had been there in 1967, you would have been very cold and wet.  The same again in '71, but it's much warmer inside the cars! :laugh:

That was the year of the Porche was it not ? and I was the handsome young chap looking over your shoulder at your programme  ;D

B.T.W. thought the P330 was a better looking car , private entrant Paul Hawkins was a magician  :)

Beauty and the beast.  It's like comparing a Bertone Fiat Spyder 850 to an Austin Cooper S or Leonardo di Caprio to me for that matter ! ;D

You might compare the 69 312P to the 71 312PB in the same spirit.

I had to stick during the full 24 hours of Le Mans to a guy who was pretending the GT40 was better looking than the P4. Imagine ...

Scrap heap challenge
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Amon,_Ferrari_312P_-_969-06-01.jpg (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Amon,_Ferrari_312P_-_969-06-01.jpg)
 

Or



too beautiful to behold
http://www.conceptcarz.com/view/photo/414566,17221/1967-Ferrari-330-P3/4_photo.aspx#photo (http://www.conceptcarz.com/view/photo/414566,17221/1967-Ferrari-330-P3/4_photo.aspx#photo)

Thats good going Geoff ;D

nice one mate

A time I have almost equalled with the slowest car on track  ;)

well theres me with no chance then...

oh well back to praccy for me then.

PV

Hmmm. Struggling to break 1:40. Any better Paul?

T7 server is set for 26 laps Long race and listening on Igor in Consolle session with OpenGL_V2.
Ciao

getting there..  after a 40 min practice session and a little tweak or two of the setup got down to 1:37.84  in the Lotus 48

im hoping theres a little room for improvement but to be honest would rather have a fairly stable setup and try to be consistent.

most important thing for me is to first finish.  as I can quite honestly not expect to finish first !!

Paul V

I presume that those lap times are on race fuel guys?  ::)

LOL
Watch out for Evil, he's a Brands Expert.  (Ex as in old and spurt as in drip under pressure.   ;D )

yeah, is for me. got enough of the stuff for 28 laps.

not using qually setups on any of the new mods yet as I find the transition from one setup to the other just another issue to deal with.  :-\

using a race setup for qualifying gives me the chance to dial in me the driver and the setup.  most importantly allows me to try to stay within decent limits with the tyre temps. 

done fairly well so far upon my recent return to GPL by at least staying the distance if not by actually setting the track alight with my dazzling moves or "warp factor 9 " speeds  ;)

So I'm happy.  probably means a start near the rear, but again that suits me fine.  ;D

just hoping for a decent race with few incidents... not much to ask is it 

Paul V 

 :P :P :P :P :P :P :P :P to Mr Loynes  he could never get his cars sideways enough for a quick lap of Brands ::) ;))

Good for you Paul, I usually do my qually on race fuel for exactly the same reasons. I want to know how quickly I can lap with a full tank of fuel and if that matches those around me. That way I can be sure that I am not deluding myself, because the worst case scenario is that everyone else is also on race fuel and they are genuinely quicker than me, but most likely the majority have done their quick laps on a splash and dash setup.
If I practice offline ( rarely find time these days) for a race, I might run on double fuel load and try and get within a close margin of the WR or UKGPL record. It still amazes me that one can shave tenths off at each corner by adjusting braking points ( brakes are for wimps BTW!) , line through the corner and acceleration points and gradually bring your lap times down lap on lap. For a game oops! sorry SIM, that is 15 years old it is remarkably realistic in that regard.

The only time I resort to low fuel is if I find myself a long way back on the grid for a circuit that makes passing tricky. Then a good grid slot is important, but of course you still need to be able to run at the pace of the aliens when the race starts..hopefully.
Sometimes I find that I can set a faster time on a full race setup, maybe because I have just dialled in to the handling of the car like that and when I try a qually run on low fuel weight, I overdrive it and spoil my chances.

This might all be a smokescreen of course and I might be planning a banzai lap on just the fumes in the tank at Brands to get myself on pole....or maybe not lol

haha .. and this smokescreen one thinks will be from the burning rubber of ones rear tyres, will it good sir !

one thing I have noticed is the strange setup Brands seems to need.

most setups tend to oversteer under power and perhaps push/washout a bit when you let off the gas. so one can sort of use throttle and a bit of trail braking to rotate car into corner and then lift off if it gets out of shape.  

brands seems to me to need a fairly twitchy setup.  it seems as though you need to be able to trail brake and use positive throttle to turn car in and also need to let up at the right time to bring down your speed and still turn into the bend. dont suppose Im explaining it well, but hope you can see what Im getting at.

so as for a setup ive been trying for one that will sort of rotate from power on oversteer to power off oversteer.  not sure that makes sense , but do you know what I mean? and trying to keep it from getting too ragged or twitchy to drive.

dont really fancy 26 laps driving on a Knives edge.

Screen freeze.

me too!!! thought it was my dreaded gremlins again. At least that is some comfort that it was not my PC.

It was a great dice whilst it lasted H

another :censored: SCREEN FREEZE ! Like Montjuich, every time we race at Brands I get a sodding screen freeze. This time I even started with a clean slate; I binned my old Brand67 folder, downloaded & installed the track again, detail levels all set low, racing with Dean & Doni for 4th and... screen freeze. Aaargh.

EDIT: Ah I see H & Clive also got hit - bad luck guys. I don't get it - this track was supposed to be fixed but as far as I can see it's just as unreliable as it always was.

Whilst we are on the subject of screen freezes etc...

Al, did you say that you were on Virgin broadband? If so I think I have found one of the main culprits of my problems which appears to be something to do with Virgin AV.

Every time I have a disco it coincides with something called "Communications facilitator" starting up. check ctrl-alt-delete and tasks if you have a prob and I'll bet real money ( well maybe some monopoly money) that this little sod is running or has just started.

My next move is to get on to the Virgin boffins and ask how I stop it kicking in, as End it all does not affect it.

I used to be with Virgin cable broadband Clive but not anymore. I'm lucky to even get a phone line out where I live now!

P.S. Were you letting me repass after our incident Doni? If so, thanks.   

Screenfreese too... i would guess its not the server or the connection...but the damn track.

The track works OK with some of the older mods or the original 67, but not so with F2 or GTs. Something to do with the way those mods are made, not really sure, but it's frustrating. I really like the track and despite my off I was slowly catching up Evil, so it was shaping up to be another good chase after the first 8 laps or so where Evil was constantly putting pressure within less than a second behind.

Sorry for your freezes. I almost never get them but I did last race and then I forgot to put mygraphicssetting away from "by aplication" on tha AA. I know it s a blindshot.
(I get cleaner wiew with forced AA but use by application on other games).
Then To the Race. Some guys obviously were to hot in the start. I got bumped from the side, there was a crash up front and although I had no problem stopping the guy behind me smashed me. Great.
I lost concentration from time to time and had some offs when driving alone. I managed to take home a sixth due to Arf being a bit "unstable "although slightly faster than me.

Not too bad a race for me tonight in the Heavies.

I dont think too many of us had freezes or discos.  apart from a tiny couple of glitches all seemed good to me.

had some good racing and really enjoyed tonight.

so sorry to Tintin, I was coming around the lefthander from bottom straight towards the Daily Express bridge and you had either had to rejoin or was recovering from a spin, I didnt know which way to pass you .. I choose the left hoping you would stop coming back toward me. I had come almost to a stop to miss you and we just touched and I nudged your gearbox... sorry mate.  I saw you rejoin fine hope it didnt screw up your race.

Paul V.

Everyone seems to have had some form of problem tonight. Mine was a lack of sound, which cut out around lap 8 because some ****** program ran an update utility. It also took out some of my force feedback, and left my screen flashing for the whole ***** race. I tried to drive the track from memory, but without the sounds it was only a matter of time and I lost it going into Paddock Hill Bend. Unfortunately I bounced back onto the track in someone's path - sorry about that! Either the problems mentioned above or just the sheer amount of damage the car took (without braking down...tough little sods, these F2s) meant that slowing the car and turning became a bit of a lottery, and I'm amazed that I made it to the end. I tried to shift+R at one point, and that didn't work. However, the process of stopping for a mo, and careful playing with the mosue stopped the update utility and got the sounds back, but not the FFB.....

Aside from that I got dragged into 2/3 incidents of other peoples' making on Lap 1, and about halfway through the race I came round Clearways(?) to find someone limping into the pits, on the racing line and lost it avoiding them. There were occasional laps where I got some good racing in, and I held off a red car for the last 3/4 laps, never knowing if it was someone hoping to lap me - didn't get any blue flags, but final results suggest I was last finisher......

All in all, a miracle I finished....but not entirely sure I should have bothered....

WD to all that finished, comiserations to all the screen freeze victims.

Gutted I'll miss Watkins Glen in 2 weeks, but I shall cheer myself up with the knowledge that I will be playing with a (real) Corvette at the time  :)

Arf

Ha ha! Lucky you  ;D


Just read the mechanical report on the race, and that suggests the lightest of damage. Given the number of offs I had, especially the speed of 3/4, I'm amazed the car was not worse - must mean all the semi-random handling difficulties came from the update issue....

Couldn't race but made sure the boys weren't watching videos - kept UKGPL3 nice and clean...

 :-\ , Billy say : Accordingly there will be no handicap at this race.

I don't see that and I take a Lola

As usual, I missed my departure then I rode regularly enjoying the track outputs of other drivers.
Finally, if the bandit Jonny  :wetfish: had not come I would have finished on the podium (unfortunately the Brazilians went in winter time this week)
I'm not fast at Brands Hatch so I am very pleased with this result especially without my Matra .

Congratulations to my team leader for his victory

Hi....
...bad luck for the freezz screen guys, :-\ I can't do nothing to follow you :P, to mutch lags specialy in turn 1 & 2...and then you desepear in the same time exactly in front of me  :o!.....So it's a lucky victory for me

....can't be there for Watkins, see you all in Jarama....

....ciao tutti la tribue !

Just noticed the results from this race are missing from the standings page for the division. It's like the race is not even part of the championship.

In fact,  this round is currently listed under "Non-Championship Races";  no doubt this will be updated soon enough! :)




What's wrong with the Lola?  UKGPL3 thought it was a good idea...!


Jumped on the practice server last night & just as well,  found the track would not load for me.   It had worked ok in the past.  Didn't bother investigating,  just downloaded again from the link in the event details.  During the race, no disconnections/issues for me,  although if I was being picky;  maybe the frame-rate seemed a little low sometimes on the run to the hairpin.  But was probably still running approx 35FPS.  Maybe I should have turned the graphics level down a little, but not actually a real problem.

Lucky to have started from 6th.  Had a good run with Fran for a while, my fastest lap of the race was after an excursion & pushing to catch up again.
Also lucky when the engine gave out exiting the last corner on the last lap;  hence engaging whisper-mode over the finish line!


Cheers all.
Dave.

Apologies to Al for the bunt going into Paddock.  And I'd backed out of the gas early, too.  Sigh...  Only the lap prior, I was thinking to myself, 'Well...  Here we go again.  Another 'Al & Doni Show'.  Al and I have had some fine battles in the past and this was shaping up to be another memorable affair.

Ultimately, I hooked up with Natan and we had a grand old tussle til I clipped the cones in Paddock and lost a corner.  That should really never happen.  The cones are way over spec for collision strength.

A fine drive by Tristan to score a good win.  Well done!  :)  Great job by the Deaners, Dean Logan & Dean Wayman, to finish P2 and P3, respectively.

Downer about all the freezes.  :(

I was really peed off lastnight. After getting a good feel on race fuel and down to a 1:37+ consistently, I went onto the server, joined the track, clicked the green button to get on track and..........stuck in the straw bales at the pits.  Tried several times, even exited the server and came back on- no joy. Tried a different car-still no luck.
So, yet another bust for me. S24 could be going the way of S23.

Yeah - I had the same thing.   As soon as materialised in the pitlane,   hit the bales.
During practice/qually,  in order to get to the track without bale-damage;  I ended up having to perform a shift-R as soon as I landed in the pitlane.
Not the ideal way of joining the session,  but seemingly no other way.

Cheers,
Dave.,   

Had no problems with track, uninstalled my old Brands and installed Ginettos from SRMZ quote (here is Ginetto's Brands Hatch 67 high res , updated and fixed (with installer) , thanks go to Dave Sabre for allowing permission for this to be released .

 Ginetto has updated some of gfx and fixed a number of problems with the track like the weird bump at the exit of the pits and the disco problems , so now you should be able to enjoy Brands Hatch in full high res without the worry of getting a disco online . hopefully brands can now be taken off some leagues track blacklists ). All I did was turn down the graphics slider in GPL to get better fps going past the pits.

Got in the 1.35s in quall but could not match JohnnyO 1.34s, in race had wrong setup and worried about fuel, sure enough half way through last lap car started to cough and just managed to crawl over finish line.

Grats to JohnnyO on a great win.

Thanks to Pierre D and Tintin for moving over when being past.

Not sure how GPL models fuel usage, if you drive slower does it go further, or do you use the same amount per lap however you drive.

ROGUK : Not sure how GPL models fuel usage, if you drive slower does it go further, or do you use the same amount per lap however you drive.


If you are slower you consume less fuel :  it takes me 10% less fuel than a fast Pilot ( I tested that many times )
but beware of consumption indicated by GPL, especially the mods so I make a test during a training . ( I seem to remember that if there is no TrackF2.ini, the value is calculated from the F1 Brabham )

I have that, still a screen freeze though. It doesn't happen with older mods, just GTs and F2s.

Same here  :(
Would be interesting to know if all the freezes occurred at the same time, at least those on lap 11 and mine at 10 lap. I was exiting from right hander after the back straight.
Ciao

Thanks for that info ed76.

RE: freezes i had no probs.... using opengl/ati radeon 4800/driver 8.620.0.0/amd quad cpu/3gb ram/win7, but from whats been said here it must just be an anomaly as we all have different computers and on some other tracks i have had freezes or discos when other drivers have had none.

 Thanks.....
 This track is very well known to me.
 Occasionally ever see me running it in other leagues,it makes things easier
and the default setup was perfect ... heheheeh

Sorry about the discos on the Lights race. Possibly Hristo, Evil, Al & Fulvio in one event, Sky & Doni on separate occasions. This is still less than half the entrants so I am proposing to let the race stand, rather than a re-run.
Hopefully we can keep the track rather than blacklist as it has been reasonably reliable in the past - & remains a classic F1 track.

I do like Brands Hatch as a circuit as it has so many different corners and elevation changes, give me Brands Hatch in place of Silverstone any time.
It does look like there was a 4 man disco judging by the race report. Certainly Hristo and myself were bounced out together just when our race was getting very interesting.
Initially I thought that my PC gremlins had struck and yet another mouse almost went for recycling against the wall. Fortunately ( for the mouse at least!) I logged into Srou and Hristo had already posted, and then into the chatroom and Fulvio was there too, so I did not feel quite so bad. 
I'm still a little miffed that I missed out on a chance for a win, or at least 2nd spot on one of my favourite tracks but such is life in GPL?

Grats to those who finished and to those who climbed the podium steps

I've sorted out the import - race results should be back in the table now - wasn't very well Sunday/Monday so you will have to excuse my tardiness.

Just noticed that 5 of the 7 discos were Brabhams, and most of those were kicked out at the same time???

I cannot conceive of any way that a particular car is more prone to disco than any other. I always knew that green cars were bad news, maybe Mrs Fujikawa knew something that we don't? White is best? lol

Odd... when I raced F2 in Mybroga I was driving the Protos and never had a single disco. It's worth avoiding the green car perhaps.

this is a racist thread afterall  ;D


see what I did there  :o

hi.. if I come to Watkins, witch car I can use ?

    thx 8)

Good question Trisan. Looking at the championship tables the leaders are building up enough of a gap to make the handicap sensible. So for Watkins Glen the leader has the Cooper. 2nd & 3rd places can take the Cooper, either Lotus or either Lola. If any of these drivers are feeling very confident they can also take the Ferrari or the BT14.

Mod report now posted.

Thx for your job, Billy!

Great report Billy thnx  :)