SimRacing.org.uk

GTC-TC-76 Night Race

Free car choice within the GTC-TC-76 class.

ALL SimRacing.org.uk members welcome.

Date: Friday 21st March

Practice: 8:15pm (30 mins)
Qual: 8:45pm (30 mins)
Race: 9:15pm (16 laps)

Track: Spa-Francorchamps GP
Race Time Of Day Setting: 19:00 (Starts dusk, finishes night!)

Server: UKGTL Fun Race
Password: usual practice password (https://www.simracing.org.uk/smf/index.php?topic=2929)

The start procedure will be ROLLING START as per UKGTL Season 0-B and 0-C.

Awww, crap, why are the 70's races always on a weekend night? (fri/sat)...i'm never in on those nights :'(

I'm either out on the tiles or at the mercy of the missus :ninja:

 ;D

She'll get over it. In time...  :wetfish:

We know that Mark m8!

Bloody hell... Some people never get the hints...

 :P :P :P :jumpjoy: :cowboy: :shifty: :scared: :clap:

T

hehe, nice one Tyf  ;)

ya crazy loon....  :P

S'pose you'll be taking the Austin Allegro for this one, knowing your penchant for all cars that are a complete handful and slow  ;D

If Mark can't make it, I'll be there  ;).

If I find the 76ers as tricky as normal it might be final effort at breaking them. I just don't understand how to drive them and I'll pick the BMW as its a little more predictable. Aaah, if they had the chocolate brown Allegro with that Rolls Royce like grill    O0.

You must mean the 'Vanden Plas' Austin Allegro....jeez what a fine piece of 70's styling that was  ::)

You can just imagine them putting a house brick with a gate bolted to the front in a windtunnel, and saying, 'man, this baby will fly'  ??? ;D
What a flagship for British engineering in the 70's  ::)

was'nt that the rip off of the Maxi?

Vanden Plas

Uuh, a Rover is wot I'm thinking of now?!

:P

T

t'other way round I think????

What does this mean? Is this secret code for pubbin then sleeping in sewers or thatching the roof?

Tiles - as in dancefloor. Bleedin' septics. :P

That's right, you still have discos in Europe.

I have disco's in GTR sometimes...

I'll be there for this ... only prob is I've recent had computer probs, so not got GTL installed and haven't got my save game now either .... so I'll be looking for a shortcut to getting my garage back this evening!!

I'll turn up too, though I'm not gonna be getting any practice in beforehand.  Takes far too long to do a lap!  Kind of curious why we keep doing all these long tracks when there are much shorter ones conducive to better racing ??? especially as only 15-ish tend to turn up.

LMFAO!

 :jumpjoy: :eek: :cowboy: :drool: :scared: :walkman: :walkman: :walkman: :detective: :wub: :wub: :wub: :tt1: :tt1: :tt1: :angel-wings:

That had me in stitches... Prolly the sun and the wine today, haha!

:punk:

T

Spa was chosen for tonights race because as a night race special I've found Spa to be one of the best for testing the driver. It has VERY dark bits as well as street lamp lit bits. Many of the other tracks are too well illuminated, so as this is a special night race I felt it nice to have the contrast and challenge the driver.

Hope you've all got lots of spare front head lamps!

Doesn't look like I will be there :( for some reason my PC refuses to realise my Wingman FF wheel isn't my DFP and wont load the drivers for it >:( even if I've plugged in the DFP beforehand.  I've re-started several times and no luck, might have to look for new pedals sooner rather than later! :-\

Hope you guys enjoyed that. I didn't :-\, wrong car choice aided by some poor driving saw me drop out sooner than I had wished for.
Still it was looking like it might be a good race

Think I'm going to leave those 76 cars alone in future:-[

I'm with you Don, they are not my cup of tea. More minis please  :P.

Thanks for making it interesting Mo  ;D. All that showboating took me back 10 years. Sliding like it was 1999 again.

Night time looked great. But not interesting enough to hide the low turnout.

Really enjoyed that- thanks for sorting a night race. It was really atmospheric to turn the last corner and see lines of headlights streaming through Eau Rouge in the distance. Great once it got to about 8 and the cockpit got pitch black too- just the motec light on and the road ahead :)

Fairly uneventful for me, got a 4th in qual and had some great tussles along the way to end 5th. My fps are still shocking in GTL and I've run out ofthings to try which is depressing. Before teh re-format I had 80+, now, with reduced quality settings and no AF I'm down below 20 at points. V frustrating and might well spoil future GTL races too  >:(

Came back from work at 22pm (GMT+1), saw that there was a fun race, so I went online and joined.
Just to see that there was only 3 minutes on the clock till race :oops:
No time to put a time in, so I started last/14th (last, that's a first  ;)).
In the warm-up lap and the first 2 laps, the FPS dropped to 14 at some points :-[.

In the warm-up lap, I won 2 places because 2 guys infront spun the car ;D, and I'm not gonna what for that :P.
In the race I went from last, to first in 5 laps :D. Then I had Shark behind me for some time, but in the twisty section I could hold him off, and on the straight, well, the Pantera does the work :).
I just had to be carefull not to fall asleep with the night setting and being all alone for 5 or more laps. ::)

The night race was a little strain on the eyes but not unbearable and my frame rates were OK. Dunno what would've happened with more cars but tonight was good ;D A PB in qually and apart from 2 spins at eau rouge everything was dandy. I was surprised to be able to continue after 2nd crash at eau rouge, I went around the right hand bit flat out in 4th but the car just kept turning, so I hit the arm-co full on at a very fast speed but had no damage to the car ??? In fact I seemed to go quicker after that ??? ???
Nice race overall, just managed to mug Loc on the last lap for 3rd ;D But then when I saw that Ruskus had won thought WTF!!! Dunno where he came from but Grats on the win Rusk 8)

Qualified 2nd behind Jon in my fastest yet time round Spa in any car 2:41.454.

Managed to get the tow behind Jon on the big straight and took the lead on the first flying lap. Next lap Jon lost it in Eau Rouge in big style and that left me all alone. Quite a few laps later and I changed down too many gears at the end of the long straight causing my back end to fly out and me lose it in the braking. This left Ruskus right on my tail after his early charge through the field and me with only 1 working light  :helpsmilie:. I could barely see him though as it looked in my mirrors like he didn't have any lights on (is that another minor online glitch? everyone else I could see lights on though), he was stalking me like a dark assasin  :ninja:. Wasn't long before he passed me easily on power down the start finish straight. Stayed with him for a few laps where I could then see his lights after a few corners, he was flying away on the straights and i was catching in the corners and braking. My eyes were on stalks though  :eek: with only one light working and it was getting darker and darker. Eventually on the last lap I lost it in a similar vein to Jon through Eau Rouge and took out the other light (at least it didn't kill the car - poor damage modelling!!). Driving with no lights for the last lap in pitch black was horrendous. You can't even see the corner yard markers. Was hellish, but managed to keep it together with some slower driving to come in 2nd.

Congrats Ruskus. Another fine win. Love that Pantera, must try and see if I can get a good setup together for the beast.

Oh and FPS were very smooth on mine at night, pretty high detail and it never once dropped badly. Then again i only had lots of cars in the mirror not in front.

Still very tired from not having slept properly for a week but decided to take the Capri out at a sensible pace and see what places I could make up by attrition.

Made a bit of a meal of the start, being too far behind the pack down the hill. At least I had a bit of space to play with.

Most of the race seemed to consist of JonM getting onto the back of me in his 906, spinning and then repeating. Maybe it only happened once... seemed more frequent! Then more 906s getting by when my tyre temperatures started to climb and I had a minor off at Stavelot.

Finished the race with both headlights still working and without having spun, despite a massive coughing fit with 3 or 4 to go, so pretty pleased really, especially as I did less than 15 minutes of practice yesterday and none today.

Oh yeah, how the **** did I manage to (temporarily) get fastest race lap somewhere around lap 3 or 4?! Were you lot sightseeing or something? :laugh:

FPS were okay once the race was underway but quite bad on the warmup lap, especially at the Bus Stop, down to 20 or 25. :o

I did about 30 to 60 minutes of practice, using netKar Pro at completely different circuits with completely different cars.  :P
(Usual GTL race for me, turn up having done no practice and go, go, go!)

I had my lights off in the first few minutes, so it should not be a bug. Reason for this was because I didn't find it very dark, en there were casr infront so I could see clearly :laugh:.
All the cars I overtook were by error, and not me. Gonna make a video of that, just because I like making them now :D.

Starting at the back was fun, but I didn't think I would come close to winning. At the rolling start I couldn't even see the number 1.
I saw that JonM did a time of 2:41.xxx, luckily he didn't drive that the whole race, or else it will be 1st at the start, and 1st at the finish for JonM.

I might start more often at the back. It was fun blasting through the (small) field.
Before the race I had to put some more fuel in then in qually. But I stopped at 100l of fuel. That's like driving with you mother in law in the passenger seat :wheelchair:. That amount of fuel was enough for 20 laps. Might look like way too much, but with my driving style, my car normally uses 2 laps more of fuel, just by drifiting and powersliding :taz:

Edit: My replay wasn't saved well, so I need somebody else's :-*

My head told me I wouldn't enjoy this, partly because I hadn't driven GTL 76s for months but mainly because it was a night race. My heart OTOH told me to race or I would regret missing out. I should have listened to my head...

I just cannot see the point of night races. It's hard enough trying to control a racing car using a pixelated 17 inch monitor and no sense of G forces, but to then turn the lights off seems daft to me. Real sprint races are not normally done at night, so why are we? To add insult to injury the practice was done in the daytime, so there was no chance to get used to the lack of visual cues. As I expected, after a few laps I missed my braking point because I couldn't see it and slid off.

Unless there is a really good reason to compete, I won't be doing any more night races. Life's to short to spend an hour and a half doing something ultimately frustrating and unenjoyable.

Paul

Server replay (http://ukgtl.simracing.org.uk/Spa-Francorchamps%20fun%20060421.zip)

Well it's nice to know some people appreciate something different even if there are some moaners out there.

You can please some of the people some of the time but not all of the people all of the time.

In 2 months there have been two 76 races. I couldn't attend the first and the second was a night race. Since I like the 76 cars I'm just frustrated to miss out on any normal 76 racing. I would rather have seen a 65 tc night race (where the cars are easier to handle), and I would certainly have prefered to practice in the same conditions as the race.

I think we are all entitled to a moan sometimes, even you.

Paul

You could've done that offline though.. :P

The game does not have the option to set the server to have any particular time setting for practice settings in multiplayer games and as Gizmo says practice can be done off-line.

Some people expressed an interest in having a night race once in a while so we had one. It's the first one we've had since the ONE in Season 0. It can hardly be said we're always having night races. Time of day setting is a nice option in GTL so it's nice to use it once in a while as we've had ALL day races since Season 0.

I just wish people had the sense to see their own faults, not the organisers of the race or the fact that it's a game so you can't feel real sensations with it.

One of the chief reasons why the wet weather is set beforehand in GTR is so all sessions are run in the same conditions, surely it's not unreasonable to expect a night race to have night practice also?  However, I had no idea sessions could not be individually set and I expect Paul didn't either or he wouldn't have asked why it wasn't different!

I'm glad the GTL races are being varied but with the slowness of even the GTC-76's and smaller grids I'd prefer shorter tracks to keep the racing more interesting, but that's my opinion and not a complaint.

My main PC is totally flumped atm so wont be even trying to run GTL on my old systems Ti4600 gfx card, even if it's daylight! :P

I genuinely enjoyed the night race last night, primarily because it was something different from a graphica point of view and provided a new challenge in terms of driving. We rarely make use of the excellent lighting effects GTL has. At the end of the day, it was just a fun race so if you don't like them then surely you could have just given it a miss?

I know my own faults Simon thx. That's exactly why I don't like night races, because I know I will miss a braking point and crash at some stage. I simply don't have the time (let alone the inclination) to practice for night racing - I can think of few things less enjoyable or more pointless.

I wasn't aware that you couldn't set time for the the qualifying period, so I take back the comment about practicing in race conditions.

I never said we were always having night races, merely that I couldn't see the point of racing at night. Clearly some of you like it, but I don't understand why.

As I said, this is more about me being frustrated than anything else. I've waited 2 months for a 76 race and the first chance I get is to race at night. I just wish I had listened to myself and done something else instead. Whatever, you won't hear me complain again since I wont race anymore at night.

 

If anyone has a preference for a short track to use then please reply. We have complaints about bad corners at short tracks and also that the short tracks dont give the 76 cars chance enough to stetch their legs, so we either put up with a few bad 1st gear corners, don't let the 76 cars get circuits they are more suited for or we have very unvaried track choice on short tracks.

How about Dijon Short with 76 cars next week? Gonna change it to Thursday as the recent poll suggest thursday is the best night overall.

One thing'd be cool would be minis at mondello short... :wheelchair: :wheelchair: :wheelchair:

Dijon short with GTC-76s would be cool  :thumbup1:

I like driving at night. Just what was said in the briefing, Spa is a beautiful track at night. The light start/finish section, and the darler back.
It also looks cool to see cars with their headlights on, driving up Eau Rouge. It's the little bit more atmosphere, or maybe a bit more of a challenge for me. It also makes you watch your car better, 2 broken headlights and your are either blind for the whole race, or you have to do a pitstop. This prevents kamikaze-overtaking (I think  ;)).
It was a good change for once with a field of 14. More and it would have been more problematic.
And I disagree on the big-track thing. I hate those short tracks (Hock-short, Mondello short, Anderstorp short etc.), especially in the 76 class. Shorter tracks don't give closer racing, it only cause more people to be lapped, which can result in more incidents.

Thnx, but the downloaded file doesn't work. It's no .vcr, and even changing the name to .vcr doesn't work either.

It's a zip file - you need to extract it.

Oops :-[, I feel dumb now :laugh:. But the image of the file was the same of a .vcr file. It didn't change in a zip-file-image. ::)

The VCR files are Zip files themselves, that's why they don't compress at all with Zip. ;) But it's useful to Zip them up anyway, partly so the results exports can go in the archive, and partly so that when you download them you can check their integrity instead of just loading them into the game and hoping.

Well it was a spur of the moment decision to race and I have to say I really enjoyed the night racing.
I turned off the lights (in the house) after a couple of laps and it was way better, and easier to see. I was totally immersed in it and was lucky enough to have great fps too.
Just occured to me afterwards that leaving the lights on while night racing is a bit like racing with the car interior light on LOL

Had a blast with SBG and really enjoyed the close racing - glad to hear you enjoyed too m8 cause when you left I thought I had pissed you off or somthing :-*

Anyway, here's a picture of why I enjoy night racing, especially with graphics as good as GTL
(http://www.kerbcrawlers.net/ezupload/files/mo/spa_night3.jpg)

I made a video of the race. This is only my 3rd video, and I enjoy making them, so every material I get for a video, I grap with both hands :D.
This video should not be taken seriously, I was just surprised how it turned out. This time the song is Eye of the tiger, because I felt like Rocky heading towards an impossible win  :gun_bandana:....oops, that's the other Stallone :nono:

Rapidshare (http://rapidshare.de/files/18687319/UKGTL.wmv.html)

You guys know more host sites, besides Rapidshare and easy-sharing? Thanks in advance, and hope you enjoy the vid. :D

How do I download that Ruskus?

I've never worked out RapidShare. Must be missing something obvious. I click on your link, then i click on the FREE button near the bottom. It comes up with another page which i can't see any links on to actually download the file, just a load of payment options at the bottom.

You have to wait while a download timer thing ticks down, then some choices and a "type these 3 characters to prove that you're not a robot" box comes up.

"I think he didn't see me with my lights off" - er, no, Paul had just gone off and I was avoiding running into the back of him as he rejoined!

ps. Driving without lights at night is not big and not clever and not allowed by our rules. If you really want to run without headlights you always have the option of making some cosmetic adjustments by driving headlong into a barrier. :P

What about harrasing people during the warm up lap?  ;)

cutting room floor I think Don  :D

All the comments were not to be taken seriously. I didn't look at the names of drivers in replay, so I don't even know who is who, so I hoep nobody is insulted by this video.
But the start for me wasn't dark at all. Later in the race it became darker so I turned my headlights on.

Oh, I wasnt harrasing, but I was warming up my brakes. Accelerating, and then slamming the brakes while holding the throttle a little. Not warming the brakes is a common mistake in warm-up laps. Everybody swirve (sp?) from left to right to warm the tires, but they forget the brakes.

Video has moved here...
http://www.tyfdesk.com/simracing/ruskus/vids/UKGTL.wmv