SimRacing.org.uk

Season 32 Historic Trophy – Round 5 - Zandvoort

The fifth race in the Historic series takes us to Zandvoort in the Netherlands.  On 7 August 1948, the first race was held on the new permanent Zandvoort circuit. Soon more races followed on the course, with the first official Formula 1 Grand Prix becoming a milestone in 1952. Up until the mid-eighties, heroes like Alberto Ascari, Juan Manuel Fangio, Stirling Moss, Graham Hill, Jim Clark, Jackie Stewart, James Hunt, Nelson Piquet and Alain Prost braved the challenging course in the Dutch dunes and won at Zandvoort. After the Grand Prix of 1985, the Formula 1 left Zandvoort, but the seaside resort and its impressive race track were not forgotten. Many years after the last Grand Prix, the ‘racing drivers of the day’ still talk about their experience on the race track where the challenging corners ‘separated the men from the boys’.
 

Race List	=	IGOR
Server	=	UKGPL_4
IP Address	=	2.24.206.249
Race date	=	19-11-2017
GPL mod	=	66F1
60fps patch used	=	60fpsV2newmod
Track	=	Papyrus Original
Qualification	=	20:45  UK time -> 45min
Race	=	race starts at ~21:30 UK time
Race length	=	~50 min -> 32 laps
Damage Model	=	PRO
Replay	=	here (ftp://ftp.ukgpl9.co.uk:32122/Season32/Historics)

Password: see above (#post_event_password)

Driver lists and divisional rules can be found on the championship standings page (https://www.simracing.org.uk/smf/index.php?action=LM2R&group=618&theme=6)

Only reported incidents will be moderated, there is no Red Zone.

Handicapping and chassis allocation.
This season the Historics will be using a token system which allows drivers to purchase any chassis of their choice, 2 litre or 3 litre, for a given number of tokens as published on the championship standings page (https://www.simracing.org.uk/smf/index.php?action=LM2R&group=618&theme=6). Drivers classed as Amateurs will be allocated an additional 10 tokens.  The token allocation will not be managed in SRou this season so (unlike the 67F1 Works and 67F1 Privateer divisions) the tokens available to each driver will not appear in the championship table (when the mouse pointer is hovered over the driver's total).  Rather, the available tokens will be published in the race announcement.  See below.

Available Tokens:
Note: These are the tokens available to each driver before the 10 tokens are added for making the race start.

Driver	Tokens	Status
AnGex	2	Pro
Arf Arf Arf	10	Pro
Billy Nobrakes	15	Am
DLogan	8	Pro
Doni Yourth	19	Pro
EvilClive	17	Pro
francesco	13	Am
FullMetalGasket	17	Pro
MagicArsouille	3	Pro
Phil Thornton	17	Am
Rainier	15	Am
bagrupp	6	Am
fpolicardi	12	Am
Gareth	26	Am
JonnyO	20	Am
Robert Fleurke	10	Pro
Ronniepeterson	35	Pro
Lalethor	3	Pro
Cookie	1	Pro
Syd Drake	20	Pro
Geoff65	20	Am
Kai J.Daum	20	Am

I have problem with IGOR, is possible to have IP?

Also this race nothing to do,this time gatherer(i don't know if is correct) broken.

Great racing while it lasted Andreas  8)

Good luck to yourself and everyone still running.

a little mistake early on and I was dead last. came back to 5/6th and then disco'd with 4 to go. gotta love BT.
grats to Tim and Lale, very quick.

I've loaded the chassis the drivers used into the token calculator spreadsheet.  For the next race the available tokens will be as declared in the table below (the table will also appear in the next race announcement).  The calculated values are automated but selecting the cars is a manual process so please check your tokens to make sure I haven't made a silly error.  There was no token overspend for this round so no one is disqualified.

Available Tokens:
Note: These are the tokens available to each driver before the 10 tokens are added for making the race start.

Driver	Tokens	Status
AnGex	6	Pro
Arf Arf Arf	14	Pro
Billy Nobrakes	15	Am
DLogan	12	Pro
Doni Yourth	24	Pro
EvilClive	19	Pro
francesco	18	Am
FullMetalGasket	22	Pro
MagicArsouille	3	Pro
Phil Thornton	11	Am
Rainier	13	Am
bagrupp	6	Am
fpolicardi	10	Am
Gareth	25	Am
JonnyO	20	Am
Robert Fleurke	10	Pro
Ronniepeterson	42	Pro
Lalethor	7	Pro
Cookie	6	Pro
Syd Drake	20	Pro
Geoff65	20	Am
Kai J.Daum	20	Am

That was an unexpectedly good race! (I say unexpected as I nearly stayed dozing on the sofa in front of the fire with the dog).
I wasn't sure how well I could qualify as I was gambling on a half decent finish using a low point cost car. The Lotus 25/33 isn't terrible with the BRM lump but it isn't as good as the BT11 - which I expected to see Clive driving.

As it turned out my qualifying place was good enough for 5th with out tow, but near the end of the session I got lucky and found myself behind Fulvio in his big Cooper.
I wasn't too happy with my lap behind him but it was enough to promote me to 2nd.

I bogged down slightly at the start of the race but managed to beat Axel's Eagle to Tartan.
Then it was a case of hanging on to Lalethor until my tires came up to temp.
Once warm I had no difficultly keeping up with his Ferrari, but I'm not convinced I could have made a pass and stayed ahead without help.
Which he kindly gave me on lap 10 with a trip into the dunes  ;D

That put me 9 seconds clear, but with 20odd laps to go. And I was pretty sure he could run faster than my Lotus when out of the draft. Sure enough I was right, every 2 or 3 laps my lead would drop by a second - I was frantically calculating if I could reach the end of the race before I was caught  and decided it was unlikely.
Then I got my 2nd break, Alessandro made another trip into the dunes and increased the gap to 12 seconds!

Great I thought, but no, I went and put a wheel into the sand with 2 to go and also span.
Prib showed 250yds to the 2nd place car and I was in trouble - but Alessandro chose that very corner to spin on again and I managed to get away to a safe victory.

Despite not seeing another car for 27 laps that was a very hard race, I couldn't stop concentrating throughout.

Well done to Alessandro and Fulvio for the podium and to all finishers for finishing. I'm also impressed by the pace of the field here. The only car I lapped was a struggling Phil, who crashed shortly after I lapped him - I hope I didn't help that off in anyway.

Grats to the podium and the finishers.

I was looking forward to this race on a track that I like and in a car that is always fun for me.

I had some issues earlier in the evening with GEM and Igor being a little unreliable and had tried to get to the bottom of those issues. During qually I was trying to get myself dialled into the car and circuit, but the G25 did not seem right.
Then GPL froze!??? Duh??? With all the computing power and stuff in my new rig I was not expecting that to happen. Had to switch off at the wall to crash the PC and a total reboot followed.
Got back into the server after much fiddling with GEM and set about getting a qually time. Then with about 10 mins before the start    another freeze??!!
Crashed the PC again and attempted to rejoin but.....
It transpired that Windows10 had decided that GEM Igor was a virus and had disabled all shortcuts and deleted the .exe files from the GPL Secrets file!!!
OK..I'll download and re-install Gem, there might be just time to do this. Not when Win 10 blocks and deletes the download and informs you that it considers the file to have a virus and will not allow it???

I checked the firewall and Igor was still there as an allowed exception but it took me about 10 minutes of digging through the security settings switching various options on/off before I was able to get the download to work. Worryingly the setting that appeared to be blocking the download had a note attached to it that informs me that
" this option can be disabled but will turn on again automatically for your protection in a short while" ?????

I had to use CCleaner, and run it a couple of times, to remove all of the remaining GEM/Igor components before the new install would be accepted.

I obviously missed the race  :-\ :-\ It took me around 30 minutes to get back to a stable and fully operational Gem/Igor, but I am concerned that Win 10 might decide that this is malicious software in the future and simply disable it again???

Same mistake in the same turn  :lol:
Very difficult this track because needed to keep a perfect line, otherwise the various bumps send off and over the dune, this is the reason of the my choice of a 2 Liter car, more confortable than 3.0
Great race and win for you, that 10 laps you're always great in my mirrors!  :D
hope new battle in the nex race!
compliment for finished and Fulvio always constant on the podium

My fault entirely Tim.  I saw you closing fast and decided to let you by on the outside. So I kept an unusual tight line through Jan de Wyker to allow you through.  Trouble is taking a line I haven't practised is risky and I put a wheel on the grass which meant I lost control. Unfortunately for me I clipped the wire fence that happens to be made of fly paper and I was well and truly stuck. Race over. Pity I was hoping to make half distance and grab some points.  :(

Sorry Clive I've no experience of Windows 10 but I do know each GPL exe created by GEM has to be specifically allowed through the firewall on Windows 7 so I guess Win 10 is no different.  Once it has been enabled I'd be surprised if Win 10 decided to overwrite your selection. If put my server up as a 55 practice server.  I suggest you  try and join and see if you have any firewall issues for the 55.exe.

A good race by my standards - finishing on the same lap as the winner counts as good.
I managed to stay in touch with a few of the Pro drivers throughout & an especially tight battle with Andreas.

Clive - hope you fix your PC Gremlins - it can be very frusrating. Have you got to the point of considering slinging the new W10 package out of the window & resurrecting the old computer??

I got 4th on qualy after have gifted a nice tow to Tim on my last lap while I was running out of fuel on the straight  ;D
At the start I was distracted and didn't see the flagman, so the engine bogged down and 4 cars passed me before T1. Well, nice start, I thought...
Then I was behind Doni and easily passed him on the straight with the POWER  ;D
Soon after three cars had problems so I was again 4th, but Doni managed to stay close in the twisty and not too far away on the straight for all the rest of the race, no mistakes for both and a very demanding race for our concentration. Well done Doni!
At some point Axel's engine promoted us to 3rd and 4th.
Ciao

Yeah, was a good battle there with you and later with Billy.  :fencing:

The new rig has come perilously close to experiencing free fall from an upper storey window on several occassions........not a No10 window, I live at No 4  ;)
I have kept the old box...................just in case it all gets too stupid.

From my computer Numpty standpoint it does seem that Windows 10 is capable of making autonomous decisions regarding upgrades/security/ add-ons/ apps etc that are purely based on what Microsoft thinks you should be doing.
It feels like Mr Gates wants us all to use our PC's and his software/cloud/OS for his company's benefit. Old software is not welcome because that means you are not paying for new Apps.
I am discovering more and more processes within Win 10 that are "on" by default ( and even capable of turning themselves back on!!) that are certainly not essential for the running of the PC, but more data gathering operations feeding back to Microsoft.

@ Phil
Yes, I was aware that all the .exe's need to be allowed through the Firewall.
All I can tell you is that the GEM exe ( not the GPL exe's ) vanished along with the desktop icons when GPL froze and I rebooted. I checked the Recycle Bin but nothing there to retrieve.
Gem/Igor was inoperable with exe files missing, so I had the fun of finding and deleting all the remaining elements and battling with Win 10 to download a new install.

I will be trying the server sometime today. Offline at least Gem appears to be working correctly with all mods sorted with the various patches etc back in place.

that's why W7 is still the most used OS...

Did you try something like this: http://uk.pcmag.com/operating-systems-and-platforms/87674/feature/how-to-fix-the-most-annoying-things-in-windows-10

@Francesco
From replay I saw that often you don't leave the throttle when change gears, or you leave pedal too late, like you don't syncronise very well with pedal-shift, maybe is this reason for your engine problem

sorry for english.. now in italian   ;D

Ho visto che spesso quando cambi marcia non molli il gas, e se lo fai è solo quando la "sfollata" è già avvenuta oramai e tutti quei picchi a limitatore forse sono la causa dei tuoi problemi di motore, dovresti provare a cercare di sincronizzarti meglio in quella manovra, prova ad alzare un po prima il gas del regime di cambiata e fallo pure tante volte, poi se è troppo prudente fai delle prove ritardando un poco finchè vedrai che arrivi al punto esatto
é un vero peccato che continui a non finire le gare per gli stessi problemi  :)

Clive - I too have had the hprror show of being denied entry into a new series every time we skip from 67s to 66s etc. Once I had my AV set up OK, I have had no issues. Indeed, as I seem to keep saying in race threads, if anything my GPL experience is far easier than it used to be...

As for this race, I just love Zandvoort. Yes it requires total concentrarion, not something I am known for, but tonight it worked. I got away well, but had a bump with someone on Lap 2 (sorry if that was anything to do with me, have not looked at it), and I rejoined behind a 5 way battle including Billy, Andreas, Dean and Gareth I think. It was amazing to see how close we all were lap after lap, and how frustrating it was for me to fail to get past Billy again and again, as he sped away from me in his fancy 3L car at the start of the straight. I nearly lost it a couple of times trying ever riskier things to stay in his draft, but I got him eventually, perhaps one of my most satisfying overtakes ever :-).

By the time I got past him and the others, my ankle was starting to hurt, and any notions of fighting Dean for position were quickly suppressed as he took a second a lap from me, and I couldn't respond.

Well done to everyone for such a great race.

Thank you Alessandro,i will try to follow your suggestion.

Update...................

I thought that i might try 30mins of practice for the 55 race tonight and choose which car to use.
Fired up the new rig and started GEM.
Selected my 55 driver profile, the 55 carset and Zandvoort.
Started GPL ( offline)
Car in pits FPS 36???
Back out to GEM...60fpsnewmod box is clearly ticked???
Rejoin screen resolution is 600x800????!!!!
Back out to GEM...check Graphics and Rasterizer settings.. all OK at 1920x1080???
into GPL again and we have correct screen resolution and 60FPS??? even though no settings were changed???

OK whatever  ??? Did a few laps and played with setup etc

Then Screen Freeze with horrible buzzing sound!!! Had to crash PC and restart.

Clicked on the desktop icon for GEM and I get a small windows message "fatal error" ??? and GEM will not activate. I cannot get GEM to start so It looks like another fresh install  :-\

Tried the IGOR icon and that fires up OK.

Went into the Events log to see if there were any clues, and at the time that it all went wrong it appears that the "PeopleApp" was initialising???? along with some other admin stuff.

I am wondering if this is similar to the problem that Robert Fleurke had, where he overcame it by mapping one of his pedals to a keystroke so that windows will recognise GPL as a running programme and not "put it to sleep"???

UPDATE 2....

I took the precaution of saving a copy of my GPLsecrets folder after I got things working again on Sunday evening.
So, I tried to delete the now non-functioning GEM software from my HDD, but I got the message that it was "still being used by another programme"?? Very odd, as nothing was showing on the taskbar after a PC reboot?
Fired up Task Manager
There were about 4 instances of GEM listed and apparently running. I assume from my attempts at clicking on the desktop shortcut, but there was no evidence of GEM actually having launched properly.

So, used the "end task" command and removed all of the references to GEM from Task Manager.

Deleted the GPLsecrets folder complete. Deleted the desktop shortcuts then copied and renamed the saved ( working) GPL secrets folder into place.
Created a shortcut and placed on desktop.
Click, and we are operational again ;)

So, whatever happens when GPL freezes also corrupts GEM and its ability to start again  ???. I have now placed a reserve ( renamed) copy of GPLsecrets alongside the current install and kept another copy on a memory stick. At least this way I do not have to do a complete virgin install if it happens again.

I had a lot of problems getting GEM to work properly on XP!

In the end, when I finally sorted it I created separate GPL55.exe files for 36fps and 60fps.  When all else fails I go with those.

In fact, I always use the 36fps.exe when needed instead of messing with GEM.  That is just left on 60fps.

My conspiracy theory is Bill Gates used to play GPL back in the early days but he just could not get the hang of driving cars with no computer assistance. Since then the evil lord of Microsoft has tasked his minions to make GPL increasingly difficult to operate.
On a more serious note my GEM programme has become rather temperamental of late. My technique is that if I change anything I close the programme so it does a rebuild. If you open multiple versions it won't do anything unless I restart the PC. I then take to the track & randomly crash into the crowd if I spot a nerdy computer geek.

14 laps spent trying to find a gap get past you attests. :thumbsup: