SimRacing.org.uk

1955 Grand Prix - Round 8 – Castle Combe

The eigth race in the 1955 Grand Prix series is in at Castle Combe, a motor racing circuit in Wiltshire, England, approximately 20 miles (32 km) from Bristol. The circuit is based on the perimeter track of a former World War II airfield, and was opened for racing in 1950. The Castle Combe airfield opened in May 1941 on land of the Castle Combe estate, owned by the Gorst family, operating as RAF Castle Combe for seven years before being decommissioned in 1948. It was a fighter-base for Polish airmen. Castle Combe Circuit opened in 1950, and the first meeting was staged on 8 July by the Bristol Motorcycle & Light Car Club. Over the next few years, the circuit attracted star names such as Stirling Moss, Mike Hawthorn, Roy Salvadori and John Surtees. The circuit's first motorcycle event was in 1952, organised by the Wessex Centre.

Castle Combe has staged many different motorsport disciplines over the years. In 1997, Nigel Greensall established a new lap record. His Tyrrell 022 lapped the circuit at 130.93 mph (210.71 km/h). However, this was the last year that the circuit would remain unaltered. A tragic accident involving the death of a spectator forced the owners into installing two new chicanes in order to slow the cars down. The new layout was slightly longer at 1.85 miles (2.98 km), and was completed over the winter of 1998-1999. Formula Three returned to Castle Combe in 2001. However, it would not stay long. In 2005, the circuit was issued with a noise nuisance order, which meant that the circuit had to reduce its noise level. The British Formula Three Championship and the British GT Championship were both louder than permitted, and so were prevented from returning.
 
Carefully read the rules on the championship standings page (https://www.simracing.org.uk/smf/index.php?action=LM2R&group=639&theme=6).

Race list	iGOR
Server	UKGPL_4
IP address	95.144.125.170
Date	26-08-2018
Track	ccombe (http://srmz.net/index.php?showtopic=1071)
Mod	55F1 with 60fpsV2newmod
Damage	PRO long
Race time	~ 21:30 UK time
Qualifying	20:45 UK time - 45 minutes
Race length	41 laps
Replay	here (ftp://ftp.ukgpl9.co.uk:32122/Season33/55GP)

Please restrict chat to emergency messages only including at the end of the race until ALL drivers still racing have crossed the line.

Password: see above (#post_event_password)
Driver lists can be found on the championship standings page (https://www.simracing.org.uk/smf/index.php?action=LM2R&group=639&theme=6)

Handicapping and chassis allocation.
This season the 1955 Grand Prix cars will be using a token system which allows drivers to purchase any chassis of their choice for a given number of tokens as published on the championship standings page (https://www.simracing.org.uk/smf/index.php?action=LM2R&group=639&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 table 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
bagrupp	15	Pro
Clive Loynes	18	Pro
Doni Yourth	30	Pro
EvilClive	18	Pro
fpolicardi	6	Am
francesco	9	Am
Phil Thornton	5	Am
DLogan	10	Am
Gareth	10	Am
Jeep	7	Am
Uli	6	Pro
FullMetalGasket	80	Pro
Will Tway	5	Pro
Baab	18	Am
Cookie	10	Pro
Samb	10	Pro
Ziu Bacubacu	5	Pro

I won't be Racing this one. I'm going trekking on Dolomiti for two days.
Ciao

Will there be a practice server at any time?

Practice server is up on IGOR

just losing all fun on gpl.

When the flag drops every car dissapeared and server drops me after 3 corners.

During practice I found that if I went off backwards at the esses then GPL would CTD.  In qually I had a screen freeze just after that point.

So I was quite relieved to see all 41 laps.

I realised that I had just one chance to be in front of Evil, and that would be off the line.  I gave it everything and managed to compromise his line into the esses.  His elbows must have gone supersonic to catch the lurid slides that he had as a result but catch them he did.

After that there was no way that I could do anything about Evil unless he did something daft.  Always a hope!  ;-)

Tim was an unknown quantity but once I saw that I was pulling away I was happy to nail second place and settled down to reel off the laps.

Grats to Evil.  Great pace in the Maserati.

I'm going to have to find some more speed in the next one or Evil will breeze past me for the championship.  :-(

WD to all finishers.

Sorry to hear that Bastian. I'm not sure there is anything I can do to improve the server.

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
bagrupp	15	Pro
Clive Loynes	13	Pro
Doni Yourth	30	Pro
EvilClive	16	Pro
fpolicardi	6	Am
francesco	7	Am
Phil Thornton	15	Am
DLogan	8	Am
Gareth	10	Am
Jeep	7	Am
Uli	6	Pro
FullMetalGasket	90	Pro
Will Tway	5	Pro
Baab	18	Am
Cookie	10	Pro
Samb	10	Pro
Ziu Bacubacu	5	Pro

Thanks, i think we will never find out.

After the last disco i turned off wifi connection and use only wired, that didn't help

A little disappointed that we had such a small grid, maybe the Bank Holiday affected the numbers??
I find that Castle Combe is a strange circuit for me, I always feel that it is a small track where power is not so important. But, somehow that does not translate into my lap times and power does count here.
I did a few exploratory laps in the Connaught and was able to get it into the mid 1:08's on race fuel, but at the cost of a molten rear left tyre after 3 laps, which would result in the tail simply slewing around and spinning the car.
 I tried some tweaks to the diff and shocks to try and tame the tyre, but could not find a reasonable solution that worked. So I rolled out the Mazzer, simply because I had a setup from previous races to start with. Although the laptimes were not much different, I could at least keep some control over that rear left tyre.
I guessed that Clive would try to get his Lancia ahead of me at the start and with his extra grunt he might prove difficult to get past? I was prepared to hammer the engine off the line and abuse the brakes for the first laps to get ahead and stay ahead. He is right that I was under pressure on lap 1 into Quarry. I knew he was somewhere very close, so I left the braking as late as possible and wrestled the beast through the corner.
Brakes were not really an issue for me in either car. After 2-3 laps at race pace the brakes would never really fully recover between Quarry ( Clive's Esses ) and Tower, then Tower to Quarry again. So, I adopted a "coast and downshift" to get through Camp and Old Paddock. This probably resulted in a few tail out slides, but provided that I watched the rear tyre temps, those slides were quite controllable.

Gradually I eased away from Clive and was able to relax a little, but I am always capable of making a dumb mistake and handing the race to someone else. As the race progressed I found that the less braking I did, the faster I was lapping. I almost succumbed to the temptation of a 1:06 lap that Pribluda was promising, towards the end of the race, but a couple of grass cutting excursions curtailed that idea!!!

Grats to Clive and Tim, and to all the finishers. Sorry to hear about the disco issues.

LOL  Shame.  Every time that I spotted the rubber marks on the track I was hopeful of finding a Maserati hung on the fence around the next corner.  But it never happened.  You will have to try harder!  ;-)

During the grass cutting episodes I was acutely aware of the potential look of joy on Clive's face  :o, if he was to sweep past a stranded Maserati that late in the race!!! That mental image did a great deal to control my urge for a lap record  ;)

The next round at Syracuse might be a totally different challenge.  Missing the braking point and running wide on that track is probably not a good idea  ::) Not even once?  :scared: Even hanging the tail out a little too much might have dire consequences!!??


Clive is still in front on points, so it is his championship to lose over the final two rounds. I will have to go for the win at each race to steal the silverware??

Anything could happen in the next two rounds but it certainly looks like someone called Clive is going to win the championship. Tim will need a run of good fortune if he is to overhaul the leaders.

Good luck Clive and Clive, you've both driven brilliantly this season. I hope the server behaves itself and you have a fair fight to the finish.

Moderation published.