SimRacing.org.uk

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RACE ONE (1960's)

Practice: ~19:20 BST (60 mins)
Qualifying: 20:20 BST (10 mins)
Race: 20:30 BST (50 laps)

Track: Darlington Download this (https://www.simracing.org.uk/smf/index.php?topic=3358.msg109873#post_darlington)

Cars allowed: 1960's
Chevrolet Chevelle, Chevrolet Impala, Ford Falcon Sprint, Pontiac GTO
                  
Car restrictions: Three drives maximum per make. Check your car allowance here (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1kJnYnxQnWw8NFb81UkmGwag4_M4M6p9-xaGduhdXkbE/edit?usp=sharing)

Time of Day Setting: 14:00
Start: STANDING
Tyre wear: Normal
Fuel consumption: Normal
Pit stops: Not required

Server: simracing.org.uk Wednesday
Password: see above (#post_event_password)

Notes:
(1) It's best if all drivers can make sure they are connected before the Qualifying session as drivers on track during qualifying will not see cars that join after they are on track until they go back to the garage.
(2) Please make sure you are fully aware of the SimRacing.org.uk Rules.
(3) The AI control should be turned off so that you have control of the car at all times, including pitting. Your player file should therefore read
Autopit="0"
Force Autopit Off="1" // Forces autopit always off
No AI Control="1" // AI never has control over car
If you still finding pitting problematic, experience tells us that its less to do with positioning and more to do with approach speed. A slow approach to pit crew chief has proved most reliable.

Special Notes: Note early race start.

Unfortunately I'll miss these two races due to a friend who is visiting from Wednesday to Saturday.  :(

Have fun guys.

I'll be missing too. Apparently the grandchildren need babysitting, which can be just as tiring as wrestling these beasts around a track!  ::)

If I survive will be back for the following week.

IMPORTANT

Times shown for this event, and all future events, are BST, until stated otherwise.

So 20.30GMT = 21.30BST, so are we going to start the race at 9.30pm British time?

Oh  :censored:

Now corrected  ::)

 :thumbup1:

Results and replay now posted.

These two races proved to be more fun than I expected, turning left all the time does not make for the most exciting track.

First race I was doubtful about making the finish, tyre wear was horrendous on the Impala & I was expecting one of the right side tyres to blow before the end. Anyway I got ahead at the start & gradually pulled away from the Dom/Rog/Matt battle, it got to nearly 5s just before half distance when Dom & Rog dropped down the field leaving Matt in 2nd. Matt slowly started closing the gap but only a tenth or two a lap but with less than 10 laps left the rear tyres suddenly lost what little grip they had & the gap came down more quickly. With 3 laps left I caught a couple of slower cars & was a bit tentative overtaking them & Matt was right on my tail & it was only the Impala's straight line advantage that kept me in front  until the flag.

Second race, again I got ahead at the start but this time my initial small lead was quickly reduced by Matt & Rog. By keeping a tight line through the turns & my GT500's slight speed advantage I kept them behind for many laps. Rog gradually dropped away leaving Matt looking for a way past which he eventually did when I ran wide through T3/4, managed to hang on to him with help from the draft & when he was a little slow off the final turn I got back past on the S/F straight. The last 10 laps were again a challenge, but this time it was the front tyres that lost grip & I could not keep the car from drifting up the bankings & with about 5 laps left Matt got ahead again & took the win.

Congrats to Matt on race 2 win & the other podium fillers.  :clap: :clap: :clap:

Twice last. The Dom-streak is officially over. Normal service has resumed.

It didn't start out bad though. 2nd on the grid and a half decent start which didn't see me dropping positions. Rog was insistent and I had to push harder than intended. That's probably what made tyre wear even worse than in practice and by lap 20 or so the right ones were gone completely. I then should have eased off and let Rog and Matt pass but you know how it is when you're in hard competition. I didn't and my boat became so unmanageable that after coming off the banking the car swerved to the left heavily and side-swiped Rog pushing him into the wall. Sorry again for that, Rog. As that happened about half way race I decided to take my pit stop there and then. I was catching up with people on the new rubbers but as the race went into lap 3x it started to dawn on me that... no one else intented to take a pit stop.  :o ??? I have literally no idea how you guys manage that. Even a single pitstop was barely enough and led to the aforementioned f-up. Baffling.

The Shelby GT 500 was no different in that respect. I would have to take a tyre change no matter how I drove so result-wise race 2 was pointless. Still, I wanted to join in and I just kept out of the way. Still fun.

Have you guys found a way to set up a car asymetrically in GTL? Is that a big SROUK secret for which there is an occult initiation?  :devil: :whistling:

Dom:
Do you use the "Advance Setup" option?  I think most do here, and it allows you to adjust each corner of the car individually Almost have to use it on the ovals for tire wear problem and it still doesn't allow enough caster & camber for the roundy, round racing.  I don't have the link but I'm sure Tony will chime in with it for you if you need or want it.

Both races went well for me and finished better than I expected in each one.  That Impala is fast but it sure is a hand full.  Spent a lot of time trying to get tire wear down on it so it would go all 50L, ran a few half races with the AI offline and doubled the tire wear.  Well the oval racing is done except for Talledega, but it will be the road course/oval version.  Need a much bigger field than we have to make oval racing great fun, but it is a good challenge and different every so often..

Bob M.

https://www.simracing.org.uk/smf/index.php?topic=14422.msg261889#msg261889

Hloody Bell. Ten years of GTL and I hadn't even heard of this.

Thank you, both!

I don't use the asymetric setups thingy. I might do in future, but never have yet.
Not sure of a "secret" to tyre wear, in both races mine were on the smallest red bar at the
right side front or back. But I set the pressures to more or less max, and that helped spread the load
as with normal pressures one edge gets to super plasma temp, the other edge is cool.
Higher pressures should reduce the tyre temp overall, so might extend tyre life.
It "might" also reduce drag, not sure if this simulates tyre drag or not.

Yes it certainly does. Many moons ago we ran a GC Mini series race at Darlington, as you can imagine the Mini is flat out all the way round here. In testing I ran with my normal Mini tyre pressures & then gradually increased them as the right tyres were getting too hot. Discovered that not only did it help keeping the tyres cooler but the car was quicker, so increased to max pressure & went about half a second a lap quicker. Any decrease in grip with the higher pressure didn't matter as the Mini was not quick enough to suffer, whereas with these V8s it was a juggling act between grip & tyre life.

Sorry to have missed these races.

Interesting, reading about what happened, or did not happen re tyres and setups. I have been playing with the Advanced Setup options for some tracks where I thought it might help. But the revelation about tyre pressures/tyre temps :scared: :scared: was a bit of a bombshell  :o. I was aware of the advantage of pumping up the tyres to reduce drag, especially at somewhere like Le Mans where the advantage of the extra speed can be weighed against a little less grip through the tighter twisty bits.

Perhaps wrongly, I have relied upon my experiences with GPL to tweak setups. The general principle there is that if the tyres get too hot, then the pressures are too high?? ( although in light of what has been revealed above, I might experiment with a different approach?) So for me, increasing the pressure to reduce temps feels counter intuitive....but I will certainly try it some time soon.

It simulates real life in this case. I know Sprint and Hillclimb peeps that deliberately run low pressures so the tyres
will heat up quicker. I tried that once, and nearly kiled myself into the 1st corner  :o as the grip was, err "limited"

OH  OH,,,Hope I didn't create another alien by giving Dom the heads up on the Advanced Setup tool. 
On the oval racing setups,  if you ever see a NASCAR oval car you can look at the front suspension and see the extreme camber they use to get a flat footprint on the front tires for all left turns on the banked tracks.  The rears suspension is all straight axles so not much to adjust there but shocks and springs. The team keep books on the various tracks for the car setup to give a setup start, then in practice they will run a few laps and bring the car in and the pit guys will run out to the car with those electronic temperature gauges and scan across the tire, object is to get the same temp across the footprint.  They run extreme low air pressure at the start and then as the laps go on the heat builds up and so does the pressure and the handeling improves.  Thats why they say yellow flag cautions breed more cautions, because the cars handle terrible untill the heat builds up to give decent grip.   On the long races they only carry fuel for around 100 miles or less because thats all the tires will last then you have to pit.
 Also the driver will always turn left to avoid a car or debrius  on the track because even a slight right turn of the wheel means a uncontrolable reaction from the car and a spin is going to happen...

Sorry I rambled on
Bob M.

Even the cars were built that way with weight to the left:

(http://lotusenthusiast.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/ctl1.jpg)

I think you will find that car is one that I used before  ::) in GPL.
Eye witnesses claim that I dealt a minor glancing blow  :angel-wings: to a barrier on the outside of a right hander, and that might have caused a small shift in the car's geometry.  :whistling:

 :D

That pretty extra screen and all those shiny extra buttons are an excellent opportunity for me to.... mess up a car's handling even more. It's giving me actual setups which is dangerous *cough*Mini*cough*Geoff*cough

Result_Race1 (https://www.avonrise.co.uk/srou/kurts/Darlington_03042019_R1)

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