SimRacing.org.uk

Season 34 – 1955 Grand Prix – Round 7 – Indianapolis Motor Speedway

The seventh race in the 1955 Grand Prix series takes us to Indianapolis in the USA. A very fast oval circuit in complete contrast to the public roads of Dundrod in Northern Ireland. Constructed in 1909, Indianapolis was the second purpose built banked oval racing circuit after Brooklands and the first to be called a 'speedway'. It has a permanent seating capacity of 257,325 with infield seating raising the grand total capacity to an approximate 400,000. It is the highest-capacity sports venue in the world. An estimated 80,000 spectators attended the first 500-mile (800 km) race on Memorial Day, May 30, 1911. Forty cars competed with Ray Harroun winning at an average speed of 74.602 miles per hour (120.060 km/h). The 500 mile race remained a regular event at the "brickyard" during the 20s, 30s and 40s. Eventually it became part of the Formula One World Championship between 1950 and 1960. None of the Indy drivers of that era raced in Formula One and only Ferrari's F1 driver, Alberto Ascari, raced in the 500 in 1952. The 1955 Indy 500 was won by Bob Sweikert in a Kurtis Kraft powered by an Offenhauser engine. However, the race is notable to many as the race in which Bill Vukovich was killed in a crash while seemingly on his way to winning an unprecedented third consecutive Indy 500. Five-time world champion Juan Fangio practiced at the speedway in 1958, but ultimately decided against racing there.
 
Please read the championship specific rules on the championship standings page (https://www.simracing.org.uk/smf/index.php?action=LM2R&group=664&theme=6).

Race list	iGOR
Server	UKGPL_4
IP address	46.69.108.161
Date	14-04-2019
Track	IMS (http://srmz.net/index.php?showtopic=3794)
Mod	55GP with 60fpsV2newmod
Damage	PRO long
Race time	~ 21:30 UK time (BST, GMT + 1)
Qualifying	45 minutes @ 20:45 UK time (BST, GMT + 1)
Race length	45 laps
Replay	here (ftp://ftp.ukgpl9.co.uk:32122/Season34/55GP)

If the official replay site is unavailable, the server replay can be downloaded from this temporary location (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kSFWmTBe4xC62vY_mG0dc9ZmnSbT_Lk-/view?usp=sharing).

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=664&theme=6)

Handicapping and chassis allocation.
This season the 1955 Grand Prix cars will again 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=664&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
Alessandro Isacchini	13	Pro
bagrupp	10	Pro
Clive Loynes	28	Pro
Cookie	22	Pro
DLogan	5	Pro
EvilClive	33	Pro
fpolicardi	0	Pro
Gareth	5	Pro
Jeep	0	Pro
uli	8	Pro
francesco	20	Am
Phil Thornton	30	Am
Rich Welsh	18	Am
tagomago	70	Am

Practice server is up (and will be for the rest of the weekend) in case anyone would like to test their gearing in a slipstream  ;)

So much witty banter!  Everyone must be on the server practicing!  ::)

I wuz there......but it got lonely  :(

Sorry, can't do 24/7.   ::)

Well done

Very disappointed with that. I practised a bit for this one and built myself a decent setup. Fran lost it in turn 2 and I had nowhere to go. I should have done what Uli did and stayed back a bit so it would be possible to avoid any possible carnage. Pity it was shaping up to be a great race.

  Grats to Clive.

Not sure what happened at the start, but I did not have a green button to join grid  :o ???
So, I almost quit right there, but I waited for a while and I was actually allowed to start from the pitlane...half a lap behind in a car geared for slipstream and the server marking me as one lap down. :-\ Then 3 cars that I might have caught and drafted...dropped out.
Clive and Uli were way ahead in the Silver Arrows having the battle I had hoped to be part of  ::) and there was only tagomago in his Gordini to offer me a slipstream for 1 lap out of 45  :-\. Sad to report that slight boost from the Gordini was not sufficient to propel me into the battle for the lead. 45 very lonely laps followed lol.

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.

Driver	Tokens	Status
Alessandro Isacchini	13	Pro
bagrupp	5	Pro
Clive Loynes	20	Pro
Cookie	22	Pro
DLogan	5	Pro
EvilClive	31	Pro
fpolicardi	0	Pro
Gareth	5	Pro
Jeep	0	Pro
uli	6	Pro
francesco	15	Am
Phil Thornton	22	Am
Rich Welsh	18	Am
tagomago	80	Am

Hard luck Evil, but I guess that your lack of green button probably saved you at T3.

And sorry for annoying you at the end of qually.  I know you wanted a tow but a) Fran(SBRC) was in 2nd spot and b) I spent the last ten minutes of qually on full tanks and using only the outside half of the track.  The bit you are left with when the race starts!   ::)   That way it is less of a surprise when you need to use it.

Hard luck to Fran and the two others that his spin accounted for.  Well done to Tago for bringing the Gordini home in 4th!  That's only one place behind what Tim did with it last season!  ::)

Thanks to Uli for a great race.  I thought that I had escaped but the DRS was a bit strong in 1955.

Where was Fulvio?  Hope he has a doctor's note!

Great battle with Clive – THX a lot, that was big fun  :D
I was very surprised that I could hold a Benz on this track but I had no chance in the end.
OK Indy is not a race that I like but only seven cars on the grid - made me sad – and then three out at first lap . . . ! :(
Hope to see you all and much more next race.

Sorry to miss this one, I was back home from a concert with orchestra of my music school too late.
 Indeed I had to thrown out a result so was this one. Not a big fun of oval races too…

Next one

I left the last one and I was able to avoid the accident of the first lap ... concentration ... the whole race was left ... When Evil overtook me I did not understand the blackboard ... he was not a head of the race? ... about 2/3 of the race I was doubled by Clive and Uli ... and then I checked that Evil was recovering space ... more concentration so as not to commit a silly mistake and keep the 3rd ... great race for me ... a pity the disaster of the first turn

(http://boxes.gaiztor.com/img/20190414_IMS_paper.PNG)

Sorry to Bastian and Phil for my spin that have compromised their race.In many pratice laps i had no one spin, this time i have not understood what happened but i have lost the car.

Hard luck Fran.

As I said in my email to you, I think that it was a combination of cold tyres, a non-standard line and perhaps you also not "warmed up".  I noticed that you did not appear to run after setting the time that gave you 2nd on the grid and for me that would have been a risk.

I like to spend the end of qualifying on race fuel, to get the feel of it.  I also noted that my tyres took, perhaps, four or five laps to reach their optimum, so on lap one they would have felt different. 

To me, IMS is more about tyre temperatures than outright lap time.  The slipstream effect means that you can stay with much faster cars (unless you start half a lap down  ;-)  ) but in the race you are doomed if you can't keep the front tyres cool enough.  This means that as they are warming up the balance of the car is different and usually more "on the front".

Once Uli had caught me, it was obvious that the race was going to take place over the last two laps and all I had to do was ensure that I drove correctly to give me the tyres at that point.

But normally when you leave the track the temperature of the tire return to default.

I am not explaining myself well.

Yes, they return to 22deg C.  Which is not ideal.

My setup works really well when the front right is at just over 90 deg C and the rear right is at about 115 to 120.

When starting a run, they seem to increase in temperature together until they get near to near full temp.  Then the fronts are giving enough grip to turn-in and the throttle can be used to steer the car by sliding the back.  This makes the rears hotter and that is how I like to keep them for the next 40 laps.

So for the first few laps the balance of the front and rear grip is different to that which you became accustomed to in your previous run.  This means that I have to turn-in with more caution over the first few laps because the front right is still in its "green", grippy zone.  So are the rears but the fronts seem to get the upper hand.