SimRacing.org.uk

Initial grid/server capacity: 12

Track: Dundrod

Cars allowed: 3 No. in each group, S5.0, S3.0, S2.5+ and S2.5.

Cars not allocated:0 More cars can be allocated if demand exceeds the initial twelve car distribution.

Practice: ~18:00 (60 mins)
Qualifying: 19:00 (15 mins) One attempt at a timed lap only
Race: 19:15 (35 laps)

All times are GMT

Time of Day Setting: 15:00
Start: STANDING
Tyre wear: x2
Fuel consumption: x2

Server: simracing.org.uk XMAS
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 start time. Start is by flag man so you may wish to have auto countdown turned on. There is a pit lane speed limit of 40mph/60kph approx. The pit entry is before the pit marshall in the white overalls. I think you can rejoin the track at any point. It is suggested that pit stops are practiced. Cuts will be turned off for this event.

Car Choice

Each Group has been assigned five random number's (between 01-20) which will not change and is known only to myself.

Beginning at 14:00 (GMT) on Sunday, November 3rd, drivers wishing to take part, will send me a pm containing one number (01-20). Pm's received will be dealt with on a strict, first come, first served, basis. Pm's received before 14:00 (GMT) on November 3rd will be ignored.

On receipt of your number, I will assign you your Group. If the chosen Group is full you will be placed in the next available group determined by adding 1 to your given number (and repeated until a free group space is able to be allocated).

This process will repeat until eleven Group places have been allocated or we reach December 23rd (whichever occurs soonest).

I will take my choice from any un-allocated Group car(s)

I will release the car/track pack and the Driver's car roster detailing which driver's are in each Group, as soon as possible.

Entries now being accepted.

I'm keen ( I think  ::)) to engage in this Christmas Caper, but I am not sure that I understand the whole concept??  ??? I am all in favour of the random allocation of cars by the means of a random ballot, and I get how that works.

But...………….

What do the "S" groups refer to??  I see that they are 5.0, 3.0, 2.5 and 1.5....is that engine size?? and engine sizes in which cars????

Maybe I have maybe missed an explanatory post which explains things in words of 2 syllables, or less, for people like me.

Either way can I have number 11 please Tony

AFAIK "S" stands for Sports. And the number is for engine size. I have deviated slightly from the original, in that, the S2.5+ class is fictional but better suited to my purposes.

Entry is accepted, Thank you  :thumbup1:

We have our full field of twelve cars allocated.

But if you want to enter, further cars can be allocated.

Send a pm to me with a number and we will fit you in to one of the groups.

The car download and driver roster will be released before the end of the month.

Could you make the download of the mod and track available on Google Drive? Mediafire has an eight hour  >:( forecast to download, no matter which browser I use, the forecast doesn't change!

Regards,

Erm........let me look into this for you. I'll pm you once I have something setup.

I can put it somewhere easier, gimme a few mins

Umm I could even put in Sao Paulo if needed, But it will be in Ireland.  ;D

Cheers Matt. Let me know if your successful cos I've just asked Dave to create a Google download.

It will be successful, it's at 60% upload. I will send you the link when it's finished in a few mins

Witchcraft  :alien:

I'll tell Dave to not bother, thanks Matt.

Link sent

Thanks Matt, link sent by pm to our boy in Brazil.  ;)

I download it in 4 minutes!

Thanks!

The power of AWS  ;D

Tony, I have two Healey 100 #26 - one weighing 851 kg and one 819 kg.  Which one should I use ?  ???  (Same goes for #32 & #44)

819kg is the original one used in the LM55 races but situated in GTC65. 851kg is the one Tony obviously modified and renamed for the Xmas Special.

@ Tony: haven't installed the Xmas Special yet. But should we uninstall the original cars in order to avoid possible conflicts?

Use the one found in the folder Austin Healey. It has a weight of 851kg.

The Christmas Special cars come in their own folder. Might be a good idea to rename the existing .car files to .xcar. Or delete them if you want to.

Just to prevent you practicing with the wrong car...............

The weights are thus: Austin Healey - 851kg, Jaguar D-Type - 880kg, Mercedes SLR - 951kg, Aston Martin - 880kg.

I sort of know Dundrod from UKGPL and running the 1955 GP cars complete with brake fade, which if my memory serves me, is much the same as the suspect brakes on these cars. But please explain this novel concept..."practicing" ???  ???  I thought only doctors ( and wimps ) did that  ::).

 I suspect that the medical teams could be kept very busy come race day, but at least there should be a plentiful supply of firewood/felled trees/broken fences etc to keep the log burners going  ;)

Noted that I have the dreaded D type 4 geared monster...now if we could agree to remove all of the corners on this track it might not be quite so bad  :whistling:

 :lol:

I have created a practice/standby server for the Christmas Special in my home lab. it is called "UKGTLM2"
(please ignore UKGTLM1, he is a ghost in the machine  ::)   )

Is using the usual practice password.

Please test at will.

Thanks Matt  :thumbup1:

Use our usual practice password  ;)

Hi   really looking forward to this Christmas Special, even thou like Clive i have the dreaded D type, a big Thanks Tony for setting this up.

Just tried your server Matt and it works fine Thank You.

Matt, could you turn flag rules off please?

ta

Done

Just tried the test server and I can report that the server works fine....unlike my D-type  :-\

Actually, Mr Microsoft kindly installed a Win 10 update on my PC last night ( awfully generous of him eh? ) and today my G25 had lost all of its settings. Yeah, yeah, I know that I should have made a note of what they were in case of just such an eventuality....but I didn't  :-\. I had to modify/experiment with the various Logitech sliders to recreate what I think I had before.

I have more or less got things back to where it "feels" like right, but I am experiencing something that I have not come across before. The wheel appears to work OK in GPL under all circumstances.

I had previously done a couple of laps offline at Dundrod in the D-type just to see how bad it could be on Friday and it was more or less as I expected, but no sign of the following issues  :-\

So today in GTL, both offline and on Matts server for Dundrod, all feels fine as I leave the pits and wind the D-type up to max revs along the straight. Negotiating those fast left- right- left sweepers is OK ,allowing for my lack of ability and a few marks in the grass verges  ::).
Then we come to the first braking zone, down the hill to that tricky right hander by the gate. The first time I know that I was just approaching too fast and did not expect to make the corner, so a return to the pits and another try...this time a little more cautiously.
I braked early and downshifted to 2nd ( nice shifter  ;D )….lift off brake pedal….turned on a handful of right hand lock....and the car simply continued straight ahead with what was now full right lock applied??? it did not even turn the nose of the car when we were at walking pace?? and one could see that I had simply continued in a straight line right through the fence to where I stopped??? The best way to describe it, was as if the steering column had become disconnected.
But, when I restarted the engine and drove back onto the tarmac/road the steering appeared to function just fine. So I continued my exploratory lap and everything worked fine until we reached the next big braking zone at the bottom of the long hill and another tight right hander...…….brake early....downshift early.....lift off brakes.....apply right lock...….and exactly the same result...straight on through the hedge with no attempt to take the corner??
I don't think that Tony would provide me with a dodgy car and I doubt that Matt has somehow rigged the server, so my hunch is that something is amiss with the settings on my G25 wheel OR I have somehow created a conflict with the in-game CONTROLS options and that major steering input is not being recognised?? but why only at those corners? I tried several times and was only able to negotiate those corners at around 10 mph and even then I put a wheel onto the outside grass verge.
A long tail of woe here, but is anyone aware of any of the in-game GTL controls settings that limit/block/negate steering inputs??

 I don't have time right now but I intend to test this issue on some of my other GTL installs and will report back.

Sounds very weird Clive.  Have you tried going into GTL 'Options' and then 'Controls', where there are 'bars' showing the input from the controllers, and then checked if the steering wheel looks normal, as you turn it left & right ?

Yeah, Erling is right. You should always re-configure the steering and pedals. I sometimes lose the brakes and clutch in my GTL but a quick re-configure sorts it.

If that fails try this. Type into windows search  "set up USB game controllers" and you will find an app where you can set up things like steering lock and other useful stuff.

Hope something here helps.

Does the problem occur with any other car?

Thanks Erling, and Tony.

Yes, I have tried a few adjustments on those sliders. nothing too dramatic, but it did not appear to make much difference. :-\

TBH it does not make a lot of sense, as the steering appears fully functional , except of course when I really expect it to do something and turn the car??!!!

When I have time I am going to check the brake balance/efficiency settings and maybe the "dead zone" on the brake pedal. It occurs to me that the symptoms are as if I had locked the brakes? Although I am sure I lifted off the brake pedal, it is just possible that my foot was maybe just touching it and that it blocked the brakes and the steering?? It might be a long shot but worth checking out.  ::)

I will give the USB thing a try. It all seems a little odd???  Thankyou Microsoft .

Umm There's a setting somewhere in there about having the pedals work together or independant
not sure of the wording, but if that's isnt right you will get that sort of effect

I think Matt might mean "Dual Axis" which IIRC is a tickbox in the Windows USB app (as mentioned above). I think it should be unticked.

Thanks for all of the suggestions.
I had a race on Sunday evening with UKGPL and although the strength of the FF was slightly greater than I had been used to ( easy to fix  ;) ) I had zero issues in a 50 minute race at St Jovite, which is a track that will test any steering system!!
I therefore concluded that whatever is amiss it is somewhere within the Logitech-GTL interface.

I have spent about an hour on the server at Dundrod, starting from where I was yesterday and dozens of restarts from the pits to Leatherstown Corner where the anomaly really shows itself.

Once again, despite having negotiated the fast curves quite happily, the car simply ploughed straight on at the first proper corner??!! I ran it a couple of times at various approach speeds and the result was the same  ???
First I tried Tony's "USB Controller" suggestion and we get an almost duplicate of the Logitech software options ( I did check, and changing parameters in either Logitech or the Win USB window adjusts values in the other ) Ran through all of the variables and tweaked the values also confirmed that the dual axis pedal box was unticked, as I am sure that it has been for many years.

Returned to Dundrod and the results were no different?? It made me wonder if it was actually the car setup, although that did seem a little unlikely given that everything appeared to be working on the controller setup. Tried a few adjustments to diff/toe in/toe out/ shocks/castor angle etc. simply to see if there was any discernible difference.....nope!!!

OK lets go through the CONTROLS menu and see if there is anything that looks suspect in there.
Ran through all of the SENSITIVITY/DEAD ZONE/EFFICIENCY etc and set them at max values. Obviously the SHIFT UP/SHIFT DOWN  was OK as I had used that on the way to Leatherstown Corner.
Nothing looked particularly odd except that the brake accelerator sensitivity was at 69%??, not something I can ever recall adjusting, so I set that back at 100%

Still no joy   :-\, the sensation at the corner was as if someone had placed a toboggan under the front axle lifting the wheels clear of the ground. the car showed zero inclination to turn and simply went straight ahead until it stopped even with full RH lock applied ………….very odd?
I decided to go through every single "in game setting" and doublecheck/reset each one to be sure that there were no anomalies.

Oddly, I did come across the boxes where the BRAKE and CLUTCH functions are allocated ( not something that I had looked at since the Win10 update) and when I went through the allocation process, highlighting the function and depressing the relevant pedal/button, it became apparent that these functions had been reset to default and not to the correct axis within my G25 setup. Of course, the Logitech Profiler and the USB pages indicated that the pedals were working correctly, but GTL was not accepting those inputs??
I correctly assigned those values and returned to the Dundrod pits for yet another run ( I know that start finish straight very well by now!!  ::) )

This time we had steering response, and although TBH I made a total horlicks of the corner, we were in danger of successfully negotiating that hurdle at Leatherstown for the first time since the update ;D

Looking back at this I am still slightly mystified. The steering parameter within GTL was correct, and therefore I should have expected the front wheels to try and turn the nose of the car at whatever speed I arrived at the corner. It certainly "felt" as if the brakes were slowing me on the approach to Leatherstown, (but I was downshifting too, so maybe???) and I would have judged my speed as slow enough to make the corner quite safely and sweep through. Plus, I am sure that on the few rare occasions where I squeaked around that corner at walking pace, I was checking the brake temps later in the lap and they showed as having some temp??!!
Anyhoo, re-setting the BRAKE and CLUTCH channels appears to have resolved this dilemma, although I cannot quite see how that manifested itself as a STEERING issue.

Whatever semi workable setup I had from Friday is now so totally trashed and modified that I will have to start again from the default. Plus I need to adjust the DEAD ZONES and SENSITIVITY etc  back to a comfortable level.  At least we have a month to find some time for that little exercise.

BTW, for what it is worth I was getting a 4:20'ish lap time on full tanks before Win 10 put a spanner into the steering. This would indicate a race length of 35 laps approaching 2.5 hours?? Am I exceptionally slow, or is it really going to be an all night race?? also occurs to me that Tony might have arranged this race to go into the night?

As far as the pitstops are concerned, can I throw in an observation here...… :D
Back in the day, there would have been NO pit lane speed limit and each drivers self preservation instincts would have dictated his entry and exit speeds from the pits. Also cars passing the pits would have kept well to the left to give room for emerging cars. Just wonder if having a limiter free pits might add an extra bit of spice? You will still have to get slow enough to engage your pit crew AND avoid other cars entering/exiting the pit at speed, plus cars will not emerge onto the track at walking pace, they will at least have picked up some speed as they rejoin? Each driver would still be responsible for their own "safe" conduct.
 Just a thought, having spent so much time amongst those canvas pits recently. ::)

I know that essentially you are not directly racing me Clive, but my best so far in the Healey is 4.11.7 on full tank of fuel.

@ Clive, well done getting those issues sorted.

With cuts off I think you can do away with the pit speed limiter, but this needs to be tested in practice. I do know that you have to pass by the white overall guy near the pit entrance to trigger you pit crew to appear.

That's insane  :o
My best in these is 10secs slower.

LOL well I fully expected that you would be quicker than my efforts! From past experience the Healey is just a more comfortable car to drive, and that translates into faster laptimes.
I hope to do some pre race practice and get the D-type tank to drive in a more predictable manner, which hopefully will drag the laptimes down a little.
After all of the messing about with settings etc. over the weekend I realised that I have lost my way a little and have to start again in my efforts to get the car sorted to my liking. If it were just a sprint race I might be able to wrestle the thing around and nail a fast time, but this is a true endurance event and I do not intend to be "fighting" the car for 2.5hrs!! I might be a little masochistic in terms of some of my car choices, but I'm not quite that crazy!!

To be honest I'm glad you are in the D-type & not me. It is not a car I like too much, goes well in a straight line but does not corner or brake well, braking in particular was one of the real car's strengths I believe, having discs rather than the drums that other cars of the era had.

Although 4.11 is achievable I think race pace will be around 4.16-4.18, otherwise you are risking a big 'off'. I expect the Merc will be quicker.

My best on race fuel is a direct mirror of Geoffers - 4:11 something, and a little quicker with a lighter load  ;)

I strongly suspect that Arnold has already sold the disc brakes in order to generate some beer money for the festive season  :-\. I cannot say that I have noticed any remarkable retardation with my D-type, except when a tree or lamp post offers assistance  ::). But I think I agree that a race like this is going to be hare and tortoise, or marathon not sprint? There are no run off areas on this circuit and, from experience in GPL, any mistakes incur a harsh penalty  :(

OK settle down at the back  :nono: :nono:. I want no tittering, smirking or laughing out loud, as I report my latest adventures with the D-type at Dundrod.  ::) ::)

I thought that this morning I might try and balance up the Force Feedback/Damping/Centering Spring etc. and try and get the feel of the old setup, and that seemed a perfectly normal and proper thing to do.

I did mention in an earlier post that Tony might be sneaking in some night time running?, so I decided that I also had better assign a control to switch on the headlights. That was easy and I opted for the RH flappy paddle as the most convenient as I don't use it for gearchanges preferring the G25 sequential shift for that job. A quick test in the pits and one temporarily blinded pit crew manager later, we were good to go on a test run.

The plan was to circulate at a steady pace and adjust the FF settings little by little. The forces were all a little heavy, which I knew, but I wanted to get the tyres up to working temps so that everything would be "normalised" for racing.

Up to speed and barrelling along a straight with the 6 cylinder engine singing under the bonnet and I thought "Ooh! lets see what the headlights look like at speed".

Apparently the 1955 D-type Jaguar has some of the most energy demanding full beam bulbs that science has ever created!!! The demand for power was so great that it caused the steering to wobble uncontrollably with full Feedback  :scared: :scared: :scared: as I fought the heavy FF and I ended up in a 360 degree spin and parked in a field!!!??

"Wot???!!!! I can't believe what just happened!!!!!" Let's try that again but this time I will be ready for it...I thought. :-\

Up to speed, flick the paddle for headlights and hang on for dear life as the steering bucks and wobbles. The anomoly continued for about 5 secs and then stopped with the lights on and everything calm, by which time I had hit both sides of the road and flattened a good few metres of hedge. :scared: :scared: The same weird thing happens when I turn lights OFF??
 
Why the heck the paddle which is assigned to headlight function should affect the steering is just beyond me. If it had caused a random gearchange that would be much more logical.

I have taken a break and am enjoying a calming cup of coffee before considering doing battle with the ruddy thing again. My only idea is that the FF is currently set too high and any input through the controls is spiking a response, but that is just my technophobic brain's best excuse so far.

I told you "NO Laughing!!!"  :nono: :nono: :nono:

You could not make it up, could you???  :-\

Half the fun of setting up Christmas Specials is the certain knowledge that it will cause Clive grief  :devil:  ;)

FWIW my headlamp is controlled by the top left button on my G27 wheel. maybe try that?

Iss the FF rumble effects thing somehow set to the same button (key) as H

I feel your pain, Clive. I've had very to extremely weird issues with GTL and now you mention it, a Logitech wheel in the form of a G27, too.
For instance, a never resolved issue is that when I'm on a track where the FPS rate goes above 400, the downshifts, and only the downshifts, no longer register. It's "solved" with using the paddles in such a case but WHY does that happen (rhetorical question)?
Can't help you with your current predicament though, it's not on my list of GTL quirks.

TBH Clive, even at 18:00 it's not that dark and you could manage without headlamps.

Well, isn't GTL strange!. I would never have guessed that by pressing the top left button on Tony's G27 wheel I could activate the headlamps on my car! :o  There is obviously more to this GTL software than I was aware of  ::).  ;D ;D ;D ;D If I cannot resolve this weirdness I might have to run in stealth mode  :shifty: :shifty:

@ Matt. AFAIK the FF is only adjustable with the sliders under CONTROLS, and only then if the Logitech profiler has a box ticked "ALLOW GAME TO ADJUST VALUES" or something along those lines. And the headlights are assigned their own key in one of the CONTROLS menus?
I have been out with the dog since my last rant, so am contemplating another couple of rounds with this problem for your entertainment.

What I find most frustrating is the number of times, both in GTL and GPL, that a Win10 update over which we apparently have no control can screw up what was working perfectly well beforehand. Ain't technology wonderful  :-\

Assuming of course that he's finished by then  ;D

Joking aside Clive; maybe the paddles are 'special', since they're meant for gear changes ?   Don't think I've ever used mine for anything else, so can't say if strange things happens if you do (and I'm currently on a Thrustmaster wheel anyway).  As Tony suggests, maybe try a regular button, if you have any non-used ones ?

Different car of course, but have activated my lights several times on this track with no ill effects (my standard check after blunting the nose on something, to get an idea of the extent of damage). This via a regular button though.

I use the right shift paddle to turn the headlamps on/off and never had issue with it (but I don't use the lights so often)

In a previous post Clive wrote: "Ran through all of the SENSITIVITY/DEAD ZONE/EFFICIENCY etc and set them at max values"
This is a bit surprising...
In the "Controller Advanced" menu I have Sensitivity set at 51% (I was probably aiming for 50% which means "linear response" I think) on all axis and all Deadzones set to 0 (G25 wheel but with Fanatec pedals)
I also have Speed Sens. Steering to 0
Sensitivity set different than 50% is useful for non-load cell brakes if I remember...

Good luck!

Thanks for that SC.
I did some laps late this afternoon OFFLINE, and there was no issue with the headlights ??? I did switch to a button on the wheel and then back to the Right Shift Paddle and there was no repeat of the horrendous wobbles and FF reaction that I had before. I need to try it on a server again, just to be sure that the gremlins have moved on.
My comment about setting everything at MAX was probably a little misleading and I should have been more specific about which were at MAX and which were at ZERO.
I will try setting the SENSITIVITY at 50%, although I don't have a load cell on my pedals, just to see if it makes any difference. Speed sensitive steering is already at zero as are all deadzones

Experiments are ongoing with the various parameters and I will post results ( and disasters) here so that others may be able to save themselves some grief in the future.

Clive you can control win 10 updates so you can turn off automatic updates and manually set the time to update or even disable win 10 updates, Google or Youtube will tell you how.

Dundrod just done a 1.18 in the Jag my best so far, it seems if you go off here you will be very lucky to get back on track apart from the field with the open gate bottom of hill 2.

Thanks for the suggestion about win 10 updates Rog, which I was sort of aware of, but I figure that sooner or later one has to install those updates if only to plug the leaky security loopholes that are part of every Microsoft package  :-\. So I see it as only kicking the can down the road??

Not sure if this is the correct place to continue posting this stuff, but all of my changes and trials are being done with the D-type at Dundrod so that there is a consistent baseline to work from. The final plan will be to carry over the successful conclusion ( assuming that there is one  ::) ) to all of my other GTL installs when I am happy.

Update......
I have always preferred a very quick steering action and historically I had my G25 rotation parameter set to around 220-250 degrees. Within GTL/CONTROLS I have the DEAD ZONE on the steering set at Zero, but you may have noticed that I was complaining about a non responsive 10 degree area. No matter what I adjusted within the game I found no improvement with that problem, so I looked at the G25 Logitech Profiler options.

In the interests of discovery and science I increased that 220 degrees to a figure which is now around 550 degrees. The results, which actually became apparent in a series of 50 degree incremental steps, was a gradual reduction in the 10 degree dead spot on the wheel in the straight ahead position. I was surprised by this as I had in my mind that a lower rotation figure would mean a more responsive/accurate wheel. but what do I know??  :wacko:
But upon considering the current improved situation, maybe the software is somehow calculating the non responsive area, via the encoder, as a fixed number of pulses divided by the total rotation setting? Therefore, if the default dead area is = 20 pulses the 220 degree setting gives 20/220 as the non responsive zone, whereas the 550 degree setting gives 20/550 which is a much smaller angular dead area?? I maybe totally off track here, but it kinda makes sense in my head and either way things are definitely better in this respect.
 I plan to increase the rotation angle further sometime over this weekend and see if things become tighter/more responsive. But I have a UKGPL Sports Car race on Sunday eve and I don't want to risk screwing up my wheel before that event  :-\, so I might postpone any more adjustments.

Now that I have steering that is better ( not yet perfect, but we are going in the right direction!!) I have tried a few more laps and reviewed what still needs to improve for me to be more confident with the D-type. Currently, understeer is my biggest headache and I am trying to decide if it is my expectations of what SHOULD happen and isn't, or am I trying to force this car to perform in a way that it cannot?? I am starting to look at the diff settings as an area to effect some changes. I think that it was Geoff who said the diff settings in GTL are the reverse of those in GPL, it being a difference of locking vs slip angle values??
 Only more laps and time will decide on that. Also keeping the vintage tyres "in the temp zone" appears to be a little random atm, with things going cool  on the long straights and maybe that is contributing to the lack of grip and understeer at the next corner?? or maybe I am just not going fast enough to keep things warm?

On a banzai lap I can extract some good pace from this Sopwith Camel powered tank, but that is at the expense of valuable vintage rubber  ;) There is a formula to be derived about fuel consumption vs speed vs tyre wear for this endurance event. But we are a long, long way from anything that technical just yet so that can wait until the CONTROLS are sorted completely lol.

Just to prevent you practicing with the wrong car...............

The weights are thus: Austin Healey - 851kg, Jaguar D-Type - 880kg, Mercedes SLR - 951kg, Aston Martin - 880kg.

To give you guys something to aim at, best lap on qually fuel in AH now 4.04.9. I would think the Merc & Aston should be able to get under 4m.

That is some serious pace Geoff!! 
I had a week off from trying to sort out my various issues and only returned for a quick refresher run this afternoon. Ironically my steering issues might be more to do with my "soft" suspension setups than anything Logitech related and I am trying to nail down exactly what I have done to give me more "feel" in the steering. If I can get that sorted, then I can move on to some serious practice.

My current best lap is a 4:10, but I am more concerned about the targets stuck all over my D-type....is Tony trying to tell me something, or should I work on moving faster???  ::)

I think I managed a 4:15 with race fuel...... :o

You don't worry about races or time lap or fuel, just you have talk about Xmas lunch

Well.. we will be having the traditional Christmas Rabbit, with all the trimmings..... pigs in blankets, brussels sprouts (but they probably come from Ormskirk)

Forgot to say.........

Entries now closed.

4:33.7 in my first and only completed lap after 3 test sessions. I fear, that this one will be a short one for me as I probably won't survive the first lap  :P

Wot you drivin Kurt?

I am in the DBR1 but where can I find which of the four cars in the Aston folder is mine?

Yours is the #2 car

Thanks Tony. Just been on the server and I get connection lost after almost a quarter of a lap.I hope the prob is on my end but I thought I'd better mention it here.

300SLR #2 - improved to 4:32.8  ::)

Sorry but I cannot join, I m busy tomorrow and the race start too much soon for me. Have fun all and Happy New Year.

For those who missed this link in their original pm  ::)

Drivers roster https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1156HfKBo-FlAa280p-3xkwLm0w_uKDZg5YqCJAx57SY/edit?usp=sharing

Just to prevent you racing with the wrong car...............

The weights are thus: Austin Healey - 851kg, Jaguar D-Type - 880kg, Mercedes SLR - 951kg, Aston Martin - 880kg.

Thanks Dan
I just completed 6 laps in race mode with nothing to report. Except on lap 7 I got tangled up in the hay bales at the hairpin and couldn't get out again, race over!

Just studied the drivers' roster and I do hope Erling ,Geoffers and Matt are going to give eachother a hard time in their agile and fast Healeys. The rest of us will simply have to wait and see………..

Wishing everybody a good fun race. :thumbup2:

cheers, Dan





 

I can't see me giving Erling and Geoff a hard time in anything, except maybe the FR formula 3.....

Well I am confident that messrs Erling, Geoffers and Matt  won't be able to lap me, because when they start lap 2 there will be too many felled trees, broken fences and car body parts strewn across the road  ;) ::)

Really sorry that I had to quit the race as I was seriously enjoying the challenge. But I had a strange anomaly with Dan or Dan's car.

Throughout quali his name was flashing across every screen except the "on track" view and when we joined the grid it all seemed to be OK.

But during the race he was showing as 120+ secs behind until I got a tank slapper out of one of the fast corners, Matt and Geoffers went past as I expected and as I got up to speed I glaned at positions and Dan was now 5 secs in front ?!  hmmmm?? When I closed the 5 sec gap there was no car on the track??? so I turned on the name tags (tab key ) and there right on the end of my bonnet was Snr Dan's flag....but no car visible.
I was definitely quicker than the flag that I could see, but I dare not risk a pass on such narrow roads until "the flag" appeared to run wide and I gave as much room as I could and went through. Once behind me it showed Dan as some 80 secs adrift. A small mistake later and the phantom flag suddenly re-appeared bang in front of me, with no visible car???
At points on the track I was closing too fast and had to brake or lift where I did not want to just in case I collected Dan, eventually I hit the scenery too hard and bounced back onto the track with a stalled engine right in front of Rog...…...decided it was better to retire  :-\

I don't know if was my PC, the server or Dan's PC but it was very disorientating trying to race a phantom with a flag lol. Hope you all had fun and see you in the New Year.

Those  :censored: straw bales got me again  :taz:

Made it till about lap 30 I think, no focus at all went into the first turn a little too fast and hit that tree line.  Only 3 of us left so just ejected.  Never thought I would make it that far.  Also never wan't to see or drive that track again!!!!
Grats to Roger and Matt.............Thanks to Tony for organizing this one and all the races during 2019!!!  Next year looks to be just as good.................

Bob M.

Lucky break for me - Easiest car to drive, Erling went off on lap 1, Geoffers has some trouble after a pit stop, and eventually
left. What happened Geoff?  Was a bit boring just circulating, but the mission was to finish, so I kept plodding on.

Shame a few didn't turn up.

Results and replay now posted.

Happy New Year everyone

Thanks for setting this race up Tony really enjoyed it.

Had 3 offs in race one following to close to Seniordan, 2nd going to fast at the left hander before the chicane, 3rd at last right bend before pits.

 I had a few anomalys with XD in race XD stopped telling me info on fuel after lap 5 also drivers in front would be shown as behind and some drivers as DNF when they were still racing, i have XD 2.1.16 (is this the correct one ?) also have had these problems in other races.

Grats to Matt on a great win.

Happy New Year to Everyone.

Just lapped Tony & was planning to pit, but had brain fade approaching the last turn. Normally took it in 3rd but as I was getting ready to pit I inexplicably changed up to 4th before the corner & the car just understeered off the track & hit the trees. Got it going & went to the pits & refuelled cancelling repairs. Rejoined but the steering was now off centre & the car rather wandery, particularly under braking, so completed the lap & pitted again for repairs. Rejoined again but concentration & rhythm had gone & I kept making mistakes & eventually went off & into the void. To be honest I was rather relieved as I was getting a bit bored with the track.

Congrats on the win Matt & also to Rog the only other finisher.  :clap: :clap: Thanks to Tony for organising.  :thumbup2:

2019 Christmas Special

Congrats to the two hero finishers, Matt and Roger ! and also thumbs up for Bob and Tony for almost making it to the finish line.
@Clive, could it be you forgot the extra DBR1 download and your game "borrowed" the car from the existing LM55 Folder. virtually the same car but without the small changes especially made for the Christmas Special? This might explain the "ghost DBR1". on the other hand, maybe I am an Alien after all who tried to haunt you off  the track ! Anyway sorry that it ruined your race, we could have had a nice battle I think….
Due to a senior moment I forgot to refuel during my first pitstop while in third position, so the only thing I could do was to  press the escape button and watch the event on the monitor. Following everybody's adventures both incar and out showed that it was a verrrry long race indeed but interesting to watch. Two drivers stood out for me: Matt and Roger, both doing their laps with clockwork regularity. That's how it's done. Well done gents.

Thanks for organizing yet another great event Tony and a Happy 2020 to all

Cheers, Dan

Tick tock... oh let's go round the outside of this bridge  :o

Lasted longer than feared, but the mistakes came from lap three on and during lap five I collided with
one of these invisible walls: 0%, race finished  :P

Congratualtions to all partcipants and especially the two finishers - phenominal performance :)

Result (https://www.avonrise.co.uk/srou/kurts/Xmas_Dundrod)

 8)

Happy new year to you all!

With all the time wasted on practice, it was quite disappointing to be out of a 2.5 hours race after 20 seconds   :-\

Securing pole as usual was a futile excercise, as I invariably lose it when the flag drops.  Geoffers took the lead. On the run down to T1, I was passed by Clive on the left. Regrettably that put his car in the place I needed mine to go, to clip the apex and negotiate the curve. Couldn't turn in, couldn't make the corner, slid off, killing the car.

Grats to the finishers and to Matt for the win!!

Happy New Year to all !!

Erling do you use auto clutch, if so, try turning it off for the start & then put it back on once you are under way, should give you a quicker start.

Hi Geoffers-, yes, I use auto clutch, but use my clutch pedal at the start.  Will try your suggestion and see if it helps - thanks a lot!!   It's long been a mystery to me how some drivers can get off the line so much quicker, but as I seem to be one of few using auto clutch, that could possibly be part of the explanation.

FFS, I got everything mixed up. Somehow I thought THIS race was tonight.  :wacko: :no: :thumbdown:
At least I noticed the first R5 race is NOW, IMMINENT, TODAY (sorry for the caps, but maybe that'll imprint on my memory long enough). Haven't done a yard in those yet, though, lol.