SimRacing.org.uk

Grid/server capacity: 22

Track: Nogaro

Cars allowed: Alpine A364

PM WT for download pack

Practice: ~19:20 (60 mins)
Qualifying: 20:30 (10 mins)
Race: 20:40 (24 laps)

Time of Day Setting: 14:00
Start: STANDING
Tyre wear: Normal
Fuel consumption: Normal
Pit stops required: No

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: None

It is not often that we venture into the world of open wheel racing but Geoffers recommended this mod to me and I have to agree that it is a great car to race in. Ideal for a quick Monday night series.

I would urge drivers to have the car mirrors turned on and do away with virtual mirror as it really immerses the driver into the mod, but it's entirely up to the individual.

Also you should check that your .plr file has "Wheels Visible in Cockpit" turned on (1)

You will find your .plr file here, UserData/Your Name/YourName.plr. Use Notepad (or similar) and open the .plr file. Scroll down to Graphics Options and "Wheels Visible in Cockpit" can be found about thirty lines up from the bottom of the section.

CAR RESERVATIONS

#63 - Wiltshire Tony
#84 - Bob M
#50 - SpecialKS
#77 - S.Cargo
#9 - Roguk
#51 - Geoffers
#17 - phspok
#223 - EvilClive
#10 - Suti
#34 - Erling G-P
#62 - seniordan

Pls book #50 for me  8)

Done

So many famous & familiar driver names to choose from...  :-\ And my favourites already booked  :(
Let's go for #77 then, no name on the car so my performance is not going to bring shame on anybody but me  ;D

So #77 for me please.

Done

number 9 please Tony

Done

Excellent car and great track, like the walk through at race start, Thank You, now to check i can get online with schottenring  tonight.

#51 for me please Tony.

Done

Please note that I have changed the qualy length and race start time. This is due to operational difficulties  :wacko:

Future races in this series will revert to a 20min qualy session and a race start time of 20:40.

I wont be around for this race, or the race on Wednesday night.

I'm hoping my hotel has a decent wi-fi, so I will be able to check on race nights that everything is running Ok and do the results etc as usual.

If someone with Admin powers could check on Monday/Wednesday that the server is running the correct track, that would help enormously. If the wrong track is showing, just click "Next Event" to bump the next track along.

This is just in case I am unable to see the server from my location.

There will be no Practice password for these races. Please use the normal Race password.

I should be around Monday, Weds I will be hotel wifi from Birmingham I will check as best I can....

Please can I have 17?
Ta

Goodwood sprint this Saturday  ;D (for real) See if I can do better than 2 yrs ago  ::)


Hmm, I CTD when I try to run this. It goes to loading the car but the picture of the car doesnt appear in showroom
and it CTDs

I have set show wheels to 1

I should be ok with our wi-fi but it's good to have a backup plan in place, thanks Matt.

Good luck at Goodwood.

Hmm, no-one else has reported a problem, let me look into this for you. Cars not appearing in the showroom is a big clue as to what might be wrong but I need to check the download files again.

@ Matt - In your Teams folder do you have two files called stex.gtl and talent.gtl?

And is the mod in your GTC-TC-76 folder?

I have talent.gtl, TALENT.GTR, stex.gtl and stex.GTR
and the mod is in my GTC-TC-76 folder

My .plr file is in the  UserData directory, not the UserData/MattR7

Also it doesn't remember buying the car.

Have you considered using your phone as a hotspot, if hotel wi-fi is dodgy ? (Assuming you're on a smartphone of course)

Wouldn't think you need to transfer much data to govern the server, so shouldn't eat up too much of your data allowance.

Thanks Erling, I have done that in the past but with my old phone. It should be doable with my current phone so worth investigating, cheers.

No idea why your .plr isn't inside a yourname folder. But that might not be the problem (in this case).

If GTL forgets the car you bought, experience tells me that could be because your running GTL in a compatability mode. Is this Windows 10?

I think I may need to ask you to run a trace please. https://www.simracing.org.uk/smf/index.php?topic=13381.msg241379#msg241379

You can pm me the results if you cannot fix things.

First it said garage.gar was an illegal file, so I moved it and it created a new one which now says:


plrfile.cpp  2510: Attempting to save to USERDATA\MattR7.TMP
plrfile.cpp  2533: Retcode: 0 for renaming to USERDATA\MattR7.PLR
O_BaseGz.cpp 8513: CUBE error loading scene file USERDATA\tmpvehicle.scn: Error loading global material ALPINE_A364_INTERIOR


EDIT:#

I have unzipped into a Steam install, and it works ok

Phew, well done Matt. You may need to copy your UserData stuff into your Steam install. This should prevent you having to create a new profile.

The non steam is a copy of the steam one, just more recently used/modified
The steam one can log in and see the lobby fine

:thumbup1:

Just wondering how people are getting on with these. I initially found them quite tricky on the limit & had to do quite a few setup changes to get them how I wanted. Tony however found them quite easy to drive without altering very much.

They seem fairly docile to me, course I don't have the talent to push them to their limits also.  Not as bad as the other f-1 cars we used a couple of seasons ago or even the Pro-cars now.
On another note can some one tell me how you can set the race field up so you only practice race with these cars only offline  and not other GTL cars?  I know we did this with the other F-1's and I believe the CAN AM cars also.

Thanks ahaed
Bob M.

Could I take #223 please Tony. That seems rather apt as it is the last car on the list  ::) and my first laps with these machines has been far from encouraging  :-\

Personally I found the default setup just about useless, so I set about trying different diffs and shocks etc. Things improved a little, but I still have progressive and uncontrollable oversteer if the tail slides even a fraction on corner exit. So I am struggling to get any consistency and cannot go sub 1:40 atm.

Just wish that Renault would do something about that horrible exhaust note lol. These cars sound like they are powered by a French tractor engine with a blown silencer!!!

Clive, I have power diff on lowest setting & coast on highest, my main problem initially was lift off oversteer with power oversteer on corner exit a lesser problem. Default tyre pressures were way too high which didn't help either. I have softened the rear quite considerably & given it quite a lot of rear toe-in which has made the car a lot easier for me. Can now almost match the AI laptimes.

LOL   I am nowhere near ready to mix it with the AI yet and I have no idea how fast they are !!!

I also found the tyre pressures too high and gradually dropped them, have not interfered with the rear toe in as yet.
But I might give your suggestions for diff settings a try to see if I can get a grip on that oversteer issue.

Well.............there are three ways.

1) And this is assuming you have the F3 cars in a unique install. Go to every .car file (except for the F3 cars) and using the windows command Rewrite, change the file extensions to say .xcar. This will take ages but it will work. Or 2) delete (or move) all the other cars out of the install.

3) Get a piece of software called Garage Manager. This shows all the cars in your install as icons and you click on them to be "on" or "off". It actually does what is described in 1) but takes much less time. Here is a link http://www.mediafire.com/folder/hzxc5ex7lkhgz/GTL_Garage_Manager_by_Strava_v0_04_by_Strava
Follow the instructions in the Read Me. This is how I control car availability on the UKGTL server.

EDIT: there is a fourth way. You give the cars a unique class name then add that to the SIM_GTC.gdb file. This is how the Can-Am and F1 cars were done. But you would still have to visit all the F3 .car files and edit them to change the Class entry to your chosen class name.

Done

Hmm, now I'm wondering if I'm going to be as fast as you clever guys, who fiddle with the settings, and achieve great results.  ???

[/color]

I'm of course struggling and not fast with these cars, but on top of it I fear having tyre wear issues: I have not run more than 7/8 laps stints yet but the tyres seem to be wearing pretty quickly...
Might be my driving and/or my setup tweaking though.  :-\
Anybody having the same experience ?

Thanks for your help Tony on the all F3 field, but decided it would be a waste as I can't stay with the AI in the race.  At least with the GTL cars I'm not as shamed!  Get to beat someone anyway..........

Bob M.

Must admit I have not checked tyre wear, just been concentrating on a driveable setup. I will hopefully give them a try later & report.

I could not catch the AI at Silverstone
 so I wouldn't worry about it. Looks like the AI is set to be super quick.
I will be a more competitive opponent Bob.

Count me in as a slow backmarker as well, I remotely see the AI exhaust pipes for less than a lap  :(
Will try to improve though  ;)

Haven't yet got around to testing tyre wear, sorry.

Yes, don't worry about the AI, they are super quick. Only part of Nogaro where I can beat them is the first two corners, can gain nearly a second on them through there, but by the end of the lap I am around 1s slower, so they are 2s quicker over the rest of the lap. They are super quick through the tight turns.

I did some initial tyre wear testing to find out if I needed to set it to 2x. I concluded that it was not necessary.

BTW Wi-Fi here is adequate  :sweatdrop:  :thumbup1:

#10 for me please.

Done

FWIW.....

For once, I have done a little preparation as this car group is a total unknown for me. Plus I recall struggling with the '67 F1 cars a few seasons back and wanted to get a handle on these cars before I set about destroying the scenery.

My plan is to evolve/stumble across a setup that simply feels stable and reliable. I have only downloaded and run on the Nogaro track as it seems to be a good testing ground with a good mixture of corners. If I can get the chassis to my liking here then hopefully it will be a case of copying it across to the rest of the circuits as we go to them, and allow for gearbox tweaks and minor suspension adjustments to suit? I might be faced with learning a few tracks as we progress, but that will be much easier if I have a car that drives without any nasty surprises!!

I tried Geoff's suggested diff settings and, maybe because the rest of my setup changes did not fit with them, I returned to what I already had. One thing I did notice re tyre wear, is that the diff settings appeared to have quite a marked effect...especially on the front left if I pushed through some of the longer corners. With the "wrong" diff the front left would go red/orange after 2 right handers at racing speed and show a noticeable decrease in available rubber  :o.
My current evolution of the setup has shocker settings a long way from the default and I have gradually reduced the rear roll bar to try and counter that deadly oversteer on corner exit. It still happens if I unsettle the car in any way around mid corner, so I am wondering if it is a clutch/preload issue?? I also wonder if I need to play with gear ratios to reduce the grunt I am trying to force through the rear end  which appears to break the tyre adhesion and initiates the rear end slide ? That Alpine engine sounds like a biscuit tin full of broken spanners, but certainly has some torque !!
 I have not invoked the AI ( never bother with them anyway ) and am concentrating more on being able to string 3 or more laps together, on an empty track, at what feels like 95% limit of my ability. From Geoff's comments, and what time I feel I am losing at each corner,  I am guessing that the AI would be around the 1:30 lap time which is somewhere I won't be going anytime soon!!! :-\

AI are around 1.34 Clive.

LOL, slower than I expected but still not within the scope of my talents  :-\

Around 1:43 without risking too much  :P - at the end ot the pack for sure  ::)

#34 for me please Tony.

Done

Am at my secondary location today, and after it CTD on 3 different installations here.
I downloaded a clean zip, (which I can make available if you PM me) and I have it now working.
Plainly there is something that a previous mod, which only I seem to have  ::) is doing that screws up this one
One of the installations at primary location had a .gal, and .plr in two places, but here non of them had that.
Will do a few laps later to see what times I can get down to...

Hi guys unfortunately will not make this, gone down with some horrible bug, have a good race and hope to see you all next week.

Wishing you a speedy recovery Rog

Get well soon Rog.

Results and replay now posted.

Don't really want to do this series. Two race nights a week is truly more than I can cope with, but on the other hand missing out on some good racing is a shame.   Wanted to at least sample the car, but didn't get round to installing it and the tracks until 00:30 last night. Then wasted a not inconsiderable amount of what was supposed to be my night's sleep on practicing and fiddling with setup.  Arrived at an enjoyable car and posted a 34.2 time which, based on postings here, should have a chance of being competitive.

Should have followed my first instinct and stayed away; then I wouldn't have bumped Geoffers off on L1 - big apology for that  :oops:   These cars change velocity very rapidly, so I found it very hard to judge what is a safe distance from a car in front of you.

Geoffers made a brilliant start, shooting ahead of me, but then was slower than expected through T1-T2, leading to me lightly tapping him already here.  Had to back off, which Clive sought to exploit. Only held him off with some aggressive cornering. Then at the end of the straight, I misjudged the braking and bumped Geoffers off. Waited for him to rejoin while the rest of the field went past.  Followed him at some distance while he worked his way up the field.  Kurt kindly held the door open for me when I caught him - thanks for that!  Passed Bob with some very late braking at the end of the straight, and did the same with Patrick a couple of laps later.  With Clive's exit, I was then up to 4th.  Pit board suddenly showed me in 3rd, despite no one having left, and me not noticing having passed anyone in trouble.  Didn't know Suti had gone for a tyre change at the time.

Geoffers was slipping away, and helped by mistakes from me, the gap was up to 8 secs. Suddenly it dropped to 5 secs however, and it seemed I was catching him, apparently struggling with worn tyres. Surprising, as he normally seems to cope better with that than me.  Got past when he shot off and back across the track.  Matt was 27 secs ahead and still moving away, and car behind was 12-14 secs back, so rest of the race was uneventful, except for the challenge of driving the car on rubber worn down to the rims!   Had a semi race with a lapped Suti, who had no trouble keeping up on his fresher tyres.

Grats to Matt on a very convincing performance, and to Patrick for completing the podiun.  Commiserations to those who suffered early exits - and a get well soon to Roger!

Enjoyed that. Did my best to make a stable setup, not as fast as it could be, but these things
are awkward to drive, so went for consistency. Seemed to work. Surprised to poll and after
a less than lightning start, ran away while others were getting in each others way.
Geoffers accepted a bit of contact, but didn't seem to do damage, Clive took over the chase
with Suti close I think. Managed to stay in front and eeek out a gap, slowed in the last few laps
to try not to slide and save what was left of the tyres. Funny cars, feels to be really sloppy
so I made everything hard to try to reduce the rolling about.

Although I found about 5 seconds still a bit off pace.

Decided to change my fading tyres after about 10 laps and found - I don't know whether it's a track and/or a car issue - that pit stops didn't work here
(pit board did not appear). So I left pits again and noticed that the automatic pit limiter did not switch off. Tried again twice to make a pit stop but failed again.
Already far behind I decided to leave for good.  :P

Grats to Matt and podium & get well soon, Roger.

CU next time.

Grats to Matt, Erling and Patrick on the first podium for this series...you guys seem to have a handle on these cars.

Until qualifying last night, my PB was a single fluke of a lap that registered a high 1:35 during offline practice. Something that I was unable to replicate no matter how hard I tried  :-\ ( perhaps trying too hard?? ).
Matt appeared to have found a sweet spot with these cars and was clearly favourite for pole and the win, if he could hold things together.
Erling ( as I suspected ) had got his act together and was close to Matt's times...and of course Geoffers was within striking distance  of the front row.

So, I was pleased to have got a time in the mid 1:34's for qualifying, but very concerned at what it had cost me in tyre rubber over a single lap!!
Gradually ( very gradually)  I had been evolving the setup to try and minimise that fatal oversteer on corner exit that I had somehow dialled into the setup. The start was a little hectic and a "luv nudge" from Erling at T2 eased me onto the grass but did not really adversely change my fortunes as he conveniently tried to outbrake me through T3 and collected Geoffers in the process....I was in P2 behind a very quick and disappearing Matt.
Maybe the prudent thing to do would have been not to try and catch Matt who was clearly faster and concentrate on keeping my driving clean and smooth? but....when the red racing mist descends and there is a target ahead.. a simracer has gotta do, what a simracer has gotta do???
Pushing hard for 2 laps with Patrick ever threatening had cooked my front left tyre, but it was the snap oversteer that finally got me out of the hairpin. The car decided that we were going to continue going left even though the correct route was straight ahead  :-\. A large handful of opposite lock initially made zero difference, but suddenly something gripped and the car snapped to the right and hurtled into the Armco ripping off a front wheel :(
Well that finished the race as I did not feel that a 3 wheeled French Formula 3 car was going to be competitive?

This setup definitely requires more work...so does the driver  ::)

Obviously Matt & Erling have, but I cannot say the same (by the way how could I have a handle when the car has no door ?...  ;D )

As could be seen in quali I am way too slow, so I did not expect much from the race.
During my private practice I had been concerned about tyre wear, so I tried to find a setup that would limit it: Fail!  >:(
So during the race I tried to save the tyres, trying as well to believe that was why I was slow...  :'(
Anyway I managed to stay on the black stuff and that was good enough for a podium (but not for any glory)

I share Clive conclusion:

Congrats to Matt (dominant win), Erling & Patrick, well driven all.  :clap: :clap: :clap:

Did quite a lot of testing for this, the car being quite tricky here I found. Made it quite driveable, although still had a problem with it understeering on part throttle transforming into oversteer on full throttle. Wasn't bad on the faster corners but I was slow out of the tighter turns for fear of doing a Clive (see above).

Got away well after qualifying 3rd & beat Erling into T1, got a slight bump from Erling on the exit but nothing much so settled into 2nd place behind a fast disappearing Matt. All went well until the end of the back straight when I braked a bit earlier than Erling expected & I spun out. Erling graciously waited & we set off after the pack. Caught up after 3-4 laps but I found it quite difficult to overtake, mainly due to my slowness out of the tight turns, hence had several side by side moments with Kurt, Bob & Patrick.

Eventually got up to 3rd & started to close on Suti, but he spun at T1/2 & gifted me 2nd place. Matt was well ahead & still pulling away so I just had to worry about Erling behind, initially I was opening the gap, but as the tyres wore I started making mistakes & Erling got closer. Inevitably I ended up spinning at T1/2 which was becoming very tricky to negotiate on worn tyres, & I dropped to 4th. A few laps later I spun there again, this time clouting the barrier & losing both front wheels :o. Race over.

Regarding setup. I was using a different GTL install for this series to my normal one. After the race I had a thought about my controller setup, so checked it against my normal one, all sensitivities (steering, brake & throttle) were set quite different! So I set them the same as my regular GTL install & tried a few laps at Nogaro. First timed lap on full fuel 1.34.0, half a second quicker than my previous best, & the car seemed to turn much better with far less part throttle understeer. So controller setup can make quite a difference.

I have a new install for this, and had to go through stuff to install XD etc
the sensitivities are whatever standard is. I really struggled with these cars at first with hardly any FB effect
I need a strong FB for these or I wander all over the place, so I set it to MS sidewinder, and had force =100%
and effect at medium, and I could drive them much better.
I should be here for the next two, then I am away for at least two.

Short race for me.  Thought I had a pretty docile setup for this car, but I guess I entered the big left turn sweeper a little too fast and the rear tires gave up their grip.  Happened to me kindof like slow motion just slowly headed to the left and the wall.  Thought about making it back to the pits for repairs, but too much damage and thats a long way back, plus I was seeing a little "red" at the time.  Just checked out!!!!
After I took a few breaths and calmed down I decided to try the car at Silverstone for a few laps. To me the car is much better suited for this track, or maybe I just like the track better, seems to have better grip.  Will give it a go anyway, too stubborn to give up on this series...............Monaco might be a different story!!

Bob M. 

Result (https://www.avonrise.co.uk/srou/kurts/07102019_Nogaro)

 8)

BTW: the pitstop issue seems to be car related. Tried an offline Healey race at Nogaro with pitstop working as it should and then a
GTC-TC-76 race with some Alpines included and had the same experience concerning pitstop  ???

The only place where "pitstop" is included is the hdc-file but I have no idea yet what to modify.

@ Tony: do we use the original speedster63 mod or the ABB version?

edit: I assume we are using speedster63's original mod.
There are differences between the two mods:

hdc-file (ABB, dated 07.06.2019):

NumPitstopsRange=(0, 1, 4)
NumPitstopsSetting=3
Pitstop1Range=(1.0, 1.0, 75)
Pitstop1Setting=30
Pitstop2Range=(1.0, 1.0, 75)
Pitstop2Setting=30
Pitstop3Range=(1.0, 1.0, 75)
Pitstop3Setting=30

hdc-file (mod we are using, dated 07.12.2015):

NumPitstopsRange=(0, 1, 4)
NumPitstopsSetting=3
Pitstop1Range=(1.0, 1.0, 50)
Pitstop1Setting=30
Pitstop2Range=(1.0, 1.0, 50)
Pitstop2Setting=30
Pitstop3Range=(1.0, 1.0, 50)
Pitstop3Setting=30

I'll check this as soon I find the time.

@ Kurt. It's the Speedster mod but with modified fuel tank capacity (+10). That's all I changed.

The pitstop thing is odd. I have the mod on my laptop so If Mrs Wiltshire let's me have some spare time I'll have a poke around and see if I spot something obvious.

Sometimes the chaps over at Evolution can be helpfull  ;)

Sorry, never noticed that, but then, if you hadn't been so busy trying to pass me, it never would have happened...  ;D

And I wouldn't say I was close to Matt - he being a full second quicker basically amounts to being light years ahead..   :o

Hmmm, I seemed to just be lucky here with a tame setup that worked well at this twisty track. Silverstone as said is
a much more flowing track, so I am not expecting to have the same advantage. This Monaco version is all about
who is bravest (or more foolish) in the harbour chicane  :o And people will have perfected their setups  by then..