SimRacing.org.uk

Grid/server capacity: 22

Car/Track download available by pm to WT

Track: Donington Park '77-'85 GP (formerly National circuit)

Car restrictions: Four drives maximum per Division. Check your car allowance here (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1iQ2h1wtcJVy_L6F4j52MSPJ2wG4hMrTMwhIog8tIgs8/edit?usp=sharing)

Points: We are recreating the scoring system that was used in the 1983 ETCC. Overall race result, top 6 scored 9-6-4-3-2-1, In each division, top 10 scored 20-15-12-10-8-6-4-3-2-1.

Practice: ~19:20 (60 mins)
Qualifying: 20:20 (20 mins) Drivers must not leave qualifying to change car make.
Race: 20:40 (47 laps)

Time of Day Setting: 14:00
Start: STANDING
Tyre wear: Normal
Fuel consumption: x2
Pit stops required: YES

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

I have 4 GTL install now  ::)

1: The one that has these cars, which I assume I have used before, has a Donington with GP and National
I think this is the "comes with game" one. I can't find the "pm Tony" download, which I must have had or
I woudn't have the cars. Is the original Donny National the right track version?

2: I have a Corolla called "Levin" is this the one for this series? the normal Corrolla is 4 secs slower than the
other cars in the group.

3: Can't see no server? (yet?)

Muchos grassy

1) It is the standard Donington National circuit.

2) It is the Corolla Levin.

3) Server showed it as running but I could not see it so I have re-started it. Seems Ok now.

IMPORTANT

To be able to practice and qualy in the daylight go to Gamedata, Locations, Donington. Open nDonington.GDB file with notepad and change line's

Practice1start = to 10:00

Qualify1Start = to 11:00

and save allowing to overwrite.

Driver's who don't do this will throw up miss-match messages (and we know where you live  :shifty: )

Tony ( or anyone else who can help?)

I have tried all ways that I know to disable the "Autopit" as per the race posts and have spent fruitless time before each race where pitstops are required to edit the necessary file.
Whatever I do I still have no control over my car once I hit the pitlane!!

I have ( AFAIK ) invoked the Admin privileges within Win 10 before opening the relevant GTL install.
I follow Tony's instructions and edit the player file, which appears to work OK.
Then I save and exit
Fire up the GTL install and try a lap before entering the pitlane and...the control of the car is taken from me  :-\
Exit and go back to the player file.
I then cannot read the lines that I had previously edited as there are maybe 10 lines of instructions which have been replaced with "?"'s. I assume that these are indeed the alterations that I had entered as I cannot find the "Autopit" lines anywhere in the text file.
BUT
if I exit Windows and reboot. Select the relevant GTL install and open the plr folder again...all has been restored to the default GTL settings and Autopit is operational again???

I am aware that this should give me a slight advantage in the pitstops ( although you would never notice it in my case!! ) but more importantly it has caused issues when there are other cars in the pitlane. GTL wants to drive my car directly through anyone parked in adjacent boxes??!! When that looks like happening I hit the "Quit" button.
 Also on one or two occasions where the pit entry point is very close to the exit of the final corner, and I might have tried to pinch a few metres with a tight inside line, I have been grabbed by the Autopit god and dragged kicking and screaming to my pitbox!!...

I keep hoping to be able to announce that finally real life is no longer in the way and that I can pick things back up in this simracing thingy but no, it just keeps getting worse. It'll be another few weeks. At least  :'(

Sorry about that, fellows, I had every intention of not missing most of the calendar this year but I should finally learn that when I make an optimistic planning, life jumps in all the faster to say : !ç§éç!§"é@ You!

Hi Clive  do as tony says in the notes at top of post in your .plr file, remember to hit save before exiting.
Apart from that have no idea as my win 10 works fine.

I think he's done that Rog.

Beats me Clive, maybe it's what your editing the file with?

Maybe try this......... copy/paste the lines below in BOLD into your .plr file (after you have deleted the relevant lines of course).

Autopit="0"
Force Autopit Off="1" // Forces autopit always off (unsupported, use at your own risk)
Opposite Lock="0"
Stability Control="1"
No AI Control="1" // AI never has control over car (except autopit)

glad you've not given up on us Dom. Look forward to your return.

Take it easy Dom, look forward to seeing you back when you are ready.  :thumbup1:

Results and replay now posted.

A suggestion Clive:

Why not email your .plr file to Tony or someone else who's successfully made the changes, and let that someone edit your file ?

If there's some little detail that escapes you, or if the program used to do the edit somehow garbles the file, then maybe the other approach might work.

Just remember to save a copy of your original file, before trying the edited one.

Currently, Seniordan's car is shown as classless. We are working to fix this.

EDIT: BMW will show correct class for future events, just not this'n, sorry.

Enjoyed that one  ;D  Considering that mine and others times were only slightly slower than Erling's
he must have been very consistent to get a minute and a half in front by the end  :o
Top man, great driving.  :thumbup1: I was pleasantly surprised to be able to dice with Geoffers for a change
I was a few tenths quicker using Mr Levin than the Squashcourt or VW but loved it, though it took some
setup time to keep it in a straight line into corners. Managed to mess up pitstop 1, and came out of the
pits trying to turn off the limiter by repeatedly hitting the "C" key, so crawled round T1 on to craner curves in
1st gear trying to get out of people's way.... then had some trouble changing up, as my wheel has developed
a dislike to pulling back on the paddle other than in the centre. That happened on the final lap after I had
survived a lunge from Roger on the previous lap, I couldn't change up on the back straight allowing him to have
another mad lunge into the final turn, so was lucky to keep the place  8) I am away for the next couple of weeks
so will as usual miss some events.  :'(

Great fun at Donington even if my pitstop problems lost me several possible places  :-\

Grats to Erling on a great drive in the Metro, especially as on the 2 ( very short ) occasions when I tried that car it was beyond my ability to control under braking. How you kept that car on the track and circulating so quickly was worrying  lol.
I was almost tempted to take the AlfaV6 and did actually join the server with that very car. There were only a couple of other members on the server at that time ( all in the Gr1 class with Escorts I think?) so I topped the tanks and did a couple of out laps before tweaking the diff/dampers and Roll bars to get more turn in.
Once I had some decent steering response I was down into the 1:19's and there was room for improvement on that time, but by then I noticed that I might very well be in a class of my own ……...and that would be no fun at all!!. So I quit and rejoined with the Toyota so that I could rub door handles with those Escorts and VW's. That only gave me about 10 minutes thanks to Tony's direction of Erling to edit his GTL files  ;) which delayed the start of qualifying. Ironically Erling and Rog had joined late and were both in the class that would have included that Alfa  :-\

A few last minute tweaks during qualifying had the Toyota screamer almost on the pace for its class, so the plan was to follow the pack and ease myself into the hostilities, hopefully gaining some speed as I got used to the handling.
It almost went very wrong when the front wheel drive brigade bogged down off the grid and Matt, Geoffers and myself snuck through to take the leading places.
 OK revised plan....just follow Geoffers for a few laps.
That was fine until Erling cruised up behind after about 2 laps and rather than make a pointless fight I flashed him through, followed a lap later by Rog. That did not do me much harm as Geoffers and Matt were so busy dicing with Erling that I was able to stay well within touch. So that when Erling and then Roger got to the front and pulled away I was sitting on Geoffer's boot lid  ;D
There were a couple of occasions when a pass might have been possible but it was too early in the race to risk something stupid, so I sat back and found where my car was quicker.
Geoff almost caught me out when he dived into the pits for his first stop  :scared: I was not anticipating anyone stopping that early!! So now Matt was the target just a little way ahead and I gradually reeled him in until once again I was sat on a bootlid and getting towed around in the slipstream  ;) We were in identical cars so I was feeling good about my race pace. Then Matt also did a sudden pit entry???? when I still had about 7 laps left in my tank?? I assume that both Geoffers and Matt were going for short first stints??
So I plugged on for another 6 laps trying to stretch any advantage I might have and watching the tyre wear to decide if I might need new rubber at any point?? ( that's the problem with zero preparation!!  :-\ ) I also realised that I would need 2 pitstops for fuel, but I had not done the calculation for the required "splash and dash" at the end. Some mental arithmetic indicated that I should reach 38/39 laps on 2 full tanks. so would only need 7 laps worth to be sure of finishing.......so what percentage of a full tank was that? and how much gas is there in a full tank?? I realised that I had to watch the fuel fill up at the first stop and gather the necessary data.
19 laps in and in for the 1st stop. Apologies for my autopilot but fortunately no-one was parked in my way, so that was good.
Tyres are OK so "do not replace" and just fill up with fuel. But all I got was a gallon and I was sent on my way  ??? A lap later I am back into the pits and this time I manage to fill the tank. but I have lost a lot of time.
The next 19 laps were a great dice with Dan and his BMW. He was way quicker on the straights but I could just squeeze out enough on the corners to keep ahead for lap after lap until he went for the pits ???. I was on my own again for several laps and might have been just closing on the cars ahead, but not enough to catch them.
Then 2nd stop time and swung into the pits for a splash and dash. Somehow I had determined that I needed 10 galls, don't ask me how or why, but I just did OK! which turned out to be loads more than I actually needed  :-\. In my hurry to exit the pits and get back into the race I forgot that the speed limiter was already ON and promptly turned it OFF as I trundled down the pitlane.....so I got an SnG!! The perfect end to an imperfect pit stop saga!
I eventually emerged behind Dan and tried to make a fight of it to the finish, but tried to extract more grip than the tyres were able to give through the Old Hairpin and had a wild ride across the grass ending any hopes of a glorious pass on Dan's BMW.

Despite the pit stop woes I enjoyed the longer race format, but maybe just a little pre race preparation might be prudent in the future  ::)

PS.
 I will try the "Cut & Paste" idea for the .plr file Tony, although I don't see that it is any different to what I have been doing anyway. BTW I was using the std Windows text editor and all appeared fine as I changed the values and clicked the SAVE command on every attempt.
I can only think that it is something to do with the accessibility credentials that refuse to accept any editing of the files, but why that should manifest itself as a row of "?"'s I do not know.

Clive, player files are supposed to be "read and write". Have a look in properties of the PLR file, maybe the "read only" box is accidentally checked.

What car & class to bet on in series like this is always a bit of a gamble, not knowing what everyone else is driving until the last minute.  Having used a Div. 1 car last time, I wanted something else, preferably the Div. 3 Beemer.  Thus a bit of a dilemma getting online and finding nearly everyone else in Div. 1 cars.  ::)

Don't like those easy class wins, where you're the only one in that class. On the other hand, I'm always tempted if I can spot an opportunity for outright victory.  Looking at Geoffers' laptimes in praccy, the prospect for that looked dubious in the BMW.  With the Escort, he would most likely not change tyres, whereas I would have to do so at least once in the Beemer.

Time to fish out the Joker then, in the form of the Metro.  It had minimal tyre wear, and should last the distance on 1 set only.  On the other hand it doesn't take kindly to abuse, so would be a challenging drive for all those laps.  Had to pump the brakes to prevent it from snapping. With featherlight control inputs however, it was actually quite a nice drive on Donington.

Dreadful start; worried about too much wheelspin, but instead bogged down completely, being swamped by Matt, Geoffers & Clive.  Had to claw back those postions one by one.  Back in the lead, I soon spotted a familiar set of red stripes in my mirrors.  Roger had joined late, so hadn't seen what he was driving.  Finding him in his familiar Renault was both a relief and worrying - at least I wasn't the only one in the class anymore, but the Renault is a lot more abuseable than the Metro, and with Roger easily keeping up, it was very likely I would overdo it sooner or later, getting bitten hard by the Metro.

Contemplated this over some close fought laps, but then remembered the excessive tyre wear of the Renault. Maybe that would be my saviour ?
After a while, Roger did start to drop back, so probably just that slowing him down.  Outright excitement vaned a bit along with him, but there were plenty of early pitters to lap, so falling asleep was not an option.  Two pitstops for fuel only went without a hitch.  Tyre wear after 47 laps - fronts 13.39 / 6.51; rears - wait for it - 3.32 / 2.69  :D

Grats to Matt & Roger on their podiums, and to class winners Matt & Dan.

Result (https://www.avonrise.co.uk/srou/kurts/_2020/04032020_DoningtonPark_National)

 8)

Thanks Kurt  :thumbup1:

Good race, particularly the first 10 laps with five of us within a handful of seconds of each other. Was a shame I had to quit the battle but I had planned on doing a short first stint followed by two longer ones.

Made a mess of both pitstops, first one I had to reverse & reposition the car as the pit board didn't come up first time. Second one, I neglected to cancel bodywork repairs that I sustained when I bumped into Kurt at the chicane  ::)(sorry Kurt & well saved), which I only spotted just as I was pressing 'enter' to commence refuelling.

Congrats to Erling on a fine win in a tricky car & to Matt & Rog on the podium.  :clap: :clap: :clap: