SimRacing.org.uk

Grid/server capacity: 22

Car/Track download available by pm to WT

Track: Zolder '75-'85 GP

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 (38 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 think it's going to be great idea to take off the cut warnings, because at some places just going into the grass and you are given a warning, not even going off with 4 tires.

I'm not convinced. I've done loads of practice laps here and not had a single cut.

Had an off in lap 6 or so, could reenter the track but missed the second interin time.
So that particular lap did not count  ??? and I was automatically a lap back.
But fun as long as it lasted  :)

Good chase with Daz and Clive, unfortunately at my pit stop i stop maybe 1-2 cm off the place and the pit crew didn't accepted my car. I stall the engine, try to start it once again for 1-2 minutes without luck and had to retire.

Ah, wondered what had happened to you Dimitar. Had been a tough chase until that point, I couldn't quite get away for a long time.

Quite liking the Rover, drives well, responds to setup changes, and doesn't eat its tires too much either.

Once Dimitar had gone, I was kind of in no mans land in the lead as I knew Clive was in second, but XD was showing him as DNF so I had no idea at all what the gap was. Figured it must be around 20 odd seconds after the pitstops, so got my head down and pushed on as I felt Clive was a little quicker than me, so didn't want him to get close enough to have a go....But how far back he was I've no idea. The second pitstop came and went, still no sign in my mirrors of Clive....So just kept pushing on as I could right till the end, and took the flag for the win.

Well done to the finishers, bad luck to the guys that didn't get there.

Results and replay now posted however the gremlins have had a hand in the overall results table  :taz:

We will try to get this sorted asap.

I think the overall results table is now corrected.

Please shout out if you see something wrong!

Was having a great time racing Geoff, I could do the turns faster, he was faster down the straight.
nearing 2nd stop, tyres were going off, and the rear had a mind of it's own, went wide losing time a few times
and had 2 stop and goes with no advantage, lost the will to live so left.

Yep, Erling was in a Div1 car, not Div2.

Thanks Geoffers, now fixed.

Steady race at the back in my remaining car, the Golf. First dozen or so laps were fun battling with Matt's Escort, as he said the Golf was quicker on the straights but being from a different modder to the other cars it does not have their cornering capabilities. The battle ended shortly after the first pitstops when I rolled the car by taking too much kerb at Boulderberghaarspeld (!!). Rest of the race was a fairly lonely affair, but happy with 5th.

Congrats to Daz, Clive & Erling.  :clap: :clap: :clap:

Also congrats to Erling on winning Div 1, Div 2 & the Overall Championship & also to Daz winning Div 3.  :notworthy: :notworthy: :notworthy:

Grats to the Div winners and to the overall champ.

Also, thanks to whoever thought up this series. The mixture of cars on each grid and all of the possible permutations made the races very enjoyable and challenging.
I confess that I do not do the offline practice that I should for GTL and as a result I often struggle with poor choices and badly handling cars when race time comes. But that does always not detract from the fun.

Last night's race at Zolder was yet another surprise. I had no idea that it was the final race, or that I had that lovely Alfa GTV left to use. Ironically, the Alfa is one of the few cars that I have a setup for and that I feel comfortable with. I think that might have shown in my lap times and pole position?? lol

The start was a concern in case those big Rovers could outdrag me to T1, but I just made it there first. The plan ( there is always a plan, it doesn't always work!) was to try and run away from those Rovers before the first pit stop.

Well, lap 1 followed the script but at the start of lap 2 I was a bit too close to the apex and the kerb at T2. It was enough to put the car on two wheels. which was not unusual for me, but this time I hit the kerb a fraction to hard and the car went up on 2 wheels and just stayed there!!!   :scared: :scared:
I was waiting for the dreaded slow roll over...but it just balanced there as Daz and Dimi  swept past  :-\. I wriggled the steering  and the Alfa eventually dropped back onto all 4 wheels, but I had dropped to 3rd place and a good distance behind two very fast cars  :(

After a lap to confirm that there was no damage I set about catching Daz and DD, slowly reeling them in as we approached the first pitstops. Catching        up was one thing, but getting past DD was a problem as he had the extra grunt on the straights. Dimi went for the pits a lap before Daz and myself and I did a banzai "in lap" and I suspect that Daz had stretched the fuel for the extra lap? and was slower on his "in lap" as I gained several seconds.

I followed Daz into the pits some 4 secs behind, but feeling good because I had closed the gap. But the cafty sod did not change tyres!! and I did  :-\ !!

I was spitting nails sat in the pits as he drove out to a 20 second lead, but mistakenly figured that he would have to take tyres at the next stop and I would not.
Over the next stint I was closing the gap at around 1-1.5 secs a lap depending on traffic. So after 13 laps of flat out driving I actually followed Daz into the pits for stop 2, only 4 secs behind again!!. I was feeling smug and quite sure that I would be sailing out of the pits whilst his pit crew changed his worn out rubber...........but he left first without changing his tyres again!!!

At least Daz was now in sight as we left the pits and I had been catching him at around a second a lap, so in 5 laps I should be on his tail pipes?? Plus his tyres must be getting old??  At this point I somehow managed to change the monitor view from "in car" to "sitting on the bonnet with dials etc" ??!!

It was whilst I was trying to find and hit the right key to revert to my preferred view that I screwed my race and had a spin. That effectively gave Daz a free pass for the final 12 laps, but I decided to push hard and hope that he made a mistake of his own.  He didn't. I did and outbraked myself at the chicane twice, triggering an SnG with 3 laps to go!!!
Just to compound my pain and embarassment I left the pits and promptly over ran the chicane again .......... another Sng with 1 lap to go lol!! Fortunately I had a huge lead over Erling in 3rd and I was able to hold onto second.

Just a query here about some strange graphics glitches that I noticed in the second half of the race. At a few points around the track my frame rate suddenly dropped off and made things interesting. Did anyone else notice anything? or do I need to look for some background activity on my PC?

Blimey, I had literally no idea you were so close Clive  :eek: :scared:, not that there would have been too much I could do.

I had forgotten about you being on 2 wheels, with the amount of lean angle and sparks I genuinely thought you were scraping the door handles...... :lol:

You are correct, I didn't change tires at all. I have found that if the right foot is applied relatively gently in the early part of the race when the car is heavy, and the car isn't flung around too much, that it does make a good difference to the wear early on, which takes a lot of the pain out of it later. The middle stint was pushing on a bit though, I could have gone faster but not by very much, was trying to stay consistent as the rubber was wearing to the tune of around a second a lap down as you rightly suggest.

So our huge '83 ETCC series finally ends and we have our champions

Division 1

1st Erling G-P  :notworthy:
2nd EvilClive  :clap:
3rd Geoffers  :thumbup2:

Division 2

1st Erling G-P  :notworthy:
2nd Geoffers  :clap:
3rd Dimitar Dulichki  :thumbup2:

Division 3

1st Daz9  :notworthy:
2nd Erling G-P  :clap:
3rd Geoffers  :thumbup2:

Overall

1st Erling G-P  :notworthy:
2nd Geoffers  :clap:
3rd EvilClive  :thumbup2:

Well done chaps  :thumbup1:

Thanks to Geoffers for designing this series and to everyone who took part, great fun.

Thanks to Geoffers for the great season.

Congrats to all of the Top 3 drivers.  :jumpjoy:

HEADS UP

As becomes clear from the results table this driver had a big senior moment when he forgot to put some new fuel in the tank. I just couldn't make it to my pit so all I could do was quit in disgust. Liked the Metro better than expected as long as you don't touch the brakes and that's where the heads up comes in:

Dont even do as much as glance at the brakepedal and the back steps out uncontrollably. It frustrated me beyond words so I decided to take a look at the Metro's HDC file.
I think there is a  flaw there as it's the only frontwheel drive car in GTL where the figures for brake torque seemed to be turned around ! that is, the balance between  front and rear wheels is wrong. Here are the values for a number of known front drive cars.

Brake torque.

mini cooper s
front  1179.0
rear   1017.0

1970 mini 1275GT
front  1179.0
rear   967.0

Renault 5 GT
front 2800.0
rear  1700.0

Fiat 128
front 1550.0
rear  900.0

and finally the  Metro

Rover Metro
front 2040.0
rear  2400.0  !!

Turning these values around gives a much improved braking behaviour already but the  2040.0 for the rears should preferably be lowered to 1940.0 or1840.0

Interested to know what you guys think about a tweak like that.

I think we all agree that the ETTC83 was a series enjoyed by all and I hope we'll see another 83 season soon. Could we have some discussion on cars to be added to the grid ?
Triumph Dolomite  and VW Scirocco springs mind here but there must be more...
Might be interesting to do some testing.

Cheers, Dan

Interesting read Dan. Tony & I did adjust some braking parameters as the original Metro we downloaded was even more difficult to drive. But I don't know enough about what all the settings in the hdc file do to make too many changes.

Some other thoughts on the cars.

Rover, best car in its class.
Jaguar, needs to handle a little better to match the Rover.
BMW, also needs better handling & maybe a little more power.

Alfa GTV, far quicker than it should be, handling OK but too much power.
Metro, needs brakes sorting.
Renault, needs tyre wear sorting, a bit more power, bit less grip.

Toyota, no changes.
Escort, needs a little more power & better able to get it to the road.
Golf, this car is from a different modder to all the others & seriously lacks grip in comparison.

Maybe we could get Lasse (Nappe) to take a look at them & make some changes.

Thanks for the feedback Dan; a very interesting read.

One has to be very careful when "tweaking" .hdc data as often a change here can in-advertently effect some thing else unintended. Don't even mention tyre wear  ::). We also have free time pressures so many things are a compromise.
But I take on board what you say and in hindsight perhaps we should have paid more attention to the Metro mod. And perhaps not have used the Alfa as it was way too quick. But it just fitted in with Geoffers scheme of recreating the 1983 ETCC so well.

We will try to use any cars/historic series suggested to us but taking an idea or suggestion to a full working race series requires a lot of steps and testing so some things won't always be possible. But we do listen. We are planning an 1986 ETCC series, and a 1976 BTSC series, both currently scheduled for Season 22.

Good news about the VW Scirocco as we start a new Monday night series using these cars  :thumbup1:
Details of which may be found here https://www.simracing.org.uk/smf/index.php?action=LM2R&group=1241&theme=5

December is the Month when we finalise all the race series for the next year and I have been busy getting all these ready for use. You may pm me for download details of the series your interested in or wait till I'm finished and send me a pm saying "All". I will then be able to send out a pm for all of the planned series.

Cheers

WT

Great read Dan!

The brakes were the reason i totally get rid off the Metro. As you said it was very strange and inconvenient to drive the car.

I can't say which cars can be added to the roster because i am not competent on the cars years.  :oops: But I'll be more than happy to tell my opinion on which cars are fun to drive, as i don't understand much about physics. I have now big experience with different cars from the races here and the ones at Altbierbude. So if you guys need some advice - count me in.

I felt the Alfa had an awful lot of grip as well as power to be honest Geoff when I drove it at Nords. The handling nature felt reasonable in its balance and reactions, but there was a lot of grip.

My other personal observations were....

The Jag is flat out the fastest car by a mile, but it corners like a supertanker so is slow in the twisty bits. Whether it should be able to match the Rover on the tracks that require better handling is a debateable point for sure, in my view it is a car that should only be able to shine on tracks that allow it to due to the nature of the vehicle.

The BMW felt like the worst of that group, but that may have been my inability to apply the correct setup. It was never stable for me at Spa.

The Rover was the easiest of the big cars to get a laptime out of on the tracks I tried it on, and was a good overall package. It could be made nice and stable with a relatively default setup, or with a few changes was possible to be made a more direct, but slightly less safe car, which rewarded on the stopwatch.

The Toyota was the only other car I drove. That felt a little too twitchy maybe, when it let go there seemed to be a very small window of opportunity to actually stop it spinning. I have actually driven one of these in the real world, only for a day of rallying though so not massively relevant. I felt it should have been a little easier to hold a slide from the rear in it though for sure. That could have also been setup related to be fair, as my setups are rarely any good.

Being the band of merry simracing men that we are I trust everyone to understand that my input merely serves the purpose of even more improving the racing experience we all enjoy so much. Absolutely no critical note intended and fully aware of the amount of work involved in putting up a new series for which an extra Thank you to Tony and Geoffers. :notworthy: 

One of the most precision demanding circuits, with those poisonous kerbs, ready to flip your car at the slightest indiscretion.  Apart from the first stint, where I had fun chasing some of the faster cars, it was an uninteresting and lonely race - only other car I saw after the first stint, was Daz lapping me.  Had expected Clive to lap me also, so very surprised to find myself less than 5 secs behind him at the end. Had I known, I would have tried to push harder (but probably wouldn't have changed anything).  Grats to Daz & Clive

Surprised also to have won a couple of the divisions & the overall. Probably would have looked different, if not for some tactical car choices and late entries from some of our current aliens.  Btw Tony, I believe your winners announcement for Div. 3 is in disagreement with the results table.  Grats to Daz for winning Div3, and to the runners up in all classes.

Dan: Shame about the fuel at your pit stop. If the pit windows aren't very narrow, I always try to plan my stops so that I have at least one more lap worth of fuel left - that way I can do another lap for a 2nd attempt, if I for some reason fail to add fuel.  Apologies also for early braking that apparently caused you to spin behind me. Tony was a little early on the brakes, so I had to be even earlier, to make sure I didn't hit him.

Thanks to all involved in setting the series up.  It's probably correct that some of the cars could do with a little tweaking, but I believe it's important that they're still different, so that you have to think about which car you use where - if they all handle and go equally fast, it doesn't matter which one you use.

Daz: Based on your lap times and results, I'd say your setups are more than adequate...  ;)

Oops  :-[ Now corrected

Sorry for being a bit late  ::)

Result (https://www.avonrise.co.uk/srou/kurts/_2020//02122020_75Zolder)

8)

Thanks Kurt  :thumbup1:

That is a very good point Erling, the cars should maintain their distinct characters, and strengths and weaknesses that go with them. It's better for the racing that they are closer in laptimes of course......

As for my setups, they are normally a little edgy to say the least, just ask Dom....That can give decent one lap pace at times, but causes as many problems as it solves in a lot of races over the years, and I've got used to driving quite worn tires in that time...It usually means I'm not as consistent as I would like, but I'm usually grinning at my own antics.

I concur 100% with Erling in that the attraction of this type of series is the differences in the cars, and their handling.

I am not famous for my pre race preparations and car selection vs circuit, but I do agree that the differences in the cars allow for careful selection.

I got lucky with my random selections in a couple of rounds. At Zeltweg I dragged that Jag XJS onto the tarmac and somehow cobbled a half decent setup together that allowed me to use the awesome straight line speed. OK so it destroyed tyres faster than an F1 pitcrew could change the wheels, but it was immense fun!!
Then, at Zolder, I only had the Alfa left to use ( or the BMW, but I had tried that somewhere before and recalled it feeling heavy and slow ).

With some tweaks between the car groups this series might have been even closer. The Alfa was fast enough to compete against the big bangers on any circuit with enough corners. The Metro was by general consensus of opinion almost undriveable, although one or two found a way to make it fly ( Dan's input on the brake balance would fit with how I found the car, but i don't know enough about the physics ).

If we run something similar in the future, and as far as the car groupings are concerned ...vive la difference!!!!  ;)