SimRacing.org.uk

Grid/server capacity: 22

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

Track: 1978 Suzuka GP. Download this (http://www.mediafire.com/file/ek00blmar6qjemd/Suzuka88.zip/file) (File says Suzuka 88 but it contains two tracks, '78 & '88. We are using the '78).

Cars allowed: Mazda RX-3 Gr.4 only Download this (http://www.mediafire.com/file/h7vzn003rjpfoal/Mazda_RX-3_v1_0_by_Team21.rar/file) (Use this download link and not the one in our downloads section which currently requires a fix).
                       Nissan Skyline GT-R Download this (http://www.mediafire.com/file/mzyrsl9zmabv43x/Nissan_Skyline_GT-R_v2_0_by_CY-33.rar/file) (Use this download link and not the one in our downloads section which is currently out of date. Use this version and not the old one which you may already have, and which should be deleted).
                       Toyota Celica 2000 GT only Download this (http://www.mediafire.com/file/a1o3e8h96ndgbbn/Toyota_Celica_v1_0_by_papag21.7z/file)

Use the above download links or pm WT for a complete package in one large download (recommended).

Time of Day Setting: 14:00
Start: Standing
Tyre wear: Normal
Fuel consumption: Normal

Server: simracing.org.uk Monday
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.

As there is no NoGrip Legacy event this Monday, UKGTL is holding a fun race.

IMPORTANT

We have to withdraw two of the Nissan's due to server problems.

Please delete from your Nissan Skyline folder, cars #152CY & 162CY.

Replay and results now posted.

Great fun guy's, thanks

Lots of fun tonight although I'm not sure how many times I spun ;D. Lots of good racing with Andy, Rog and Tony :thumbup1:

Was looking like a good race till I got a flat front tyre in T1 lap2  :censored:

First of all i like to appologise to Tony for the 3 contacts. The first one was all my fault, the second i think he span, but i am not sure, and the third one i pushed him on the grass :(

That was one of my wose races ever. I made so many mistakes... but it was fun thought.

At the qualy i had speed to fight for the third place but, again, i made so many mistakes.

At the start was scary, we were 4 wide at some point so i was extra carefull. After that there was fighting with the guys and the car all the time. Some of them were slower on the corners and faster on the straights so it was very hard to overtake them.

Grats to Geoffers for the win and everyone who managed to finish this tough race.

Race replay, now with camera: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4RMQZHiY-s

Very nice Suzuka layout, with the final section jump and fast curves, instead of the later silly chicanes.  Cars on the other hand were complete abominations on track; understeer, oversteer, any malady you could think of they seemed to posess.  Some time ago Geoffers posted some setup tips, suggesting that first you should ask yourself "What is the car doing that I would like to change".  Answer was simple: "Everyting!!"; cure not so simple however.  In the end, I could make none of them stable, so had to drive around it, and could thus just as well pick the fastest for me, which was the Mazda.

Not as good a start as hoped for, but slipped into 2nd. Had not seen Hristo on the grid, and didn't see him after the start, so wondered if he had fallen victim of the DQ bug.  Geoffers in front & Dan behind. After the close opening laps, I found myself ditching Dan at about twice the rate with which Geoffers was ditching me.  Could focus on maintaining contact with the latter, to at least try and keep some form of pressure on him, but try as I might, I couldn't keep up and he slipped away.

In the 2nd half, Geoffers was gone and I had a comfortable gap of around 20 secs to 3rd place, but then something worrying happened:  The gap started dropping, in alarming 2-sec chunks per lap. Suspected Hristo was in the race after all, and had now slogged his way through to 3rd place (which was the case).  Pushed as hard as I could, on less and less happy front tyres, but the gap continued to drop.  Late in the race however, I got a much needed break, as it suddenly jumped up again, courtesy of a spin by Hristo.

On the final lap, I came upon a recovering Geoffers at the hairpin, to finish 2 secs behind him.  A lap or two earlier, I lost around 4 secs in the same place, due to a half-spin, bugger bugger bugger...   ;)

Grats to Geoffers on the win and Hristo on 3rd and a very impressive recovery drive.

Welcome to the new guys/guests, and once more hats off to Dimitar for the video & running commentary  :thumbup2:

Grats to the fast guys up front and to all who took part. Thanks to Tony for setting this up as a fun event, which it certainly was.

Some different cars for me, especially the Toyota which is why I gave it a try. Once again thanks to Hristo who posted his setup online and that saved me a much grief and experimenting on Monday afternoon. It is plain that his driving is different ( or maybe just plain better!!  ;)) than mine because I still needed to tweak things before the car began to respond. But once I got things sorted and warmed the tyres at least the car was driveable.
TBH, I did not even try the other two options and simply selected the first Toyota that the mouse landed upon. Previous experience with the screaming Mazda usually gave me a headache and the Nissan has proved a tyre shredder for me in other races.

As usual I was still learning the best lines etc when the race started and was happy to be mid-grid on race fuel. Turns 1 & 2 were a little frantic, as cars exchanged paint samples up ahead , and just when I thought we had all got ourselves sorted I received a gentle "love nudge" and was spun onto the grass  :-\
The race was great fun and for a long circuit there were very few clear passing opportunities unless the car ahead made an error. Dimitar's video shows this especially when following a faster car on the straights !! I gradually worked my way up the field and was running in 5th towards the end, but my front tyres were losing grip, giving understeer and slightly unstable braking. After some great laps of racing Dimitar was able to get past and steal my 5th spot, demoting me to 6th but quite happy with that.

Great to see such a big grid and especially pleased to see my Grand Tour partner Andy L  joining the hostilities  ;D ;D

One question I have after watching Dimitar's great video is why his Toyota was revving between 8k-10.5k, but my car was limited to 8K?? On the final corner with the nasty jump he was still accelerating in 4th right onto the straight, whereas I had to get my car into 5th way before the jump as I was already at the rev limit and let the high ratio drag it down to T1?? Are there differences between the cars of the same marque??
It did not detract from the fun during the race and I want to make it clear that I am not making any accusations here, just wondering if I should have tried the other Toyotas?

There is only one engine and one gearbox file that all the Toyota's use. Either he had a higher final ratio than you or he was slipping the clutch to over-rev his engine?

I completely forgot about this  :'( You guys were well underway when the penny dropped. And such a big field too.
Shame, I'd have loved that Celica. Good memories from a Nappe's F1VC or ICV season some years back.

I enjoyed the video though!

Well that was a fun night although for me it ended way to soon. On Lap 1, T1 I tapped Dan which caused him to leave the track. However due to some skillful recovery driving he was able to rejoin in front of me as I had slowed down and held the field up behind me  :nono:
As is obvious from Dimitar' great video, I was Ok on the straight's but all those tight turns caused my little Mazda all sorts of trouble. Just couldn't keep my foot planted on the go peddle and meet those apex's. At Degna 2 I was collected by Dimitar's Toyota and such a small impact caused me to roll over a couple of times before coming to rest, facing the wrong way and allowing several cars past. Respect to Dimitar for waiting for me to recover though  :thumbup1:
In fact Degna 2 caused me no end of grief during the race. Kept mistaking the gear I was in and changed down to take the turn. This put me in first gear, and not the imagined second gear that I was expecting. This caused my car to swerve sharply to the right, skating across the grass and rejoining the track facing the right way after the turn. Bit unconventional and very embarrissing. Later on in the race Dimitar hit me again at almost the same spot as before but this time he decided not to wait for me to recover my lost place  :whistling:
My final misfortune was on lap eleven when having successfully passed Salesman on the start/finish straight I ran out of track and talent and hit the barrier which killed my car.
Great fun though and makes me want to create a future series for these cars.
Thanks to everyone who made it a good night and welcome to Andy, hope you join us for some more, in the future.

Thanks for having me.
I don't remember the last time I was in a GTL race. There is documentary evidence of a Le Mans 24 hour race on youtube (search for GBGTL) in which I took part maybe around 2007, which also included Erling and Dan. Around that time I also did a series or two with Minis only, where we had our own personal skins and I think Geoffers was in that too.
So I installed it last week, thought I'd try online and all went well.

I did a few laps in each car. My inexperienced thoughts were that the Toyota was slow, the Mazda was wild and the Nissan just right. I'm not into setups, just a longer click on final drive and more fuel here, but I saw that there was a tyre option. Did anyone try them and notice a difference? My aim was to stay out of trouble and that was achieved. I stayed back with a couple of others through the first lap to watch the carnage unfold in front of us, then things settled down. I had one moment, around lap7 when Tony was recovering in front from an overshoot at the hairpin and shaved my nose as he rejoined (unsighted). I don't know if it caused any damage - how do you know apart from obvious car handling or if you pit to see it on the pitboard? I didn't really feel any tyre degradation. My fronts were about 12 at the end. 12 what? I looks like the bar on XD has a long way to go before there's nothing left, maybe 30 or 40?

I had an interesting race with nocatu where he'd lose time off track and gain time on track and always be quite near me. I had breathing space near the end when he had a bad off, but with 10 seconds to spare with 3 laps left, he made a good effort to finish quite close.
Grats to Geoffers. I'll be back.

I tried them and for me the Dunlop bias ply's seemed a tad better in the corners. Only the Nissan had tyre options.

You don't, but your top speed may be reduced.

I though that you turned too early Tony and that maybe caused the collision that time and that was the reason i wasnt waiting this time. As you can see on the replay i was making an attack there. But still all my fault  looking at the replay.

:thumbup1: No probs

So much fun yesterday! When i passed the first corners and reached the 5th place i was excited! after the first half of the race everybody found better pace than me so i lost 4 places! It hurts to finish behind nocatu again  :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:! These cars are awsome, Loved the Celica!

Hi Andy, very long time no see  :)

Just watched that video again; so nice to be reminded of some long forgotten names and to see all those great skins again!    And what a great video Michael Boylan put together: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSJYVIpC6uk

Hope you'll continue racing with us Andy

Saw the name Pete Stenning in that video. Seems to ring a bell with me but know idea where from?

Pete Stenning ran/moderated/organised GBGPL ( and I think GBGTL too?) and that was at a time when UKGPL and perhaps UKGTL was running alongside. It would appear that both GPL and GTL were more popular back in 2007.
I recall that I started my GPL online career around that time and drove in both UK and GB options.

Andy will perhaps back me up on this...as I recall GBGPL was suffering from dwindling numbers, but there was still a die hard core of drivers who made a good effort to maintain a viable grid. Then suddenly Pete Stenning just vanished  ??? and there was no further communication from him.

Pete promoted GPL, GTL and R-racing too, and organised races much as Tony does here at UKGTL. I hope Tony is not abducted by aliens  ::)

Result (http://gtl-gtr2-racing.bplaced.net/04052020_Suzuka78_Fun)

8)

Pete was the man who ran GBGTL, I think he did the odd race here & possibly NoGrip in the early days of GT Legends. I seem to remember his girlfriend used to race too, but can't remember her name.

Good to see Andy join us last night, Clive had mentioned you before & your name was familiar, but could not recall where we had raced. There were 3 Mini series running in the early days of GTL, GBGTL as you mentioned, Gamers Crib & TRM also ran Mini races, that's why I became a bit of a Mini specialist.

Good race last night. Chose the Mazda because I remembered racing it many moons ago at NG & quite liking it. Managed to unearth the setup I had for it, loaded it up & gave it a run. OMG, it was awful, almost undriveable, how I drove it before I have no idea. Anyway scrapped that setup & started again & got a reasonably good handling if a little tricky car.

A close race with Hristo looked in prospect, didn't materialise though, got away in front & noticed Hristo was at the back of the field half way around the first lap. Had Erling close for a few laps until I got into the groove & eased away. Not much else to report until the final lap when I spun at Degner2 & stalled the engine, got going still with a handy lead only to go off again at the hairpin  ::). Just got back on track before Erling came through and held on to win by just a couple of seconds.

Grats to Erling & Hristo on the podium.   :clap: :clap:

Thanks Kurt  :thumbup1:

A very disappointing race for me, after so much promise in testing and qualifying. I tried all 3 cars, but didn't really give the Mazda a chance because of its odd handling with the default setup and terrible engine sound. Turns out it was very quick around here. I managed to make the Toyota just as quick, but it took a lot of sliding around, which if you overdid it even slightly, spun the car around with no chance to catch it.

I botched my start, not realizing how short 1st actually was, and then Tony braked too late, tapped the car on my right, I went left to avoid getting collected and couldn't change direction quick enough to avoid going off the track. Lost 10 seconds in the process and from there on I had to take huge risks in each corner to somehow try to catch up to the leaders.

Managed to overtake everyone until 4th, then Dan (I think) just let me through without much fighting, and so I was now 14 seconds behind Geoffers and about 10-12 behind Erling. I was about a second quicker, but only if I drove absolutely on the limit, which not only worked against tyre preservation, but also meant a spin was inevitable sooner or later.

After the spin happened, I thought I still had a chance for 2nd, but after a string of 5-6 clean fast laps, I spun again, which ended my challenge. The last 2 laps were a torture because of the worn out tyres, but at least I had enough of a gap back to 4th to compensate for other offs I had on my way to the finish.

Congrats to Geoffers and Erling for a stellar race and to everyone who survived until the end!

I believe Pete's girlfriend was the Rebecca Harrod also featured in the driver list, but could be mistaken.  It is however the only female name I can remember seeing back then.

Also just noticed that the Corvette driven by my team mate Ian Traynor (when I was in our 906), was called the Irn Bru Corvette.  Back then it didn't mean anything to me, but after visiting Scotland some years ago, I learnt what it was.  Became quite fond of the stuff  :)

Remember a quote by Ian at one point, when he went straight from our 906 to the '65 Corvette.  Moments later he was sitting in one of the sand pits, contemplating how he had moved from precision instrument to blunt object...  ;D

I don't remember Pete ever mentioning a partner. I think Rebecca was Michael Boylan's partner (and they shared the same car too). I took part in the first seasons of GBGPL and GBGTL and stayed with them until after Pete left some years later. He had trouble running GPL on his computer near the end and quit in frustration. Jani Posta took up the running of the league and renamed it Groundhog after a while. He still runs some GPL races and collates results from many leagues on his website GPLWeekly.
Pete continued to have an online presence away from GPL. He ran a stockcar league. I don't remember which sim that was. I see that with the current real life UK stockcar seasons suspended, the real F1 and F2 drivers are taking part in online races, livestreamed and with commentary through UKDirt on rFactor. I don't think GBGTL lasted more than 3 seasons as people were lured away by PnG and rFactor.

I think you're right regarding Rebecca, come to think about it.

Interesting stories. Didn't know that there a GBGTL existed, that was before my time. ::)

For me all started with GTLDK back in 2010 I think  ;)

BTW: found another small GBGTL video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PxIkiRc2z8 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PxIkiRc2z8)

 8)

If anyone still has skins from BITD I would love to add them to my "library".

Not a sentence I was expecting to read  :o

Do you know something I don't  ???

Thanks for all the interesting stuff about Pete Stenning. Small world isn't it?

I just felt that I knew the name from sometime back in the misty past. Before UKGTL I was a rooky driver at MARA in it's last years. Maybe I knew him from my time there.

EDIT:

Today I did a bit of investigating about this Pete fella.

He first registered on this site in 2005 and was involved in some very, very early GTL events. He also raced GPL here (2008-2010). After that he switched to GTL again (Season 10, 2010) and took part in two series and it was in these races that our path's crossed.

https://www.simracing.org.uk/smf/index.php?action=LM2R&group=265&theme=5

Do you mean from GBGTL ? - I'm sure I still have them somewhere.

BITD=Back in the Day. If you can share them, I'd like them. I can post you a memory stick (if you don't have an FTP), just let me know the amount in MB and pm me your address.

Ah, thanks for enlightening me  :)

Let me go digging and I'll come back with the file sizes involved - then we can work something out.

Don't have many skins, but I may have some cars & tracks that are no longer available anywhere. I can PM you a list of what I have Tony, may take a week or so to compile though.

I have cars and tracks but it would be useful to see if I have any gaps. More than happy to receive your list. You could send me a screenshot of your folders using Snip-it if that helps?

Now you are getting technical! I'll see what I can do.

Pics of my mini from GBGTL. I was a driver in the blood service at the time..
I have unearthed a psd file of the template mini that somebody did for me and I must have followed a tutorial to finish it off and put it in the game, but I can't find that tutorial or the finished mini (TGA file?). If anyone would like me to send the psd file to them if they could turn it into a driveable mini, then I would appreciate that very much.

https://www.bilder-upload.eu/bild-15dd04-1588782083.jpg.html (https://www.bilder-upload.eu/bild-15dd04-1588782083.jpg.html)

https://www.bilder-upload.eu/bild-e442b8-1588782153.jpg.html (https://www.bilder-upload.eu/bild-e442b8-1588782153.jpg.html)

EDIT - can't seem to keep pics on here for more than a few minutes

I've found some skin packs Tony, including the ones used in the LeMans video and some other enduros.  Ian Traynor was a true master of creating skins, and made me a superb 906 and a Lotus Elite over the same theme.  Have those along with some Mini skin packs too.  I'll send you a snip of the filenames via mail, as I can no longer upload images to Photobucket, so can't post it here unless I find another image hosting service.

Files that might be of interest to you are about 580 Mb.  I could upload them to a binary newsgroup perhaps, if you're a newsgroup user, or if you can recommend a free ftp program, I could install that and send them that way.

Google drive is free, but in my experience it takes hours to upload large files

I've assembled the files in a multi-part Winrar archive, which is 476 Mb after compression.  Started upload to Google drive.  Claims it should be done in 38 minutes. We shall see..

lol I was trying to suggest that Pete Stenning's disappearance was as if he had been abducted. Given the organising that both you and he did, I hope that you stick around for a while longer.  ;)
The ongoing discussion about historic car skins is interesting, maybe we will see cars appearing in Team Liveries for future series ?

There were team skins for most of the default cars many seasons ago, I should still have most of them somewhere on my external HD.

See the first post of the downloads page, you will see skin packs listed, unfortunately they are no longer available.

I have all the team skins. I have included them when appropriate, e.g. the Ford GT40 races.