SimRacing.org.uk

Practice 1:	20:02	(13 mins)	full time drivers only
Practice 2:	20:15	(15 mins)	reserves may join too
Qual 2:	20:30	(30 mins)
Race:	21:00	(80 mins)	note: no warmup!

Cars allowed: any GT or NGT from the UKGTR Skin Pack v2.1 (https://www.simracing.org.uk/index.php?pid=27) (see this thread (https://www.simracing.org.uk/smf/index.php?topic=2228.0)) except the Porsche 993 GT2.
Weather: to be decided just before the race based on real-world weather according to the Endurance rules (https://www.simracing.org.uk/index.php?ind=lm2&group=42).
Race Start Time 14:00
Pit Stops: All drivers must make a minimum of one pit stop. This must involve entering the pit lane at the speed limit, and coming to a complete standstill in the designated pit box. Tyres do not have to be changed and no fuel has to be added. You cannot take your mandatory stop at the end of the pace lap, or with less than 1 lap to go.

Server: UKGTR Endurance Academy
Password: here (https://www.simracing.org.uk/smf/index.php?topic=2325)

Notes:
(1) Please make sure you are fully aware of the UKGTR Rules (https://www.simracing.org.uk/index.php?pid=7) - especially the speed limiter starting procedure and the rules about in-game chat messages.
(2) Driver lists can be found on the championship standings page (https://www.simracing.org.uk/index.php?ind=lm2&group=39).
(3) You will not be able to join the server without the skin and ballast pack (see link above).
(4) Drivers should remember that they get only two free changes of car in each series.

With a chance for a mildly moist track on Sunday, I'm looking forward to this massively.  Had another consistent drive in the sprint, hopefully there'll be a few less incidents and the Legends can put some pressure on the Sharks.

I was dreading this but despite my unhealthy grid slot on Tuesday night the results were very encouraging and the Zed's frugality and reliability should both help on Sunday. I just hope my ADSL connection can stay up for long enough! :o

When mine was playing up I used to manaully reboot it before a race as the newly negotiated settings always seemed to work fine for a couple of hours.

Im going to miss this one  :'(  :( ,going back to England for 4 days.
Good luck guys!(apart from Giz)Hope you dont have good luck!  :P  :D

I did that last time but I always worry that by resetting it back to the fastest speed it'll hasten the next down/slow/up again cycle. ???

 :P :P :P :laugh:

I'll hopefully be there too, i asked for an early finish so they gave me a 4 o'clock start. ???
So all being well i'll be back in plenty of time. i hope i last more than 4 laps without pressing escape this time. lol

I will be there later. I have got a new joystick as my other one was just no good. I didn't realise how crap it was until i started using this. I'm not used to it though yet, the steering control is so much better I can't handle it :P.

I am thinking about just sitting qualifying out and staying at the back. I don't want to chance repeating the sprint race. I am going to get some praccy in. I got a 2:20.2 with my old stick, up to now I have got a 2:25.5 with the new one.

see ya later

ReignMan

Quick question... is the pitlane exit at the bottom of the hill where the light is? or is it on top of eau rouge - where there's a white line? am wondering when the limiter should come off - thanks!

Top of the hill.

The pit exit is is where Jon says, but the limiter comes off at the set of lights at the end of the pit wall.

Thanks for the clarification guys - hope to get in as a reserve tonight

Well good luck to everybody tonight,really wish I was there!!!!  :'(
Have a good race everybody!!!!

Just to clarify further, the limiter comes off (automatically for most if not all of us) at the first set of lights immediately after the garages end, just before the bottom of Eau Rouge. However, you must remain within the white lines of the exit road until passing the second set of lights at the top of the hill between Radillon and the kink which marks the start of the Kemmel straight.

That also means that you should not cut the "mini Bus Stop" just before the point where the exit lane merges back onto the proper racetrack.

Or turn left and straight onto the track just after the pit wall.  ::)(yes I've seen it done but thankfully not on UKGTR) :)

Hi also if you boot it comming back onto the track there is a strong chance of attacking the barriers opposite ,a very good chance if its wet.cheers gerald

I tried to make this. I tried for an hour to get the lobby connection working. I even wrote a special server so I could redirect all my lobby requests via a server hosted at Heathrow. The result? I can connect to the lobby, but not to any of the servers. Not games.avonrise.co.uk, not any other server.

Really really fed up of this. Don't know if it's my ISP (suspect it is), or the lobby, but it just doesn't want to work for me at certain times, usually when there's a race on.

Sick of it  >:(

Good race  8) - sorry to Dave, who was letting me by, but took my eye off the road for a sec, and overshot the entry and skidded right in front of the 350z.. :-\
Apart from that race wasn't too bad for me, had a few stupid spins, but also had some good battles in the first parts of race, and the later part - a few quiet laps in between though.

Once i went over the s/f line at the end of the race though, i got the usual 'escape or pit-in' message, but the disconnection was lost after about 20 secs though...anyone else have this?

1 fps ruined my race.

Qualified 1st out of the NGT's, but got a major 1 fps moment on lap 1 coming out of Eau Rouge.  Massive front impact into the wall, thankfully ending out of the way of those behind me.  After a few more 1 fps incidents I started progressing.  Got up behind Dave at the halfway point and we pitted together.  With the 350Z needing little to no fuel, I wasn't really going to challenge after that.

Good second half of the race, putting some solid laps together, losing a little time when the GT's came through.  Finished 3rd in the end, but without the 1fps fiasco at the start it should have been much better.

Ah well, can't change what happened, lets see what happens next time...

Replay (http://www.ukgtr.org/replay/Spa-Francorchamps%20-%20Endurance%20Academy%20061203.zip) and provisional results (https://www.simracing.org.uk/index.php?ind=lm2&event=284) posted

Bummer Edam. :(

No worries Will, my concentration was starting to go too and if it weren't for Adam's 1 FPS problems he'd have reeled me in no problem.

Very, very pleased with second in NGT, especially as the 350Z was, as I feared, hopelessly outclassed by the M3 and 911s on the straights. Don and I traded places again and again as he struggled on the brakes in the middle sector and then slipstreamed back past out of Blanchimont or Eau Rouge. ;D

Then Adam pitted right behind me and I knew he would have to take on fuel when I didn't - I heard his engine go off and I thought, "yeah, game on". Pushed hard out of the pits, Picnic kindly letting me past as he was ahead by virtue of not having stopped yet.

Had a few really hairy moments, including running too far to the left in Eau Rouge and hopping the curbs, nearly following a GT off at Pouhon (still don't know how I saved it!), getting a cut warning at the Bus Stop as my front brakes overheated for a couple of laps, and James coming through chasing FreQ hard when I wasn't totally expecting it.

Also managed to get well and truly in Mojo's way whilst fighting to stay ahead of Don's 911.

Heard on TeamSpeak from Jon and Ruskus that the Masters race had finished early and got a couple of mystery blue flags on clear track when the other server compressed its replay, but then our server ended 6 minutes early too and TBH I was quite glad! :laugh:

No idea what my mechanics had done to the car since Tuesday night but I had the car just snap left on me several times when I touched the brakes. Locutus being on the receiving end of one, sorry mate.

wohoo this just gets better.in qualifying i think i got my fastest laptime which amounted to 5th,more than happy with that and the formation lap was nice and constant no real hard braking.
started the race ok but i was a bit nervous into au rouge and e trede got me but i chipped away and had him in a few laps,after that just saw loctous dissapear into the distance :-\
had abit of a moment when passing adam he gave me the room and i took the room and a bit of Grass and got it sideways  :o but made sure i did'nt touch him.after that it was getting close to pitstop time and i didnt realy know which entrance to take i was going for the 1` at the busstop but a couple of laps before i saw a ngt go into them via the mainstraight but i went for the busstop and gladly had a quick smoke. it's a nice long stop here  ;D came out the pits nearly hit the wall and etrede was back past  ::)but couple o laps later and he was mine  :)
last thing on the last couple of laps in said i was 3rd but when i finished it was back to 4th but 4th is niccee.
congrates to the fast lads  :notworthy:
and well hosted again  :thumbup1:

Not exactly a great race for me. Had one lap where I went off/spun 4 times...then things went down hill from there. Finally got some consistency toward the end, caught Picnic up...and spun :-\.

The tyres seemed to just suddenly loose grip.....bah!

At least I am keeping to my aim and finishing the races..

ReignMan

Unofficial Lapchart (http://www.lapcharts.teamshark.org.uk/Lapcharts/Spa 03-12-2006 ACA/g_info.htm)

You did right. The pitlane begins at the slalom through the red/white blocks.

WOO HOO 1st win online for me  :clap:

Same about the 1fps Adam was looking forward to our battle in the race.

The race was a bit of  a lonely one for me with the occasional GT whizzing passed.

Looking forward to China see you then chaps

I meant shame Adam

feeling a bit tired  ;)

this was really a strange race.  Didn't manage to get a lot of qualify laps and was 2seconds slower than I usually am  ???

Then when we started racing I was unable to go clean through Eau Rouge, as if I completely forgot how to drive it  :-\ Took me 10 laps to get it a little bit right.Strange.

Things started to stabilize a bit (although still slow lap times) . Made a couple of mistakes ,but nothing major.

Apologies to Gizmo, after overtaking you I completely missed my braking and almost ended up in the gravel  :o

It sounds weird,but it was as if I was lacking grip after my pitstop, I was sliding all over the place :-[

But still, it was a great race.

Will: did you have problems with your setup ? You passed me and then spun a couple of times  :P

Apologies to Reign Man, having well documented 1fps issues when I overtook you - cudos for avoiding contact.

Quite an eventful first third of the race saw me spinning a full 360 degree trying to avoid Oliver, who was going slow after touching the grass at Blanchimont. No problem though, the car was facing perfectly straight after the spin without hitting anything.

A few laps later I crashed into the right hand barrier at Eau Rouge. This time, the car was facing in the opposite direction. But turning around proved to be very difficult on that grip lacking intermediate strip so even with full steering lock I was going straight for the racing line and sure enough just when I was back on the track lucutos came flying and boy he did a great job to avoid a crash. Sorry locutos for giving you the creeps, I should have known that this asphalt strip is like ice.

I'd like to thank all non-GT drivers for being extremely cooperative. It's a real pleasure to race with all you guys!

Yeah no problem mate....although it was a bit of a shock to suddenly see your rear end virtually on my bonnet   :)

..oh and apologies to Chris Butler, for hitting you at the hairpin. Sorry, Sorry, Sorry :(

Well I got through my first full race, chuffed to bits with 8th especially starting from the back row (but the results state I started 12th). I looked like I was going to qualify 8th but having to leave to change my video settings I lost out and couldn’t get a good lap back in before the start of the race. I was also experiencing bad fps especially at the start, so if I upset anyone’s rhythm I apologise. Totally enjoyed it tonight and I am looking forward to the next race. ;D

And dont worry Reign Man, never noticed.  :laugh:

cej -I think the set-up was ok, but needs improving.

Chose the Maserati at the last minute over the Lister, after the lister engine blew with 10 mins to go @ BRNO lol.

Also a bit of dodgy driving from myself... ::)

Good dual tho for a few laps cej  8)

Thanks to the ngt boys again. Very good of you lot - lines were more predictable than the fun race so was much easier to slip by. :)

Awesome race. Was really annoyed at qualy after my best lap had a massive moment in sector 1.
Race started well, sat in third for a few laps then managed to slip inside Mojo, went after James but couldn't close the gap. You were the fastest bloke out their today mate, so congrats on the win :)

Plan was to keep within range of James for the pit stops and then get the stop perfect. Was great when it worked and ended up leading by 9 seconds. Then James kept chipping away and got it down to 6 ish seconds when I made a silly mistake round Pouhon and went into the gravel, slashing the gap to 2 seconds. Managed to get it together but the gap just kept coming down - then with 4 laps to go and with James right up my chuff down the back straight, the engine let go in a big way with no warning.

Pretty gutted at the mo, was convinced I had a podium and drove my hardest - first time the Lambo's ever let me down, think I pushed her too hard towards the end.

We got the Sprint race on Tuesday lads, hope to see you all there. Although I think it's top ten we'll be battling for instead of podiums with the super people in the race. :P

Well this was my debut race.
Happy enough with my qual position and the race started okay for me. Got a shunt from behind that pushed me off track and lost a couple of places.
To be honest I wasnt quite sure how to handle the pitstop but I went in with about 40 mins remaining.
Made a mistake with my buttons and ended up getting a stop/go penalty which kind of ruined the race for me  :-\, but hey.....
Plugged away and got back the NGT's that had passed me whilst in pits, span off and Dave got back in front and had to do it all over again. Same thing happened with Picnic, I think by this time to be honest my concentration had long since departed.
Dissapointing to finish last of the GT's when I did have couple behind me but for the stop and go, but lesson learnt lol.
Good driving by all I thought (except the one who shunted me  ;)) and I enjoyed my first league race, though I was totally knackered after.

Well I managed to finish a race  ;D ;D

Had a good qual 1st

Well the first part or the race went well had a little cushion between me and FreQ then it all went wrong on the pit stop. I forgot to set the fuel for the pit stop before the race and for some reason I just pressed  return without checking it and I didn't put no change on the tyres as I was running hards and there was hardly any wear Doh  :o  so sat there while they filled the tank to the top and changed the tyres then when they released me there was a 5 sec gap so by the time I got out on the track I was  9 sec behind . luckily I had the rev limiter set to max but hadn't used it so far, after really thrashing it I started to catch FreQ and then he made a mistake  and the gap was down to 2 sec, this was going to be an interesting finish to the race but then on the straight his engine let go, shame because I  was looking forward to a fight to the finish.

grats

dose anybody no why the race finished 6 mins early  ???


 

No but this saved me because I was running dangerously low on fuel by that time.

Because internally the game does it on a "max time or distance" basis, and with Spa being a fast track the distance often gets reached before the time.


For future reference it may be better to Escape back to the garage and watch the rest of the race from there as parking it on the circuit causes a yellow flag which is a bit distracting and will mask any other accidents which might happen there.


Odd - if it gave you a qualifying time in the results file why didn't it start you in the right place?! Stupid game! ::) :laugh:

"Oh no they don't"

The results (https://www.simracing.org.uk/index.php?ind=lm2&event=284) show you starting without a qualifying time, and are thus correct.

Great race.
GT's and Ngts were very polite and careful :thumbup1: Thanks for that.

First 40 mins was great fighting with Gizmo for position.
After the pit stops I was well behind the leading bunch of NGT's and never saw them again the whole race.
My pit stop strategy let me down this time, I finished the race with 24 litres of fuel and could of saved a huge amount of time with my stop if I had known I could have done the whole stint on one tank of fuel.
Anyway don't think I could have gone much better than 4th so well happy with that.

should have known from q it was going to be a tough day  :)lots of lag especially around the pits,so never got a clean lap,race was the same.dont know what happened with set up ,i was running 11s and low 12s on server in practice,but just could'nt get things to speed in race,think i aired too much on the cautious side with the rad settings,race was pretty uneventful,couldnt find speed so just hoped to pick up places thru attrition,but bad fps in places caused problems which kept me on my toes and caused a few hairy mo's,glad to finish. nice wins in gt and ngt and as ever ngt were courteous in allowing passes ,thx guys :)

Hmmmmm I wonder......... I span out twice on the first lap when I touched the brakes, placing me squarely at the back of the grid. I realised the second time that my brake bias had "mysteriously" shifted to the rear, giving a bloody good impression of a hand brake turn!!  >:(, perhaps a new bug?

Anyway, fought back up to my qually position of 7th, pitted, back up 7th then after just over an hour the bloody, poxy, F*/$"!G engine on that poxy bloody '04 550 let go again, that's twice in 2 races, think I may have to swap to the more reliable Lambo for the rest of the season ;)

That's not a phrase you hear every day! :lol:

Puts on best Spurs fan's voice "Trust me" compared to that bloody, poxy F*&^%"G '04 one :taz: it is!!!  :P

Well, lobby problems notwithstanding, I made it back in time. CRX had some problems (dodgy starter motor, battery flat towards end of day, mysterious oil leak, and warped discs / brake judder that almost made my hands bleed), so not an entirely successful day, capped off by me spinning the damn thing at the Gooseneck and wiping the rear bumper off on the tyrewall :(

It's only cosmetic damage really. Worst is that one of the tailgate clips will have to be repaired, and a new bumper reinforcement/mounting strip is needed, as well as a right-hand light cluster - but the owner has those spare. The worst part is the disappointment of a 6-year record of not bending other people's cars has come to an end, and at a track day too. Feck.

Marshal at the tyrewall needed a new pair of pants ;)

Drive home was interesting though. 3 and a half hour journey that I did in slightly less than 3 hours. I left at about 4:30 and made it back for about 7:20. I'd like to thank the good  people of Grimsby for getting the hell out of my way, and apologies for that purple blur that drove past so fast ;)

Disappointed I couldn't connect to the race though, after all that effort :(

What a carry on . B car was jumping all over in praccy so kept out way as much as poss. Thought start at back with no one joining, connection will be better. Some hopes wet my self on pace lap as screen froze then the server dropped my connection at the start.Re Edam Speed you were no tryin hardenough with your shunt at the goose neck:- comming over the brow of the hill see a car sideways across track,the car is light jump on brakes.miss target car then its anybodys guess were you end up. I have even had the front suspension collapse going into park,that was exciting I can tell you.It may be a bit better sitting higher in a saloon car but entering the Gooseneck in a low GT car is a bit of a leap of faith. Wish I still had money and youth to do it.cheers gerald

Had a bit of a mare, came off early on and needed to go to the pits for repairs. Left pits in last position and pushed for a while and passed a load of ngt's.  Pushed too hard at stages and made a few slips. Was closely behind Jamera for a while( a lap down) and tried to unlap myself but struggled to pass.  As we came accross a couple of ngt's, thought Jamera was taking advantage of a gap left by  an ngt and accelerated and Jamera hesitated and braked and I tapped his rear causing him to slide.(Very sorry). Felt really awful at that point and continued for a while but lost confidence.  That damn escape key. I took a little spin and hit the bloody thing and as soon as I had done so regretted it straight away as I was gaining back positions. Will will will finish next race.

Dabbled a bit with a new video editing program, file size was huge but managed to compress it enough to download. What are your a opinions are they getting better?

http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=5824058225758366847

What software are you using Ossie?

I like the amount of action you capture, from overtaking, to offs to blowing up engines. That's is alot of effort to do, so big thumbs on that one.

What I didn't like so much, were there accelerated footage (fast forwarded?), the music (not my taste :)), the quite long intro and the effects. All these things are just my opinion, so not critism as you can make your movie however you want!

But again I enjoyed watching it alot, it's interesting the whole 6 minutes. So keep making them (if you want ofcourse :))!!!

Ossie, another great job of capturing the action, it's really entertaining stuff!  :thumbup2:

I have to agree with Ruskus on the intro. though it was a bit long.

I also loved the subtitles, it's always good to see who's involved in the action :D

Yup, agreed. That was great, forgot all about those :-[. Now with some Monty Python humour and we've got a classic ;D

Great stuff Ossie. ;)

Nice vid Ossie, agree on length into and music (not my taste...but i do feel more that it didnt fit into the scene/mood of the vid)

Great story telling thou..made it much more interesting to watch!

lol who took the wrong pit entry in the ferrari hahaha

btw...didnt you upload the file for download????...the google vid quality is horrendous...please use megaupload and not filefront(real slow transfers!!!)

cool vid Ossie 8) enjoyed it a lot

Is it possible to get a higher res version

Will do tomorrow for both academy and master vids. got to go to work now time to pick madd up!!!

Hmm, just like to point out my "off" was 1fps related, rather than me driving like a muppet!  Shame my overtake on Picnic didn't show up too well, both of us were hanging the tail out on that one....

Would have been really good if it was a little bit clearer!  :P

Great video Ossie!! But I'm missing my 360 degree spin at 1387  :)

Nice video Ossie - must take ages to find all those scenes, cut them all in, splice music and text over it....looks fun though. :)

I think I'd speak for everyone here when I say we'd rather see a big file thats good quality than not - does the race and video much more justice and so what if it takes longer to dl . :)

And the speedup thing works in places but I think the whole video is overkill. Personaly, I like house/trance/dance style music with racing games  8)

Yeah maybe if people can remember any action from the races, we could PM the video makers the times they happened to save them time?

Fantastic video ossie, sent links to my friends to show them what we do in our spare time.  ;D

What I did for my vids, is just read people debriefs after the race. If they say they had a boring race, I skip them, but if they are very enthusiastic about their race, I'll follow them around. For me it's impossible to follow everybody around the whole race, so sometimes I use the lapcharts (gaps and position graphs).

After watching your vid ossie, I thought I'd go YouTubing for a looksie at gtr2 stuff for the hell of it, and found a really well made vid. It doesn't tell the story of the race very well, but it's nice and artistic....but it cheats by using one of the best songs ever. :P

The bit with the Viper sliding at 2:26 is awesome

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uteILr-6L0Q&NR

It's amazing how much time you can waste on video sites :P

I especially like the "explode" part.

here are links to the masters and academy vids I have done for better quality replays as promised.

Masters
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=OK2IMQMV

Academy
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=20VH4520

MUCH better  :thumbup2:

Indeed, great fun to watch. Funny comments ;D :lol:

nice one  ;D alot better to watch the megaupload route, google vids are nasty resolutions.
its a shame with theise vids that you cant use the tv cameras to watch the whole feild go past then go to another camera.flicking around the track that way. tv stylee  ;D
 

If only they had the Handcam like in rFactor. You can pick your own camera angles so you can really capture the action. Like putting a camera at a curb etc. Shame it isn't in GTR2.

Bit off topic, but has anyone else seen those STCC videos?

There's one at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=km3H1-xhePc or download them from http://www.simtouringcarcup.com/Videos.html - I have to say they're very well done, especially race 4. They have commentary, interviews, on-screen graphics, some good camera angles. Would be very cool to do something similar for our races. :)

Tx Ossie...i didnt even watch the whole gogle vid one as it was really bad (quality wise :D)...maybe try youtube next time!

Tx for the megaupload links, thats what most will go for and a BIG tx for not using filefront (the direct spawn of satan itself...next to its other very close relative...ie...rapidshare)  :D :D ;D

Those are great vids. The show a whole intro and the complete race. Using commentary is a fun thing to do, so if somebody wants to volunteer ;D

nice vids  8) fixed cameras and replays really add to it and the safety car ,is that computer controlled or do they decide when to bring it out.damage seemed to be a bit limited thought some big crashes and they drove off.
whats the game they are  playing  ?

Dunno about the safety car. The game is LFS.