SimRacing.org.uk

Endurance Championship Division 1 - Season 1, Round 2 at Magny-Cours

Date: Sunday 31st July

Practice 1: 8:30pm (30 mins)
Qual 2: 9:00pm (30 mins)
Warmup: 9:30pm (2 mins)
Race: 9:32pm (60 mins)

Cars allowed: Any. (Seat Toledo, Lotus Elise, BMW Z3M and Porsche GT3 Cup will not be eligable for points.)
Weather: Random.

Notes:
(1) Please try to arrive at least 15 minutes prior to qualifying, during Practice 1.
(2) Server Password has been emailed to those registered racers for each championship. Please contact a member of the admin team to get the password if you are registered and have forgotten or not received the password. It will not be given out in the GTR chatroom as that is a public place. The password wont change for the season unless there are security concerns.
(3) See  UKGTR Season 1 Info (http://www.ukgtr.org/series.php?series=103) for general Season 1 info.
(4) Please make sure you are fully aware of the UKGTR Rules (http://www.ukgtr.org/rules.php)

Oh, oh, Sunday! If I make it back from vacation, I'll attend.

Please, please, please psycho weather don't strike again.

Fozzmeister

lol  ;D

Hopefully I can make this one.

We're looking into the weather options, but Simbin seem to have come up trumps again by removing the "changeable" setting in 1.4.

I read somewhere that it creates a text file with the weather in it (perhaps if you change the text file it'll effect the weather also?). perhaps if you or picnic review this file then we might alleviate the problem.

The other way is just to chuck a six sided dice, if it ends on a 1 Picnic sets the weather to rain, if anything else, he sets it to dry, sure its a shit solution, but its better than last time.

Fozzmeister

Hi guys,
          Maybe a million miles off here, but looking through my plr file I found this section
"CURNT Weather="2" // Random/season/sunny/etc.
PRACT Weather="2" // Random/season/sunny/etc.
QUICK Weather="2" // Random/season/sunny/etc.
FRACE Weather="0" // Random/season/sunny/etc.
CHAMP Weather="0" // Random/season/sunny/etc.
MULTI Weather="0" // Random/season/sunny/etc.
RPLAY Weather="2" // Random/season/sunny/etc."


Note the multi set to "0", now I'm assuming a setting of "2" gives all ?????


As I say prob nothing to do with it, but hey what do I know?  :)

Aint that one Jam, its created by the server at the start of the session, its like a "this is what im gonna do this time" file. don;t know if it's deleted after but its re-created every time

Can us div.2 stiffs join you if numbers are down? I certainly need
practice on this track.

Yes but only if you take non scoring cars like we did last night.

Might join in with the Z3 or Seat if numbers are down. If the numbers don't improve we're going to have to think seriously about combining D1 and D2 into a single division. Where are all the reserves?

Dave, I'm happy to race both D1 & D2 as a reserve, had a real blast last night and a with a slightly more cautious drive throughout feel confident of getting into the points on a regular basis  ;D

Being one of few to drive NGT does help though !!!!!!  :)

I checked who and the numbers from the two races and there would be too many to combine the divisions without being able to increase the server capacity.

I think there are lots of Wosec people in D1 by the looks of it. It's hardly surprising that we should lose more from D1 than D2 from Wosec.

I vote get the quicker D2 drivers promoted to D1 (this'll be good for me as I'm one of the slowest D1 drivers prolly), and start a thread for "Promotion to Full Time Enduro" and see who wants to.

I think if people are in full time, they are much more likely to show. Although you guys would know far better than me.

Matjaz has agreed to move to D1 so that's the rest of us NGT boys with a vague chance in D2 now. ;) ;D

...and us gt boys as well.

It would be great if we had a server that could handle division 1 and 2 together. I might want to move to division 2 since I have very little driving time in my NGT 360 (should have stuck with the F550, since that's what I have driven since the game has come out basically). Just want to be in a race where I feel I'm gonna be competitive, not that I'm saying that D2 is slower than D1- just more NGT's to compete with. In the 1st race D1, during practice (NGT class) I was over 2 seconds off lap time (although I have not a lot of time driving the 360) and I knew I was gonna bring up the rear unless there is some crashes in front of me  ;D which there are usually some.

Then again, maybe I just need to put a lot of laps in driving the 360, play with some setups and do some caching up............

This may be a very simplistic way of looking at this, but if we're say, 5 short in D1, why not just the move the 5 fastest drivers based on the Barce results up from D2. I'm sure there are some reserve drivers like myself that would then happily take a full time D2 drive

I would be inclined to agree with that.  I think we *need* full grids simply because it's multi-class racing.  Obviously, in a sprint if you have 10 drivers, you can still have a good race - but in endurance, that's effectively 5 from each class, or even less in NGT, as it was last week.

I don't think you can judge speed of anyone based on just one wet race at Barcelona, or for that matter the Enna lottery. But generally I think
everyone knows the people they will be competing with throughout the season. For that reason I would not be too keen to race with div1 gt boys
who are clearly, feel free to contradict me here  ;), faster than me. I want to race against somebody whether that be at front or back of field. That
would not happen in div1.

I am hoping to take part in non-scoring car on sunday anyways.

Also some of us ( ie me) can only make the Div 2 races as I GPL65 on the alternate Sunday

I will not be able to race tonight.
And it is a good news to you, believe me  8)

Be well all, nice race, and CAREFULL AT FIRST TURN !!! ;D

Has it been decided what the weather situation will be yet?

Infact, don't overtake at the first turn, unless mistakes happen, careful at the hairpin!

I believe whoever is starting the event has a magic die or dice...

Actually we do need to be informed what it is, at least when the game is on. as if its "Season" and happens to be dry, it may still rain (or vice versa).

I agree with Fozz - could we have a clear ruling so that we are at least prepared.

Hi Guys would like a go if poss in a non scorer promis to keep out of way.gerald

Sorry chaps, server is up but the die said "Monsoon"

Hopefully I can get a spot then, hehe, because I like rain races :D

T

Lol, all that practice sliding about in the Escort may come in handy!

Quite like the wet myself. Hope we don't get tonnes of drop-outs though and end up with 5 people at the end!

Wet races can be good after all!  That one was a barnburner.  Had it in the bag, and nearly threw it away....limped home by 6 tenths of a second.  Full report to follow....

Monsoon again............................

not so bad , evens the field a little I guess.

1 FPS bug on lap 18, sucks to have this happen, curse Simbin for not fixing some of the problems they know about  >:(

Still fun to be out there with everyone (I think 20 drivers) for those 18 laps, maybe race number 3 will be better- no glitches and hopefully maybe some dry weather for a change  ;D

I'm pretty good in the wet so was expecting top 3 finish. Unfortunately lap 1 and I clipped the grass side by side with someone (had no idea where you were so tried to stay as wide as possible ready to back off into the next corner), sadly probably hit a puddle or just lack of grip on the outside and i veered onto grass and lost it into the last chicane nearly wiping out Tom Tom and losing my front spliiter with a hard thwack against barrier. Came straight in for fixes and lost at least 45 seconds in the pits doing it.

Then had lots of fun going from way dead last through the field and didn't pit for my scheduled stop till 19 minutes to go. Had calculated in my head a reduced fuel load to put in rather than what I had set before hand as it was hardly using any in the wet and got it spot on with only 1 laps worth left at the end.

Ended up 6th but it could be have been a lot better as I was only 40 seconds behind at the end. So without my extra pit stop and at one point being collected by a Lister spinning out of last chicane whilst he was being lapped I would have been up there I reckon.

Anyway, I pray to god it's Dry for the next one as Enna and rain is just scarey as hell and i'm getting bored with rain now.

Congrats to Mark for the GT win and Matjaz for the NGT win.

I was that Lister(no blue lites on dash or pitman advice),but you would of got past clean into T1 anyway.Car jus flipped sideways as i put power down a bit to fast Monty style ;D.Sorry u got hit mate apologises.
Surprised how fast i was havin to make a setup for wet.Worked well cut the max revs down to 6300,and filled tank rite up,but after losing 5th place and my son and his mate telling me how good i was ,next thing i know i,m driving the long way to pits with a puncture,i HATE the way the pit man says punK ture  hehe lost the plot hehe.

Joined up with not a lot of Q2 to go and was annoyed to have my best Q lap ruined by the damn invisible cone thing again  >:(
Chalk up another one to a Simbin bug then, car skittered across the track and I lost a second or two from the time.

Stuck Hard wets on and filled the tank right up for the race. Just drove fairly carefully for the hour, and was, well, a little bored to be honest! Only two minor spins so consistent considering it was wet. Tyres had started to go with about 10 laps left but I'd been braking like an OAP (beige stylee) all race to look after them.

I'm afraid I have a major case of clinical depression now though after staring at that heavy grey sky for 60 minutes ;)  ;D

Started an amazing 10th, and just drove, not particularly fast at all, was way down on the fastest lap thing, but made practically no mistakes what-so-ever (one slight contact, a few runs wide but staying on black stuff, no spins) and I don't believe I was lapping slowly, just being incredibly consistent with no startling laps, I was pulling 6 seconds a lap out for a few laps over 8th place, but settled into about 2-3 eventually. Chuffed to finish 7th, and the 2nd NGT driver behind Matjaz (who doesn't count in my book as he should be in division 0 :) ).

Funny what a bit of setup time can do with wet weather...

Fozzmeister

I need to get into some setup practice.

Found out that with a light fuel load, my wet setup is an utter nightmare even with fresh tyres.  While the car is heavy, it's fine, but when it gets light, OMG!!

This gets much worse when you are on worn out tyres at the time LOL :)  Went for a non-stop race again, fell off on the pace lap (DOH!) and suffered a couple of spins en-route to 3rd place.  Without the sillier of my spins though, I had a chance for a win there.  Looks like I'll be better off making a pitstop though.  Maybe a change of car too :)

EDIT:  Yep, after some quick laps, I'm changing to the Saleen, pass the "I'm a big wuss" hat  ::)

Should have won this one. As Mark said, I had it in my basket... Made one big mistake, the same way as Shark did (btw, it was really scarry how you whoshed in front of my nose!). Had to pit and as it was just about half the race I changed tires from hard to soft. Came back 6th and made it to 2nd in the end with just a few sec behind 1st. If there were 2 more laps, I would have passed you, Mark  :-\ Anyway, my mistake, my second place - again, same as Barcelona.

In the game something strange was happening to me four times - like sbd would be pulling and releasing me on an elastic rope, really jerky graphics, couldn't drive as fast as I wanted and was happy to stay on the track. Every time it lasted for about 1 minute and I'm sorry to say the last time was just as I was trying to catch Mark.  >:(

Seems like rain appeals to me or I'm just more careful - came 2nd in rain twice now, when I would be probably more to the back in dry. Congrats Mark! And of course to Matjaz, too - he was very fast in NGT.       

Really enjoyed the race! Action began in the warm up lap when Mike spun in front of me and a couple of cars in the last chicane as well. In the race I just tried to keep it smooth and nurse my tyres as I was on a 0 stop strategy. I must say soft tyres performed extremely well although they were to cold most of the time. 10 minutes to go I was in 3rd and 15 seconds ahead of 4th position guy when I was laping Jamera. He gave me room on the long straight and I passed him normally but then he must have missed the braking point and crashed heavily into my back. I spun and almost ended up in the sand. When I got back to the track the 4th position guy was right behind me so that was it. I could not defend my position against his Saleen on the straights and had to settle for 4th. Anyway a nice win in the NGT class for me and a strong performance by Mike in the GT means a superb result for dE Racing Team. Hope for a dry weather at Enna !  ;) 

Replay now available on the website, www.ukgtr.org, at 34Meg

I was so glad I didn't collect you. I just closed my eyes and hoped for the best as once I was on the grass I had no control on the car at all and I could see I was heading right across your path and I thought I was definately going to hit you. You dissapeared to my left as you went round the corner and I was just waiting for the crunching noise. Must have missed you by inches and given you the fright of your life. The race director had the cheek to give me a warning for cutting the track! Cutting the track!?! I don't call being out of control and slamming into the tyre wall cutting the track, but hey I'm not a race director so I guess I must have been cheating by taking the shortcut into the tyres.

Total distaster for me. Couldn't find a 550 setup which would work in qual and spent a lot of time trying to tweak it to get the temps up - waste of time. What I should have done is gone back to a much more understeering setup but I was fixated on tyre temps.

Started the race in 5th, lost a place when I went wide at the hairpin a few laps in (who nicked the 150 board then!) and in recovering Mike bounced off me and spun. I couldn't see him or vice versa I expect, but I don't think it was any more than a racing incident. Anyway, the car was undrivable on the power, and it was only a matter of time before I had a big off. In the end the car snapped on me in a straight line, and as I pirouetted into the barriers I couldn't face 40 more minutes of such torture and quit.

Having sice tried another setup based on default fast, I was much quicker and more consistent. Tyre temps were still c**p but at least I could drive the bugger in a straight line! 

One other thing. With the weather rules as they are, its possible to see the weather is wet and duck out for a more suitable car. Not saying anyone actually did this, but if you had a rear engined car last night you had a big advantage IMO. Certainly the 550 is a right handful in the (very) wet. Personally I'd still rather see everyone stick to one car all season.

Paul

Tyres temps mean nothing in the wet. My front never got much above 55 and the rears were about 70 after a while. It's more about the feel and just having grip of some sort rather than aquaplanning a lot.

The Lambo is one of the best cars in the wet as it has lots of natural traction under acceleration which is one of the smaller reasons I chose it before the season began as there was likely to be some wet weather so it would stand my in good stead in those races.

I don't think you should be allowed to change cars during an event (I thought there was a rule to that effect although it might be UKGPL).

I understood that, once you'd joined Q2, jumping out and getting another car was not allowed. Or at the very least, a bit cheeky.

My tyres were icy compared to you guys- 30ish front, 40ish rear all night. After one spin I managed to get the rears up to 50 something though which was very exciting ;)

Yeh, mine were like that too, We are both NGT so its probably semi-normal.

Well, my race was extremely strange.  It's the most eventful race I'd been involved with in quite a while - but knowing it was an 'endurance' race (an hour, yeah right ;) ) I endeavoured to take it easy, after what happened two weeks ago in the wet.

Was pleased to see a full grid this time out, and set about qualifying having done....yep, you guessed it....no wet weather running since two weeks ago, which was the first time ever.  Sensible, I know ::) but still.  At least I had qualifying to get acclimatized this time.  Hardly went off, to my great surprise, in qualifying, and wound up P4, behind some super-fast laps.

A strange thing happened on the formation lap, just coming out of the final chicane - I think I hit something invisible, because I slowed all of a sudden and then was hit from behind.  So I lost 3 seconds or so on the start.  No big deal, after Rik F spun at the hairpin and I passed Matjaz easily under acceleration, I was in the position I was before.

Took it very easy on lap 1 this time, but coming down to the hairpin, Shark had the moment described above.  It was a sudden horrible realization that Truetom was directly in the flight path of the aquaplaning Lambo....thankfully it *just* missed.  It didn't miss by a lot though!  Very, very lucky indeed.

Muorali gave it too much throttle a couple of laps later, and so it was me and Truetom up front.  I had no idea at this stage about fuel strategies, but I was coming to realize, rather quickly, that I could have gone the full race on the single tank of fuel.  But I'd only taken 60 litres.  Cursing my lack of preparation, I wondered whether my soft wets would last the whole race.

I decided I'd make the decision when I pitted, which was just after half-distance.  In the meantime, I set about harassing Tom.  I didn't want to risk anything, so just made myself as big as possible in his mirrors.  I was still finding the limits to an extent....twice I went straight on at the final corner, using the tarmac runoff to good effect, and once I went right across the Nurburgring chicane.  But Tom didn't make any kind of a mistake, great driving.  A little half-spin at the last corner told me it was time to pit.

Soo....what state are the tyres in?  A couple of 7's, a couple of 8's....hmmm....decisions, decisions....I'll gamble and not change them.  Forgot to turn the engine back on after refuelling, so that cost me a couple of seconds ::) but it was only a 20 second stop anyway.

I wasn't sure whether anyone else had realized you could go the whole race, either, so I prayed for the next couple of laps that they hadn't.  Sure enough, Tom pits, and I gain 20 seconds on him....he must have changed tyres.  Muorali pits a couple of laps later, putting me 2nd.  Mike Wrightson a few seconds in front.  It's looking rather good....

But then, coming up to lap Jamera, he gives me a love tap coming out of the hairpin, spinning me round.  Grrrr.  13 seconds behind Mike, with about as many laps to go, and all of a sudden I'm gonna have to push hard.  Next lap, 11.3.  Then, 8.4.  Oh no....locked a brake and straight on at the final corner, costing me at least two seconds.  Gap 9.3.  10 laps to go.

I'm catching at 2 seconds a lap though, and sure enough, 5 laps later, I'm right on Mike's tail.  A backmarker in front, Mike struggles to deal with him....and skews to the right out of Adelaide.  OK, I lead by 20 seconds, the race is mine.

So, what do I do?  Take it easy, eeeeaaassyy....coming up to lap a car in the 180, the back comes round for seemingly no reason!  What?!  Lost 12 seconds, and saw Tom had gone into 2nd.  5.3 seconds in front, with 3 laps to go!

Okay, calm, calm....it's still yours Mark.  Next lap, 3.5.  2 to go.  Still calm.  Got backmarkers though....out of the way!!  2.4 coming into the last lap, and I think it's mine again.  Into the 180 once more, I leave the braking very late trying to clear a backmarker, and run right out wide....Tom is right on me now though!  Half a lap to go, don't make a mistake, don't you DARE make a mistake....nice run through Imola and Chateau d'Eau, and braking into the Lycee I'm still in front.  Out of the chicane, and the end of the most nerve-wracking half a lap in recent memory....YEAH!!!

As you can see, I made bloody hard work of it.

BTW, well done to Matjaz for a brilliant drive :)

Please click on the 'Next Page' button to continue reading the novel by Mark Harrison.  :D

Just joking m8, well done! :)

T

LOL.

Excellent report Mark. I particularly liked the bit about the flight path of my aquaplaning Lambo.

The fuel thing was interesting. I had no intention of not stopping even in the wet i didn't think the Lambo would be even close to finishing with a full tank. Not sure now though, but I dont really want to do another hour race in the rain at Magny to find out.  :P :D

Results are up here:

http://www.ukgtr.org/lm2-report.php?group=10101&event=11

I was on a no-stop strategy. Filled up Saleen to 100 litres. Had to pit to repair damage and decided to change tires btw from hard to soft (or rain to monsoon). When I finished I had about 10 litres of fuel left. So in rain Saleen can go no-stop if your tires endure. Had rev limiter on 7000, forgot to change, so with lower I would have more fuel left.

Thanks Aagramn.

Well, was going along OK, considering that was the first time I had raced in such conditions......
On Lap15 I entered a corner a little too fat (the fast uphill chicane) and ran a little wide onto the grass.......As I tried to make my way back to the track I somehow managed to ground my car on the grass - couldn't move backward or forward not matter what I did....eventually gave up and quit back to the pits.
 ???

Oh well....here is hoping for better weather next time - can you imagine monsoon weather at Enna ?????

Regards

cb

Shark - do the cars really aquaplane? Because i'm pretty sure they don't, and i've heard from good sources they just don't in the game.....

I would love to see the time of the race extended to 90 mins - 60 mins of 'endurance' racing is just too short - it goes very very quickly. Anyone else would like to see it extended to 90 mins? (most GTR leagues I know run at 90 also)

Gets my vote, but I think as we were setup for 60, we should get far greater than 50% wanting to go for 90

Yup.

I think I could make 90 min. Would be more of an anticipation for a race, too. And more rewarding (feeling) for a winner.

90 mins is more like an endurance race, it gets my vote, but since we have started at 60mins, we should not change the race length until season 2.

The race distances will not change for Season 1. End of story. Move along please, nothing more to see here.

I don't think that anyone can actually answer that because we'd need to know how the wet weather tyre model is written etc.
There are certainly moments where you can get light steering and loss of traction even on straight bits of track. To me that feels like aquaplanning but it's hard to tell as it's just a game.  :-\

Hi Guys what an event had a go with the seat to make no's up . It was very doggy when the turbo lit up. ok for a few laps but lost it after the straight hit the barrier and ripped a wheel off . better luck next time?.  PS when I did this for real the tyres did heat up as they used to steam when we stopped unless it was a downpour. bye for now gerald  :)

Used to race in real life?

Paul968 seems to be the only person who can make the Seat work.

If I remember correctly this race it was pouring down all the time m8, so perhaps the reason for alot of people having problems getting the tyres to heat up. Have to agree with Shark though that it's not that important in the extremely wet.

T