SimRacing.org.uk

Practice 1:	20:00	(25 mins)
Qual 2:	20:25	(30 mins)
Race:	20:55	(80 mins)	note: no warmup!

Cars allowed: any GT1 or GTC from the UKGTR Skin Pack v2.7.0.0 (https://www.simracing.org.uk/smf/index.php?topic=3356.msg54519#msg54519) (download from here (https://www.simracing.org.uk/smf/index.php?topic=3356.msg54519#msg54519)).
Weather: changeable, based on real-world conditions at the start of the event.
Track: Brno 2004
Race Start Time 14:00
Pit Stops: You must make a minimum of one pit stop during which you must take on at least 1 litre of fuel or change your tyres. You cannot take your mandatory stop at the end of the pace lap, or with less than 1 lap to go.

Server: UKGTR Upper Endurance
Password: see above (#post_event_password)

Notes:
(1) Please make sure you are fully aware of the UKGTR Rules (https://www.simracing.org.uk/smf/index.php?topic=3349.0) - especially the speed limiter starting procedure and the rules about in-game chat messages.
(2) Championship standings can be found on the series page (https://www.simracing.org.uk/smf/index.php?action=LM2R;group=67;theme=3).
(3) You will not be able to join the server without the skin and ballast pack (see link above).
(4) Drivers may only change car once in the season without penalty.
(5) Drivers are reminded that they must select ISDN as their bandwidth, otherwise the stability of everyone's connection will be reduced.

To prevent further dominance from those ugly TSJ guys, I've decided to chase them around with a whole lot of American Muscle ;D

Don't forget to check your ballast - it's now remembered between events so if you use different amounts in different series (like I do) you need to check it at least a few hours before each event.

Better than being chased around with your dutch muscle ;)

As long as he's careful where he prods that long snout, I think we can handle it. He's taking the big, soft, truck-engined one anyway. Must be so he can go slower round the corners when he gets tired   ;)  :laugh:

Remember your scatter cushions seniors!  :wheelchair: :wheelchair: :wheelchair:

 

The thing I'll be swinging around sunday will have a big fat front and a whole lot of punch kicking from the rear....I think that sounds bad  :P

how often are reserves left out in the cold for Upper Endurance? Im off of work for a few days, and may be able to finally attend one :D

There's no registration for Endurance so no reserves, just whoever turns up.

What race pace are you guys looking at for GT1 (Non Alien) 52's, 53's??

About 57. :o

1:56s for me probably looking at my best lap times at 4Brno for qually which are 1:54.5s.

I shall not be partaking tonight as i havent got my PC up and running yet. I shall probably be on the WindowsUpdate server instead, sadly its not quite as interesting as yours!


Err whats with the strange looking and possibly the worlds smallest font used for the password? I'm squinting just looking at it!

So that's why they use it... ;)

I had actually been wondering about that, and the driver name. Any chance of changing or increasing the size of the font?

It's part of the driving test. If your vision is too poor to read, you are too blind to drive

Unfortunately, MSIE does an extremely bad job of rendering fixed-width fonts - you can help matters by changing the default of Courier New to the more modern (and larger) Lucida Console in Internet Options. Better yet get a proper browser. :laugh:

I take it you use FireFox. ::)

Mostly - though I have to use MSIE at work as FireFox isn't on F*rd's approved software list.

Server seems to have died I'm afraid. I can't connect to it via Remote Desktop so either the server just died or the network to the server just died.

So there absolutly no way you can contact "scotty" in the engine room to get some powah!!

....damn!!

Picnic is trying to resolve, will keep you posted. :-\

We'll keep attempting to recover the server until 20:30, after which I'll post here and we'll reschedule.

Sorry folks, it's no go for tonight. :'(

Sorry peeps :(

Thanks very much for all your efforts. These things happen.

Yeah, thanks for your efforts Pete. I hope the problem is quick to resolve.

Official line is there is a power outage affecting the whole data centre  :(

Great racing RR, Dave and Pete in the public ;D I knocked two people off! >_<

Grats to Reign Man on the dominant win (3 laps ahead of everyone else?!)  :notworthy:

No wonder the public forums have such a bad name with all you dirty drivers.

I left then realised you lot had jumped on to the NGT race at Brno and wished I could join as was looking for a race tonight

Yeah...was a good one that :D...Even managed to fit through a gap that wasnt wide enough between 2 other lambo`s at one point...reckon it might have had one of em off roading a bit..but its a public server so what do they expect  :P

Got my first pole position for a while in that public server and that was the highest I got. I got a great start, but the 2nd place man even better and he got me into the first corner on the outside. Then as Jeff, who'd started last, climbed up the leader board he easily took 2nd off me and within 7 laps he'd hit the front and scared the leader into a spin giving us a 1-2 Team SHark finish. We messed around for a bit at the front, weaving and nudging each other ;) until one of the public drivers got close and then we got serious again and made sure of the 1-2 finish.

Actually quite glad the race got postponed cause I got to practice the track in my new car and remember just how much I like the Lambo (it's easy to drive which is good for my skill set). Took one of my old GTR 1 setups and adjusted mainly the gearing and a few other small things and it felt pretty good so I'll now be ready when the race takes place. :)

Thanks for your efforts last night chaps. Think thats about 2 cancellations in about 7 seasons so I'm just surprised its doesn't happen more often.  Bit of a let off for me, as travelling to Leicester and getting absolutely smashed left me a "little" worse for wear, but still    ;D

Will this be re-arranged or simply cancelled? Perhaps you should take results from preceding pracci where I was fastest (and only one doing quali times no doubt ;))

We have a contingency slot in the calendar on March 16th so I suggest we run this event then. We could shuffle the March 9th event into that slot and move the Feb 24 event into that slot so that we can run Brno two weeks late, but perhaps folks would be happer to delay Brno until then so that we mix the tracks up a bit more.

I'd prefer all the UE races got moved on by one race so we keep Brno as the next UE race (now that I've practiced), but as long as it doesn't get cancelled I'm not really fussed.

Please vote in the poll above...

I like to occaisionally give the illusion of democracy... ;) :devil:

I voted for the 24th, because I feel it's better to do this as the LE race is relatively fresh in my mind and as I have put in some practise for this race allready.

Looks like democracy is turning out wrong now, with the 2 options being equal and the rest not caring ;D.

I voted for March as shuffling everything is too much work I think.

I suggest - Everyone joins tonight and we all race in reverse, al-la me in qually yesterday ;D
Don't really like Brno, so would quite like to get it out of the way. Any chance we could race it this week?

Otherwise I'll vote 24th ;D

PS - Why is there yellow next to my name in the champ standings? And loads of others as well  ???

Looks like penalty points

Give that man a round of applause! :clap:

I'd hazard a guess that we are all in yellow with no points as we were all subject to a report about a dodgy race start that ended up in advice only?

All Team Shark Junior members are automatically on a warning because we know they're evil to start with. ;)

Now now, no need to be nasty.

I'd better point out Simon is doing better in the PP championship than in the race championship

He has scored a point in PP championship

 :lol: :lol: :lol:

If I start lagging behind in that "championship" I know who to make contact with should I need more points. ;)

P.S. Is there some easy way for a driver to find out what they have penalty points or cautions for?

It's in your Racing History  in your profile - or just click on your name on a standings or results page.

It's pretty clear from the pole that only a small minotiry want all the dates shuffled round, so we will reschedule this event for March 16 and run the other two races before then on their original dates.

So this race is on for Sunday, right?

Thread is quiet since february, so I just want to make sure  :)

Tried a few laps in the Morgan again, rubbish times but a couple days to improve. We'll see. Though it's fun driving the Morgan, I'm not so sure it's beneficial for me for long races, very hard to keep myself from spinning the rears on exits. Thrashes the tires as well. It's slow, I know, but....it's so fun  :D


Best sound in the world is the engine revs rising and falling as you exit the turn and your tires slip and grab alternately. Easy to produce at Dubai at the exit to the back straight. I love that sound so much I've ended up on my nose a couple times with my bike irl, because I was intentionally trying to produce it  :1eye:  ;D  (It's stupid, I know)

I hear Brno is all about smooth carrying of momentum, I'll give that a shot tonight.

Well what a waste of time that exercise was  ???

Just thought I would try an offline race using the same settings/cars as per this one.....did a reasonable qually time and was 5th in GTC class on the grid.....pole sitter for GTC was 2:01:0

Thought I would have a chance of competing....but quit after 15 laps....20 seconds behind in last place with the GTC's ahead lapping in the 1:54's :o

Would really like to know how that can happen?  7 secs a lap faster than qually pole ?  in race trim with lots of fuel etc.....

think I will stick to hotlapping on my own for praccy sessions in future.

Not had a chance to practice yet, but I expect to be slow on this one.

All systems go!

I'm out of this one.

Disappointed as was looking forward to a race and to keep up in the championship.

really not sure i will make this one either  :'( am out at doo and will already have disapeared for a few hours to watch the grand prix beforehand.

If i can attend i will, but had no time for praccy either.

So I practiced a bit, quite a bit actually, and have now made my very first completely homemade setup  :) Yayyy.

It's actually not for the Morgan but for the 360 Modena, with Pirellis (as if I could tell the difference  :D). The Morgan is a fun car, but it's also quite exhausting to drive, as I have to be ready to catch oversteer slides at most exits. The Fezza gives me a much lighter workload, a more relaxed drive, and if it's possible I would rather drive it on Brno.

I was thinking if perhaps someone more knowlegeable would have time to give it a quick spin and tell me what they think? In effect making it no longer completely homemade, but I'd appreciate any feedback.

I know it's pretty nasty on the brakes and transition from gas to coast to brakes. It doesn't bother me though, since I have this hard to get rid of habit of keeping a bit of throttle open at almost all times, something I picked up from GT Legends. Coast diff is set to 60% I think and preload to 3. Dunno if I should increase the Coast or not.

Also attaching a hotlap, got a 2.00.5 with half a tank of gas and fresh medium tires, though 01's are more likely for me at this point. It's a little rough, not smooth at all, in fact the ghost car is doing a better lap save for two corners it messes up, 3rd and second to last. There are some sparks coming off but I only see it happening on the brakes, so I guess it doesn't hurt? Or should I raise the front up a little?


Heh, I know this isn't an advice thread, and training time is scarce for most people, so feel free to disregard my posting  :D.  I've never gotten into this setup business is all, I'm just not very confident I can make heads or tails of it.


Filefront:
Hot Lap (http://files.filefront.com/Brno+HOT+LAPVcr/;9819126;/fileinfo.html)
360M-50L-Brno setup (http://files.filefront.com/360M+50L+Try1svm/;9819125;/fileinfo.html)

I tried your setup Mike, I drive the modena myself in sprints (so I was hoping it was better than mine  ;))

Main thing I noticed is a bit of a shortage of front end grip, it tends to understeer alot in my hands....but I do tend to be a little too aggressive with turn in etc.

What I would be inclined to do is reduce camber by about 1 deg on the fronts, increase castor by 1.5 and also reduce front ARB to 50....and perhaps stick another click of downforce to the rear wing too.

Just tried that and both turn in and mid corner felt much 'stickier' to me.

I also noticed that your rear brakes actually seem to get hotter than the fronts....try a little more front bias (couple of clicks ) may improve the braking transition a bit. Also reducing coast a little tends to be a little more stable in the 360....I run with power 40, coast 30, preload 2, at most tracks.
If it is bottoming out under braking, then raising the ride height a little will also assist.

other than that its pretty good, reasonably stable and reasonably quick IMO.

2.00.5 in race trim is far from shabby in a 360 Modena! You learn fast young Jedi - got a team yet?  ;)

That did make it easier to stick to the line, good suggestion, thanks. Couldn't lap any faster but definitely feels easier to keep the car in check.

Some problems keeping heat in the right front tire though, even at the normal 20C ambient. I tried reducing castor by 0.5 from your suggestion, not sure it made any difference though. I heard castor raises your inner wheel when turning, so I figured it might put more weight on the inner tire, helping to keep temps up. Also tried 0.75 front ARB, but unsure about that too. Have to test some more tomorrow.

If the forecast is correct and we'll be racing at 10C, like it says, and dry, like I hope, I might have to use soft tires, at the front at least. I can do 3 laps at 7x wear on softs without *too* many problems, which should equate to half a race.

Hehe, well, it's a hotlap though, 2.01.xx is a good lap for me.

No team yet, are you saying there's a spot open in Kerb Crawlers?  :)

Certainly wouldn't say no Mike  :) Would you like me to invite you?

Yes, I'd like to join Kerb Crawlers. After all, that's such a stylish paintjob  ;)

Almost a shame I'm switching from Morgan to Ferrari, suits the Morgan exceptionally well, those colours. (Assuming it's allowed to switch cars, of course)

Never been in a sim team before, are there responsibilities that come with it?

OK, I've invited you - you just need to go to LM2 and accept. Anyway, welcome to the team  :)


Not really, other than helping the less experienced guys if you can. I'm sure the rest of the team will welcome someone else to trade setups / TTs with. I'll sort out getting you on the forum as soon as I can.

And there was much rejoicing  ;D

...or gnashing of teeth, depending on which team you are in  ;D

Welcome Mike  ;D

Good bit of recruiting Paul H! See you both tonight.

O dear :-[

Good quali. Good race with Shark. Jumped by two car in pits where six second lead turned into 7 second deficit. Annoyed, but got gap down to 1sec with 10 to go and really fancied passing Paul/Zac. Then engine goes pop :'( First one ever for me.

Damn fecking MC12. I'll finish this season in it but it will be first and last in this cursed thing.

Congrats to winners !  :)
Now, after a few races with GT1 cars for the first time ever, i realised that i have
no skills or hability to drive/set up them  :-\ 
I try to be consistent (i believe i do) and fast, but i´m a bit far to the top 10  :P
Nevertheless i will be ´till the end on the GT1 league, but surelly never more  ;D
Now, as a bad performance self punishment..........http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1N19zOBKCE
 :angel:

Cheers

By the way, nice dice Dave...i hope i holded you fairly  :)

God my bad luck continues!!

Average qualy, couldnt get a clear lap. Race went well, followed Pual and H@l for quite a while then we both got past h@l, goin steady up 2 pitstop but came out behind h@l again down in 9th. Chased him down and made a late lunge down the inside at turn 1 and made it stick. 6th was looking a likely result until 2 ahead had problems and with 6 mins to go was in 4th. THEN came into braking zone at turn 4 hit the brakes and nothing happened!!!! and the revs went through the roof and i went straight on into the tyre wall.  I really dont know why this happened. Engine health was fine on 89 i think, evrything else ok.

Anyone have any ideas??


Grats to winners.

SHOCKING!!!  :o After that rubbish I'm gonna ditch GT1  :hang: , 2 laps down, with no offs, only a stop/go as an excuse, best of 1:56xxx is cwap  :taz: . GTC here I come.

P.s. Sorry Reign Man  :-[

Great race that..total enjoyment, that must be the best track out of the whole bunch ;D

Got a pb in qually, just missed getting into the 2:01's  :(

First part of race was great, Reign Man jumped me at the start with the TVR's grunt, but very kindly let me go after a couple of laps....cheers buddy  ;) so i was chasing pops. caught him too and was all over him like a rash for a few laps but couldnt find any way through. that lasted untill the GT1's started lapping, I lost all rythem and got the blues....not that any did anything wrong, just distracted me so I ended up 6 secs adrift.
Tried to make inroads but tyres were getting a little shot and it was all i could do to keep station.

then it all went wrong....pitted with about 30 mins to go....dead smooth into the lane...and into my box...hit enter so quick I didn't even see it myself....perfect.....apart from the fact I hadn't changed the fuel settings so the crew insisted on filling me up with 100 Ltrs.... >:(....52 second stop and 4 places lost.

Ahhhhh well....spose I will have to try harder next time.

Grats to the winners and podiums.

And grats to my teamies that turned out in force and put up a real good fight.

I've had this as well, but only in GTL IIRC. So it's either some sort of brake failure (very unlikely) or a very nast bug.

I think Dave also had such a thing not too long ago. And he could continue after that. But I'm not sure that was GTL (I think it was) or GTR2.

It's just hoping it doesn't happen when you closely follow somebody, as then it would look like you completely ram somebody off, whereas it's just a bug as I can see so far.

You don't have a clutch pedal do you? Could they have moved and you hit it instead? Or you hit the gas?

no clutch pedal. i was actually goin easy as fuel was tight so i wasnt even pushing that hard.

I had that in GTL when I still owned a DFP (no clutch). That's quite a long time ago and it only happened once or twice. I thought it was just a problem I had, but then another Shark had it (heard via teamspeak), and now Psuedo. So it's something weally weird :P.

Unlucky Ian with the engine. I thought we were about to have our first dice on track! Well happy with third. Not much in the way of pace at all car felt ok just wasn't that fast. Started 6th could have gone quicker but either made a mistake or caught traffic. With Zacs mistake on the pace lap though I was effectively up to 5th.

Race start running heavy and I wasn't able to challenge Hal in front. After a few laps though with gazza closing in my car improved and I was able to pass while Hal got caught up a bit while lapping. Car got better and better but I still wasn't able to pull away much from Gazza or do anything about the front 3. Pit stop went perfectly and after they all cycled I realised that I had jumped team mate Ian. Zac was chasing me hard and although the car felt good I hit GTCs at the worst places and he was on on my tail. We then came up on JPV towards the end of the lap up the hill. I committed to passing on the right out of the corner at the bottom of the hill but in his kindness he moved right to let me go and I then had nowhere to go. I was ok but JPV spun, sorry about that I expected you just to hold your normal line out of the corner. Of course Zacari took advantage and was passed up the hill. My car was getting better and better and I was thinking I could re-challenge him before the end and suddenly Ian was closing in too. Thought it was going to be a good battle with the 3 of us at the end but Zac had to pit and Ian's engine let go so it was a comfortable third in the end.

Congrats to the winners and the other podium finishers and thanks to all the GTCs with the lapping.  

replay and provisional results available

Such a promising race, yet I managed to muck it up. Sigh.


Where do I start. Well, Lap 1 I suppose.

Now, my grpahics card is the venerable old Radeon 1800xt, but since I haven't replaced the stock fan it's very loud when hot. So I use two fan speed profiles, the quiet one as default and a louder one for newer 3D games. Of course, I forgot to switch to the louder one that gives greater cooling before starting the game, so before hitting T1 I get the usual green squares and slightly garbled picture on my screen, which is a sign of overheating the graphics card. No choice but to stop in a safe place, alt+tab and switch fan profiles.

Right, that done, alt+tab back into the game and off we go.

Picking up places as best I can, some graciously decide to let me pass, thank you for that, and some I pass a bit more agressively, hope I wasn't too disrupting.

Things go better then I expected, and before half the race is done it looks like I'm 2nd, though Paul968 is suspiciously not visible on my list. I had decided to go with medium tires, and when my tank hit 50L I was going back and forth over whether to change the tires or not. They were all under 15 worn, so I decided I'd make more time in the pits then on the track with fresh tires. Or, hopefully, get ahead of someone so all I had to do was defend my position after that.

And what do you know, a few laps after my pitstop I was 12th, which looked like first of the GTC cars, though I'm not entirely sure about that.

Great, Popabawa is 5 secs or so behind, and his Vertigo, on this track, won't be passing me since I have the engine power advantage and the straights are numerous. Unless I make a mistake of course. Though I was wondering what Paul and TrueTom were up to.

So, there I am , feeling all secure, doing the laps, trying to conserve tires. FreQ appears in my mirrors, fortunately close to the tight lefthander where you have to hug the inner curb and go really slowly. So I just go a bit wide before the entry to let him take the inside, and I shouldn't loose much time at all.

But then my old arch-nemesis, an all too easily excitable competetive/go-fast spirit, takes hold of me, and of course I try to stick as close to FreQ as I can through the following left then right turns. A completely pointless excercise, yet somehow so compelling at the time.

So, I gas it out of the tight turn, and....naturally... in my eagerness to stay on his tail for a few seconds longer, I overcook the following lefthander and produce a slide I can't recover from. Devastated, I see people coming, and try to get out of the way, but I do believe I was too slow and someone was unable to pass me without touching. My apologies.

When I finally get back on track I'm down to 15th, with a 7 second gap each way. I try to push a bit, but only end up wasting tires (and fuel, it turns out) spinning up the rears coming out of turns. I quickly see I'm not going to catch Popabawa ahead of me. Not with these tires. So I settle in and accept my position.


As if all that wasn't enough, with more then five minutes to go I find I'm running out of fuel  :cursing:

In my tests with 7x wear and fuel consumption I could do a bit over the required 80minutes (80 / 7 = 11,5 minutes in practice) with less then 100L of fuel, so either my driving was different or I messed up my calculations. Or then that spin + resulting mindset wasted just enough fuel.

I shortshift and coast to the turns, but even so, when I cross the finish line the next time there's still 3 minutes left, so I thought I would have to do two more laps. So now I really start to baby the throttle, keeping the revs down, and coasting all I can, just to make it to the finish line. Darren catches up and passes me. Don't think I'll finish this time.

But, when I cross the finish line, Race over.... I only had to do the one lap, and I finished with 0.7L of fuel. So I could probably have held Darren off, at least tried to do so, and still finished.


Well, long story, and I think I've exhausted my "Book of 101 excuses" now.  ;D

Still, with the amount of practice I put it, and with all possibilities to a great result, I instead mess up like this. It sorta makes me feel like <hanging smiley> (can't open the extra smiley pictures even, nothing happens when I click on it.)

Truly a day of defeat.  :'(


 :D  Oh well, fortunately I don't take this *that* seriously, and I still had a great race, for the first half at least.

Thanks again to SROU/UKGTR, and everyone participating. Good racing with you.

Found the Autosim Analyzer here if anyone likes graphs n stuff for the race results  http://forum.rscnet.org/showthread.php?t=271013   haven't got a clue how to get them on to here though.  Download it and we wont have to bother any one else to post the results  :thumbup2:

Qualified rubbishly in 9th and set myself a goal of finishing 6th or 7th. Zacari dropped it on the formation lap and rejoined behind me but I knew I wouldn't hold him up for long.

Not sure exactly what happened but PRibeiro was already flying past me before I'd even taken the limiter off. Something was not right there... As a result, after Zacari, having past me quickly, muscled by him (during which I ran into the back of PR's car, luckily not doing too much damage to me), I was stuck behind him for far too long losing half a second to a second a lap and almost running into the back of him in the corners as he locked wheels everywhere - a bleedin' nuisance because the Feza is so fast down the straights, even with monster runs out of the corners I couldn't get by.

Forget the Duran Duran, go and practice in that car until you stop looking like a newbie, which we know you're not! ::)

After finally muscling my way past it was push, push, push to the stop and see if I could make up ground on anyone. After the stop the cars ahead were looking much more catchable and after all the GT1 stops I was up to 8th and catching Gazza49er and Hal9000 ahead. Gazza was nice enough to chuck himself off the track (I've never had quite what you describe although I have had the brakes go MIA for a corner or two).

My pushing was wearing my rears faster than in the first stint and I found myself with a car which had poor balance for a few laps. That lead to a few stupid spins, the worst of which was after I put my lights on to warn Reign Man as I was about to lap him that I was taking no prisoners in my chase of Hal, and then pinched the final standalone right hander off too hard and spun off. That left me 25 seconds adrift and in danger of getting caught by PRibeiro, so I had to back off slightly until the fronts wore a little more and the Lambo's balance was restored.

Dunno what happened after that because suddenly with about 7 minutes to go the gap to the car ahead was about 6 seconds and I was catching him fast. Shark was saying over TeamSpeak that the race might end a lap early (on distance) but luckily it went to time and with 6 corners to go I caught Hal and forced the issue by diving down the inside on the assumption that either he was running out of fuel or tyres (or both) and sure enough once past I pulled away rapidly to cross the line in a totally unexpected 5th place, my best so far this season. 8)

That is the issue, time to practice, unfortunately i havent  :P as i said, i believe i just havent
the skills to drive and/or setup the GT1 cars, never drove them before, but that isnt an excuse.
I will never be a F1 pilot   ;D

Unofficial Race Report (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/paul.harrington/Brno%20S7%20UE/)

Ofcourse i was joaking, btw, i heard a lot Duran Duran in the 80´s  :o as many people who borned in 60´s did  8)

ps. I must single out Psuedo for particular mention. It wasn't that long ago that he could barely keep a car on the track and he's now reached my list of people I can safely lap aggressively when I have too, knowing he won't do anything crazy.

In fact, I think the only lapping confusion I had was with TT, who let me by in one of the tricky chicanes when I was only intending to follow him through and then pass on the run down the hill. It's great to see a virtually full grid at the halfway point in the season, and the busy track really adds to the atmosphere and challenge of mixed-class endurance racing. :thumbup1:

pps. That was my 250th race in my combined UKGPL/SRou history. ;D

Nice race once again  :)

This was my most interesting race so far. I qualified well but had about 3 cars starting to catch me from the start of the race until we met traffic and then all 3 cars overtook me!  :-[  Lapping backmarkers is my weak point and my inexperience came into play a bit i think, but thats racing.  :)  I could see Paul Richards and Gazza closing fast and 2 GTC's locked in full battle in front of me and we all met up at the same time, i had about 0.2 seconds to think 'what do i do now?' but we were all in one piece at the end of it so i guess that is good enough  :)

I had many battles while trying to fend off other drivers which was all grate fun and thanks to the very fair driving from all  ;D SBG pulled a very nice on me as i hesitated behind another GTC runner.

I did 'do a Kimi' at one point and miss my braking point by about 50 meters while approaching a GTC runner. I tried to avoid conntact and spun but i still nudged the GTC a little.  :-[ I think he was OK so I contined without a self imposed drive through but i have not checked the replay yet. If the GTC runner involved wishes to report it then please do, no hard feelings from me as it was clearly my fault. It can only help me to avoid this again.  :)

This may sound like an excuse but my engine began to splutter and stall a little towards the end of the race ??? I had my radiator to far open and i think that my engine may have been to cold. It seemed to go a little when i reved the nuts off it but it distracted the hell out of me and contributed to me missing my baking point as i described above and prevented me from putting up much of a fight against Dave at the end. :-[  Does this happen in GTR2 or is it my wheel ???

Shame about your spell of bad luck Gazza, but it cant last forever.

Thanks for a grate race guys  :)

Nice one Paul   :thumbup2:  Everyone Paul's done it  ;D

I wasn't gonna let you by, saw you were waiting, but missed my braking point looking back at you. Slide was a bit wide and I was afraid you're gonna think I was letting you go. So I did.  :D

TT

Best race of the season. Too often I have found myself in 'no man's land' with 30 or more seconds between me and the next person both ahead and behind.
Two good battles this evening first with a Porsche (API?) which was faster in a straight lines but struggling on wearing tyres in the corners.

After my pit stop I caught Ade and spent the last half hour of the race within a second or so either just behind or just in front. Great fair racing on your part Ade trying to race me and watch out for the GT1s. One classic moment where having let lapping cars through we were both waiting for the other to take the lead to resume the battle. I am not entirely sure I finally deserved to finish just ahead, I hope you feel I played 'fair'.  ;D

Interesting race.

The TVR was a handfull today, the midcorner performance of the blasted thing was dreadful, I was having to work really hard all race. So I'm proper knackered now!  :sweatdrop:

I got a good start off the limiter and immediately got in front of Psuedo but after a couple of laps it became clear that he was faster and I was holding him up, so I let him by. He quickly scampered off into the distance hounding Pops.

I had Darren and Adam just behind me and the small gap that had opened up between us quickly came down as they came up to speed. I was able to hold them off, Darren was much quicker in the corners but I had just enough grunt to keep him at bay until the next corner. Great fight mate!  ;D

With about 35 mins gone Darren was still all over me and my car was becoming a more of a handfull on worn tyres,  I was having to slow down mid corner and power out just to make sure that I had the speed in the straits so he would not sail by.

Two groups of hard battling GT1's flashed by making things even more interesting. It was great fun...   :)

.....until one of em decided to show me the tyre wall...up close.  ::)

After a remodeling my front end on the tyres and taking a close look at the gravel....I thought it might be a good idea to get back to racing  :D

The car was not damaged too much and looking at the race clock (about 40 mins to go I ) I decided to stay out until 30 mins to go, but my lap times were down.

It was a lonely race from then on. Pit stop went well...I wondered why I came out in front of Psuedo at the time, sorry to here about your pit troubles mate  :( and I made up one place when Adam decided to do a couple of donuts.

Hope to never see that track again  ;D

RM

Ah yes, Congratulations to Paul968 and FreQ, as well as podium finishers.

Sorry I couldn't mix it up with Paul968 and TT the final laps. Looking at the statistics I would have had to defend for a few laps if I hadn't spun the car so needlessly. Would have been tough to do that. Well, until I ran out of fuel, of course, no need after that  :-[  :laugh:

That page says I did 22 overtakes though, that's definitely a record for me. At least that's something  ;D

Before Race - I was a bit nervous before the race. (didn't know if I would make it, cause of tucking my kids in to bed) But my little :angel:'s just told me to go, they could tuck them self's in...
So OFF I ran, to my computer and fired it up. ;D In on the server, and I saw that someone (probably my team-manager) had taken care of the whole situation.(The garage floor was shiny and all moped up, So no need for that :o Just had to put the old kettle on timer,and put the new baked biscuits on the table for the crew to enjoy after the race) Sat down in the Lister and buckled up and felt the Engine rew up. On my first practice lap I felt very confident in my self. Made a new PB 1.54.190 Weee I went haywire and woke the kids up by misstake :-[ Then Qualify came on and a new PB (1.53.611) DAMN... I felt that now I'm in the zone ;D.

Race report -I made a couple of misstakes but nothing that caused anybody any harm (except me self  ::) ) Had a good pace the first 8-9 laps and held out quite good for being a totall rookie. Then at lap 12 I made the first rookie misstake... being a bit to easy on the throttle when I came up on the GTC cars, I lost a bit in pace and had a hard time to find my way back after that. Then It was pitstop.  :laugh: I came in good, and made no misstakes on the way in.
But B I G misstake during refueling. I pressed the starter button "not the ignition" just the starter  >:( Well that rendered me about 10 more sec in the pit  :cursing:
After all I'm quit happy. I started at the grid as 8'th and finished 8'th. More practice and a few more races and I'm going to be even more dangerous  :wheelchair:

Thanks Dave....it has been a slow learning curve eh!.......just need to work on getting fast and consistent now  ;D

Messy race for me.  Quali'd 3rd, flicked myself off on the parade lap and started 10th-ish, then someone (again) jumped the start behind me and I ended up losing a bucket load of time until I pushed my way back passed.  Then pushed as much as I could with damage, pitted early and didn't take enough fuel ::) then lost out a 50/50 into T1 and lost about 15 seconds, faught back to 3rd only to have to pit for fuel, came out 5th but managed to get 4th back before the end.

Given all that, 4th wasn't too bad! :D  Grats to FreQ and Paul for wins.

Could be your throttle potentiometer. My old DFP pedals were a bit like that towards the end of their life.

I presume you weren't running very low on fuel?

I'm surprised. 2nd in Brno - Moi ??? I never score in Brno, so aliens must have been missing.  :D
Not much to say about the race, was trying unsuccesfully to catch Paul968 through the whole race, but he was too fast even with his backpack on.  :)   Too bad I couldn't score in Dubai - the ladder would have been a bit different.  :)

Bad luck MJ couldn't race. I think he had a chance to win this one, or at least put more pressure on Paul968 then I was able to.  :)
Saw Mike stopped soon after the start - bad luck buddy, you would be on a podium for sure.  8)

Good show, Legends!  :clap:

TT

A race to forget for me .... having been struggling with the flu since Wednesday and still feeling pretty rotten I wasn't actually planning on racing.

The race started reasonably well, chasing Darren round the park.  There were only a couple of occasions where I had a sniff of getting by (bent my front splitter on one of those occasions!), but I never really threatened.  The tyres went off a bit and when the GT1's came through I lost touch and that was that really.

I found some decent pace in the 2nd half of the race and was ahead of Psuedo and Reign Man, but the tyres went off again .... one splin let Reign Man through, another let Pseudo through ... and by that point I was really struggling.  Was absolutely shattered come the end of the race.  Lost the back end a "couple" of times and handed another position away.  Should have done a lot better last night, having fought long and hard with TT in the sprint, last nights pace was a dissapointment for me.

I both qualified and raced much further up than I expected. Although I'd done 1:52.5 in TT mode, I was not expecting to do that online, so I was pleasantly surprised that lowering the wing and making some more changes (mostly to the rear), helped get me that time in qually online. However my race pace was seemingly 2-3 seconds slower than that in practice, but I guess whatever it was that I changed on the car worked, because I was able to be only 1-2 seconds slower than qually in the race actually. It also helped that the track temperature went up for the race as it made medium/medium work nicely.

I was utterly amazed that I was able to hang on to FreQ and SBG in the first half of the race. I was in close attendance for the whole first half of the race, but when we hit traffic, he seemed to get the better of it, catching people in better places. There were a couple of moments where there seemed to be misunderstandings with GTCs as it looked like they were letting both cars through when they probably weren't. That's multi-class racing, I hope I didn't cause too much discomfort for anyone.

Anyway, after seeming to get the slightly worse end of the stick in traffic against SBG, I was hoping for the "swings and roundabouts effect" and sure enough with one of the GTCs, he seemed to suddenly get super cautious and I managed to sneak on through.

I extended my second place lead over SBG until the pit stops, up to around 6 seconds?, with FreQ now 10 seconds or so up the road. We came to the pits on the same lap. I had to get some damage repaired as well as fuel and tyres, so I was worried SBG would gain those 6 seconds back. I was willing my crew to get me out before and sure enough they did, despite me over-running my stall slightly.

Came out of the pits side by side with a charging Zacari, which somehow knocked his car into the gravel. Still don't get that, as there should have been room for side-by-side there and down the straight into a braking fight. Haven't downloaded the replay yet as I was watching A1GP after the race till sleepy-time.

After the rest of the pit stops sorted themselves out, FreQ was a way off in the lead and Paul Richards was not gaining any on me behind, so I drove within myself to the end to claim a very unexpected 2nd place.


I hope you don't ditch GT1 as part of my problem with this series is that there are too many GTCs and not enough GT1s. It means no one gets a clean lap in qually and no one gets a clean lap in the race. I'm all for having some lapping of different classes during a race, but it was 1 or 2 cars at minimum every lap almost, it was a little silly.

I don't think the problem is anti-GT1, it's just that everyone seems to love GTC (GTR1 nGT). Perhaps this series should get cut down to just GTCs next season if the split is going to be like this. It's effectively a 10/11 car race in GT1 for 80 minutes so if you get stuck in no mans land there's no chance to have a race with anyone even in the pit stops.

I was not expecting to enjoy this, seem to have totally lost my racing mo-jo at the moment. Qually as expected was poor and I ended up near the back. The race started a bit better, passing a Vertigo at the start and comfortably following 2 cars battling in front until I dropped it at the last corner. No idea why the car had felt good and I wasn't pushing that hard. Had driven wide there loads of times in P,Q and the race without serious issues but because it was the race I hit the tyre wall, no engine, dead car. Fed up.

What looked like an easy race turned into quite a struggle. Mike H and myself were well ahead in qual, so I assumed that the race would mainly be a battle with him, but when he dropped back I thought it might be a lonely drive - wrong! TT was grimly hanging on behind, although I expected to gain a lot at the pitstops. Slightly more worrying was the fact that the Vertigos of Pops and Pseudo were not that much further back. Even so, I had enough of a gap to cope with them, or at least I did until I started thinking about stopping. Fuel  on the RS is right on the edge of going all the way on a full tank, and to be safe I wanted to add a few litres at the stop. This meant working out when to pit so that the 13.2 litres I had set in the strategy would be more than the current tank contents. I was busy working this out when I missed the braking point for T4, ran wide on the grass and let TT through - fiddlesticks (or words to that effect). This wasn't a complete distaster though,  except that I did the same thing a couple of laps later, at the same corner  :censored: I lost even more time than the first off, and now it was all looking a lot harder. By the time we had all pitted Mike was well ahead. I followed Pops out of the pits, but first I had to get past Evert, who had just nipped ahead as I exited. I have to say a big sorry to him because I misread the screen and thought it said he was a lap down. As Pops disappeared up the road I was desperately flashing Evert to let me past, but quite rightly he held his line and made life hard for me - sorry for the mistake :oops:. I got by after a lap or so, in which time Pops had got a bit of a gap. TT was also right behind me now (who was so close to getting by at T1 as I passed Evert), although I now had 50kg less weight, so I hoped that would make the difference. We closed up on Pops who tried hard to hang on but didn't really have much chance. He let TT by as well, who was flying. Around this time Mike had his spin and dropped back, leaving TT and me to fight over the win. In the end though I just managed to ease away, allowing me to relax a bit for the last few laps.

Good to battle  TT again and nice to see you get some reward this time. Also nice to see Pops on the podium in the Vertigo.  Hard luck to new teamie Mike, who did amazingly to be in the lead after the stops considering his problem earlier on. I'm not sure it would have paid off  not changing tyres though - we were catching you at over a second a lap and this would be worse later on. Quite an eventful race for you though!

Congrats to Freq on yet another win ([cough] ballast [/cough]), Simon on an overdue return to form and well done to the other kerbies, especially Paul on 3rd in GT1. Only one issue with GT1s when I left room down the inside at the penultimate corner only to have the lapper slide wide and nearly push me off - no harm done but I need room to get round the corner too  ;)

Who is going to be first out of T1?

(http://homepage.ntlworld.com/paul.harrington/Brno%201.JPG)




Me - just!  ;D

(http://homepage.ntlworld.com/paul.harrington/Brno%202.JPG)

Phew! What an enjoyable race that was ;D

I hadn't had much chance to practice for this unfortunately so I wasn't 100% sharp but I knew I had a decent set-up and reasonable pace from the Sprint race.

I got a break in qualifying when I pipped Reign Man by a few hundredths then Pseudo got between us right at the death so I had another Vertigo behind me rather than a TVR ready to just blast past me at the start! Reign & Psuedo held each other up a bit as I pulled out a bit of a gap but then Pseudo came back really strongly and started to put a bit of pressure on. Pseudo looked like he was abusing his tyres a little though so i just tried to keep it smooth and a few laps later a few mistakes crept in and I was able to slowly build a bit of a gap again, that was impressive speed though Psuedo!

I thought I was fairly safe in 3rd when Mike Hammer suddenly appeared. I'd assumed you'd disco'ed Mike when I saw your stationary car at the start, I hadn't realised you'd deliberately stopped! I was unable to put up much a fight there and dropped to 4th but hoped I'd make enough up in the pits.

Surprisingly I came out a few seconds behind Mike (that was a surprise but it sounds like you didn't change tyres so that explains it) but ahead of Paul & TT by a few. I was desperately trying to work out how I was going to catch Mike or prevent Paul or TT from overtaking  and I have to say it didn't seem promising! Mike wasn't pulling away though, I guess the tyres were wearing but TT & Paul were catching me pretty handily. Then Mike went off which left me in a glorious lead which I had no chance of defending :'(

Paul took me by surprise catching me just coming into the 2nd to last corner, I was expecting to let you & TT past on the straight so I got a bit out of shape going wide into the bend to let you through, I hope that didn't give you a scare. TT went past on the straight so I was still grimly hanging on the final podum spot 8s ahead of Mike with about 10 laps to go.

I was expecting to see Mike appear pretty quickly but I was able to slowly pull a few more seconds ahead with Paul & TT a similar amount ahead so I knew I was safe barring any silly mistakes. In the end i came in pretty comfortably in 3rd which I was really happy with, my first podium of the season!  :thumbup2:

A great team performance coming 2nd, 3rd & 4th ;D

Grats to Paul968, how you haul that ballast around at that speed will forever be a mystery, great driving sir!

The GT drivers (with one exception) were really great tonight, thanks.

Up until last night Brno has been a nightmare track for me.  So finishing 4th in class is a big surprise!

During the first half of the race I had an epic battle with Reign Man and Adam.  Although I was faster through the corners, the lower grunt of Reign's TVR always allowed him to gain the better exit.  Adding Reign's excellent defensive driving into the equation meant that I was always faced with trying to overtake on the outside.  Fantastic driving mate.  :thumbup1:

The exhilarating battle with Reign was intensified by the fact that Adam spent most of the time on my back bumper.  Knowing Adam wouldn't make any rash moves really allowed me to concentrate on Reign, and even on the one occasion I got a tad out of shape, Adam expertly avoided serious contact. Thank you, great reactions mate!  :thumbup2:

Unfortunately this 3 way battle was broken up prematurely by a lapping GT1 car.  :(  How was the tyre wall Reign?  ;D

This meant the second half of the race was a dull hot lapping session.  That was until the final few laps when the gap to Mike came tumbling down.  I knew something had to be wrong for me to catch and pass him so fast.  Earlier in the race when I was battling Reign and Adam, Mike caught us so fast I thought he was a GT1 car and let him past without a fight. Doh!  Fantastic pace Mike.  Sorry to hear about your problems, you deserved a podium place....

Congrats Paul, very impressive as always.  Also congrats to both TT and Pops on great drives...            

  

Great find, Paul!  :clap:  I think we even made a micro contact but fortunately it didn't lead into your spin. I was sooooooooo sure I was gonna be the first through there.  ;D  I feel a bit sorry for ol' Evert, must have been a bit scarry to get passed on both sides...  :)  I hope we can interprete this situation as an illustration of possibilities - there's no need for a carnage with three cars abreast into T1.  ;D

Succesful pit strategy / tactics remains a dark area for me.  :(

TT

  Cheers Prof did enjoy that   ;D  after watching the replay and seeing your coming together with Evert and being a jolly good egg waiting for him and in the process  letting everyone else past and ending up last, then having to fight your way back up the field ,good work  :thumbup2:  i just couldn't take the position after you made contact with H@L wouldn't feel right after a good fight. Thanks again  :euro:

I'm not sure you do anything wrong - you could do what I do and run full fuel at the start, but then you'd be slower. I prefer it my way, especially as the extra ballast means that passing on the road can be difficult anyway (people drive away from me on the straights) and it gives me the chance to pass in the pits.

I cant write the expitives that i felt after the race :(

I'd tried adjusting a few things both in the setup and controller setup earlier in the day and felt quite comfortable with it but i've never been comfortable around Brno so its no surprise i'm so far back, but i'm not happy about it as i was over a second slower i was doing in practise.

The race started ok though surprised to see sharks so far back ;) and for most of the first half was shadowing Ade but the mosler is slightly faster but slower through bends so really struggled. Afew times i was caught out by hesitant GT1's, watching the mirrors expecting them to go through rather than watching the road!

I pitted a few seconds behind Ade but seemed to end up a minute or so behind him. Admittedly i have autopit on but still!

And i'm sorry for hitting someone i was following far too closely towards the end of the race into turn 1.

But overall my driving was dreadful, I can't brake, downchange or get on the throttle for £1'000'000.  pathetic.

I'm braking before anyone else, but need to carry it on into the corner, i loose front grip, lock up then i try and accelerate out and slide the back. I'm loosing the front on the way in then the back on the way out! Why is every braking area so bumpy!

 Yes i know i'm over driving but i dont know how to improve!

Starting to wonder why i bother, i'm supposed to be enjoying it!

All these things can be improved by a proper setup and I find I improve the most (when learning a track) with the usage of time-trial. Visible race line on, so you can see where to improve. Download some on-line setups for the car, try them and see which suits your driving style most. Then try to change it so you can drive the way you would like to. Change one thing at the time, go slow, try every change for a few laps. Man, this is time consuming to even think about it.  :D  But it works.  ;)

TT

P.S. Bumpy braking surfaces? Your springs/dampers are too stiff.  :-\

If you're setting up the car, and don't really know what you're doing, like me  :D, maybe this guide will help. It's what I go by, though that's no guarantee of anything  :D
http://www.bhmotorsports.com/download/14398

Also, I dunno if this is considered fair, but if your screen bounces so much you hardly see, you can reduce world movement under graphics options. It's a percentage slider.


If I'm way off with the following two paragraphs then just disregard me  ;D

Have you done much racing on public servers? When I started with GTL it took a good while before I was competetive on those, like gamers-crib servers for instance. Then when starting with league races (though not all leagues, I guess), it's like starting all over again, the bar is raised a good few notches once more, just like when going from offline racing to public servers. Don't knock yourself, it's a tough crowd you're racing against.

I remember watching through replays of the aliens doing their thing and found I too was definitely overdriving it, they were much smoother and used lower revs on many exits compared to me, they just had a much calmer style for the most part. Monkey see monkey do isn't always so easy, so then I just had to practice. Übung macht dem Meister (dem/den?) Public servers are great for that, since it's more fun then offline and they're always there. Just gotta learn to treat is as practice and try to avoid the wreckers, and not get upset when you invariably encounter them.



Oh, and sorry about my spin yesterday, hope it didn't damage you car  :-[

Thanks for the info Dave, i have tried to get any dust etc out of pedals and it seems to be ok so far. I really hope my G25 is not on its way out  :-[

After watching the replay i realise that i had a few er, shall we say 'suspect' moments with GTC drivers  :oops: Sorry guys. I have to respect my inexperience and i will endeavour to be more careful in the future.

Can you not look on the in game set up for the steering wheel and pedals?

There is a analogue scroll highlighting how far the pedal is depressed.

With my old pedals that were suspect you could clearly see the line jumping highlighting a poor connection.

Hopefully something simply

Really great race for me, was really pleased with the car in the second stint and felt great driving it ;D

Qually was as Simon said, difficult to get a lap in with all the GTC's around. After my 2 flying laps were both baulked I think everyone thought Ginsters would hold on to take a deserved pole, but I was very lucky and *just* had enough time to rush round an out lap and hot lap and stole it right at the death. About 2 seconds after I crossed the line the session changed, so I was seriously relieved!  :angel:

I was expecting Zacari to be the main threat again, but he managed to bin it warming up his tyres - doh! :laugh: After that, Simon SBG and me all pulled away in a group and I struggled to go any quicker than them. It was quite scarey going into T3 (left hander) as SBG had such a different line to me and went in tight and much, much faster. Luckily we both had a consistent line so we could manage the gap fluctuating round the lap. :)

We hit lap 8 and I tried to make a break before we hit traffic - if you can get a car or 2 between you the gap just opens up and luckily I think I pulled just over a second before the first GTC's, and after that it just grew and grew until it was about 10 seconds.

The stop went ok, but a weird problem before it...I was hammering the pit in button and getting no response. One of the perks of running a full tank at the start is you can be flexible on when to stop, so I started exiting the last corner, switching to the chase camera and looking at how busy the pit lane was by going up against the pit wall! There were a few cars at the front of the pit lane but most of it was empty - curse GTR for being so stupid allocating boxes!  :cursing:  On checking the replay, it's lucky I didn't pit in as Darren was in my pit bay! Sometimes it is best to be careful ;)  That screwed up the pit timing as I stayed out for 2 laps longer than I planned, but with plenty of fuel on board, I didn't lose much time.

After the stop the car felt terrific. In previous races when I've been out front, I would lose concentration and go off at some point; so I decided with the engine healthy, I'd attack to get the best lap but for 6 or so laps in a row I caught one or 2 GTC's every-single-lap. Soooo frustrating! They were all great mind you ;) Zacari pipped me by 9 thou as well - my best lap involved overtaking 2 Vertigo's at the last 2 corners but I wouldn't have got CJ's record so it doesn't matter  8)

Saw SBG retire....try GTR XD or whatever it's called. At least then you can see when your engine is feeling rough and be kind to it. :)

Congrats to SBG on a stella early pace and Simon (what?!) on keeping right at the front. Epic improvement and if I were you, I'd use whatever setup you have there as a solid base for most other tracks. It could see you up front a lot more often! ;D
Tough luck to Zacari who had a bit of a nightmare race and somehow managed 4th  :blink:  No doubt we'll be battling at the next one ;D


Way ahead of you. Me, Kerr and Zacari have agreed to run 20kg for at least the next UE race and probably the rest for this season depending on how amazing SBG is in qualifying ;D
In all fairness though, we have a very similar pace and have a great time battling each other (when some of us aren't spinning on the warm up lap ;)) even if we do shoot off into the distance, so we're testing it as opposed to commiting to it. The whole point of the ballast is to make your races more fun right? I think a 3 way battle sounds pretty awesome! ;D

Well done on your win too Paul - maybe you should consider running the Verti-slow? ;) Haha. Nice one to TT as well, one of your on-form races ;D

 

Why did I not think of that? Doh!

It seems ok in the game settings and the game controller profile settins. The problem has not reoccurred so far. However one of the wheel buttons that i have mapped to the keyboard also stopped working for a short time when practising a while ago.  ???

I will reinstall the driver at the first sign of another problem.  :-[

Thanks for your help.