SimRacing.org.uk

NGT Sprint Cup - Season 1, Round 6 at Spa Francorchamps

Date: Tuesday 16th August

Practice 1: 8:45pm (15 mins)
Qual 2: 9:00pm (15 mins)
Warmup: 9:15pm (2 mins)
Race: 9:17pm (31 mins)
(1 minute extra race time has been added for a longer than normal formation lap)

Cars allowed: Any NGT car or 911 Bi-Turbo or Mosler or Vertigo or Morgan. (Lotus Elise, BMW Z3M, Porsche GT3 Cup are allowed but will not score points.)

Notes:
(1) Please try to arrive 15 minutes early 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/lm2-report.php?group=1&content=series103) for general Season 1 info.
(4) Please make sure you are fully aware of the UKGTR Rules (http://www.ukgtr.org/index.php?c=rules)

Announcement edited slightly because the Rules and Season 1 pages have moved and the DataFlame redirect facility isn't quite clever enough to automatically redirect from the old ones. ::)

Yike, 15mins isn't long for qualifying at Spa, that's about 3 laps for me!  ;)

U'll have to make sure every lap counts. :D
Good thing about these sprints is that it could spice up the grid with people going for flyers rather than bankers with no time to try again.

I'll prob start last, im on average getting 5 mins of qual after getting in.

Great track, great corners, lovely scenery :)

I'll be Posche'ing it up in this one as I can't get close to my Porsche time in any other car.

You're just cwap! And have found only the cheat for the Porsche yet is what you mean! ;) :D

T

P.S. I got them for all cars! ;) PM me for more info :)

Cheat? You mean a deliberate speedbug?  ;D

I've got a special "speedbug on" button Duc taped under my seat- perfect for those long straights at Spa :)

LOL!

Don't tell the rest you numpty! ;)

 :P :D ;D

T

what kinda laptimes you gettin' at Spa with the cheats Zip?  ;D

1:03:05-1:04:05 ;)  :o ??? :P

1:03:05+1:04:05 i hope :P

I hope not as this is still 10 seconds inside the world record!

Paul

Holy smoke - a couple of times < 2:18 on GTRank  :o

Is there a handy ramp I've missed to cut out a bit of the track?

Should ave gone to 'Kerb Crawlers' m8 - they know all the short cuts! ;-)

"Short-cut's for Kerb Crawlers" - that's a damn fine name for an album...

On another note, anyone remember that brain-numbingly difficult shortcut cheat on Mario Kart 64 on the Mario Speedway track? That was HARD.

GTR Mario Kart Mod- now there's a game!

2:18 I can't believe but there are 5 or so people with that time and a good 10 with 2:19. Perhaps the extra time comes from people turning off damage, tyre wear etc and then using freaky hotlap set-ups?

I'm going to continue to hotlap under qualifying conditions because at least then I've a hope in hell of transferring the time to the races!

I reckon I could do with a few red shells to take out Tyf next time he speeds past me in his Bi-T...   ;D

Fraid not - Mat will be in the 19s I'm sure. Might sneak one if I'm lucky.

Paul

So far I've only been working on race setup and I've been getting reasonably comfortable 2:22's.  This means I may be lucky and get a 2:20 for qually :)  Eau Rouge is rather hairy and the Bus Stop still gives me fits as I STILL can't get a consistent line through it  >:(

(It is known that some of the fastest GTRank times are set using ABS and traction control)

Bah, cheating. But if it's what floats your boat then what the hell I guess.

I've a few 22's and more regular 23's and I think I know where some more time can come from- a couple of curb sections I'm taking a bit gingerly. Doesn't mean I won't qualify terribly as usual though!

Yeh, but can they get round a track for an hour without it? It's a shame ABS doesn't carry at least some form of speed penalty... Anybody know if it does in real life like things such as traction control?

Fozzmeister

i like running with traction control on low...makes things less twitchy and unpredictable. ABS on low also helps my shockingly bad control setup! Let's see if I can actually remember to turn up next week!!

UKGTR servers shouldn't allow any TC or ABS, best to practice that way too I would have thought!

Only aid allowed should be auto-clutch.

My barking boat will still look just as scary in your rearviewmirror m8 ;)!

On the GTRank subject. I believe I read the admin (Uwe) saying that it's too hard to get the information of ABS and TC out of GTR for the ranking, hence you will not be able to tell if people will have used it or not. Some guys (gals? ;)) are really fast though in general, like Mr. Huttu for example. I learned the game/tracks with both on low by the way and now only drive/practise/hotlap with auto-clutch on, since the rest is not allowed by UKGTR. ;) :D

On a side note: Henrik Roos has said that the game feels most like racing the GT cars for real when ABS and TC are on low. Because of the obvious differences in driver input between real life and the game. Both aren't allowed in the cars though as far as I know :).

T

If they turned the aids off their hotlap setups, they would hardly be able to get it round the track :D  Try it and see just how aggressive you can make the setup if you no longer have to worry about wheel-lock and wheelspin.

In real-life ABS always tended to make the cars faster, probably more for the control that would be retained braking deep into corners.

I know Martin Brundle, when he's on one of his "look how superior Jenson Button is" always says that JB has a great way of driving just below the where the TC cuts in, strongly implying that TC would be slower in F1.

ABS in race cars works by noticing when the wheels are locked doesn't it, as apposed to road cars where it releases the brakes all the time...

ABS in road cars works by detecting if wheels are not rotating. Some of the cheaper systems can't control each brake individually so release a brake that may not have locked because it in the same hydraulic circuit to a locked wheel.

Yeah, if they use too much TC then it would be slower as the car would not be accellerating :)  There's definately an art to getting the best out of an F1 cars TC, where you BARELY trigger it on all but the slowest turns.

Ah right, well in any case road cars take a severe hit when in the ABS zone don't they? I dunno, never driven one, do they unlock fully, I've seen them judder I think, unless that was in Fozz's alternate universe (TM) :-S

Fozzmeister

Road going ABS systems vary considerably in both quality and style of application.

Most modern systems sense and control all 4 wheels independently (which gives them a huge advantage over the nut behind the wheel) and sense a sudden decrease in wheel rotation speed - they don't wait for full lockup. The good ones cycle very quickly (several times a second) but do unlock fully during each cycle - they don't attempt to threshold brake (though I guess it's only a matter of time...).

A modern ABS system will outperform a human driver even in the dry (older systems would only really shine in the wet), getting close to maximum braking out of all four wheels all the time.

Interesting, I would have thought that computers could do threshold braking very easily, at least powerful ones, maybe not for F1 (weight and power draw) but GT cars, but clearly not.

Anyway, totally off topic...

Fozzmeister

hi , i am a reserve ngt driver (registerd,Driver name:ProtoSpecs)but i did not get a password sent ,does that mean i can use the old one  (t..t....) or does it mean i am not in this race.
Also do (reserve) drivers have to tell in advance they want to join the race, and if so where?

Your allowed to go in 5 mins before end of practice one, and yes, its the old PW.

Fozzmeister

It doesn't normally change round to round, as per your original password PM: Until further notice, the password for all bla races will be bla.


No, just follow the instructions in this post (https://www.simracing.org.uk/smf/index.php?topic=326.0) (which I really ought to move into the rules ;) ).

Was going to ask if you could make that a sticky post at least Dave! But since I'm easily the laziest person on this board I hadn't actually found time to mention it to ye!  :P ;D :D

T

At the risk of sounding like a fool (don't snigger at the back) how many laps is tonights race and how mnay minutes fuel should I put in?

I still don't get it  :-[

Race = 31 mins!

So if you were to lead the whole race (bloody unlikely  ;) ;D) you would have to have fuel for 31 minutes of racing (including the pace lap by the way) to make it till the end.
If you drive really really fast though you will be able to reach the limit set in kilometers which is 500 Km for a 3 hour race, so .../me gets calculator out ;)... 31 mins = 17.2% of a 180 minute race... 86.111 Km for our 31 mins race is the limit (I think 8)). Spa is how long? .../me goes to check... 6.968 Km! So 12.35 = 13 laps for the race leader to reach the Km limit! (I feel a flaw in my calculation, but can't find it yet :)). Which will be impossible in an N-GT car m8. (2.22.8 would have to be your average lap times for all 13 laps and with no pace lap!) So no worries this Spa race will be decided on time not Km. :D So put in enough fuel to drive 31 mins.

All this bla bla bla is for nothing though, because (N)GT races will not be won by putting the exact amount of fuel in, they will only be lost by putting not enough in as Shark in his infinite wisdom ;) (and NO I refuse to use his setups ;)) has already mentioned here on the forum!  ;D

T

Oi! ;D ;D

Thanks for all that work m8- it's much appreciated because I'll have to commit hari kari if I run out of fuel again. On the other hand I don't want to finish and still have 15 litres in the tank!

Wow that's some work Tyf, are you a Mathemetician (looking at that spelling I can't figure I passed english!)

Fozzmeister

Your lucky, I had > 60 in my tank at the end of Enna (unbound pit controls, every time it put 100L of fuel in!)

Fozzmeister

Oi Oi LOL! ;)

I never really bother too much with the fuel load to be honest. I just put in 2-3 more minutes than the race time says and that has so far always worked for me. Usually have a bit left at the end, but like I said 10-15 liters of fuel isn't going to weigh a car of 1150 KG down a lot! :)


Nah, not really, just got too much time on my hands sometimes (well often actually ;)) and in a way I wanted to know it myself as well.
http://www.fiagt.com/results.php?season=2005&event=57&session=PM%20Test%20Session helped a little by the way, but most is just simple maths (in which I may have even made a mistake as in you may get a slightly different result when you start with the 500KM limit first and then calculate it back to a 31 minute race :). Although saying that... Nah, that's also 'bloody unlikely' !  :D ;) ;D)

T

LOL

I don't know whether to race or not, It'd be nice to qual and then if its poor, drop out. I seem to have a problem with passing slower cars. I would feel guilty doing that though as other people may want to race anyway...

Perhaps If my first lap or two is pap,  3 laps of fuel then see is the way forward, at least then if I drop out others will join prolly.

Hi Guys as you may or may not know I am a vehicle technician by profession and a part time tutor in that subject . ABS I had great faith in ABS until on Jan the 1st this year, I had to brake hard on sheet ice on a motorway in scotland as there was a muliple shunt in front of me at around midnight doing about 30mph in a blizzard my lovely vectra did not respond to kadence or any other braking and wrote itself off on the back of a merc sprinter van. At the time of impact I think it picked up speed. I work closely with the police vehicle examiners and the theory with pre 2000 cars is that if all wheels lock it just gives up for a split second taking the option of braking at all from the driver. I think we all know the sound of skidding on ice it sort of whistles , well I can tell you all I knew we were in trouble as there was eirey silence. I now through economic hard ship drive an old carlton and have much more faith in the brakes. It completely sh**t me up and I only did about 50 on the return journey in a hired car. I no longer have any faith in fancy braking. see you all tonight.gerald

Fozz pass up on one! and an NGT at that.  Can't belive that.

"mathematician" and "English" :P

It doesnt' matter that much, always always go over the top. You don't need to be running it to the limit. I think if a race is 30 mins I usually put 35 mins in to be safe I think I will have 36 in for tonight. You have to remember that you might actually need to do an extra lap cause the leader could cross the line 1 sec before the time runs out and therefore still need to do a whole other lap to finish the race. Having an extra 5 mins makes next to no difference to the times you can do in a race.

 ;D  Oh well, got a "D", "D" and then a "B" in english, third time lucky... Perhaps the marker was smokin wacky backy :)

OK, maybe just maybe I shouldn't be posting right after I've quit a race, buttah, can't help it tbh...

Having people chatting during qualifying is very annoying, having people chat during pace lap is uuh... well.. tbh I'm missing the English vocabulary to describe how I feel about that... If you really want to know though I can PM the dutch words...
However this wasn't all... 180 Km/h during the pace lap is seriously silly if not st00pid as well. I wasn't even really catching up either...

Add that all up and in my case I'm not able to drive calm, relaxed and sensible anymore, hence left

There's more... But I'll leave it at this before I start swearing, lol!

Cyas

T

Well I was all set for trying my "soft" setup, when I realised I was getting phenominal braking into the bus stop, and Pops seemed _really_ fast. Now me and Pops aren't always even, sometimes he's faster sometimes I'm faster, but even when I drove like a mad man he still pulled one sec out on me... wierd. Then a car tried passing me down a straight at the end of Eau Rouge, Now I'm usually pretty hot out of Eau Rouge so I knew something was up.

Exited the game, check my throttle, was fine. Noticed my brake was on a little bit, yeh that'll hurt my speed.

Qualified somewhere semi decent for once in a sprint (particularly as I did it with 20 mins of fuel :-S), so at least that's a plus to take away.

Cya all next time.

Fozzmeister

i was doing pretty good at 5th place, then Mo and I collided and there went my 5th place, could manage to keep the 8th place but then braked to late for the busstop and got a stop and go penalty, so at the end i finished in 8 but got the 9th place.

anyways had lots of fun,

cya all next time.

[Edited to avoid falling foul of incident discussion rules. Chief Mod.]

Qualified 10th, resonable time for me but just cant live with the quick guys. 
Had a good race, nipped up to 9th early on lap 1, then 8th soon after that.
Stayed in 8th for ages with JM about 1 sec behind me.  Was really starting to feel the preasure and nearly lost it once, whatever I did I just couldnt shake him.  Unfortunatly for JM he overdid a corner and went off, peace at last.
Anyway someone goes off infront of me so i'm up to 7th, bargain I think.
Getting towards the end now, Mo and RUFBTR have an incident which lets me thro into 5th.  Just a case of bringing the car home now to finish in 5th.
Didn't really deserve to finish so high but aint complaining.
Overall a really enjoyable race.

I am afraid a shocking setup for race made me a liability. I just made sure I did not take anyone off, apologies if I failed.

Matj, sorry for last lap spin. It may have frightened you but believe me when I say I was more frightened by the prospect of
taking you out. I was so relieved when you missed me and congrats on win.

Not bad :)

Didn't quite match my 2:20 of practice but 4th on the grid was good.  Chased Shark after the start, picked up 3rd place when Paul spun in the Bus Stop and tried to keep the pressure on.  Our laptimes were so evenly matched, all I could do was hope for a mistake, but in the end, I got wide at blanchimont and smacked the left side barrier.  Carried on but the car was a little wounded.  had 1 more spin in the Bus Stop near the end but kept my 3rd place, Phew!!!! :D

Grats to Matjas for another win :)

First off, apolgies to Jam for the tap in qualifying. I'm really sorry- nearly everyone runs out wide at that corner but I take it super tight to the left. I was on an absolute flyer and was hoping you'd drift out and I could nip through  :-[

Sorry for the Q2 chat at the end too- the clock had run out and I thought I'd checked to see everyone was orange, but I know that isn't the point  ::)


Did well for me. Spa is the only track where I feel I know the lines very well having played the demo loads and I'm able to do regular 2:22's with the odd 2:21 thrown in. I wasn't sure whether this would be a good thing considering that, for once, this might put me right on the front row if, say one other person has a bad qualifying session. As it was I only got two good laps in but managed a 2:22:X and got 5th behind people I know I would have panicked like a girl to have behind me so really happy.

Pretty straight forward race- I was a little stiff at the start and had a couple of really manky laps and then settled a bit. Ruf was directly behind me and was matching me for pace except easily outbreaking me into Les Combes and gaining a little each lap. I started to pull my finger out from then on and braked at the post before the 100M mark and managed to slowly edge away.

Hung on for dear life in 4th for the majority of the race with tantalising glimpses of Mikes backend (;)) at the bus stop each time but we ran into traffic twice and each time I ran out of Kemel straight in order to get past with the group. I fell behind until Mike must have span at the bus stop and I got back in touch.

Finished 4th and pleased is an understatement  :)

Cheers Shark- Im whacking that extra 5 mins in each time from now on.

Worse race in living memory for me, fell off too many times and too make it worse I wasn't pushing. Sorry to Woodee for giving you no where to go.

Hopefully I got something right and the replay is correct, now available from the usual source.

Utter rubbish from me, and again after a good qual to just get pole from Mat. I just can't seem to drive within myself at the start of races, and yet another error (this time at the bus stop) dropped me to 11th. Got a place back but then something seemed to break on the car at the bottom of Eau rouge - went wide at the top and hit the barrier, and a corner later I was told the splitter had gone. Quit a few corners later in disgust. In some ways I probably shouldn't be so hard on myself, since the frame rate issues were back during the race, plus the fact that I think part of the reason for the bus stop spin was that I was watching Mat, who had run wide into the wall. Then again, I know I should drive a bit more conservatively until the race settles down, so no excuses.

The pace lap may have been a bit quick at one point. The chat was very distracting, and I suddenly realised that I was in 5th on the back straight - sorry, but I was almost on auto pilot and just carried on slowly accelerating. Slowed right down for the last part anyway so no-one was going to get left behind.

Paul

I was gonna drive my first race tonight with UKGTR ,but when the race started i found myself disqualified???
No message, nothing..the only reason i can think of is the accident i had on the very first lap in the game: (qualifiyng)
A sort of mix between causin it and beeing involved in. I held up a faster car, but he drove like "evaporate or die"
Some times it takes 1 to 1'5 sec to get out of someones way,especially when u nearly lost control of youre car ( cold tyres )
 Is that  all it takes to get DQ?  Another  guy  ruined my fast lap ,2 min later by rejoining after an accident(so not on a fast lap anymore) 5 meter in front of my car! But i did not mind that much, if its repeated or deliberate thats different,also as a reserve you dont have that "track feeling" yet,its just  3x 2 laps to get a position and race....

It isn't that clever Protospecs ;)
Did you join for the race and then hit escape for fuel or something?
Or move the car before the MOTEC display starts the race time counter?

Nope can't be anything to do with it. As for the driving, Qualify is sometimes like that, I'm ashamed to say I've done it once to someone at Enna (not a champ race Dave... please no more penalty points  ;) ). I take it you pressed start? if you hit it on zero do you start from teh pit lane (this is what the ADC guide says) , if so any movement causes a DQ. I think if you move before the lights go green you get a stop and go so it aint that.

We like everybody else are using the giant bug that passes as a game. Sorry your race was ruined but hope to see you again. I raced with you at Anders a few days before you joined and you were pretty OK.

Oh Proto, no chat in races, don't bother me but others it does, it'll probably get overlooked as first race / only on warmup / you took notice when made aware. (We get penalties here for naughty stuff  :o )

Fozzmeister

No!! I never touced a thing! the warm up was over and after that  i was never able to join ,thats why i asumed someone disqualified me...

Good, nice to hear.., ,about the bugs...: the original f1 2002 GTR mod had far less bugs (if any!) then the finished product... silly..,some folk need need to patch this thing rather sooner then later....are there any attempts made that u guys know of? like u guys i look at the motec racetimer for the start,i try to tell that to people when i host, but theres always a few missing the point...but not ur car.....another race wasted......

It's happened every race so far....so I should be getting used to it by now :)

Had a good race - only made one mistake spinning at the Bus stop, and didn't get in anyones way (I think / hope?)
Running in 6th for most of laps behind Rufbtr but eventually had to pit for new splitter after smash - 112 second pit stop i mean wtf i chose no tyres or fuel!

Anyway when i came out of the pits all kinds of stuff going on like my cockpit view changing as if someone pushing [Insert]
and brake markers coming and going.
Was like someone was pushing buttons on my keyboard -  slightly distracting :o ???
Hopefully its just the batteries on the way out in the keyboard.

Anyway i finished 17th or some carp like that in the end but had huge fun and finally managed to keep tyres below boiling point

Couldn't make a single clean lap in qualifying but I still somehow managed to start from second position. Start was OK... I didn't want to get to close to Paul through the Eau Rouge because that would cause my car to understeer. Instead I just tried to have a fast exit and that enabled me to get into his sleepstream. Did a fake attempt to pass Paul which caused him to brake a bit to late so he had to cut the corner over the grass. Paul was fair enough to rejoin the track outside the line so I managed to overtake him. He then fought back and after my small mistake in the fast left corner before the bus stop managed to get really close to me. I had one look to many in my rear mirror, locked the brakes and went a bit wide in the bus stop chicane, clipped the wall and was sure Paul was going to grab the lead from me but then realized he had a spin. The rest of the race I was slowly moving away from Shark and had a very scary moment when Ginsters spun in front of me in the last lap. I decided to go right and noticed he is moving to the right as well (which was correct) so I rapidly lift off the throttle and turned left... anyone who ever drove the Porsche knows it doesn't like this kind of maneuvers so it became very nervous and I had to do an acrobatic stuff with my wheel to catch it from spinning.

Happy for my win and for my team mate Mike who finished in 3rd !

It's looking highly doubtful for further patches. I think it's abandonware, but that's OK coz i've abandonsimbin so at least its two way :-) Stick with it (and us), we're quite well set up and the racing is good here.

Phew, Matj just viewed the replay and perhaps you were more frightened than me at that moment :o. All i tried to do was get off track as soon as I could and am glad it turned out to be the right thing.

A big "Well Done" to PaulW for his 4th place, very well done and totally deserved mate  ;D

Super racing tonight, Spa is so stressful, I was a sweaty mess at the end of it! Happy to say I had a tottally incident free race.

Once again, nerves / tension got the better of me in qualifying and I was down in 12th. Very disappointed with that.

I did have a little moment in qualifying, on one lap, coming through Bus Stop, I found Truetom parked right in the middle! In no way am I blaming Truetom, it must have been an artifact / glitch but it was really odd.

Picked up a couple of places on lap 1 as Tyf and Ginsters went off, managed to pull away from Fozz so I was just left to chase JM-Racing.

Saw Paul968 go off and wasn't looking forward to defending my place there but Eau Rouge saved me. Picked up another place (Mo I think) and suddenly found JM-Racing right in front of me. JM, you were quick for me, I couldn't make an impression.

RUF-BTR looked like his tyres were shot when I picked up 7th place, which is where I finished.

Mr Consistent, that's me, last 3 races; 8th, 8th, 7th!

Pops.

Hi Just thought I would chip in here.
Driving here in Finland we have snow and ice on the roads for 7 months of the year and I have found the ABS system to be very good, of course we use( snow/ice tyres that are studded) and allow us to stop relatively safely. Before I had the ABS system it was a case of pumping the brakes to try and stop, and you couldn't always tell if the wheels are locing or not, but with the ABS it's a lot easier. Traction control is also useful when trying to time your entry at a junction or trying to  pull away from the lights, not to mention 4wd.
I don't think any normal summer tyres are going to allow you any kind of emergency stop (30mph) on  ice, with or without ABS, and yes it will feel like you are picking up speed. Scary shit I know.
Don.