SimRacing.org.uk

Practice 1:	19:20	(10 mins)	note: 40 minutes earlier than normal
Qual 2:	19:30	(15 mins)
Race:	19:45	(130 mins)	note: no warmup!

Cars allowed: any GT1 or GT2 from the UKGTR Skin Pack v2.8.0.0 (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: UKGTR Monza GP (download as part of the UKGTR Track Pack v1.2 (https://www.simracing.org.uk/smf/index.php?topic=3356.msg54519#msg54519))
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) Standings and schedule can be found on the championship standings page (https://www.simracing.org.uk/smf/index.php?action=LM2R;group=182;theme=3)
(3) You will not be able to join the server without the skin and ballast pack and track (see links 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.
(6) Please use the Driver Details (https://www.simracing.org.uk/smf/index.php?action=profile;sa=driver_info) page to ensure that the league management software has your correct GTR2 'Driving Name' (not necessarily the same as your lobby name).
(7) GTR2 Manager voluntary handicap ballast will not be available for this race.

This will be the first Super Endurance event of the season.

I've shortened qualifying by 10 minutes as such a long event affords plenty of opportunity to make up time and places.

I've pencilled it in to start at the usual time and therefore finish 40 minutes later than normal. If a majority prefer, we can move it so that it starts 40 minutes earlier than normal and ends around the same time; if you would like to compete, please vote in the poll to express your preference.

What no compromises ;) Start 20 min early - finish 20 min late. That would have been my preference but as it's not an option I've gone for the very early start  :P

We can only do one thing and if we give a continuous range of choices we'll fail to get anything which looks remotely like a consensus.

* Starts already practicing to forget today's race * :laugh:

The voting result is pretty clear (for the record I voted the other way!) so we'll start the event 40 minutes earlier than normal.

Hope there are more than the 13 that bothered to vote turn up :o......super e may not be everyones cupppa,... but last season......they were best races I've ever had......I suppose it's only the serious racers bother with this. Tut, I supose iRacing gives you more of a challenge? so we cant expect too much. I will be expecting a podium finish.....coz folk are not there to challenge me.

Fighting talk?

I'll be trying to keep out of peoples way in GT2 this time.

Maybe only 13 people voted because they are easy on either start time.

I don't think people do have any issues with super endurance. I just think the races run last season were at a time that was difficult, as it was late Saturday afternoon and through normal dinner time.

I'm sure the super endurance events that were run on Sunday nights were well attended.

Not sure if I will be home to race or not, but it's more circumstances than a lack of interest.

Apart from the fact that this is an extremely boring circuit to have such a long race at, I didn't vote as I didn't even know there was a vote. ::) There are too many posts to keep up with especially since you can't filter out the groups you don't want, like UKGPL.

I did enjoy Super Endurance series last year, but I'll be bored to tears in this one I suspect, as I'm not a fan of Monza and it's pretty boring to do for over 2 hours in a row. :-\

I hope it's not wet, cause Monza and rain is not a good combo with the low downforce configs. :o

A filter as described being available would be great & I'm sure the UKGPL guys would appreciate it to filter our stuff out.

Did my first few laps of Monza last night to start getting to grips with the track. Does it have enough overtaking opportunities (for you boys to lap me ;) )? Apart from the home straight, it just seemed very narrow in places & a bit sort of stop starty.
Well I'm looking forward to my first Super-Enduro anyway, best I have plenty of carbs for sunday dinner eh?  :)

Once the next version of SMF is out of beta I'll be migrating us to it - one of the nice new features is selection of which boards you want to see behind the "show all unread" button.

Loads of places. In fact it's one of the easiest because there are so many good sized straights.


Super.

I'm with Simon, the track isnt an inspiring one for driving round for 2 hours. Though i think quite a safe one for for the performance differences between everyone so a good choice for it.

I'm not a fan of this track at all, I changed my setup from the sprint to make it more stable and am now 1 second a lap slower  ???  I think Ill stick with it though as my aim for this one is to finish.

I'm getting cut warning leaving Ascari with 2 wheels clearly on the tarmac

So stop driving on the green stuff. :P

It is a bit tight on the exit at ascari.....but it's the same for everyone and it's much better than being able to 'cheat' and cut the corner for an advantage imo.

I've not taken part in any of the upper endurance events yet so my car choice it still open.

I was planning to take the Vette for endurance and might stick to it depending on what some other drivers take.

I've done loads of laps here in the Lambo and my set up is good. It's also the easiest car to be precise with to avoid using too much kerb and getting warnings or penalties.

I'm actually pretty good with the Lambo around here but my fear is that I get eaten alive on the straights.

So it's either vette,575 or lambo

Go for the Vette Brian.

Yeah - if nothing else it makes a scary noise. ;D

I shall be trying to make this, but with the earlier start time it's going to be touch and go as to whether I'm back in time to login.

Hmm.. I can see tyre wear being my main factor so i'd love to be able to the one stop i could do on the fuel. Surprisingly i'm finding the M3 quite easy to drive around here, though i still need to play with the setup i think especially the diffs. My best is a 51.3 on low fuel but will probably be around the 1.52-53

Only one mandatory stop for this one? I thought super endurance was always 2 stops for everyone?

Unfortunately a bit too early start for me so can't make it - have a fun race!!

is it??

....got my 911 RSR undusted for this!!! The R24-7 one is doing well at the mo  ;)

Guys I have a problem that I wonder if someone can give me the magic fix for (please) ready to race tonight?

If the track is wet while driving down the 'bumpy' straight between Lesmo & Ascari... my Lambo keeps getting catapulted off the track. It's not always the same part/bump of the straight but it's usually before going under the little bridge. It's not a problem anywhere else on the track or when it's dry. I've tried maximising ride height & softest spring settings & generally softened everything up. All this has helped, but it still shoots me off inexplicably & I don't want to be smacking off the walls into other people.
Hope some one can help me on this,
Cheers

p.s. Martin was having the same problem with his Lambo.  ???

Sounds like its too soft or under damped, so its bottoming out. I would say go the other way and stiffen it up, increasing fast bump and rebound mainly but also mabe increase the slow ones aswell slightly.

i'm cutting it very fine. Just leaving st andrews just now so i hope to make it but it's tight for the race. Don't start early!

At this track the GT1s will all have to make two stops.

If the GT2s think they can do it on 1 they're welcome to try - I'm undecided.

I just cant believe i qualified among GT2 in 1st with a 3 seconds gap for 2nd with the
conditions i most like (wet), and when only 20 seconds left to begin race, my #$#%$# PC
decided to swap to desktop, i did the ALT+TAB stuff but nothing, despite i still hear
the engine sounds of the people, so,  i am very /(&%$# happy §§§€[@@@ indeed.

I hope you all had fun.

Cheers

What a shame mate... I didn't have the guts to finish a lap in quali lol so started last. Up to 5th after a few laps, but I wasn't really up for such a long race so I retired.

That was fun.

My repaired Momo wheel held up well and I had a great battle with JPS for lap after lap -- never more than a couple of seconds in it. My first attempt to pass ended in a slight tap - sorry about that  :-[ and I rejoined 8s behind. On catching up again I managed to pass cleanly but could not pull out more than a second or so as the lapping vehicles kept appearing. I lost the place at the fast chicane by going wide and again fought to catch up. This time I tried too hard to get a fast exit out of the last chicane and the car snapped left breaking the suspension.

Well raced JPS very consistent laps and fair driving on your part - if you wish to report the tap I hold my hands up, my fault entirely.

Not a big fan of cangeable weather as it seems like a lottery after to me. Real shame as I chose wrong tyres (gawd knows how) ruined the race with Picnic for me :'( I know some of you gents like it it but dry or wet races only for me ta.

Cheers Spanner, this made such a difference for me in the wet qualifying, I was actually able to do clean laps in the rain  :thumbup1:
------------------------------------

Absolutely loved the race tonight but left myself gutted as I felt I was doing great (for me)... then I managed to do a double downshift while accelerating & blew the engine!
Double Doh!!
Still, I felt I progressed tonight. Small steps.  ;D

Pants Race....

Car was crap...my driving was crap and the track is crap!

Sorry to Evert, approaching him into the parabolica with the intention of going past on the straight and my rear end just stepped, got into a big slide and the next thing I know Evert is spinning. I didn't feel any contact but im sure i must have mad contact. Really sorry!!

At the end I was struggling to keep the car on the track, i must have and some damage as I was swapping ends on the straights   ??? 

Poor, poor race

Grats to Podiums  ;D

RM

Only just got home in time to get into the server, so no qually and started 2nd from back. Long race though anything can happen. Was glad it didn't start wet as having no time in the car I needed to bed myself in. Soon was into the GT1s, but having started so far down the grid there was a big gap to the front guys and knew it was going to be hard getting onto the podium.

Mid way through had my usual and customary hard, but fair battle with TT's Saleen. Was a good scrap. The Saleen had a bit of a straight line speed advantage over the F575, not a lot, but just a tiny bit and was making it hard to get by and stay ahead. I was running 2-2 tonight, so I guess TT you were 1-1 or something? Anyway, eventually I made a move stick and eased away.

I think I was about 5th then and as the pit stops started to happen I started to climb a little further up as my tyre wear was really low, my lap times were not going down. Stayed out as long as possible in the first stint and was planning to do the same in the 2nd to do a 30 minute dash to the flag.

Well then the clouds came over and I knew what was coming next. Still I needed a few more minutes before making a stop to make it to the end on a full tank, so stayed out on slicks till I got the clock under 50 minutes. Stopped in the pit stall right ahead of Brian making it hard for me to get in and hard for him to get out.

By then I was up to 3rd and the gap to Brian was down to 10 seconds. 3rd stint in the wet took me quite a while to get a good feel for it and during that period I half span twice at the second chicane. This saw the gap to Brian extend to 20 seconds.

From then on in, I got the groove back and started chipping away at Brian's lead on me. By the end I had it down to 3.5 seconds, but it wasn't quite enough and he held on for 2nd position. Were you taking it easy Brian making sure of the 2nd place?

I'm really really pleased with 3rd from starting 2nd from the back. Never saw RoadRunner in the lead, must have been a great drive at the front, so very well done.

Also well done to Pete, Andy and Dave in the GT2 podium. Good stuff and a great win for Pete!

That was a really tough race with really challenging conditions especially coming in late, running up the stairs getting everything on and just going straight out into the race with no warmup or anything. I really love the changeable conditions as you add so much strategy to the equation deciding what to do about tyres etc it really adds another dimension to the racing.

Got back with a few minutes of qualification to go.

I just used my lemans set up for the Vette in the wet. It was no good for here as kept grounding out very badly which I thought was odd. I was up on H@l9000 pole time but made a mistake and ended up 4th on the grid.

I decided to risk soft tyres from the start. Something said it would be a gamble worth taking. I did not have a race set up and was doing the fuel calculations on the warm up lap. Maybe should have thought about doing more than 10 laps practice on Friday.

Car was fast to begin with and I was up into 2nd after a couple of laps.

I was quicker than H@L but he had the speed at the right bits and I could not find a move, nor was he making any mistakes.
We had moved away from the rest of the field and had a 10 second gap back to RR.

I finally got the run out of the last bend and with a good slipstream I got through. It was a last ditch braking effort and this caused me to scrub all my speed and I received a little tap and I was sent spinning. Purely a racing incident.

That gave RR the lead and brought Gazza right back into things. My tyres were suddenly feeling very tired and Gazza was all over me. I made a few mistakes but Gazza could not make the position stick with the Lambos lack of speed.

It's been a while since I've made a pit stop and it showed. I lost position to Gazza and H@L, whilst RR gained about 10 seconds from me.

After a few laps again I was 2nd and the gap with RR was very consistent.

I stopped when the rain became heavy and my car was becoming very difficult to drive. RR went another lap and I was thinking that was one too many and I would be able to catch if he had poor lap.

I'm baffled how I suddenly lost another 20 seconds as I quickly scrolled up and changed over to hard wets and fuel was enough to the end. I did nothing wrong that time. I thought RR maybe underfueled but he did not.

Sorry for the tap in the pits Simon. It's the computer that steers anyway, but I had full lock on and it still kissed your car coming out of my bay.

My car was shocking in the wet. With 1-1 wing the car would not stop, steer or accelerate. It was such an effort to keep the car on the road.

RR was over 30 seconds up the road after pit stops and Simon 10 seconds the other way. The gap to RR steadily increased a little by little and Simon ended up 20 seconds behind.

Come the end of the race Simon was catching as I was making more and more mistakes.

Grats RR on the win and whoever won the GT2 class

Replay & provisional results available

Lapchart (http://www.granum.plus.com/20080803%20U8UE/index.html)

Another cwappy one for me.

Didn't expect such a big change in the conditions..(weather has been stable in Monza today  :)) so went with the full dry configuration on the car.

Lost a couple of places early on to RM and Kerr after a slow exit from the 2nd chicane....then on lap 3 RM spun in Ascari and I just clipped the side of his car whilst passing and ended up head on with a wall.  ::) (so appologies to the GT2's that flashed me passed and I didn't flash a thank you....I had no lights)

Took some front aero damage with that and try as I would I couldn't get round in under 1:45's.
Started improving after the first pits after getting repairs but then the tropical storm hit. 1-2 wing config and very stiff suspension + wet weather doesn't work. Everytime I tried to pass a gt2 (Purdie) started aquaplaning over the bumps and ended up with a block of concrete on my knee from yet another wall ::)

I do like the changable conditions, seeded from the real world current conditions....I do wish the game had some way of mimicking it more realistically though....changing from 34 deg dry and sunny to 18 deg flooded is perhaps a little beyond believable imo.

Grats to all winners and podiums.

Im prob as suprised as you were tbh..i cant describe how bad that inlap was..all i can think is i had about 25-26l fuel left when i stopped...

Nothing to special on the whole...had someone try a botched overtake on me under yellow flags into ascari...so just got away with that...an was 8-9 secs back from first 2 when that all settled down...then something obviosuly went wrong between em into first chicane...got the lead an never really looked back...slight moment of interest entering the pits at about twice the limit but no penalty for it  ??? and Evert had slight moment infront of me..guessed wrong which was he was gonna go..but no harm done...

Gotta say rain saved me i think...really was struggling with brakes for most of the dry spell..and forgot to lower rev limit..so was wondering which was gonna give up first...brakes or engine up to that point...

Grats to rest of podium guys

RR

Hard race :sweatdrop:

I cant believe that I got the pole :o

Possibly put the limiter on too late at the end of the warm up lap and some how got an advantage out of it. Sorry about that.

Have been practising allot in the wet at Monz@ and when it was dry for so long I ended up going back into public server mode and cutting corners :'(. Ended up with 4 stop and gos and made a few mistakes. Sorry Kerr and Purdie and Gazza and possibly others too (will check replay). The battles were fun before I made mistakes. Ended up with 0.9 L of fuel at the end.

Glad to get the finish in the end.

H@L9000

Lol no, I had 2-6. I guess I got a good exit out of Parabolica. But yes, I saw the advantage. It all went to naught during braking, though.  :(  Car was a bit better than in Sprint but not very much. In rain it was a bit better than I expected. Towards the end when tyre wear was above 20 I was sliding even while driving straight, lol.  :D

I hope this car and this track and me are just unlucky combo. If I don't feel more comfortable on the next track I'm ditching Saleen.

TT 

Not sure what happened to Jan at the start but I sailed past him like he missed a gear! From then on it was all downhill during the first part of the race, as I had poor pace in the dry, not helped when, just 40 minutes in, I checked my engine health and it had dropped 10% already! :o

After that I had to start preserving the engine; the gap to Evert's RSR ahead was fairly stable at around 6 seconds and having started on medium fronts and hard rears I had relatively little tyre wear. I watched tyre temperatures slowly drop so I switched to soft fronts and medium rears at my stop which were better, but then the skies darkened and the rain started falling; I pitted as soon as the tyre temperatures dropped below 60, taking on soft wet fronts and hard wet rears, which were perfect for the conditions.

I could've done with another 5mm of ride height and more wing than the 1-4 I was running but it as handling okay except for Ascari, where it had bad oversteer on the way out, which caused to me to spin and lose 15 seconds, allowing Purdie (who I'd past in the tyre stop) back past. It slowly dawned on me that I had 3rd in class so I kept plugging away with a big gap to the car behind and Andy slowly pulling away ahead.

Towards the end of the race I had more rear tyre wear than front and that was making like quite difficult in all the big stops, especially the first two chicanes.

Big thumbs up to Picnic for chalking up his first win of the season with a virtually faultless drive - Monza was always going to suit the M3 but you still have to push it hard for over 2 hours to win a Super Endurance race! :thumbup2:

Yey! starting second from back gave me the highest number of overtakes in the race, 5 more than anyone else! :P :laugh:

Yeah, my F575 setup too was bouncing off the floor with race fuel in on nearly all the straights and corners  :o, was quite interesting over the curbs too :-\. Really could have done with a whole cm more on the ride height, especially once it started to rain. The bump through curve grande was a nightmare, as the car just wanted to chuck itself off over it every lap.

A very interesting championship this one in both GT1 and GT2. Podiums been very widely spread so far, looking forward to the rest of the season. :)

yeah GT2 is tense!!

loved the super enduro.....wish they were all that looong!  :laugh: but loved the weather even more !  8)

quali'd 2nd in class as I didn't get a really early lap in....got a good start and managed to lead GT2 for the first quarter of the race, with Peter right on my ass..somehow managed to sustain a gap averaging 3secs.....unfortunately i pushed my luck and got a stop/go penalty  :-\

came out 5th overall and slowly hunted down Dave before sliding past him in a cheeky move in the 2nd chicane  ;) then from there Evert spun so i inherited 3rd in class.....after pitting half way for tyres and a brimmed tank i came out 3rd still...... 8)

...then it started to rain :-[..  >:(....i had to pit after 3 laps when my times dropped to +12secs and put on hard wets all round. In hindsight I should have had soft wet fronts  :-\....... :o........ i then managed to get 2nd somehow and sat there with Dave not catching behind but Peter 14 secs in front.....i managed to close the gap to 9 secs and sniffed a cheeky last minute go at 1st but had a few run ins with GT1s trying to lap which were struggling in the wet.....  :-X....finished about 15 secs behind but happy (and i just noticed this) that i'm leading the GT2 champ  ;D

ps. np Pseudo, i cudn't work out what was happening there??! thought i was lagging for u or something!!   :-X can't believe how violently u aqua-planned!!!   :o

pps. np. H @ L9000....just a racing incident  :)

Got a huge hangover this morning after the Shark team partied the night away to celebrate my first ever class win outside of friendly races or ones that got dropped (Sugo anybody)  :balloon:

What a contrast to Donington, having been out all weekend watching the historic car races at Combe, I arrived at the start of qual never having driven the M3 around here and it was raining  ::) No setup either so I adopted my trick of getting the TVR boys in to do me a setup ;) Worked pretty well I reckon except too long a first gear (may have been an advantage in the wet though) and dry tyres not having enough pressure.

Qually was ok, managed to get a 4th in class (3rd after PB's unfortunate non start) and was surprised how competitive I still was in the dry. After a few laps I managed to get second in class with Andy almost 5 secs in front, was surprised to find I was slowly closing the gap and got it down to 2 secs (quite a few laps to do this mind) until my first minor cockup. Bit too much gas while on the curbs in that first chicane. Didn't spin but that was all the hard work undone :( Still then Andy pitted on about 40 mins, I thought "a-ha 2 stopping me old fruit". Now I know it was a S&G it explains why after I had done my stop at half way Andy was over a minute in front again!

Trouble is there was at certain SbG hunting me down. It took him a lot longer to clear the Gizmo/Jan/Evert battle but he relentlessly closed the gap before my half way bit stop. From 14 down to 3 secs. However the Shark crew did a great job of filling the M3 up to the brim and changing tyres and after SbG pitted the gap was back up to 11 secs.

Then the rain came. Every since Brazil I've taken the attitude if it rains pit ASAP, which I duly did. But for what? Decided it should be full wets but softs or drys? I gambled on softs but the rest of the race was a real struggle to manage the temperatures. The left side running well into the 120s and only the outside returning to green while splashing through the puddles offline. Sadly Gizmo came on the radio a couple of times to report SbG having moments. So it was Gizmo chasing me down, that was until Andy got him. 30 mins to go and 15 sec advantage, oh and I was busting for a leak!

I should point out that the fuelling guys were not invited to last night's party as they still insisted on refueling the car at this second stop regardless of the fact I left written instructions that only the first stop would be for fuel. I hope they've learnt their lesson  ::)

The majority of the remaining time it was drive sensibly in the wet and unlike Donington the car was pretty drivable with care. However the early change, and possibly the choice of softs, meant come the last 5 mins I was battling tyre wear well in to the 20s. And I was really struggling for any sort cornering grip, what with the extra caution of not wanting to throw away a class win, I was not concerned about losing a bit of time to Andy.

Well chuffed, but I don't expect the same joy next time out but we'll keep trying :D

grats peter!  ;D

was a great drive! just keeping it on the black stuff is hard enough, not to mention keeping a good pace!  ;)

Another 4th in a GT2 Race! The last one was at Magny Cours, both in difficult conditions, not bad for a privateer :laugh:

Had a great battle with The Prof 8), had to keep it all together, all the time, and once he got by it was a case of pushing hard to keep the pressure on him at the expense of caning my engine on the 360, which is a little fragile at the best of times. I was relieved when I saw him hit the wall in my rear view; don't know how much longer we could have kept that pace going. Good driving Prof.

No worries on the tap, managed to just hold the car, such is racing on the edge.

Once the pit stops settled down it was case of whether I could catch Gizmo in the wet, although I started to try to chase him down I glanced down at the engine reliability which was now dangerously low :o, combined with a second cut track warning at the first chicane (bizarre had three wheels on the tarmac ::)) it was a case of bringing the car home by short shifting, and driving like a Vicar, which in itself was difficult :o, this lost me a ton of time which allowed Gizmo to lap me towards the end.

Weather aspect is awesome.

Grats on the win, Picnic!  8)

Yep congrats Pete :) You and Heikki on the same day.

Be rude not to thank Jan, Evert and JPS (Dave seem to throw it off the track when I appeared :)) for some door rubbing stuff last night. I really enjoyed battling back after missing quali, hence still peeved at changing the rears to soft slicks when the rain came. Its hard enough to concentrate on racing let alone the weather for me :)

Another apauling race for me  :'(

Though it seemed an interesting one early on with Ade, Prof and API and I running close. Though when Ade and API clash into the 2nd Lesmo I managed to get past, though I have to ask what the horn and light flash was for Ade?

Then seemed to just make too many errors and hitting the barriers in the 2nd Lesmo which meant i had to crawl back to the pits for repairs but i missed the fact that i had a puncture and didnt change the tyres ::) which meant another pit visit next time around. Decided to fill up and try and salvage something but close to the hour mark another crash meant i was dead in the water.

I'm sorry guys. I'm trying to run all the races and i'm suffering with little practise. Think i'll be racing occasionally from now on.

Just a friendly well done flash  :)  spanner.

Understood ;) Thanks

Shame I missed this. I got back from a week at the Motorshow at 20:45, utterly knakered but still willing to jump in a race, until I realised that the race would have already started.

In the end I fell asleep anyway, so probably good I didn't attend. Congrats to the podiums ;D