SimRacing.org.uk

Season 16  Division 1 - Round 3 - Mexico City

The third round of the championship stays on the other side of the Atlantic but this time moving a little further south.  We are having some problems with 1.ukgpl so we will be reverting back to Bully's server for this race so that means the server will be started under IGOR.  If you only have VROC you'll have to join via IP.

Please be in IGOR UKGPL chatroom by 8:55 p.m.

Server 3.ukgpl
IP address 87.194.135.42
Race date = 5-10-2008
Track = Mexico City
Variant = 67F1
Damage Model = PRO
Qualifying time = 35 minutes. Don't start until 30 mins left on clock to allow everyone to join.
Race length = 50 minutes (28 laps)
Password: see above (#post_event_password)

Driver lists can be found on the championship standings page (https://www.simracing.org.uk/smf/index.php?action=LM2R;group=190;theme=6)

Pit Stop Times

	Single Stop Time		Double Stop Time
BRM	No Stop		N/A
Honda	Stop and Go		N/A
Cooper	Stop and Go		N/A
Brabham	19		N/A
Ferrari	29		N/A
Eagle	36		13
Lotus	40		15

 First Pit Window is: 22 (to go on your pit board) to 15 (to go on your pit board)
 Second Pit Window is: 20 (to go on your pit board) to 7 (to go on your pit board)

Oh dear - very sorry Phil. When you slid wide I couldn't slow enough and bumped you off.

I drove on for a couple of laps but disqualified myself - couldn't bring myself to carry on.

I got a god start and had to back off to avoid Lorenzo's BRM, then I had to go wide to avoid rear ending Bernie and I locked up and slid into the fence so slowed down too much which is why you tagged me.  I think it was only a little tap but GPL exploded me over the barrier.

You should have carried on mate.  These things happen.  If I hadn't got it wrong you wouldn't have hit me.  Never mind there's always another race!

Another DNF...  Hristo had just lapped me when he span on the straight leading to the hairpin.  I was reasonably comfortable in 3rd ahead of Bernie, and had only been anxious about an incident with the leader.. so I watched my mirrors too long and couldn't brake enough for the hairpin!  Climb out of the car and hide in the trees time...

Felt a bit like the Lone Ranger out there as Hiristo's  1:46's  to my 1:52 laps early on had him dissapear into the far distance ,  and with a 40 sec pit stop to come,the podium looked a long way off from where I was sitting , not helped by visiting the tyre trap at the Piralta and spinning across the path of Hiristo who was coming up to lap me (Sorry H) 
JackO went past during my looooooong stop and with the addition of a stop go penalty I had no chance of reeling him back in, so quite a suprise to find him dissapear from Pribluda leaving me a distant 3rd at the finish.


 


 

That was a race performance to forget and winning it was only a matter of luck. I had a good start and could get into a rythm early on as I was trying to build enough of a cushion over Lorenzo for my pitstop, but once he retired and the gap to Neil went over 20 secs I began losing concentration and eventually had a nasty encounter with a wall which damaged the rear of the car so it would simply spin once I put it beyond a certain slip angle. In the same lap I had another bump which somewhat straightened the bent suspension so the car became more driveable afterwards. I tried to get some sort of rythm with the new handling, but it was very surprising at times and although the car could be driven almost as normal, once I'd go a bit too quick or sideways the control would disappear. So consistancy was totally lost and only the big cushion from the early laps kept me infront of Neil after the pitstops. Bernie spun in Peralta infront of me at some point which sent me up in the air but I landed safely on 4 wheels, so np Bernie. Then just after lapping Dave I did another of my numerous spins and that distracted him enough to brake too late for the hairpin and lose both his left wheels, sorry Dave. The final 3 laps were rather hillarious as fuel pressure began to drop (and I was lucky to check that in F10 on time) and despite slowing down alot I crossed the line with just enough fuel to do a couple of doughnuts (yay) before engine died. Apparently Neil had the same problem and cruised over the line as well. Grats to Bernie for 3rd place too and shame for Lorenzo's retirment (what cause, i don't know). I hope we'd get more people to participate in these in the future, the grids are becoming rather thin and once in a while when it happens that much of the field retires, especially on tricky tracks like this one, it becomes rather lonely out there.

Cheers,
-=Hristo=-

It was ignored last time I suggested it so I'll try again - why don't we combine Clubmans and Div 1 to keep the grid size decent?

So Hiristo laps me with a banana car , what chance do we poor mortals have  ::)

What you didnt know was I helped by tanking up with 28 gals of fuel for the 28 lap race  ::) nothing like handicapping yourself just to make it fair  ;)

Actually I really enjoy these Pro races , it does make you focus on staying alive and its the "only" way I would ever get to the podium in D1 .

I can see the problem for the hot lapping engine wreckers though  :D 

This has been raised before , afair the consensus was that the CC series competitors enjoy racing at lower level than that of the D1 guys .

I race in the CC series and enjoy racing with like talented people , I also dabble in D1 where I am totally and comprehensively outclassed. I still enjoy taking part and like to think that competing against the faster D1 drivers somehow improves my own driving skills .

Like the man said  "you can learn a lot from just watching"

I think mostly the problem for the poor field is the 65 and 66 mod races and too many races at the same tracks week in week out.

   

Clubmans is int and D1 is Pro, so they could only be combined by forcing Clubmans, the most successful league, to turn pro.  Also, the gap in ability is too large, and Clubmans tends to level abilities while D1 was designed to level chassis, it never has handicapped drivers, so doesn't help.  However, Clubmans is also struggling, despite the welcome reemergence of TBR.

UKGPL never used to have a problem with numbers, so it is good at moderation rather than organisation.  Also Season 14 was all-67s, and the move to mods and Tuesdays has diluted the drivers we do have.   

The solution to all our online GPL woes is either league mergers or league racing, taking advantage of improved servers and connections.  Some clubs have asked for B level matches, though this is the initial season of the Interleague races and I'll be happy if the current strong grids continue.  However, if there were B level races that might justify a pro Clubmans and a combined grid? 

The system that I've wondered about to have would be to have divisional racing with each league contributing a team to each division- then instead of several mixed-ability grids of 10-12 we'd have proper ability based grids.  Alternating divisional races with the inter-league racing would keep the leagues together.  However, its a big step from several independent leagues to several clubs that combine to form a league.  Some leagues have very individual styles that they wouldn't want to lose- ADC don't compete for points, in the earlier style, for instance. 

Would it be enjoyable to have 4 groups of six Team-UKGPL drivers each racing three car teams in separate divisions in an international league?  It's more competitive and less clubbable...

Hi all, sorry i missed race been having PC Problems since Sat night, reinstalled least 4 times problems after problems, all sort of ok now, but still got problems argh, things like Control Panel opens but can open User accounts little things like this, last reinstall notepad wouldnt open:/

I really don't know how that happened. I calculated my fuel usage from qualifying and rounded it up as usual and debated if I should stick another gallon to be on the safe side. Really glad I did! Approaching the final corner with 2 laps left it started spluttering leaving me to complete the last lap with 11 psi of pressure - it was a slow one :)

Still baffled at how the Cooper managed to drink so much fuel :o