SimRacing.org.uk

Season 16  Clubman's Cup - Round 4 - Le Mans Sarthe

The fourth round of the championship and the first one on European soil.  We are going to need to use Bully's server for the 66 mod Interleague race against Atlas so we are going to host this race on 1.UKGPL under VROC.

This is a very high speed track, it is difficult to to avoid slow and stationary cars when approaching at high speed.  So it is particularly important that drivers execute very careful rejoins, keeping well off the racing line until they are fully up to speed.  Also drivers must stay well over to the right hand side when slowing down to make their pit stops.  If you are not making a pit stop then you are well advised to keep to the left of the start/finish straight during the pit stop window.

PLEASE NOTE THE CLOCKS WILL GO BACK ONE HOUR AT 1:00 AM SUNDAY MORNING SO THIS WEEK'S RACE WILL BE AT 20:30 GMT

Please be in VROC UKGPL chatroom by 8:25 p.m (UK London Time = GMT).

Server 1.ukgpl
IP address 194.105.176.22
Race date = 26-10-2008
Time 8:30 pm (UK London Time = GMT)
Track = Le Mans Sarthe
Variant = 67F1
Damage Model = Intermediate
Qualifying time = 35 minutes. Don't start until 30 mins left on clock to allow everyone to join.
Race length = Long (9 laps)
Password: see above (#post_event_password)

CHASSIS RESTRICTIONS
These are based on the drivers position in the championship (https://www.simracing.org.uk/smf/index.php?action=LM2R&group=191&theme=6).  Any driver who chooses to take a chassis faster than their position in the championship dictates, must make a mandatory pit stop as defined below.

Group 1
Will Tway
Burtoner

Group 2
Bernie
Michael Turner

Group 3
Paul Bird
Rik Briant

Group 4
Mike Wrightson
Jack O'Ferrall

Pit Stop Times

Group 1	Single Stop Time		Double Stop Time
Eagle	31		10
Lotus	20		N/A
Honda	5		N/A
Ferrari	4		N/A

Group 2	Single Stop Time		Double Stop Time
Eagle	17		N/A
Lotus	6		N/A
Honda	Stop and Go		N/A

Group 3	Single Stop Time		Double Stop Time
Eagle	15		N/A
Lotus	4		N/A

Group 4	Single Stop Time		Double Stop Time
Eagle	1		N/A

 First Pit Window is: 8 (to go on your pit board) to 5 (to go on your pit board)
 Second Pit Window is: 6 (to go on your pit board) to 3 (to go on your pit board)

(http://i38.tinypic.com/wwkzea.jpg)

Regarding pitstops, does it apply to everyone this race, or just the championship top 10 as norm?  Sorry for basic question but just wanted to make sure.

Sorry Paul, the announcement was wrong.  I've corrected it now, pit stops are just for the top 10 and only if they want to take an alternative faster chassis as per normal.  Sorry for the confusion.

Thank you Bill!  ;)

STEVE!!!

Thats OK Eric


Fred

What sort of laptimes are people doing, havent clue for this track what is reasonable

3:28 ish.

3:18.667 - 3:26.504 seems to be the most common bracket on GPL Rank.

I'll be at the back again then.  Beginning to lose enthusiasm for 67s  :(

I qualified in 3:25.829 in a Honda for the Div 1 race (well down on pole).  I'd say my time was more typical of Clubmans performance rather than Div 1.  I think your lack of enthusiasm is down to the shortage of drivers circulating at your pace rather than anything inherently wrong with the 67s.  I was hoping some of the newbies in the 65s would also compete in the Clubmans and provide some close exciting racing for you.  After all that is what makes racing fun, competition not outright speed.  I'll post a note in the next Novice race thread.

Just did 3:27 in Cooper, Honda dont really have decent setup and havent bothered trying the BRM.

Exactly that Phil.  Those that are driving them have mostly been driving them for a number of years.  Sure I'll get a bit more pace eventually,  just gets a bit disheartening sometimes when you feel like your driving the wheels off the thing to be 4 or 5 seconds a lap down, lightyears in racing terms.  I'm just a slow learner I guess.

Steve

It looks like Burt will be taking the Cooper.  You can take the Eagle with no pit stop penalty.  The Eagle has a big advantage over the Cooper (more so here than many of the other circuits) because of the huge Mulsanne straight.  If you can get near a 3:27 in the Eagle you should have an exciting race.  Because of the straights, this place makes it much harder for the faster drivers to win in the slower cars.

I'm stuck using a keyboard and don't get much practice time. I'm reasonably happy with my efforts and continuing (but slow) improvement but the fact remains that I'm so much slower than everyone else that I really feel like a mobile chicane. I'm so happy to be allowed to race with you guys, considering how uncompetitive I am.

As long as I stay on the black stuff I'm usually happy with my race.

Keyboard! Eeak!  That can't be fun with GPL.  I used to use keys with GP500, but GPL.  Bad enough when I had to use a joystick.

Anyway, guys, ignore my grumbling.  It was the last day of the Moto GP season today, and the final Eurosport coverage now that BBC have it  >:( , and I'm grumpy!

I'll stop yapping and just get on and drive.

I used to use a joystick which sat flat on my lap and I leaned using that with my wheel pedals for throttle and brake. GP500 was a tremendous game...


Goodbye Toby and Jules  :'(

Hello Charlie Cox  >:(

Toby, Jules and Randy have been so much of the MotoGP experience since I started watching in 2000. Very annoyed with Dorna, Espaletta and Co about this.

Charlie Cox!  The name itself just wants me to turn off the sound!

Anyway, screwed up in the race again.  Sorry Rob Burt' for touching wheels but I think we both got away with it.

Ended up getting a DQ for reversing on-track, I thought a stop in the pits sorted that out but apparently not, so quit.

Finishes my effort up quite nicely really.

Hope the rest of you had fun.  :)

RACE RESULTS (After 9 laps)

Pos No Driver                          Team     Nat Laps   Race Time       Diff    Problem
 1   9 Sam Blood                       BRM      GBR    9  31m23.102s           
 2  17 William Tway                    Honda    USA    9  31m23.501s    00.399s
 3  11 Ian Stanley                     BRM      GBR    9  28m46.409s   1 lap(s)
 4   8 Robert Burton67                 Cooper   GBR    8  29m25.956s   1 lap(s)
 5   3 bernie darwin                   Ferrari  GBR    6  20m45.339s   3 lap(s)
 6  10 Graham Poole                    Eagle    GBR    6  21m20.781s   3 lap(s)
 7  14 Diki Waza                       Honda    JPN    6  21m52.699s   3 lap(s)
 8  15 Michael Turner                  Brabham  GBR    6  22m28.404s   3 lap(s)
 9  16 James Andrew                    Cooper   GBR    6  23m16.239s   3 lap(s)
10  18 Steve Bird67                    Eagle    GBR    4  14m49.120s   5 lap(s)
11   6 Ian Docherty                    Eagle    GBR    1   3m51.622s   8 lap(s)
12   2 Colin Paxton                    Eagle    GBR    0   0m00.000s   9 lap(s)
13   4 1 UKGPL                         Brabham  GBR    0 DidNotStart   9 lap(s)

RACE FASTEST LAPS

Pos Driver                                 Time Lap
 1  William Tway                      3m24.019s   9
 2  bernie darwin                     3m24.914s   4
 3  Sam Blood                         3m25.367s   7
 4  Steve Bird67                      3m27.983s   4
 5  Ian Stanley                       3m29.268s   5
 6  Robert Burton67                   3m29.586s   3
 7  Graham Poole                      3m29.948s   3
 8  Diki Waza                         3m30.279s   6
 9  Michael Turner                    3m31.409s   4
10  James Andrew                      3m39.522s   4
11  Ian Docherty                      3m50.958s   1
12  1 UKGPL                             No time
13  Colin Paxton                        No time


LEADERS

Driver                           Laps
Sam Blood                        1-3
bernie darwin                    4-6
Sam Blood                        7-9

Number of lead changes: 2
Number of leaders: 2


LAPS LED

Driver                           Laps led
Sam Blood                        6
bernie darwin                    3


HIGHEST CLIMBER

Driver                           Start Finish  Change
Ian Stanley                         12      3       9 
Michael Turner                      10      8       2 
Sam Blood                            3      1       2 
James Andrew                        11      9       2 
Graham Poole                         7      6       1 
Robert Burton67                      5      4       1 
1 UKGPL                             13     13       0 
William Tway                         1      2      -1 
Diki Waza                            6      7      -1 
Steve Bird67                         8     10      -2 
bernie darwin                        2      5      -3 
Colin Paxton                         9     12      -3 
Ian Docherty                         4     11      -7 


ON TRACK LAPS

Driver                           Laps/Total    Percent
Sam Blood                             (9/9)     100.00
William Tway                          (8/9)      88.89
Graham Poole                          (6/6)     100.00
bernie darwin                         (5/6)      83.33
Ian Stanley                           (5/8)      62.50
Robert Burton67                       (2/8)      25.00
James Andrew                          (2/6)      33.33
Steve Bird67                          (2/4)      50.00
Michael Turner                        (2/6)      33.33
Diki Waza                             (2/6)      33.33
Ian Docherty                          (0/1)       0.00


RACE LAPTIME CONSISTENCY
(first lap excluded)

Driver                    Avg Deviation  Std Deviation  Avg Laptime   Laps
bernie darwin                     0.801          0.919    3m26.083s      6
Graham Poole                      0.863          0.962    3m31.075s      6
Michael Turner                    2.462          3.181    3m34.278s      6
Ian Stanley                       2.692          3.575    3m32.216s      8
William Tway                      3.529          5.119    3m28.643s      9
Sam Blood                         4.130          6.271    3m28.723s      9
Robert Burton67                   4.932          6.208    3m38.874s      8
Diki Waza                         6.206          7.811    3m35.255s      6
Steve Bird67                      9.567         10.197    3m42.334s      4
James Andrew                     10.492         11.892    3m49.891s      6


All times are unofficial
(Replay might have been saved before end of race)

Generated with GPL Replay Analyser

Screen freeze for me was not going to bad after sliding wide on first lap and having to shift r

Ah well...

The first 2/3 or the race was good .

Sam B got a great start and got the drop on me and Will , I had way to much wheelspin off the grid but then managed to squeeze past Will after some sideby side stuff on the Mulsanne into 2nd on lap 2 and then began a great dice with Sams very well driven BRM.

On Lap 6 I slid a bit wide into the  French version of Traffic Calming  and stupidly lifted off the gas and got bogged in like a constipated Lawrence of Arabia , so had to do a S/R which would have given me a pit in penalty, but before I could get to the Pits  I got a dreaded screen freeze and had to re boot , I was suprised to find I wasn't alone with the problem , shame cos we were having a good scrap up until then with Will still hangin up there waiting to pick up the pieces  :D

Grats to Sam for a great drive and a well earned win and to Will T and Ian S for the follow up slots !

Wont make Spa (pity cos Im pretty quick there ) due to Hols so cyas all whenever I get back from Sunny (Ihope ) Turkey  ;)

I've just checked the replay and it turns out 5 people suffered the screen freeze which is a great shame. I'm not sure if the result will stand as a result but nevertheless it was a fun race. After a good start I was leading Will and Bernie and was hoping I wouldn't make any mistakes. A couple laps later Bernie began to close up on me and we had a very good dice for the lead until he managed overtake me for good. When braking for the right hander at the end of the Mulsane straight, a lap later, I accidentally downshifted to 2nd instead of 4th which locked the rears but I held it together and was amazed the engine didn't explode. I was holding on about a second behind for a few laps until Bernie made a slight error which allowed me to slip past.

When the disconnecting issue happened I found myself to have a 20 second lead over Will when entering the last lap. With a third of the lap to go I noticed the engine was coughing. I thought I'd damaged it after a downshift but turns out I was running out of fuel which I found hard to believe as I had set the fuel for at least 10 laps. I managed to coast the rest of the lap crossing the line with 2psi fuel pressure. I was lucky to finish and Will was only 0.4 of a second behind me when I crossed the line. So overall a fortunate win, but it still is a great feeling.  ;D

Sometimes GPL will black flag drivers for no apparent reason.  This can be due to warp.  Without looking at the incident I suspect this may be one of those cases.  We have some advice in the rules (here at bullet point 9 (https://www.ukgpl.com/index.php/rules/etiquette)) which basically states, ignore the black flag and we'll sort it out later.  For unarguably deserved black flags (usually jump starts) then drivers should take the penalty as dished out by GPL (see bottom of this page (https://www.ukgpl.com/index.php/rules/sporting)).

Not a good day. I'd spent the afternoon reinstalling Windows after picking up a virus and managed to get GPL up and running with about an hour to go. As anticipated, I qualified well down the field and ran into the T1 mayhem from which it took me a long time to extricate myself leaving me way behind the pack. And to cap it all, I had a screen freeze with about 3 laps to go.

At least I got some more practice with the G25 which I'm now getting accustomed to although it does seem prone to random twitches in GPL (but not in other games). What I like most are the pedals. I think I've reduced my smoking tyres quotient by about 90% :)

Well what a mixed day! Start wasnt too bad, but then Steve and I got together, i got inside line but bumped into the wall causing me to lose out big time to Steve, sorry m8, then next few laps were bad and I couldnt keep the car turning the corners after the long straights, I was down to about 6th-7th, then I noticed people quitting like flies.

Then I come out of the last few corners of the lap, where some reason pit board is like half a lap ahead it said last lap, so i pulled over and quit but there was still one lap remaining!

Luckily for me everyone else behind had quit and so i got a undeserved 4th place. So it wasnt so bad in the end.

Had a horrid time in qually, attempting to get gearing sorted amidst problems with my 'net connection and a couple of disco's. Finished up with no time posted.

Took it easy at the start, ready for any T1 tangles, but not ready enough. 10th & 11th had a coming together on the leftside, I thought I might get through on the right just as one of the cars attempted a manouvre a la Speed Racer. Unfortunately I didn't duck down enough.

Still, no damage done, and over the next couple of laps moved up the field as others had problems. Got to 5th about 20 secs down on Graham, when I got caught out trying to do 2 things at once - drive and decide whether to go for place or push. That dropped me to 6th, then a lap later Burt had a moment and I was back to 5th, now 28secs down and 5 to go.

Could only make 2-3 secs a lap on Graham, so was about to settle down and take it easy, when he dissappeared, and Diki Waza had gone from behind as well....was it me about to disco..nope, others still showing in prib. Ok....definately take it steady last 2 laps and 3rd place.

Hard luck to those that had problems but big congratulations to Sam !!   

Fantastic start and all around great drive by Sam!!! Grats mate!! I had no chance once I lost your draft. You were nailing all the turns with great exit speed. Was a lot of fun watching you and Bernie side by side on many occasions. With Bernie's SnG, it could have been an epic battle for second.

I especially like Sarthe and hope we get to race it again sometime. Was very fitting that Le Mans (the movie) was on last night as I've not seen it in probably 20 years. Love that 917. The kids even enjoyed it but the wife left the room.  ;D

The finish was classic Le Mans but instead of loosing a tire, Sam ran low on fuel and limped across the line ahead of me by .4. When I saw him going slow near the end, I thought he was just messing with me.  :o

Nice to finish sandwiched between 2 BRMS. Grats to Ian Stanley and to the Reed Racing Team. WD!!!

Will     

PS. Bernie, don't take the midnight express..................

I'm not sure we will Will (no pun intended LOL). 

Because of the long straights, this track is one that gives the drivers lower down the table a seriously good chance of scoring good points.  A driver placed 9th or 10th in the table who takes the Eagle will have a better chance of beating the championship leader (who will be restricted to the slower cars) than at any other track in the series.

However there are a couple of down sides to Le Mans:

1.  A lot of drivers find it boring because there are not enough corners.
2.  There were a lot of screen freezes and discos this time.  Not something we can tolerate again.

We haven't had this many screen freezes or discos at this track before.  It may be because I had set the server up as "fast" to allow drivers to see more cars ahead and behind.  I need to ask around and see if this is a recognized factor in screen freezes and discos on other tracks.

Global Warming for sure  ::)

I've had a look at the server replay for this race. At 24 minutes and 47 seconds there was a mass disco affecting Bernie Darwin, Graham Poole, Diki Waza, Michael Turner and James Andrew.  As I understand it, a screen freeze is caused by something on the client side that is generally associated with the graphics.  Generally the CPU gets stuck in an infinite loop processing graphics data.  The chances of all 5 drivers experiencing graphics problems independently at exactly the came time is remote to say the least.  Consequently the mass disco must have been due to a communications problem rather than anything inherently wrong with the track.

Neither Div 1 or the Historic race had any problems with this track so I can only conclude that the Clubman's drivers were unlucky to have a comms problem.  Comms problems will always occur from time to time, it's just something we have to put up with in on-line racing but it is becoming a less frequent problem as internet connections improve.  Consequently in keeping with the normal UKGPL procedures for this sort of occurrence the results will stand and there will not be a re-run.

If you were involved in an incident please submit a incident report using the link under the results table ASAP please.  I need time to moderate the race before the next round so that the championship positions are updated and all drivers are allocated the correct chassis.

Don't get down Steve, if it's OK with Phil, I mght be able to come along and play Clubmans with you....we can p*iss about down the back and let the others have their way......lol. I'll just check my schedule and get back to you.

Cool, Geoff.

I always seem to come away from 67's feeling I could have done a great deal better.  I have to get my consistency better.  Had I stayed on track at Le Mans I could have got a reasonable place.

We need more from the Novice group too, I think some may be hesitant but need not be.  Clubmans is as much for learning as the novice's.  The fast guys are quick but very understanding if anything happens and getting past a slower driver is a skill all of it's own, so it all adds to the 'fun' of it.

Anyway, be good to see you on track.

Dont forget we had similar problem last season at Lime Rock, where lot of disconnects.