SimRacing.org.uk

Practice 1:	20:00	(10 mins)
Qual 2:	20:10	(25 mins)
Race:	20:35	(80 mins)	note: no warmup!

Cars allowed: any GT1 or GT2 from the UKGTR Physics Pack v2.9.1.0 (https://www.simracing.org.uk/smf/index.php?topic=3356.msg54519#msg54519)
Weather: Changeable, seeded from real-world conditions
Track: UKGTR Imola GP 2004 (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: 18:00
Pit Stops: You must make a minimum of one pit stop during which you must take on at least 1 litre of fuel and/or change at least two tyres. You cannot take a 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=198;theme=3)
(3) You will not be able to join the server without the car 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).

Note the evening race time - the sun will be setting and the race will end in dusk.

I should be able to make this race, Can I race in gt1?

You can race whatever you like. ;D

racing at dusk eh?...nice. :)  I can use my tasty amber Porsche euro spec headlights to great effect....until i break them  ;)

Hey Dave,

I've decided I don't have the time or talent to drive the GT1's this season.
I assume there is no problem if I continue in GT2!?

Ta

M.

Only if you start beating me... :laugh: :P

Never gonna happen :) Your safe  ;D

I now fear for my safety  ;)

Should have stayed with GT2s - these cars are much more pleasant to drive.  :-\

TT

I see it says no mandatory pit stop at the top of the page. Is this right?

Is that possible in any of these cars? Haven't done my sums yet for fuelling.

It isn't right and it's now been corrected - sorry and thanks. ;D

As will happen with all races in the Upper Endurance, I can make the start but have to go before the end of the race. So if I see the server is not full and I won't be taking the place of somebody who can finish the race, I'll try to give FreQ something to think about ;D

Unfortunately i cant make this race  :(  going to Anfield to watch the mighty reds and with a 6 hour drive back wont make it.

I always liked the late race start times going into dusk so should be a good one. Expecting a good result from teamate H@l  in this one! No pressure  ;)

Less Pseudo backup! :(

Have fun dude :)


Hehe, I need to successfully negotiate the warm up lap first. Unlike at the Spa UE ;D

Really sorry if I ruined anyones laps. Everything is going against my GTR2 season at the minute. Poor internet connection and the game running really slowly has ruined another race for me tonight. Sorry.

Dry forecast. wet race, pointless. I left. IMHO of course.

Didn't even start. :(
I got the same bug that Dave did in the Lower Sprint last week:

Not sure what happened tonight  ???

The qualifying session seemed ok..and then come the race it put me half way round the track rather than on the grid. Looks like tibs had the same problem, his car kept being placed on top of mine. I decided it was best to withdraw in case my track placement effected the race.

  :(  :(

And I misread the rules about moving back to your original place.

I saw "wet", so thought Inters would suit. As soon as we left the grid for the warm up lap I saw I was wrong. Tried to keep it on track but couldn't, left the race when I crashed :(

Got dumped out during qualifying, started from the back but should have jumped onto the grid to see how bad the weather was as starting on slicks wasnt clever. Ended up binning it on the warmup lap and after pitting for wets and repairs came out a lap down stuck in the middle of GT2's. Sorry about hassling you Prof, thanks for letting me through(?) though i spin out of the 2nd double left at the end of the lap and as i'm waiting for Prof and ross to go by idecide to change view to try and get a better view of oncoming traffic when it locks up on me. Strangest thing it then starts flashing on/ off.

Clearly we were pushing the envelope as the number of people jumping in and out before meant alot of people were suffering with ctd's not to mention the weather, i had 33fps on the grid!  

I tried to join in at 20.00 but I couldn't  ??? Server was full (16/16) I thought it was a bit strange to have so few places.
But after all the comments now after that the race has started, I think I was lucky not to enter, cause I'm no good at keeping the car on the track in wet conditions  :-[
I really do need to practice before I join in on a race with wet track  :surrender:
I went to see a film insteed... and it was a pure joy to watch (Lemans - a Hell of a Weekend)  :whistling:

Hope it went OK for Team-Pseudo  :tank:

 / Jorgen

That would have been the practice server, before it was restarted for the race. Confused me as well.

Ahhh.. OK  :laugh:

Well no harm done... after all I'm useless in the wet SO I'm glad I didn't get in...  :angel:

 / Jorgen

Lister is a ... in the wet, especially with the Michelins instead of Dunlops. Car has too much torque, too short wheelbase and wheel on the wrong side ;)

Make the rear springs very soft and some of the rebounds as well (can't remember) and use the low revs again.

Not much more than just practice, or use a different car :P.

Man that took some patience to finish!  Lost count of how pits stops I made through lost splitters!  Jumped on to the grid, completely missing the fact that it was raining which made the first lap tricky.  Reasonably on the pace tonight thankfully  (well...on the pace of the GT2 cars in my GT1 I guess ;) , but clearly I've got a lot to learn about making a pass stick rather than spinning off at the next corner (sorry Blunder, you must have wondered if I'd ever get past and stay on the track)

All good fun though if a little tiring.  Hope my pulling over for leaders was better today than the last Imola race even if I invariably pranged it trying to get out the way!

Good race - definitely a baptism of fire for my first endurance.

Cheers, Ross.

What a Race, My first podium on SROU  :jumpjoy:  in very difficult conditions (from the back of the grid due to a disco at the end of quali) in the Porsche 666 >:D Bi Turbo (7th overall)

That feels sa'weet 8)


(What happenrd MJ you seem to disappear on the last lap?)

Ya - it's a bloody nightmare out of the slow corners, half spun at T1, and constantly spun up out of the hairpin....but wasn't to bad. I can't complain really....1 lap ahead at one point, but got disconnected with about 16 mins left and leading by 1:20...doh!  :'(

Oh well. Congrats to Prof on his pole, and gr peeps ;D  

Thx for the tip :thumbup1:
Well I had my mind set for the Lister IF, it had been Wet, and the DBR9 for dry track. But that is only because I have even less time in the DBR9. But It's never to late to learn.
I am nearly finished with my "NEW" Pedal-set and that will take time to get used to. So I feel it is a good time to make an transition from the Lister to the Aston WHEN it is ready. :o

 / Jorgen

That was one of the most painful, awful races I've ever done. Driving was not fun. Racing was not fun. Even spinning wasn't fun. :( Only fun bit was pushing Gizmo around the last 3 or 4 corners after he ran out of fuel on the last lap. LOL. ;D

Arghh... that's nasty to here FreQ  :(

 / Jorgen

Immensely hard race :o

Sorry to GT2s that I messed up(MJ and Prof), will check the replay for the other apology's i need. That must have been some of the most difficult conditions for lapping.

Very hard going tonight but had some nice battles with RoadRunner and Jose ;D

Well done podiums :)

Thanks Freq, my first pole here and I had high hopes for the race until I saw the weather.

Frame rates in the teens and low twenties made life hard. I picked the wrong side of several spinning cars to try to pass (sorry guys) and changed tyres that made the handling with no splitter next to impossible. Sheer stubborness not just to quit out but be available to help Dave over the line in parade with Shark  ;D

Not quite what I call fun but an experience...

NP H@L, I chose right-side to pass and you were still going backwards.  :laugh:

Absolute nightmare...had so little grip..an add that to rear tires overheating (badly), outcome was never going to be pleasant.

Was suprised to have qualied so high..and even more so getting 3rd off H@L after a few laps...came up to lap Blunder..and it looks like on replay he started to aquaplain a little when he hit some standing water..so i got run onto grass and inevitably spun it x amount of times...carried on..an i believe a 550 coming outta the pits..had all of the makings of doing another everett on me...thankfully didnt..but the slight twitch on the wheel when i thought he was comin was enough to have me into another x amount of spins...which prob meant the only thing stoppin me tyres from goin up in flames was the water...unfortunatly managed a further spin and couldnt avoid a stationary MJ (sorry m8)...eventually spun into wall got a puncture which proved me downfall as i got buried in the rivazza gravel..

Glad its over...was never on the right tyres i dont think  ;D

What doesn't kill you.. strengthen's you.. right  ;D    (why can't I live by that motto)

 / Jorgen

that race was hell! I qualified 6th due to all the people crashing out. Perhaps someone has a bad install?
or one of the cars is causing crashes? The same people seemed to crash out of the server at the same time.

On to race, it said wet...so I figure soft wets on the front and hard wets on the rear. Bad choice! It was like driving on ice! It was impossible for me to drive in those conditions, sorry to the driver that was behind me, I was a mess trying to hold on to the car. I tried to hold on in hopes it would get a bit drier but it never did. Finally decided to come in for soft wets rears and a new pair of soft wets for the front. Everything was better but it soon appeared after lack of practice that my tire pressures were too high...impossible to drive yet again but easier than it was with hard wets on the rear. It really hampered my race as I had no stability under braking because the tire pressures were too high. It finally ended up getting a bit drier mid race and made my final stop with softs on the front and hards on the rear. Again it worked well but the tire pressure problem really killed the race for me. I spent the whole race chasing gt2 drivers as I kept spinning. Wondered what the heck I was still doing in this race but the racer in me wanted to keep going despite the problems I was facing. Viper seems awful at imola anyways...maybe I just didn't set it up right.

Was hoping for more...but the lack of practice sealed my fate.

Thanks for having me again. :)

I'll try to join another race when I can :)

Well that was almost an awesome performance from me. :laugh: The Lambo was hopelessly off the pace in qualifying but I knew the car was quite easy to drive and I wasn't too concerned about my race pace.

Once I saw the state of the track at the start of the race I slapped on hard wet rears and soft wet fronts - the only combination which works on the car - and set off. Car felt good, although for the first 30 minutes the tyres stayed pretty cold and I had to be careful. The good news was that my fuel mileage was excellent and by half distance it looked like there was no reason to take anything but fresh tyres at my stop, but it went horribly wrong when Shark came round to lap me as I ran wide out of the first chicane and the grass took hold of the right side of the car and pitched me into the armco, destroying my lights.

Had to crawl round to the pits, took on fresh wets and had the front replaced, didn't cost too much time and was soon back out and second in class. By now the tyres were working very well indeed and I was able to pace Evert, though with a 40 second advantage I was never going to catch him. What I didn't anticipate until it was too late is that the increased pace that the tyre temperature had brough was also killing my fuel economy. A few laps from the end I had to either make a splash and dash and hope to stay ahead of JPS, or start seriously short shifting and try and time it so that I finished just ahead of him as fuel ran out.

I decided to do the latter, a technique I used to great effect in the Super Endurance at Road Atlanta in Season 7, but I got it wrong by about 250ml of fuel, and ran out 5 seconds ahead but with 3 corners to go. Gutted. If I had started short shifting a lap earlier, or taken just 1 litre at my stop, I'd have got second, instead I'll have to settle for 3rd and the ignominy of pushing the car over the line to get it. :-[

I've got to say it was a new and strange experience to be lapping GT1s in a GT2 on pace! :o :D

what a freakin nightmare my race turned out to be  :'(

Qually was another disaster due to two ctds, the 2nd one especially damaging as i was in 2nd place GT2 and chasing Profs time for a GT2 pole. It happened with only 2 mins remaining and only just got back in time to sit at back of the grid  >:(

Race start, i was flying, steamed up through the field on my hard wets but dry setup. Managed to avoid the umpteen cars laying strewn about the track at the top of the hill  :o and soon found myself in 10th overall, 2nd or 3rd GT2 behind Prof.
Got by Prof a couple of laps later when he ran wide and set about building a cushion. Unfortunately my blinking pedals had once again detached themselves from my race frame and i had to pull over and re-adjust them costing me 5 secs, but i was still ahead.

After 40 mins my race fell apart. Exactly the same as last week when i got myself upto 2nd place, i had two offs at high speed that saw me severly beached in the wet gravel. One off alone took me 52 seconds to get myself out  :'( I dropped from 2nd to 5th place wiping out my near whole minute lead over some cars  :wetfish: It completely deflated me and i lost all enthusiasm for the race. I also got clattered really hard by a GT1 as i was trying to get out of the kitty litter and it affected my handling for rest of race, or seemed too. That combined with now overheating wet tyres made it a very tricky time on track.
With 35 minutes remaining i made my stop and thought i could redeem myself with a master stroke of putting on soft dry slicks on the drying track and making up some lost time, but alas the track was still too wet in places and i only had to touch a kerb or go slightly offline and it became a skating ring, causing several more minor offs and lost time.  :( My tyres were never getting above 45-50 degrees so a set of Inters would have been the ideal tyre choice for once.
To add insult to injury, i saw Prof ? make a late pitstop and only come out 11 secs ahead which gave me a feint glimmer of attack again, but which was instantly robbed from me when i got a 'low fuel warning' !?...what the heck? The fuel calcs must be miles out for this track as i had put 40mins fuel in for a 30-35mins last session. ??? I had to stop for a dash and splash. :taz:

Finished a very lowly and disconsolate 5th place GT2, 11th overall i think.

Track looked great in the night time conditions, 8) with lit up pit buildings, glowing discs on GT1 cars and my sexy amber european headlights lighting the way...and i never broke them all night  ;)
Shame i had a mare !

Big congrats to JPS on his first Podium place, well done mate ! and to the podium finishers in a very tough race  :thumbup1:

Grats to JPS for his first podium and to Jose for his first win.  :)

Had a nightmare in P1 and Q2, three freezes. Was lucky to be able to come back every time, despite having to restart PC twice and server being nearly full. Must be some software causing this, after installing P&Gv2 I get freezes at every event, mostly one and 3 last night. Same on old and new rig, so... Hope it's not going to get worse. I remember having the last freeze when Busi joined at the end of Q2 and saw Carl Hart was also thrown out. Several GT1s started at the back which tells of the trouble.  :(  Might be nice to import r2p rule where GT1s can overtake GT2s in the pace lap to avoid 1st lap confusion. It was present last night, can't complain though, as I gained lost of places 'cause of it.  :-\  

Race was difficult but I'll repeat, rainy race is an opportunity to me as I can count on some aliens making a mistake. That's not meant to include discos - bad luck Freq - even if I did gain a podium this way.  :(
I started with hard wets and it was ok as long as I was careful and maintained a resonable pace, not fighting the track and risking an off. I did get one, consequence of a momentary lapse of reason, err, concentration.  ;)  Had a kiss with the wall before the high chicane but car seemed ok, so I only lost 6 seconds.  :sweatdrop:
Pitted 25 minutes to go and found a GT2 car in my stall, how much of a chance was it. ::)  Had to make another lap, was good to have a big gap behind. Took soft wets and thought to increase my pace due to more grip and less fuel. Boy, what a shot in the dark that was. Fronts were ok, but rears started to overheat, and were having less and less grip, rear end was comming around at every bend. Had to put brake ballance to front a lot and downshift before turning, direct opposite from before where I used downhift as a help to turn in.  :P

Gap to 5th Lazlow was comming down until I settled a bit and cooled my rears under 140'C. Then Freq discoed and I was 3rd, undeserved I must say, but my fear increased greatly after remembering Picnic's talking about having a burst of tyre at Anderstorp due to overheating. Decreased my pace even more, keeping torque down - I was going through the high chicane in 4th gear now, while I did it in 2nd in the first stint.  :D  Ended well for me, totaly undeserved from my pace. Rain is an opportunity, see?  :yes:

TT  

P.S. Apart from having freezes (which were the same on my old rig as on the new one) I'm very satisfied with my new PC. I put resolution on monitors max (1440x900), AA on 8 I think (or was it auto? ::) ), V-sync on, everything on max except shadows which I left on medium, having read about it influencing discos - is this a guess or a fact? I never got FPS under 60, not even on start, with the rain and dark and lights on. Great stuff, I might say.  8)  

Replay and provisional results posted

LapChart (http://www.granum.plus.com/20090222%20U9UE/index.html)

I felt that at the time, sorry to all that had the problem when I joined late but as I had said I wanted to make sure there was space in the server for everyone, which was quite tough yesterday.

Oh dear, another race where I'm out on lap 1 although this time all my own work. So, big apologies for the carnage I caused at the top of the hill on the first lap. The back end slowly pirouetted around and I was stranded right on the corner :(

It was certainly some seriously challenging conditions out there, especially in a GT1 - well done to all those who finished.
 

Yes, I'm sure everybody agree that you, Busi, are solely responsible for the discos we had. Yes, even Freqs towards the end of the race.  :whistling:

I just wrote that 'cause the last thing before the freeze was "Busi joined the game" and at the two previous freezes I don't remember anyone just joined.
I'd also like to emphasize that I had a freeze, not a disco, therefore I didn't return to lobby. Twice I had a CTD with "Do you want to inform Microsoft about it" and one was a total freeze where I had to reset PC.
About your post in the weather compartment, DG. This was my third GTR2 race on my new rig with highly detailed game running. At all others and at P&Gv2 I had one freeze (CTD), yesterday there were 3. But I will repeat: I never had these problems before P&Gv2 install.  :(

TT

I do not have P&G installed but, the stability of the UKGTR server seems to be effected by the P&G server when they are both running at the same time. The server goes to next session in the middle of a session and people randomly loose connection. Not sure if the stability of UKGTR is effected when P&G is not up but, it is a possability I would guess.

It could also be because of some of the new cars :-[

Qualified in 2nd place for GT2's, 15th overall. Was quite happy with the wet start (though it was a complete shock despite checking the generate weather link for initial conditions) as the F430-GT2 deals nicely with the rain.

Got up to eighth spot (1st place GT2) mid way through the first lap proper, when Mcfids lost his rear end at the top of the hill. Three of us were in a line, with Matt between us, he got through on the inside as Mcfids back-end started going wide, I followed but the rear end accelerated round & walloped my front right side hard as I also went down the inside. That hit gave me a puncture & sent me into a wall. :( Got back on & limped round the track with three wheels. Took ages in the pits to repair everything & get a new set of tyres put on the front for the puncture.  ::)

So I was now back in last place (15th to 8th to 22nd in one lap  ::)) & lapped by everyone as far back as team mate Blunder in 15th spot already.

Basically spent the rest of the race catching people, making up 30 second gaps, getting past & making up another 30 second gap. Didn't get near to racing anyone except Dave who was a lap ahead (but running about the same pace) so I didn't want to mess with his race  :(
Eventually got the gap up to MJ down to about 3 secs (having already unlapped myself previously several laps earlier) with about 15 mins to go. Figured that he must have done his pitstop by then & I could just be patient & wait for him to make a mistake or take any opportunity that raised its head.
Sadly I never got the chance as for some bizarre reason I got power exit over-steer at the double left hander near the end & hit a wall. Suspension gave up & I was out the race.
I was then doubly gutted as i saw MJ pit on the next lap before I left the game & by the sounds of it Prof pitted ahead of him too. So I'm pretty sure I could have finished fourth in class (despite the 1st lap incident!) had I just managed to bring it home  :'( :'( :'(

Good race guys, well done to finishers.

I had a nightmare yesterday as well...my pc ctd twice during quali, meaning that I was unable to post a time.

As for the race, I took it nice and steady...I thought there would be a lot of spinners on the first lap, so I just tried to stay out of trouble and ended up going from 20th to 10th in 2 laps!!
The rest of the race was just a matter of concentrating (Hard!!) and keeping it on the black stuff, slowly making my way up into 5th place...then 4th when Freq had his problems (bad luck mate)

I really enjoyed racing in the dark...looked very cool!!! We should do it more.

Congrats to everyone who finished...that was a proper enduro  ;D

It's "affected", not "effected".  The sense in this case would be reversed; we wish to effect stability, which has been affected. :P

I can't think of any possible causal factor which could take effect (:laugh:) when the P&G server isn't running. Obviously when both are up together there could be issues, which is why we shut all but one server down during league races.


Yeah, I'm still not 100% convinced, but as I said, I sat and watched proceedings through most of qualifying and there was a really obvious correlation between the weather changing and the two mass discos.

I remain at a loss to know why things which are perfectly stable offline are unstable online, but then again if I saw the code underneath I'd probably recoil as the true horror hit me. :laugh:

Re: the multiple discos, its worth trying out your suggestion Dave (as in the weather thread) and fixing the weather for each session just to try and eliminate that possibility. Im not convinced though, as surely it would be happening to us all in the race when the weather changes ? but it doesnt at the moment :-\  Its always the qually sesh and may merely be people dropping in and out making the fragile netcode fall over, especially with the server full like it is now.  :-X

 ;D ok, thanks Dave. As you can see, I need a grammer checker as well as a spell checker :D

I have had 2 complete freezes of GTR2 in the last 2 weeks I think, in UKGTR. One was practise and the other Qualy, so both were when their was lots of cars coming and going. That is not something that can be avoided I would imagine.

Stability during races seems ok for me so far (probably just cursed myself there).

As Dave said we shut the other servers down prior to a league race, however during practice periods the two could be interfering especially if whoever starts them forgets to ensure they are using unique Online Keys.

There is no doubt we we've been having more problems recently and from experience I can say GTR2 works and dies at times in strange ways. I do believe the new cars we are running are putting a greater strain on client PCs. I've heard more than one person say their frame rates have dropped and they've had to turn down graphic settings, especially if it's dark or raining. There certainly appears, at first glance, to be a common group of people who have problems nearly every race with others having fewer problems. I wouldn't be surprised if one's instability causes a knock on effect to others.

On the server we have distinct installs for GTR2 and Power & Glory. If you are running one install and having issues I'd strongly suggest you create a separate install for each.

This was the first time that I've had problems with the game CTD during an online race.
I thought it may of been the GTR2-XD addon I was using, as I had decided to try it out for this race.
So when it crashed for the second time in quali, I removed it and then had no issues from then on.
Not sure how this would effect everyone else though? Just my 10 pence worth.

Again we were running close to the server limit. I'm not sure we've run a race with a full grid and not have any problems. If the weather did change during qually I never noticed it on track, only on the monitor page.

Quite pleased with that result ;D
Messed up the start a bit, didn’t realise I was still in 3rd gear, so when i released my limiter i had no acceleration and had to downshift.  :wetfish:
Really surprised nobody went past  ???
Was able to build up quite a gap back to hal in the first stint, despite driving really conservatively.
Changed my overheating soft wets for some inters at my stop, put in a bit too much fuel but better safe than sorry.
Couldn’t get any heat in to the inters so decided to be really careful and just keep it on track to claim my first podium.
Then I found myself promoted with Freqs problems (really bad luck)
Hal closed the gap and was right on my tail on the last lap, I decided to try and keep the car on line so hal would be forced to make a move. Much to my relief the C6-R headlights disappeared going round Acque Minerale.

Can’t believe I didn’t have a single spin, it was sooooo hard going off line when lapping cars.   :o :o :o :o
Don’t even think I had any contact with anybody, ran wide a couple of times but that was it!! 
Smokey did the best job of the cars being lapped, thanks mate  :thumbup1:

Only because I pitted before you  :lol:
Unlucky with the disconnection  :alien: :notworthy:

Before the introduction of GTR Manager the server used to be fine, the introduction of GTR Manageer then caused similar issues and we dropped it's use. Now we're running 3rd party add-ons and things are not as stable. Server or add-ons is hard to judge. Sadly the server process always occupies 100% CPU even when only one player is on so it's impossible to tell if the server is being overloaded. However in light of it working well enough we felt the use of GTR Manager and increased grid sizes a possibility maybe the newer cars are stressing either the server or clients beyond their capabilities. I'm sure a return to standard cars wouldn't be popular  :-\