SimRacing.org.uk

Car: Skip Barber Formula 2000
Track: Lowe's Road course (not the infield course)

Practice: 19:00 for 75 mins
Qualifying: 20:00 (15 mins)
Race: 20:15 (29 laps, approx 40 mins)

Start: standing
1 'fast tow' (reset) available for each driver (available by pressing SHIFT+R by default)

NOTE: All sessions protected by the main password, there is no seperate 'pre-event practice'

A couple of notes re. Blue Flags during qualifying and race where they differ from GTR2;

Blue Flags during qualifying - if you see a blue flag during qualifying it will be on your outlap and the driver approaching is on a hotlap. Please take this into account and act accordingly. The driver behind does not know you are on an outlap so no rash moves out of the way please :) Usual SRouk rules / guidelines should be applied.

Blue Flags during the race -  if you see a blue flag during the race it means the driver approaching is about to lap you. Please take this into account and act accordingly. It differs from GTR2 in that you will not be penalised for not allowing the lapping driver to pass within a certain period. The flag is informational only. Usual SRouk rules / guidelines should be applied.

Pit Boxes - there are 43 slots available at Lowe's Road Course.

Skips again? :( Isn't this a racing League? :P

I know what you're getting at TT - but we've got to start somewhere.  TBH - the season in the Skippy was the best one we had at the Legends, just give it time and keep the faith.

It's ok, Adam. It's your turn to get clipped. :D

After all the hassles I've had getting my system sorted I welcome the chance TT ;)

Great that TT is willing to share the love, keep it within the team mate  ;)

This the track with the final banked corner and huge straight, right? If so, good choice :)

It uses a good stretch of the oval yep.

I wasn't sure I'd enjoy these 'roval' tracks but I've had some cracking races at Daytona and Miami road courses which are in a similar vein.

I haven't ever raced this track so I'm looking forward to it :)

It's the one we did a practice session at a couple of months ago Ian. I found it surprisingly enjoyable  :)

It is actually good fun this track, I do remember some good battles here.

Good fun trying to nail the last corner before the oval section to get in the slip and hopefully get passed by T1.

I think I did some open sessions in the SRF here a few weeks back. Not a bad track but the pit exit needs care when joining/re-joining!!

I've never been able to get my head round this place in any car. The infield section is like driving on ice. :-\

I've not had much success round here in the past. Been done a few times by some optimistic overtaking moves into turn one  :o.

Never raced here, but I enjoyed some SRF practice a few months back. 

IIRC, I think the infield section is mostly off camber hence the 'Dancing on Ice' sensation.  :D

Tried the track with the spec racer in week 13 but was never comfortable around here so never actually raced anyone! That infield is pretty tricky.

Never raced this track (done the oval in Nascar)

First impressions.............I need a sat nav  LOL

Took me 10 laps to get the track config in my head. As someone has already mentioned the pit exit looks interesting.

Dont know whether us new drivers will be good enough to run here (yes that's a sarky comment) but we'll try. Hopefully the more "expereienced" drivers will show a bit of patience (no dont all laugh at once)

Perhaps 2 weeks worth of practice will help this time. But I'm not above accepting tips and setups to make me more competitive and safe. So all donations gratefully accepted.

Will there be server time for some praccy

Oilseal

I'll take my tongue out of my cheek now before someone bites it off  (look I'm smiling  LOL)

Guys, I'll get a practice server up tonight.

I'll aim for 7-11pm but I'll post when it's up.

 :thumbup1:

I'll have to tear myself away from Dragon Age for a time, then. :angel:

Cool. Will see you there (but expecting to be late) as I've not enjoyed driving this track on my own :sleep1:. Hoping it's good to race on though :)

A note about qualifying...

There's an advantage to be gained from drafting another car around the oval part of this track, this can be exploited to get a faster qualifying time than could be achieved on a lone lap.

As far as I'm concerned this is a legitimate tactic on a 'roval' track so if you are clever / skillful / lucky enough to pull it off, whether through sheer luck or an orchestrated effort with another then go for it :)

I'll try and pop along to the practice tonight, most likely about 8.30 to 9ish

Looking forward to tomorrow's race

Regards
Gary

I'll be in until about 8pm, whoring myself out for a drafting partner. :D

I will probably have a bit of praccy when Corrie is on.

Ooooooooh  rats!   just realised though   gonna miss tomorrows Lowes race as I am at the Royal Albert Hall watching Snow Patrol 

Oh well   next time !!

Server is up.

Something very weird has happened, it seems to have created 2 sessions, one of 30 mins (passworded) and one of 4 hours, (no password).

Use the open one.

I tried connecting and still no luck, was working ok earlier, but guess now in peak times thats where nildram is soo bad..

Just waiting till Friday when my new ADSL isp provider gets activated..

First time I have ever tried this track, it's pretty mean! Good choice.
Should make for some great racing tomorrow if only I could keep it on.

Thanks for hosting the server Pops...just jumping on now :thumbup2:

Hmm, interesting. Based on my best laps from iRacing's official series early this year I'm now almost a second a lap quicker, and whilst there's still no grip on the infield, it doesn't feel impossibly slippery any more.

Even more curious, in tonight's practice session I was able to go quicker with race fuel and no tow than half fuel and a big fat tow from Don's car.

Most odd.

Maybe you were just being a wuss Dave, bet you're glad I'm back!

Right guys I won't be joining you tomorrow, I'm with Nildram too and got disconnected twice. In between sessions I had a nice chat with a Nildram engineer asking why my business account is next to useless after 7 years faultless connection. I'm not willing to get disconnected during a race and take someone out.

With that in mind, sorry to Chris Laker for the incident at turn 1, I thought our interloper friend would yield the corner after a) going on the grass and b) being behind and offline. Oh well you live and learn.

Regards
Gary

I'm glad of the 30 minute practice tonight. I really had forgotten how to drive those pesky little things. No grip whatsoever in the shopping trolleys Skip Barber. Anyway, after about 10 laps I had remembered how to drive it and where you need to be careful at that circuit.

I then stayed until I beat Gizmo's time (just). :devil: Bah ha ha!

Thanks for hosting Iain, nice to be out on track with the boys, but I'm another who will be missing tomorrow. Going to see Beverley Knight at the Sage.

Thanks for that Pops  :) Hopefully be with you morrow but ruddy BT might thwart me.

I tried to join practice last night and still couldnt get on server, was ok earlier in day, im moving ISP's on Friday...

So next week I be sorted..

Ran a few laps last night and pretty much up to speed now - having missed week 1 I'm very much looking forward to tonights race.

Some very impressive times posted last night, and a lot of very similar times too - going to be hard work in qually I think.

Sorry I failed to password the session last night. It wasn't anything weird going on with iRacing, it was me ::)

I was trying to get the session started whilst trying to manage my lunatic boy so I wasn't paying 100% attention (hence my confusion about the 2 sessions I created) and got a 'page not found' error when I launched it.

I think my router rebooted itself so it HAD started the session (which I'd passworded),it took a while to appear in the hosted races list so I'd already assumed it had failed and so clicked 'back' to get back to the create session page where it looked like it had kept all the settings but in fact it hadn't kept the password and I just pressed 'Start' again :wetfish:

That's alright Pops, Ade was the driver that crashed most times so passwording it wouldn't have helped. ;) :angel:

That wasn't crashing, that was free form driving ;D cheers for hosting Pops :thumbup2: i think i needed the practice.

lol, no probs. I don't think we could have scripted that incident any better ;)
Practicing with others on the track was a lot better thanks Pops. Will be taking it very easy with the back of the pack tonight thought me thinks.

Gonna miss this now... gutted  :'(

I'm working back shift so I'm out too.

Blimey, there's going to be a lot of guys missing for this :(

Hope you can all make it for the next league race at Laguna in 2 weeks :)

(don't forget Silverstone in the Radical next week as well)

Iain, I'll be there in two weeks, I'm only missing it due to having an ISP that has decided to traffic shape when I use the iRacing servers.

I am gutted after putting in the practice :'(

Thanks for arranging all this for us.

Gary

I can't speak for others Gary, but I'm quite happy to take the risk of you discoing. I'd much rather see you in the race.

My one month trial ends on the 5th, so I'll need to make a decision before then on if I want to continue.


Currently, I'm of the opinion that it is probably more realistic then the next closest thing I drive (PnG), so a good driving experience & I've had no problems with public drivers. Being able to join a race because it's there at "silly o'clock" if great (I think :-\).
But I'm irritated by the feeling of having my hands tied constantly. Only being able to drive certain things certain weeks, having to practice on my own, having to wait to earn licences to drive a car publicly, only to then find it's the next week & I don't have that track... but if I buy it, it doesn't get used by another series I'm interested in for about 5 weeks! etc (need a tearing my hair out smiley ;D). So a bit frustrated with it at the moment.

Mind you, Christmas hols would be a good time to have races on tap though  :wetfish:

Seconded; I'm getting terrible spikes at the moment - it lost me twice in the Laguna race last week, luckily not for long enough to lose track of me completely. I guess the 21CN stuff is playing havoc with BT's antiquated infrastructure. :(

OK, if no one has any objections I'll give it a try in practice. If anyone wants me out just say.

I've got my MAC code and am talking to Zen about a swap over.

Regards
Gary

I'll try to get the server up around 6 if anyone is keen to get going.

Thanks, thats good for me.

Damn dont think im ever gunna get to race with you guys here, bin very busy lately and 2nite ive gotta go and support the lads in Belgium  :-\

Had a cracking race at Lowes 2day (have the week off) in the Spec Racer, pole to flag  8) 

And i had my first ever race in the skippy 2day at Lime Rock, started 2nd and won  8)

Would be different here though, you guys are to quick!

Have a good race.

wife =  Worry Invited For Ever  ;D

Looks like I messed up the timings, so qual will start at 8pm. Really sorry to anyone that affects badly. If necessary I'll start another race.

oh well still cant connect...

This time next wk i be on BE anyway.

other than a handful of laps, not had time for any praccy due to work demands, so will pass tonight. :(

Wish I had now. Qualified a very respectable 6th, got away okay, Shark passed me early on but we were both threatening Ginsters until he spun in the first right hander. I think Shark avoided him but I wasn't so lucky. Towed back to pits and rejoined, but my heart wasn't really in it and after a few laps at qualifying pace I brushed the wall, spun and decided to call it a night.

Didn't even remember to save a guppy replay. ::)

Enjoyed that chaps & managed to get my PB down to 1:22.8 on the final lap ;D

Some cracking laps with Ade & Popabowa not to mention a few others.

O dear, my pace got me above my experience level there and it showed :'( Got a huge draft from Paul then didn't know quite what was gonna happen in T1, got offline and span in T2. Sorry Dave.

When the racing started I had two choices through my lack of experience of dicing in iR land, I could have slowed or gone for it. I chose the latter, sorry again Dave, but I don't really see how else I'm gonna learn? Plus it was great fun for first few laps. I've learned how to go quite fast but now I have to learn how to race  :'( Its entirely different ball game this but I'm getting there  :angel:  

That was a whole heap of fun. Drafting around the oval and then slamming the brakes on into T1 made me giggle like the proverbial schoolgirl every lap.

As you saw from my qualifying time I have absolutely no pace around here so just decided to try be as consistent as possible because I thought there could possibly be a few cars off track, into walls etc.

It was a bit tortoise and hare as I managed to go from starting in 20th to a fantastic 7th place finish. Sweet  8)

Great fun racing with Adam and Don for the last 10 laps or so, both of whom were quicker than me but a couple of mistakes from them, and a VERY well timed tow on the last couple of laps from the very impressive Brendan saw those blatherskates off!

Great drive by TT. It's only taken him 2 races to get faster than me  :wetfish: Who'd have thought we'd be the top 2 Legends today? lol

I think that's a good track for racing the Skippy with a big field  :thumbup1:

Some great racing out there, enjoyed that a lot.
Had some fortune in my result in that I managed to spin it a couple of times but got away with any serious contact and ended up with a better result than I could of imagined.
Loved the rythmn of the track, good choice.

I didn't know Paul had made a boob with the timings of the race, so I joined, what I thought, was a few minutes early. Turned out I only had 6.5 minutes of qually left, so good job I turned up early. :wacko: Anyway, managed to get a pretty decent qually lap in, 1:22.2, but didn't have time for a pee or to know how much fuel to put in (flustered problems :)) and then realised I didn't actually know whether it was a pace lap or standing start. Looked like a standing start, so just went with the flow. :D My fault for not checking! Tut! :angel:

Race was going well, was keeping up with the leading pack, bedding myself in. After a while I got past team mate Gizmo and was harrassing SBG. He succumbed to the pressure and started a not so beautiful pirouette. However, seeing two Sharks around him while he span, I saw the glint in his eye as he realised he could take two of us out in one move. ;) He clipped my rear end sending me into a spin and took out Gizmo. This merely wounded the Great White Shark, but it was a fatal attack for Gizmo.

The game then decided that me going off the track backwards in a spin was cutting the course and as I rejoined the damned thing told me I was a big fat cheater and to slow down! Bah! Anyway, I ignored the damage and just drove my heart out. Caught up Stuart after a while and spent quite a few laps working out how to pass him. He was making life hard, but eventually I worked out I could possibly get him on the exit of T1. So one lap after getting a really wide line side by side with him I then had the run trough the banked left hander.

After that it was plain sailing and after getting a 1:21.749 in Stuarts slipstream earlier, I managed 2 1:21.9s without any tow afterwards.

Good job Brendan, well deserved win and well done Paul on 2nd, I didn't have enough laps left to get quite close enough to try to get you at the end.

I wasn't really pointing the finger (unless you weren't stood on the brakes when you spun - no idea what direction you were moving in), just expressing my disappointment that a race with such promise (and that I'd spent over 2 hours practising for) ended so early. :-\

Wish I'd started from the pits now, I think I'd have got further and had more fun. As usual I was much quicker than virtually everyone in the slow corners and losing time in the quicker ones.

Ruddy dangerous pit exit too! ::) :laugh:

You had a better race than me Dave and I spent two weeks practicing!

Still the time I was not all wasted I had a good rant at Nildram tech support and signed up with Zen!

Sounds like you boys had fun again:-)

Regards
Gary

PlusNet is due to switch me onto this 21CN thing in the near future, hope it doesn't screw up my gaming :(

I was going to be racing tonight, but we took our parents out for a meal and my Mum took suddenly ill.  After an anxious couple of hours with an ambulance crew and A&E, she is OK and back home.

I'll be at the next race.

Sorry to hear that Michael, best wishes to your mom.

After mucho practice for this one, I was fairly confident of a decent finish here.

I'd managed better times in practice but settled for 2nd behind Paul Richards on the grid after failing to secure a tow on my qually lap.  After the first couple of laps I was still with Paul but not quite close enough to make a move.  Luckily for me he spun at the tight right hander and gifted me the lead.

Very rarely in sim-racing do I get the feeling of having a great car underneath me and this allowed my to really push on and break the tow to Simmo who was close behind.  After gradually extending my lead over team-mate Paul H, I was delighted to cross the line for my first league win since UKGPL in April 2007  :o and a Team KC 1-2 was the icing on the cake.

Thanks all for a great race.  See you next week.

Congrats Brendan great drive

I started ok from pole but as expected couldnt pull out any where near a big enough gap in the infield to break the tow. After nearly being passed into T1 for the 3rd lap in a row I pushed really hard again and over did it sticking my Left rear on the grass as I braked for the tight right over the crest before going onto the oval. Instant spin and back to 7th. Was catching back up to the train when Ian spun also causing Dave and Simon to spin and I gained a few places. I then found myself in 3rd chasing down PaulH. He lost quite a bit of time while lapping MikeC. I was only about 1.5 secs behind heading into T1 and Mike who stayed tight on entry to T1 to let Paul past. He then spun mid corner with his car sideways exactly where I was going to exit. I lifted to try and adjust my line but that lost the back end and I ended up sliding out of control straight into Mike's car as he then faced backwards. Sorry I couldnt avoid you Mike I saw you ended up upside down! Front wheels were ok but one of the rears was knocked out. After a couple of laps of nearly crashing I reset for the first time in a year probably, (not through lack of crashing its just not allowed in C class and above!)

I also forgot to untick the pit options so stayed there for a good 2 mins. Really annoyed with myself I spun again exiting the pits on cold tyres and went a lap down. Running last of the cars still going in 17th. After that I strung a few good laps together and slowly began to hunt a few spots down. Had a great chase with Ian and it took me a while to get into his tow. Once there I was able to get a good run and pass round the outside of T1. We were both catching a few cars and gained a few more spots by passing and the odd retirement/spin finishing 9th.

Not one to remember but was fun.

How I managed to get 2nd out of that, only the gods know  ::) Unlike Brendan, I had absolutely no confidence in the car and was a long way off my best times. Partly this was down to the rushed timing (sorry about that everyone, my brain was obviously elsewhere when I worked it all out  :wetfish:), but I think the main reason was the recal of my pedals earlier on. It seems that it resets the brake curve setting, which I normally have quite high. I was hardly touching the brakes but locking up or losing speed at all the wrong times.

Anyway, 5th in qual wasn't great but SBG was a bit tardy off the line and I gained a place into T1. The next few laps I was right behind Stuart, who was following Brendan and Paul quite closely. As soon as we closed up in the infield section it got rather hairy, as I didn't trust the car enough offline. I just settled in behind Stuart and hoped things would improve. Paul was the first to help out by spinning, and then Stuart and then Paul (again) went off while passing Mike, which left me in 2nd with a nice lead over 3rd. Brendan was on a different planet as far as I was concerned so I just ran safe laps and hoped the others didn't catch up. Towards the end, Simon was gaining quite quickly, albeit from 6 or 7 or seconds back, but I had enough in hand to raise the pace just enough to stay ahead to the finish.

Congrats to Brendan on a faultless drive (in my setup I should add - we'll have to call you Lewis  ;)) and to Simon on a very strong 3rd. Another couple of laps and I'd have been sweating big time  :sweatdrop: Great result for the Kerbies - at one time we had the top 4 places! If you like a good battle, watch Simon vs Stuart in the first half - excellent clean racing.

I still couldnt connect last night  :'(

Waiting for new transfer to ISP end of week, so hopefully I be sorted for next weeks race.

ISP-wise I had the opposite experience last night - after over a week of iffy connections I bounced my router just before joining last night and for once it was rock solid, like when I joined IDNet. 8)

Me too, how do you untick pit options?

If you hit the relevant key, it's F4 and F5 for tyres and fuel I think.

You highlight using the arrow keys and hit the space bar to untick the selection so it then doesn't perform that action when you pit.

I usually do that whilst sitting on the grid at the start of the race so I don't forget :)

Incident reporting was broken for this race because of the quote in "Lowe's" - I've just removed the quote for now. ;)

One to forget for me.

Set a new PB in qually so was very pleased with that, but the opening laps weren't kind to me at all.  I got a 0x for a light tap on someone in T1 (hopefully no damage there), and then the rest of the lap was pretty steady.

Round the oval a couple of people got a run on me, I stuck near the outside to keep a good line into T1 but clearly I wasn't the only one with that idea!!  I had nowhere to go and once the wheels got tangled ended up in the wall.  The car was drivable, but not 100%.  Both right hand wheels were a lot closer to the body of the car, half the front wing was gone, and quite how the nose was still attached is beyond me.

I decided against resetting, but it was always goign to be tough once people got close.  Round the oval I was getting caught hand over fist, so shortly after getting up to 5th as people fell off, I went back through the ranks.  One silly spin let Don and Pops catch up with me, and although I seemed to be able to make a bit of a gap in the infield, once we were on the oval that gap soon closed.  A couple of laps later Don got close enough to throw it up the inside at T1, and I was powerless to stop it.  Due to the different lines I very nearly clipped him as I couldn't see him when I turned in ..... and when Bully did the same move on me the following lap I did nudge him :( which ran him wide and into the wall :(.  Sorry mate.

Pops got an easier pass - I must have had a bit of lag - all the cars and the timing info dissapeared ..... it totally put me off and I seemed all ready to carry on round the circuit rather than turn in at T1 :D.  After a quick U-turn it was back to business, but the detour would cost me another couple of places soon after as Paul and Ginsters flew by.

More off track antics for me than I would have anticipated - I'm putting it down to the car damage.  I hope Laguna is a bit kinder to me ...

Haha, who would think I'd be the fastest most fortunate Legend. :angel: I'm sure this will change on the next race already. ;D I guess my 6th place is mostly due to being careful enough not to make a major mistake. Had a frightfull moment after some laps at braking into T1 and got tapped a bit from behind. Managed to stay on track and I don't think the car had any damage influencing the driving. Had some close laps with Simmo but mostly just concentrated on staying on track.

Skip is a toy - gimme some racing cars! ;)  

BTW, Pops - you look like Bob Dylan. ;)

Just to mention all those functions can be mapped to wheel buttons if prefered. You can map a buttton to scroll through all the black boxes, which I find usefull for when I'm driving.

Don't think it was me TT? 

I really enjoyed the race, although finished a little frustrated.  I made a last minute switch to Pauls setup in practice and it really helped.  I'd found other setups on the iRacing forum and they were all lop-sided to cope with the banking but made it a handful in the infield.

Anyway, was really chuffed to qualify 3rd with a PB.  Hung on to the front two for the first few laps and when Paul R spun I inherited 2nd.  Couldn't keep up with Brendan but was edging away from Paul H until I caught Mike C who seems to be my bogie backmarker!!  I caught him as we came into the left hander before the banking.  He went very tight and slowed and I assumed he was letting me by on the outside so I carried in the speed to take that line.  Unexpectedly to me, Mike then drifted out to the middle, I had too much momentum and had to lift and cut back to the inside sharply to avoid hitting him causing me to lose the back end and spin.  A misunderstanding I suppose.

I rejoined in 4th behind Paul R and right infront of Simon.  Got 3rd back straight away when Paul collided with Mike C while lapping him!!  Had a great battle with Simon for quite a while and he pulled a very clever move on me at Turn 1, forcing me to defend on entry, swinging wide at the last minute and cutting under me on the exit.  Unfortunatly I made a mistake the next lap and lost the tow to Simon.  Simons pace was very consistant and whilst I did initially catch backup a little, after a few more minor mistakes I decided to settle for 4th rather than bin it!!

Great fun though and really looking forward to Laguna, my favourite track!!

Erm, or was it Richard Ames? :(

Just a quick reminder to everyone to please report any incidents that you want us to look at.

It's not about pointing fingers and handing out penalties.

These cars are quite different to what most of us are used to so it's important to look at the incidents of car contact and explore ways they could possibly be avoided next time.

I thought Lowe's made for a much better racing experience than Summit Point, It certainly looked to me like there were less incidents of car contact :)

Oh, a big WELL DONE to the 2 drivers who came through with zero incidents; Brendan and me ;D

To be clear, I wasn't talking about any incidents, I'm still a bit confused who is who. ;D
Nicks are much nicer than our real names. ;)

Me too. :wacko:

I'm useless with names too.

I had to ask the other night if a guy was from here.

Just came out of a Vette session and John Stamper is there. I thought I recognised that name but he did not say hello to me either!

On another note the Vette around Road America is a blast. It hates the kerbs though.

Didn't notice you were in there Brian. Was messing about on the forums most of the time I was in the sesh anyway!

Is there a server replay for the hosted races, or are we saving any client replays for moderators to use?

No such thing as a server replay. :(

We keep badgering them for auto replay saving.

Couldn't agree more on the lack of experience and it being a different ball game.

I practised a lot for this race and worked on consistency more than speed. I was doing runs of up to 20 laps with no incidents.

However come the race and everything just turned upside down. There were places on the track that I kept losing it for no apparent reason.

I dont think I was overcome by race fever as I was telling myself to relax and just put in the laps, get the experience.

Thinking back I can only think of one change I made for the race and that was fuel and that was only by 1 gallon. I suspect that made quite a bit of differece.

Anyway onwards and upwards. I'll keep practising for Laguna.

Interestingly I went back to Summit to practice and I was much much better than 2 weeks ago so I think the practising and getting used to the differnt style of driving needed for the Skippy is helping.

Sorry to any one I cocked up during the race.


Oilseal (Mike Cooper)

PS. Does my G25 class as load cell or potentiometer in the wheel measure thingy

Potentiometer Mike