SimRacing.org.uk

Car: Skip Barber Formula 2000
Track: Laguna Seca

Practice: 18:00 for 135 mins (approx)
Qualifying: 20:15 (15 mins)
Race: 20:30 - 24 laps (approx 40 mins)

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

Practice: A server will be available from approx. 19:00 - 23:00 the day before the race

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=243;theme=33)

Will there be a practice server up tonight?

Cheers
Gary

There should be. If nothing's up by 7-ish then I'll kick it off.

Cheers Iain ;D

nice some praccy so good stuff!!  :P

Practice server is up.

I somehow managed to start one using Michigan so there's two SRouk sessions there ::)

Dropped a setup and a reasonable-ish laptime in...

Thats a surprise. Thought i'd jump to see how its like and using the default setup and increasing the fronts a notch it felt quite civilised and controllable. Think i managed a 42.8 which didnt seem too bad in the company. If i hadnt double-booked with GTL i'd be tempted to run this.

fractured the left scapula in my back last thursday, so won't be racing for a while. typical, as i like this track :)

Ouch, sounds painful Noel, have a speedy recovery and I hope you're back racing soon.

I managed to get down to a mid-40 last night which is bang on my PB but I just can't go any quicker, very frustrating.

My race pace will undoubtedly be around second slower (at best) so I'll be struggling I think.

I will be glad to see the back of the Skippy tbh if it works out that way for S3 :-\

Im suprised you said that Pops, skippy is one of best cars in iracing and fun to drive..

It is fun to drive Rob, don't get me wrong.

It's a personal thing; I'm just finding it *very* frustrating to be even further off the pace than I usually am with seemingly no possiblity of further improvement.

I don't mind coming last as long as I'm getting better but I'm not :-\

I quite enjoy the Skip on twisty circuits like VIR, but at places like Silverstone I'm just left wondering why we're not using the Mazda which is superb fun when you have a decent set-up.

Cheers, Ross.

Change seems inevitable, personally I think the skippy is the best car in iRacing. Its very rewarding to drive and suits simracing very well, high downforce Indy/F1 cars never seem as enjoyable to me. I like the Radical and DP, the Lotus and Indycar are ok but don't really feel right to me.

Gary

If only there were some way of expressing that opinion (https://www.simracing.org.uk/smf/index.php?topic=7667.0) so that it might impact future events eh?

Already voted on both polls!

The Marzzarduh (as Dave K pronounces it) is such an ugly little bugger though isn't it. Can't we race nice looking cars!

Gary

best point i've seen so far... lol, yep lets just race the pretty ones! :lol:

All the cars look pretty in Legends colours :angel:  ;D

Yes, yes, pretty far off the pace, I know...

Sadly they also all look the f*$%&£$ same.  Don't you boys have any imagination?  How about having different coloured sidepods or something so we can tell who we're lapping?  ;D

You dittoed me previously Ross, so I'll ditto you now!!!

Apologies for the tangled wheels in the last corner around lap 4 or 5 Ken, I hope there was no damage done.  Completely bored of the Skip now - one daft spin too many and I'd had enough.  Happy to have got in the 1m40s for qualy though.

Hope everyone else had a good one!

Cheers, Ross

AAARRRGGGHHH

I was driving above myself there, the Skippy has never felt easier.  I even got into the lead when Paul got a slow-down.  We were wheel-to-wheel in T1 and I know I ended up too tight, but a lag collision spun me off.

I am so annoyed with myself, threw away a blinding result there  >:(

Didn't enjoy that at all and surprise surprise crashed out on my own at one of the many impossible corners at Laguna Seca. Hate Laguna, hate Skippy so not a good combo for me.  :laugh:

The Skippy is all about car control and I have none. I like cars where you work out how fast you should be going, what gear, where to turn in, where to brake, so basically my brain does all the work and the car just does as it's told. As soon as I start having to fight a car I just don't enjoy it. That's why I don't like yank tanks, that's why I don't like the Skippy.  :'(

Not doing any more Skippy races myself this season as I've had enough of it I'm afraid. If it's the Mazda next season for lower series then I'll just do the upper as I hate the Mazda too for different reasons...it just feels like a hovercraft or something, very odd thing indeed, doesn't feel like a car anyway, so fingers crossed that doesn't win the poll. ;D

Good fun that.

Qualifying was a disaster - half a second off my PB ... and behind Pops ..... that's REALLY bad :D

Lap one I took a bit too easy ... Shark got past, and I had Ken right behind me.  Got a bit of a tap into the hairpin, and then after that started settling down.  When Pops span I got past him and back past Shark, and then it was a case of getting my head down, getting some good laps, and catching the guys in front.

Had a good fight with Paul T for ages, got alongside into T1 a couple of times but never made it stick.  I think the best chance I had was when Rob span in T1, and the waved yellows were enough for me to back off and that was another chance gone.

After a mistake from Purds he was behind me, and after having a "moment" in T6, very nearly in the back of me going up the hill .... thankfully I got up to speed and carried on.

Rob was on a charge in the last couple of laps, and got me in T1 and making it stick with a lap to go.


Overall a good race for me, and very pleased to break into the 39's, taking a third of a second off my PB in the process.

Cheers all - good fun.

I feel like Austin Powers right now.  Lost my mojo, then rediscovered it when it was all too late.

Had a poor qually 6/10ths off my PB after trying to appease my 2-year old daughter.  It's funny how the bedtime antics coincide with the clocks going forward.  ::)

Anyway, lined up 6th and was surprised to see Brian only one place ahead.  Start was clean but I just couldn't find a rhythm over the first few laps.  Dave was pushing me hard and at T3, the fast right hander, I lost it when the rear broke loose.  This really caught me out as I usually get bucketloads of understeer here.

Just about managed to stay ahead of Burt and set about trying to claw back some lost time.

After a few people had mishaps ahead I was back up to 6th and close behind Simmo but couldn't get the gap to much lower than 1 second.  I was mightily impressed with Simmo's consistency as I was pushing as hard as I could but wasn't making much impression.  Sadly, my team mate caught the dirt in the left hander after corkscrew and I was upto 5th.

Had there been another half dozen laps, I may have just reeled in Brian and Dave as at the finish there was only a second or two separate all three of us.  In the end I suppose 5th was a fair reward considering the great pace of those around me.

Grats to Paul and Gary on a Team KC 1-2 and Dave on a solid 3rd.

Not my night tonight.

Started my practice tonight and was happy that within a short space of time I was doing regular 38s when I wanted in both race and quali trim.

Like the other week at Silverstone my brakes became very snappy after practice and my qualifying time was miles off what I had been doing, leaving me in 5th.

I had the run on Stuart into T1 but he firmly closed to door to hold me behind. Leaving Stuart, Gary, Mike and Paul ahead.

Initially Stuart and myself were hot on the heels of Gary and had a gap back to Dave but whilst putting pressure on Stuart he made a few mistakes and that let Dave catch us and Gary leave us.

Watching Paul move away I was desperate to pass but I could not find a hole.

Watching Stuart's lines into T1 I tried an overambitious move. I thought if I put my nose up the inside he would be forced to stay wide rather than run the rather strange line he had been using. Braking early on the outside and then moving into the inside line before the bend.

I made my move and Stuart moved across early again. I tried to steer to miss but clipped Stuart and this sent my car off. I offer and apology for that. I felt it was fair and possible to pull the move off but in hindsight I know it was overambitious.

After that is was damage limitation as the car was bent. Picked up a few positions as others went off but I really could not get anything more out of the bent car.


Grats to Paul, Gary and Dave.

I knew I had my work cut out to keep you behind me as you were a lot quicker.  Every time I put in a decent lap you were back on my tail in no time.  I could see Rob catching you though and was delighted when you started to swap places as it gave me a bit of breathing space.

You know you've had a good race when every driver who finishes behind you did a faster lap.  ;D

Like Simon I don't like Laguna, never have.  Knuckle down though and sometimes it works.

As you say, good fun that.

Felt like I'd bottomed out at a 40.3 in practice so I went off to read for a while and came back for qually. Somehow my brain had processed all the inputs from practice and I slapped in a new PB of 39.6 - but still only good enough for 7th. I figured that might translate into 5th but probably not much better.

Start was very tight but made it through the first few corners, and was soon putting Brendan under serious pressure. During lap 3 I called over TeamSpeak that I thought he would chuck it off at some point and sure enough, on the next lap he obliged. :laugh: Brian then went off in T1 trying to get past Stuart, and then it was his turn to feel the gnashing of a Shark at his gearbox, and soon he too succumbed to the pressure.

Mike's unfortunate exit left me 3rd and now Gary was in my sights as I continued to get faster and faster, dropping down into the 39.5s for the first time ever. Second place was looking distinctly possible, and with laps running out I figured it was time to check the fuel.

Oh dear.

I'd done very careful calculations during practice and was sure 3.8 gallons were enough. And they would've been... at my practice pace. But at this new, semi-alien pace of steady 39s, I needed a fraction more. Drat. I had to go into fuel saving mode for two laps, which let Brian get back on my tail, and Gary pull away a bit. Uh oh. :o

With two laps remaining, I was sure I had enough and lit the blue touchpaper again, getting straight back into the 39s, and setting a magnificent new PB of 39.2 on the final lap, actually pulling away from Brian a little.

I wonder if I'd have managed to go that quick with 4.5g on board. I guess I'll never know. :laugh: Still, a podium was both unexpected and very welcome, and I've discovered some interesting things about the Skippy's setup which should come in handy in the final round in two weeks. ;)

Once again, the only car with no incident points. Tell me again how that means I'm not going fast enough, Paul? :P :laugh:

Well, the obvious answer is that you didn't win  :P  Sounds like a great drive though  :thumbup1:

Report later

You were never coming past me Dave ;D

Race lap three tenths off qually, I was just pacing myself and if you noticed I did my quickest lap in your slow down phase. The last couple I was winding down.

And I only got 1 incident point, could have been pushing much harder!

Gary

Look out, Greger!

Dave's on a mission.  :P ;)

Well I didn't do much prep for this and it showed. I didn't think I'd be able to do the race but circumstances did eventually pan out to enable me to join very late. I was way off pace and although I like Laguna I just can't drive fast there in any car.

I was second from last on the grid and with no pace my only hope was for people to fall off. Over the opening laps I could run with the tail end group and apart from the little tap that Adam mentioned it was all going smoothly, if not a little slowly. Apologies for the tap Adam, you just seemed to slow mid corner.

Anyway then I gained some places due to some off track excursions but Ross caught back up and made a move at the hairpin. I stayed wide but he got a little loose and there was a small contact.

Then we came across a recovering Rob at the approach to the hairpin. Me, and I think Simon, dived inside and Rob did give me room initially. On the exit though he drifted back across and a lag contact caused him to ride up the back of my car (two races in row someones done that to me!!!).

For the next few laps Rob and I swapped places a number of times as he went off and then caught me, then went off and then caught me etc etc!!!!  ;)

When I was following it did help me though and I posted a 40 sec flat at one point as I eventually found some pace. We closed on some cars ahead and Rob got by Andy but then did his usual half spin at T1 causing Andy to slow and me to run in the his gearbox!!! The resultant spin allowed Iain through and dropped me to last of the runners where I stayed to the flag.

It seems a long time since Brands Indy!!!

BTW Out of my 15 incident points I'd say I was responsible for 4!!

BTW, is anyone having trouble seeing hosted race results at the iRacing site? None are showing for me atm. Underneath the filter options it says Ken Murray Showing records 1-25 of 35 but there is nothing visible. I've tried refeshing the page a number of times.

great fun, loved the combo  :) skippy seems to enjoy the 3rd gear corners and my Infineon setup worked straight out the box in yesterdays practice session........ life is made easier when you can just concentrate on driving   :laugh:

10th in quali with a pb was solid for me i reckoned and as usually happens I ended up next to Pops  ;)

Had a good start from 10th with some fun side-by-side with Ross in the first few corners. Following the field I felt quicker, as I never got to follow many people in practice  :P

Got up to 7th at one point and had a good tussle with Adam, Paul T and Rob both individually and all together a few times! I came off last of that bunch but didn't care as it was one of the best fun races i've had in a while. Was under pressure in the closing stages with Pops taking half a second of me every lap but managed 10th  : 8)

Man of Match for me was Dave... starting just in front of me he looked on it from the green light and to finish 3rd is a nice result

yeah and his race report was so modest too :angel:

Gary

I was pleasantly surprised with second on the grid, my first front row in our little series.

I got an average start and found I could not keep both Mike and Stuart behind me into T1 which allowed Mike to nip through on the inside. Stuart put me under a lot of pressure but I just concentrated on neat and tidy lines that allowed Paul and Mike to open out a gap of a couple of seconds. Stuart came under pressure from Brian and dropped back a little which helped.

When Mike had his incident in T1 I probably had half a chance of putting a move on Paul H for the lead into T2 but it would have been tight and did not want to risk a clash so eased up to follow Paul. This allowed Mr Gymer to take a chunk out of the gap between us. I then had a few laps of being quite close to Paul but the combination of nearly cutting the Corkscrew and increasing pain from the back injury I've been suffering with for a week or so made me decide just to bring it home in second.

The rest of the race was a controlled drive to finish in second, never taking any risks at the likes of T6 and the corkscrew. I knew Dave was closing but after being able to keep the much faster Simmo at bay I was not worried a) the gap ever being close enough for him to attempt a pass and b) being able to defend if I needed to.

A much better result than I expected to be honest.

Gary

Pot... kettle... black... :P :P :P


That tells me that if I'd been in a position to push you like I pushed Simmo and Brendan, you'd have fallen off too. :P :angel: :laugh:

Dave, your race report and mine bear no comparison. I don't make the comments you do about other drivers!

As for me falling off, you never did get in a position to push me did you and its not your god given right for other people to fall off for you, it tells you nothing. For the avoidance of doubt you finished behind me Dave. ;)

Gary

A pretty fun race for me.

Matched my PB in qually, got of to a reasonable start and promptly span it on lap 3. My only spin of the season in either car ::) Apologies to Simon who did a stirling job of not hitting me, it was one of those spins where I just seemed to slide and slide.

After that I was just chasing, pulled out a new PB on a number of occasions so can't complain really.

I'll get you next time, Gadget Basset. :ninja: :fencing: :P :laugh: ;D

Yeah yeah, I'm 3-2 up so far through the season ;D

Still as I've only ever done about 4 laps at Elkhart Lake in a Jetta you probably will. Anyway I'll be content to roll in behind you with an 80 point lead over you in the tables :laugh:

Gary

No worries Brian, I would have left you room if I'd have known it was coming, I simply didn't expect it as I was already turning into the corner.  I know my line at T1 is weird but it does work!  Its probably not ideal in close combat though as I can imagine it makes attempting a move very tempting.  I copied it from Andre Gomes, he does the same thing on his replay on his website.  You were quicker on entry but I was faster on exit.

My car was also a bit nobbled after that, it was very loose around right handers and I subsequently spun 3 times around right handers!!  Thats why I fell off Dave, nothing to do with you!!  ;) 

I didn't even bother looking at the replay and forgot to save it.  Please do submit an incident report, I'm sure I was completely to blame although I think it was a very minor racing incident to be honest.  I was trying too hard too early in this one which was daft of me.

Cheers, Ross.

Despite winning, that wasn't one of my better races :no: Like everyone else I seemed to struggle in qual, but clearly not as badly. Not sure if this is down to the issue of practice sessions not taking conditions into account like altitude? It would make sense if it was though. I was as surprised as Brian not to see him up the front, and it made the first few laps seem strange. I found it really hard to concentrate and started making silly little slips that had nothing to do with pushing too hard. In the end I got the corkscrew a bit wrong and got a slow down, which meant that Mike could get past. Luckily Gary and those behind were far enough back for me to keep 2nd. Followed Mike for a couple of laps and then had a little bit of a run down the start finish straight, which seemed to unsettle Mike and he went a bit wide at T1. I tucked in tight but as Mike came back in the 2nd half of the corner we got a big warp contact which spun him round into me  :( At the time I didn't know it was warp, but did know it felt wrong. Mike unfortunately ended up in the gravel with a bent car but luckily I could keep going. Gary was kind enough not to push what would have been a tricky move at T2 (thx m8  :) and after that I was able to slowly pull out a lead and then cruise to the finish.

Well done to Gary and Dave, and hard luck to Mike, who was driving consistently fast early on and made it impossible for me to relax. Real shame that it ended as it did  :(

No worries, it would have been pretty tight and the incident with Mike and yourself looked strange to me too as I was following you.

Agreed, Mike was very unlucky, good drive mate.

Gary

I still think that's psychosomatic. AFAIK nobody from iRacing has commented and IMHO people are imagining it. ::) :laugh:

If it is then it's remarkably consistent. We see this in most races.

We also see more cars on track at once and thus more network load. I think that's much more likely to be the cause of any discrepency than some nebulous 'different conditions' - especially as it also seems to hold true in other sims.

Of course iRacing could put the whole thing to rest by just posting that there are no physics differences between sessions. But as usual their idea of commuity is everyone but them.

-- Mr Cynical

Me too, I did say small contact. No worries, these things happen.

I posted better times in qually than practice last night and did at Brands too from memory. I think its down to traffic etc, both times I ended up first car on the track with a clear road in front of me.

Gary

I know I wasn't driving particularily well and we had full fuel, but I was a gear lower in the race on many parts of the track. It did liven up as the fuel load reduced.

Just did a quick search on the iR forum and seemingly it is an IE problem. The unnoficial solution is to use Firefox. I will try that later, I don't have Firefox on this laptop.

You could also try Google Chrome.  Good browser.

Has anyone asked them?

I've stuck a post into the tech support forum.  It's worth asking.  They may or may not answer.

LOL remember that, and he came out right infront of me!

My race, started 8th went bit hot into turn 2 going on the gravel alongside Dave, pasted Pops at corkscrew to go back to 10th at end of first lap, and set about getting higher up. Got stuck behind Andy and Ross only for them to both lose it at corkscrew and get upto 8th :)

When Dave over the team radio  ;D announced Brendan was going to bin it, and sure did, he came out right in front of me!  :laugh:

I half spun on 2nd last corner and went from 8th to 13th doh!

Battling well with Ken which I was faster and having the lead on him, to finally catch Andy Purdie up and past him too.
The last 3 laps were spent catching Adam Parle and passing him on the last lap at turn 1, to take a nice recoverable 8th place.
I could of caught Paul Thurston up if I had about 2 laps spare to go, so not a bad race, was eventful.

Pity i had about 2-3 spins costing maybe a 6th-8th place finish.

Think this was my move of the race ;)

http://www.burtoner.com/iracing/robvskencorkscrew.rpy <- Got to see  ;D

http://www.burtoner.com/iracing/andyandross.rpy <- Nice easy move on Andy and Ross at Corkscrew!  ;D

Of course you'd then have had to get past as well.  There's no way you'd make that Corkscrew move stick twice. :P

Incident summary report here:-

http://www.zensoftware.co.uk/downloads/temp/iracing/20100330.LagunaSeca.Skippy/incidents.htm

Thanks Ross :)

Can someone post a replay for this race please?

I cleared out my old replays a week or so ago and must've deleted it :(

Uploaded it here:-

http://www.burtoner.com/iracing/replays/skipsroulagunaseca.rpy

230 Megs..

It does have practice laps before race, sorry if you didnt need that bit :P

Thanks Rob, much appreciated :)

Moderation is complete, this event is official.

bah perhaps I should of given that replay now  :laugh: