SimRacing.org.uk

Onwards to America!

Round 2 of the amateurs trophy becons and we find ourselves on a slow boat to California. The slightly relevant password should help our budding cryptologists (is that even a real word?) continue their search for this seasons theme.....

Race List = IGOR
Server = UKGPL_T7_2
IP address = 62.149.202.168
Race date = 26-10-2010
Time = 21:00 UK time
Track = Pebble Beach
Variant = 65F1
Damage Model = PRO
Qualifying time = 35 minutes. Don't start until 30 mins left on clock to allow everyone to join.
Race length = 50 minutes (laps 33)
Password: see above (#post_event_password)

65 Patch: The 2.02 Release of the 65mod can be used.

Driver lists can be found on the championship standings page (https://www.simracing.org.uk/smf/index.php?action=LM2R;group=276;theme=6)
The track can be downloaded from :  Jim Turley's website  (http://jimturley.tripod.com/)
Add-on’s available at : No addons available (That I know of at least)

Please be in IGOR UKGPL chatroom by 8:50 pm UK Time

Reserve drivers should not join the server(s) until there are only 30 minutes of qualifying left. Please restrict chat to pit messages. Moderating will be by reported incidents only, however the moderators reserve the right to review any incident with a particular emphasis on lap one. The aim is to review the race the following weekend so incident reports should be submitted within five days of the race (ie the following Friday). We're hopeful most incidents can be resolved amicably and recommend a days deep breath with a replay review before posting. A sorry in the forum won't be taken as an automatic admission of guilt by the moderators.
The race will be run on PRO Damage.

NOTE: Please ensure you join the correct server, due to the way we import if you start the race on the wrong server your result will not count.

Chassis assignments can be found HERE (https://www.simracing.org.uk/smf/index.php?topic=8480.0)

**NOTE**
Whichever chassis a driver begins race 1 with is the chassis he must use for the remainder of the season unless a change has been agreed with the moderator.


About the Track

The annual "Del Monte Trophy" was run on the streets of Pebble Beach beginning in 1950 and ending in 1956 after driver Ernie McAfee died racing his Ferrari into a tree. Over the winter the locals made arrangements for some local government land to be set aside for a purpose-built race track. The next year Laguna Seca ("dry lagoon" in Spanish) was opened. Road racing forever shifted from Pebble Beach to Laguna Seca, which is barely five miles away and a far better facility, as any modern racer will tell you.

In its first year (1950), the Pebble Beach Road Race was run on a shorter course than the one you see here. It was 1.8 miles long and cut off the sharp left-hand turn and the hairpin of the newer course, T3 and T4. You can see in the GPL track where the dirt trail leaves the track at T3 and rejoins it at T5, the beginning of the long downhill straight. This portion of the track was actually packed dirt; it was never paved and is still not paved to this day.

This 1.8-mile short course was used only once. For the six subsequent races (1951 - 56) the track was extended to 2.1 miles by adding the turns mentioned above. The road immediately following the hairpin (T4) was not paved during that time. In fact, much of that road is still not paved today. However, the decision was made to cover this portion with asphalt to make it easier to race on. Forgive the minor technical inaccuracy.s track layout has remained mostly unchanged from its original form.
(Taken and slightly modified from the Authors notes on the circuit)

Are we allowed to cut freely over the chicanes in the middle of the lap? I vote for "yes" because the grooved line goes over the grass anyway and because it's nearly impossible not to cut, or to control how much you do every lap.

I'd like to say no, but as you say it'll be nearly impossible to police - Only method I can see is to move the pit camera to the chicane and watch the entire replay with a note pad after the event ;D

That sounds like far too much work!
That said I may do some testing and see if the tracks waypoints are capable of picking up people taking it too far.
Don't remember ever being penalised off line though so doubt it'll work TBH

It would be bad if waypoints are made to work because it's a close call and I doubt anyone would like to get a black flag/DQ for such a thing. There is some risk involved in cutting too much, so there's some natural balance. I'll do some laps and upload a video of what I think should be allowed, but I certainly think that 4 wheels off the track is almost inevitable.  ;D

To date we have always run the servers with check points disabled because warp can sometimes cause a driver to be black flagged for cutting a corner (one with a check point obviously) when they clearly did no such thing (see etiquette (https://www.ukgpl.com/index.php/rules/etiquette) point 9).  I expect there will be quite a lot of corner cutting at the "esses" but provided it is understood by everyone a the start that this will not be penalized then it will be the same for everyone.  The alternative is to state something like "you must keep at least 2 wheels on the tarmac at all times" or "no wheels outside the kerbs" and then for the moderator to laboriously check every lap of the replay for every driver.  What happens when drivers transgress?  A 10 second penalty for each transgression?  A lot of work Tim ;).

On most tracks cutting a corner doesn't yield a significant advantage, maybe this track happens to be an exception?

It is an advantage here, but it's the same for everyone and it sort of flows naturally to cut at the chicanes. It requires less or no braking, less steering and less direction change, so it's good in that sense. The only problem would be after the start with everyone following closely, but as long as everyone is conscious about it, I don't see a reason to worry about it.

I'm much more concerned about the hairpins though - past experience and the BREASTS race this week just proved it's very difficult NOT to have an incident under braking for those places. They are so narrow and the braking point so obscure, that a single lapse in concentration or misjudgment by someone behind can lead to a huge wreck. I really hope everyone is going to practice properly and be prepared to take it easy early on.

I'm beginning to wonder if starting last might actually be the safest thing to do here...

I should be pretty safe then ;D


BTW I've had a couple of races against the AI here.  It's the only track I've ever driven where the AI pile up like dominoes (on T2 and T3).  Quite funny, but it won't be a laughing matter if it happens in the league race :(

I see your point Phil, we'll just have to allow it then - as H says cutting too far becomes very risky so it should level out in the end.
As I'm out until sometime Sat afternoon and probably won't be able to create a vid until Sunday I'll see what H comes up with and comment on that  :)

There you go - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdNM399yAdk

It's so difficult to do consistent laps though, I suspect race is going to be about survival rather than outright speed.

P.S. Any idea how to make the video bigger in size? It's bigger on my PC but ends up so small on Youtube...

Yeah, happy enough with what is in H's video - You can see that going any further off course will result in certain death in a race ;D

Not sure why your video is so small H? Worth checking the FAQ's on youtube?

I have to agree with Hristo on this one.
 Unless we make it clear that cutting the chicanes will be allowed, I can see some poor soul who is trying to stay on the tarmace ( and slowing dramatically for these flicks) getting harpooned by 4 cars following behind at warp speed!!

The braking, for 4 out of the 5 corners, is very heavy and there WILL be rear end shunts all the way through the field I'm sure.

We almost need a drivers briefing for this race by the chief mod, warning everyone of the dangers...... but I think they will become obvious, very quickly, during qualification.  ;D

This should be quite an event ::) and the tortoise might well triumph over the hares???

I vote that we run a pre-defined grid and put certain drivers on the front row - I don't want to have them behind in the braking for those hairpins...  ::) I'll leave it as your guess who they might be.  ;)

If not, I hope they qualify well!!!  ;D

Eh someone call...
TBH I'm not racing in this one and don't know the track so it's (other) Tim's baby - whatever you do I would reccomend changing the initial race post so it is clear to everyone as to what is expected.

Agree with Phil re leaving checkpoints disabled - avoids unwarranted black flags.

Last time I raced hear was a breasts 67 race , didnt know about cutting them chicanes , no wonder I was slow  ::)

Regards the above, why not go the whole hog and make it a time trial or a rally stage , set off at 1 minute intervals  :)

 

Haha or at least make a custom grid with much wider gap between positions. Tim, is that possible?

We do have one of Paul Jackson's online loose grids for this one - I'll make sure it goes on T7_2. Tim might want to tweak it but if you space the cars further it tends to mean the back of the grid completely loses sight of the flag.

I have a sneaky feeling the rear of the grid will already be around the kink before the startline on a loose grid anyway - and as Tim mentions the guys at the back will struggle to see the flag even if it isn't obscured. It might be better to simply institute a no passing into T1 on L1 rule (I refuse to say no-passing at all because that makes things very tricky and unfair at the start, if you get a better start than the car alongside you ect..) if it looks likely to be really dodgy

I think some of the people on the grid are going to be put around the last corner in any case, with or without loose grid, so why not go for it? Not seeing the flagman would actually make it safer - people will start only after those in front begin to move.

I guess - will have a play with the loose grid settings when I've recovered from my hangover  ;D

If you get stuck let me know - done a few. Experimentation seems to be the key.
I don't believe we've ever had a no passing rule specifically applied to a race (?) but needs be as needs must, if it means a safer start.

I'm against a no-passing rule because sometimes it's inevitable that someone has to pass someone else after the start, be it a bad start, an incident, temporary warp disappearance or whatever.

Bring on the safety car  ;D

Bad omen Bernie. :D

I think a "don't attempt an overtake unless you know it'll stick" guide should apply, but a blanket no-passing will be impossible to police unless somebody has an accident on their own.

Right, I spent this morning tinkering with the ini (And installing the track on T7 as I hadn't noticed it wasn't there  :-[ ) and have increased the spacing to 25 meters between cars.
The first 6 cars will be able to see the flag as will those in 9th and 10th if I remember correctly - If we have a massive entry list the grid might even stretch back past Turn 6 (The tight right hander before the S/F line! :o ), but this should provide enough spacing that no-one will have an excuse in the event of a T1 pileup  :)

Given their pre-disposistion for massive T1 incidents I've been doing practice starts wih the AI using the different grids - here's T1 with the normal online grid:
(http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j5/FMGasket/Misc/AICarpark.jpg)
 ;D


And here's T1 with my own extra spread out grid:

(http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j5/FMGasket/Misc/extrastaggered.jpg)


I know this is only the AI but going from over half the field down to only 3 cars suggests it should help us in the race  :thumbup1:
Be extra cautious in T2 though guys as the braking is even more extreme there  :)

Tim, you're even more sideways than Evil! How is that possible??  :o

LOL @ the AI!  ;D

That was braking/deceleration, I tend to straighten up a bit for acceleration - Evil generally holds a constant angle  ;D

LMAO,  I had no idea I was that consistant :lol: :w00t:

Could someone please chop that freekin tree down  :hammer:

Which one? :P

I tried a couple of times (unintentionally), but it wouldn't budge.  ::)

the one thats gonna end your race mate  ;D

Charming. I'll see you in it then. :P

Hmm, didn't enjoy that at all.  Ended up running wide and clipping a wheel which added 6 seconds to my already slow 1:32 lap time.  I think I can safely say that this is the first track I really would not like to ever attempt to drive again.

Wish Natan was more aware of the fact I was alongside him after he made a mistake into T1. I stayed as far right as possible given the track width, but the contact threw me into the tree with some damage, no wheels missing at least!

Another off put me about 10-15 seconds behind Steve, so I threw caution to the wind and went for it. Did a 29.8 as a PB, which wasn't far off fastest lap and miles off H's stunning qualifying pace. Steve let me through (gracias senor) so I could pursue the next pack of wannabe suicidals.

Ended my own race hunting down Bob when I ran wide at the first of the esses and clipped a rock of sorts. That knocked a wheel off and threw me into the trees. Game over.

2nd Amateurs race in 2 seasons where i felt i had the pace to compete - not win or get on the podium, but compete.

G.Jonnson and A.Heller were battling up ahead, and i caught them after they made a few errors i'm guessing, but was pleased i had the capability to hold the gap, even though the odd error on some laps gave them 0.5 of a second here and there.. still.. i could compete. Hurray!  :)

Dropped it with about 15 to go on the start finish straight on what looked like a pidgeon loft!!??, lost 2 wheels and race over. Shame, as a rare top 6 finish was possible. Infact, double shame, as this was one of the few races where the tortouise could possibly get a result.

Ah well, which circuit is it next?.... Nurbur... Oh Sh1t..  ;)

Bit of a country ramble for me , no time for any practise worth speaking of and no idea what the bench mark was so no times to aim at .

Settled down for an easy drive from last on grid to 5th,  thanks to retirements (never been lapped so much by so many  ;D) main problem was acceleration out of those slow corners and my gears were way to long . Was short shifting to keep the revs low too but perhaps too low with hindsight

Grats to Tim and commiserations to Hristo , that was a great race you two were having up front , sorry it didnt run to the end .

Roll on Nurby at least I know my way around the green hell and pretty sure I wont be getting lapped

Managed to connect but the lag meters were sky high and whenever I caught sight of another car it was warping about like Mr Spock on acid.  So decided to quit and try to sort it out.

Pratted about with various ethernet cables to no effect then I tried to swap my router (back to my old one).  Hey presto decent connection.  Fired up IGOR only to find the race had just started.  Not happy but I can't say I really liked the track.  Hoping for a better race next time, Nurby fantastic - now if I miss that because of a dodgy connection I'll be livid.

This one didn't end up the way I had in mind, but at least it was not down to my own mistake and I did the best I could.

Started out on pole after what felt like a really neat lap in Qualifying, but Tim was just over 2 tenths back and I expected a tough challenge. I had a good start and opened up a gap initially, but that didn't last long. Once Tim dealt with Tom's BRM, he quickly closed up on me and put some pressure on.

I thought it was full tanks, cold tires and my cautious driving that allowed him to follow so close, but it soon turned out that wasn't the case - Tim was really flying through some parts of the track, particularly at the left hander in the middle of the lap, the one that leads uphill to the hairpin.

It took me some laps to figure out what's wrong - my gearing was simply not ideal and on top of that, I raised up the ride height which, in hindsight, was a wrong move. As a benefit though, I could really attack the chicanes and cut through the dirt without slowing down much, and was able to pull away from Tim in those places.

Once we went into the hairpins though, he was instantly closing up, both under braking and acceleration. I handled the pressure pretty well though and wasn't making mistakes apart from a few moments, but nothing critical. We ran like that for half of the race distance and I was beginning to wonder what role slipstream played into all that because I couldn't break away despite the fuel load going down. As it turned out after looking at my lap times later, I was simply lacking pace.

Tim finally made it through after a great exit off the aforementioned left-hander and led the race going into the hairpin. I thought that's not so bad, at least I'll have the benefit of slipstream and be the one who's going to put pressure on for a change. Before that though, I planned to follow him for 2-3 laps and avoid taking any risks that could put us both out of the race until I could figure out his rhythm.

Sadly this lasted less than a lap because in T1 (or is that T2, if we count the kink) at the start of the following lap, Tim went wide on the exit, clipped the tree and despite my efforts to go to the right, I got nudged a bit, but it was enough to send me into a tree. The car flipped over, landed on its wheels, but it soon become clear that it had lost power and had bent suspension.

I continued on and Tom was 22 seconds behind, so there was some chance to keep 2nd place or at least I thought so. It all became irrelevant when I noticed the fuel pressure going down rapidly and the car ran out of fuel in the middle of the next lap.

Grats to Tim who was faster today anyway and deserved to win, but I hope such things won't happen anymore because it's for such and other silly reasons that I dropped out of contention the last 2 Amateurs seasons. Bring on The Green Hell where I'll be taking no prisoners!  >:(

-=Hristo=-

I was having an absolute blast with H for half the race :fencing: - couldn't get past the blighter on my own as most passing opportunities were directly after a tight hairpin meaning I couldn't get to close without risking rear ending him under braking.
Eventually H made a mistake out of turn 3 (entering Alverado lane on the map) and I powered up alongside him on the left with 2 wheels in the dirt to ensure I had room  ;D

Managed to stay ahead under braking and the two of us then blasted off around the circuit in reverse order, I was looking forward to seeing if I could hold him off ligitimatly when I ran wide myself exiting T1 and clipped a tree.
The resulting impact bounced me about a little and H seemed to catch the brunt of it though lag as he took avoiding action. As he ended up retiring from this it put a bit of a damper on the win, but was some of the most fun I've had on here since the Last 65 races at Zeltweg as a minimum  :angel:


Anyway - results are now up so if there were any incidents of note please submit them  :thumbup1:

Had some time on my hands and did some practice before this one. But in my brain more practice develops some "please don t screw up now"tense and I just couldn t get the flow I had on practice.after looking at rpy I saw that most of the race I was like one second down per lap in average from what I knew I could do. A pity in this case since I could have put preassure on the duo up front, but pressing more than I feel comfortable with right there and then will usually put me out of the race. I lost 5 secs each time I passed Bernie cause of some bad communication or me just not daring to pass where he intended me to and a couple more secs on a misshift (that slippery third gear on my box I always promise myself to fix) that put me on a 90 degree during a brakedown.
 However I had a comfortable lead down to the guys behind me, and I m very happy with my second place.
H and Tim did a splendid job in their "slow" chassis . Gz to Tim and commiserations (did I spell it right?) to H for the bad luck in that incident.

First of all, I think we should recognise that just about everyone behaved properly in the early stages of this race    :thumbup2: where a tight pack and a single over ambitious move would have produced carnage!! I say just about everyone, in case there was an incident that I have not heard about yet!! ::)

Hristo and Tim were a class apart in those BT7's with some stunning quali times in such an under powered car out of all those slow corners.

I amazed myself by squeezing a 5th place on the grid ahead of Al's big BRM, which worried me.

The 1st couple of laps were very civilised from where I was viewing things, with no-one taking undue risks and giving each other plenty of room. But gradually the pace picked up ( although it seems that Hristo and Tim had started at warp speed and were long gone ) and I found myself hounding Goran. Passing at this track is not easy and I was looking for a mistake or a missed gear change to make my move, something that Goran did not seem to want to do  :-\
Meanwhile Al, who had dropped back a little on the 1st few laps was now closing from behind and I did not fancy the idea of being the filling in a 3 car sandwich around here!!  Then Goran got a little sideways and I took the chance to slip through.

The rest of the race was a case of staying ahead of either Goran or AL as they both pressured me in turn. Goran appears to have made a mistake and dropped away, but Al forced me into an error at one point and got past. I knew he would be faster in that BRM if I let him get away.
So, I had to retake him before he could scamper over the horizon. I launched the Cooper over the kink in the back straight and fired it down the outside when Al defended the inside line. A deft piece of late braking and I slid the Cooper around the outside to set up the rolling road block again. ;D
Shortly after that, Al appears to have discovered a mismatch in his fuel/distance calculations and had to drop back , leaving me alone to cruise to a podium finish. Bernie was sociable and waved each time I saw him, or was he gesticulating???  (you'll go blind if you keep that up Bernie!!) but he kept his car intact to the finish.
The circuit certainly took no prisoners , so grats to all finishers for surviving and to Tim and Tom at the front. A shame Al ran out of fuel as that battle would have gone right to the flag.

I normally prefer the add-on tracks to the Papy ones but this one had far too many 1st gear corners for my liking! Consequently I slacked on the practice & started the evening rather less prepared than I normally would be - I think that might have actually helped my concentration in the race although did have repercussions with my fuel calculations...

In Qual I soon discovered my lines were way too conservative compared to everyone else, so I started taking bigger bites out of the corners & surprisingly found myself lining up 6th for the start. It seemed like a very sensible start from everyone & once the dust had settled I found myself at the tail of Goran & Clive's fight. Not sure what happened, but Goran appeared to slow on the straight (wrong gear?) which allowed both Clive & myself to nip past. Once behind Clive for a few laps, I could see he was gaining huge strides across the last RH chicane before the downhill drop to the line - of course, I foolishly tried to copy him which very nearly pitched me into the trees. After many races following Clive's perenially-sideways car I should have known that the normal laws of physics don't apply to him ;)

My near-miss at the chicane let Goran back through but after that I started getting into a decent race rhythm & found I was actually quite enjoying pushing the limits of the circuit. Then Goran had a small incident which let me past & I closed up to Clive again. A wobble by the Evil one allowed me a brief taste of 3rd however his aforementioned speed across that last chicane & into the downhill section swiftly relegated me back to 4th. After that I pushed a little too hard at T1 & although I didn't hit anything, I got snagged on the tree whilst rejoining. After some frantic revving, I managed to free myself just ahead of Goran & set off in pursuit of Clive again. With about 8 laps to go I saw on prib that Goran had stopped, but then suddenly noticed I only had about 2 gallons of fuel left too! I started short-shifting to try & make it to the flag & in the end spluttered across the line with 0.1 left in the tank & promptly ran out completely before I reached T1 on the slowdown lap.

Congratulations to Tim-Tom & Clive. Thanks to Goran & Clive for the great racing :). 

King Hiro - I sympathise mate. As a fellow H-Gearbox manual shifter, i too lost a few seconds here and there on avrious laps, but for me, 2nd and 5th kept letting me down. Not sure whether it was the shifter, or i wasn't pressing in the Clutch hard enough. Still, all part of the fun of 'keeping it real'.

Couldn't agree with Clive more. The first few laps were the best Amateur Racing i have ever witnessed. Throughout the first few laps i'd already worked out i could brake far later than those in front, but thought i'd hang back and keep it safe till we'd all worked out each others strengths. To be fair, those in front were also probably braking early too in the early laps. Still, great driving by everyone.  :)

We were - I had been gaining on Hristo towards T1 so braked early 'just in case', Tom (Hiro) had put the power of his BRM to good use and gained on me. I don't know who scared who the most - me slowing extra early infront of Tom, or Tom barrelling up behind me in my mirror resulting in my pulling left for safety  ;D


Out of curiousity, just how many people were running 2 first gears last night?
I was using 1st for the race start and the really tight right hander at the top of the hill, and 2nd (Very slightly longer) for every other tight corner making it effectively a 5.5 speed gearbox, and remember a few others saying they were doing the same too  :)

Yeah, I was running 1st and 2nd short, but maybe too short. I could hear you change much later, Tim, and that seemed to give you an advantage on the exit of those hairpins. My 3rd was too long on the other hand, so I couldn't use it for that left-hander in the middle of the lap.

I would imagine it being quite a tricky track for 5-speed gearbox cars, although the BT11 has so much torque even at lower revs.

Tim/Hristo what do you both use to capture video?

I use a cracked version of Fraps.  ;D

I actually payed for my version of Fraps!  :o

I'm considering making a short vid of last night though, so may try playing with gpl>avi and camera control master if I get bored enough - I find performance with fraps in GPL is a bit hit and miss frame rate wise.
Annoying really as in GTR2 and newer games it has very little effect.....

OK thanks, I used GPL2AVI for mine but it was slow.

GPL2AVI is really slow, yes. Fraps works fine if you reduce the settings a bit. I set it to half-width screen (instead of full) and 50 fps, and it works fine even on my PC. What settings do you use, Tim?

I think my prob was that I was trying to run it at either 25 or 50fps - The vid of Riverside was done with the fps set manually to 36fps at full res and ran perfectly  :)

It's quite possible that my attempts at Sodegaura failled due to a more complex track? Will need to test it again to see.....

I had no problem with Soderagua and my PC is very old, so I dunno why you have such problems.

I sometimes used Gpl2Avi for my videos, which date back a few years, so my system and graphics were slow.  I found that things struggled less by using a division of 36fps.  So mine are 18fps, and these days I'd be using 36.  More than that seems like overkill - more than is necessary for good results.  And capture performance will vary, according to exactly what items of trickery, your system has become attached to.   

Yes Al, you were right about the missed gear that let you and Evil by and that was only one of my many mistakes in this race. The final one ended my race some 8 laps from the finish, luckily for me a lot of others had done the same thing earlier so I only lost one position in the process.

I must admit that my preparation for this one was not really enough and I was never in the position to follow the furious speed up front although I managed 4Th on the grid, which by the way was pure luck.

So when things got on the way I was quite happy to hold on to my 4Th position. I never even tried to go with the leaders but focused to stay on track and hold Evil and Al behind. But to do that at least you need to keep the car in gear and of cause I did not.

I must admit that missing gears is one thing I rather ofter do when under pressure so I blame Evil and Al  ;D.  Things could have been so nice ................. well, back to reality. One mistake followed by another and another and so on and then I was defending my position against Clutch4 but to my luck he also made some mistakes and was gone. At this point I was in 5Th and only had to bring it home to keep that position but, the trees finlay got in my way and that was that.

Grats to Tim for a great win, and Tom for a steady drive to second and also to Evil, Al and Bernie for making it to the finish.

Göran

A, fter a dissapointing showing I re- visited "the beach " did some tweeks to the car (mostly gears)  Lap times came tumbling down  "green" sectors appearing everywhere , got it into the low 1m 32 ,s without to much drama  but was suprised how agressive you needed to be to get low lap times , would have expected the car to be a total wreck within half a lap if it were in RL , more like an RAC  Rally forest stage than a motor race  ::)

BTW

If I had used my new set up for the race I would still have finished 5th  :D perhaps not such a mobile chicane though  ::)

Must be a moral in there somewhere  :D :D :D

Was sorry to hear Phil had problems joining , hope you get it sorted soon mate  :)

Moderators report published
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