SimRacing.org.uk

All members welcome.

Grid/server capacity: 25

Practice: ~19:30 (60 mins)
Race 1 Qualifying: 20:30 (10 mins)
Race 1: 20:40 14 laps, then following shortly afterwards with reverse grid
Race 2: 14 laps

Track: Brands Hatch (GP)

Cars allowed: Any car from WTCC06 or WTCC07
 
Time of Day Setting: 14:00
Weather: DRY
Start: STANDING
Tyre wear: Normal
Fuel consumption: Normal

Server: www.simracing.org.uk
Password: see above (#post_event_password)

Notes:
(1) It's best if all drivers can make sure they are connected before the Qualifying session as drivers on track during qualifying will not see cars that join after they are on track until they go back to the garage.
(2) Please make sure you are fully aware of the SimRacing.org.uk Rules.
(3) Driver lists can be found on the championship standings page (https://www.simracing.org.uk/smf/index.php?action=LM2R;group=283)

Special Notes: The grid procedure for Race 07 events is slightly different from GTL/GTR2. Upon joining the grid, you won't be able to rev your engine until all drivers are present on the grid. Do not attempt to esc back to garage or you will be DQ'd.

flipping 'eck..your trying to entice us into the warm waters of Race with a clio series?  ??? blah hah hah hah :laugh:

i did own one of these fast little buggers once, they are rapid with good power to weight, but made of coke cans and cheap plastic  ;D

 :laugh:

....at least they put the engine at the right end  ;)

Race isn't till April next year?

Correct, but there are planty more before this'n

https://www.simracing.org.uk/smf/index.php?action=LM2R&group=283&theme=4

Last race of the season guys!!!!!
If you can? come and join us for some of the closest racing you'll likely to have in a sim...trust me you won't be disapointed :thumbup1:

Well said Lazlow  :thumbup1:

Looks like I have the green light for this one too as Mrs. Goldtop isn't working  :)

will try and make this, always love Brands, and when ive tried the touring cars here before they are pretty great....besides i can hear the cars racing at Brands from my garden, its that local  :)

whats a decent touring car time here? I keep improving my laptimes only to get spanked by the AI at 100% !  :o   Tried the SEAT Leon and the BMW 320i so far. Was quicker in the Leon for quite a while until i got familiar with the beemer and now i love it. Its harder to drive on the very limit and far easier to spin but very satisfying to drive and its got its powered wheels at the correct end  ;)

Don't know about decent, but I was getting mid 38s after a few practice laps

Yep a 38 is on it.

I'd written off being able to race these Wednesday nights, so I've hardly had any pracci here. Furthermore my graphics card seems to be on the way out (new HD5770 should be here tomorrow :)) and I'm getting a few strange artifacts and grainy textures. Backing off the clock speed helped, so I'm hoping it will now hold out for tonight.

Hey guys ... i see this is the last race of your season and i was wondering if it would be ok to join you. I don't want to interfere with you final season standings or muck up someone's long hard fought season  :no: so, i thought it best to ask rather than barge right into the server.  ;D i will however understand if you tell me to piss off, as long as it's in a gentlemanly manner  ;D

cheers

Mac

The more the merrier Mac....come join us 8)

 :D We only do that later to the guys that win too many races. Welcome Mac. :)

cheers guys ... and don't worry i doubt i'll win any races  ;)

Welcome Mac  :thumbup1:

That was good fun and intense. Have to say, Touring cars at Brands is excellent fun. The cars look and sound great and the action is close up and intensive.  8)

Again my race night jinxing occured. Feel like ive lost my racing mojo lately with a string of bad races leaving me trundling at the back trying to catch the pack.  :(

I did a fair bit of praccy for this and yet tonght was a whopping 1.3 secs off my pace  ??? And in the race my car turned into an oversteering mess...3 laps in a row it span around on me entering paddock bend  :o and yet the car had been setup to be stable through there in all my praccy for maxium exit speed. Confused.

Race start was fun and furious though matt tried too hard in his vette barging up the inside of druids on the grass  ::) Had some great dices for first few laps but then the silly spins cost me dear. Finished 10th out of 14.

Great fun, shame we dont get decent grids like that every week. A tuesday slot using TC's would surely yeald bigger grids  :)

ps...sorry couldnt stay for race 2, my wifes been pretty ill this week so am on nursemaid duty.

Hey guys...raced with you this evening for the first time....Would love some help with setups...i did ask during practice but no one said anything after i asked..is that the by product of competition no one wants to share setup...I only ask because of this...i dont expect to live with you guys in the corners..i understand this but coming out of a couple of corners whilst looking behind quick i noticed i was on par around a couple of them and once they leveled the car up they passed my like i wasnt there...So i guess its down to setup if im coming out the corner at about the same speed then watch them fly past me...A blue Chevrolet just passed me like i was hardly going anywhere lol....Ive got some good times online around on nordschleife ..so i know i can kinda drive so i guess its setups....Id love some help cuz i wanna learn...but if its a secret kinda deal then i understand ill just have to learn to play around.....many thanks guys....I crashed thou fair enough but after being smashed by everyone on the straights i kinda lost heart....ANY help in this area id appreciate...Ill go and practise some more with your setups if thats happens i await ur imput cheers guys....

Jim i did upload my setup to the online files after you asked don't think it would have helped as it went off after a few laps and turned into a mess and couldn't keep it on track.
I'm no setup wizard, i just have a mess around until i think i can keep it on track for the whole race.

                                                             Welcome aboard, cheers Ade

I was one of the Blue Chevrolets tonight but I was running the game's supplied setup with 1 notch added to the top gear to stay off the rev limiter down the back straight. The different cars do appear to have different characteristics, which makes for some mad close racing at times.

Well done Pete for the title  :clap: :clap: TT and Ade  :thumbup2:

Again that was some fantastic racing tonight. This always provides the closest racing of all the sims i run.

Great to see some new faces aswell, hope you stick around and maybe they will continue into a new series  8)

Stick with it Jimmy i find in the Honda i have to make it very oversteery to get round corners fast and be gentle on the steering. I actually used the in game setup with a slight change to the gearing and wing.

Grats to Mac on the second race and Zac (wished we had a few more laps)  :P and all podiums.

well that helped me along on my boring wednesday night, great fun guys. it's a bit of a blur to me right enough, i get nervous around people i haven't raced before, you know the type of thing like... don't hit anyone, don't cause problems in race, don't drive like a d*ck etc, etc and trying to race close while trying to learn your opponents driving style takes a lot out of an old git like me  ;D mucho concentration needed  ::)

anyway... thanks for letting me race with you all, good racing in race2 Zac, but for your mistakes i would not have caught you and got by... wasn't quite fast enough.  :)

well done to all podiums, well earned with the pace being run  ;D

@ Jimmygreen

i used this a while back, when i didn't know wtf i was doing, i still don't really and i almost never practice but, it explains a wee bit about this and that in layman terms that you can understand.... it help me a lot in the beginning just to understand what i was doing when i adjusted these setting... i hope it helps, if not plant youarse and start lots of practicing  ;D

Setup Guides by Kevin Firlein
First article of WSC setup guides

Hi all. I have been asked to write a series of articles on setting up race cars with an eye towards WSC. With the forthcoming release of WSC there will be an ever increasing demand for the knowledge of race setups. The setting up of cars is a necessary skill to attain if we are ever to achieve our full potential of speed both in the real world of racing and in the virtual world. Hopefully in the following series of articles I can help ease the burden by providing a base knowledge that you can apply to the sim to achieve the car balance that will provide you with the best results.

THE RACING TYRE

All the time we spend developing mechanical and aerodynamic grip is directed at developing more traction from the tyre. This makes the tyres a logical place in which to start a discussion on car setup. The tyre is the only part of the car that the track “sees” and thus makes it the most important part of a cars handling.

WSC promises to be the most realistic sim ever produced and getting the best from our tyres over a qualifying lap and over the full length of an endurance race will be crucial. Modern day racing tyres produce there best grip when operated in the 200 – 225 degree F temperature range. Anything less is leaving grip and thus lap time on the table and anything more overheats the tyres. When the tyres overheat two conditions can and will occur.

The first one is that the tyre will become “greasy” and grip will be severely compromised. You will notice this rather easily. A car that was previously well balanced will pick up a sever understeer or oversteer condition based on which tyres are getting hot. You can help this problem if it occurs in a race by reducing your pace for a couple of laps till you feel the tyres come back to you again.

The second condition and the one you can’t help is the tyres may start to blister. When this happens chunks of the rubber will literally fly off the tyre and cause the tyre to explode sending your car flying off the road.

(remember Mansell at Adelaide in 1986?)

So you ask how do we get and keep the tyres in their operational temperature range? Testing, testing and more testing. :o ). There are a few false hoods from GPL that we need to unlearn in order to get successful performance from our tyres.

The first of those is trying to get even temperatures across the entire tyre. This is incorrect. Optimal performance is gained when the inside of the tyre runs at 15-20 degrees F from the outside with the middle of the tyre falling in between the two. This temperature range is caused from the fact that we always run negative camber on the tyres (except for ovals where the inside wheels will have positive camber).

The second falsehood is the practice of running highly increased tyre pressures in order to get faster straight line speed and thus lap time in GPL. While in a sim where tyres are correctly modelled you might have faster top speed the negatives would be severe. With modern day tyres and increase of 1 psi will raise the dynamic spring rate of the car by apx 50 lbs thus changing the cars handling balance dramatically. The other side effect will be highly increased temperatures in the center of the tyre which will cause blistering. So you ask what will be the correct pressure to run the tyres at ? Only testing will tell.

So now we will have done are testing and found the correct pressures and temperatures that the tyres like to be run at. We are all finished then correct? Wrong. WSC will model tyre wear. A feature that is absent in GPL. We will all be forced to learn how to drive the cars so as not to abuse the tyres. Different setups will be required for qualifying, racing, and most importantly endurance racing. To me this is going to be the most enjoyable part of WSC. No more “hotlapping” all thru a race. We will have to learn patience and be able to keep up a fast pace with minimal effort exerted on the car and tyres. Remember all that smoke from our tyres from lock ups entering turns in GPL (I am a prime offender on this one J)? That will cause massive damage to the tyres in WSC. Imagine running a 3 hour stint in a SRM 24hrs of Lemans (hint to Eric) after flat spotting your ft tyres on the first lap out of the pits. No fun at all.

We will also need to develop a race setup that will keep the tyres in that 200 – 225 degree F sweet spot for long periods of time. That will require setups with more chassis roll to absorb the forces before they are placed upon the tyres. More testing, testing, and testing.

Woohoo this is going to be fun!

 

Well I’ll stop here for now but after release I’ll comeback and update with some of the actual numbers and settings that I have found to work. I’ll be back soon with the next instalment of setup info that will hopefully be of interest and benefit to all.

Good racing!

ALIGNMENTS

Hi all. For the second instalment in my articles about race car handling and setups I have chosen to discuss alignments. We are going to talk about camber, caster, toe, and bump steer. The thing to remember as in all aspects of setting up a car is that there are no absolute right or wrong ways of doing it. Looking at the setup page for WSC it seems that we will be able to make a lot of adjustments in these areas in order to find the grip and comfort level we are looking for.

ALIGNMENTS

The first area I want to talk a bit about is caster. Caster is the fore and aft inclination of the wheel on its kingpin axis. The castor angle is associated mostly with the ft wheels as the effect on the rear is very minute. The caster angle has direct effect on how stable the car is and also on steering sensitivity. We are always looking to have an angle in which the front wheels lean back on their axis. The reason I hesitate to assign this either a positive or negative value is the fact the depending on where you are in the world backward tilt gets described as either positive or negative. Amazing. When setting up modern day Formula or Prototype chassis a caster angle of 4 degrees rearward tilt is a good starting place. If the caster angle is too small the chassis will be oversensitive to your steering inputs. If the angle is too large the steering will be heavy and too much road shock gets transmitted thru the steering wheel. I guess this will be a good test of our force feedback wheels. The one thing that we would never want in road racing is to have the caster set uneven. If you want uneven Caster angles go buy NASCAR 4 {g}.

Camber is the next area that I would head to when doing an alignment. Camber is the leaning of the tyre top in or out. If the tyre is leaning outwards at the top you have positive camber. If the tyre is leaning in at the top you have negative camber. Now despite what you may have seen on some GPL “hotlap” setups on a road race car we would never run positive camber. On ovals this is done to the inside wheels but never on a road course. Running positive camber at the front will cause the car to have understeer at entry and on the rear it will give you oversteer at the exit. These are not conditions you want to have in a race car. Positive camber will also over heat the outer edges of your tyres and cause accelerated wear.

So now that we have established that we always want to have negative camber the big question is, how much to run? Ha-ha good question. There will be many variables here. Radial tyres like used on most modern cars can handle much greater camber angles.

4 degrees of camber is not at all uncommon. Older bias ply tyres can run as little as 1/4 degree negative camber or less. So how do we figure it out? How else, take to the track and let’s go testing. Basically you want to look for a setting that gives you the temperature spread you are looking for across the tyres, 15 -20 degrees. Remember we want the inside of the tyre hotter then the outside. If we go too far the car will tell let us know. If your front camber is too much negative you’ll have reduced braking ability and if the rear is too much negative you won’t be able to put the power down properly.

The last two areas toe and bump steer are related. I will discuss toe first. Toe angle is pointing the front of the tyres either in or out. If the tyres point out you have negative toe and if they point in you have positive toe. As a general rule of thumb we want to have negative toe at the front and positive toe at the rear. The amounts vary vastly based on the type of car and suspension and also on the driver. I generally set my formula cars up with a total front toe (combined total of both wheels) of 1/16 inch negative. I set the rear at the same amount but make it 1/16 positive. A heavier sedan such as the GT cars in WSC would use larger values due to their increased suspension travel. By the way there is nothing wrong with running positive toe at the front of the car. I know many drivers who set their cars up this way it just isn’t my cup of tea.

So what do we look for? Well take to the track and do some laps feeling the car out. Does your car feel rather darty over the track bumps that WSC will have modelled or does it refuse to give you a good crisp turn in initially? Get rid of that positive front toe you are running. :o ) Told you it wasn’t my cup of tea {g} If under braking you feel the car wants to wander a bit try a little less negative front toe. If you car wanders about in a straight line on a smooth surface or snaps into oversteer when cornering check to make sure you haven’t accidentally selected negative toe in the rear. This will never work. Yeah I know, this is the way I made my F2 cars seriously fast in GPL but trust me you wont want it. If you set your rear toe too much positive it will take “the feel” away from the back of the car. The other thing to keep in mind is that the greater the values you set for toe, front and rear, the more tyre scrub you are inducing. This will make the car slower in a straight line. This is something that is missing from GPL.

The last item in a proper alignment is setting the bump steer. What this is is the change in toe both front and rear as the suspension travels thru its usable range. I don’t really know if it is going to be modelled or not but its good info to have anyway. I usually try to keep the deviations down to .001 or so thru the entire travel of the suspension. At the front it would toe out an extra .001 at full travel in bump and at rear it would toe in an extra .001 under full bump. If you are in the mood to be clever you can fix minor handling issues with bump steer.

Say if your car is amazing everywhere but you want just a hint better initial turn in what would you do? You can’t change springs, dampers, roll without effecting the balance elsewhere. Well you can add just a bit of bumpsteer to the front say .0015 or .002 so that the wheels toe out just a bit more under braking. This can give you a little better turn in without hurting anything else. At the rear the big issue is too make sure that when the rear of the car is in full droop, i.e. under heavy braking you don’t have the wheels going into negative toe. If that happens you will get a lovely panoramic view of the scenery as you are spinning {g}.

The big thing to keep in mind when dealing with alignments is there is no magic involved. A proper alignment just gives you a good stable base chassis with which to begin you’re tuning with. If you have major handling problem, the alignment isn’t the place to try and fix it. Verify that you haven’t stepped into one of the trouble areas that I outlined above then head to other parts of the chassis to find the cure.

DAMPERS

Hi all. It is now time to talk about the magical world of dampers. In the world of racing today there is no faster evolving item in the setup sheets. This is meant to be just an overview on damper settings and not chapter and verse. I think someone could write an entire book on nothing else but dampers and how to get the most out of them. What the dampers do is to dampen the oscillations of the springs. They also will determine the rate at which the weight will be transferred across the chassis. In other words they will have a direct effect on how fast or slow the chassis rolls. It takes many miles of testing in order to “dial in” the dampers. Nowadays we have adjustable dampers that allow us to tune for the exact handling package that we are looking for. There are numerous different adjustments to valving and pistons that we could make but for now let’s just concern ourselves with the external adjustments of bump and rebound.

DAMPERS

First we will talk about the bump adjustments. Bump is when the damper is compressed. This can be either from going over road imperfections or when the weight is being transferred onto the dampers from chassis roll. I tend to concern myself mostly with how the car drives over the road surface when adjusting my bump. You pay attention to the important areas of the track the most such as acceleration and braking zones and the most critical areas of the corners. So let’s head to the track and do some testing.

First thing we will want to do is set the rebound control to its softest setting. Rebound control is not what we are after here. Also set the bump to its softest point and let’s go drive a bit. What we are looking for is a good baseline setting. Slowly increase the bump 1adjustment at a time until the ride becomes overly harsh and you start losing traction in the critical areas outlined above. It will take more then just a few laps to come up with a front and rears setting you are comfortable with. Remember at this stage we just are looking for a base setting. We will fine tune for handling a bit later.

Ok now that we have a base Bump setting lets tackle the rebound side of the shock. Rebound is anytime the shock is being extended. It is the way we tune the amount of roll a chassis has. Take to the track and slowly increase the rebound till you get rid of the “luxury car” soft feeling. With current generation dampers we are actually able to fine tune the rebound so well that anti-roll bars; particularly at the rear, are no longer necessary. OK so now you have a car that has the base feel that you like but it still isn’t as fast as you would like. Ha-ha now the real fun begins.

Back to the track we go again. I guess you have begun to figure out that making a race car handle to your liking is going to take some serious time and testing. Just means more WSC {g} Anyway back to the track and let’s get it dialed in. Let’s start with corner entry. Does you car want to understeer during initial turn in? There a couple of things to try. Possibly the front roll resistance is too high. Try and soften front rebound a notch or two. It is also possible that your front bump settings are too soft. If the bump is too soft it will allow the car to fall over on the outer front tire causing a bad understeer. Does you car have a oversteer condition on entry? If it does look else where for the cure. Other then making sure your rear rebound isn’t so stiff that you have way to much roll resistance then dampers aren’t the solution to the problem.

Ok now let’s move to the fun part of the corner, the exit. Getting a great exit out of corners is a must to fast lap times and making passes. The key is to be able to put the power without wheelspin and without having to lift off the throttle. So you say you are losing traction at exits? Try stiffening the rear bump. A little stiffer bump will help to plant the rear of the car and help the tires get traction. You could also try a little less rebound to add a bit off roll to the rear of the chassis.

So what if you have exit understeer? If you have exit understeer you are in trouble. Exit understeer will kill tires and laptimes. Dampers generally aren’t the answer. If it is a minor understeer you can try to stiffen the front rebound to slow the weight transfer to the rear down and keep the weight on the front as long as possible. It is very important not to jump to conclusions here. Don’t be fooled. It may be the car has been understeering all thru the corner and is just getting worse at exit. If that’s the case try some of the steps above.

I think it is important to point out that the dampers are adjusted off their baseline when looking for the last 10-20 % of performance. If you are way off the dampers aren’t the biggest issue. Trying springs, ride heights and aero loads are the first things to check out. Once you are looking for those last bits don’t be afraid to try things. In WSC and other Sims where ambient temperature changes are modelled getting a handle on the dampers will be very important. As the grip level changes on the track constant adjustments will need to be made. There is no right or wrong ways to set the dampers. It is all down to driver preference and feel.

well I have tried to relay a base knowledge of the dampers what to look for and what to try. It is based on a constant radius turn. Happily there are many different types of corners which test are abilities. I prefer to do my tuning with rebound. Its all about controlling weight transfer. The range of adjustments on modern dampers is unreal. You can have upwards of 52 different external adjustments and near as many internal combinations to choose from.

I cannot stress enough the need to go to the track pick your favourite chassis and run laps. It takes practice in order to find the right combination for you. This is a very tough step item to get a feel for.

 

@ Jimmygreen

RAIN SETUPS

Hi all. Now we are going to talk about one of my favourite topics, rain. There is nothing in life more fun than rain racing. Of course if your car is a diabolically handling nightmare you might not share my sentiments. There are a few things to keep in mind as far as driving goes that will make your life much easier. A properly setup car can accelerate fairly well in the rain, it can brake fairly well, and it can corner fairly well. What it cannot do is any of the three at the same time. You need to be smooth with all applications of throttle, brake, and steering. Keep a positive attitude and have fun with it.
Now let’s get to the car.

RAIN SETUPS

Well we come to our first WSC race and our crafty league administrator has decided it needs to be in the rain {g}. That super handling car you had that set a World Record in qualifying is now in need of some major changes. The first thing we are going to change is the alignment. Well of course that is after we switch to the rain tyres. You will need to increase your static ride height. The reason being is that as the rain forms a layer on the track and puddles build up the chassis itself will begin to hydroplane. In other words the bottom of the chassis will actually surf along the water and lift the tyres off the ground. Not really what you want to have happen when approaching 240 MPH on the Mulsanne straight. There is no exact amount to raise the car. It simply takes a few laps of testing in the conditions to get a proper height set.

Next we go to the cambers and toes. We will need an increase in both. A touch extra negative camber on the tyres will be in order. A little extra camber makes it easier for the tyres to slice through the water on the track. Those big fat wide tyres that are so great for grip in the dry are a major liability in the wet. The wider the tyre the more apt it is to hydroplane. Increasing the negative camber is an effective method to combat this problem. Even though rain compounds are fairly soft building tyre temperature up can still be rough to do. Increasing the amount of positive toe on the rear of the car can be helpful in trying to get the rubber up to temperature.

Ok now we have the basic alignment and ride height set and is almost ready to start tuning some of the more major areas of the car. There is one last basic item that needs attention. You will need to run much more rear brake bias in the rain than you run in the dry. In the dry there is major weight transfer to the front of the car under heavy braking. That’s the reason for running brake bias that is greater in the front then in the rear. The front tires have more grip because of the transfer so that’s where the braking emphasis needs to be. In the rain this won’t happen. We can’t brake quite as hard and thus less weight will be transferred to the front. Therefore we need to turn the brake bias back towards the rear of the car. The amount is based on driver preference of course but it can be a sizeable amount.

Let’s move on and talk about spring rates for the rain. The nice stiff springs we were using for our dry setup will need to be softened up. The reason for this is that we will be generating less cornering force in the rain. We were running stiff springs in the dry to hold the chassis up under aerodynamic loads but as we are going slower in the rain the loads will be much less. Softer springs will make the car more forgiving and help generate more mechanical grip. Basically you want to be as soft as possible. You are looking for that happy medium that keeps the car from bottoming out without having to increase the ride height any more than necessary. The big thing to remember is to soften the front and rear springs an equal percentage. That way you will keep that same lovely balance you had in the dry.

Keeping the same line of thinking we are going to reduce the rate on our anti-roll bars as well. Making the bars sifter will allow the car to have more roll when cornering and again give more grip in the wet. The big question here is whether we are going to make them full soft or just go ahead and disconnect them all together. For me the deciding factor is whether or not we have the ability to adjust the bars from the cockpit or not. If they are cockpit adjustable I would recommend leaving them attached so you have some options to balance the chassis out on the fly. Many times while racing in the rain I have found myself stiffening either the front or the rear anti-roll bar in an attempt to balance the chassis. If they had been disconnected I wouldn’t have had that option. However if they aren’t adjustable from inside the car it may be best just to unhook them all together. It does give a little extra roll and makes the car a bit easier to control.

Our dampers will also need to be adjusted. The first thing you do is to soften the rebound just as much as you can. The softer you can make the rebound the easier the car will be to handle. It will make the car a rolley polley mess but that is exactly what you want in the rain :o ). You won’t believe how much easier it makes things until you give it a try. How much to reduce the bump is debatable. If you are driving a car that has 2 bump adjustments ( one for high speed shaft movement and 1 for low speed shaft movement) Note from Editor : Hint to Chris West :P then you would make the low speed as soft as possible while not touching the high speed. Leaving the high speed adjustment alone will help hold the car up under aero loads and aide in what downforce we are able to generate. If the car has only a single bump adjustment then we need to compromise. Racing is nothing but a big compromise anyway so this should be nothing new. Try softening the bump a few notches and see how it feels.

What we have left to deal with is the wings if we have them. Add as much as you can. The more wing the better. Add the biggest wing and the most angle that the chassis can handle. This will aid you in two areas. First the obvious is that it will help build some of that lost cornering force back up. Second it will fight against the dreaded hydroplaning. Sure we will be going a bit slower in a straight line but don’t worry about it. Trust me, rain races aren’t won on straight line speed.

So there you have it. A basic guide to setting up your chassis to handle those wet races that will surely be heading our way. Remember that racing in the wet is not any more dangerous then the dry. The dangerous are always present and they are the same in both conditions. What wet weather racing is is much more difficult. And that difficulty is exactly what makes it great. I love it :o )

That was fantastic, I'd forgotten how good it was racing online with you guys! :)

I managed to catch about 30 mins of the practice session but didn't know the cars well enough to deviate from the default setup, and due to a badly planned loo stop (!) I managed to miss too much of quali to set a time :D but that actually worked quite well, getting used to close racing without too much pressure from behind in the early laps. Apologies to TT as I did catch my braking point a little early when we were battling! :angel: But no harm done at all I don't think :) I was impressed how well the collision physics worked and there was no crazy warp or anything!  Had some really nice battles with people the whole race :)

Race 2 was great and a lot of hard work, trying to work out where I was losing a tenth or two each lap to MAC who (thankfully) had TT to cope with before me, allowing me a bit of a head-start in the first few laps.  As the race went on I was moving the brake bias back to cope with some understeer coming into corners, but it caught me out in the end and I went wide into turns 2 and 4, and MAC managed to get by on the inside.  In the end I was lucky not to lose out to Gazza, who would maybe easily have had 2nd if there was another lap! :surrender:

Grats to Pete and Team Psuedo for their titles 8) hope to be racing again soon :)

Can the tyre usage be set to 1/2 on the server? :( Was a great racing in both races until tyres went over 10. Then it was just a torture. Seems like FWD cars don't suffer as much tyre usage or the cars are taking it better. BMW was almost impossible to drive, it was like a bucking horse, the rubber just didn't grip and in the end I was losing 4 sec per lap and every car left me for dead. Lost 2 places in the last lap in the 2nd race. :(

Something must be done before the next season. Either a mod with more durable tyres or I don't know what. I certainly can't be arsed to race where I can follow the leader for 5 laps then move backwards one place each lap. :( Would feel ok if it would be just in this race but I felt it in every race this season - I think the tyre model just isn't fit for online racing. And you can't choose harder tyres, so... That said, it's always a pleasure to drive with you guys, will come back for it. 8)

Grats to podys of both races and Championship.

Welcome to new guys and welcome back, Zacari. :)

@Jimmygreen:
Was using mostly the default setup, just a few chages with arbs and gearing. Was changing parameters in training but got mostly the same laptimes. I feel setup in Race doesn't affect the car as much as in GTR(2).   

Wow, been doing the online racing lark for 12 years I reckon, starting back with GPL. This is the first time I've won a championship! Been great racing with you guys, but I fear I will be unable to successfully defend this title as I had a head start before some of the quick guys realised this format could be fun ;)

Nice to see a large-ish grid for this round. Bucks the trend of numbers dwindling as a season progresses.

@TT - I think we all suffer serious tyre wear in these things. However the front wheel drive cars tend to exhibit more and more understeer. If you remember to push a little less they're still controllable. However I suspect it's a different story with the real wheel drive cars. Perhaps join the FWD crowd in the future?

Yes Pete, I was thinking to try the FWD car in the next season as I like to experiment with different cars. Will need a setup, though. I don't have a clue how to set up and drive this kind of car. :-X

Nor me TT, I think you'll see from the above posts that many of us are running a supplied setup with, especially in my case, minimal changes

TT, thats a couple of races recently you have mentioned excessive tyre wear...you sure its not your driving style or setup? My car (BMW) still had 83-86% tyre life left in them at the end of the race. I have found the default setups have the tyres very under pressured. My super fangled motec-add tells me to put air in constantly when doing testing. If that helps.

great to see some new and old faces last night  :)

I was driving the BMW and managed to finish 2nd in race one :-X .....at the end of the race though my rear tyres were at 55% wear!!! I agree the tyres did go off, but it was the last 10 mins that I struggled with the handling.

Maybe if we reduced the races to 20mins this would solve the tyre problem for the Bemmer.

I found stiffening my rear ATB up to 15 helped reduce the oversteer slightly while driving out of the corner, and reducing my rear tyre pressure gave me a little more grip at the rear. The main improvement I found was getting the gearing right, I managed to take 2 sec out of my practice times.

Laz

Thank you so much for the imput guys!i will stick with it and mess about thanks so so much i do appreciate the help!!!

I do love this game and would love to get better....Practice and all......Ive got a logitech gt wheel..not that great initially designed for play station gt5..Its not bad but the peddles are a bit on the crap side the wheel itself is like my bros g25....Looking at making my own out of a g27 at some point...

Next time ill get my mic sorted for team speak....I can always run a server too, got a fairly good connection and dedicated server running weve had about 10 peeps on there no probs...

Lol speaking of loo stops im 34 and have the bladder of a 94 year old mother of ten  :P...

Whats the next track next wednesday??Id love to practice and be a lil closer :P
 

Erm.. If you check the series links at the top your'll see that was our last race in the season. Sorry.

These races are really good fun, a chance to let your hair down. Though i do get more stressed with these short races than the proper lengthed ones so sorry to API for trying to go for any advantage especially into Sheen.

Race/ Evo does do touring car races very well and i think there are a few people still here enjoying them so would it be too much to ask for it continuing?

We could have some fun races on Wednesdays until the next Championship starts. :)

do a TC series of races using just Brit TC tracks ? could be fun.

Erm...I thought that's what we just did  :)


If someone wants to take this on, that's fine by me.

I've enjoyed the few races I've been able to attend this series, but tbh Wednesdays are just proving to be very difficult/impossible for me atm. I don't want to commit myself to organising another season that I'm rarely able to race in.

At the moment I'm concentrating my efforts on F1 88 which I really hope will be a success.