SimRacing.org.uk

Car: Radical SR8
Track: Zandvoort (Chicane)
Practice: 18:00 for 150 mins (approx)
Qualifying: 20:30 (15 mins)
Race: 20:45 35 laps (approx 60 mins)

Start: Rolling - standard iRacing double file start
No fast tows will be available

Pit Stops: You must make a minimum of one pit stop during which you must take on at least 1 litre of fuel and/or change at least two tyres. You cannot take a mandatory stop at the end of the pace lap, or with less than 1 lap to go.

Password: see above (#post_event_password)
(2) Driver lists can be found on the championship standings page (https://www.simracing.org.uk/smf/index.php?action=LM2R;group=264;theme=33)

Has something gone wrong up there?  ???

Ooops! I've linked the wrong event ::)

Help! I'm not sure how to unlink it  ???

Good job I'm going isn't it.....  :D

I've not driven Zandvoort before in iRacing, this is a great combination. How many laps are we doing Pops?

Regards
Gary

If my laptimes are anything to go by it'll be around 100.  ::)

Race length updated.

You poor deprived person! See what you've been missing?!

Ah its the story of my life Ken.

I might just keep racing here and not bother with the last race at the Glen ;D

Gary

It sounds like you are making up for lost time Gary.

Practising before the day of a race...  :o

Don't peak too soon ;)

Cheat! :P :laugh:

How dare you sir, I challenge you to a ...

Radical at Zandvoort ;D

Obviously you'll get the one with the boring paint job ;)

Server is up :)

The guys at the top are stunningly fast. I was 3 seconds down on them until I found the cheat code. Turning FF off I gained 2 seconds a lap so now I'm only 1 second behind. It becomes a lot easier not reacting to the steering being jolted over all the bumps and instead just reacting to the movement of the car.

I be out visiting parents tonight...

CHEATER!!! MACROER!!! EXPLOITER!!! USER OF EXCESSIVE PUNCTUATION!!!!!!!

Oh no, that last one was me.  Sorry.

:)

Simon for gods sake don't post that on the iRacing forum's, we'll have one post of 453 pages calling for iRacing to do something about this dreadful abuse of the system and another with Mario P telling you how your ForceFeedback settings are wrong

 ;D

Gary

I actually turned my ffb up a couple of races ago...

Gary

LOL. Tempting. :shifty: :lol: I'd better not mention that I'm half fish half human either. :laugh:

I've tried so many FF settings and I can't say I'm ever happy with them. 12 in game gives you the best feedback but you need arms of steel and once you start going below 8 you lose steering feedback and just get bump feedback. The Radical seems particularly "bad" for getting a nice mix compared to the other cars. I had been running it on 3 or 4 before I turned it off last night. I will try 12 again in game, but 60% in the control panel (rather than 107% or 100%) to see if that gives me the feedback but without the need to be superman.

It certainly feels wierd as heck with no feedback and the steering is as light as squirty cream. I don't like the way it feels, but it does mean I can point the car straight. :)

Good track for the car, but again why did they put that silly chicane in the middle of a perfectly good section of track? The track would be better without either of the 2 little chicanes.

Have you read this: http://members.iracing.com/jforum/posts/list/33606.page?

It's the best description of what's happening I've read.

If you're looking for steering feel like a real car then you'll need to spend serious money on a Frex or similar.

Paul
:)

I use 5 in sim and 50% on my wheel, its a bit more powerful than a G25/G27 though. But keep the sliding in sim around 5

Regards
Gary

I'm using G25.  102% in profiler and 8 or 9 in-sim for the Radical.  Some cars I've turned it up to 12 or more though, like the Mustang or I can't feel anything.  G25's are pretty weak compared to real life.  When you set them up as Ade suggests so that the forces aren't clipped, you realise how weak the motors actually are.

All they use are a pair of Mabuchi RS540 motors (maybe even a bit smaller) which you will find bolted into those (slow) Tamiya R/C car kits.  When I did R/C racing, we used motors with an awfull lot more power and torque than those.

Are there more powerful motors which are a direct swap then or do they have different current requirements?

Whether the G25 mechanism would take much extra power is the question of course but it might be an interesting experiment.

Paul
:)

If they are indeed 540 size, then yes there are stronger motors that are a direct replacement, they will pull much more power (20 amps or more at full speed in an R/C  :o )and if the internal gearing is plastic, you'll strip the gears when you hit the first bump.  The G27's helical gears would be better for that, but even they might suffer.

In all honesty, you would need at least 4 times the torque to even get close to real-life forces.  Certainly possible to do, but probably 4 times more expensive to produce too.

RS540's are about £10.  R/C racing motors start from £50.  That's at least £80 more just for the motors

EDIT: BRD's unreleased FFB wheel seemed to be usingsomething about the size of a car starter motor.  They said that it could produce fully realistic forces and could break bones if you didn't let go before you crashed.

A lot of the problem is that once you start using metal in the mechanism you increase the transmission losses so need a more powerful motor.  It's a vicious circle.

I wonder how much power the G25 PCB can supply in standard form?

I'm not really interested in getting real world forces.

All I really want is good feedback from the game to simulate what I can't feel from the lack of g-forces sitting in my chair. Even if that means I get things through the wheel I wouldn't get in reality. I want to get feedback as to those forces as it's all those forces put together + real world steering feedback that come together to help you feel the things you need to feel to get a proper sense of what the car is doing.

Whether that's really possible or not I don't know, but I've always been of the belief that I get a better sense of what the car is doing in GTR2 than I do in iRacing because the feedback I'm given through the wheel is more comprehensive even if it's not true to life.

What I find I have to do is leave the profiler setting at 102% and set the game slider so I can feel the steering.  Bumps will get clipped, but I have to accept that because the motors aren't powerfull enough.

The PCB isn't so much the problem with the right FET's but the input power will need to be 10 times more than the ickle PSU provides now.  It's rated at 1.75 amps.  Using new motors of the same size may require a 25 amp PSU.  We are starting to talk serious money for something that will still not get to real-life levels.

Of course there's another problem.  Strapping an FFB wheel that could output at real-life levels to a normal desk, will break the desk.  :D

I'm all for realism, but breaking bones....  :o

I think I'll stick to my G25  :laugh:

Have you seen the price of a Frex?  :o

Frex will get to realistic levels, and yep, £1333.00 that's about the price BRD would have been asking for their wheel.  Far too much engineering needed for a mass-market wheel, which is all the G25/27 is.  That said, they are also the best mass-market wheels :)

Server is up :)

No, we can't really complain about the G25/G27 for the price.  I had mine apart a few months ago to check it for wear and there simply wasn't any.  Not bad for what must be a 3-4 year old wheel that's had a lot of use.

I'd love a Frex but proper Engineering costs proper money.  There are no shortcuts.

Paul
:)

Quoted for truth. :)

See you on track everyone.

 :( Sorry i couldn't make this one

Only 7 of us there. I was 7th in practice, 7th in qualifying and although I was up to 5th in the race, one tiny mistake as I ran a tiny bit wide half way through the lap I couldn't stop before the barrier and it jammed me into it and I couldn't get off. I lost 50 seconds trying to get off the barrier, shift+r'd, waited 2+ minutes only to find my car was not safe to drive. Drove around one lap at half speed and retired, finishing 7th! :-)

Hope the rest of you guys finished. I was having a good race up until then, chasing Darren, passing him and then closing on Paul. But it wasn't meant to be.

Ended up using 102% FF, 0, 0, centering spring on but at 0 and then 4 in game. I beat my time from yesterday without FF, thus proving it was more to do with practice than the force feedback. :)

Busy race and very hard work.

Qualified 2nd and Gary, Brendan and I broke away at the start.  I was faster but couldn't get close enough to try a pass, so once I got to a decent pit window, I pitted early.  I had to try something as I wasn't going anywhere as it was.

With more fuel back onboard, it was sliding around a lot more, but I had to push as I was sure Gary wouldn't change tyres.  I only had 4 sec to go to Darren and I soon caught him.  Thought I might be able to clear him, but I still couldn't get close enough to pass :(  Must be something in the setup, once behind another car, I'm stuck!

I was very surprised to see Gary behind me a few laps later, and even back behind Brendan!  Eventually Darren pitted and I just needed to keep an eye on the 8sec gap back to Brendan.  Until he spun and put Gary back to 2nd.

Spices up the championship again!  Well done everyone.

I really shouldn't have raced...  Felt crap all day and only joined to boost an already poor turnout...

Lack of preparation showed..  I was well off the pace and it took all my concentration just to stay on the track.  ::)  I went for a splash and dash strategy but stupidly had enough fuel for 45 laps instead of 35.   :laugh:

After Mike pitted he soon caught me up.  I knew he had a big gap over Brendan and Gary, so I didn't yield position.  However, if you had gone for it Mike I wouldn't have contested.  Once Brendan dipped inside 10 seconds I thought it was best to get out the way and pit..  (nearly running straight into the pit wall in the process  :o )

After that I strolled home to an easy 4th.

Congrats to Mike for the win and to Brendan and Gary for the podium...

Well I made a mess of that, it really was a comedy of errors.

Logged in, steering wheel offset, reboot, login again loses me a good few minutes with practice. Then I couldn't get team speak to work. Then I came out of the pits and I couldn't get the pitlimiter to disengage all losing lots of time

Eventually things went well in qually with pole with some new fastest sector times.

The first 16 laps or so were intense, I think Mike was lighter but we were less than a second apart for the whole time. When he pitted I put in some good laps and then made the crucial error, decided to pit late and although I was not speeding in the pitlane iRacing judged I'd made an unsafe pit entry and gave me a 15 second penalty. I'm still pretty gutted about this, not just for the loss of position but it would have been fun to go head to head with Mike for the last laps.

Chasing Brendan down I made a couple of errors and dropped behind him a way but was still third after Darren pitted. With Brendan having a problem on the last but one lap I got a very lucky second.

This was always the track I was worried about as I'd not driven it so second will do nicely but that win would have been nice.

Anyway Mike and I have a showdown in two weeks for the championship.

Well done Mike, Brendan

Regards
Gary

You still hold the advantage with dropped scores.

If my calculation is right, I need to win with you 3rd or lower to win the title.  Had you been 3rd tonight, it would be winner takes all in 2 weeks.   ;D

Another race, another cock-up.

Practice went as planned.  I was as quick on low fuel as I expected and pitstop practice went fine.  Qually too was OK.  I wasn't as quick as I possibly could have been but Brendan was quicker than I could have gone anyway so it didn't matter.

The start went well.  Dave alongside down the main straight but I held the outside line and kept 4th.  After that I had to concentrate to stay ahead but after a while I started to make a gap.  The person behind me varied a bit but Dave and Simon both made mistakes and I was left with Darren about 7 seconds back when I stopped.

The stop was fine.  When I came out I saw that Darren was going longer so I knew I'd have to push to stay ahead.  Then I came into the awkward right left in the middle of the track.  Went round the right hander fine then braked or the left and the back end just snapped round.  I reacted, it snapped left and was thrown into the barrier.  I don't have little accidents.  Race over.

I'm still puzzled as to why it did that.  Maybe something broke.  It's a pity, it was a good little battle with Darren and I was enjoying it.

Well done to Mike.

Pity about the low turnout.  Watkins Glen next.  Great track.

Paul

I can't believe how low the turnout was here last night to be honest, great track and car combination and seven people turn up.

What are we getting wrong, we've changed cars a number of times but it always gets down to the same few only racing at the end of a season :(

Gary

I watched my pit entry last night and I clipped probably a metre of the whiteline which was very costly in terms of points. Still it does make the Glen an interesting race.

Yes I have a 47 point lead after you drop a score, shame its not 127 but thats life so we'll just have to do our best next time out. To be honest I don't do this for race wins or winning the championship I do it for the type of driving Mike and I enjoyed for 16 laps or so last night.

Brilliant fun, he was quicker behind me in most places apart from the exit of the chicane but I was neat tidy and had some in reserve for after he pitted. The challenge of racing whether its for 15 or 1st is what makes this fun.

Regards
Gary

Shambolic performance from me. >:(

Never found a comfortable setup and my confidence kept dropping during practice. In qualifying I couldn't even match my practice times on low fuel.

Got a good start and almost stole 4th from Bananaman. After a couple of laps following him I realised that my setup was completely different from his and that I was much faster in the slow corners, but misjudged an attempt to squeeze  by out of turn 10, caught the grass and had a major moment, allowing Darren past.

That was the beginning of a long an painful series of mistakes as the car repeatedly oversteered and understeer seemingly at random, sending me off numerous times. After one of my bigger spins I decided to pit and see if more fuel on board would help the balance. It didn't, but it did slow me down enough to stop going off quite so much. ::)

Darren came out of his late stop some 30s up the road and I lost all remaining interest and concentration. The last few laps on light fuel were a nightmare, and I was actually hoping that one of my offs would put my in the barriers and out of my misery, but no such luck.

I'm now out of the championship fight but unlikely to lose 3rd as long as I turn up to the final round. I just hope there are some more takers for the finalé!

Wow - shocking turnout :(

Having had a very busy week I hadn't had a chance to practice before last night - so I got on the server as soon as I could.  It was too little too late though ... I've struggled with the Radical all season ... and the chicane was a nightmare for me.  I was having enough problems round the rest of the track, but almost every other lap I got the chicane wrong ... under braking, over the kerbs, getting back on the power ...

Well done to you guys that raced, and finished .... I would have loved to have been able to race - but I took the sensible option and retired before putting up a SRouk record number of incident points :(

Yes, the turnout wasn't great was it.  With the tail off towards the end of a season inevitable, I suppose this confirms that a 12 race season is a few too many.

I'll apologise in advance because I think I may be absent from the final round(s) as my G27 has got to go back to Logitech for repair.  :(

Sorry Pops/ all, combination of reasons for me - shattered, not practiced and have done Zandy to death of late in one series or another so just couldn't muster the enthusiasm required, despite wanting to try some of the FF settings you guys have been posting.

I want to get involved in a championship again as it's what's missing from my racing at the moment but as it's quite late in the day I'm just gonna hang on until the new seasons starts and use the time to check out a few other series for ideas!

Unfortunately the low turnout last night only confirms what I and others have been dreading for some time.  UKiR as a series is dead...  :'(

A nice positive assessment of the situation .... ::)


I still think it is salvageable - running on a Sunday evening .... but we need it to be sorted out, and soon, and publicized too.

LOL you been at the dramatic pills Daz!? You're only missing the violins! ;D

It's not dead at all bud - just needs some refining and yeah, shoving to a Sunday as Adam says.

It's not dead yet, but it won't survive with just the members we have already.  We need more drivers and, I think, a combination of sprint and endurance racing.

Are you being serious?! You are in the championship battle. Ok not for 1st, 2nd or 3rd, but so what, are all the other places worthless and not worth fighting for? If we all had that attitude there would only be 3 guys left at the final race!

You don't want to race cause you're busy, tired, don't like the car, buggered internet, broken wheel, broken leg etc. All real, genuine reasons, but don't want to race cause you're no longer in the championship hunt. Pah, rubbish excuse.

I thought the main reason to join a race here was to race with everyone else here. Championships and points are part of the competition, but not the be all and end all.

We are getting closer to festive season, so i suppose particpation we be getting lower, closer we get...

That's a good point too.  It's the end of the Championship season and Xmas is coming up.

I think this is all being blown a bit out of proportion. The previous race there were 17 drivers, so it strikes me that the low numbers were at least partly down to circumstances. The ones who didn't turn up are mostly those well out of the championship anyway.

Sorry I didn't make this one, my little boy hadn't been too well for a few days and I was sorely lacking some sleep!

I've learned the hard way that there's no point racing unless I'm able to concentrate, I just end up frustrated and not enjoying it.  :sleep1:

This post really baffles me that one person can find the FFB so poor, yet others think the FFB is one of the best features. I can't find the post but you said somewhere you were much faster without FFB as you felt the FFB what you viewed on screen did not match.

Not to pull Jeff in here, but I honestly feel that the FFB is the best I've come across. In GTR2 I used no FFB but had a stiff wheel as I felt nothing at all. I actually found it better on inverted settings where the game practically turned the corner for you.

In iRacing what I feel through the wheel matches up with what I see on screen and I can react to that.

So this beggars the question, is it settings,  perceived feel, hardware issues or something random?

I honestly don't follow as the FFB is one of the best features and allows me to react what is happening on screen.