SimRacing.org.uk

The first of the new series of GT races is this Friday at 9:00p.m.

Original Papyrus circuit

35 Laps  

Rolling Start.....we will try this again, same rules as last time but some of us need to be a little more careful this time  ;D

There will also be pitstops and the times for each chassis are listed below.

For a full description of the rules etc see  https://www.simracing.org.uk/smf/index.php?topic=9041.0




GT Open

	Single Stop Time		Double Stop Time
Porsche 910	No Stop		N/A
Ford GT40 Mk1	35		12
Mirage M1	115		53
Ford GT40 Mk2B	119		54
Lola T70 Mk3	137		64
Ford GT40 Mk4	142		66
Chaparral MK2D	149		74
Ferrari 330 P4	155		74
Chaparral Mk2F	185		88

 First Pit Window is: 28 (to go on your pit board) to 18 (to go on your pit board)
 Second Pit Window is: 26 (to go on your pit board) to 9 (to go on your pit board)

Does anyone know of a fix, to allow the pitboard to be shown properly, inside these cars?  :-\

Not that I know of. I've been hitting F10 on the s/f straights to check the pitboard whenever I need, but it's not very comfortable.

I've got to go out on Friday night so I'm not sure if I'll be back in time for this.  Hope so, it should be good. 

It would probably be best if drivers took the same chassis as the last race, that way everyone will have a reasonable setup and we will have a good spread of cars to check the pit stop system.  It would be a pointless exercise if it turned into a Porsche supercup race.  That means I'll be taking the Ford GT40 Mk1 again but I'm happy to swap if someone wants a change.

I did a quick check with the calculator to see what would have happened in the last race if we'd have been using pit stops.  Hristo would have still beaten me but only by 1 minute and 6 seconds.  Not by a full 2 laps!  This raises an interesting question, unless Hristo can get a massive lead before the first pit stop I will have a good chance to pass him in the pits.  So that means when he tries to pass me it will be for position rather than being lapped.  Hence there will be no blue flags and I will be entitled to defend my position.  Futile I know, but I certainly don't intend to let him past easily like I normally do.

This could be interesting.

I would like to race the Porsche this time. You can call me a wimp, Evil.  ;D

In that case....

Clive, I think you have underrated the Porsche and it needs a pit-stop of at least 6 minutes  ;D

Not around on Friday - which is a shame. Enjoy it.

If I have to move forward each 15 seconds for 6 minutes to avoid being taken off the track, I would probably end up outside the pitlane!  :D

Yes I think we have severely underestimated the Porsche ( or Hristo, or both!). But we only had the laptimes from a couple of races to work with.

Maybe we should get Hristo to try ALL of the cars and use his best times as the basis for the handicaps???  lol

The intention of the pitstops is  to allow all the cars to cross the finish line together IF all of the drivers are of equal ability. So what it means in practice is that the faster drivers will always win, but that they will have to work throughout the whole race to get there and not squirt away for the first half of the race and cruise home for the last 10-15 laps!!

Fridays race should give us a good idea of how and where the pitstop times need to be tweaked. I doubt that they are perfect as last night Breast race showed, but we have to start somewhere. ::)

I think we have severely underestimated a factor: slipstream!

All the calculations are made based on lap times achieved in practice (right?), without slipstream (I hope!), but depending on the track, slipstream can play a major role during the race.

Yesterday I would have never been able to do a 34 (or low 35s early on) if it wasn't for the slipstream from the cars in front, and this is the case for anyone who races behind another car. With the big gap at which slipstream effect kicks in (such as 2 seconds between the cars at Monza), it severely distorts the effect of the pre-calculated pitstop times.

It's obviously impossible to handicap with slipstream in mind, as there would be drivers who get a lot of it while others would get none or almost none. What's important is to avoid drawing any conclusions from actual race results and only base your calculations on practice runs, preferably done with race fuel and setup, on warmed up tires, and possibly as an average of a (consistent) multiple laps run.

Indeed I could do runs in each car, but it would require at least a couple of hours to make sure I learn the cars and set up them to my liking. Wouldn't be better to simply use the WRs and account for any difference in reliability?

I am with you Clive!

Maybe we could appell to the sportsmanship...

Cheers Axel

yes that is exactly what we have done.  I adapted my old Div1 handicapping spreadsheet for Clive.  We used the WR times as published on GPL Rank (trouble is they are a lot more immature than the 67 F1 WR times).  The spreadsheet has a "fiddle factor" to account for reliability but I don't think Clive has used that yet.

I've also done some times for 2 sub groups.  A Group P+5.0 that covers all the big cars and a Group P2.0 and S+5.0 that just has the Porsche and GT40 Mk1.  The groups are based on the real 67 Le Mans race see here (http://www.racingsportscars.com/results/Le_Mans-1967-06-11.html).

Clive is looking at all the options ATM I'm sure he'll come up with a good system

Im in with MK1
GLA
Natan

Do I get this right?
Are we all have to make at least 1 pitstop? (is it obligated except for Porche?)

And are the displayed times seconds?  so for example - Ford GT40 Mk2B     119     (almost 2 minutes?)

Sorry for asking.

Yes Pedro that is correct, the Ford GT 40 Mk2 has a pit stop of 119 seconds.

I can see a whole grid of Porsches preparing for Friday evening. ::)

The pitstops were calculated using the WR times in GPL Rankbut because Hristo insists on breaking those records everytime he races!!  they might not be correct for every car.  The more races that we have the better the data becomes and we can begin to get the pit stops to be more accurate.

Yes as Clive says, if you take the Ford GT40 Mk2B you can EITHER do 1 stop of 119 seconds OR 2 stops of 54 seconds each.

These are very long pit stops compared to those that are required for the F1 cars using the same handicapping system.  For example look at these (https://www.simracing.org.uk/smf/index.php?topic=6581.msg113920#msg113920) pit stop times from the last F1 race at Monza.  Same race distance but the F1 cars are more evenly matched. 

The slowest F1 car, the Cooper is a bit slower on the straights than the Eagle.  It is most obvious at place like Spa, but the Eagle eases away, it doesn't romp ahead.  Contrast that with the Ford GT40 Mk4 and the Porsche at Le Mans.  The difference in speed on the Mulsanne Straight is incredible.

Evil, I hope you've read my thoughts on the influence of slipstream and the fact that what you think is a new WR is most likely a lap done with the aid of a tow from cars in front.

As for pitstops, IMO we'll get much better and shorter pitstop times if we drop the Porsche. The Porsche is the only reason the pitstop times need to be so ridiculously long, especially on fast tracks like Monza.

if pitstops are so great why drop any cars?

john

Yes Hristo, I fully appreciate your comments and agree that there is no way to predict how much or how little slipstream a driver will get during a race. And as I have said, regardless of pitstops, the system should mean that the fastest drivers still come out on top.

We are just trying to make them work a little harder for that priviledge!!

Also because the mod is so new, we have not yet got 12+ months of development of setups and practice to bring the WR times to a point where there are only marginal improvements, as is the way with the other mods after many years use.

It is unfortunate the the Porsche is so much slower at Monza, and that makes the difference from top to bottom far wider.

In answer to John's question  " why drop any cars?" .

 I think drivers would ignore the Porsche ( and probably the GT40 MK1 as well) at Monza and effectively drop it anyway as it has zero chance of success without some form of handicapping. If the introduction of pitstops gives the Porsche a fighting chance, then surely it is a good thing and gives us  more cars on the grid and some more interesting racing. Instead of 19 Chap 2F's ??

It will give us a grid of 19 Porsches....

My calculation is: 3-4sec per lap x 35 = ~2minutes

No risk of pitstops, very secure driving, high reliability, lowest fuel consumption and no risk of overheating tyres.

No chance for an average driver in an average car to beat!

 I agree with you Cookie, if we keep the same pitstop times, most drivers will go for the Porsche.

But those times will be changed in the future to a more realistic difference as we do more and more races.

Are you even following the discussion? It's not that there's any flaw in the pitstop system, it's just that because of the vast difference in speed between the Porsche and the other cars, you need to have extremely long pitstops to give the Porsche any chance to fight for victory. Without it, the pitstop lengths would be similar to what we had with F1 67 cars back in D1.

if pitstops even out the cars why are you worried about the length of them ?

from my understanding of what clive says the whole point of the pitstop system is to allow anybody to take any car they wish and have a equal chance of winning it if the drivers are the same skill wise . if you then say lets have pitstops but drop the slowest car then the system must have flaws and patently doesn't work .

john

I'm not worried, Phil was. I don't have a problem with the pitstop lengths personally, but it would require a couple of little movements to avoid being taken off the track if the pitstop is very long.

My point is: I will not drive a Porsche!

I wanna have FUN! Thats what this series stands for.

I did test the Porsche and got 1:35:39 what is about a second slower what Hristo did in BREASTs Quali (maybe with a little tow? ;) )
But as everybody said in the last series, its a torture driving this car 35 laps at Monza!

So I do again appell to everybodys sportmanship to drive the car he deserves!

And dont forget next race : Nurby :D

Axel

Gotta admit I'm tempted to take the Porsche again simply because I don't fancy my chances in a pit lane with god knows how many other people creeping forward every 15 secs. Even using the Mk1 I would need to creep at least 7 times!!! Okay maybe I might get lucky and be the only one in the pit lane but then again maybe not. Also getting kicked by the game for not creeping enough, has happened more than once offline, would not be funny. Will try and practice some more before making a final decision.

Yes, it was with a tow, my best without a tow was 34.9 or something, so great time there, Cookie! And as Evil says, when the pitstop times are adjusted and made more realistic, you'll have a chance to compete with any car, but still keep in mind the driver's level is what makes the difference. The pitstops won't give you a chance to win if you're not the fastest driver, at least in theory, but they would allow you to use any car without being handicapped by its lack of pace compared to other cars (or have an advantage if it's a faster car).

Evil, do you know if Fulvio is setting up the server for tonight? So far it is not in listen, and the way I understand it we can not do it wia RD.

Göran

I have not heard anything from Fulvio Goran

maybe we can PM him and jog his memory??

Looks like I will be missing this one :( will try to be there but very doubtful.

If you didn't race because you have no chance of winning I would never turn up  ::)

Taking the Porsche can actually be quicker IF you can't control the faster cars - guess which one I'd like - Chap 2F or Porsche.

I will set up my server just be on save side .

---------

Isnt there any patch out does make the car staying in pits after shift_R ?
that would gave those pitstop thing an more strategic colour ....

Nope, shift-r puts the car on one of the lines defined with the pass1.lp and pass2.lp files in each track folder. Those files define the lines which the AI would take when going off the ideal line, such as for a pass.

Unfortunately I'm not going to be able to make this race.  I'll be at my kid's school watching a musical.  It takes precedence over GPL according to my wife, don't see the logic but I feel the wrath.  I had hoped it would finish at 9 but that was the midweek presentation, tonight it won't finish until 10  :(

Have an enjoyable race.  Don't worry about Hristo, he will (should  ;)) win in whatever he drives.  The point of pit stops is to level the cars not the drivers.  Secret is don't give up until the end.  Equal drivers should finish on equal terms regardless of the car.

password for Tonights race is      "maranello"

I'm just back home, hang on, I'llset the server. Wait for me in chat please.
Ciao

Guys Guys Guys! Please read the direction...

" THE LEAD CAR WILL MAINTAIN A STEADY PACE FOR THE WHOLE LAP AND SHOULD NOT BEGIN TO PICK UP SPEED UNTIL IT EXITS PARABOLICA. THERE IS NO OVERTAKING ON THE FIRST LAP ANYONE MAKING A PASS BEFORE CROSSING THE S/F LINE ON THE ROLLING LAP WILL BE DQ'D!!! THIS MEANS THAT YOU MAY TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE SLIPSTREAM AS YOU EXIT PARABOLICA, BUT YOU CANNOT PASS THE CAR IN FRONT UNTIL YOU HAVE PASSED THE S/F LINE.

That means you SHOULD pick up speed at the exit of Parabolica, not wait until the S/F line!

Oh well, early bath  :-\

Thrown out   :cursing:  ???

Strange thing is, I was thrown from the server while normally you come back to the menu??

To bad, I was having a real good time  ;D thanks all for that.


Greetings Pedro.

to be honest - doesnt the leader have the right to CHOOSE when to gas it and the rest of us have to follow suit? I was lucky to survive being bumped out the way by the flying Hristo. SOmehow i also survived rail riding at C-grande, Lesmo1 (twice) and 5 trips into the sand at Para....
still.. I get a podium although the ford V8 was on its last legs by the end!

BUMPED OUT OF THE WAY? I don't know where were you looking at, but I was already side by side with you and you simply drove into me like I wasn't there. Not to mention another car which did the same just before T1 (or was that you, I haven't checked the replay yet) and I barely maintained control. Are you people using your mirrors AT ALL?

And then there was the start just a few seconds before that... what the hell, people, how many walls of text does Evil has to write to make you actually read and comprehend them? How many rolling starts do we have to make before it gets to your thick heads?

To roll back time a little more, there was a mass crash right behind me shortly after we exited Lesmo 2, and so I was suddenly seeing nobody in my mirrors.

Seriously... get more serious about it or we'll continue to waste our time and learn NOTHING!  ::)

OK H.. I dont like your tone of voice there. You are starting to sound arrogant.
I personally think that maybe you should have seen what was happening up front ( ie, my MK2 and a mkIV side-by side and gettign away slowly because of the problem ahead) and maybe, just maybe thought to yourself, I`ll just wait a minute before sticking my nose up here. Just remember that this is a mixed abilities league and not all of us have your godlike abilities.
Oh, and the MK2`s mirrors are crap!

 ;D ;D
1. I cant understand why a rolling start could be mismanaged
    simply hold ya position and keep free from car in front off at least  3lenght ....

2.  I cant stand  blowing up engine with none reason .. ABSOLUTE NO GO ...THIS ISSUE MUST BE  GET CLEANED   otherwise this GT mod will find his way to the trash can .

... last race at Monza my engine stands  35 laps  beeing in a direct fight with another car all over . NO TIME  to give the engine any nice time , BUT  nothing happend bad to the engine . BUT this time it simply explode under gentle  use at L1 .............

3. very funny to see of about 75 % chrashing out in the first laps of an 35 laps race .
    HEY thats wasting time , really 100% , what should that be good for  ???????????????

4. another desaster to a test run , just to check out how pitstop handicap could work out . HAHAHA

i was retired by gpl when doing my pit stopp.......  :no: seems i have to practise pits stops some more  :laugh:

shame it was good race going on

I didn't change my line at all! You're the one who turned slightly, just enough to touch my car and send me sideways. Watch the replay and you'll see that I was doing nothing more than going into the free space in front of me and keeping my lines completely straight. Once side by side, there was nothing I could do. Now, if it was just warp which made us collide, my apologies, but I don't agree when you said I bumped you out of the way because that's simply not true.

I completely agree with the mirrors... there's some lump of useless thing in the middle of the rear window which blocks the whole view.  :-\

@Nicky - sometimes mechanicl failures just happen randomly, even if you're doing your best to look after the car. It happens in any mod really.

Finished fourth but had fun on the rolling lap - norbert lost it in front of me - I am sure I didn't tap him - but I braked hard and went into the trees and span back on to the track only to take out one bwhitwell - oops. Not a lot I could do. Thought he had disconnected but he had started from the pit. So quite a surprise when he tapped me and then his wheels fell off (literally). Avoided the carnage on lap 1 and was eighth on merit (sort of) with Blito following hard. Amazingly people kept falling off and I finished fourth a mile shy of Jason.

Bit tough in the Porker especially as I can only do 1:41 in it! Pretty pleased with the consistency though and this was my best ever result.

Sorry again Baab - it wasn't intentional and if I had anything to do with Norberts off, sorry again.

Sort of fun but blimey it was lonely. Too few cars to assess the handicapping but it kept me honest.

Thanks Clive.

Again, I have to stress that being side-by-side with Goran was taking all of my attention and I was utterly unaware of your presence until we touched. As i said in the earlier post, the Mk2 mirrors are appalling and with the level of background noise in my house i cant rely on hearing competitors. My gut feeling here is that maybe discretion would have been the better part of valour, especially when dealing with a mixed-abilities race.

Same here...
Couldnt have said it better!

That was good fun while it lasted. The GT40 MKII is an absolute tank with hopeless mirrors but at least it has plenty of grunt  :). Qualified 5th, and worked my way up the order and lead for a lap until I pitted with 21 laps to go. I thought I'd do a single pit stop as I had a very tall 1st gear for the two Lesmo's and the Parabolica so thought the extra time was worth it just so I didn't have to stop again.

When we used to have pitstops in Division 1, I always took the BRM, hence me requiring to take no stop or merely a stop and go so I'm rather inexperienced when it comes to taking a long stop. I creeped forward every 15 seconds and I'm hoping that it wasn't overkill. Rejoined the track eventually after an agonising two minutes but soon after I disconnected from the server  :-\.

Turns out Pedro also suffered which left a measly 4 cars left on the circuit. Because of so many casualties at the start Clive opened up a Nurburgring fun race and at least I won that  :angel:. The Porsche was an absolute delight around the Nordschleife. I know which car I'll be taking next Friday  ;).

Waddya mean 'measly' - outside ;D

Track: Monza             Fri Mar 04 23:35:37 2011

PRACTICE TIMES

Pos No Driver                           Team     Nat      Time      Diff Laps
 1  38 Axel Cookie                      GT40MkIV GER 1m32.465s             12
 2   2 Juha HalliGT                     Mirage   FIN 1m32.490s   00.025s    8
 3  21  EvilGT                          Lola T70 GBR 1m32.567s   00.102s    8
 4   1 Pedro Berg_vd                    Mirage   HOL 1m33.028s   00.563s    7
 5  37 Sam Blood                        GT40Mk2B GBR 1m33.063s   00.598s    9
 6  39 Ronnie Peterson                  GT40Mk2B ITA 1m33.091s   00.626s   12
 7  15 Nicky Ickx GT                    Ferrari  VEN 1m33.451s   00.986s    3
 8  14 Göran JonssonGT                  GT40MkIV SWE 1m33.551s   01.086s    8
 9  16 Jason Blito                      GT40Mk2B GBR 1m34.983s   02.518s    9
10  20 steve birdgt                     Lola T70 GBR 1m35.823s   03.358s    4
11   7 Fulvio Policardi-GT              GT40MkIV ITA 1m35.963s   03.498s    4
12  25 Hristo ItchovGT                  GT40Mk2B JPN 1m37.346s   04.881s    6
13  18 Norbert GT Stemmler              Porsche  DEN 1m38.092s   05.627s   12
14  12 Bob Whitwell                     GT40Mk2B GBR 1m38.733s   06.268s    2
15  24 Paul Whitfield GT                Porsche  GBR 1m41.184s   08.719s    8
16  27 2 UKGPL_T7                       Lola T70 ITA   No time   No time    0

All times are official
Generated with GPL Replay Analyser


Track: Monza             Fri Mar 04 23:35:37 2011

RACE RESULTS (After 35 laps)

Pos No Driver                          Team     Nat Laps   Race Time       Diff    Problem
 1  39 Ronnie Peterson                 GT40Mk2B ITA   35  58m53.007s           
 2   7 Fulvio Policardi-GT             GT40MkIV ITA   35  60m14.721s  1m21.714s
 3  16 Jason Blito                     GT40Mk2B GBR   34  59m55.098s   1 lap(s)
 4  24 Paul Whitfield GT               Porsche  GBR   34  60m23.739s   1 lap(s)
 5   1 Pedro Berg_vd                   Mirage   HOL   14  22m55.329s  21 lap(s)
 6  37 Sam Blood                       GT40Mk2B GBR   14  25m00.955s  21 lap(s)
 7  38 Axel Cookie                     GT40MkIV GER   13  21m23.459s  22 lap(s)   Accident
 8   2 Juha HalliGT                    Mirage   FIN   12  19m45.256s  23 lap(s)
 9  21  EvilGT                         Lola T70 GBR    3   5m36.912s  32 lap(s)
10  15 Nicky Ickx GT                   Ferrari  VEN    1   2m39.240s  34 lap(s)
11  14 Göran JonssonGT                 GT40MkIV SWE    1   2m40.389s  34 lap(s)
12  20 steve birdgt                    Lola T70 GBR    1   2m40.975s  34 lap(s)
13  25 Hristo ItchovGT                 GT40Mk2B JPN    1   2m41.313s  34 lap(s)   Accident
14  18 Norbert GT Stemmler             Porsche  DEN    0   0m00.000s  35 lap(s)
15  12 Bob Whitwell                    GT40Mk2B GBR    0   0m00.000s  35 lap(s)
16  27 2 UKGPL_T7                      Lola T70 ITA    0 DidNotStart  35 lap(s)


Race results are unofficial
(Replay might have been saved before end of race)

RACE FASTEST LAPS

Pos Driver                                 Time Lap
 1  Sam Blood                         1m33.321s  11
 2  Axel Cookie                       1m33.581s  12
 3  Pedro Berg_vd                     1m33.802s   9
 4   EvilGT                           1m33.897s   3
 5  Fulvio Policardi-GT               1m33.911s  16
 6  Juha HalliGT                      1m34.013s  12
 7  Ronnie Peterson                   1m34.077s  21
 8  Jason Blito                       1m36.165s  27
 9  Paul Whitfield GT                 1m40.503s   9
10  Hristo ItchovGT                   2m36.403s   1
11  steve birdgt                      2m37.585s   1
12  Göran JonssonGT                   2m39.359s   1
13  Nicky Ickx GT                     2m40.047s   1
14  Norbert GT Stemmler                 No time
15  Bob Whitwell                        No time
16  2 UKGPL_T7                          No time


LEADERS

Driver                           Laps
Axel Cookie                      1-4
Juha HalliGT                     5-12
Sam Blood                        13
Pedro Berg_vd                    14
Fulvio Policardi-GT              15-24
Ronnie Peterson                  25-35

Number of lead changes: 5
Number of leaders: 6


LAPS LED

Driver                           Laps led
Ronnie Peterson                  11
Fulvio Policardi-GT              10
Juha HalliGT                     8
Axel Cookie                      4
Pedro Berg_vd                    1
Sam Blood                        1


HIGHEST CLIMBER

Driver                           Start Finish  Change
Paul Whitfield GT                   15      4      11 
Fulvio Policardi-GT                 11      2       9 
Jason Blito                          9      3       6 
Ronnie Peterson                      6      1       5 
2 UKGPL_T7                          16     16       0 
Hristo ItchovGT                     12     13      -1 
Bob Whitwell                        14     15      -1 
Norbert GT Stemmler                 13     14      -1 
Pedro Berg_vd                        4      5      -1 
Sam Blood                            5      6      -1 
steve birdgt                        10     12      -2 
Nicky Ickx GT                        7     10      -3 
Göran JonssonGT                      8     11      -3 
Axel Cookie                          1      7      -6 
 EvilGT                              3      9      -6 
Juha HalliGT                         2      8      -6 


ON TRACK LAPS

Driver                           Laps/Total    Percent
Ronnie Peterson                     (34/35)      97.14
Fulvio Policardi-GT                 (33/35)      94.29
Paul Whitfield GT                   (25/34)      73.53
Jason Blito                         (22/34)      64.71
Pedro Berg_vd                       (14/14)     100.00
Sam Blood                           (14/14)     100.00
Juha HalliGT                        (12/12)     100.00
Axel Cookie                         (11/13)      84.62
 EvilGT                               (3/3)     100.00
Nicky Ickx GT                         (1/1)     100.00
steve birdgt                          (1/1)     100.00
Hristo ItchovGT                       (1/1)     100.00
Göran JonssonGT                       (1/1)     100.00


RACE LAPTIME CONSISTENCY
(first lap excluded)

Driver                    Avg Deviation  Std Deviation  Avg Laptime   Laps
Juha HalliGT                      0.238          0.356    1m34.396s     12
Pedro Berg_vd                     0.363          0.453    1m34.294s     14
 EvilGT                           0.631          0.631    1m34.528s      3
Axel Cookie                       0.696          0.768    1m34.753s     13
Paul Whitfield GT                 3.439          4.411    1m44.906s     34
Ronnie Peterson                   7.675          2.081    1m39.274s     35
Jason Blito                       8.824          4.856    1m44.078s     34
Fulvio Policardi-GT              10.097          6.070    1m41.573s     35
Sam Blood                        18.003         12.273    1m43.923s     14


All times are unofficial
(Replay might have been saved before end of race)

Generated with GPL Replay Analyser

I drove longer than anyone! No wonder I am knackered. I could have given up 20 laps earlier...

BTW How the hell do you get round in 1:35? I topped out at 165mph before Para and I never went under 1:40...

WoW Paul - Highest climber, and with a gain of 11 places no less!!! thats quite something :)
Lets now go and pester the UKGPL admin crew to get these results uploaded to our SROU race histories :)

Now then, the next problem is which tank to take for a drive round the german countryside? I`m for the Mk1 I think....

I think you hadn't nailed your pit stall, only there GPL leave you stop for ages.
Ciao

thanks for the tip Fulvio ,thats maybe the reason, il go and test it offline race. :)

accidentally there was many other pit retires too with same reason and it seems even moving car ahead and revving didnt work for all people.

but your tip explains all



Juha

Yes Fulvio is correct.  What you have to do is approach your pit stall very slowly and stop immediately the pit stall message is withdrawn.  If you go more than half a car length past your board, GPL will disco you after 30 seconds.  Equally if you stop before your pit stall message is with drawn (i.e. it is still visible whilst you are doing your stop), GPL will again disco you after 30 seconds.

In all the years I've been doing pit stop races here at UKGPL I didn't know that until now!!  A big thanks to Fulvio for letting us know.  Having said that, 95% of pit stops in 67 F1 races are less than 30 seconds (we've only ever run pit stops with the 67 F1s not with any other mod).  It is only on the very fast tracks like Spa where the Eagle is so much quicker than the other cars that any of the pit stops are more than 30 seconds.  So it wasn't really a problem and drivers wanted the option to stop anywhere in the pit stalls.

As we all know the GT mod is different, there is a vast difference between the fastest and slowest cars.  So stopping in your designated pit stall is probably the answer, and more realistic ;)

Thanks Fulvio I had no idea about that !!  as Phil said in 67's we rarely had stops over 30 seconds.

If we can stretch the grid , is it possible to stretch the pitlane to allow more room at each pit stall???   just a thought  :-\

Anyway,
The race was not as good as we had hoped with a lot of retirements.

Well, grats to all (4 ) finishers in last nights race. ( a special mention for Paul (badblood) for getting to the finish and almost a podium!!).

 It seems there were a few problems with the rolling start and one or two "incidents" that took a few cars out of the race . Some suffered from disco's in the pitlane, but we appear to have a solution from Fulvio for that.  :thumbup1:

Interesting that we had more mechanical failures that we expected, myself included!!

I was keeping my revs 500rpm below the redline in my Lola and was being careful with downshifts, but the engine still popped after only 3 laps??! I wonder if this was because we ran the race under full PRO ( GP) damage settings?? and we are at last seeing some true reliability issues??

As Hristo mentioned above, if the reliability factor is a random thing, then it does not matter how careful you are, GPL will just decide that you are the lucky recipient of a blown engine!! Maybe keeping revs 1000rpm below max improves your chances, only time and many more races will prove that.

The next few races have GRID starts, no pitstops and will be on INT damage with the Single Shift -R rule, so we can return to what everyone knows. It will be interesting to see if there are as many early retirements??

Nurburgring looks like being a Porsche Playground.

BUT

REMEMBER THAT YOU MUST USE A DIFFERENT CAR IN EACH RACE, IF YOU USED A PORSCHE AT MONZA YOU HAVE TO TRY SOMETHING DIFFERENT AT NURBY!!!  ALSO  REMEMBER THAT YOU ONLY HAVE 85 TOKENS FOR ALL 5 RACES!!

MAYBE A GOOD IDEA CHECK OUT THE RULES AGAIN AT   https://www.simracing.org.uk/smf/index.php?topic=9041.0

is it possible to stretch , from  trackGT.ini , i can do if needed

GT mod seems to use separate trackGT.ini's  so it even more handy.

Reliability is not a random factor, but there seems to be some random element leading to failures sometimes, no matter how safe you drive.

As for the pitstop thing, I never knew either, but I think you can stop outside your pit stall and prevent being taken off the track, I've done it many times. The key in creeping forward is not just to move a meter and stop again, but do it when you see the message on the low left corner telling you to press ESC to retire (or whatever it says), and then keep moving forward (slowly ofc) until it disappears, and stop again. The message doesn't disappear if you move too little, so maybe that was the case here.

Anyway, good to know about the pit stall, although it could be problematic if two cars have pit stalls next to one another and are pitting at the same time, as the pit stalls are very closely positioned. I suppose you would just have to stop outside your stall in that situation.

With such long pitstops (because of the Porsche), I'm not sure some pitlanes are long enough to allow for moving forward for the whole duration of pitstops. Perhaps we should make 2 stops mandatory and drop the extremely long single stop? Oh and with so much moving forward that needs to be done, what would you do if there is another car in front of you, go around it in the middle of the pitlane (or onto the track on tracks like Monaco)?

when we where beta testing the gt mod we used standing starts but had a grid of cars in single file with a larger than normal gap between them  . that way if a car got a poor start there was enough room for the following car to avoid rear ending it and also everybody could see that a car was overtaking as it was moving to the other side of the track (which was clear) .

john

T7 server uses for all mods only the general track.ini that is edited for loose grids. If we use a trackGT.ini with different pit stalls (this has to well tested for all the tracks involved, here is a track builder speaking ;)  ) we have to edit also the grid stalls for loose grids.
Ciao

If the mod team was forced to modify their grids, in order to start normally, it should've occurred to someone, there was a problem.  The inbuilt and unrealistic, starting defect of the Chaparral especially, is proving to be a pain.

It's not a defect. It's the way engines and transmissions work. If we all had analog clutches, it wouldn't be much of an issue.

If it's not a defect, then why do no other mods suffer in this way?

we were not forced to change the grid , rather it was felt that starting like that was more in the keeping with how they raced sports cars .

so it's not a problem nor unrealistic .

as for the chapps they never had a proper gearbox so what do you expect ? (you know yanks can't handle gearsticks in cars :)  ).

john

We do - it's much more noticable in the GT's too  :yes:
Years ago Phil told me he was certain GPL suported analogue clutchs so I tried some smooth, slow starts in the 65 mod.
And they do have an analogue clutch - it's just so fine as to be nearly imposible to use!
GT's have a more organic style of clutch so are easier to 'creap' I find but and still pretty damn hard to launch - Esp the Chap with it's joke system  ;D


Well, I say 'we' do - but you don't  :P   ;D

It's a 3 speed gearbox, what do you expect to happen when you set 1st gear very long so it can be used for the corners? Try setting 1st gear in any of the other mods so you can take the Lesmo corners in it, then see if you can make a good start.  ;)

I've uploaded some footage, to illustrate my view of the start, at Brands Hatch in 1967.  It's from my fathers Cini-film of the race, and my own homemade conversion, so quality is less than ideal.   http://vimeo.com/20680025

I get as far as the page with the videos on Martin, but there seems to be no way of making it play??  Am I missing something here?

Was that the back of your head I saw there Martin?  Looks like 16mm, a bit better than super 8 quality.  My dad had a Sony Super 8mm in the late 60s only pictures - no sound. 

Race looked awesome but definitely wouldn't recommend a start formation like that for UKGPL races LOL.

Great footage of these cars. But can you imagine the carnage if we tried a start like that, maybe rolling starts are not so bad after all!

They don't have warp contact as an issue and they also don't seem to be pushing very hard at all. And why would they, given the length of the race and the risk for their lives.

The video uses DivX 5.02, and won't run without 5 upwards.  The Cini is only super8, but the quality was amazing, for something so tiny.  My shabby conversion, is there to demonstrate the skill these drivers had, in reality.  

For us, it's a matter of how far from reality we must move, to race them.  In USA, it used to be the norm, to roll at the start, in all kinds of racing.  I think they missed out on a lot of the excitement.  

I don't understand what you mean by moving from reality?

A rolling start is not moving away; the idea is to reduce the risk of something happening on the first lap and try to maximise the participation for everyone.  No ones trying to make things less realistic.

Perhaps if some drivers do what they did in the nice piece of footage you have posted and not try to win the race by T1 then rolling starts may not be necessary!

Ahhh Nuts!

Yes you've had your chance to drive the Porker :).  Not sure if the Nurby WR is a true indication of the pace of the Porsche but to get the second fastest car for the knock down price of 10 tokens is a bargain.  However the Porsche is pretty good at Brands too (4th best WR time). 

......................and the best part is that I won't be here for the Nurburgring race  ::)  ;D ;D

So I get 17 tokens taken off my budget and  I have to work out what the heck I am going to use for the last 3 races????

Heehee Clive... we`ll find a bathtub and fit that old vespa engine from the back of the shed.. that should do ya nicely :)

Isn't that how the BRM was built?  :D

I have a lot of Super 8 footage of my youthness and my daughter. How have you converted to digital files?