UKGPL Season 23 (2012) Novices Trophy (65) - Charade - Oct 9

[Billy Nobrakes]

My approach to learning a new track is generally to see how fast I can go through a corner without crashing & whether you can carry a higher gear / brake a bit later. A style which is poorly suited to tracks like Clermont & Nurburgring.
First clean lap was 3.40’s which I reduced to a 3.34. Based on qualifying times from the last Novs race that looked quite competitive. Last night was a bit of a reality check with Rob, Al & Johnny getting mid 3.20’s!
Lap 1 was a bit of a disaster – finding a ditch about 300ft deep that really need a Landrover to get out. Remaining laps were relatively clean & I had some great battles with Paul. He powered past me after a couple of laps but went mountaineering half a lap later. After that I had mirrors full of Dave C for virtually the rest of the race. I’m guessing he was a bit faster, but was really patient on a track which has very few places to pass.
Hopefully the grid will be a more competitive at Silverstone & we can give Rob a race. Also, I won’t need a route map to find my way back on track.

PS. Johnny - as Al says I think your PC problems are related to power saving settings.

[Philippe Girard]

Awful start with about a million crashes (none of them entirely my fault). Crashed into a stranded Dave because I couldn't see his green chassis under the trees - lol.

 

Grats to winner and the podium.
I'm not proud of myself, poor preparation, not had time to run for 15 days, I was really far away from you in my lap.
I promise you that it will be a different story silverstone!
I'm here and there, hang you!

[Boggy]

Hi all
Couldn't make the race last night due to family commitments,though I did learn the circuit just in case, so maybe next time.
Congrats to all who participated and of course to the podium, your lap times amaze me.
Onwards to Silverstone
Cheers

Boggy

[BadBlood]

Hope you can make Silverstone Boggy. It usually has closeish racing and you can make your car WIDE there (although not down to Stowe...).

Practise hitting your apexes, particularly at Beckets, Club and Abbey. They really set the lap up.

[Boggy]

Thanks Paul
Practice, practice and more practice
What sort of times should I be aiming for, I think I am doing fairly well then see the times of the other "novices" 

Cheers
Boggy

[Ronniepeterson]

Thanks Paul
Practice, practice and more practice
What sort of times should I be aiming for, I think I am doing fairly well then see the times of the other "novices" 

Cheers
Boggy

I'm sure that you will get advice from many sources and its all worth considering. Unless your a natural born alien then for sure there is little to better practice practice and more practice. Only by putting in the laps with a couple of varying setups on each track can you discover what suits your driving style and how to look for gains in time at different parts of a circuit by for example staying off the brakes, getting on the gas earlier etc).  But if you want a life as well as GPL my pearl of wisdom to you would be not to get too hung up about other peoples times. Turn up knowing that you can stay on track at your own pace and you will already have a major weapon in your armoury of race skills. But most importantly keep it fun. If you don't enjoy your practice time as well as the races it will always be hard to improve. Good luck.

[bernie]

Charade isn't the easiest of tracks for anyone let alone a novice , so take heart from what you have learned so far and enjoy the fun , the speed will come when you gain confidence in yourself the track and the car , GPL isnt something you can just jump into and be fast straight off like playstation stuff , it needs patience and practise as others have said 

[BadBlood]

Thanks Paul
Practice, practice and more practice
What sort of times should I be aiming for, I think I am doing fairly well then see the times of the other "novices" 

Cheers
Boggy

Steady 1:35's or 1:36's would be very good at this stage of of your progress.

Steve Bird gave me some good advice: Drive within yourself. Explore the limits in practice but find your limits. Braking points for me at Silverstone in the 65's are, count to two/three after the bridge and take Copse (T1) in 2nd (3rd for the Honda). No brakes at all at Maggots (T2). Brake at the last lamppost on the left for Beckets and get nice and tight to the kerb for a good exit, accelerate all the way though Chapel and floor it down Hangar Straight. At the lampost past the end of the low wall on the left, brake hard for Stowe and get tight. Club I always find tricky and can spin but brake at the group of people on the left and drop down two gears and nibble the grass on the apex. Abbey, brake at the dark patch on the race line and turn in earlyish. You drift wide and it doesn't kill you if you put a wheel or two on the grass. At Woodcote, brake and drop a gear at the gate on the left and make sure you don't go on the pit lane entrance, it is slippy. Sometimes you need a bit more brake to get the nose turned in.

Practice turning the car and dabbing the brakes and see how much more it turns or lifting the throttle in a turn and seeing how much more it turns. You want to try and slide the car round the corner.

Mind you I am pretty crap and this is all probably rubbish but I can do a low 1:34!

Hope that helps. Cheers.

[bernie]

Lamposts

this is Silverstone NOT Monaco, lol

[Boggy]

Hi all
Thanks for the input.
Your feedback is just what I needed and your comments have confirmed that I am going in the right direction.I find practice good fun and seeing a sector go blue after trying something different is a great confidence booster.
Once again thanks to all
Cheers
Boggy

[BadBlood]

Lamposts

this is Silverstone NOT Monaco, lol

Well they look like lampposts and I am sure I have seen Maddog sniffing one once...

Hi all
Thanks for the input.
Your feedback is just what I needed and your comments have confirmed that I am going in the right direction.I find practice good fun and seeing a sector go blue after trying something different is a great confidence booster.
Once again thanks to all
Cheers
Boggy

If you can get blue sectors you are doing well. I had been using Prob for six months before I realised the tyre temperatures were colour coded!!!

[Johnny.P]

Boggy.     From my experience at gpl, track knowledge far exceeds any setup parameter. And as for setups I very rarely tinker with the spanners as I nearly always use default setup with the gearing changed for each track. Everyone is different but the one setting I have found that can assist you with a badly behaving car is the diff setting- I used to use 60-60 on everything but now use 60-30. I'm not saying that playing with the setups won't help but for me I don't get much time to play gpl so I try to learn the track and stick to what I know. I hope your enjoying your racing- I am.

[Boggy]

Hi Johnny
I presumed you meant the ramp angles,something I know very little about, so had a play around trying 60/60 but then trying 60/30 and what a difference! I guess some of it must be psychological, giving me more confidence, but blue sectors on fairly cold tyres!! All I can say is cheers for your help and now back to practice practice practice
Thanks again for everyones help
Boggy

[Cookie]

I just want to give another hint...

Try different setups!
At the Track Database you get various setups for each track.

Just download some of them and try each of them, so you will find how the setups gearings and car balance works for you.
I found for myself the Masaki Asano setups fit best to my style of driving.
If I try one, I only change the steering bias to my standards without looking for the other data.

[BadBlood]

@Boggy

Once you have a base setup stick with it and then you can pretty much use it at every track with a change of gearing. The different ramp angles will have different effects dependent on how you drive. If you brake with your foot TOTALLY off the gas, the effect will be radically different than if you trail brake (i.e. bit of brake, bit of gas). I habitually leave some gas on and if you take it off the turning effect is much more pronounced.

The main thing is that setups give you confidence. What gives the time is line and getting the braking points right for your style. Setups might save you 0.1-0.2 (or tens of seconds if you can stop spinning!), line and track knowledge will give you 2-3 seconds...

Cheers.