UKGPL Season 24 (2013) Historic Trophy (66) - Watkins Glen - Jan 15

[bernie]

Ronnie I saw you spinning and slowed but couldnt decide which side to pass , usually a car spins towrds the inside of a corner unless its bounced off something , I went for the outside , anyway it was the luck of the draw , on another day I probably would have got off free and you ended up with a wreck .
My car was handling like a house brick on race fuel and cold tyres and I didnt expect to be up front hence why I decided to give up my position I felt any resistance would have been futile and was worried about taking you out at the loop . So much for plan B 

Evil , have you tried turning your "in game" number of sounds down to one to cure the problem ?

[maddog]

. . . . .  it seems as if each sound that GPL calls up, is played in a continuous loop on top of the previous sound, so that you end up with everything that GPL has to offer in a huge cacophony.......bizarre!

What you're lacking is some sound advise . . . . new soundcard drivers?

[AnGex]

... Grats to Art, Al and Andreas.

Thanks mate,
that was a good start for me in the Historic-Season. But first in the Loop I found myself outside towards the Armco and later on in the Big Bend I had another close look at the scenery around. In both cases my Race could be finish.  After that I managed to go for second spot. But then Al was coming on strong! About the whole Race he put the pressure on me, but never did any risky or silly manoeuvres. A really good, hard and fair battle was it!  In the end he finally got me and I think it´s well deserved.
Looking forward
Andreas

[MagicArsouille]

......well....I brake early    .....but .. ....you know the rest....... :'(....

....I can't say "well done" Art.....

...".bravo" to the survivors & podium ........thx to Org.

.see you in Spain ....

[PaulV]

Hi,

well my first 66 race went fairly well..  first time out in a 66 and first time getting some points for "TeamBlue Moose"


to be honest, I'm very happy.   qualified near the rear... as per normal, did a 1:11 or so on full fuel etc so knew i wasn't going to go much better so decided a start near the rear would be safer than try hard to move up on the grid and perhaps be an accident looking for somewhere to happen. ( well that's my excuse)

as it was, it turned out to be better for me.  got a slow start and made off to catch everone up when I can upon the problems at T1 managed to get through that lot OK

I'm not very fast, but I can swerve well !!

came upon some more carnage at the loop, again did the "Blue Moose Swerve" again there and found myself in the strange position of being somewhere near the front of the pack. odd feeling that one.

usually only happened to me in GPL due to warp or a good old clock smash 


at turn 2 i may have just touched a car that was already spinning across the track in front of me. hope i didn't cause any problems for anyone.

after that i settled down to do my best. kept up a steady pace and decided to take it easy and not blow the old BRM up! my tactics seemed to pay off as I found myself in 5Th.  had a couple of fun laps with a few cars but it seems most of the cars left on the track after the crashes were all a bit quick for me, let cars through as they came up on me and when i was being blue flagged etc.

except one little problem that I feel i may be dragged in front of the "boss" moose for... I let 2 peeps through on the last lap.  i only had a couple of corners to go for the 5Th place and seeing them behind me i assumed they were more speeding aliens.. well they were going well, but I made the big bloody mistake of moving over.. DOH! got myself a 7Th due to that error.  Honest it wont happen again    well i hope not he he !!!

All in all great fun and so far until the mods take a look a good finish for me.

a couple of things still worry me though, I saw one car behind me, I now know it was Billy.  I tried not to deviate from my line too much but I do as a returning newbie to GPL perhaps brake a little early.

I'm trying of course to get back some control and consistency before I try to hard to slap the ol' pedal to the metal..

was worried I may have caused Billy's off. only times i saw him was 1st time in the mirrors behind me and then sideways and spinning.  Billy has told me i did nothing wrong, but it does worry me.  I pride myself in the fact that i try hard to not spoil others enjoyment of our great Sim.. but I do feel it wont take long until I'm up to speed so to speak.

that means a decent rate of Knots... Not warp factor 9.   not yet Spock !

so all in all another good race and a great evening spent on line in superb company.. GPL rules.

Cheers Paul V.

[Billy Nobrakes]

Paul,
Can confirm you did nothing wrong – the point where I span my car was half-way round the Loop (not a braking zone). I think it was caused by me misjudging the amount of throttle combined with the slipstream effect. A bit of a shame as it was shaping up for a very close battle.

[PaulV]

I guess the reason I had some thoughts about it was I last raced online quite a few years back.

I think I'm still a bit in the old mindset.

back then you could have a crash even by getting to close to each other. without even contact i remember cars going all over the place, even straight up in the air like rockets.

the other good one was to join the grid for a race and all the cars would be piled up on each other.. those were the days eh 

makes me giggle to remember as many of us still do i suppose racing in a UKGPL race and hoping one didn't get a telephone call, these were the days of racing on a modem with the shared telephone line....

as soon as the phone rang and one of the kids picked up the phone to answer it.. instant "DISCO"

well it get better when my wife firm decided we need an ISDN line at home.  didn't think it would get any better. 


but it does get better and so far Ive had a few fun races and some league races now and have had a rock steady Conn at all times.

I also had some sound issues last night just like Clive. at one point the sound went all muddy and odd.  just mention it as I wonder if these could be connected.

but i guess the sound in GPL even when on line is a client PC thing isn't it ??

Paul V.

so heres to the next one.... F2 at Reims. 

[Artiglietti]

Art, it is something I noticed in general in your starts and first corners, you leave way too much room and slow down way too much, losing positions and creating bottlenecks in the process. I was already lifting up earlier and braking earlier for The Loop, to give an indication for the car behind, but even though you had plenty of room and was actually on the inside and still in the lead, you kept on slowing down much more than necessary to make the corner, and then of course your car wobbled, which is normal to happen when you brake hard over the transition in the road downward into the corner.

I don't think it's anyone's fault, however considering the pace we normally have at the front, that sequence of actions was subpar. It simply doesn't match the level of pace and control that otherwise produce such fast lap times. See you at the next race.

......well....I brake early    .....but .. ....you know the rest....... :'(....

....I can't say "well done" Art.....

...".bravo" to the survivors & podium ........thx to Org.

.see you in Spain ....

All you say might well be true Hristo, but had you, and Tristan, kept some more distance from the two battling leaders, you would have been able to cater for both my cautious braking and for the slight wobble. Staying so close, it meant you could do something about the first, which I seem to understand you have learnt to expect by now, but not for the second, which was unexpected. Being cautious means just that, leaving some margin for what you cant predict. I have no problems if that is the way you two guys chose to race, but if you decide to take risks, once in a while it will bite you back, as otherwise they wouldnt be risks..In this case, a wobble, not a spin or even half a spin, from the car in front was all it took to end the race of the both of you, and many others. Accepting this and taking your part of responsibility for this crash would help avoiding similar situations in the future, at least just as much as dishing out good advice.

Also, I have had I think no more than a dozen races, so far, when you, Hristo, were actually in my race, as it were. I can recall 3 times, out of these 11/12, where you threw away a race you could have easily won by running into the back of someone else. And in numerous other occasions I read about simlar kind of incidents on the forums. Wheather you want to see it or not, there is a clear pattern there. The mistake you are making IMO, is to become, at times, unaware of the environment you are racing into, where abilities vary wildly, not only from person to person, but within the single driver according to the track, situation, level of attention and so forth. Especially toward the beginning of a race, when people are still finding their feet, this is something I consider worth of full attention, and maybe it would save some disappointment to you as well, if you tried a bit harder to do the same  . See you both soon  .

[Hristo Itchov]

Art, if I wasn't cautious I would have rearended you before you even wobbled... you slowed down much more than necessary for the car to make the corner, you can check and compare speeds if you still think you were just cautious, because no - you slowed down completely.

As for me rearending people, show me when and where. The reasons for all incidents I was involved in last season were individual and specific, it had little to do with me not being cautious. I am merely driving at my pace, just like everyone else, and I'm not less cautious than anyone else. In fact I'm probably a lot more cautious than at least 50% of the drivers here in UKGPL, but I simply do well on cold tires, out of confidence, experience or whatever reason.

The thing is though, you are just about as fast as me, and on occasions faster, yet when it comes to starts, you are much slower, so how am I supposed to judge your driving when it doesn't make sense anymore?

Anyway, as I said, I was already cautious after the start and on the straight, and I did give myself enough room by lifting up earlier and braking more than necessary, but you have to consider 2 factors - first, I had cars behind, so I couldn't afford to just cruise obviously, and second, despite having more than enough room, you slowed and went to the utmost inside on corner entry, which caused you to wobble, which forced me to brake even further and which then started a chain reaction by Tristan (I assume, haven't checked) hitting me from behind.

To be honest I'm getting tired of hearing how the driver behind is always responsible and I was rather fed up last season when I was blamed for incidents which were caused by people jumping on the brakes way before corners or slowing down excessively, like 20-30 km/h less than their normal speed into a corner. Are we racing or are we just cruising around? Am I or anyone else expected to just slow down and wait for you to gain confidence so you can actually drive the car on the level you normally do outside of lap 1? It's very unreasonable to expect such a thing, don't you think? If we have to do that, we might as well not race at all. Predictable behaviour on track is very important and for some reason there are people who neglect that and think they can just slow down and do whatever they want, and then go on to blame those behind them for not having a 6th sense.

As I said though, it was nobody's fault, it was a racing incident, but I hope you take some experience from this rather than expect us to do something different. I am already doing as much as I can and as much as is reasonable. I haven't won 20 or so championships here by not being cautious, by not anticipating reasonable actions by drivers around me.

[Rainier]

Do not forget to post your incident report, if needed, before next Saturday evening.
I would like to moderate this race on Sunday.

[Al Heller]

I was lucky to survive the lap 1 incident - spinning right through the centre of all the mayhem yet somehow not hitting a thing . Rejoined & within a few laps found myself up to 2nd but Art was already miles ahead & going much quicker than I could anyway. After that Andreas soon caught & passed me & we ended up having a great fight which lasted pretty much the whole race. I hung on to Andreas' tail for lap after lap exploring where I might find a way past but it wasn't until the closing laps that I finally managed to sneak back ahead. Seeing how evenly-matched we were, I suspect Andreas will be getting his revenge soon... but it was good clean racing so I'll look forward to the next time Congrats to Art on the win. Also thanks to the guys being lapped for letting us through cleanly.     

[BadBlood]

Just as an observation in general (I haven't watched the replay of this incident so this does not refer to it specifically) on Lap 1, in any race, there is a fine balance between brake testing the guy behind and the driver behind not leaving enough room to allow for a cautious start. The leader (in any situation) gets to set the pace (which doesn't have to be 100%) and whilst that may be frustrating the car(s) behind have to adapt to that which is why the second car often gets punished when speeds are lower than the maximum possible.

That can make moderations seem unreasonable but no one can win a race on lap 1.

In general, we, as Moderator's take the stance that the car behind has the onus on them to effect a clean pass. Baulking a pass, in any way, is similarly frowned upon.

[Artiglietti]

If I strip your argument to the bones, in essence you are asking people to speed up, Hristo. Which, in a racing context, verges somewhat on the surreal...Of course, if people could go quicker, they would. This is what I mean with not being fully aware of the environment you are racing into. Hesitations, small mistakes, over-cautiousness, those are predictable behaviours in an online race. But I see this is something you dont want to fully consider, so the net result will be that people will continue to go round corners at the speed they feel is under control for them, and once every few races you will take yourself out of contention by running into the back of someone. Not very astute as a strategy, and not very respectful as well, considering you are taking someone else out with you by doing so.

As for Paul's comments, the kind of brake testing you are talking about is probably even more unsafe than sitting right behind someone in a braking zone, or approaching a difficult corner in a close group of four cars, and I guess it should be penalised accordingly. The problem with that is that it is much more difficult to police, for obvious reasons. In this specific case, I was actually defending a position approaching a corner alongside someone, so I had all the interest in braking late and going around that corner as quickly as possible. What I did want to make sure of, was that I would slot in as close as possible to the inside, as I know that corner is rather treacherous, and for the guy on the outside it can get a bit hairy if they havent scraped enough speed in time. As a matter of fact, you can see that Florian had to close the corner quite a bit, and still he didnt make it to stay on the tarmac, I have done that mistake myself before. Unfortunately the whole thing didnt go according to plan, my braking was too sudden and the car was unsettled by that, making me lose much more speed than intended. Still, had Hristo (and Tristan...) not been sitting that close behind in the hope of snatching a place at T2 of the race, things would have still worked out. Anyway, I will file an incident report as suggested, although I have nothing to add to what I wrote in these few posts.

[Flow]

Well, I wished I would have been more caoutious and braked earlier in that corner.

[Hristo Itchov]

You have no idea what you're talking about when you're addressing my driving, Art. All of it is based on your baseless assumptions and not facts. Have you actually watched any of my hundreds of races before you jumped to those conclusions? I consider myself extremely aware of everything going on on the track and it has saved me numerous times from accidents that other would have caused, by taking on their responsibility on my shoulders and doing what is necessary to make room for them. I cannot say the same for a lot of drivers, who simply go beyond what is predictable and then expect incidents to not happen.

Have you even read what I posted previously? Did you read that had I slowed down even further, I would have been rearended by cars behind and I wouldn't blame them at all - one does not expect a driver, who takes pole or is on the front row, who goes 20-30 km/h quicker normally, to slow down so much. It's like expecting a Red Bull driver to suddenly slow down to the pace of a HRT, for no obvious reason. It's amazing how you refuse to take absolutely no responsibility for this situation, as if you can do ANYTHING simply because you're in front and others are behind you. And one more thing - why do you assume I am running close to people in hopes to snatch a position from them as soon as possible? Are you suddenly positioned inside my brain or something? I had no intention to even make an attack at that corner, I was merely following you and the other car, waiting to slot behind you in the corner itself.

I'm disappointed... it has nothing to do with being quicker, you ARE quick already and that is what creates the problem. Had it been someone who was slow, I would expect them to drive like you did in that situation, but I find it very difficult to accept that you would always drive like that given that you just take pole position a few minutes before that. I'm not asking people to become quick, of course not. It's about becoming more aware and being predictable. I find it funny that you blame me for lacking awareness when it is your lack of awareness and surroundings on the track which have led to this incident, because had you realized how much room you actually had you wouldn't have taken such a line and braked so much for the corner.

Remember the Works race on Sunday? You had the lead after the start and you had plenty of room, yet you simply cruised into T2 and that allowed me to pass you. I appreciate people giving room, sure, but when they go overboard in doing that it just shows they are lacking awareness of other cars position.

I'm curious at what your definition of racing is, because the way you and Paul (to some extent) present things, it's like you're not interested in racing at all. It's like you think risks should be removed completely and nobody should take even the slightest chance of making a move because there is ALWAYS the possiblity of an accident, of making mistakes, whether by the attacker or the defender. I take calculated risks and 99% of the time they pay back positively. In this situation though, there wasn't even a risk, not even an attack. We simply got caught out by your sunday style driving...