UKGTL Season 14 American V8s - Road America - Jan 20

[EvilClive]

I actually thought that I HAD made this one 

Joined the server for practice and noticed a couple of the regulars already there. As I have no idea about which cars do what, I simply selected the Mustang TA in a nice shade of red. 

The track was new to me, just like the car. So I topped it up with race fuel and trundled out for an exploratory lap or two. The first few corners immediately suggested a change or two in the pits, then we tried again and slowly picked up speed as the layout became more familiar.

After 2 laps I posted a 2:44.....a lap later 2:40. The other guys had posted a 2:38 and 2:39 so I figured I was at least going in the right direction and just needed to get my lines and braking points sorted to enjoy some racing later.
Then I think the qually session started at 8:20?  and everything went t*ts up as I was ejected from the server and GTL crashed??!!  Ok... plenty of time , simply restart GTL and rejoin the server.

Not a chance! Each and every attempt got as far as seeing drivers being loaded and when Tony Wiltshire's name showed up as being loaded ( you never knew he was so wealthy did you guys?  ) GTL crashed to desktop again.
Eventually time ran out and it was pointless to try and join as the race would have started. Still at a loss to understand what happened/changed to prevent me joining the race after I had quite happily run around on the server in Practice?

[BillThomas]

Made right pigs ear of that one.  Just lost ability to take some of the corners - more I tried worse I got.  Got lost in pits had everything fixed, lost more time removing fleece - got all hot and bothered.

Still next week is a new track different Series. 

[SpecialKS]

Disappointing one for me - couldn't find any rhythm and quit  
Found a way to reduce understeer in practice but couldn't benefit.
However I had a nice battle with M Chahine who was in another Mustang.
I couldn't pass him on the straights but was faster around the corners and
was able to break far later - so I bumped him several times   - sorry for that -
fortunately without severe consequences. Not the right track for passing in
nearly identical cars.

Personally I think the Mustang TA is the best looking car in this series - hope it won't
be dropped from this series (3 Cougars - 3 Mustangs).

CU next time

[evert blommert]

Thanks for the race tonight guys. It's been a long time but I hope to be here more often now.
See you all next week.

[Wiltshire Tony]

Results and replay now posted

Bye bye Mercury Cougar TA  :'(

[Mark J]

Bah I blew it tonight, had 2nd in the bag!

Turned up late but grabbed 3rd on the grid with my 2nd quick lap.  was happy with that.

Got an okay start but unfortunately got biffed off by Everts orange Mustang at T1 and lost a load of places down to 2nd from last  . Not great beginning but cracked on. Had good fun catching and passing the field again to get up into 2nd place  Pulled out a good lead of about 4 secs over postal and Matt but still 13 behind secs behind the flying coyote in the lead.
But a loss of concentration saw me lose the back end at the last turn before the sf straight on lap 11 that cost me about 12 seconds  :'(. I was so ruffled that I then lost an average 5 secs per Lap over the next few laps having moments under braking/downshifting.
I then closed down the two ahead but neither did me the honour of falling off until I did again on the last lap   
Finished 4th.

The cars looked and sounded great when others near by, very American, suited the track well

[Erling G-P]

A very unexpected result; I really shouldn't have been quickest, so it must be down to the usual aliens being absent again.

Tried very hard in qualy and set a new PB; best offline time so far had been 2:35.8.  Thought I gave it the beans at the start, but still managed to bog down in first.  Surprisingly, I held my position - seemed like Tony was holding back, but that in turn meant I felt like a rabbit in front of a rabid pack of dogs the first lap.. 

Gap to 2nd grew when Tony had a small off, and from then on, it was a very lonely drive.  Never saw another car after the first couple of laps. Naturally chuffed with winning, but did miss some of the action the rest of you seemed to have, based on the replay.

Bill: What bad luck, getting lost in the pits    Have made it a habit always to do a pitstop during practice, so that I know the layout, should I be forced to pit during the race.  In my first attempt, I too got completely lost, ending up in the back where you start.  So definitely time well spent, to test it before the race.

Sad also to see my teammate Kurt retire; hopefully the next round will be better.

Great looking and sounding cars, especially Postal's golden-yellow Shelby - what a beauty    Picked 'mine' in darker colours, but see I was wrong 

Cheers,
Erling

[phspok]

The disco and can't get back in is an old bug that I haven't seen for a long time.
When it happened to me, I used to reboot my router, and the pc, wait for 5 mins
then fire up GTL and try again, it "seemed" to be a problem where the server
thinks you are still connected, I found rebooting my router made it get a new IP
and the game server would then let me in.

[Wiltshire Tony]

Yeah, I was going to suggest a re-boot too but doing the router at the same time is a better idea if time allows.

[Stefan aka Postal]

That was a nice race. The pace of most drivers supprised me. I hadn't dipped under the 1.40 mark, but with some setup tweaks during qualy i got the GT500 to behave a bit better. I got my pb down to 1.38, only to see others match that with ease. So i entered the race with my mind set on finishing. First two turns i watched a forcefull ChMichel divebomb Evert, who could do nothing about bumping MJ at T1.
 
Had a nice scrap with Matt for a lot of laps. He had better brakes, but i managed to keep him behind. Tony made a great pass on me, didn't like it, but i could appreciate it. 
Then MJ came past after i put two wheels in the grass. He was sliding a lot and i was wondering how long he would keep it on track.    After a couple of laps i caught MJ in a graveltrap, so i could drive to the finish in second.
 

Bah I blew it tonight, had 2nd in the bag!

MJ, just take a look at the team tally and all will be fine again. 

[Mark J]

ha, yes had already seen the Legends were topping the leaderboard!...been a while since we had more than one driver competing in historics so a very welcome sight 

sliding about? moi?...thought that's what you were supposed to do in these big US tanks 

Loved chasing one of the US cars last night that had the bar strip brake lights. So reminded me of all the classic US car chase or detective movies. 
Shame the Mercury now falls off the list, it was a fun car to drive though still susceptible to falling off the road under heavy braking and downshifting into 2nd....as I found out 

[BillThomas]

Loved chasing one of the US cars last night that had the bar strip brake lights. So reminded me of all the classic US car chase or detective movies. 

Careful Mark you might catch the GTL Bug. 

[goldtop]

Don't think I've done a lap yet. Been too busy with work and restoring an old mtb in the evenings.

Motor torpedo boat? (Mtb)

Mountain bike!    An old Kona steel frame that's almost done now.

[EvilClive]

The disco and can't get back in is an old bug that I haven't seen for a long time.
When it happened to me, I used to reboot my router, and the pc, wait for 5 mins
then fire up GTL and try again, it "seemed" to be a problem where the server
thinks you are still connected, I found rebooting my router made it get a new IP
and the game server would then let me in.

hmmm that is interesting as my Virgin super dooper hi speed dishwashing 500gigabit/sec drip dry cool wash router suddenly decided that it no longer wanted to do any Wi-Fi yesterday. I use lan for racing on a direct cable connection, but maybe there are some gremlins at work in that magic box that sparked this problem....... Excuse me Mr Branson!  about this  router you sold me 

[Wiltshire Tony]

I usually turn mine off using the button at the back, leave it for 5mins then switch it back on again. BTW mine is also a Virgin Media router.