UKPnG Season 9 Knock Out Sports Car Cup - Barcelona - Jan 30

[Mark J]

Top work Matt  to be honest I preferred the lack of 'strategic' info as it suited the small team/privateer better than the 'Empire' like SRBC etc with their workforce of testers  but good work anyway and nice line up of tracks 

[Mark J]

Tried 6 cars so far and my laptimes vary from 1:57 to 2:03 ! Still not driven the GT40's and couple of others.
Fuel burn also varies hugely from 4L to 7.5L.
Although the grid 'could' look good (or it could end up with 20+ of the same car!!) I'm not sure how we can get close racing with such a large variation until most of the good cars are eliminated. 

Good track for testing different cars though, quite enjoyed running one after the other for short tests  amazingly we don't appear to have raced p&g here? Or at least there are no record laptimes to compare against.

[phspok]

I managed a 1:58 in the RSR3, struggling with my nasty Sidewinder.
some other chaps were doing 1:52s in it....
Could be there will 2 or 3 sub races as people make strategic decisions
to save their fave car for later, be aware if most people are running a particular car
and you don't, then it will likely be gone, and you won't get to use it at all.

True it will take a few events for things to fall into shape perhaps.

[Animal Ed]

What about that you can`t use same car twice rather than excluding by popularity?

btw figured out why I had discos lately. Seems that it is a bug in eset firewall (which was promised to be solved but no joy so far) ... as I learned hard way that connecting on internet without protection is bad idea, for next race kaspersky trial version will do ... 

[Mark J]

I managed a 1:58 in the RSR3, struggling with my nasty Sidewinder.
some other chaps were doing 1:52s in it....
Could be there will 2 or 3 sub races as people make strategic decisions
to save their fave car for later, be aware if most people are running a particular car
and you don't, then it will likely be gone, and you won't get to use it at all.

True it will take a few events for things to fall into shape perhaps.

1:52's?!!  crikey, admittedly I have only done about 5 laps in each and with 60L fuel onboard and meds as a sort of 'race' test, but even so..thats a flipping fast time! blinking aliens 
saving their fave car bit is the bit that bothers me! there are certain tracks where I would really like to race certain cars (from a nostalgia/enthusiast point of view) but can see I will be forced into certain cars because everyone else has jumped in one and it would be dropped from the next round. Ah well, we'll see.
From a net stability point of view you might want to put a ruling in that whatever car someone turns up in they have to stick to it. Painful I know, but past experience shows that if people regularly hop in and out of the practise sessions it invariably screws up the dodgy netcode for the race.

ALA Eds comment, I think that is a better option and said the same in the GTL format race that does same. Though guess the risk with that is you still only get to use your fave car once in the series. 

[phspok]

Same car limited number of times is nice, but requires me keeping records, Tony does that
for some of his GTL series, I need an easy life   I am unpopular with the time I spend
doing this, I have to find a way of easy regulation, Despite misgivings, this format
has proved great fun in the past, it's not just some daft idea. I am not blind to the issues
but this is the best I can do.

I have found virus protection software does more harm than good most of the time
though there is always going to be "that" time. You get lots of stories on these forums of
people's AV wanting to update halfway through a race and them being dropped to desktop
for example.

[EvilClive]

I appear to be in the enviable position of being able to select any car for any race simply because, as a total novice I have absolutely NO IDEA which is the best car for any particular circuit!!

Ignorance is bliss they say  

However, by the end of this series I suspect I will realise the errors of my selection and why I am at the bottom of the pile!!!  


On the AV subject.... I run "EnditAll" before every on line race and disable my AV until restart. I have been screwed too many times by unwanted updates and interference from random programmes spoiling a promising race, so now I nuke everything and run just the important software...i.e GPL, GTL and PnG!!!

[Animal Ed]

In my case AV is set to update daily (2am) but it was firewall issue "detected covert channel exploit in icmp packet" and it was asigned to IP adresses of almost all players on server (but not to all of them) ...

Few years ago I lost all data because of malicious script in banner on "safe" url ... so no, no internet without AV and firewall for me.

[Wiltshire Tony]

I use something akin to End-it-all and turn off Kaspersky for the race. I always run a full scan after the race tho.

[phspok]

I don't think I can enforce the stick with whatever you 1st login with, because, like the wedding
buffet, once people see what you have, they want one as well.
Is a good point though. Perhaps we say "whatever you start qual with is what you should use
for the race", and, I could restart the server just before Qual rather than just before practice?
Though CLive would then do prac with an Elan and the race in a GT40  

I think this first race will be almost a spec race, so be it, but I am very much looking forward
to how this season will develop

Remember there are 3 x 911 variants, and a 914, two lots of 906s, if a popular variant
gets dropped, there will still be another variant to play with.

[Clive Loynes]

.............. Perhaps we say "whatever you start qual with is what you should use
for the race", and, I could restart the server just before Qual rather than just before practice?

I think that this would be a good move.  UKGPL have always run on similar lines.

Though CLive would then do prac with an Elan and the race in a GT40  

As if!   

[goldtop]

Is a pitstop mandatory for this race or just "required" if you need to refuel and/or change tyres?

[phspok]

Pitstop is mandatory for this one and then alternate, so not the next one etc, only change is the last but 2 are swapped
so we get a stop at the final at Le Mans.
Thanks for the tip Tudor, Race page modified to the normal one for pitstops.

[Clive Loynes]

So............................do you have to change ALL of your tyres or will just a couple do?   

[frex]

I don't think I can enforce the stick with whatever you 1st login with, because, like the wedding
buffet, once people see what you have, they want one as well.

Would be good (imho) if all drivers had to pm you with their car choice before the race - any changes mean points deductions..

I know, that means more work for you (bad), but it would be fun and spice things up a bit (good) and would prevent ppl changing cars just to match what everyone else has (very good). Might be a bit late to change things now though anyway i guess.