UKGTL Season 15 Fifties Endurance - Brno - Dec 7

[EvilClive]

Congrats to Erling, Bob and Tony on the silverware places.

Another iconic track for these great cars, although my performance hardly did it justice!  . I will be voting for this one again

Very surprised to get such a high grid slot after zero practice, although I did know the layout from GPL races. Knowing the track was good in some ways, but bad in others . A 1955 DBR2 does not handle with the precision of a 1967 Lotus F1 car !! and I found that my ambition exceeded the handling of the poor Aston in a few places, but I got away with a few hairy moments  .

Too much wheelspin at the start had me sliding all over the pit apron, as a couple of cars slipped past, but once I got the rubber to grip again I quickly regained the places and set off after Geoffers and Erling ( Mr Spok had Mazzer'd his way into the far distance very quickly).
Again i was surprised that I caught the 2 cars ahead as quickly as I did, but I suspect that they were holding each other up as they fought over 2nd spot. Then Erling got a tank slapper out of the final corner and made an unscheduled stop for fuel at the filling station ( Is that allowed Tony?, should he not be disqualified for using unofficial resources??!! ) Geoffers ran wide and I stole his place.

Up to second spot with Phspok about 10 seconds ahead. Much better than I could have hoped for.
Now I started to concentrate on preserving tyres and brakes hoping to make my pitstop as late as possible ( still don't understand what XD is trying to tell me about fuel!). I could see that Erling and Geoffers were closing the gap, but I could also see in my mirrors that they were working quite hard to get at me, with the occasional small mistake which dropped them back again.

I should have stuck to my usual driving style and not tried to stretch the fuel by leaving the car in a higher gear through some corners, especially the fast T1-T3 through the village. I tried to stay in 4th, but without the poke of power oversteer in 3rd, I drifted just too wide and clipped a lamp post with terminal results.
Hope I managed to get my stricken car out of the way before the chasing cars came through 

Thanks to Tony for all of the organising.

[Erling G-P]

Great race for me on this challenging track.

Pb offline was 4:57.2, and considering how much practice that had required, I never thought I could challenge the 4:56 posted here by Matt, let alone the 4:55 laps he was doing when I joined the server.  Thus very surprised to run away with pole, after a sub 4:55 lap

Start wasn't great, so Matt got ahead and I had Geoffers in hot pursuit. Mistake late on L1, when I put half the wheels on the grass in that sharp right-hander before the straight run down to the finish. Promptly spun off and dropped to 4th, as Geoffers & Clive zoomed past.  With no cars close to me, I could at least concentrate better and started the chase.  Got 3rd back from Geoff, when he had a moment on L2.  Used another 1 - 1½ lap to reel in Clive, only to hand him 4-5 secs, when I went wide and onto the grass in a corner. That also brought Geoffers closer again.

Had to redo the hard work of catching Clive, but before I got real close, he had a ginormous shunt in the urban section right after the start/finish. I was very lucky that his car's final resting place left room enough for me to get past.  Matt was some 19 secs ahead and can't remember if I was getting closer.  Passed him as he did his pitstop.  When I did mine one lap later, pit board showed a 36-sec lead. Dubious that that would be enough to for me to retain the lead, even without a tyre change, given the long pit straight.  Sure enough, as I was crawling down it, Matt came roaring past.  He had a good lead, but just as I was muttering to myself "I won't catch him unless he runs into trouble", I came upon a big cloud of tyre smoke, with a red car doing donuts inside it  We exited the corner side by side, but there's no denying the straight line speed of even the baby-Masser, so Matt pulled ahead.  I retook the lead in the twisty section, but lost it again a few corners later when I ran wide.  Matt then proceeded to repeat my error from L1, only he upped the ante, by ending up inside the gas station, where I settled for parking outside it 

After this, it seemed Matt was on a downward spiral    As my closest competitors dropped out one by one, the excitement of the race also went. Biggest challenge in the latter part was not to earn myself the 'Dufus of the year' award, by tossing away a surefire win with a stupid mistake  Thus tried to err on the boring, but safer side of caution. Thankfully that held to the finish.

Grats to all who made it and commiserations to those that fell off. 

Matt: Great shame, as you were running so strongly in the early part. If I'm not mistaken, the pit limiter doesn't work on the Massers - I've never gotten it to work myself at least. 

Geoffers: Your terminal shunt had me scratching my head when I looked at the replay.  Did you fall asleep at the wheel mate, or did real life intervene ? 

Team GTLDK still rules      -
but without much contribution from my side 

Don't say that Kurt; every bit counts after all! 

Quite liked the track; can't help myself but am always drawn to longer tracks.  Contemplated suggesting Targa Florio to Tony, but perhaps a 72 km lap with 800+ corners would be overdoing it.. 

Thanks to Tony for organising this great series!! 

Cheers,
Erling

[Geoffers]

Geoffers: Your terminal shunt had me scratching my head when I looked at the replay.  Did you fall asleep at the wheel mate, or did real life intervene ? 

It was a sort of 'fall asleep at the wheel' moment. My mind had drifted off a bit & when it came back I thought I was closer to the slight turn before the S/F than I actually was. I only have a smallish monitor & picking the line through the really fast corners is sometimes a bit tricky & I simply turned into the corner far too early & killed the car. 

Bit disappointed with my race. In practice I had been reeling off 4.57 laps without any problem, but in the race I kept making silly mistakes. Lost it twice under braking early on & then again after my pitstop which drastically cut down the top speed of the car, in fact it wouldn't even reach max revs in 4th gear. Like Matt I also got a S/G for pit speeding, I had pressed the key for the limiter when leaving the pits, but not hard enough & it hadn't engaged! 

Congrats to Erling, Rog & Bob. 

& well done to the championship podium. 

[misnoimis]

I joined this race with minimum expectations having done very little practice. I just about learnt the track but not how to drive fast around it. Am I mistaken or were the last couple of tracks more difficult. Maybe it’s my brain cell wearing out. I missed the three previous races in this great series and entered the previous race with virtually no practice which turned out disastrously.

I started fairly cautiously and from what I remember avoided a couple of accidents with cars spinning in front of me before two cars span just in front of me and  totally blocked the road. I had no chance to stop or avoid them and hit one full on at speed. When I got going again the car felt like it was pulling to the right. I found that it was going straight but the force feedback made turning left much harder than turning right. It might have been the track or me for I soon got used to it.

I discovered the DBR2 was a sitting duck for the Massa’s on the straights, I think I might have set my fifth gear ration too low although I know the Massa is a faster car. There was one great moment when I think it was Tony and Roger behind me and side by side closing on me. I kept in the middle of the road and wondered if they would split and pass me on either side? They did, that was fun. Shortly after that I went slightly wide and lost a bit of ground and it all became very boring for me.
 
I think I was just starting to understand the track when I made my pit stop for refuelling and tyres. I skipped the repairs. I was very careful not to speed but as I left the pits got a stop and go penalty.  This really p****d   me off and after making it I rather lost interest and concentration for the following couple of laps and at one time tried driving up a steep grass bank. I managed to perform a loop and a roll reminding me of my Flight Sim days. I think Erling passed me while I was upside down so I decide to get my head down and concentrate.

Unfortunately I suffer from CDO, it’s like OCD but the letters are in alphabetical order, as they should be. Having damaged the front and the right hand side of my car I felt it only fitting to damage left side to even things up. I achieved this with the help of some straw bales and then brought the car home into a lucky fifth position.

After racing on this track I think with a slightly better set up I could knock quite a few seconds off my lap times so would vote for it. Would get nowhere near sub five minutes though.

Grats to Champion, runner up and Tony and thanks to Tony for another great series. 

[Wiltshire Tony]

Great race reporting guys, I need to watch the replay to check out the pass on Misnoimis on the straight after the first village. I'll post an image later.

[Erling G-P]

Geoffers: Your terminal shunt had me scratching my head when I looked at the replay.  Did you fall asleep at the wheel mate, or did real life intervene ? 

It was a sort of 'fall asleep at the wheel' moment. My mind had drifted off a bit & when it came back I thought I was closer to the slight turn before the S/F than I actually was. I only have a smallish monitor & picking the line through the really fast corners is sometimes a bit tricky & I simply turned into the corner far too early & killed the car. 

Well, if your monitor is small enough to adversely affect you like this, then I'm even more impressed with laptimes you often achieve  - Please don't get a bigger one, or we'll all be toast.. 

I managed to perform a loop and a roll reminding me of my Flight Sim days. I think Erling passed me while I was upside down so I decide to get my head down and concentrate.

Yup, I did - that was another lucky one for me

Cheers,
Erling

[Geoffers]

Well, if your monitor is small enough to adversely affect you like this, then I'm even more impressed with laptimes you often achieve  - Please don't get a bigger one, or we'll all be toast.. 

It is only really a bit of a problem when travelling at high speed, it can be difficult to see the apex of the corner. This was the only corner on this track that was like that, it is a bit unsighted anyway I think. I'd love to have a triple monitor setup, but I doubt the other half would approve! 

[Wiltshire Tony]

I discovered the DBR2 was a sitting duck for the Massa’s on the straights, I think I might have set my fifth gear ration too low although I know the Massa is a faster car. There was one great moment when I think it was Tony and Roger behind me and side by side closing on me. I kept in the middle of the road and wondered if they would split and pass me on either side? They did, that was fun.

[SpecialKS]

Results

 

[Bob M.]

That was a surprising finish for me that's for sure.  I'll take if though.   Was a little boring after the first few laps when everyone got strung out.  Then the pitstop came up and I made up my mind to change tires and try to finish no matter what. Met up with Roger  and we spent the rest of the race together.  I think I squeezed by him once, maybe twice only to screw up on the same lap and he would breeze by me.  Last time was on L10 and I just decided to play it safe and follow him to the finish.  By this time we were 2nd and 3rd because of the guys ahead of us  dropping out  with problems.  Great track for these cars, thanks Tony for organizing this series and glad to see we get to do it again next year.    I'm sure I will get a reality check as I have used all my luck up!!  Great group of drivers here, sure glad I decided to join you all, Thanks for that....

Bob M.

[Wiltshire Tony]

Results

 

My gratitude as always Kurt 

[Erling G-P]

Phew, donating and track voting completed (wasn't easy..  )

Cheers,
Erling

[SpecialKS]

Wanted to share this