UKGTL Season 15 American V8s - Lime Rock - Feb 16

[Erling G-P]

The next race in this series is at Sebring which will provide a huge contrast to the narrow, twisty Lime Rock circuit. We'll get to see how fast these brutes will go on those long straights and also be reminded of how poor the brakes are when you reach the end of those straights 

They have brakes ??   


With regards to lapping and XD; personally I have turned the positions display off, to unclutter my display.  I do keep an eye on the pitboard though, which shows the gap to the car behind (if any..  ).  If in doubt about a car, I'll turn on the IFF (player tags) - if I'm not mistaken, it shows the position alongside the name of the driver.

Cheers,
Erling

[Wiltshire Tony]

Do you have a button assigned for rear viewing then? How can you see the tags of a driver behind you otherwise? They don't appear in the mirrors do they?

[Erling G-P]

Do you have a button assigned for rear viewing then? How can you see the tags of a driver behind you otherwise? They don't appear in the mirrors do they?

Yes I do; there's a 4-way view button on my DFP wheel, which I use to look behind me; and no, I don't have tags in my mirror either.

Cheers,
Erling

[phspok]

Yep

All that as well  Name tags are good, XD is helpful. I assumed everyone is using XD and name tags
and has a virtual rear view mirror, but that may not be the case. 

[marcfvs]

Great great great track, yesterday seems a drifting track, not normal race.

Is the fisrt time to race in V8 league and the cars are very funny.

Thanks all for the race !!!

Good job Matt and Erling

[Huggy]

Erling mentioned lapped drivers... It's not worth incident reports
But, I assume it was a question of not knowing whether the guy trying to pass was
for position or not, but I was pretty severely blocked more than once while trying
to lap Huggy. For anyone who has trouble working out whether you are being lapped
or passed perhaps watch the top right list of race order and the gaps it shows
If someone has just zoomed up behind you and the next place back from you
is 10 secs, then it's not him, it's one of the leaders  

Ta.

So sorry about that mate; I spent the whole race trying to shake off Steve, and because the name tags don't show up in mirror images, and the time gap lettering is very small, I kept thinking he was right on my tail, and it turned out to be you! I don't think you were the only one, so apologies all round, I figured I was fighting for position .  The gap shown was frequently 1.5 - 2 secs (as far as I could tell). It's not such a problem in rFactor with it's large linear display and bigger text. Oh, and using the "look back" buttons here just made me go off the track... Anyway, as I'm so far off the pace, and to be honest these races are about 10 - 15 laps too long for an old fart like me, I don't think I'll be doing any more; it's not like I only just started simracing, so I think after some 6 years doing it online it's probably likely I won't get a whole lot faster...  However I will say I think these mods, and the way you guys run the races are both excellent, all the best and thanks.   Paul H.

[Bob M.]

Watched the replay, great racing guys, wish I could have joined you.  Grats to the podium and to all.  Tough track for the big iron.  Wife is progressing in therapy but they say it will be a long grind.  Have been doing a little driving on the Memorial track to learn it. Better be back for that one I hope.  That is one weird track, has everything in one little bundle!

Have fun Oldgeezer///Bob M.

[Pelle_B]

Grats Matt, my concentration was not 100% today to tease you more  
...& Grats to Erling & MaiPor  ...& Grats to all of us  

T'last, I have lost count of how many times - 4 or 5 maybe - I lost it & had a walk out in the grass + a pitstop cost a minute...I never got the most out of  
...but I had fun, especially the battle for 7th place - who said this track was narrow...Huggy, Misnoimis & I could run 3 wide  
@Huggy: The best way to be good...is to run online (I've never driven GTL offline)...download XD files & you are ready for the next race  

Welcome to the new drivers, which may have already seen the link to XD, but another thing I use 'Advanced Setup'...for me it is just as important as XD
Thanks to TEAM-GTLDK, we did really well  

Edit:Oops, I forgot one thing - I said my concentration was not 100% & also lost a race Sunday at Spa...but one thing I was finished, a skin to GT40  
A little fun when I built it, I came to big problems...& had to be helped here from UK

[Erling G-P]

Erling mentioned lapped drivers... It's not worth incident reports
But, I assume it was a question of not knowing whether the guy trying to pass was
for position or not, but I was pretty severely blocked more than once while trying
to lap Huggy. For anyone who has trouble working out whether you are being lapped
or passed perhaps watch the top right list of race order and the gaps it shows
If someone has just zoomed up behind you and the next place back from you
is 10 secs, then it's not him, it's one of the leaders  

Ta.

So sorry about that mate; I spent the whole race trying to shake off Steve, and because the name tags don't show up in mirror images, and the time gap lettering is very small, I kept thinking he was right on my tail, and it turned out to be you! I don't think you were the only one, so apologies all round, I figured I was fighting for position .  The gap shown was frequently 1.5 - 2 secs (as far as I could tell). It's not such a problem in rFactor with it's large linear display and bigger text. Oh, and using the "look back" buttons here just made me go off the track... Anyway, as I'm so far off the pace, and to be honest these races are about 10 - 15 laps too long for an old fart like me, I don't think I'll be doing any more; it's not like I only just started simracing, so I think after some 6 years doing it online it's probably likely I won't get a whole lot faster...  However I will say I think these mods, and the way you guys run the races are both excellent, all the best and thanks.   Paul H.

Would be sad to see you go Paul  If you're enjoying yourself, then please consider sticking with us - anyone can make a mistake, so not reason enough to retire IMHO.  

Personally, I almost always only look back, when I'm on a straight section of track, as it's indeed too risky in the curvy sections.  

With regards to the readability of XD's displays; are you aware that you can scale the sizes to fit your screen resolution (and more or less worn eyeballs  ) ?.  I run on a 27" monitor with relatively high resolution, and thus had to make  XD's 'tech display' a little bigger, as I otherwise wouldn't be able to read the values at a quick glance.  You can change this - and the placement too I think, in the .ini file for XD (IIRC; am not at home right now so can't check).

Cheers,
Erling

[EvilClive]

I did almost zero preparation for this race and it showed!   I knew the circuit layout from GPL and so did not even d/load the track file until Sunday evening, when i discovered that it was the "narrow" version.

I also skimped on car preparation and used the same chassis and setup as I used at Laguna Seca, which was probably not the best idea I ever had.

So, most of my preparation was during practice and qually last night where the choice of car and gear ratios proved to be a problem. The Laguna Seca gearing gave me good terminal velocity at the end of the straight, but was "off the cam" elsewhere on the track, but dropping the final drive by a notch made the twisty bits quicker and ran out of revs half way down the straight.....what a dilemma!! I had to opt for the longer gearing just to be sure that I did not trash the engine.

I did indeed jump Erling off the grid      and almost squeezed past Matt into T1 ( yes it was me not Erling  ) but he was having none of that and stuffed his car down the inside forcing me wide and stealing one of my door mirrors.  lol.

The race from then on was great fun and trying to engineer a pass on another car was proved real challenge on such a narrow track, requiring a mistake from the intended victim. By half distance it was clear that i was carrying far too much fuel, but not enough rubber  and Doni was becoming very troublesome as he seemed to find some extra pace in his car. He did get past when I ran wide but returned the position a few laps later with a spin at T1.
I hoped to sneak away and hold Doni at bay, but he was relentless and by the time he caught me with 10 laps to go my car was driving  on the wheel rims. I think I finished the race with about 1 pixel of red showing on the rears and maybe 2 pixels on the front right ( The front left had evaporated at half distance!!).
Try as I might I could not go faster, and Doni took advantage of my lack of grip to pass me and hold the place to the flag.

Grats to Matt and the podium and specail thanks to all of those who were lapped and had to spend as much time looking in their mirrors as looking ahead on such a short circuit.

[phspok]

Please don't be put off by my comments Paul, you are most welcome here, we need all the drivers we can get 
I just wanted to raise awareness.

[misnoimis]

So sorry about that mate; I spent the whole race trying to shake off Steve, and because the name tags don't show up in mirror images, and the time gap lettering is very small, I kept thinking he was right on my tail, and it turned out to be you! I don't think you were the only one, so apologies all round, I figured I was fighting for position Sad .  The gap shown was frequently 1.5 - 2 secs (as far as I could tell). It's not such a problem in rFactor with it's large linear display and bigger text. Oh, and using the "look back" buttons here just made me go off the track... Anyway, as I'm so far off the pace, and to be honest these races are about 10 - 15 laps too long for an old fart like me, I don't think I'll be doing any more; it's not like I only just started simracing, so I think after some 6 years doing it online it's probably likely I won't get a whole lot faster...  However I will say I think these mods, and the way you guys run the races are both excellent, all the best and thanks.   Paul H.

I’d also say stick with it Paul if you enjoy it. I’m sure most of us have made this kind of mistake at some time. When I was behind you you’re driving looked fine. Personally I find XD and the rear view (not virtual) mirror a great help in these situations. It does take a little skill on some tracks to let someone pass safely.

I think what we want is more midfield to rear end of field drivers for the fast guys and aliens to overtake. Lapping slower cars is part of motor racing.
 
I’m sure for us slower mortals having someone to race against helps drivers improve plus the fact it’s a lot more fun.  

[BillThomas]

Definitely stick with it if you enjoy it.  I usually finish races as the last runner - I'm way off the pace on most tracks but I enjoy it and these days spend too much time with one eye on my "virtual mirror".  I intend to continue as long as I'm enjoying my racing and not causing problems to other drivers! 

No computer probs and new PBs all round. 

[Wiltshire Tony]

Paul, you definitely must stay. We have drivers of all skill/age levels and it would be an awful shame if you felt you were not welcome here. I do appreciate that the longer races can get tiring but we offer various length events so do please try and attend the shorter races.
As for small text in XD.

Excerpt from XD.ini file

; MoTeC HUD Scale
; Note: Only the MoTeC-Display can manually be scaled.
; Everything else is scaled automatically according to your screen resolution
; If the MoTeC display is set to tab-mode, the other info is also scaled (Session-Info/Standings)
; Value given in percentage
; 100(%) Scale = 1024x768 = 1:1 = No Transformation
; 0 = Disable scaling
Scale=100

Not played with this but I would guess that if you changed the scale value e.g. up it to 120 then see how it looks and adjust accordingly.

[Erling G-P]

As for small text in XD.

Excerpt from XD.ini file

; MoTeC HUD Scale
; Note: Only the MoTeC-Display can manually be scaled.
; Everything else is scaled automatically according to your screen resolution
; If the MoTeC display is set to tab-mode, the other info is also scaled (Session-Info/Standings)
; Value given in percentage
; 100(%) Scale = 1024x768 = 1:1 = No Transformation
; 0 = Disable scaling
Scale=100

Not played with this but I would guess that if you changed the scale value e.g. up it to 120 then see how it looks and adjust accordingly.

That's correct Tony - I have Scale set to 150, which makes it sufficiently big in my case.

Cheers,
Erling