UKGTL Season 15 Fifties Endurance - Longford - Mar 2

[misnoimis]

I chose the slower Maserati as I thought it would be more stable but still quite fast on the straights. I had not had time to try anything else this week. I think it was a good choice for me.

I got home in time to race on a very enjoyable circuit but not one I’d like to race on for real now. How mad were those sixties racers?  I thought the car felt very heavy on fuel at the start and it did not handle quite as I had expected.

I made a few errors without causing any damage to the car early on. I then got the odd bump and got collected by or failed to avoid at speed a spinning car in the middle of the track that sent me spinning upside down in the middle of the road. Eventually after an age some helpful invisible spectators righted my car but with suspension damage it was all over the place. It’s a bigger enough challenge for me to dive one of these cars when it fit.
 
I drove on and looking at my track position and the times decided to have no repairs done, just to change tyres and refuel.

I started to get on top of the handling and although he was a lap down it was fun to have Hayman for company. I was trying to catch Tony and was closing slowly over the closing laps. The last few laps were a bit comical as I think we were both struggling with damaged and badly handling cars, worn tyres and it felt like failing brakes if GTL includes this feature, probably my imagination.  I think we were both doing our best to present the other with the position.  At least we survived and finished.

Grats as usual to winner and podiums.  

[BillThomas]

Great to have you back with us Bill 

Thanks but very disappointing result.  :'(

[Bill Grewcock]

@ Bill Grewcock, If you car doesn't show up on the grid then your car roster will not be altered.

Thanks for clarifying that, Tony 

[EvilClive]

 I think I might owe some apologies. 

Although I was less than happy about my exit from the race last night. I had been looking forward to this iconic circuit and muscling the mighty Mazza around and had clocked a 2:18 in race setup off line, so I was hoping to be "in the action".

But, upon reflection........ there was something wrong on the grid. I could only see 1 car ahead ( Erling) and yet I had qualified 4th, so there should have been 3 cars ahead of me?? The first few hundred mtrs were wild as I tried to get the power down, but I just could not pick out my engine sound and judge the revs. I sure as hell did not want to take my eyes off the road at that point as it was all very close.

I had also noticed that my graphics were struggling to keep up at some points during quali ( blame the Mazza for being too fast for the graphics card!!) and I suspect that I might not have been getting the whole picture off the grid??

In GPL the server/client connection can "lose" cars if everything gets too hectic and I wonder if the same thing happened last night in GTL and I was unaware of cars/cars around me.

So, apologies if I caused anyone grief and maybe I need to bring forward the upgrade to my rig.........but I hate changing things that appear to work when fiddling with computers.. It always, yes always, goes t*ts up for me. 

[Wiltshire Tony]

Check the replay Clive and see if your grid place looks correct. Bill G was stuck in the pits so he would be missing from the grid.

[hayman3131]

hi

just a question.
I installed the jag d, both 55 and 57.
but I cant buy them and so Icant chosse jag to enter server.
Is it right, that I can use each car only 3 times? If I dont get jag d running, it will be a prob then....................
btw: next monday I cant come to race 

greets hayman

[Wiltshire Tony]

hi

just a question.
I installed the jag d, both 55 and 57.
but I cant buy them and so Icant chosse jag to enter server.
Is it right, that I can use each car only 3 times? If I dont get jag d running, it will be a prob then....................
btw: next monday I cant come to race  

greets hayman

Do they show up in your garage?

Yes only three drives in per make

Drivers are reminded that they are restricted to three drives per make. Check your status here

[Erling G-P]

Sad to see so many retire yesterday  

Tried the various cars in preparation for the race, and much to my surprise, the loony-Mazza was the one I seemed to lap most consistently in     As it was also by far the fastest, the car choice became a no-brainer.  Managed a few 2:19 laps offline, but couldn't quite match it in qual. Luckily, my low 2:20 time was enough for pole - by a hair's breadth!

Normally I would have been jumped by Clive at the start, but surprisingly, my cautious start and his struggle with getting the power down, saw me retain the lead.

Had forgotten the Mazza also comes in red, so over the early laps, I was puzzled why I couldn't seem to shake those two 'bl**dy Ferraris'...    In the first half, I had a gap of 5-9 secs to Doni.  Did my pitstop exactly halfways through. Normally I wouldn't have even considered changing tyres with so relatively little wear, but didn't dare anything else with this car!

Rejoined in 3rd and got up to 2nd when Roger pitted shortly after. Got increasingly worried, when Doni continued without stopping.  Became clear that he was aiming for a late splash-n-dash, and obviously wouldn't change tyres.  When he finally did pit, he exited 17 secs ahead of me. Hoped my fresher tyres would allow me to gain on him, but there wasn't many laps left to do so.  Didn't work out that way, when I got delayed by traffic and my own small mistakes, in my frantic attempts to close the distance.  Thus had to settle for 2nd, but really can't complain about that, given the company.

Grats to Doni on the win - much impressed you could nurse it home on one set of tyres  

Clive, I looked at the replay after the race yesterday, and couldn't see you doing anything wrong.

Cheers,
Erling

[Wiltshire Tony]

What a fine looking grid for last nights race  

I steered clear of taking the Maserati and opted for the more sedate Ferrari 375+ which gave me a great drive around this road course. Although it lacked the top end grunt of it's Italian cousin, it felt very planted during corners/braking and acceleration, and the tyre wear was minimal    (did anybody suffer from shot tyres?). In answer to someones earlier question re: brake wear. Yes they do wear out and they become very "snappy".

Shame to lose some regulars so early in this event (see later comment).

I had some smashing racing with a great side by side confrontation with Kurt. However when he hit a lamp post at 150mph this ended our battle  

Later I had Misnoimis catching me up and he eventually caught and passed me but we had some good clean driving together. Both together at the final turn and we both hit the banking simultaneously   . He recovered first and sped over the finish line ahead of me  

Congrats to all finishers and respect to the pods as their speed and control was epic.

We are due to race at Schottenring in round 10 but it's a very long road course which might be a chore to learn. I think I'd like to race here again. If you have a strong opinion either way can you pm me? We have loads of time to decide.

[hayman3131]

they are shown before entering race, i can go to showroom to see them, but "no buy" "no use"
greets hayman

hi

just a question.
I installed the jag d, both 55 and 57.
but I cant buy them and so Icant chosse jag to enter server.
Is it right, that I can use each car only 3 times? If I dont get jag d running, it will be a prob then....................
btw: next monday I cant come to race  

greets hayman

Do they show up in your garage?

Yes only three drives in per make

Drivers are reminded that they are restricted to three drives per make. Check your status here

[hayman3131]

hi

problem solved.................
I downloaded cars jag d and ferrari 250 tr, was not "buyable" too, from nogrip
offline it works

greets hayman

[SpecialKS]

Very funny event, unfortunately many early baths on this narrow track - temporarily cruised in fourth place,
but then it came to a sudden death when trying to pass Tony on the first straight when I hit a lamp - just
wanted too much too fast instead of waiting for a better moment.

Some strange crashes before which I couldn't avoid but fortunately without further damage for my car.

CU next time and a big thanks for organizing this great series.

P.S.: Good to see you back, Bill!

[Wiltshire Tony]

@ Bill Thomas. Sorry mate but I could not avoid hitting your car. I was approaching at great speed and in the milliseconds it took to reach you I was waiting to see if you were going to move, either forward of backwards, so that I could organise some kind of avoiding manoeuvre. Instead you stayed put so I slammed on the anchors and consequently lost steering.

[EvilClive]

oh! I think Schottenring should stay in the series as a classic track which represents the style of road circuit that these cars raced upon. Always a challenge to the drivers and cars, with all the dangers and hazards of such a location.

I assure you that my enthusiasm has nothing to do with the fact that Schottenring is a very popular and well known track in GPL

[phspok]

I had a run round Shotty and it looks like the right sort of thing
It is very long and takes some learning, but i don't see that as reason to not run it.
Only thing I found a bit off was the frame rate, I think it may be because of the
millions of trees, but on my slower system: Core2Duo GTX550Ti
I was 41 FPS inthe pits, and 51 most of the lap, which made things choppy and
hard to react, it is drivable, but some slower systems may be disadvantaged.
I tend to avoid VLM tracks because they are too much eye candy and not enough FPS
for the same reason. If I was in SOuthport on my faster box it would be fine I expect
and I will cope if others have no problem.