UKAC Season 1 ETCC - Donington Park - Oct 7

[picnic]

Here's a treat for you



                      >>>>> LAP Charts <<<<<

[Mark J]

First up:-



thats Jeff, AnimalEd and Erik standing on the podium for this one    Congrats to all 3

Big thankyou to those that turned up and raced to the end    had hoped for more but guess it was short notice, so 9 of us raced. There were a few names on the praccy server that didn't make the race so hopefully they make the next round.

I beat my PB in qually trying hard to overhaul Erik in 3rd, with a 1:42 so happy with that.

For the race I went a bit too conservative with my gearing. I used the stable gearset2 but also had it one final ratio too long (in error) so the car was a bit tardy through craners and the chicane but at least it meant no dodgy downshifts and unbalanced car. In fact I didn't put hardly a wheel wrong the whole race, just couldn't keep up with the fast 3 ahead. I never got challenged from behind so ran my own race and kept it clean. That's why we want the bigger grids so no one gets lonely on track  
Hope the guys further back had some racing?  Think Frex gets honourary membership of the Donington Gardeners club for what must be a world record in grass cutting reports   Having troubles there Frex? expected you to be a front runner.

Note for next time...Hard tyres!  mine were like fifty pence pieces by the end with nice glowing orange flat spots    Would also like to know the ideal tyre pressures for these cars   mine were pretty cold most of the race, had them at 27psi cold.

thanks again for attending or taking notice, lets hope it builds.    Will probably run the 2nd round in two weeks assuming ChrisR shows up for his event next week.

[Sutol]

Grats to the podium BTW.

Just love this car, the way you can make it dance round the track even for the likes of me. I had red spots on the tyres after around 10 laps, I took it easy for the rest of the race, used the poor old engine. I'm going to watch the replay later to see if I was locking up, don't think I was though.

[Jeffrey]

For the race I went a bit too conservative with my gearing. I used the stable gearset2 but also had it one final ratio too long (in error) so the car was a bit tardy through craners and the chicane but at least it meant no dodgy downshifts and unbalanced car.

I only changed the set from 1 to 2, needed to select 1 gear lower than with set 1, but worked for me.

I never got challenged from behind so ran my own race and kept it clean.

Loneliest: Mark Jonzo (avg total gap in front and behind 39.59 secs)

Note for next time...Hard tyres!  mine were like fifty pence pieces by the end with nice glowing orange flat spots    Would also like to know the ideal tyre pressures for these cars   mine were pretty cold most of the race, had them at 27psi cold.

Would hards be worth it tho? Like you said, the mediums were already cold, so what would the hards be  ? The mediums only really go off at the last few laps, I think, by that time, the hards have already lost you too much time, to make it up in the last few laps, but that is pure guessing (and track dependant).
I think the track was very tricky with braking, lots of braking zones with a slight turn.

[Mark J]

Action shots

The start-

[Jeffrey]

I am surprised you found moments where Frex was actually on the track 

[frex]

Think Frex gets honourary membership of the Donington Gardeners club for what must be a world record in grass cutting reports   Having troubles there Frex?

Lol, a bit of trouble yes.. I can't do understeer, and that's all I got here - armfuls of it. I was just getting slower and slower every lap, and if anyone came anywhere near me I just got right out of the way. Bit of a shame as yesterday in practice the front end felt fairly pointy and was turning in nicely. Not today though..

Should be a good series though, and hope to join in again when I can. Congrats podium.

[Sutol]

For the first 4 laps you were putting me under quite a bit of pressure. Then you just fell off the radar, I couldn't understand why??

[frex]

Yep, that's when the loss of front end grip really started to kick in. Maybe I got some damage somewhere, or maybe it was the same for everyone and I just coped with it less well than everyone else..!

[Mark J]

Shame we couldn't muster more drivers.  . Just to prove how hard it is to get drivers I had over 60 views for my race advert at No-grip and over 60 at the Kunos site...not a single driver turned up from either  . Also had a mention over at Core but no others from there either.
Few regular faces missing from here too, Shark and Spanner etc.

Hey ho, I enjoyed it  Looking forward to racing them at Zandvoort 

[Stefan aka Postal]

Well, that was a steep learning curve having not turned a wheel in these cars. Did use the mentioned setup tips, altough my final drive seemed just one click to much, which really hurts with these cars. And the braking... how sensitive are these?! Can't imagine it being that bad in real life. After the race i adjusted my brake gamma to cope with it for the next outing. At least i have a base setup now, so i can hit the ground running for the Zandvoort round.

Nine drivers on this short notice is not bad MJ. It looks like a very nice series and i am sure if we keep promoting it, it will surely attracted more drivers.

[Animal Ed]

Someone asked last night about tires pressure and temperatures so here it is: optimal pressure is 39 psi and temperature between 80 and 100 ...

First of all thank you Mark for putting this up.  
With those kind of cars it is never boring.
Even when you have dull race and noone to fight with, there is always a car with interesting ways of putting your nerves on test (not now Kato!!!!!) so your race can be enjoyable or frustrating but never boring.

And to explain my tire choice - before this, I had only 2 races on public servers with this car and in both of them medium tires last for half a distance.
No brainer!  
Or is it?  
I was really surprised when I saw other drivers choice, and even more with Jeffrey`s pace after 15 laps.  

Plan was not to push too much at the beginning and wait for medium tires to drop off but it just didn't happen.
Ok, lets pick up the pace - result was mistake in Foggy Esses and pure luck not hitting the barriers.  
Ok, ditch the plan and bring it safely home.

During the whole race, my tires was stone cold (left side 70 max and right side 10 below) and I`m not sure what to do with this.
Lower tire pressure will bring more heat but how will affect car behavior as you must go for higher camber?
Need more testing.

And one more problem that I have on tracks like this - I have 24 inch single display and 26 FOV so Melbourne and Goddards are nightmare as I can`t see my exit point.
It took almost whole race to figure out those two - according to lap time sheet, last 4 laps were OK.

Looking forward for next race.

btw - my skin is from DTM car but not sure is it original or from SBB as I use their autoupdater so here it is:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwjSkCqTw1UGQjlQRVlKbVlad1E/view?usp=sharing

[Simon Gymer]

Few regular faces missing from here too, Shark and Spanner etc.

Been out of the country for nearly 2 weeks (got stuck abroad cause my son had chicken pox so we weren't allowed to fly home) and only got back Wednesday night. Only just had a chance to look on here to discover I missed an AC race!

Next time...I'll be back.

[Mark J]

Welcome back Sharky 

Ed, does that Dtm skin work on the group A car?

Be interesting to see how the E30's feel with the new tyre model and physics update. Zandvoort is also a really bumpy track so good damper and Spring settings will make a difference.

[Animal Ed]

Yes it works.

Considering new tire model - same pressure, same temperature range, and if you have cold tires lap time suffer a lot.

One more thing - old tire model, 21 degree ambient temperature, fast track = easy 1:52 with hard tires and race fuel.
New tire model - same environment, optimal grip = hard work to go under 1:55 with medium tires ...