UKAC Season 1 ETCC - Zandvoort - Oct 21

[Mark J]

I don't think it's technically right that a set of softs should last for a half hour race  maybe it's because these cars are light. But then considering how easy it is to lock up the fronts then again i would expect softs to be in a bad way after 15-20 minutes of hard driving. Sounds like kunos need further tweaks to the tyre model.

To SRW, you need to reinstall the latest version of any apps you were running pre 1.3.

To Shark, you can't really turn up with no practise and no setup and then complain you had no one to race 
I was 4 secs a lap slower at beginning of the week compared to race night but I found those extra secs through some practise and setup tweaks  but your welcome to borrow my setup as several others did, but have found its quite different track to track based on the first two rounds.

Not seen the replay yet but good to hear some had good racing and if not for the two who couldn't get in, we would have had a healthier 13 on the grid 

[Simon Gymer]

To Shark, you can't really turn up with no practise and no setup and then complain you had no one to race 

I can and do EVERY week. I don't have any choice. I have the option to not race or race with no practice and I'd rather race without practice than not at all.

I'm experienced enough that I can pick up a decent enough pace fairly quickly with only 15 mins practice in any car (they nearly all work the same way, especially the tin-tops). I don't expect to be at the front and that's not why I race. I wouldn't be at the top even with a month of practice. Having done plenty of races with both Jeff and Erik I know for a fact they are way more talented than I am, no amount of practice will bridge the gap to them. My qualifying pace showed you don't need to practice to be competitive enough. In the 15 minutes we had I went from 2:02 to 1:57 (after I dumped my v1.1 setup and went to the default setup with gear ratios tweak) and knew where I could make a little bit more time.

I was in there at the back of the front half of the field with ChrisR, but he was 2-3 seconds a lap faster on mediums than me. Why? I had the same setup for qually as race (except fuel and tyres). 3 seconds slower on mediums versus soft is not right for me, it's normally about 1 second on for any car for each compound so to have lost that much pace due to mediums just ruined my race both competitively and the tyres making the car very boring which it wasn't in qually.

As for complaining about having no one to race. It doesn't matter whether you practice or not you can have lots, some or no one to race no matter what practice you had. You practiced but you still had no one to race. It's just a moan, it's not a directed complaint.

your welcome to borrow my setup as several others did, but have found its quite different track to track based on the first two rounds.

Do you have a link for me and I'll try and negotiate some more time for trying it.

[spanner]

Gawd i dont know how you drove with those setups Eric and mark! Way too soft, which i guess helps the change of direction. And felt the gearing too short so kept on playing with and lengthing it but then felt too slow on the corners. strangely getting on the server and felt different and the 8/40 final drive seemed to work.

Happy with qually but just couldnt get happy with braking, and clearly nobody else did wit hteh plumes of smoke into the first corner!

Maybe your realistic starts are slowing you down MJ? I normally aim for middle of the rev range, engage first when the lights go green, allow the auto clutch to help then go full throttle. 2 pedal, paddle shifter here.

Interesting race stuck behind Sutol, I guess i'm pretty cautious, without too much confidence in the brakes i didnt want to try too hard, and normally if i do i get punished by not trying hard enough, as you came round the outside of me! You seemed to be braking pretty early cpmpared to me so made things a bit interesting at times!
By the time i did gt past i seemed to be all over the place and felt like i'd had the best of the tyres.

Was susrprised i couldnt get anywhere near my qual times

Really need to find the latest apps to reinstall...

Really dont like FFB settings, you cant go above 100% With road cars and race cars requiring vastly different settings if i set it high for the road stuff its going to be a pain having to change it all the time for others.

[Simon Gymer]

Maybe your realistic starts are slowing you down MJ? I normally aim for middle of the rev range, engage first when the lights go green, allow the auto clutch to help then go full throttle. 2 pedal, paddle shifter here.

Really? Same starting procedure for me in ANY car in AC. Bounce off rev limiter, engage first gear, keep your foot down and control the wheel spin (if any). Sometimes I lift off slightly after launching if the back end is coming out too much. Gives me a good start every time. Only time I really have bad starts is very long first gear or I miss the green lights!!

If they ever fix the bug that prevents gear selection and clutch on starts then I will do it differently, but until then, this seems to be the best way to start (for me).

Really dont like FFB settings, you cant go above 100% With road cars and race cars requiring vastly different settings if i set it high for the road stuff its going to be a pain having to change it all the time for others.

I have to say I can't tell the difference in the FFB since Day 1 to now. I've always left the car setup ones to 100% and have one common setting in the AC main menu (which I think includes no dampening), always feels great no matter what car I select. Which wheel do you have? I could never go back to a Logitech from my Thrustmaster T300 now, are you on Logitech? I can share my TM settings if that's helpful.

[spanner]

Lol you did when i first got my T300 and i transformed it but thanks anyway.

Whether its because of the slick tyres and stiffer race cars i find the ffb nice and strong allowing me to feel the changes more easily. With the road cars its like there's very little there, no resistance , no loads. I assume because of the power-steering on the cars. But it makes driving them rather.. dull and lifeless.

[Jeffrey]

I did a test run on softs, a day before the race to see how they held and they did fall off after about 4 laps and gradually got down to 95%, but I could keep it going and only lost around 1s to 1.5s after that. I had an average of 56.5, but that was me alone on track and no increasing track grip, that stayed on 97%. When I run on mediums, my average was also 56.5, so I opted for the soft for the race and hope that a good start would help me get a gap, big enough to last to the end of the race.

Weird thing is, my mediums also dropped after 4 laps, and were slower to begin with. And I think Zandvoort is heavy on the tyres, so Hockenheim will be a no brainer.

When the race started and Jeffrey gave me the inside for turn one I was trying to get away as fast as possible. Nearly messed it up on turn 2, going over the inside kerb. Was surprised that I could stay ahead and even increase the gap to Jeffrey, with knowing his normal pace   Had a slow moment when I got to SRW and had no clear point to pass, so I was happy I still had a better pace than Jeffrey to open up the gap again. That gap was surely needed when in the last lap the car didn't go to 3rd gear and I ended in the kittylitter   Thankfully I was still close to the tarmac and had a straight line out (second time only where I used 2nd gear), seeing Jeffrey coming in very close and the only point I might have lost it was the chicane that came up right then.

I was on the same gear set 1-8/40, as that was the best option for me and aero 3 front 1 back. I did expect the second halve race battle (easy overtake), with the fast medium tyre drivers, but it never happened  

Exactly what I was using, guess you had better traction coming out of the corners.

I agree with Simon, amount of practice doesn't really promise a close race. And I gave you a setup tip in the in game chat, by saying "go stiff", but I don't know if you understood that message, as the reply: "ooeeerrr Jeff"  didn't ring a bell for me (Keep the bedroom noises in the bedroom pleasee ).

I'm also interested in your setup Mark, thought you had something similar to me, but Spanner says it's very soft, which is exactly the opposite of what I' ve got. My setup is fast, but on a knife edge, which is great for qually, but I'm too scared to push during the race  

EDIT: Just seen the latest patch notes, which contains this:

- Fine tuning of tyre heating model for GT2 and GT3 cars. Tyres now might need 2 laps to heat up the core temperatures. Core temperatures are now much more stable during a lap and cool down slower.
- Corrected rolling resistance calculations for GT2 and GT3 cars tyres
- BMW M3 E30 Drift and M3 E92 drift has new tyre heat calculation following the GT2/GT3 logic. Experimental.

Will that also affect the tyres on the Stage A M3?

[Sutol]

@ Spanner, your frustration was palpable but after flat spotting dreadfully at Dony I was trying to look after my tyres. Whether it was worth doing I'm not sure.

[Jester]

I agree that softs should not be able to do a 30 min race and I hope Kunos keep improving on the tyres.

Really dont like FFB settings, you cant go above 100% With road cars and race cars requiring vastly different settings if i set it high for the road stuff its going to be a pain having to change it all the time for others.

You can set ffb per car in the game, when you're in the car, with the + and - of the numpad. You'll see the ffb on the top of your screen when you change it and it can go over the 100% (went over 300% to check  ) That ffb setting will stay with that car on a any track, until you change it. You can see the ffb setting per car in your *:\My Documents\Assetto Corsa\cfg\user_ff.ini

[Simon Gymer]

Lol you did when i first got my T300 and i transformed it but thanks anyway.

Well if you want to try my current settings...
Windows CP:
Overall 75%
Constant 100%
Periodic 100%
Spring 0%
Damper 0%

AC Game Settings:
Gain 60%
Filter 0%
Min Force 5%
Kerb 90%
Road 80%
Slip 20%
Enhanced Understeer OFF
Steering Gamma 1.00
Steering Filter 0
Speed sensitivity steering 0

[Simon Gymer]

And I gave you a setup tip in the in game chat, by saying "go stiff", but I don't know if you understood that message, as the reply: "ooeeerrr Jeff"  didn't ring a bell for me (Keep the bedroom noises in the bedroom pleasee ).

Driving a BMW around Zandvoort is excitement enough for me without telling me I need to go stiff! aka I decided that maybe changing the entire suspension without care was a bad idea with the 2 minutes I had left so I stuck with what I had already driven. I did the gearing as Mark suggested, was running 3-3 wing (default) and upped the diffs slightly, but I think that was a mistake (at least upping the power diff was).

I just tried again with optimum track surface and mediums and 3-1 wing and it's still pants so I suspect the basically default setup needs something more drastic. Having said that on softs it felt alright.

[spanner]

I did try upping it when in car but it didnt seem to react when going above 100%, i guess theres a bit of a delay.

The setups seem to run no bump dampers, high rebound and a stiffer spring on the front so it didnt ride well!

[Jester]

Off topic: I see in the standings points for teams. How do I get the team 'Soggy Bottom Racers Club' I'm associated with on there?

[Mark J]

To Simon, you really didn't need to explain yourself  I know all that already just couldn't be bothered to type it! But sometimes, some combos require some praccy and this was one of them I think. Of course all slightly negated by clever Erik getting softs to work!

My setup wasn't soft! I had 140f and 145r springs with 2-5 arb's. Ed was running softest and beat me while Jeff was prob running stiffest and beat me also 
My tardy start was because I made a late call and used gearset2 8/40 as a quick look in Telemm showed it kept the car more in the right rev range for more of the lap but it was awful off the start line.

Regarding Ffb, I set it to suit each car. There's a great app over on Kunos for telling you ideal Ffb and gain for each car. I haven't reinstalled it since 1.3 but will do. I used 92% in-car for the e30.

[Wiltshire Tony]

Off topic: I see in the standings points for teams. How do I get the team 'Soggy Bottom Racers Club' I'm associated with on there?

It looks like your registered with SBRC for P&G only. You need to change your status to "all" then you will be recorded in all races/formats as a SBRC member.

Try this link to get you to the relevant team management page https://www.simracing.org.uk/lm2/index.php?action=teams

[spanner]

stiff springs with no dampers meant it was aweful over the bumps but changed direction quite well. Just mho though. I needed something a bit more under control.

Out of controlled me into an unchallenged 4th place  I very rarely go without damping but the tyres and springs were doing their job of controlling the front wheels enough for me and any additional stiffness at the front was just affecting turn in too much.