UKGTL Season 16 Fifties Sprint Races - Grenzlandring - Sep 5

[Geoffers]

Bit of a disasterous night on the Geoffers front.  

Totally bemused in qually why I was over 3s off the other D-types. Car seemed to handle well & was hitting the limiter in top on the straights, so where was I losing 3s. Then Eifel suggested I may be using the wrong tyres  , never occurred to me that the tyres would make such a difference. So changed them & did one outlap but pressures were far too high, lowered them but by then it was too late to get a time in, so just did a lap & a bit to check the pressures, still a little too high but was over a second quicker at the first split so must be going in the right direction.

Race start was a bit iffy, sorry to Tony for swerving into your path, but passed a couple of cars by T1. Got another on the back straight & by the back straight on the 2nd lap I was right with the leaders in 4th place. Then it all started to go wrong. Close behind Navin through the kink onto the S/F straight I turned in a bit early & went across the grass a little on the inside, not only losing some time but getting an S/G for speeding in the pitlane! WHAT!   Anyway slowed at the end of the next lap to pit but had a car closing very fast through the kink so pulled off onto the grass out of the way & hit a signpost!   Managed to get going again & did my S/G.

Car had damage now which slowed it down, could only do laps in the 2.09s, so just kept going to get some points & with all the carnage I finished an undeserved 6th.

Congrats to John, Ziu & Bob. Well done guys.  

[Erling G-P]

Coyote through no fault of his own got smashed by me when I came back down to the ground killing his day and race. I should of hit esc as soon as I was in the air Coyote and I apologize for ruining your race.

No worries Navin - it all happened very quickly, so don't blame you for it.

Disaster race for me too.  Started rather well, with new pb in qualy.  Navin made a slow start, so I was able to pass him.  My own wasn't anything to write home about though, so John got past us both.  Reclaimed the position through T1, when he stayed wide.  Thought I was battling John, so surprised when Navin crept past on the inside at the start of L2. As he said, we then took turns slipstreaming past each other the following laps, eventually reeling in Ziu.  Thus 3 cars towing each other.  I'm uncomfortable running so close to cars in front, as I tend to get my lines wrong when I focus too much attention on the car ahead.  On this circuit, it can be fatal, so dropped back a little (too much, as I lost the tow).  Up ahead, Ziu & Navin still duked it out, and when they touched in T1, everything went tits up.  Tried and tried and tried to predict where Navin's car would go, as he was crashing. Aimed for the gap on the right, as he was against the left barrier, but no. Just as I was about to pass him, he hit something hard and was catapulted across the track, right into my path.  No way to avoid a violent collision.

When my car stopped somersaulting, it was upside down and facing the wrong way. Miraculously, none of the following cars hit me, and with difficulty I got the car turned around in this narrow section of track.  Due to damage, it would no longer run as fast as before, and instead of 2:05 laps, the best I could do was 2:12s.  Felt so much like quitting, but soldiered on to scrape as many Championship points as possible, in case any others lucked out.  Did make up a couple of places that way, so not wasted, although any hopes regarding the Championship is thoroughly gone now.   Didn't stop for repairs, as experience from last year showed me that it doesn't help with the lowered speed.

Grats to the podium and commiserations to the others who met with misfortune.

Cheers,
Erling

[Wiltshire Tony]

Well, that was a suprise. Started well, with a car setup that I had spent ages preparing, with particular regard to tyre pressures, as I felt with a left, left, left track they would need some attention. Settle down on lap one at the rear of the pack as I didn't want to get caught up in someone else's accident. Had a good chase with Roguk which ended way to soon. We were slipstreaming each other and as we started to enter the final turn he was up my chuff with a vengeance. I had seen a collection of cars way up the road but I lost sight of them through the turn. As we entered the straight'ish part before the S/F line there was a puff of dust cloud up ahead. I started braking as I didn't want to arrive at the scene of possible carnage at full speed. Sadly Roguk didn't brake as quickly as I had and he nudged my rear sending me off track but only to slide along a fence, from where I was able to get back on to the track in a controlled manner. Noticed Roger quit shortly after which I felt bad about. Later on had a many lap duel with Phil (welcome back Phil) where we exchanged places time and time again although my car was in better nick and just a tad faster. Anyway, this battle lasted for many laps until he tapped my rear end and skidded on to the grass near the pit entrance. He hit a "Keep of the Grass" sign and totaled his car. Remainder of the race consisted in taking places of those whose luck/skill ran out and I was left trying to catch Bob. He and Ziu were losing time but sadly the race finished before I could catch them.

So now we have the final at Goodwood with all the podium places up for grabs. A quick study of the car roster shows who will be driving what for this race. Could be epic.

[EvilClive]

For what it is worth Geoffers.....

I was running the Aston on vintage tyres with absolute max pressure and zero toe in/out front and rear, just trying to squeeze every possible KPH out of the car in a straight line.
 The central tyre temps were about 20 degrees above the outer and inner temps, so I guess I was running on something like a bicycle tyre. Strangely enough I the wear was minimal right up to the penultimate lap where I totalled the car.

[SpecialKS]

Results

 

[SpecialKS]

Then Eifel takes a strong dislike to a telegraph pole but fails to actually remove it, instead he performs a triple salko with 2.5 twists and harpoons my poor Aston.............NP Eifelblitz it was an accident, but this was not in my copy of the script!

Great circumscription   - sorry for all inconveniences caused  

BTW - great race - look at all the intense and emotional comments. For one time I was competitive (as I was last year on this track).
Not exactly that fast but not bad - still using a setup Matt gave me last year (thanks again!)
After my usual bad start I could climb up some places and had a great and clean battle with Clive and Jeep when I came a little bit too far outside and  crashed into the pole. I thought "that's it" but I still had 1% of my engine and was able to reach the pits for repair.
After that I could still go on for about 5 laps with 0% and 130 mph maximum speed and some obvious smoke signals before my engine finally quitted only some seconds before Jeep won the race.
One sad thing: I lost my one and only best race lap ever scored  

This race - on the other hand - also manifested my weakness: without a suitable setup and with the usual lack of practice on a track with lots of corners and heavy braking I'm only a contender for latecomer. But fun is what counts.

Thanks to all involved for organizing!

CU next week.

[Wiltshire Tony]

Results

 

Much apprecaiated Kurt 

[Geoffers]

For what it is worth Geoffers.....

I was running the Aston on vintage tyres with absolute max pressure and zero toe in/out front and rear, just trying to squeeze every possible KPH out of the car in a straight line.
 The central tyre temps were about 20 degrees above the outer and inner temps, so I guess I was running on something like a bicycle tyre. Strangely enough I the wear was minimal right up to the penultimate lap where I totalled the car.

Cheers Clive

Yeh, I generally made a mess of preparing for this one, never paid much attention to the tyre pressures, let alone trying the other tyres.