UKGTL Season 17 Ford Asia Endurance Cup - Sepang - Jul 31

[Bob M.]

Not much to report on this race.  Had decided to just run it in one stint as fuel didn't seem to be a problem offline.  Had a little challenge from Mat early but he was having some kind of trouble,he was faster and would have passed me I'm sure without his PC trouble.  Just drove the track and short shifted a lot and braked early to take it easy on the tires and fuel supply.  With about 5 left I was glad to see the orange car of Erling in my mirror so got lapped and had one less lap to fight the bad tyres and worry about the fuel.    On to the walls of Phoenix next week and a car I sorta enjoy..  See you there.

Bob M.

[SpecialKS]

Results



Glad to get sorted my computer problems yesterday evening (hardware issue). I think it was worth the work.

CU next week.

[Jeep]

Unfortunately I'm going to have to miss a few races for the remainder of the season. It's not the Monday nights which are the problem it's the rest of the week leaving precious little time for any track time so I figure picking my races should give me time to at least find my way around the track and cobble together a reasonable set up.

I really like Sepang, feels like a proper track with a good mix of corners and doesn't have that "Built in a supermarket car park" feel like so many of the more modern circuits. Tried all the available versions and while obviously faster in the D1 cars I'm generally outclassed being the slowest of the entrants so decided to see if I could find a sparing partner in one of the D2 variants. After a few shortish runs It didn't matter how many times I did the maths 27.3 laps was all it would give me so it was one of the few times I was praying to be lapped. Tyres looked borderline as well but I was still sure a none stop race was on the cards with a splash and dash if all the D1 guys threw there cars at the scenery and I had to go full distance. Clive mentioning sub 2:10 had me worried as well and the possibility of being totally out performed with my low 2:11 leading up to qualy played on my mind.

I found another second though come race day and surprised myself by lining up sandwiched between Geoffers and Clive in 5th position. Start went well but it soon became obvious that Geoffers was on a different planet and Clive wasn't content to be held up by me for long. I somehow managed to stay ahead  for the 1st 7 laps with Clive over me like a rash. Me with my Stable and understeery setup and Clive with his tail happy configuration able to power through the turns on a much tighter line than me. Eventually a quick look at XD told me the tyres were not going to go the distance at this aggressive pace and when he showed his nose into the final turn on L7 I decided to allow him through and get back to the plan of a single stint and hope pit stops for others would come into play. Then 2 laps later found Clive had chucked his Capri at the Armco and I got the place back again. Noticed he steadily dropped down the order so figured his brush with the barrier was more serious than it looked, meanwhile Matt had closed within about 5s so pushed a little harder only to see him disappear presumably due to his black screen of death and he was replaced by Bob who was around 20s back. Meanwhile Ziu's unfortunate demise promoted me up to 4th and even the heady heights of 3rd when Tony pitted his D1 beasty. Somewhere around L18 though he breezed past putting me back to my now familiar 4th place. Then I found a hard charging Clive filling my mirrors. How the hell did that happen, where did he come from? A few corners of panic before checking XD and realising he was a lap down so waved him through. Then around L22 came across Geoffers facing the wrong way and I got the final podium spot back again. Problem was (A) I was still short of 0.75 of a laps worth of fuel to make the finish and (B) A quick check on Tyre health indicated I basically didn't have any.

Geoffers was soon back on my case and my Capri felt like a Cow on Rollerskates. Then Erling appeared and I slowed to let him through knowing Geoffers would seize the place back but equally I knew trying to keep my rollerskating cow ahead until the flag was futile so no complaints from me.

So 4th was better than I dared hope for. I think I'll be campaigning the D2 cars for the remaining races I can get to.

I hope we will see these again but I would prefer just the D2 cars. I think mixing the 2 classes makes for two distinct races which is fine if you have a 15 driver grid but our limited numbers result in a lot of driving alone which is a shame.

Thanks as always guys.

TTFN
John.

[Wiltshire Tony]

Results



Glad to get sorted my computer problems yesterday evening (hardware issue). I think it was worth the work.

CU next week.

Thanks for the results Kurt and glad to hear that your PC woes are sorted.

[SpecialKS]

Results



Glad to get sorted my computer problems yesterday evening (hardware issue). I think it was worth the work.

CU next week.

Thanks for the results Kurt and glad to hear that your PC woes are sorted.

My new toy    - a refurbished Lenovo Thinkpad X230 with 8gb main memory and a 180 gb ssd, W7 Pro and now also Linux Mint 18.2 (but not for online racing).
This little beast is so damned fast - faster than me on track  . And the solution eventually was so easy after I looked into deeper things over more than 2 days:
a loose contact on my router 
On the other hand I installed all necessary software to post race results from my holiday resort  (Autosimanalyzer does not work hundred per cent on Linux (Wine) but on W7).