............... so did some bed time reading on how to setup a car for an oval. It seemed to do the trick. The Merc was great to drive this round, with easy controllable slides without the front right suffering too much on the temperature front.
Please give a link because I couldn't find anything.
Grats to Sam and Axel and to all the finishers and especially to cars that were lapped. Sorry for getting in your way over the final laps....explanation below.
I have not had much joy in the past in the couple of oval races that I have tried, but I knew the secret had to be getting the setup right. So I tried some radical adjustments to enable the cars to get turned in T1 and T3 without backing off too much or destroying the front right tyre and I think I got it somewhere near right.
If you think it might help Clive, I can send you the setups that I cobbled together for Indy. I have one for the Mazza 250F ( which I used) and also one for the Lancia that you were wrestling. The Lancia was potentially quicker, but I felt that the 250F would be more of a challenge and it could have been much more fun if I had just stuck a couple more gallons in the tank.
The horrible truth about the fuel dawned on me around lap 15, when I glanced at the "laps to go" and the "fuel left". Alarm bells were ringing at the fuel level and a quick mental calculation told me that I needed to squeeze at least 2.5 laps from each gallon. Until that point I had been quite content to tag along behind Sam's Merc enjoying the tow, with spare revs in 5th to attempt a pass, but that would be something to try much later in the race. Even tucked in the Sam's slipstream my revs were too high and using too much gas....RATS!!!
Over the next few laps I checked how fast I was burning the gas and the answer somewhat spoiled my race. At the pace we were travelling I would not see the chequered flag!!! I considered a reset and a SnG, but that would cost a huge amount of time, so all I could do was ease back and bite my tongue ( very hard ) as Sam eased away
Axel had dropped back after his incident and I was unsure just how much of a cushion I had. My slower pace might have compromised some of the cars that I was lapping...especially Greg (?) and Clive Loynes who I caught, but dare not pull away from. I actually wanted to find a fast tail ender to slipstream, but everyone pulled over as soon as I got in range!!! very correct, but really frustrating!!!
With around 6 laps to go I had to ease back even more as the fuel tank was looking very empty and now I had Axel closing in from his 3rd place. There was absolutely nothing that I could do to defend 2nd place and I was only at about 75% throttle on the straights and coasting into corners. The car was coughing on the last 2 laps and I I crossed the line to take a 3rd place just as the fuel vanished completely.
I guess it shows that even old timers like me can get the fuel calcs wrong, but I was quite chuffed that I did 2/3rds of the race running at reduced speed and still managed 3rd place in a car that was not an obvious choice * well that's how I see it
)
