GTR Endurance Special - ROC - 14th May

[Dave 'Gizmo' Gymer]

Change of heart given the rubbish turnout - FlyBri, you should have access to the password in the password forum...

[Don]

Not sure what happened there, came onto the start finish straight and hit a stationary car, race over. What a shame
I'am Mr Angry!

[Dave 'Gizmo' Gymer]

You're Mr Angry? Think how I feel... I drive hard for 20 or so minutes keeping Popabawa behind, spin on worn tyres, come in for my scheduled stop... and having wasted some 15 seconds with the awkward crew instruction sheet the bleedin' AI driver takes over! WTF?! Tried to find the right key to get it back but to no avail, so I retired.

I can only assume that whilst trying to tell them not to put fuel in I accidently bumped the driver selection at the top but I was shocked that AI drivers were even available!

Gah!

At least that was absolutely, definitely, positively my last GTR race ever.

[ginsters sponsored]

I was enjoying that as well, great stuff FlyBri, until I tried to pit. Got a stop/go, strange I thought didn't seem to do anything wrong, so went in for stop/go, very carefully this time, only to get another stop/go. Must have been getting it wrong  but twice is enough.

Think the event was a good idea, on a real good track and I enjoyed it immensely. The low turnout disappointed me. It deserved better.

[Rich_A]

Yur it's definitely not worth the hassle racing addon tracks, always little bugs here and there make it impossible.

Tbh single events will never be taken too seriously, season are where it's at.

I don't recomend using addon tracks for ES3 unless you can be sure they work 100%. 

[greg130]

Unbelievable, one lap to go and my DFP stops working, straight into barrier, end of race, bugger.

Apart from that good fun as always.

Just unplugged the wheel and plugged it back in, fine now, damn computer.

[Mark J]

I thought the track was great and suffered no bugs or weirdness (other than Tyf )

Really enjoyed the practise and qualy sesh's trading times with the usual suspects.

Race was a different matter, hadnt had any time to try out a race setup so used a tweaked qual setup and it was just too hard for race and full fuel. Had a good first 10 laps chasing Pops and Dave G but then fell back a little.
Double dropped a gear thru Becketts, span at high speed and lost about 15 secs otherwise could have carried on pressuring Pops in the race
My race was really boring due to the low turnout and no-one near me to race, and i was tempted to quit a few times but perservered in case someone up front droppped a clanger, but they never
Brought it home about 11 secs behind Pops.

Well done TT for pretty much dominating the few NGT's here.
This track would be great with a full grid.

[Simon Gymer]

Silverstone worked fine other than the fuel consumption being wrong. As long as we test the tracks first there's nothing wrong with addon tracks. The addon cars cause more problems than addon tracks if they're not done right. It's a nice change to race somewhere else as the other tracks are getting a bit old now. Laguna last week was good, although again a very hard track.

Can't say I particularly enjoyed this race. I picked the wrong car. I like the Morgan and in off-line practice I had done 1:49.4 compared to 1:49.0 in the F360, so I thought that was ok and not too slow in comparison. This is true, however, the Morgan is sooooo stiff and can't cope with bumps at all. When i took out the F360 in practice I thought wow you can barely feel the bumps in comparison to the Morgan. Being the hardy individual I am I went for the Morgan anyway as this was a one off special thought I'd spice up the grid a bit with the boat. Pace wise the Morgan was fine but keeping hold of the thing over the bumps was an absolute trial every lap, you guys in the F360 and 911 had it soo easy over the bumps. My hands hurt like hell now after hanging on so tight.

Span about 3 or 4 times so was very suprised to get 2nd only 10 secs behind TT.

Shame about the turnout, the rest of the champions obviously too scared to turn out and prove their worth. 

Well done Zacari and TT on the wins.

I'll check the server to see if it has AI control ticked but it shouldn't have.

[popabawa]

I'm feeling quite lucky I only had my own incompetance to deal with, sorry to hear about your problems guys

I thought I'd got fairly quick at this track until Trutom and Shark blew the rest of the NGT's away in qually. Some nice work by my fellow Legends, I think we all got PB's in qually.

Still, it looked close between Dave, Mark, Don & I for 3rd. Mark was all over me for the first few laps but he couldn't quite make the pass, then he dropped back a few seconds, presumably a mistake, bummer for you but I was pretty pleased

Manged to keep the gap down with Dave to under a second, I was very consistent for the first 20 mins then just as I was getting on terms, Dave span leaving me in 3rd quite a way behind Shark. About 10 mins later there was old Sharky by the side of the track and I was just able to nick past before he rejoined Shark pitted in so I decided to go another few laps. I'd decided no tyres and no fuel and see if I could make the tyres last.

Then my incompetance took over. I pitted in, got the limiter on absolutely perfectly and headed for my pit box which was the one nearest the entrance and decided to clip the wall spinning me round (like a record baby, right round) 180⁰. Of course, then I paniced and lost about 20sec turning round and altering the pit board only to then rejoin 5 sec behind Shark.

AAAARRRGHHH!  

My tyres were pretty shot by then so after a few laps trying to make a dent in Sharks lead I gave up and decide to just protect my 3rd place, It was the Race of Champions after all  

Congrats to Truetom, amazing pace there  

Disappointing turnout though

[FlyBri]

Change of heart given the rubbish turnout - FlyBri, you should have access to the password in the password forum...

Nice one Dave, It was much appreciated m8  

I enjoyed race, never run track till about 10mins to go in practice. Managed a 1.46.1 in qualifying, got me 7th. Pleased with race, but made a mess of my pit stop due to not remembering my 'engine cut' button lol, and only made a couple of minor errors in race. Race pace was good and managed to put in a 1.43,7   Had a great battle racing with SBG for first half of race until he had his stop/go woes, unlucky m8. We were pretty much equal in lap times, good stuff 

Bri

[Rich_A]

Ok well cool but I don't think that fuel bug is good for ES3.. unless it can be fixed, new track version put on FTP for download ect.

Laguna is great, did anyone try that Lemans v3.3 from Hepto site? Lemans is ace, luv the long straights - would be great track for ES3.

[[ZiP]Tyf]

Gutted, knackered and sweating and those 3 in random order for now .

Add on tracks are great, period.

Took the C5R out for a spin, since I'm most likely going to use that in the next season. Never got to grips with Silvy last time I tried it, so took it quite easy in praccy and qualy. Noticed I was just in front of the quickest NGTs when I finally managed a complete lap without spinning .
Had a blast of a race right from the start. Trying to stay close to Jam who was a tad faster in his F550. He made a mistake, I passed him, then I made a mistake and he was right on my tale again. Knowing he was faster I let him past at the end of the longest straight (hangar?). Thought I'd scare him a bit by staying next to him up to the next sharp left hander and then really let him go . That was dumb, lol. Outbraked myself and ran wide, hehe! Drove like a maniac after that and even ignored the 'tyres worn, tyres worn' numptydumptyness of my race engineer (mental note: Fire ze n00b & hire some dumb goodlooking blonde chick; prolly more useful ).
Pitted with 22 mins to go and when I was back on track I was about 3 secs on front of Jam again! W00h00!
Took it nice and steady and managed to keep the gap open, until I made a mistake and spun, Jam past again... Only to be going up in black smoke 1 corner after
'Knowing' the gods were smiling on me now I thought, ok, let's cruise to the end and cap a nice 7th place in the Race of Champions!
N00b-me can't 'just cruise' (never like Will Smith ) and so I spun again, hitting the armcove and 'removing' my front splitter and some suspension 'attributes'... Race was almost finished and I was hoping to get at least an 8th or 9th place by continuing to drive, hehe. No suck luck though, so 11th I think, else 10th, lol! (Even got a stop 'n' go! LOL!)

Good race though & I hope every race in the next season is an addon track (if tested and found 'non-quilty' ). Pwetty bored with the default ones myself tbh and it's also nice to race on tracks that are being used in MotoGP, F1 and other motorsports, like China, Bahrain, Mugello, etc.

Grats to winners and on to the next!

T

[mo]

Congrats to Zacari and Truetom - the champions

I had a great battle with Zacari, we were split by hundreths of a second in qual and the race was no different.
I drove as hard as I could just to keep in touch - superb driving Zacari and even though I was just about able to follow there was not much chance I 'd pass you.
Really enjoyed trying to pressure you though

But then I somehow lost 10secs to Zacari during the pit stop(my achilles heel in enduro races) , and came out in 3rd behind Kreuger who made a great stop, and thats where we finished. At one stage I thought I would be able to challenge but had burned my tyres catching up and in the end went off at the chicane before Bridge.
I rejoined and took it easy to cross the line for 3rd and some doughnuts with Zacari and Kreuger

One of my most enjoyeable races for sure, so roll on some more addon tracks I say 
btw did I mention that Elkhart Lake is a great track

[Truetom]

Made only a few laps yesterday here and made 1.51.xx. Then saw on the GTRank that the record was 1.47.xx. Didn't have time to train today as I had to work on my wifes (   ) garden. Just had some time before the race but couldn't make it under 1.50. Joined server and decided to make some desperate damper settings which proved to be the right ones. 1.49.4xx in quali, just after Shark and 1.49.9xx in a race.  

Race was quite boring, tbh.      From the begining I was trying to follow Shark who slooooowly (0.1 sec per lap   ) pulled away, but span and then couldn't quite follow. My tyres were a bit hot 110/105 so I had to hold back a bit to preserve them. Also made some minor mistakes exactly 'cause nothing was happening and was (almost) daydreaming. I pitted at half the race w/o any pit problems and had 15 sec lead. I presumed it was Shark and I let it slowly and steady fall down to 10 seconds lead. Then Zacari and Krueger came, dueling for 1 st place and in letting them pass I lost full 5 seconds. Had to step up a bit in pace to make it first.

SHAME on all "champions" who didn't join and had no reason for it.  

Great event, I was honored to participate.    

[JonM_uk]

Wasn't gonna race until the last minute. But was glad I did in the end. Not for the close racing but for the track, the longer the race went on the more I found myself enjoying it. Finished 4th which I think was right, all the guys in front were faster so I was happy
Special Grats go to Zacari who now seems unstopable and of course to TT who won a race and made a pitstop, nice work ze TT Grats to the Champions of champions