UKAC Season 16 Ford Vs Alfa - Vallelunga - May 13

[Fabri Fibra]

I was the red Alfa and I didn't across diagonally the track. I'm sorry if you are thinking that, Mark.

[Barone]

Apart form the first two laps madness where I ended up in a cloud of smoke...
I tried to get the best I could after restarting form the back, and I had a fun "time attack" race with Kimi in the last 10 minutes!
Not the best start for the championship but at least this cars are good fun.

[Adam Parle]

Uber-brief version: started 4th, finished 4th.

Less brief version ... tried in vain to hang on to the top 3 flying Escorts,  then binned it all by myself to drop to 10th.  An early pit stop gave me space to work with, and made my way back up to 5th as people pitted.

I managed to reel Stefan in, and when he hammered a sausage kerb and got way up on two wheels I took the opportunity to sneak by.

The car was a real handful as the fuel dropped off, to be honest I was glad to see the checkered flag.


Hopefully the Escorts won't be quite so competitive next week!!

[Fred Basset]

My first Srou race since June 2011 and first ever AC race as I'm generally on iRacing.

Good fun in the Escort despite some terrible overdriving but will be back next week, might even practice.

Thanks to Darren for persuading me to race and letting me do so as part of Legends.

Regards
Gary

[Darren Seal]

Another fun race....   

Tim pipped me to pole, which setup a great battle over the opening laps.  I kept probing for gaps, but Tim always found the traction out of corners to stay ahead.  Sadly our battle ended when Tim ran slightly wide heading out of Cimini 2.  Unlucky!!!  I soon stretched the gap to over 5 seconds, but after a very cautious pit stop, the gap to Tim was back down to 2 seconds.   From then on I just had to keep it clean to take the chequered flag.

Great driving as usual Tim.  Your car control on and over the limit is very impressive and fun to watch up close. 

Well done to Adam for finishing top Alfa.  Well done to Gary for finishing his first AC race.  I know you've had limited time this week due to hardware issues.  I'm sure you'll be back on pace soon.  Unlucky MJ on your early exit.

Just seen a video of the next track.  It's going to be interesting. 

[Bob]

  Had really good race last night, some good clean close racing. Just to clarify was it mandatory to change tyres or could you just add min 1ltr fuel. I seemed to loose loads of time and places on pit stop changing tyres. All in all a very enjoyable race. Thanks for the help SRW and Darren, game changer!

[FullMetalGasket]

Good fun last night, although I should have set my car up better I think - I was having serious brake locking problems into the hairpins once I'd been on the same tires for more than about 7 laps. I was noticing that all 4 wheels were often locked going into the really tight left hand hairpin No wonder I was unable to catch back up to Darren! (I also think I should have used the next longest gear set).
Well done to Darren on the win, I had to chuckle at your own big drift through the first hairpin after you passed me - couldn't decide at the time of you were rubbing it in or had just overcooked it 

Bob/everyone: tire change is mandatory as per the race announcement. I will be going through the replay to check on this as it would be possible to get an unfair jump on the opposition if you don't change tires. (I know what the minimum standstill time for a tire change is so this is easy to check - I'll need to see what LM2 is capable of, but for this round a time penalty equating to the time a tire change takes will be added to anyone who performed a splash and dash (to give people who haven't read the rules a fair warning) . I believe the server would have disqualified anyone who failed to stop so that should already be covered..

For future rounds I'll be applying a time penalty that's equal to 2X a tire change though

For any other grievances please submit an incident report as usual 

[Bob]

No grievance just a query, my pit crew are all oldies like me.

[Lorenzo Galluzzi]

Alfa was not competitive at all yesterday, it was almost impossible to overtake the Escorts...but running different tracks will give us an idea if the cars could compete without any bop.
By my side, the race was quite difficult, as i'm still struggling to find a good setup...i guess I still haven't figured out how to deal with "u" turns...

Best Regards

Lorenzo

[Darren Seal]

Thanks for the help SRW and Darren, game changer!

Well done Bob, I'm glad I could help...

(I also think I should have used the next longest gear set).

My final drive ratio was 9/37, which meant I spent most of sector 1 on the limiter.    

Well done to Darren on the win, I had to chuckle at your own big drift through the first hairpin after you passed me - couldn't decide at the time of you were rubbing it in or had just overcooked it  

Thanks, I can assure you it was more a case of looking for you in my mirrors, missing my braking point and then panicking.  

Bob/everyone: tire change is mandatory as per the race announcement.

I think the confusion is caused by the server message while sat on the grid.  It states tyre change OR 1 litre of fuel.

[nocatu]

Nice racing last night!

Apologies to Bob for nudging him at the last chicane, I got a bit excited and tapped him but thankfully he was able to keep it together and keep going. I lost my pace a bit after and for a couple of laps I had to defend against Lorenzo. As I was approaching my pit stop the gap to Bob and vva, who made an amazing start, became smaller, about 1 and a half seconds. I think I was the first of the three of us to pit, I had started the race with 40 litres of fuel so apart from changing tyres I added 20 litres more as this would cost no extra time but would take me to the end.

Surprisingly, the undercut worked and I got close to vva whose tyres were colder than mine. Bob was exiting the pits and we both passed him and after the first straight I was able to finally pass vva. The race was uneventful after that, the only issues were locking the rear inside wheel at the hairpins during braking and a gearbox that was slowly deteriorating and wouldn't change gears as it should. vva was able to get quite close to me in the final lap but luckily I stayed in front.

[Barone]

It was just me that had a brief .5 second of freeze and lag when server messages (like PB lap of someone) appears?

[goldtop]

I'd actually put a fair amount of time into practice and car setup for this one and hoped to be able to battle it out mid grid. Unfortunately I still found myself struggling for pace and relied on other's misfortunes to gain places. Not sure what happened with my calculations but I still had around 25 minutes of fuel remaining at the end of the race which could not have helped  

Aside from that, an enjoyable event and probably the best result I could have hoped for.

Congrats to the pody  

[FullMetalGasket]

I think the confusion is caused by the server message while sat on the grid.  It states tyre change OR 1 litre of fuel.

I agree  although I had just posted a reminder before going to grid.
I'll look into whether that message can be changed, but I think it might be hard coded...

[IbnSolmyr]

I wasn't fully focused in the race unfortunately, but that was a nice event as expected. Thank you Tim for organising this series, those cars are lovely.
I'm not a fan of Vallelunga though, but in those little beasts it keeps its fun !

Got a lonely race mainly, apart from a bit of action with Adam in first few laps and with Tim after he did a 2nd error, but I did one also so that he got passed back.

Thank you all for racing, nice grid and ofc congrats to Darren and Tim !

@ Mark and Fab : I watched the replay this morning and it seems that Fab, coming back to the track, had no idea that there were 2 cars inside (with Barone who thankfully didn't pay the price of the contacts). Mark didn't get this luck (left + right contacts), and Kimi neither afterwards.