Grats to Tris and all finishers. Good to see my mate Andy up there with the champagne along with Billy and Phil. Plus a shout out to Dave who brought the mighty Honda home with all 12 cylinders still firing
.
I think that there are lessons to learn for all of us in these long 90 minute races, but old habits die hard when we have been used to running 50 minute races for 20 years!! lol.
I was looking forward to the challenge of a longer race and was hoping that my recovery from surgery was good enough to allow me to complete the distance. I had done a little offline practice before and joined the server on Sunday afternoon just to check the connection was OK. Normally I would take the Honda, but I decided to try and find a car that was not so much of a physical challenge and tried the Brabham.
Gradually changed the setup to iron out any snap over/understeers especially through Malmedy...that corner always causes me problems
and arrived at the start with a car that was comfortable to drive on full tanks, even if it was not uber quick. Probably with a more aggressive setup I could have been lapping around 3:20, but with the softer and raised suspension I was 2-3 secs off that time.
Just like Bernie the plan was to feel my way in steadily and play the long game. My gearing was such that even with a tow down the Masta straight I was not approaching the red line. Unlike shorter races, I was taking corners in one gear higher than usual and relying on the Brabham's torque to pull me through. I had not done any proper fuel calculations and was being ultra cautious about consumption.
I think I jumped Bernie at the start into Eau Rouge? ( not part of any plan!!) and was following the pack up the hill. Things ahead looked just a little crowded as we approached the left hander, so I backed off early and created a gap. It turned out to be a good move when I think it was Andreas and Billy tangled and I had time to pick a route through the wreckage.
Andy was in front of me and slowly I closed the gap until he allowed me to pass, part of his long term race plan I suspect?? But then he insisted on holding a position about 150 mtrs behind for many laps until, I just touched a back wheel onto the grass and tried to use the earth banking. That allowed Andy to re pass and I set off in pursuit.
Once again, not pushing particularly hard as there was still half the race to run. Slowly I was closing the gap, I was quicker in some places and Andy was faster in others but there was no rush to go wheel to wheel.
Then for no apparent reason the engine popped and it was race over
. My oil temp had never got as high as 170F and the revs did not get within 500 of max anywhere.
I am guessing that in the GP length races the full random car failure part of GPL comes into effect? I remember reading somewhere ( probably in the booklet that accompanied the original game disk ) that mechanical failures were very common in 1967 and that GPL modelled that.
Disappointed that many of us did not finish the distance, but still looking forward to the new series and the tactical use of pitstops ( or not) at the various circuits.
PS. Interesting that Andy had the 30fps issue, because I have been experiencing exactly the same problem for around 3 months now. It looks like I have forgotten to apply the 60fps patch correctly and the frame rate is locked at a max of 30fps ( exactly 50% of the expected 60fps??) and sometimes dropping to 12-15fps, so I often go back to GEM and check and then join via IP, instead of IGOR, which sometimes appears to sort the problem....but it makes no sense and might just be coincidence.
Then after maybe 10 minutes the fps magically increases to 60?? It has nothing to do with how many cars are in view, or the details of the scenery, or which mod we are running. Does anyone have any info on this subject??
