UKGTL Season 2 (TC-65 Cup) - Brands Hatch (Indy) - Jul 5

[Bernie Lomax]

Another top GTL race - yet again great fun. Good to see a turn out of over 20 for the race as well.

[will16v]

That was a tight race - just a few secs difference in the lap times throughout the field - good turnout too
Had a few good battles - mainly with pops i think - that mini just kept goin' & goin' - good stuff...

A few daft mistakes from me though, and i was too far behind to catch up 

GTL is providing some quality racing of late - good standard of driving from all 

[Simon Gymer]

Provisional result, provisionally updated standings and replay available.

[pribeiro]

Congrats Baracus, well done
An intense race, with several fights (all clean and fair)
I believe i were battling for a place during all very 42 laps
But half of the race was superb fighting with mgoran and Hammer
Well done all.
Good race Mini guys

Cheers

[Kerr]

It was fun. I have very rarely played this game and not for ages but thought I would give it a go.

Surpised to qualify nearer the front although not matching my time from earlier session.

Lost it a few times as car was a bit lively at times, maybe more so as I don't know how to set these up.

Was running 5th for a while but spun and lost about 10 places!

A few scary moment along the way, when Perdy bounced off the barrier and came off it at 100mph and it required a bit of gravel hopping to avoid.

When Baracus came around to lap me I nearly lost it. Had visions when side ways that I was going to spin and collect him. Luckily, amazingly I caught it just and missed him, phew!

All in all, not bad since I only downloaded all the skins and track a couple of hours before.

well done to all, especially Baracus

[Dave 'Gizmo' Gymer]

Well, finally I finish a race in GTL without a black flag or massive shunt.

Qualified in the thick of it, after a few laps I was 'Popsicled' into Druids - not ideal but he let me back through when I caught up again which was most gentlemanly. Picked up lots of places as people spun off and actually managed to pass TinMan properly after he ran wide out of Graham Hill Bend - running wide onto the grass on the run into Clearways was absolutey deliberate and designed to prevent a re-pass, and in no way, shape or form a pants-wetting moment where I wondered if I would take both of us out or just me.

A few more spinners and I wound up in 8th, probably about right based on my performance as I couldn't make any headway on the cars ahead and was having to press on to make sure the cars behind, principally Bernie Lomax for the last 10 or 20 laps, didn't get close enough to pick up any sort of tow.

Not a classic but the first GTL race I've enjoyed in a long time.

[baracus250gt]

All in all, not bad since I only downloaded all the skins and track a couple of hours before.

well done to all, especially Baracus

That was quite a performance then Brian! You must be a natural in the old cars too!

Thanks for your congrats chaps! Another enjoyable race for me. I hardly touched the Cortina before (4 gears seems so cheap!) so had a few laps last night to get a setup sorted, which worked really well for this indy track. I could get the car rotating just using the throttle (in fact if I didnt use the throttle from just before the apexes it would just go straight!) so that let me get the power down and keep it there all the way out the corners.

Dunno what happened to Hammer but I was expecting some major pressure there - instead Simon was lurking inmy mirrors until I really started oushing after a few laps of settling in.

Saw some great battles when I started lapping cars and I tried to keep out of the way as much as I could to not interfere but was let through anyway... sorry to spoil your battles if I did. Caught Bernie and Steve Holmes right near the end and they were having a right old ding-dong - so I eased of to not spoil that one so close to the finish and give them an extra laps worth of fun!

Shame we have the BEST turnout on the LAST race - hohum... theres always next season (is there??).

[Simon Gymer]

Shame we have the BEST turnout on the LAST race - hohum... theres always next season (is there??).

Last race? No ho ho, there are 2 to go. 

[popabawa]

My first forray into GTL for quite a while, it was nice to get the Mini out of the garage once again.

Quite a few new faces I'd not met before so it was nice to see you guys

I qualified higher than expected, but then made a horrible mess at the start of the race when I came into T2 waaay too hot, tried to get into the inside of Dave, trying to turn it into a passing attempt, and managed to half turn him onto the grass. My sincere apologies for that Dave, that was somewhat reckless combined with a lack of GTL track-time :'( I couldn't give the place back safely at that point so I slowed on the straight to give you the place back.

The rest of the race was great, battling with Will16v, we swapped placed quite a few times, taking it in turns for whoever was in front to make a mistake. Nice, close racing

[Simon Gymer]

That was an odd but good race for me. Qualified 3rd on the grid (how did that happen, that's way better than normal), was gifted 2nd when Hammer spun coming out of Druids on the first lap and then simply didn't have quite the pace to keep up with Baracus as he slowly eeked out a reasonable lead in the end. I slowly pulled away from Goran behind me so it turned out I had no battles at all, but little respite as the guys behind were never far behind so I couldn't slow up for a minute. It all turned into a plan and I finished 2nd, which I think is probably equal my best ever GTL finish.

Thanks to all the guys being lapped, you were very sporting about it which I guess you had to be as it was nigh on impossible to get past without help due to the similar speed of the cars down the straights. Annoyed to have broken up Pops and Purdies battle near the end, but I didn't feel I had enough behind to just let you have your scrap and sit behind to the end without lapping you. Looks like Purdy had the beating of you anyway Pops  .

P.S. A great turn out again, looks like UKGTL will be saved after all! I'll post some details about the plans soon, when I get a chance and also schedule the last 2 races of Season 2.

[Adam Parle]

P.S. A great turn out again, looks like UKGTL will be saved after all! I'll post some details about the plans soon, when I get a chance and also schedule the last 2 races of Season 2.

 

[Steve Holmes]

That was a fantastic fun, I think the difficulty of overtaking at Brands actually added to it.  Got off well in 4th, was holding on to Pablo1978 ahead, matching times (after a couple of scrappy ones) and then started falling asleep and failed to brake for Paddock and ran into the gravel and barriers and followed that up with a grassy spin off Graham Hill 1/2 lap later.

Put me in the pack where it was wonderfully clean mayhem!  Had so many close battles, alongside people down the pit straight (but always backed off if not clean ahead by Paddock, too scared to cause a big accident) and up to Druids.  At one point there was five of us (2 being lapped) in a huge swarm down past the pits, amazed that sorted itself out but it did.

Saw some great battles when I started lapping cars and I tried to keep out of the way as much as I could to not interfere but was let through anyway... sorry to spoil your battles if I did. Caught Bernie and Steve Holmes right near the end and they were having a right old ding-dong - so I eased of to not spoil that one so close to the finish and give them an extra laps worth of fun!

Thanks for being so considerate Baracus (and congrats for another good win), Bernie and I had a huge battle for ages, so many times I was alongside but didn't want to risk it, finally I was quite firm, inside into Druids, ran a bit wide, Bernie cut back inside so we were side by side down to Graham Hill but I had the inside line and I did take the corner, I hope Bernie was okay about that, as I think he may have run wide onto the grass and that might have been helped by me.....just so hard to overtake and that was a really good opportunity.

More fun battling through than if I'd managed to cruise round in a higher position 

[Simon Gymer]

P.S. A great turn out again, looks like UKGTL will be saved after all! I'll post some details about the plans soon.

UKGTL Season 3 Discussion

[Mike Hammer]

I wasn't in the best of moods coming in. Reason I was able to attend was because I couldn't make round four of the amateur bike racing that's my hobby, due to techincal problems. Then I saw I had the choice between front wheel drive or that blasted Cortina, that almost turned me away from GTL back when I played the single player part of it and you had to run it for an entire cup.

Fortunately, I did find a setup that turned the driving experience from agony to driveable and even pretty fun. (Huttus Anderstorp settings) Well, so I thought until coming out of T2 on the very first lap and foolishly spinning it. 

Everybody was so close I couldn't get back on track before 14th place (I think), where there was a little gap. Made my way back to 7th behind PRibeiro and mgoran, but there was no getting past them. Towards the end of the race there was only one place I was sufficiently faster then PRibeiro, T4, the fast left before the final, tight righthander. There just wasn't any room to make a pass there. I made many attempts at T1 as well, but just couldn't quite make it. I was sometimes equal but often a little slower at T3 so no getting by on the back straight either.

Anyways, good tight racing with mgoran and PRibeiro for most of the race, so it turned out to be a good race evening after all. Cheers guys. 
And thank you to UKGTL, good racing here.

ps.
I had to do a few public races in the Alfa after this Cortina experience. Ahh, the bliss of a car doing what I want it to do .

[madmac]

Managed to put a wheel on the grass at the inside of first bend at the start and went straight back to last place! Then it was just trying to catch up but just not fast enough! Love these small tracks in the slow cars though and going by the amount of people who turned up so does everybody else!

Can't make next week, will be in hospital having a piece of my tumour and a lymph gland removed. But hope you all enjoy it.

Peter