Congratulations Phil and Pete!
I have been wanting to spend time improving my 71 setups since 2018. I copied my M8F setup from 2014 which must have been the last time I drove these cars at Mt. Panorama. It was a decent setup to copy to the M8B. I could tell the M8F setup was old since my power ramp angle was 85 and my front brake bias was 55%. I used a lot of front brake bias when I started driving GPL. I was able the change the ramp angle to 45 and the brake bias to 53%. Late in the race, I was fully depressing the brake pedal to test the limits of the car. That pushed my front tire temperatures a little higher than optimal, so I might have been able to use 52% front brake bias. Recent testing at Isle of Man where I copied my Nurburgring setup for the M8F, I was unable to use 53% front bias because the M8F fishtailed too much under braking. I had to settle with locking the inside front wheel occasionally. With the high amount of downforce created on the front of the M8F, I now guess that I'll always need more front brake bias on M8F versus the other cars.
My setup worked well on this track. My tires ran at a very good temperature until I started testing the braking limits of the car. And then the tires were still easy to recover from a little over heating. Lap 1 was a little tricky. A little practice on race fuel would have helped with that.
I drive these cars similar to the way I drive the original 67s. I use about the same braking points and similar points to accelerate. It's just everything happens a little quicker and at a higher speed. I think the level of difficulty is about the same as the 67s. This mod, like the 67s, seems to reward being smooth in your driving. I had a new thought during this race. When accelerating out of a turn it is far better to be a little late stepping on the throttle than being a little early.
You might say I have an unfair advantage with this mod. Doni and Axel are the only drivers that might have as much experience with it as I do. I'm going to try to tell you everything I think so maybe more of you can grow to enjoy driving these cars. I didn't think much of the mod when I saw it being released but I quickly grew to love the thrill of the speed these cars can achieve. I also liked that it showcased North American tracks. This mod reminded me that the US has some great tracks. Until Can Am 71, I had grown to think all the great tracks were in Europe. This mod also allowed me to see what it was like to drive laps as fast as Phil Woodward in his Lotus 49.
I liked getting Sam Posey's car. If I could have been a race driver, I might have been better than Sam Posey. I also like driving yellow cars for some reason. Maybe, it is because my first vehicle was a yellow 1980 Toyota pickup SR5. And the New Mexico state flag is yellow with a red Zia symbol. I'm always looking for the Zia symbol when I drive one of the yellow cars.
It appears I wasn't able to help Alain any. If you can learn to drive the 67s you can learn to drive these cars.
And if you have a setup you like in one of the V8 cars, it's not a bad place to start in the other V8 cars. I would setup the M8F and copy it's setup to the other V8 cars. I now wonder if that was wise since there seems to be a large difference in downforce on the front of the M8F. But it was still better than starting with the default.
I'll post pictures of my setup for Panorama soon.
Shortly before I lapped Dave, I wanted to slow down and let Pete back into my slipstream to see if I could break the tow again. I tried to let Dave get a slipstream for two laps. With Phil 30 seconds behind at that point I didn't want to wait that long so I put throttle back down after two slow laps in front of Dave.
Tristan and Yannick are as fast or faster than me in these cars, although this mod would likely give me the best chance to beat them. With some practice TomJ would have had a good chance at P2. Heck, he might have been able to use the slipstream to keep up with me.
I am disappointed that Clive could not race. I hope you soon get your computer working right. Running this old software can be a real pain in the as* at times.
Thanks for the fun gentlemen and thanks for giving me a good opportunity to work on my setups.
