UKGTL Season 23 The Christmas Special - Le Mans - Dec 29

[Erling G-P]

Tony, you can of course have my replay if you like; it shoud be complete (checking it now)

Thank you Erling 

Replay sent

[Wiltshire Tony]

Tony, you can of course have my replay if you like; it shoud be complete (checking it now)

Thank you Erling 

Replay sent

And replay posted, thank you Erling.

My work here is almost done, Happy New Year to you all.

[SpecialKS]

Result




Thank you again, Tony & UKGTL staff for your outstanding work over the years
and thank you again, guys for years of proper, respectful and funny racing  
It was a great honour to race with you !  

[PaulSS]

I did'nt do too well on Christmas Special race, was too tired and not enough practice, but fun while it lasted :-) A great pleasure too race with you guys i will miss you all  maybe i will see you around hopefully. All the best for the New Year all

[Wiltshire Tony]

Well, this is it. My final post on a site that has been like a 2nd home for nearly twelve years.

A huge thank you to all the drivers that I have had the honour to race with over the years.

Also thanks to Dave for always being there when problems occurred (usually because I had screwed something up). And also for creating the ever more complex championship scoring systems that we required.

Thanks to Kurt for always supplying the results, that was appreciated.

I'm going to try Altbierbude on Thursday nights and see how I get on. Micha has been kind enough to help me understand how they do things over there. I may even learn some German!

I am on WhatsApp. Pm me for my details.

Which just leaves me to say have a happy New Year to you all and hopefully we will meet again, who knows where, who knows when (thanks Vera).

Wiltshire Tony signing off  

PS Forgot to thank Matt for his stella server support, we would not of lasted this long without his generous support.

[Erling G-P]

While I was thinking very strongly about retiring at the end of this season, it is still with some sadness that I see the league closing down, and I will for sure miss the weekly race.  Undecided about my sim racing future, but let's see how bad the withdrawal symptoms gets.

Once more a huge big thanks to Tony for all the hard work over the years, and of course to Matt & Kurt, and everyone else contributing in the background.

The race was a challenging one.  In qual, I couldn't match the one & only sub 3:15 lap I did in praccy, but surprisingly still landed pole,  Didn't know what Micha would be capable of with the Ford, and definitely expected Daz to destroy us all like usual.

Early laps were dicing with Daz. Couldn't prevent him from slipstreaming, and a few times he went alongside, but without completing the pass. On lap 2, approaching Indianapolis, he forced me to let him past by drawing alongside on the right.  I couldn't clip the apex of the corner like usual, so had to back off, for fear of going on the grass, which is often fatal there.  No sooner than Maison Blanche it was Daz in trouble however, as he had to back off, allowing me to claim the lead again.  This time with enough gap to break the tow.  Stretched the gap a little the following laps, but suddenly Daz was gone. When the gap jumped to 18 secs, it was clear that he had gone off.

Not long after I spotted his car up ahead, almost a lap down, so obvious that he had stopped for repairs.  I gradually got closer, eventually lapping him when he had a wobbly exit from Mulsanne Corner.  Not sure if it broke my concentration, but I messed up at Indianapolis, clouting the barrier. Not very hard, but the Ferrari is one of the most fragile cars I have ever driven in GTL, so of course it was damaged.  Handling still ok, but lost top speed, costing around 2 secs a lap.  Following lap, I got a 'sandy' exit from Arnage, which let Daz unlap himself.  Slipstreamed him up to Maison Blanche, where I almost binned it; just too dangerous running so close. Lost time, which created a gap, and with my damage, I wasn't able to catch him again.

Pit at the end of lap 18, for fuel & tyres.  As expected, Micha was the nearest chaser, taking the lead.  When he continued to lap 21 before stopping, it was clear that he only needed one stop. As I would have to stop again, the race now appeared unwinnable. Before my stop, I had a gap of around 30 secs to him. My first stop took 65 secs, + in/out time, with most of it spent waiting for the crew to release me.  If the 2nd stop would have the same long waiting, then it looked impossible, even without tyre change.

After Micha's stop, the gap was around a minute however, and if I pushed like crazy, I was able to add 1-2 secs to that each lap, so maybe still possible?   Gap was near 1½ minute when I did the 2nd stop, on lap 36.  It went fast however, so in the end it didn't become the close finish I had expected, and I could ease off a little over the remaining laps.

Both proud & humble to have won the final UKGTL race, a special one indeed.  Definitely not in the cards, with the strong contenders lined up. Hope for a speedy recovery for the absent DD.  Grats to Micha & Fulvio for joining me on the lonely podium, and big commiserations to all the victims of the unforgiving track, not least Clive with a way too soon exit, after heroically having just made it it in time!

Thanks to everyone for the great racing over the years, and my very best wishes for whatever the future brings!

[Daz9]

If this was my final race in GTL it didn't quite go to plan!

Le Mans has never been a track that has blessed me with results over the years, so I didn't have much in the way of confidence going in. The car felt loose but fun, just a case of not messing up at any point.

Messed up in qualifying of course, although I doubt I could have matched Erling as he was flying, 13s was faster than I went in practise by a second or so....

Good first laps, was difficult not to get too close as the slipstream was huge, but knew making any attempt at a pass in the braking zones would be dangerous for both of us, so once Erling had got back past me I decided to settle in for the long race and sit back a bit rather than on his tail. Of course, that meant no tow, and this meant I had to try harder, and then on only lap 5 I went a smidge wide on the exit of the Kink, and that smashed the crap out of the car. Race was toast at that point, I knew I would be slow on the straights even with the repairs done, but I was just wanting to finish. Many laps later the dreaded tell-tale gaps coming down in XD made me check the other cars, all frozen on track, so I bailed at that point. Disappointed not to see the flag, I hate quitting out.

Since NoGrip disappeared without trace this has been my home for GTL. That is not as long as others I am aware, but I have been made most welcome, and I thank you all for that. Most names were familiar to me, either from inter league events, or from races at Gamers Crib maybe, but it was a second chance at playing my beloved GTL, and it was most welcome as far as I was concerned. I bought the game on disc in December 2005 just by seeing it on the shelf in store at Game, and went online eventually in late 2006 I think, so I have given it a good go. I'm sad that this will be the end, but time rolls on I guess.

Massive thanks and respect to all I have shared track space and time with, being here has been a joy.

I can't express in proper words my respect for Tony, having done this now for so so long, providing all of us with the pleasure of organised events that must have taken hours or days to sort out. I am very grateful to have been able to have been part of it for a short time in the grand scheme of things. You have been a leading light in the GTL communities for as long as I can think Tony, I am in your debt for your efforts. The events here have been as well organised as anything else I have ever been involved in online, that is credit to you and the rest of the team here at UKGTL/SimRacing.org.uk.

My thanks to Matt for the server for the last year or so, you stepped into the breach as needed, top stuff. Kurt also for religiously providing the results without fail every single time.

I'm still trying to improve if I can, so won't be stopping racing. I joined SCB on Discord thanks to Geoffers a number of months ago, based on them being a good bunch of guys, which they are. Age is no barrier there either, some are far older than I, with the oldest being in his 70s I believe. We have even tempted Clive over, and he is making massive improvements now that he is finding his feet. The RaceRoom events are well supported in the main, and based on that experience I have also entered the ranked championships in RRE, which the racing has been intense in. LFM have just put AC on their online ranking system, and that has many racers on, most events in the Mazda Mx5 cup being fully loaded with 90 drivers per session. I will say being back on a full grid of 20-30 cars does change the level a touch, and it is more immersive in the main. More sims are on the way this year, although whether any will feature heavily on the accessible, friendly, rewarding cars that GTL had at its heart we do not yet know of course. I doubt they will. There is a massive amount out there to enjoy right now is my point, so I would encourage anyone that still enjoys getting on the wheel to keep doing so. Not everything is cut throat out there, and good people to race with still exist.

I would love to spend track time with you all again at some point. If anyone wants my contact details just PM me and I will pass them on. Or, if anyone wants to know any other details on anything mentioned above then again just ask.

My gratitude, respects and good wishes to you all.

[Geoffers]

As I have said before, it is sad to see the end of GTL here, & once again a huge thank you to Tony for all the years of organising. Also thanks to everyone who has been part of the GTL community here, it has been a pleasure sharing the track with you all. For me that will probably be the end of my GTL career, but I will be continuing simracing, & as Daz said there are many newer sims out there & probably more to come, which is both good & bad. Good to have so much choice but bad in that will inevitably dilute the player base of what is a niche corner of gaming.

I can only endorse Daz's comments on SCB, a great bunch of racers with the focus mainly on Raceroom but also a weekly dose of RFactor2. Although they explore all the content of those sims, races for older cars predominate, so there is plenty to interest GTL fans. So if any of you are interested in joining Daz, Clive & myself at SCB, PM me or Daz & we will let you have an invite to their Discord channel.

All the best to all of you for whatever you occupy your leisure time with in 2024. Happy New Year.

[Dimitar Dulichki]

It was an honor for me to make my GT Legends online debut right here, almost 4 years ago and to meet so many great sim racing friends. Unfortunately, the end has come and I just wanted to say thank you to Tony for organizing the races and to all the gentlemen I had the privilege to race with. So many unforgettable battles and chases here. The one that comes to my mind straight away is the photo finish win I had over Daz at Dijon few years ago. That was awesome.

And guys, if you would like to try something different - give RBR a go with the Hungarian plugin. It is so much fun.

And, of course, Happy New Year everybody!

[nocatu]

As another NoGrip fugitive I felt very welcome when I started racing here about 5(?) years ago. I know I spent most of my time in Nappe1's league but I did race with you guys a few times. A big thank you to Tony for keeping at it for so many years and being so successful in organizing things, and a big thank to all the others who helped with results or the servers. It was great fun racing with you all and I hope I'll see you on a virtual racetrack again in the future!

[Dimitar Dulichki]

BTW Tony made his Altbierbude debut last night. Maybe guys we can keep on racing there?

[Walter Conn]

Thank you Tony! We will all look back on these days and smile.

[senyorlobo]

Sad to hear the news. What good memories I have of all of you. from gamers-crib, through nogrip and finally here.
In recent years I have practically not been able to do any races but for a couple of years I was a regular here.
Thank you Tony for the effort and dedication.
Thank you all for making this possible.
Maybe we'll see on ABB or rfactor2.
A hug to everyone!