UKGTR Season 7 Lower Endurance (GT2/3) - Anderstorp (GP) - Apr 13

[Joss]

Whew, what a mess of a race! >_<

Kerr and Mike were both very fast in qually, and a combination of me screwing up on my best lap and not leaving myself enough time, I was really pleased with 3rd. Top pace lads

Race started and was following Kerr just ahead of Backo.

I hope I didn't lag at the beginning? I think I heard a glitch in the sound, and when I looked back someone was skidding off track. I sure hope I didn't "lag bomb" anyone.

I'll wait until the replay to see what happened, but I *think* it was Kerr's car that warped and unfortunately I was right behind and went headfirst into his bumper. That spat me and Backo (who was right behind me) off into the outside gravel trap. A real bugger for me though, is I run 1st gear long so I can use it out of hairpins....but it has the unfortunate side effect of making it really tough to get out of gravel traps......combined with the super-high banking meant I was dead last and about 45 seconds behind P1 at the end of lap 1, with 26 cars in front of me! o_O

Really had to drive hard to try and catch up, and I think it was 15 minutes in until I even got to the front of the GT3 field. Cue second warp moment:

Started all over again, getting past a load of cars until i caught Ade, but when i got close to his rear bumper in the last carousel before the s/f straight his car started warping like a lightning flash and i got a 'game synchronising' message  , with him reappearing just in time for me to avoid him by throwing myself in the gravel again 

Right behind Mark at one point waiting for a place to pass, until he lagged into me as well! Arghhhh!    Oh well, better to get it all out of the way in one race I suppose! 
Edit: Just found it - 2172secs. Think you lost your connection right in front of me. Interesting as the collision detection clearly works and I hit "something", but no damage! Phew!

Pitted early to repair some surprisingly minor damage, then came out in 11th or something, then Backo had his problems and Kerr disco'd. Suddenly I was 6th! Then Pedro made a couple of mistakes in 2 laps and I snuck though. We made contact while he was spinning which made it a little worse for him, which sucked. I had nowhere to go though 

Got my head down again to catch Mark up ahead and realised Picnic was right in front of him. That's 3rd place!?! Gogogogo! 
Pushed as hard as I could and got the gap down slowly, but alas I wasn't fast enough and by the time I caught you guys, my tyres were completely shot from the long stint. Well done on 3rd Pete!

Finally, nice one Mike on the win. Would have been fun to see if I could have hung with you, but I somehow doubt it. Congrats!    Gd second for TT as well 

And look forward to seeing 968 take 60kg of ballast - once again, a sublime performance 
I reckon with speedy Mike around and Kerr back at full pelt, my 20kg of ballast is no longer required

[LeeB]

Not a great start for a new league. Having not raced for over a month now and mostly on American circuits, I had no setup/practice for this and just hope that I didn't cause anyone any hassle.

Made a bad tyre choice at the start ( a common mistake I make) had a good first few laps until the front left delaminated, pitted got new tyres and rejoined made my way back upto 9th I think then looped it on the last turn and hit the wall, puncturing my front right, so thats a whole lap with a flat to get back and change it, then I get mechanical problems in the pit making it over a minute stopped watching everyone passing.
Finally rejoin and just push for the rest of the race hoping for non-finishers and mistakes to get some more places back.

Looks like a fantastic league with lots of racing going on. Its nice to actually be in a situation where there are people to race, rather than circulating on my own as was very common in my last league. (small grids)

Hope for more of the same (although without the silly mistakes form this race) next time.

[stnasky]

Great race.  I was late joining the server but still had some stuff to do before i could settle down.  When i eventually got to sit down there was only 2 minutes left of qualifying and managed to get in a lap before the switch to the race, which put me a the back off my class .

Had a race long battle with Peter as he already said, but im amazed at my pitstop which gifted Peter my place.  Did everything i normally do , cut engine while stopping and hit return, i know that the pitcrew always takes maybe 2 to 3 secs before they start refueling because its the same every race i do, always end up wiggling the steering wheel to get them to hurry up but it never works .  Anyway i took 43 Litres and new rubber allround and watched in horror as Peter left the pits before me maybe Peter started with a full tank of fuel and only had to top his tank up.

Near the end Freq had closed right up on us both and that had me right on the edge of my seat for the rest of the race, but luckily everything stayed the way it was and held on for 4th .

Congrats to Mike on your first Win, and Paul.

[Joss]

Having watched replay my car dissapears and Freq runs into my invisible car and flies off,  Backo too.

Yea, I just checked it out too. Was a little warp for only a second or too, but oh well. What cost me the real time was my stupid first gear - I couldn't spin the wheels! >_< Backo was much, much faster getting out of the gravel, and only lost about 10 seconds as a result! 

I also noticed that at 711secs, my car also warped very briefly at the same corner. A little less than yours and thankfully Dave was far enough behind not to notice...but sheesh - much warpage in that one! 

Don't worry about it though. As long as you kill all your unneeded programs and reset routers beforehand, theres not much else you can do! I've had a couple of warp problems recently too (I took Jeff out of Race 07 last week with pretty much the same problem) even though I checked everything beforehand. Sometimes sh*t just happens.

Great to see Pete get third though! And I can't complain because I got very close to 3rd even after that horror first lap, so I'm pleased with that.

[H@L9000]

Awesome race for me 

Qualified well, and started off well. Simon overtook me on the first lap, he was pulling along side on a straight and was probably saying to him self something like:

'Watch this Hal, this is how you take a corner in the Viper' 

He pulled a very nice overtake, very clean and in control even though to me it looked like he really threw it  round there. I am one humbled Viper driver. I then had Paul968 on my case but I guess that the extra weight prevented him from being in the right place at the right time because I managed to hold him off for about 20 mins but I eventually folded under the pressure. Very intense driving with my mirrors for so long  Paul almost had me at the last turn at one point but he put it sideways and I gave him the slightest tap, sorry bud. MAD RIP also pulled a very nice overtake on me at the final corner again excellent driving.

I almost caught Dan Minton after my pit stop and we got side by side going into turn 2, I gave him a slight tap due to a miss judgement of the length of the front end of my Viper but no damage done I think.

I managed to get my best result in a championship race, 4th. Nice. 

Well done podiums and Mike H for first win.

[Truetom]

Couldn't get the "just right" lap in quali, lots of traffic and minor mistakes. I saw the crash in L1 and I thought of warping right away. It would be unusual for such experienced players to have cars flying into the air in the opening turns of the 80 minutes race. Was feeling a bit sad for them, though it catapulted me 2 or 3 places up.    Had a scrap with Pedro who could drive the right hander after big straight much quicker than me and after some laps of besting echother we had a contact there. I managed to keep the car on track and in front and could pull away then. 
After Brian went off I was 2nd and had a 10 sec margin. Didn't want to really push as this track is killing tyres. I was sure I could keep Picnic behind and had low chances of that with Brian. So I let the gap diminish over time, keeping my tempo even. There was another thing: only Brian could catch Mike for me to close the gap to the top, so I was thinking of letting him by without a fight.    But when he caught up Adrenaline took over.    After some laps of succesful defensive driving I floored it 1 milisecond too quick in the turn1 and ran wide. I must say I wasn't too upset as I know he's an alien and would go by eventualy anyway.    And I was still hoping he could slow Mike down. 
After he discoed I settled in my 2nd place and cruising. It was quite boring actualy, I think only GT3s kept me awake. 
Too bad MJ had a bad race and other Legends were collecting brownie points. 
Grats to Mike for a solid win. And to both podiums, of course.    I never score in Anderstorp! 

TT

[ginsters sponsored]

That was a truly painfull diso after battling my way to front of GT3. Nothing to do with server as I simply lost my internet connection last night.

Nice fight Simon and it would have continued no doubt. At least the championship has closed up now

[Simon Gymer]

I reckon with speedy Mike around and Kerr back at full pelt, my 20kg of ballast is no longer required

Think you've got that the wrong way round Joss. You should keep 20kg and the other guys could be nice and take the same or more as well.

[Mike Hammer]

Hmm. One puny win and already I should take ballast   

Heh, I'm not set against taking a ballast, but I doubt whether I can keep pace with the front here in U7LE/GT2 if I do. Or in U7UE/GTC for that matter. Two races to go, the first of which is a completely new track for me. At this point I think this race result is more of an exception then a precedent.

Is the ballast per class?
I sure don't want any for U7SE, where I'm trailing quite a bit and have problems keeping the GT1 car on track. The results don't show ballast for anyone in that class, so I guess it's per class.

I'm unsure about U7UE as well. The fair pace I got at Mugello in the GTC car was a result of a *lot* of practice laps, and help from teammates, and still I finished 12 secs down in LE/GT2 and 3 secs down in UE/GTC. I won't be able to put in as much time for practice on a regular basis so performance will vary.

Have to think about this.

EDIT: This post is just me thinking out loud. I have a habit of doing that.

[Dave 'Gizmo' Gymer]

Is the ballast per class?

It's recorded per-driver, but you can change your ballast up until a few minutes before the server is launched. If you change it after each event ready for the next that's a pretty safe bet.

[Mark J]

so hang on, was it just a bad night for broadband connections last night or is it something the server end? Seems a bit odd that so many of us suffered discos and warping cars last night, and on a standard track so we cant point the finger of suspicion at that?

It was my second in two consec races so i naturally assumed its my connection gone t*ts up. Same both times, the whole grid/all cars just disapeared and i am racing around on my own, oddly not dropping me from race but i have to manually quit cos fearful of crashing into someone i cant see.

[Simon Gymer]

Connection from my NTL cable line was 100% solid, so probably just the usual ADSL problems I think.

[Paul968]

After Mike H said my TT was slow on the straight, I decided to try manual clutch in the race. I fully expected to make a hash of it, but in fact it wasn't too bad. Qual could have been a bit better but was still around the best I'd had online, but this meant lining up ahead of Simon, who breezed past down to T2 on lap 1. He managed to put a good move on H@l9000 shortly after which left me bottled up behind his Viper. Lap after lap I had no real chance as even with a run the viper was too fast. I worked out that the only real place to try was into the last corner, and sure enough I finally got right on his gearbox round the long right and got alongside down the inside. Unfortunately I was so concerned that I would run wide into him I lifted off too sharply and half spun it, letting him back in front (any contact wasn't your fault btw). I had a couple of other small chances, but in the end I had to wait till lap 18 when he spun it at the last corner and let me past. By this time Simon and SBG were 10 secs up the road. SBG pitted early and with a clear track I started to eat into the gap to Simon. The pitstop wasn't the best, as Dave was just clearing the slot as I entered and then I got held for around 5 secs at the end because another car was coming down the pitlane, so when I left the gap had grown to SBG to 15 secs. I'd hopped ahead of Simon though and had a 10 second gap. I was working out whether I had any chance to catch ginsters when he discoed  After this I went into cruise mode to help the engine (which was dropping in health because of the manual clutch). Simon wasn't closing so there was no need to push, but I had a bit in hand if necessary and could afford to be nice to the GT2s and take it easy to the end.

Congrats to Mike for his first win  (the first of many I'm sure) and thanks for pointing out my speed issue - I just need to fine tune my throttle blip technique now. Its a shame to see SBG disco as it not only robbed us of a battle in the second half, it also messes up his chances in the championship. Its times like this that I think it might be better to allow everyone to drop 1 race to allow for event like this. Last night does appear to have been a bad one for connections, which suggests something more that just individual problems - perhaps it is a combination of the two?.

One other thing - in practice there were several times where I was on a quick lap and someone came out of the pits and sat on the racing line into T2 spoiling the lap. I know its not a big problem but its not that hard to stay out of the way when you are on an out-lap or you have already made a mistake and you have nothing to lose by doing so.

[Paul968]

Unofficial Race Report

[Simon Gymer]

Unofficial Race Report

Hee hee. The qualifying report shows that Gymers only need 2 qualifying laps, the rest of the time we have our feet up relaxing before the race.