UKGTR Season 7 GTC Sprint - Donington Park (National) - May 13

[Truetom]

Thanks to all!    Not many times there is a championship winner without a single gold from individual race.  

My calculations before the race were focused on Paul Richards and MarkMc. My prayers were directed towards Zacari and Baracus not being there. Boy was I   when I saw Zacari training and later Baracus also joined. Didn't really know how good my on-line pace was. Off-line I had pb 1.06.xxx in Q set up car but on-line it was mostly low 1.08s. Had to do some serious tweaking - wing from 9 to 6, unusual diff settings to make it drivable, extreme settings of dampers and non-simetrical springs (yes, Steve   ) It was quite fast but relatively unstable, so eventualy I decided to go with wing 7 in the race.

Q was better than I expected, Rusky and Brian got their usual front and Dan is known to be fast.    I was thrilled at the opportunity with Paul R., MarkMc, Zacari and Baracus behind me. No matter what happened in front these drivers had to finish behind me if I wanted the Championship title. So I was prepared to drive as fast as I needed to do that and not press Dan for 3rd if it won't be necessary. As it was when the race started Dan soon made a minor mistake which made it possible for me to pass. Wasn't even trying to follow Brian, I concentrated on keeping the pesky Dan behind   , aditional driver between me and Paul R. was more than welcome. I saw Paul R. had some kind of trouble   and the mirror showed that Dan was well working for me by keeping Zacari busy.  
Throughout the race the gap to 4th was just a few seconds and towards the end it was closed, Dan was right on my tail the last few laps and while I was prepared to step down from the podium to win the championship, I wasn't gonna do it without a fight, not on a defensible track like this one. So in the last lap on the straight before the chicane I claimed the inner, defensive line and BOY was glad for it when Brians car appeared stationary right before the chicane entry. Saw Dan pick him up and I wasn't sure he'll survive the crash.    Good recovery for Dan and bad luck for Brian.  
Strange and non-typical moment by disco in the last meters of the race. A tough decission by DG and while I'm sympatetic with The Small Teeth Team I welcome and respect the fair decission which brought the team title to the Legends!    Well done boys, this kind of thing is always worth celebrating.    Good show from other Legends drivers - Darren climbing the ladder up and down   , MJ for good consistency and finish recovery and Steve for showing much progress in the short time driving GTR2. Pops was there and his support is always welcome.    Too bad Adam coulnd't attend.  
Grats to all others who were trying along and made this championship such a high event. Of course it wouldn't be the same without all the staff behind. Well done all and thanks again for all congrats!  

TT
  

[Steve Holmes]

Yay, TT for President.    Well done mate, what a well deserved champ, consistent and quick to the nth degree.  (Hmm, consistent, sure there's a lesson there  ).

And Team Champs too, wouldn't have been possible without the, err, 1 or 2 points I think I contributed.   

My race was blighted by terrible setups, like a lump of lard with the one I had practiced on, trying too hard to preserve the rear tyres.  So I just went oversteer mad and completely stiffened the rear end and opened the diff, which was great for qually, but when I bolted on mediums, without testing it, it was a handful in the race.  Quick if I stayed on track but mistakes on many laps.  After oversteering across the inside of the Old Hairpin 3 times I fought the pit box for a while until it agreed I was actually able to take my stop/go.

Never mind, I didn't know it was possible to make a 911 fun to drive (sorry MJ  ), but it was great fun, especially on worn tyres, even if I was a lap down.  Been a great learning experience this first UKGTR season, thanks to all involved, especially Dave and all the moderators and admins.   

[Ted]

Bit of a comedy for me last night, too many errors. Hope I didn't get in anybody's way.

Enjoyable early battle with Ade but then had to do a Stop/Go for track cutting and after that couldn't get any consistency.

If you want a good laugh, check out the bit on the replay where I semi-spun out of the chicane into the pit lane entrance! Decided it was easier just to trundle through the pits and back out the other end. rofl.  :'(

Big thanks to all the hard work by everyone organising the league and congratulations to all the winning teams/drivers. Looking forward to next season.

[Mark J]

i dont like the corner cutting penalty set here at Donington, its too draconian. The one up at the final chicane especially as even if you have two wheels on the tarmac it penalises you. It ruins the natural line up through there.
Most people incurred cut warnings and some stop and go's just through accident or under pressure in racing rather than any attempt to blatant corner cut, so how is that fair?
I got two warnings myself quite early on whilst under pressure and cold tyres and it compromised nearly every lap afterwards for something like 25 mins of the race as i had to tippy toe through that end chicane rather than concentrate on racing the guys around me.

Wasnt there a debate about this last time we raced at Donington and i think the mods response was 'we are looking into it' ?  I presume it got overlooked as Doni wasnt used for a while.

[Dave 'Gizmo' Gymer]

Wasnt there a debate about this last time we raced at Donington and i think the mods response was 'we are looking into it' ?  I presume it got overlooked as Doni wasnt used for a while.

We had a test race when Shark did the first UKGTR version of Dono and relaxed the checking. I was taking some liberties in the final chicane and never got warned - the only warning I picked up was for getting it wrong at the Old Hairpin. Remember, the rule of thumb the checking has been changed to is not "two wheels on the road", it's "all four wheels on the road/curbs".

[Simon Gymer]

The consensus was very clearly in favour of the track changes, with the exception of the old hairpin, which was changed because of the feedback in the poll...
https://www.simracing.org.uk/smf/index.php?topic=2913.0

Case closed.

[Kerr]

I did not get a single warning last night.

Talking about the last chicane, watching the touring cars the other week, they had placed foam blocks just inside the kerb to deter cutting.

I really don't think it was any tighter here. You could go ever so slightly over kerb too.

[Zacari]

I think I got 1 warning last night, and that was at the old hairpin when I got it 100% wrong and turned in too early.  The corner cutting system seemed 100% spot on to me.

[psuedo]

I spent 2 days practicing on line...think I got 1 cut warning. Last night I did 4 laps....and got 2 stop n goes 

[spanner]

Congratulations to all the winners this year and especially to TT and well done all who finished, didnt finish participated through the season.

It was another difficult race for me, couldnt get near my best practise times beforehand then during the race couldnt get into it and was falling off too much. For the first half i felt like i could brake into the final chicane better than i've ever done before then for the last half i seemed to be locking up all the time. There's no real chance to relax with this circuit which made it a pain. I didnt realise the track was a strict as that on corner cutting which meant i was conciously trying to avoid it in the chicane.

Well after the relative highs of last season, this time with a single class sprint has shown just how far people are improving and i take my hat of you guys. Also thanks all the people involved behind the scenes in organising it all.

Need to start considering a change in cars i think for next season, well i was thinking of the 350Z nevermind. Any details yet Just want to start early!

[sooty1977]

Wish i would have joined this but i didn't want to impose as there seemed to be a huge que of people wanting to race in what was
a big finale race.I have watched the replay however and from what i saw it was petty eventfull looking,hard luck there Paul R that must have been so
annoying and congrats to tt even tho i ain't raced a lot yet i look forward to hopefully joining the sprint events in 8 series but maybe not with my snail vertigo now.

[JPS]

Would like to have raced here, but managed to get the day and date mixed up, don't know whether there was was room as a reserve on the night anyway.

Will there be a post for the next season and relevant registration instructions on the normal GTR 2 general thread, or should I be looking else where.

Congrats to the winners.

[Joss]

Bad luck to PR, and super congrats to TT for what I believe is his first championship!