UKGTR Season 7 Upper Endurance (GT1/C) - Donington Park (GP) - May 18

[jpv]

My race turned out to be a complete farce. I knew from the earlier reports that the track cutting settings were harsh here, so I tried to be as careful as possible with the corners. Unfortunately I couldn't nail every corner every time, and picked up a stop and go at the end of my first stint.

A few laps later I pulled in for my planned stop, only to find my slot occupied. Had to go once more around on the last drops of fuel, desperately tapping the pit call key. After the stop I was hopelessly behind and just tried to hang on. Eventually had to take yet another penalty.

I lightly tapped JPV by mistake and spun him. I waited for him to return to the track. I don't think it cost him any position (sorry JPV).

Don't worry, that had absolutely no effect on how my race turned out.

[Simon Gymer]

Woo haa! My first win of the this championship. Had an atrocious setup in practice, far too oversteery and then had to go deal with the house lights fuse switch going off, blah blah blah. Toned the setup down a fair bit for qually and it started to feel a lot better. Set what I hoped was going to be pole about half way through the session and knew I was never going to beat that, it was one of those laps. Course Joss came and blew it away later on, cheeky sod, but it was nice whilst it lasted.

First half the race was not quite being able to keep up with Joss, but never far behind and Carl very close behind me. Was amazed after only 10-15 minutes we were already lapping GTCs and after that there was only a couple of times in the entire race we weren't lapping a GTC.

Pit stops didn't change anything in the battle, but unfortunately Carl had an accident (or a disco?) behind me and that was the end of his race. After that I chased down Joss, but we were lapping fairly similar times and then he made a mistake at the top of the hill and I seized my chance. Just as that happened there was a big pause as I roared through his smoke screen and a handful of people got disconnected and Gizmo and Pete got disconnected on our team TeamSpeak channel.

After Joss caught me again with a few laps to go I just had to keep it on the track and be fast in the right places and I knew he'd either not get by or have to make a desperate lunge to get by. Thankfully I held on and chalked up the win to end Season 7 on a high.

Thanks to all the GTCs for the lapping. I know there was a few times it got very confusing about which side to go and down the craner curves and up the hill was a nightmare trying to work out people's intentions as I'm sure it was for the GTCs too. Good job by all as there was so much lapping to do it could have been much messier than it was.

[Joss]

Later I think I misjudged FreQ's passing move and pulled out at the wrong time. Hope it didn't cause any major damage.

Nah, was only minor. I misjudged how fast you were going, I was expecting to catch you on the exit of foggy's but suddenly was looking to run into the back of you. It was almost as if you'd stopped! I shudda gone left really, just panicked.

What's the phrase? "Stealing defeat form the jaws of victory?" Quite 

Started off ok and pulled a small gap, then cocked up behind various GTCs - this track is appaling for multiclass racing. Somehow came out of the pits ahead of Simon and then promptly binned it at McLeans after taking some kerb. Managed to close it up again but couldn't get past as he was quick in all the important areas.

Sorry TSJ - I couldn't send you to the grave with a win Oh well

Nice race Simon and may see some peeps around next season 

[picnic]

Replay and provisional results posted.

Thanks to all who've taken part and congratulations to those who've had podiums on the way. Well done to those that have topped the tables

[Simon Gymer]

Also, a bit dissapointed to see the less than inspired choice of GT1 cars. Not sure I want to fight for a GT1 sprint if everyone dives for the Lambo or Lister :'(

Think you need to check the list SBG, the GT1 field was again quite thin on the ground anyway, but there was 2 Saleens, 2 Ferraris, your MC12, 4 Lambos and 1 Lister. Really not highly weighted to one car at all I didn't think. Better variation than the 911 RS GTC class though. 62.5% 911s in GTC.

As I always say, variation has nothing to do with good racing so doesn't really matter what people go for as long as there is competition and fun to be had.

[picnic]

There seemed to be very little to separate the TVRs of ReignMan, Sooty and myself both in qualifying and the race. That is until I decided that the old hairpin carried on turning right and piled in to the tyre wall. Limped back to the pits with no front end and a puncture. Still the amazing Team Shark pit crew got to work and fixed it all, although the muppets decided I needed fuel 

Came back out a lap down to everybody but hoped that I may not have to stop again. Tyre wear was quite bad at the end with my mega-long stint. Well over 25 on the front left. Somehow sticking in there I managed to pick a few places up as others had incidents.

I got disco'd from yesterdays Super Endurance race as my ADSL reset, it had a bad day yesterday but was much more stable today. But I thought I was a goner when 3 or 4 people got disco'd at the same time and I got kicked from the Team Shark TeamSpeak server. Luckily that was all I lost.

So when's season 8 starting

[psuedo]

 

Team pseudo teamspeak went off too....but all three GT1 runners got booted to the lobby at the same time  

Gutted as we were all running pretty well too. any one else ever had the problem with TS? I want a refund  

Had a great first half of race..cracking battle with Dan for a few laps, great stuff mate.

Went pearshaped at the pitstop though when some cheeky 'shark' was in my pit box so I had to do a drive through and try again next lap.

Grats to all in this series...good stuff but we need some more GT1's

[DynoDaz]

I managed to do a good time in qualifying which gave me 2nd place in GTC.  But amazingly during the last few minutes, while testing my race setup I bettered my time by 3 tenths.  

I started the race slowly, and gradually built up my speed.  I could see Paul was really struggling in places with his extra ballast, but there just was no way through.  That was until he made a mistake.  I took my opportunity and tried to pull away, but to Paul's credit he hung on until the GT1 boys came round.  After that it was just a case of not making any mistakes and trying to get to the pitstops first.

Paul however had other ideas and decided to pit early.

With no one to race against my times started to drift and I was caught out a couple of times by backmarkers.  :'(  

<slight rant>
I know these corner cutting rules are there to stop cheating, but it's not fair when someone makes a mistake in front of you and you get a warning for trying not to hit them..

I know I deserved one of the warnings (honest mistake  ).  However, I received 3 more from trying to avoid contact, which gave me 2 stop n go penalties which effectively ended my race.

I spent the last 30 minutes tiptoeing around trying not to get another.
</slight rant>

Oh well, I enjoyed the first 40 minutes anyway; thanks to Paul.  Amazing driving with so much ballast.. 

Congrats on your Enduro title.  Well deserved!!!

Also congrats to the Kerbies for winning the team championship.  It was a close fight, but the faster team won.    

[Tibernius]

<slight rant>
I know these corner cutting rules are there to stop cheating, but it's not fair when someone makes a mistake in front of you and you get a warning for trying not to hit them..

I know I deserved one of the warnings (honest mistake  ).  However, I received 3 more from trying to avoid contact, which gave me 2 stop n go penalties which effectively ended my race.

I spent the last 30 minutes tiptoeing around trying not to get another.
</slight rant>

Sounds like UKGTL race last Thursday.

[Simon Gymer]

Went pearshaped at the pitstop though when some cheeky 'shark' was in my pit box so I had to do a drive through and try again next lap.

I wondered if you were trying to get into the Team Shark pit box when you were loitering behind me in the pits. I did request the stop and got the blue light before coming in so it obviously got confused over something there.

<slight rant>
I know these corner cutting rules are there to stop cheating, but it's not fair when someone makes a mistake in front of you and you get a warning for trying not to hit them..

I know I deserved one of the warnings (honest mistake  ).  However, I received 3 more from trying to avoid contact, which gave me 2 stop n go penalties which effectively ended my race.

I spent the last 30 minutes tiptoeing around trying not to get another.
</slight rant>

That's the game Darren, not the cutting rules of any track. It simply can't tell the difference between going off by accident, making a mistake and genuine cutting. If you used the original track you'd still have the same problem, albeit in a slightly more lenient way (because there is more track to play with), but it's a problem in all the ISI based games. To be fair though, it must be very hard to write code to distinguish genuine cutting with accidental offs.

I think we've all been there and it sucks so I completely sympathise with you. Many a time have I heard the scream of "stupid game" over TeamSpeak as someone has accidentally gone off, lost loads of time and still been given a cut warning.

[Truetom]

Grats to team Small teeth for the GT1 championship! And of course to Crap Strollers for the GTC win.   

Bad luck, MarkMc. It wasn't my fault this time. 

Grats to all and thanks to the staff. 

TT

[Dave 'Gizmo' Gymer]

I'm starting to get the hang of this track now after 7 seasons. Got a half decent qually spot with softs on both ends and slapped on some mediums for the race; was a bit concerned about both how long it would take to get heat in the fronts, and whether that would give me a very oversteery car with the rears wearing faster.

The latter turned out not to be in issue but I was right about the front temperatures, which took over 5 laps to come up properly, during which time there was constant pressure from behind. When the front left finally went green I was able to stretch the gap out to 2 or 3 seconds over first a Pink Team car and then SbG's MC12.

Tyre wear was very mild and I nearly did the stop without a change, but decided I wouldn't save enough time and hoped that I would still be ahead of Ginsters after he stopped. Stop went almost perfectly and I gained 3 or 4 seconds over the KC MC12. After that I was able to pull away a little, pushing quite hard knowing that one visit to a gravel trap would've cost me a podium.

Dunno if all those who got disco'd together are using a particular set of ISPs but I heard the TS girl tell me I'd been disconnected from it so I ripped my headset off - it certainly looked like a netburp on one of the backbone networks.

It is a tough track for lapping but to me that race was the epitomy of multiclass racing, balancing risk against time loss, advertising one's position to the car ahead and trying to read their intentions.

[DynoDaz]

I fully understand what you are saying Simon, I really do..  However, at no point in the race did I have less than 2 wheels on the track.  With the normal cutting rules I wouldn't have received any warnings.

My point is, when using a game that can't tell the difference between going off by accident, making a mistake and genuine cutting, should we employ such strict rules?

Anyway, nothing we can do now...

Thanks to everyone for a great season, and thanks to the staff behind the scenes that do great job running things.  Thank you!!!

 

[picnic]

My point is, when using a game that can't tell the difference between going off by accident, making a mistake and genuine cutting, should we employ such strict rules?

The original circuits that we've modified were way too lenient. It's been some while but there were some very lively debates about what constituted cheating as people took some huge liberties with the default checks which is why time and effort was spent making and testing these. I'd rather SIMBIN fix the problem such that if that sector was say a second or two slower than your average then the cut was rescinded.

[DynoDaz]

I fully understand why the changes were made Pete.

I don't want this to turn into a massive debate, it's just my disappointment talking.  I'll soon get over it.