UKPnG Season 1 Clubmans - Lime Rock Park - Jul 14

[Blunder]

Morning All,

How chuffed am I this morning!
Will be skippoing round the office all day!
Only my second win in 3 years on this forum!

Did a lot more practice for this than I have done in a while!
Tried lots of car combinations but was quickest in the ATCC which I believe was in theory the quickest in my
allowed group! Only issue was it ate tyres! I qualified almost a second quicker than I had ever done in it! On the soft tyres with no fuel!
but knew I had to run the hardest tyres in the race. I had done a a race offline so knew the second half of the race would just be a case of hanging on as the tyres get fried!

Had a bump with Jose, ( Sorry buddy ) at the start. I think the race starting before the 2mins was up caught a few people out!?
Lots of great battles but eventually settled down to fighting off the mighty Jose and Ross. Those little roller skates were no match for the power of the Stang but were all over me through turns 2 and 3 as Paul described.
Tried to give as much room when necessary but we did have a few 'rubbing' moments! All fair in my eyes!
Was slowly catching Bill but once we were in traffic then it was tough!
Don't know what to say to Bill.....
He obviously had an issue between the last corner and the finish line as I powered down the last straight and pipped him to the line!
I doubt you are best pleased with that!  
You deserved the win Bill, sorry to have pinched it!

Thanks all, wow that was fun!
Don't know how you drive those roller skates so fast? I tried all of them and was way off pace!
Give me a heavy tank anytime!  

[Mark J]

Big congrats Martin, feels great to get a rare win when your one of us mortal types    feel really sorry for poor Bill though, he would have been the Mark Webber of the grid winning this week, unlucky mate   

I am disapointed with my result again, thats two P&G races in a row where i've had a top 6 finish on the cards and then gone off with a handful of laps remaining. :'( I just got spat off without warning in the dying laps last night, despite a 70% power diff lock to tame the horses, in that downhill kink.

A couple of niggles from last night. One, there seemed quite a lot of discos happening in praccy? is that still server troubles that occured all through last season in GTR2 ?
Two, there seemed to be some lag/warping going on in lap 1, and that seemed to cause some of the contacts happening through turns 1-3..perhaps again server trouble?
Three, yet again, we had 30 degrees or more temperature even though it was a dusk/dawn setting  Cant we put a limit on that temp unless we are racing at a tropical/desert track ? Dont know about anyone else but i dont set my cars up in 30+ temps and last night my rears were melting within 10 laps of a 38 lap race and yet they had been okay in all my pre race praccy.

Another great track with these cars though and the lighting conditions made it even look even more tasty

[Tim Robey]

Replay and provisional results posted

Thanks picnic, but the zip file contains the wrong replay, it is last Thursday's Brands race 

My race report will come later.....

[Truetom]

Everybody's thrilled !!!  

Well, I'm not! Was thinking a lot weather to post this or not. Decided to do it and SOME things must be posted on the forum as it concerns all, not just the two drivers involved. AND: this is not to diminish Legzy's work, he doing a wonderful job.  

Q2: I had a CTD in Q2 and when I came back I had about 15 minutes left. In all that time I didn't have a single clean lap. Not one. Saw drivers insist on driving fast after they compromised their lap. You then compromise others as well.
If I'm on my fast lap in Q2 I'm NOT jumping away from another driver, even if he's currently placed higher than me. Why the do you think I'm driving my fast lap? To be punted by that same driver is unforgivable.

start was a frenzy but it was to be expected. Too bad to see Lazlow try and be placed sideways on track over and over. Bad luck, buddy.  

I had some close laps. Close? Aha, a few times. I think VDA King waited for me to rejoin, don't remember others. Reports? Nah, too many.

Let's change some rules, shall we?

Contacts: permitted. Fun, even? Fine with me, I'm in.    (red mist to high heaven)
Qualifying: not necessary
Weather: dry, always - god forbid if anyone should actualy have to adapt to anything different than the 10000 practice laps. Not having anything against practice, fine if you have enough will to do it 
Lapping:  
After race whining: sure, only the slow farts will do it  

Edit, Edit, Edit, Edit.

Might listen to my intuition next time. Or shut up?  

Open fire

TT

[Paul968]

I am disapointed with my result again, thats two P&G races in a row where i've had a top 6 finish on the cards and then gone off with a handful of laps remaining. Cry I just got spat off without warning in the dying laps last night, despite a 70% power diff lock to tame the horses, in that downhill kink. Angry

That is exactly what a locked diff does Mark! It grips and grips until it doesn't, at which point you are rapidly going sideways  

[Mark J]

That is exactly what a locked diff does Mark! It grips and grips until it doesn't, at which point you are rapidly going sideways  

yes i know, alas it didnt try to do it to me in the other 37 laps  hence me being caught out by it suddenly breaking away like that, late in the race. I think my rears were red hot by that point and that combined with the tyres leaving the track surface over the dip was enough to spit me sideways at high speed. Shame but hey ho, thats racing. I only had that higher diff to keep the rears from spinning so much on corner exit, especially at the base of that downhill curve onto the s/f straight.

TT, have you taken your medication this morning? 

[Paul968]

I often soften the diff off for a race because it makes the car more controllable under power, if a little slower.

[ross.mcw]

Just a quick post for the moment to apologise for my poor start which caused some problems - I was waiting for the GTL countdown and then when the lights turned green and I realised my mistake I had no revs and bogged down - sorry about that.

Also, sorry to T Robey for the bump when lapping you near the end - more of a race incident I think but I'm really sorry that you came off worse - I figured you'd decided you were going to take the corner before me so I dropped back in behind you just as you hit the brakes earlier than I was expecting and it caught me out - I've clearly got to work on my 'getting past back markers cleanly' technique as I did the same at Silverstone to Oilseal.

Other than that, it was a pretty good race, had plenty of fun recovering from an early spin before having a hard time trying to get past Blunder while keeping Jose behind me.  Well done to Blunder for keeping that big tank on the track through the corners!

Bill - amazing pace last night and sorry to hear about the bad fortune at the end.  You clearly deserved the win there.

Cheers, Ross.

[Truetom]

TT, have you taken your medication this morning? 

I know it's gonna be ME the problem again - not the thing I wrote about.    Maybe I'm spoiling the overall great impression.   

Alas, that got me thinking: "When you're the only one seeing the real problem and going in one direction while all others flee the other way, it's time to reconsider your philosophy". 

[Mcfids]

I must apologize to Bill as it was an incident with me that deprived him of the win I felt more than a bit guilty to see Blunder zoom pass and take the win. I did wait for him but the damage had been done.

Apart from that I did enjoy the race but it was carnage at times, which was a bit of a shock after being used to the comparatively sedate GTR leagues.

I heavily fueled the alpine for both qual and the race to try and offset it's advantage, which worked as I qualified in 14th Had a poor race start as pippomox in front of me missed the lights and I was stranded. From there I was determined to see out the 1st few laps without incident but was unlucky with getting caught up with incidents in front of me and I couldn't get a rhythm together.

So, from 24th place I started to get things together and move back through to 15th (sorry for nudging you Oily). With about 15 laps to go Bill caught me and then seemingly easily lapped me, but then slowed up and I passed again. This pattern carried on for the remainder of the race. It seemed to me that Bill was bored and wanted to race someone. Is that right Bill?

Anyway, it was a hell of a lot of fun dicing with Bill until the last corner where I was tucked up behind him going into the pit straight and he lifted (possibly?) and I nudged him sending him off the track. Sorry again.

TT, I can understand your frustration - I saw you punted off at T1 and the driver just sped off. I'm not really sure why the carnage level was so high; maybe a combination of the narrow track and different attributes of the car classes. It was fun though.

 

 

[ross.mcw]

Just a minor thought on qualifying as it was so busy on track during Q2 last night - would it be worth saying that if you're on a hot lap, you should put your headlights on for the duration of the hotlap to show others infront/behind that you're on one?

Of course, it would need people to remember to turn them on/off which I guess may be a good reason to not do this.

Cheers, Ross.

[pribeiro]

TT, have you taken your medication this morning? 

I know it's gonna be ME the problem again - not the thing I wrote about.    Maybe I'm spoiling the overall great impression.   

Alas, that got me thinking: "When you're the only one seeing the real problem and going in one direction while all others flee the other way, it's time to reconsider your philosophy". 

I must say that I have to agree with your #123 post. I have been seeing some behavior
that I was not used to before. Perhaps it would be better everybody pay atention at Legzy's #106 post.
And it is true what you said about qualifying sessions, people who lost their hot lap and just continue
as they still were on it, ruining hot laps for another drivers.
Behaviors I have saw at both GTL and P&G.

[Mark J]

I must apologize to Bill as it was an incident with me that deprived him of the win I felt more than a bit guilty to see Blunder zoom pass and take the win. I did wait for him but the damage had been done.
 It seemed to me that Bill was bored and wanted to race someone. Is that right Bill?

Anyway, it was a hell of a lot of fun dicing with Bill until the last corner where I was tucked up behind him going into the pit straight and he lifted (possibly?) and I nudged him sending him off the track. Sorry again.

oh man, thats gotta hurt.  I very much doubt Bill wanted to 'race you' when running 1st and on for his first win ever? whilst you were 15th+    Think you might be up for the attention of the stewards unfortunately. Backmarkers should not be trying to race the front runners 

[BillThomas]

As you say Mcfids the damage was done.  It wasn't that I was bored, it was just that you were faster than me on the slower bits at and after T1.  I was keeping an eye on the gap back to second and trying to keep it at about 4 to 5 secs and I guess you must have been lapping about the same as second.  As a result every time I speeded up I drew away from you but when I eased off on the slower section you caught up.  When I let you pass again to keep out of my way the gap came down and I had to pass you again.  Most frustrating actually as I couldn't relax and drive my own race.

That was my kind of track, no hairpins or stupid chicanes just nice long fast corners.  I'd got the Elan setup just right to drive through the fast bends virtually flat.  Much to my surprise I had fastest time in practice and was just pipped in the dying moments of qualifying by Tibs.  Made my usual beautiful clutch start, no one in front for a change to baulk me, pulled out about an 8 sec lead at the end of lap 1.  Madd-Rip worked that down to about 1.5 sec by lap 4 or 5, then he disappeared and after that I had no problem keeping a safe cushion until I passed Mcfids.  I had a bit of trouble with some cars holding me up by not moving over or lifting to let me by and had to be a bit more aggressive than usual but otherwise it was a nice drive.

Just a pity I didn't get my win.

Bill

Ps Well put Mark

[Josè Arrogantio]

I my opinion there were several reasons for the large amount of incidents last night.
1) The large speed differential between the cars. Blunders Mustang would gain over a second on the s/f straight but my Elite would be right behind again after the first couple of corners.
2) Lime Rock Park only has one fast line so passing is hard. The first section has much more camber on the inside of the corners so passing is really hard unless the leading driver makes a mistake and runs wide. All the other corners are med/high speed with small/no braking zones so passing is again difficult.
3) Lapped drivers not getting out the way and lapping drivers being overambitious. This was not helped by the first two points. I found it very difficult to lap cars that were a lot faster down the straights than me as I then had to fight my way passed in the bends unless the lapped drivers yielded. Sorry to anyone who thinks I was overambitious.
4) Some of the cars in the midfield were not visible at the start. I had a look at my replay immediately after the race and found that about 10 cars were invisible, don’t know if it was just my replay or if they were invisible during the race.

I think the number of incidents could have been reduced if the lapped drivers just got right out of the way of the faster cars, especially on such a short track. May be we should consider having rolling starts also.
Having said that this was my most enjoyable P&G race yet, fighting with Blunder was very much good fun.

Well done Bill and Blunder!

Just a minor thought on qualifying as it was so busy on track during Q2 last night - would it be worth saying that if you're on a hot lap, you should put your headlights on for the duration of the hotlap to show others infront/behind that you're on one?

This sound like a very good idea to me