UKGPL Season 18 (2009) Graduates Cup (67) - Spa (1967) - Nov 1

[bernie]

I managed a low 3m 18s  in the Loti some years ago (still have the replay somewhere ) but I dont know to this day how on gods earth I did it  

What's more , all attempts to recreate my glory lap now fail miserably  :'(

Gotta blame old age and ruematiz I suppose  

Personally I think hot laps are about as much use as chocolate tyres on evils wassa  

As far as a 15 lap PRO race is concerned much better to have something you can get around a lap or two without constantly resorting to the rosary beads and gripping the wheel like your holding onto a sumo rosselers underpants  

I find my setups are a lot more manageable with the ride height jacked up a tad and a bit of compliance in the suspension ,then it feels more like driving a car than a floornboard on wheels

The venesians and marsians among us all seem to go for low and solid , they just dont work for me  

  

[MikeBeattie]

Firstly, quiet bad lag issues at various stages, every time I got close to a car in front they started to waver about, Donnie being geographically the furthest away was a real nightmare to follow. I just query UKGPL4, as it was the one we had issues with in the last Interleague race.

Kept having dramas in Qually and only managed to get one full lap in, which was enough for 6th spot. The start was VERY conservative at the front, and lead to some serious bunching mid-field through Eau Rouge and Les Combes. This put Lorenzo hot on my tail into Burnenville and I went wide to let him by on the inside, but in my replay he seemed to catch the grass which sent him over towards me and then I had a face full of hedge.

Racing incident in my view and it didn't effect my final result, so NP Lorenzo

I was amazed to still have an operating car at the end of the crash, but it was all fine.  Otherwise no incidents, folk seemed to fall off as I approached aand so for the last half of the race I was in the top 3, too far behind JR, but once Evil fell off, I had a comfy gap of 10 secs back to Fulvio which I was able to maintain.

I don't often drive the Lotus, so it was an experience, impressive pace by the Ken & John, grats to all.

[Turkey Machine]

If what you say is true Andrew and all sectors are around 44secs, then I am losing 7 secs on sector 1 alone as I clock around

52secs sector 1
high 46 sec for sector 2
mid 46 sector 3
around 55 sector 4


I agree with you comment about exit speeds from the critical corners, even to the extent that having taken the first left at Blanchimont flat in 3rd I am getting into 4th at the second element and keep it welded to the floor until braking late for La Source.  ( ask Phil  )

Stavelot is definitely a steady in, fast out corner in the whale, as I find that any aggressive allocation of power provokes the rear end to start a slide and tyre temps go into the ultra violet.

I will be spending an evening or two analysing the setup I stole and the actions of the aliens ( Hristo in particular!) in an attempt to see where I can salvage some dignity.

You can find 1 second in S1 by getting cleanly through Eau Rouge and cleanly through Les Combes. A very clean exit from Malmedy and high speed through Masta will get you another second in S2. S3 requires a clean exit from Stavelot whilst maintaining a high speed as you can find more time there without thinking about it, and the final sector needs La Carriere clean and Blanchimont / La Source steady to gain a second or so. I'm a second per sector faster compared to you, so I know it's possible. I've seen that Honda lapped far quicker than me too!

[EvilClive]

awwwww, but     you're just saying that to make me feel better

[Turkey Machine]

Maybe, but I know you can do it.

[Ken Murray]

I can concur with Mikes comments regarding lag, and I also think UKGPL4 is the culprit. Whenever I was following cars in qually they were jumping all over, thankfully I didn't have to follow anyone in the race.

I have to take some of the blame for the leisurely start, I got on the move OK but then squirmed a couple of times as we headed down to Eau Rouge. I felt sure John would be up alongside and kind of backed off to let him through. I kept well to the right as we went through the first kink and I was relieved to see a glimpse of John in my mirrors as we climbed the hill towards the left. I could then take a normal line and headed off up to Les Combes. Soon it was Jethro running behind me and he was going at a good pace. I was just managing to stretch out my lead but it was fluctuating on various parts of the track. Jethro seemed better through Malmedy and Masta but I seemd stronger towards the end of the lap through La Carriere and Blanchimont. The gap was never more than 2 or 3 seconds and I couldn't relax at all. Then suddenly it was John in second place and the gap was about 7 or 8 secs but again over the next few laps that seemed pretty stable and John seemed to gain on me in the same places as Jethro. Eventually as the fuel load came down the car became more manageable and I began to extend the lead bit by bit. Early on with 15 laps of fuel on board the Eagle had been a bit of a handful, I dare not think what the Honda felt like in that situation!! So it was a fairly comfortable, if not a little nervous, last few laps with a fair amount of short shifting just to be on the safe side with the engine.

I used to struggle at Spa like a few have mentioned in the thread. I spent years trying to get the Cooper negative but when I finally managed it I seemed to be able to repeat it easily. I still have no idea what I am doing differently. I would agree with Hristo that the line is especially important here and Andrew has already discussed how important exit speed is at Spa.

[Phil Thornton]

Firstly, quiet bad lag issues at various stages, every time I got close to a car in front they started to waver about, Donnie being geographically the furthest away was a real nightmare to follow. I just query UKGPL4, as it was the one we had issues with in the last Interleague race.

Yes it is a worry but with the demise of UKGPL.1 (which could only run 67s on VROC anyway) we don't have a dedicated server on a "commercial" quality connection.  UKGPL.4 is my server on a home connection which does seems to be OK most of the time (it is in testing anyway).  UKGPL.5 is a similar setup but UKGPL.6 is better.  We discussed the server issue in the Season 17 mid season review.  Look at my comments on Item 2.

However, if it is proving a major problem perhaps now is a time for a rethink.

In the last inter league race we did move off UKGPL.4 onto GPLRACER6 because some drivers were complaining of severe warp.  However some people (John Roberts comes to mind) had good connections.  When we moved to GPLRACER6 my connection wasn't too good, on the banking the cars were bouncing all over the place (I've got my client replay which should show the warp I was experiencing).  It seems we just swapped one set of drivers with warp problems to another set of drivers with similar warp problems when we moved servers.

Perhaps we need to be a bit more scientific in the way we approach this.  I think we need to save client replays so we can compare how bad the warp was and try to determine what affect the geographic location of the drivers has.

[Turkey Machine]

Firstly, quiet bad lag issues at various stages, every time I got close to a car in front they started to waver about, Donnie being geographically the furthest away was a real nightmare to follow. I just query UKGPL4, as it was the one we had issues with in the last Interleague race.

Yes it is a worry but with the demise of UKGPL.1 (which could only run 67s on VROC anyway) we don't have a dedicated server on a "commercial" quality connection.  UKGPL.4 is my server on a home connection which does seems to be OK most of the time (it is in testing anyway).  UKGPL.5 is a similar setup but UKGPL.6 is better.  We discussed the server issue in the Season 17 mid season review.  Look at my comments on Item 2.

However, if it is proving a major problem perhaps now is a time for a rethink.

In the last inter league race we did move off UKGPL.4 onto GPLRACER6 because some drivers were complaining of severe warp.  However some people (John Roberts comes to mind) had good connections.  When we moved to GPLRACER6 my connection wasn't too good, on the banking the cars were bouncing all over the place (I've got my client replay which should show the warp I was experiencing).  It seems we just swapped one set of drivers with warp problems to another set of drivers with similar warp problems when we moved servers.

Perhaps we need to be a bit more scientific in the way we approach this.  I think we need to save client replays so we can compare how bad the warp was and try to determine what affect the geographic location of the drivers has.

I'll be doing it with Amateurs tomorrow.

[Hristo Itchov]

I've been having a lot of warp this season and this have never been the case in the past. I know my connection hasn't changed and I have no (bad) warp in other leagues. There are cars that don't warp much for me, i.e. JR in this race, but some other warp like hell and I assume I warp like hell from their point of view.

All that takes the fun out of close racing and actually makes it impossible most of the time, unless you're willing to risk a pass and end up with a contact (which inevitably happens, i.e. Oulton in Historics, L1 T2).

I hope we can move onto a better server soon. Wish I could provide a solution, but that's not the case.

P.S. We've had decent races without warp on some people's own hosts, i.e. Fulvio's and some others. Although they're not commercial servers, their connections were stable enough to provide consistent quality and latency for everyone.

[bernie]

ghosts of those past races and the run ins I had with jackO regarding warp contact ,

which of coarse we al know could never have possibly happened 

[Turkey Machine]

There is a problem with renting servers for our own uses. Grand Prix Legends is not supported on most of them, and that's why we have to make do with UK connections and their inadequacies.

[Phil Thornton]

P.S. We've had decent races without warp on some people's own hosts, i.e. Fulvio's and some others. Although they're not commercial servers, their connections were stable enough to provide consistent quality and latency for everyone.

Yes I'm coming to the conclusion that it is my ISP.  I've been getting quite a lot of timeouts simply browsing the internet these days.  Something that has only started in the last month or two since my ISP changed me onto another tariff because my old one was "no longer available".

I'm going to start looking into alternative ISPs but that is going to take a while to resolve.  We'll have to find another server to run the Graduates Works race on.

[Ken Murray]

P.S. We've had decent races without warp on some people's own hosts, i.e. Fulvio's and some others. Although they're not commercial servers, their connections were stable enough to provide consistent quality and latency for everyone.

Yes I'm coming to the conclusion that it is my ISP.  I've been getting quite a lot of timeouts simply browsing the internet these days.  Something that has only started in the last month or two since my ISP changed me onto another tariff because my old one was "no longer available".

I'm going to start looking into alternative ISPs but that is going to take a while to resolve.  We'll have to find another server to run the Graduates Works race on.

Phil, have you tried speed testing your connection?

http://www.speedtest.net/

[Ken Murray]

Phil, have you tried speed testing your connection?

http://www.speedtest.net/

Just for a comparison I am getting 5.61 Megs down and 0.36 Megs up.

[vosblod]

Yes it is a worry but with the demise of UKGPL.1 (which could only run 67s on VROC anyway) we don't have a dedicated server on a "commercial" quality connection.  UKGPL.4 is my server on a home connection which does seems to be OK most of the time (it is in testing anyway).  UKGPL.5 is a similar setup but UKGPL.6 is better.

Mine, 6, is (Oulton aside) pretty stable. Think it's a combination of being stand alone, ie I'm not also racing GPL on the same network, and being a cable connection which seems to be more solid. The home ISP (Talk Talk) is pretty good but occassionally will cut.
Difficult one as we don't have any more servers. If we did use a commercial server, on the basis we can get it to run GPL - just find out who others are using, there's also a cost factor. When I looked at one for work was in the region of £20/£30 a month.