UKGPL Season 18 (2009) Amateurs Trophy (65) - Charade (1958-1988) - Nov 17

[Asbjeurn Tverberg]

OK, my report:

Qualified next to last after Phil beat my time in the last minute.

The start went ok, I didn't do any mistakes, didn't gain or lose much, and drove happily off in the back of the field, behind Phil and one new guy called K. Hiro. The three of us got through Le Belvedere when we saw some cars had a gathering in the next turn. Luckily there was room to pass on the outside. Hiro got through, Phil got through, but when it was my turn, a Brabham crossed my path and I couldn't avoid hitting him. I was able to continue, but on the next lap my engine broke down. Obviously my cooler got the worst of the shunt, and wasn't able to keep the engine temperature down.

I watched the replay afterwards, to see who I crashed with, and to see what really happened. It's useful to watch the replay before I decide if I should get angry or not. Many times what I thought was another man another man crashing me out turned out to be all my fault, and all my anger disappeared like dust in the wind.

Well, this time I got angry from watching the replay. Jethro was in the brab, and I studied the replay both from my position and his. When I drove through, I was focusing on the gap between the to crashed cars and the side of the road, and I never expected that any of them would get in our way on purpose. OK, a stray car skidding across the track out of control was something I could expect in this situation, but both cars had stopped and seemed to be in control, so I presumed it was safe to pass. So his move was totally unexpected.

When watching the replay from his cockpit, I couldn't understand why on earth he started moving at that moment. There was no way in h*** he could avoid seeing there were three cars approaching, so why start moving before the last car had passed!?   Jethro, what was going through your head in that situation? Did you see me coming at all, or did you have a tunnel vision so narrow that all you could see was your rev counter? In that case it was only tough luck that you hit me and not Phil or Hiro. It's not that you destroyed a winning chance for me, it's just that I love it so much driving this track, so when I get only one and a half lap, I get very disappointed.

[Turkey Machine]

Asbjeurn, you have a right to be angry. I don't know what I was thinking. But keep in mind that the view from the server replay is very much biased against me, since the bandwidth settings are (from memory) 4+2, meaning 2 cars behind. The server replay sees all the cars on track, the client replay sees a couple of cars behind you accurately at any one time. One of them was James, who was stationary, which meant Pribluda was playing catchup and one car was appearing out of nowhere every couple of seconds due to the settings. I couldn't be sure how long to wait for, so just buried the throttle and hoped I didn't hit anybody. The hope was misplaced, and I have apologised to you. It won't happen at Zandvoort, I likely won't be there.

[Hristo Itchov]

Not to flame you or anything, Jethro, but you (or anyone else) should never rely on Pribluda for rejoining or judging gaps to other drivers in attempt to avoid collision. I've stopped using it partially because it keeps missing drivers around the track and having them suddenly appear in the standings and gaps list.

It's much better to use your ears and eyes, and gut feeling, to judge distances and approaching cars.

The other reason I stopped using it was because it's so damn distracting!

[bernie]

The other reason I stopped using it was because it's so damn distracting!

So what current book/magazine/newspaper/comic do you read whilst racing instead of Prib 

[Turkey Machine]

H, that's all well and good, but when there's cars coming literally popping out of nowhere the sights and sounds don't mean a damn thing.

[Asbjeurn Tverberg]

Sorry, Jethro. I didn't take the bandwidth settings in account. Off course when you don't see all the cars behind it's not easy to judge when it is safe to move. I must admit that I have experience in being in that sort of situation , and if I'm forced to move across the track to get going again, I always move veery slowly, just to be sure that I'm able to stop if a car that I wasn't aware of should turn up.

[Turkey Machine]

TBF, it probably wouldn't have made a difference there anyway, any collision from the way my car was pointing was always going to be a big one. Where James's car was positioned meant that I couldn't do a slow 3-pointer or spin the car round without blocking the track.