UKGPL Season 18 (2009) Graduates Cup (67) - Adelaide (GP) - Dec 13

[bernie]

Another crap performance (as in circus clown ) from me .

Decided the lotus was my best chance although I did not  have too much practise on this greasy track so coudnt decide weather to "run low" and dodge the curbs or "run high"  and ride the kerbs.

In the event "run high" won .
 
Then in practise I lowered the ride height a tad with a light fuel load and the car felt good , even though my laps were mediocre to say the least .

Comes the race and the cars in front are very slow to get away and being mindful of getting rear ended "again" I do my best to gain some speed into the chicane and stay wide to the lhs but as I'm about to find out the "run low" (but now with race fuel) strategy is a bad move as the car is now hitting the bumpers as it mounts the kerbs. (guess which silly sod forgot to take the bumpers down too  )

That's right , its the same knob head who fills his mondeo diesel up with unleaded for the 2nd time in 3 months

All of this (not the diesel) results in me going off on the kerbs and damaging the steering so the car doesnt want to turn left and is really twitchy under braking , the tyre temps at the front go haywire, and I get very uneven temps across the tread .

Thought about quitting,  but decided to soldier on as I didnt have anything better to do with my evening (other than talk to the wife about the mother in laws incontinence ) and found that I could run 1 steady lap to cool the tyres and 1 quicker lap,  before they went bad again which i could tell because of the low flying act when i try to negotiate the chicane  

Getting lapped what seemed a dozen times was not good but at least I did enjoy some racing at one point with Mike who seemed to be struggling a bit in the brabby?

Pity really because I did like this track and expected to do much better in the quicker lotus chassis ( well at least finish on the same lap as the leaders ) but one look at there alien pace and that thought went straight through the window.

Looking forward to the next outings silver and Monza were the Lotus should have an edge , even though the driver does not .

Grats to H for a superb race ( hope I didn't scare you too much )and all them that reached the chequered flag with 3 or more wheels still on 

 

[EvilClive]

Considering that I was never meant to make this race, but was given special permission by my good wife it was not too bad.

I cobbled a Mosport setup for this circuit with a raised ride height and minor tweaks to the gears to avoid over revving at the end of the straight, which seemed ok ( if not fast!!) during qualifying. Hristo blew everyone away with his pole time...very intimidating  .

The start went well, as I was lucky enough to be awake, and I gained a place on the run to T1 where things got even better when 3 green things tried to mate with each other. I slowed mid corner, praying that no-one would rear end me and as the green wall parted slipped through into 3rd spot.
At this point in the race Wazas held 1st 2nd 3rd and 4th , but it was a little optimistic to hope that would last.
Things were going well until I clipped/brushed the wall exiting the T1 esses and although there was no dramatic results braking became somewhat unpredicatable at times.
A couple of overshoots droped me down to about 10th until I got to grips with the handling probs and started to up the pace. I spent many laps chasing Fulvio's BRM trying to get myself into the tow for the pass at the end of the straight. Once I got into the tow, the pass was easy...it just took me about 10 laps to get that bit right!!

From then on all things went smoothly until the last lap when the braking became even more wild and 2 half spins gave Bartosz the chance to sneak his Fezza in front of my Honda   .

Grats to Hristo for stunning pace around this very bumpy and slippery circuit. Hard luck Jethro on the fuel prob, but as a guide I ALWAYS put in 50% more than the race distance as the Honda is a very thirsty beast.

[Al Heller]

First off congratulations to Hristo for the Works win (& a stunning WR pole time) to John R for second & Rick for 3rd place overall & a superb Privateers win. 

This felt a bit like a Honda vs. Brabham spec race - especially in the opening laps. BobW fluffed his start from 2nd place which meant everyone on the right-hand side of the grid was badly held up while Jethro (3rd) & me (5th) on the left side were able to pull ahead uncontested. The glory of grabbing 3rd place didn't last long as I got sideswiped by Bob who dived across me on the entry to T1 as he tried to make up for lost time. Looked like a case of GPL blindspot - from Bob's view it might have looked as if he had passed me so he turned in for the racing line, but in reality if he had been able to turn his head left he would have seen me right alongside him. (I did the same thing in my first online races & somebody subtly suggested that I read the advice about blindspots here https://www.ukgpl.com/rec_dvr_beh/rec_driver_beh.htm  )

Hope everyone who got caught up in the accident didn't suffer any damage - I managed to escape unscathed & swiftly rejoined the race in 5th place behind no fewer than 4 Waza-Hondas The white whales looked a real handful on heavy fuel & cold tyres so it wasn't long before the Brabham posse of me, JR & Rick had moved ahead of both FMG & Evil. Our Privateer race-within-a-race was shaping up nicely too with me & Rick running in 4th & 5th, but about 12 laps in I made a silly mistake getting on the power too hard at the exit of the hairpin... one agonisingly slow 5-point turn followed & hey presto I'd lost 20 seconds & was down in 8th place

After that I had no choice but to throw caution to the wind & pretty much drove qually laps for the second half of the race. That's where the mixed grid made things really tricky as I wasn't really racing the Works guys but somehow needed to get past them in order  to catch up with Rick. Had a few very close shaves - especially when lapping Vos at T1 & Bob flew between the middle of our 2 cars... But with 2 laps to go & thanks largely to both Evil & FMG falling victim to the Honda's wayward tendencies, I finally spotted Rick just ahead. Unfortunately that was as close as I'd get because I then pushed a little too hard coming onto the main straight & lost time with a big slide. Still 4th overall was very satisfying & as far as Privateers goes Rick simply did a better job than me – GPLRA shows Rick topping everyone in both Race Laptime Consistency & On Track Laps so it was a thoroughly well-deserved class win by him.   

[Podkrecony_Ziutek]

That was quite interesting evening for me

It started very bad, because I couldn't join the server. I was getting "Time Out'" all the time. When I was going to give up, but before that I've decided to reboot my PC and try again. It worked!

I've joined server with just 7min. to go, so I decided to take my race setup and try to warm up.

I've survived start and T1 in one piece First few laps were quite hard for me, because of my earlier problems I've couldn't concentrate properly. Afther few laps I've found my rhythm and started to chase other drivers.

During that race I had few good battles with other drivers, especially the one with Fulvio was fun.

From then on all things went smoothly until the last lap when the braking became even more wild and 2 half spins gave Bartosz the chance to sneak his Fezza in front of my Honda   .

I was very lucky there. At that time I was sure that race has already ended, but when I noticed that you're still racing I've pushed again

I had lots of fun racing with WORKS drivers, I can't wait for next season

congratulations to podium finishers and both winners. I also want to thanks my teammates, for helping me in that race.

[john roberts]

This felt a bit like a Honda vs. Brabham spec race - especially in the opening laps. BobW fluffed his start from 2nd place which meant everyone on the right-hand side of the grid was badly held up while Jethro (3rd) & me (5th) on the left side were able to pull ahead uncontested. The glory of grabbing 3rd place didn't last long as I got sideswiped by Bob who dived across me on the entry to T1 as he tried to make up for lost time. Looked like a case of GPL blindspot - from Bob's view it might have looked as if he had passed me so he turned in for the racing line, but in reality if he had been able to turn his head left he would have seen me right alongside him. (I did the same thing in my first online races & somebody subtly suggested that I read the advice about blindspots here https://www.ukgpl.com/rec_dvr_beh/rec_driver_beh.htm  )

yes Al i got stuck behind him also at the start ... i find the brabham a difficult car to get moving and finding a good 1st gear sometimes tricky . Apart from that incident in t1 and running a bit wide at the hairpin a few laps into the race it was a pretty easy drive and i found the backmarkers were great getting out of the way , thanks guys !

the only other problem that i had was at the end of qually when a riceburner left the pits and drove into me (and the car behind then crashed into the back of me) , think i heard some mutterings about shoddy hardware and so i'm guessing a useless mechanic and is there another type at wazza ?  how hard is it to fill a tank of petrol ? anyway i guess they failed to bolt the wing mirrors on correctly and they dropped off as the driver must have been blind trying to leave the pits at that speed .

john

[miner2049er]

It's Adelaide, maybe the mirrors were on upside down.

[FullMetalGasket]

Am I the only one noticing that Adelade isn't in the championship standings?

Was curious to see how I'm fairing in the standings now....  


edit: Meh - it's there now 

[vosblod]

Am I the only one noticing that Adelade isn't in the championship standings?

Just posted, I'm having trouble opening the replay file so not available yet.

As we ran one grid no need for a separate Privateers post this time. Could we have any incident reports by Sunday 20 Dec please.