UKGPL Season 20 (2010-2011) Amateurs Trophy (65) - Pebble Beach - Oct 26

[bernie]

Which one?

the one thats gonna end your race mate 

[Turkey Machine]

Charming. I'll see you in it then.

[b_1_rd]

Hmm, didn't enjoy that at all.  Ended up running wide and clipping a wheel which added 6 seconds to my already slow 1:32 lap time.  I think I can safely say that this is the first track I really would not like to ever attempt to drive again.

[Turkey Machine]

Wish Natan was more aware of the fact I was alongside him after he made a mistake into T1. I stayed as far right as possible given the track width, but the contact threw me into the tree with some damage, no wheels missing at least!

Another off put me about 10-15 seconds behind Steve, so I threw caution to the wind and went for it. Did a 29.8 as a PB, which wasn't far off fastest lap and miles off H's stunning qualifying pace. Steve let me through (gracias senor) so I could pursue the next pack of wannabe suicidals.

Ended my own race hunting down Bob when I ran wide at the first of the esses and clipped a rock of sorts. That knocked a wheel off and threw me into the trees. Game over.

[Clutch4]

2nd Amateurs race in 2 seasons where i felt i had the pace to compete - not win or get on the podium, but compete.

G.Jonnson and A.Heller were battling up ahead, and i caught them after they made a few errors i'm guessing, but was pleased i had the capability to hold the gap, even though the odd error on some laps gave them 0.5 of a second here and there.. still.. i could compete. Hurray! 

Dropped it with about 15 to go on the start finish straight on what looked like a pidgeon loft!!??, lost 2 wheels and race over. Shame, as a rare top 6 finish was possible. Infact, double shame, as this was one of the few races where the tortouise could possibly get a result.

Ah well, which circuit is it next?.... Nurbur... Oh Sh1t.. 

[bernie]

Bit of a country ramble for me , no time for any practise worth speaking of and no idea what the bench mark was so no times to aim at .

Settled down for an easy drive from last on grid to 5th,  thanks to retirements (never been lapped so much by so many  ) main problem was acceleration out of those slow corners and my gears were way to long . Was short shifting to keep the revs low too but perhaps too low with hindsight

Grats to Tim and commiserations to Hristo , that was a great race you two were having up front , sorry it didnt run to the end .

Roll on Nurby at least I know my way around the green hell and pretty sure I wont be getting lapped

[Phil Thornton]

Managed to connect but the lag meters were sky high and whenever I caught sight of another car it was warping about like Mr Spock on acid.  So decided to quit and try to sort it out.

Pratted about with various ethernet cables to no effect then I tried to swap my router (back to my old one).  Hey presto decent connection.  Fired up IGOR only to find the race had just started.  Not happy but I can't say I really liked the track.  Hoping for a better race next time, Nurby fantastic - now if I miss that because of a dodgy connection I'll be livid.

[Hristo Itchov]

This one didn't end up the way I had in mind, but at least it was not down to my own mistake and I did the best I could.

Started out on pole after what felt like a really neat lap in Qualifying, but Tim was just over 2 tenths back and I expected a tough challenge. I had a good start and opened up a gap initially, but that didn't last long. Once Tim dealt with Tom's BRM, he quickly closed up on me and put some pressure on.

I thought it was full tanks, cold tires and my cautious driving that allowed him to follow so close, but it soon turned out that wasn't the case - Tim was really flying through some parts of the track, particularly at the left hander in the middle of the lap, the one that leads uphill to the hairpin.

It took me some laps to figure out what's wrong - my gearing was simply not ideal and on top of that, I raised up the ride height which, in hindsight, was a wrong move. As a benefit though, I could really attack the chicanes and cut through the dirt without slowing down much, and was able to pull away from Tim in those places.

Once we went into the hairpins though, he was instantly closing up, both under braking and acceleration. I handled the pressure pretty well though and wasn't making mistakes apart from a few moments, but nothing critical. We ran like that for half of the race distance and I was beginning to wonder what role slipstream played into all that because I couldn't break away despite the fuel load going down. As it turned out after looking at my lap times later, I was simply lacking pace.

Tim finally made it through after a great exit off the aforementioned left-hander and led the race going into the hairpin. I thought that's not so bad, at least I'll have the benefit of slipstream and be the one who's going to put pressure on for a change. Before that though, I planned to follow him for 2-3 laps and avoid taking any risks that could put us both out of the race until I could figure out his rhythm.

Sadly this lasted less than a lap because in T1 (or is that T2, if we count the kink) at the start of the following lap, Tim went wide on the exit, clipped the tree and despite my efforts to go to the right, I got nudged a bit, but it was enough to send me into a tree. The car flipped over, landed on its wheels, but it soon become clear that it had lost power and had bent suspension.

I continued on and Tom was 22 seconds behind, so there was some chance to keep 2nd place or at least I thought so. It all became irrelevant when I noticed the fuel pressure going down rapidly and the car ran out of fuel in the middle of the next lap.

Grats to Tim who was faster today anyway and deserved to win, but I hope such things won't happen anymore because it's for such and other silly reasons that I dropped out of contention the last 2 Amateurs seasons. Bring on The Green Hell where I'll be taking no prisoners! 

-=Hristo=-

[FullMetalGasket]

I was having an absolute blast with H for half the race - couldn't get past the blighter on my own as most passing opportunities were directly after a tight hairpin meaning I couldn't get to close without risking rear ending him under braking.
Eventually H made a mistake out of turn 3 (entering Alverado lane on the map) and I powered up alongside him on the left with 2 wheels in the dirt to ensure I had room 

Managed to stay ahead under braking and the two of us then blasted off around the circuit in reverse order, I was looking forward to seeing if I could hold him off ligitimatly when I ran wide myself exiting T1 and clipped a tree.
The resulting impact bounced me about a little and H seemed to catch the brunt of it though lag as he took avoiding action. As he ended up retiring from this it put a bit of a damper on the win, but was some of the most fun I've had on here since the Last 65 races at Zeltweg as a minimum 


Anyway - results are now up so if there were any incidents of note please submit them 

[kinghiro]

Had some time on my hands and did some practice before this one. But in my brain more practice develops some "please don t screw up now"tense and I just couldn t get the flow I had on practice.after looking at rpy I saw that most of the race I was like one second down per lap in average from what I knew I could do. A pity in this case since I could have put preassure on the duo up front, but pressing more than I feel comfortable with right there and then will usually put me out of the race. I lost 5 secs each time I passed Bernie cause of some bad communication or me just not daring to pass where he intended me to and a couple more secs on a misshift (that slippery third gear on my box I always promise myself to fix) that put me on a 90 degree during a brakedown.
 However I had a comfortable lead down to the guys behind me, and I m very happy with my second place.
H and Tim did a splendid job in their "slow" chassis . Gz to Tim and commiserations (did I spell it right?) to H for the bad luck in that incident.

[EvilClive]

First of all, I think we should recognise that just about everyone behaved properly in the early stages of this race    where a tight pack and a single over ambitious move would have produced carnage!! I say just about everyone, in case there was an incident that I have not heard about yet!!

Hristo and Tim were a class apart in those BT7's with some stunning quali times in such an under powered car out of all those slow corners.

I amazed myself by squeezing a 5th place on the grid ahead of Al's big BRM, which worried me.

The 1st couple of laps were very civilised from where I was viewing things, with no-one taking undue risks and giving each other plenty of room. But gradually the pace picked up ( although it seems that Hristo and Tim had started at warp speed and were long gone ) and I found myself hounding Goran. Passing at this track is not easy and I was looking for a mistake or a missed gear change to make my move, something that Goran did not seem to want to do 
Meanwhile Al, who had dropped back a little on the 1st few laps was now closing from behind and I did not fancy the idea of being the filling in a 3 car sandwich around here!!  Then Goran got a little sideways and I took the chance to slip through.

The rest of the race was a case of staying ahead of either Goran or AL as they both pressured me in turn. Goran appears to have made a mistake and dropped away, but Al forced me into an error at one point and got past. I knew he would be faster in that BRM if I let him get away.
So, I had to retake him before he could scamper over the horizon. I launched the Cooper over the kink in the back straight and fired it down the outside when Al defended the inside line. A deft piece of late braking and I slid the Cooper around the outside to set up the rolling road block again.
Shortly after that, Al appears to have discovered a mismatch in his fuel/distance calculations and had to drop back , leaving me alone to cruise to a podium finish. Bernie was sociable and waved each time I saw him, or was he gesticulating???  (you'll go blind if you keep that up Bernie!!) but he kept his car intact to the finish.
The circuit certainly took no prisoners , so grats to all finishers for surviving and to Tim and Tom at the front. A shame Al ran out of fuel as that battle would have gone right to the flag.

[Al Heller]

I normally prefer the add-on tracks to the Papy ones but this one had far too many 1st gear corners for my liking! Consequently I slacked on the practice & started the evening rather less prepared than I normally would be - I think that might have actually helped my concentration in the race although did have repercussions with my fuel calculations...

In Qual I soon discovered my lines were way too conservative compared to everyone else, so I started taking bigger bites out of the corners & surprisingly found myself lining up 6th for the start. It seemed like a very sensible start from everyone & once the dust had settled I found myself at the tail of Goran & Clive's fight. Not sure what happened, but Goran appeared to slow on the straight (wrong gear?) which allowed both Clive & myself to nip past. Once behind Clive for a few laps, I could see he was gaining huge strides across the last RH chicane before the downhill drop to the line - of course, I foolishly tried to copy him which very nearly pitched me into the trees. After many races following Clive's perenially-sideways car I should have known that the normal laws of physics don't apply to him

My near-miss at the chicane let Goran back through but after that I started getting into a decent race rhythm & found I was actually quite enjoying pushing the limits of the circuit. Then Goran had a small incident which let me past & I closed up to Clive again. A wobble by the Evil one allowed me a brief taste of 3rd however his aforementioned speed across that last chicane & into the downhill section swiftly relegated me back to 4th. After that I pushed a little too hard at T1 & although I didn't hit anything, I got snagged on the tree whilst rejoining. After some frantic revving, I managed to free myself just ahead of Goran & set off in pursuit of Clive again. With about 8 laps to go I saw on prib that Goran had stopped, but then suddenly noticed I only had about 2 gallons of fuel left too! I started short-shifting to try & make it to the flag & in the end spluttered across the line with 0.1 left in the tank & promptly ran out completely before I reached T1 on the slowdown lap.

Congratulations to Tim-Tom & Clive. Thanks to Goran & Clive for the great racing . 

[Clutch4]

King Hiro - I sympathise mate. As a fellow H-Gearbox manual shifter, i too lost a few seconds here and there on avrious laps, but for me, 2nd and 5th kept letting me down. Not sure whether it was the shifter, or i wasn't pressing in the Clutch hard enough. Still, all part of the fun of 'keeping it real'.

Couldn't agree with Clive more. The first few laps were the best Amateur Racing i have ever witnessed. Throughout the first few laps i'd already worked out i could brake far later than those in front, but thought i'd hang back and keep it safe till we'd all worked out each others strengths. To be fair, those in front were also probably braking early too in the early laps. Still, great driving by everyone. 

[FullMetalGasket]

We were - I had been gaining on Hristo towards T1 so braked early 'just in case', Tom (Hiro) had put the power of his BRM to good use and gained on me. I don't know who scared who the most - me slowing extra early infront of Tom, or Tom barrelling up behind me in my mirror resulting in my pulling left for safety 


Out of curiousity, just how many people were running 2 first gears last night?
I was using 1st for the race start and the really tight right hander at the top of the hill, and 2nd (Very slightly longer) for every other tight corner making it effectively a 5.5 speed gearbox, and remember a few others saying they were doing the same too 

[Hristo Itchov]

Yeah, I was running 1st and 2nd short, but maybe too short. I could hear you change much later, Tim, and that seemed to give you an advantage on the exit of those hairpins. My 3rd was too long on the other hand, so I couldn't use it for that left-hander in the middle of the lap.

I would imagine it being quite a tricky track for 5-speed gearbox cars, although the BT11 has so much torque even at lower revs.