UKGPL Season 20 (2010-2011) Historic Trophy (66) - Brno (1949-64) - Nov 2

[kinghiro]

The start was semi-cautious, because with just a 6 laps race one couldn't afford to ease off too much. I was expecting a 9-10 laps race (which would've given us a ~50 mins race) and I think that would've made a big difference in terms of attrition, but it turned out to be just a sprint race.

We have had shorter 66 s as long as I ve been here, but I can t see any reason for this. Bringing 66 up to 50 mins as ams and grads is something I would strongly vote for. I practiced hours for this one and could surely stay on track for another 20 mins.(not that I see that as an argument in itself since reallife 100 m runners practice years for their few seconds. However the default gpl long is simply too short to get the feeling were doing a proper race and not just a sprint.Note "get the feeling".50 mins is still short for a race, but maybe not short for what amount of time ppl can spend. I d like the races to be at least 1 hour, but 50 mins at least gives a feeling of a start mid and end term of the race.)

[Nigel Smith]

I'm gutted. Spent some great times in Czech in my youth and don't remember ever upsetting anyone, so why did a bunch of malevolent spectators grab my car and not let go. I gave up after three minutes of trying to free myself and  watched the rest of you having fun. Wd to all the finishers and commiserations to everyone in the same boat as me. BTW Steve I think it was me having a sniff at your rear end in the first village, apologies to you. I'd slowed right down anticipating problems up ahead in this first section, But a blocked track ? Maybe the Nurburgring will bring better results.

[Hristo Itchov]

True, Tom, we've always had shorter Historic races, but I don't remember going down as much as to a 35 minutes long race such as this one. I suppose it has to do with expected lap times?

[maddog]

It was my first outing with these cars, so I planned to sit back, and have a nice quiet time. Managed to avoid entanglement in Clives wreckage, first corner, and settled into seventh or eighth.  Resisted chasing after Als Eagle, prior to its demise, and caught only a glimpse or two, of those further up the road.  This allowed for the sedate country jaunt, I'd planned.  Behind me, Phil was many seconds back. 

I don't carry Pribluda - extra weight, so was a little surprised on lap 5, to find a Brabham hounding my tail!  My nice quiet race was suddenly rather busy, and for the next lap, I threw caution to the wind, to avoid getting blown away!  It was the flying Phil.  Finally managed to fend off his attack, and stroked it home to a sensible sixth.  Fabulous track - fun race! 

[G Jonsson]

First, as I understand things, the Historic races has been default Pro Long so that is what I have put up. But if you would like longer races I will be happy to fix it. I do rather think that would be good because I also have had a sprint race feeling.

If you look at the race, and quali, in terms of lap times I must say that I guess the race craft come into play as we can see that both Tim and H put up laptimes around their PB`s while Tom and myself did not. I was like 10 sec off my PB, so I am even more off than you Tom, but I think it just is that if I go in PB speed I just do to many mistakes to make the race distance.

So, the race was overall a good one for me. Nowdays I seem to have many problems not really about the race it self. This time I sat in a house all black because of a power cut until 15 min before the start of the race. That meant that the shakedown practice was out of the window.

I was one of the slow starters so maybe some of the T1 problems lies on my shoulders too, but at least I managed to get by with a car in one piece. When things settled after a lap or two I found myself in front of Dave. I remember thinking that I should be able to shake him but I did not, and that was due to my lack of speed as I was lapping like 10 sec off my PB. Anyway after some time I saw a red car in front of me an was kind of sad as I knew it had to be Tim and that meant no Black Night win this time. Then Dave was gone and I could relax a bit but that led to that I allmost lost it on the last lap, but only allmost so I managed to grab the final podium. The only downside is that I am back in a group 2 car for the next round.

Grats to H for the win, I am just a little sad that the dice with Tim did not go all the way, and to Tom for another steady drive to second.

Btw, I really like seeing H back on the GPLRank. That means we all can get his WR replays.  

Göran

[Hristo Itchov]

Btw, I really like seeing H back on the GPLRank. That means we all can get his WR replays.  

I don't really intend to go for any other WRs, especially in the faster cars. Besides, I don't think I have much chance to better the current WRs, at least of the original 11 Papy tracks, unless it's a car/track combo that nobody of the top aliens has given much effort.

And I should avoid helping Tim with videos in the future as it nearly cost me the win... at least until he rejoins the Wazas! 

[FullMetalGasket]

I hadn't actually seen your vid when I broke the 5:40 barrier 

And only watched it once prior to the race and my slightly faster qually time 


So Nyeer! 

[EvilClive]

Bu**er,!!bu**er!! bu**er!!!!!!

I thought that a DNF at T1 would at least give me the benefit of a better car next time. But it looks like the WAZAS are penalised with a pair of group 1 cars for the next race.

Al's experience of the Eagle gave me some comfort and explained why I could get nowhere near the fast times being posted. I knew the Eagle was down on power, but being blown away on each straight explains a good 10 secs a lap. add to that the gutless acceleration out of the several very slow corners and things begin to look better.

At least that's how I see it....

[kinghiro]

First, as I understand things, the Historic races has been default Pro Long so that is what I have put up. But if you would like longer races I will be happy to fix it. I do rather think that would be good because I also have had a sprint race feeling.

 True pro long as long as I ve been here I think. I ve been complaining about short racetime before and gave it up.after all there are leagues out there who do fulltime, but I am in ukgpl and I like it here and just don t have time to do more leagues atm. I saw H s comment as a chance to put the topic up again.If you are god and can change it so why not? I don t think anyone would complain...and if the majority of 66 drivers are against (why would they? ) you can just change it back.or not.youre god of 66 s after all..

If you look at the race, and quali, in terms of lap times I must say that I guess the race craft come into play as we can see that both Tim and H put up laptimes around their PB`s while Tom and myself did not. I was like 10 sec off my PB, so I am even more off than you Tom, but I think it just is that if I go in PB speed I just do to many mistakes to make the race distance.

Yes Gøran it s the good old mind thing.I t s better to have the increased laptime and live to see the finishline.But..I just want to be able to drive somewhat closer to practicetimes.it s impossible it seem cause my arms are stiffer my reactions too jumpy.situations that I saw as scary in the race didn t seem scary at the rpy.anyways the mind has a different type of awareness in a racesituation and things just seem different. I get tricked to think the car actually handles different..could write a book about this.There has certainly been written books about sports performance and the phsychologic aspects of it

[Hristo Itchov]

I hadn't actually seen your vid when I broke the 5:40 barrier  

And only watched it once prior to the race and my slightly faster qually time  


So Nyeer!  

Haha, then what was all that drama about being 10 seconds off?!  

I won't fall for it next time!  

Yes Gøran it s the good old mind thing.I t s better to have the increased laptime and live to see the finishline.But..I just want to be able to drive somewhat closer to practicetimes.it s impossible it seem cause my arms are stiffer my reactions too jumpy.situations that I saw as scary in the race didn t seem scary at the rpy.anyways the mind has a different type of awareness in a racesituation and things just seem different. I get tricked to think the car actually handles different..could write a book about this.There has certainly been written books about sports performance and the phsychologic aspects of it

I think everyone experiences these things, Tom. It takes self-awareness (which can be improved) and experience to overcome it, but it depends on the person. I still feel anxious despite a decade of GPL driving, heh. Sometimes it's so bad that I need half a race to relax.

[FullMetalGasket]

I was 10 secs off in the BT19 and BRM 
Was only 5 off in the Fez and got that to within about a second by Lunchtime on Tues.
Trouble is you'd knocked another second off yourself by then 

I recon I can knock maybe 2/3 seconds off the Brab, I guess the same would apply to the BRM if I spent some time on the setup but can't be bothered now the race is done with 

I'm happy with the 5:38. That's gotta be pretty high on GPL-rank itself 

[kinghiro]

[I think everyone experiences these things, Tom. It takes self-awareness (which can be improved) and experience to overcome it, but it depends on the person. I still feel anxious despite a decade of GPL driving, heh. Sometimes it's so bad that I need half a race to relax.

It s good to hear more people share that race excitement and it s effect. I m not new to online racing either though I had a comeback with gpl now.I did other racing games on lan with friends from 91-97. gpl 98 and 99. self  awereness is a keyword ,a basis to work from, and to overcome shouldn t neccesarily mean to remove all stress I think.stress has positive affect as well, but when it reaches a surtain amount it gives a choking effect and consentration gets flickery.I had to take a course in pshycology when I took my private pilote lisence.a small book called aviation psycologhy and  learned some stress/effectivness stuff there.(and oh yes..I have had chokestress in extremely unpleasant episodes in the air ..)stress/effectiveness is surely important to understand in competitions too...now out to drive train again ..sorry for babbling so much about this but I think it s so interesting

[Hristo Itchov]

It s good to hear more people share that race excitement and it s effect. I m not new to online racing either though I had a comeback with gpl now.I did other racing games on lan with friends from 91-97. gpl 98 and 99. self  awereness is a keyword ,a basis to work from, and to overcome shouldn t neccesarily mean to remove all stress I think.stress has positive affect as well, but when it reaches a surtain amount it gives a choking effect and consentration gets flickery.I had to take a course in pshycology when I took my private pilote lisence.a small book called aviation psycologhy and  learned some stress/effectivness stuff there.(and oh yes..I have had chokestress in extremely unpleasant episodes in the air ..)stress/effectiveness is surely important to understand in competitions too...now out to drive train again ..sorry for babbling so much about this but I think it s so interesting

I didn't mean it in a way to prevent stress, but to know yourself better which allows you to cope with stress better and understand the reasons for anything that happens against your will. I've read a couple of psychology books for the past year and it's really a matter of becoming aware what's causing your energy blockage as that is what is really causing a drop in performance. Basically it's things in your subconsciousness that you're unaware of that affect your conscious efforts.

Focus and thought-control is a good way to minimize the effects of any psychological issues you have and although that doesn't really lead to long-term improvement, it creates useful habits. That's how I cope with these problems. For example, it really helps to focus as much as possible on the little things like braking points, gear shifts, throttle application and so on, and take away your mind from abstractions like the pressure to win, to deliver a lap time, to beat someone, to score points, to win championships and so on.

As you say, there's a lot to be said on the topic, but in reality, it's up to each individual to figure these things out and find the best solution, because it's such a personal topic that no absolute rules apply to it.

[FullMetalGasket]

I almost go Zen in GPL and often find myself winning/finishing highly by not trying to go fast and ignoring the competition if I'm chasing someone/being chased. The first of my 2 flying laps in qually last night wes a perfect example as it was supposed to be a slow and steady 'safe' lap but resulted in a 5:38xxx regardless.
Racing against H in the BT7's is somewhere I should apply this more - But we simply have no choice in how hard we have to push to make good lap times 

Anyway, here's my fastest qually lap from last night. It has several errors in it that I'm now amazed I managed to catch on the night. It seems I was determined to smash the car up but just kept missing the hard stuff 
You'll want to update your rank again H as it currently has me holding the WR at Brno - given you're half a second faster I think this is a little missleading 

Anyway - here's a youtube link 

[Hristo Itchov]

Nice run, though lots of sideways action that definitely lost you 1-2 seconds minimum, imo.