Round 1 - College Station (Mar 20th)

Jason White wrote:

Also, we will be having a chat with select people about behavior under yellows... 

Good. That kinda ruined my race from very early on. Got rammed from behind, lost a lap in the pits, and my pace was down from then on.
I think a big deal of what causes all this trouble is rFactor's "Warning Driving Too Slow" thingy. It overcomplicates things so much. But if it can't be removed, we just have to get better. There are probably no cars in the world that are harder to drive slowly than these!

The good thing however: when we did get going, the racing was pretty good and clean. It looked exciting up at the front too!

Race history

In the opening laps (under yellow) i damaged my front wing when someone pulling in front of me. After a couple of laps in race pace i hit the wall what caused a damaged suspension.
I was in 8th at that time and my fuel were nearly gone (200L from start) and i had to pit. I forget to deactivate "Repair damage" and had a 56sec pitstop and was two laps down then. A lot to learn
Under the second yellow i break too late for the car in front of me, spun and hit the wall then. With no front wing my apex speed was quite bad. So after some laps i hit the wall again and puncture a rear tyre. When heading for the pits, i overreved the engine.

rFactor didnt´t show whether pit line were open or not? What i have to set in options?
I have some problems when starting these cars in 1th gear.  It´s very easy to overrev the engine.

Well....

I think we all learned a lot today/tonight. As for the pace laps..I think we need to bump the Pace car speed up a little bit. 60mph is really low on the Boost in 2nd and really high in 1st. You gotta remember these things paced at 80ish mph in those days.

I had a great start, I am sorry I got into you Alberto coming out of turn 2, I was off the gas and it kept drifting up. Ran up in the Top 5 all day, fell back a few times when I tried bad ideas to get around lapped cars. Under the Last yellow the field slowed I had to go down to 1st to get going and I spun it and then was penalized for going too slow. Then the damn thing couldn't decide where I needed to be, I finally opted to pit for a splash of Fuel, just in case. 4th is good, especially for whats going to be a long and tough season. I'm 100% sure I could've caught and probably passed Mike for 3rd, but as I got to almost a half second of him, Dave tried to pass me and it slowed me down.

For some reason, all week, I've had a feeling that Dana would be the one we all had to chase, turned out to be true, she was bad fast. Grats Alberto on the Win, and Dana and Mike for rounding out the Podium. Can't wait to watch the Livestream replay. Unfortunately, right now, it looks like I might be missing Trenton on the 10th. Will confirm when we get to that point.

Once this got underway, it was big fun, even though neither my gearing correct nor my balance in traffic. Shame on me, yours truly was big time involved in the events surrounding the first attempt at starting the race. My apologies, I got completely caught by surprise by the people slowing down in front of me. Thanks to the fuel economy of the Foyt engine, I was even able to catch the lead for a few metres, to my complete surprise, and I took about 70 litres to much fuel with me on the first stop, I was very conservative and didn't take a gamble on further yellows. I took a bit of damage on the wall, when I had to dive into a gap after a bit of a miscalculation with cars leaving the pits. I couldn't follow my competition on restarts, so not much of a chance on improving my position towards the end of the race and I'm happy I could fight off Ray in the last few laps. He really gave me quite a hard time towards the finish line. 7th position, I'm happy with that. I wanted to finish, best unscathed, and with a bit of luck, a Top 10 finish. I think, I could have done worse.

The only thing annoying was the amount of chat during the race. That's most distracting.

Well first i got a strange DQ because my game lagged so terribly that i was late to enter the race, so apologies for that


Anyways, my race, i was with damage from the beginning, wich made my car even slower, from people who hit me from the back under yellow. After that i just tried to use the draft, and to keep my car in one piece, but i lost my wing because some car spun in front of me under yellow. i was luckly not to lose a lap, and i ended up only losing one place, so got some points for this race, let's hope at Trenton i can be quicker.

After the start I was running 6th or 7th hanging at the back of the leading group. I clipped a wall and got some damage but it did not slow my pace but at the pitstop the pitcrew decided to fix the damage putting me a lap down. How do you stop damage being repaired?
I was then running 6th a lap down when we had another yellow, during this yellow the car in front of me spun off onto the grass and rFactor decided that I had done something wrong as I slowed to try and stop behind the car on the grass, I was moved back down to 12th. At the green it was easy to make my way back through the field upto 7th where I caught Richard who was in the draft of Jason Fitch. I eventually got past Richard and was then thinking that I could work with Jason F to close up to the other cars but there was no way past Jason, sorry if I slowed you but I thought I could help you. A good solid 5th place finish.

Congratulations to Alberto, Dana & Mike.

I talked to Jason , but I have reason to be angry. I do the pole . The correct would be starting on pole . the game had nothing to tell me to stay behind 3th car.  it makes no sense to send the game the pole drop on 3 for example. ever races , i have problem, or crash, or bug, or mistake.. this time game bug. I have the good car on my hands , my best setup, and my race going to space because a Rfactor bug. others restarts i no have this bug. Is very necessary one admin out the race, at the server with spectate mode to aply or no aply penaltys, aply or remove penalty. today my race going to space because no exist this mechanism. and i do the pole i have much chance to win and this is what happen practice for what?

David Sabre wrote:

After the start I was running 6th or 7th hanging at the back of the leading group. I clipped a wall and got some damage but it did not slow my pace but at the pitstop the pitcrew decided to fix the damage putting me a lap down. How do you stop damage being repaired?
I was then running 6th a lap down when we had another yellow, during this yellow the car in front of me spun off onto the grass and rFactor decided that I had done something wrong as I slowed to try and stop behind the car on the grass, I was moved back down to 12th. At the green it was easy to make my way back through the field upto 7th where I caught Richard who was in the draft of Jason Fitch. I eventually got past Richard and was then thinking that I could work with Jason F to close up to the other cars but there was no way past Jason, sorry if I slowed you but I thought I could help you. A good solid 5th place finish.

Congratulations to Alberto, Dana & Mike.

If you're in the pitstop menu, use the up/down key to go to the option 'Repair Damage', then use left/right, until it reads 'No Repair'. You gotta be done with your choices before you reach your pit spot.

Michael Drechsler wrote:

If you're in the pitstop menu, use the up/down key to go to the option 'Repair Damage', then use left/right, until it reads 'No Repair'. You gotta be done with your choices before you reach your pit spot.

Thanks Michael. I was looking for it on the pitstop menu but I couldn't see it, I didn't have the time to find it . I will have to make sure I know how to do it before the next race.

Ah, yeah, I should mention, the pit menu is more than the 6 lines or so you see up front. If you reach the bottom of the menu and hit the arrow button once more, it'll move a line further.

Been there, done that, too

 I should know this stuff.

Do not forget that the race is on the youtube channel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mtFjEtwVio

someone tried to overtake me by the acceleration lane, and hit my car. 56 seconds lost in the pit because of that stupid behaviour.


Le début de course a été un bordel indescriptible. Les voitures sont quasi impossibles à conduire à 80mph.

Is very necessary one admin out the race, at the server with spectate mode to aply or no aply penaltys, aply or remove penalty. today my race going to space because no exist this mechanism.

In my experience with a lot of online Stock Car racing, involving pace laps and yellows, I have a suggestion... During the pace laps (AFTER the start, when they're single file) it's best to stagger the cars. If we all go left or right of the car in front of us, then if the line closes up suddenly we're less likely to hit each other.
Just a thought, but I've seen it work very well.

As for the caution periods, it's best to try to maintain a pace speed, and don't react too quickly to all of the changes that the mod is telling you to do... it usually has us switch who we are supposed to be behind, then catches up with itself and changes again. If we take it slowly and calmly, the mod will sort out the order eventually. And with a long race, worse things could happen than being sent to the back of the line for a restart.

Jacob Fredriksson wrote:

Jason White wrote:

Also, we will be having a chat with select people about behavior under yellows... 

Good. That kinda ruined my race from very early on. Got rammed from behind, lost a lap in the pits, and my pace was down from then on.
I think a big deal of what causes all this trouble is rFactor's "Warning Driving Too Slow" thingy. It overcomplicates things so much. But if it can't be removed, we just have to get better. There are probably no cars in the world that are harder to drive slowly than these!

The good thing however: when we did get going, the racing was pretty good and clean. It looked exciting up at the front too!

Was me that hit you, sorry about that Had cars passing me behind the pace car that the game was telling me I should still be ahead of and then a group of cars pretty much stopped on the start/finish line, I tried to avoid everyone but the cars had pretty much blocked the track and I slid into the back of you, sorry.

Results and points are up
Screenies to follow

Screenies up

http://historicsimracing.org/en/resultatscourse/1201

Thank you Jonatan and Ben for doing such a fine job on such short notice!

Overall I was very pleased with the lack of yellows. Well done all. Only bad part of the race was first caution when the pack overshot. Someone barely touched me and bent my RF. RF stayed hot for the rest of the race. I lost the draft twice due to not being able to stay on the bottom with lightning speed Dana, Jukka and later Alberto. Very pleased with 3rd all things considered. I was able to stay up 2 lanes and RF stayed under 110 so life was better.

It has been said before and I will say it again, hats off to Jason, Alberto and many others who spear headed this mod. Truly awesome.

Grats to my teammate Alberto! Also fantastic job Dana. Your pit time was awesome. I got stuck entering and lost you by a mile! Nicely done.

PS: almost every car being lapped performed fantastic. One did not. I am sure he will clean up or be cleaned out.

Must say I'm very proud to get 6th in the old Eagle 70. I don't think the car could have done much better. A few drivers did a few questionable things, but nothing too bad.

Roll on to Trenton, hopefully I can bag some more points before we take arrival of the new Eagle 72 we have being built for us

Pleased with my result but especially with the quality of driving at the pointy end of the field. Clean, fair, and smart all around. Also hats off to traffic for being predictable and safe throughout.

I had a look at the replay and Alberto's and my finish looks even tighter up close.

Trenton's my home race so I'm hoping I can do NJ proud and finish about six thousandths faster next time out!

Dana Schurer wrote:

Pleased with my result but especially with the quality of driving at the pointy end of the field. Clean, fair, and smart all around. Also hats off to traffic for being predictable and safe throughout.

I had a look at the replay and Alberto's and my finish looks even tighter up close.

Trenton's my home race so I'm hoping I can do NJ proud and finish about six thousandths faster next time out!

I did not realize it was that close of a finish! I was too busy watching Jason catch me with a pack pushing him along. Watching replay now.

Dana Schurer wrote:

I had a look at the replay and Alberto's and my finish looks even tighter up close.

Impressing!!!

First things first, some general comments to put things in perspective and explain/answer some questions/points:

1.- This was the first race of the season in a track where we all run the minimum wing, so the cars are not easy to handle at slow speed. At other tracks with shorter gears and more wing it will be better. Anyway, 1st gear is only for starting from standing, so you have to do restarts under yellow in 2nd and live with the turbo lag as the real drivers did.

2.- If the pace car goes quicker, it will brake insanely at pits entry and force the leaders to do the same to avoid a prenalty, causing a mess on the field with a huge acordion effect.

3.- The main culprit of a good amount of stupid messages from the game was the LAG. I saw sometimes cars dissapearing in front of me and the yellow marker changed to another I should follow, then the car reappeared and the game told me to follow that one again. 

4.- rFactor yellows & penalties are not perfect, we saw that last year already. But during a season any silyness tends to even itself. Sometimes you are lucky, sometimes unlucky with the game directed race control

5.- Some nonesense driving that could be seen won't help a lot the game doing what it is supposed to do. As someone already said before, you have to follow staggered formation under yellows, don't follow nose to tail the car in front or you don't have time to react.

6.- Chatting while racing is unacceptable. Really.

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About my race: 

With 90 inches of boost and a good setup I knew the Parnelli was very competitive, so I stood out of trouble and let people pass at the beginning, trying just to stay in the top 5 and be safe. After the pitstop I really started racing, even if due to traffic I had lost contact with the head of the race, but I knw I could catch them later. A yellow helped big time, and at the last restart I was able to pull a pass for the lead, squeezing on the inside. I was not completely comfortable with it, so when Dana dived for the inside at the penultimate lap I didn't try to shut the door and decided that we would be dicing it It went well for me only because the Parnelli is superior in this track   

I'd like to specially thank Dana for his amazing and clean driving. She is incredible fast, deals with traffic as a true expert, and what is best: She is a racer you can completely trust, which is what counts more when oval racing


Finally thanks to Guillaume Siebert for retiring, as otherwise I would not have won this race but he would have

Now to use this icon, that was collecting dust:

Special historic BONUS: The real race was won by this same car, Al Unser Sr. driving

Congrats Alberto !
Feels good to win on your own mod right ?