Round 16 - Phoenix (Dec 18th)

for the Chevy I'm 2.25 in front and 1.5 in rear...but it"s the smoother car in reacceleration Gianluca. Not sure it will work for the more powerful and brutal Offy

For those of you struggling with Phoenix, there is a new Eagle 72 setup on the main website for you to try.

http://historicsimracing.org/en/list_setup

Hey, for you newer ladies and gentlemen: If you haven't tested your car on starts/restarts, you will really want to do that before Sunday! We'll be coming to the green flag at 60mph/100kph, which is only 2nd gear for about all the cars. Which means the large majority of us CANNOT stomp and steer when the green flag waves, at least without writing off your car as well as half the field! (At the very least causing a restart.)

I'm hoping many of the veterans will back me up on this, as I'm having trouble with tire-spin on the start also! So please check how aggressively you can use the throttle on the start and keep your car stable on a crowded track.

Also, please keep in mind that everyone will be braking HARD for the first turn, so you'll have to mind your clearances when the field bunches back up for that -- at least for the first few laps.

AND, if you're not familiar with Phoenix, the pit exit dumps exiting, slow cars directly into the racing line through the treacherous dogleg on the backstretch. So, if you're exiting the pits, mind your mirrors and try to not get in anyone's way. And if you're on the track, beware of cars exiting the pits before it's too late.

Because it doesn't matter whose fault it may be, you're still out of the race!

Will the race be run normally? (yellows)

Also, I don't know how literal to take this ruling.......

" During ALL sessions, cars exiting the pits must use the auxiliary road that empties into turn 2 exit, then carefully blend into race traffic."

but during qualifying and free practice(when anyone on track is not near by, I have gone straight onto the track from pitlane.

We should be running with yellows, as we introduced a fix that seems to have solved the idiotic penalties issues - and in any case, to ensure you can get bailed out if you get such penalty, we set a limit of laps to serve them (250) that allows you to ignore the penalty and finish the race without serving it.

Regarding the pit exit, the direct access to the tracks inmediately to the right at pit exit is blocked by cones, but they are not collidable. you should not go through them directly into turn 1, but instead use the road the goes to the left in paralell to turn 1 and exits bteween turn 1 and the kink (turn 2). When doing so, stay hugging the left until you can mergue with the racing cars at the entry of turn 3.

Sorry, I did not explain clearly......

from the rules "in all sessions........."

does this apply to pre qualy warmup (when admin sync the server), qualy, pre race warm up??

To all sessions in our sunday event. It is a safety measure. You can ignore it while training online during the week, it's up to you to ensure anyone else running on the server does not have any trouble with how you join the track. But once we have started our official sunday event, practice, qualy, warmup and race, the rule is valid in benefit of safety and historical accurancy.

Then, during qualy I may have broken this rule in previous rounds.

Scott Urick wrote:

AND, if you're not familiar with Phoenix, the pit exit dumps exiting, slow cars directly into the racing line through the treacherous dogleg on the backstretch. So, if you're exiting the pits, mind your mirrors and try to not get in anyone's way. And if you're on the track, beware of cars exiting the pits before it's too late.

Because it doesn't matter whose fault it may be, you're still out of the race!

 Thank you Scott
                    I have a question that goes back to a situation I saw at Trenton.  We were under yellow I had not caught up to the pace car yet. So I was still going fairly fast but cautiously (worried about a penalty for going too slow),  I was given a message who to stay behind. Coming out of T2 Two cars that had just pitted were between me and the person I was to stay behind.  I was confused as to who I should follow. Because of this distraction I missed the fact that I was about to catch the group behind the pace car. I found myself going way to fast in traffic and had to take extreme evasive action to prevent from running into somebody.

My question to all
           If a car that just came out of the pits is ahead of me should I assume that is the car I need to be following?
           If I'm exiting after a pit stop during a yellow and there is traffic can I go fast in the pit lane and try to get ahead of the traffic?   Or as I leave my pit stall should I plan on merging in behind the first car ahead of me?

Jason White wrote:

For those of you struggling with Phoenix, there is a new Eagle 72 setup on the main website for you to try.

http://historicsimracing.org/en/list_setup

Thanks for it Jason
Without modifications it wasn't suited for me. But I've touched it a bit. The race set up is much better and I gained two tenth of second a lap.
For the qualy set up, well not so good, still can breach the 26 barreer (well I've done it once by 5 thousand of second

Mick Chapman wrote:

Then, during qualy I may have broken this rule in previous rounds.

Hmmmm well if you are alone in the official race qualy then I guess it wont matter. And I suppose you want to gain advantage getting momentum out of turn 1 and hotter wheels, so yeah, go ahead. Everybody will do the same I guess.

Mick Chapman wrote:

Then, during qualy I may have broken this rule in previous rounds.

At other rounds it only says you must respect that rule during the race. This round is different because there is a dedicated pitlane and cones blocking that pit exit area.

BoB Holada wrote:

My question to all
           If a car that just came out of the pits is ahead of me should I assume that is the car I need to be following?
           If I'm exiting after a pit stop during a yellow and there is traffic can I go fast in the pit lane and try to get ahead of the traffic?   Or as I leave my pit stall should I plan on merging in behind the first car ahead of me?

You're questions boil down to one thing, rFactor will tell you who to be behind when you exit the pits. I think it sets it based on pit exit.

As for your initial question, the person rFactor tells you to be hind is who you should be behind, if people exit the pits in front of you and it still gives you the same person, then you need to pass those people and get up to that person. While you were still, technically, behind the person, you're being out of line has the potential adversely affect everybody behind you.

So everything boils down to, just do what rFactor tells you.

Hi, BoB.

Fitch is correct. rFactor will tell you who to follow in two different ways. The Message Center should pop up frequently during the yellow with a message telling you who to follow. You've seen that.

The other way is with the "driver tags". The default toggle for those is [Tab]. I run with those always on. In my case, everyone has a white tag with first initial, last name, ping, and an arrow pointing down to their car. During Caution Periods, the car you should be pacing behind will have (in my case) a Yellow Tag, or at least a different color than the rest. Pull in behind that driver. If there are cars between you and the car with the yellow tag, careful and politely move around them and make your intentions known that you are slotting in ahead of them.

Word of Warning: Sometimes, rFactor is slow in sorting the field or gets momentarily confused as pit stops cycle. So the cars you are moving around may be seeing the same car with the yellow tag and may not to want to let you in. Don't get into a pushing match. Just hold position for a few seconds to see if you, or they, get a different indication on who to follow. If the restart comes before the situation seems to be sorted, just follow as closely as you can what rFactor is telling you to do and let the stewards/admins sort it later. That will be a judgment call on your part. (If you get penalized, let them know after the race.)

Since we are all doing double duty as driver AND crew chief, it is truly a pain in the butt trying to hold position during pace laps and doing the housekeeping of when to pit, what to fix, what to change, and what position to maintain, when somebody in the pits should be figuring that out for you.

Also, in regards to the "driving too slow" warnings/penalties, as long as you're driving at least as fast as the pace speed (in this case 60mph/100kph), you should have no problem. So you can take a few seconds to decide whether to pit or set up a pit stop before you pull up into traffic. But you'll still want to get up into formation just as quickly as you can get all that sorted.

One other tip: Use the lap tracker across the bottom of the screen, as you're catching up to the formation, to see how close you are getting to them so you can get there quickly without plowing into them. You will be red, the leader will be green, and the car you need to follow will be yellow there as well.

Admins or anyone else, please feel to correct any information I may have gotten wrong! Or add anything I missed.

And, BoB, if I restated anything that was already obvious to you, I apologize! I just wanted to be as thorough as possible for any of the newer drivers trying to get to speed on oval racing.

Good luck, everybody!

One can get a 'too slow' penalty pretty quick if the field starts the formation lap, as I experienced earlier in the season. Had a somewhat slow start once, as the line between 'not enough throttle to get moving' to 'BOOM! Your dead!' is pretty thin and I couldn't find the sweet spot right away. Before I could catch up, I was already delegated to the back. Well, not much was lost, but nonetheless...

ADMIN! Please check qualifying session time. One minute?

Thxs Scott, that is just for the training server where people normally just restart it to continue practing. The race is set individually before the session by the admin in charge.

There will be a broadcast tonight on our usual HSO youtube channel. It will start to the end of warmup. around 9:08pm

Ben Paulet wrote:

There will be a broadcast tonight on our usual HSO youtube channel. It will start to the end of warmup. around 9:08pm

Put me into DNA (Did Not Attend) list

Pit lane is filling up for the final race of 2016!  

Remember to bring your sunscreen 

Disco.

An anticlimactic end to an otherwise lovely season. Bring on 1988!

Again the trouble which comes firstly in Trenton. Freezing of the screen when we started the race. I dont know why. HDD still worked on something and it mayne caused the problem. I hoped the restart of PC before start will remove the issue but unfortunatelly not. I think it caused also the contact between Raul and me. Sorry for that. Maybe i have to totally reinstall my PC because its behaviour is strange. Strange is also the think that this appear only in this mod.

practiced a LOT for this race, and was really looking forward to it. things started out wonderfully, then coming up to lap some cars, one blinked out briefly thru the dogleg, then reappeared looking out of shape side by side with another car. i chose to go right to avoid the possibly spinning car, then the car infront slowed a lot, seemed to be trying to let people go low (which is great, but why slow so much)? it happened so fast, i need to see the replay for sure, but thats what it felt like from my point of view.

oh well, on to next season.

dave