Round 3 - Road Atlanta [Feb 11th]

I just wish to thank you mr. Whited for marvelous race. And congratulations for beating me. See you next time

Results up. Points to follow.

EDIT: Points up

Petr Hlavac wrote:

Absolutely horrible, horrible drive from me today. Sorry to Brian Janik for ruining your race.

2 in a row,  , apology accepted, you had better pace at that stage but hoped we'd have a cleaner battle so early on.
Just cant believe how effed up the car was from what seemed a minor hit in the ass, didn't contact guardrail or anything. Thing felt like it was missing wheels!!! 
Luckily the car felt fine after 165 second pitstop (That long w/out changing tires) Mostly trouble free rest of way, relieved to finish, but many others did too and I was unable to climb any higher from so far down.

Well done all finishers
Congrats Y PLacais
3 races, 3 winners. 
Ferrari has advantage while lapping, I could hear it coming from mile away

Meh, poop race

I was a bit late for quali, because I was still busy with diner and stuff, and I didn't really get into the right flow to post a decent lape time, traffic didn't help either, so I ended in 18th. But its all about the race, and that is 75 laps.

My start wasn't the best either, I quickly lost two positions, but on the other hand, some other competitors soon put themselves out of contention, so I gained some more positions. I found myself behind a group where I slowly closed the gap to, even though I had a few niggles that cost me a bit of time. A bit more serious was my mishap in lap 18 where I got off the track entering the righthander up on the hill that's leading to start/finish. Cost me around 20 seconds. I started my usual chase and got a bit closer again, but then, I got a bit sideways in lap 22, which cost me another 7 seconds. Well, still a lot to go, and I did my best to pursue Juha in front of me, and indeed I slowly crept up again. I couldn't go as fast as earlier in the race, but steady 1:10 laptimes, and maybe I could even get behind the next car. Until lap 52 that was, again approaching that crest, I was behind a group of lapped cars, and even though I already braked a bit earlier in anticipation of people being to occupied with themselves, it wasn't enough, I had to turn in earlier than good, got on the grass, the car swerved to the right and hit the inside barrier hard. Good thing, I still had all four wheels attached, but the front end was red now. I rejoined and immediately felt the front being somewhat unstable. It took me a while to get used to the behaviour of the car now. The car would move the right when I braked hard, and also it would now turn in a bit to agressive now on right hand turns. I was still in 12th, but Martin behind me came quickly closer. I was able to get back to a rhythm again and could kind of keep the loss of time acceptable. But in the last few laps, an annoying oversteer crept into the car, too. A few laps from the end, Martin was within two seconds of me, but to my surprise, he didn't really try to attack my hurt car, instead I could even open the gap a bit, again. But three laps from the end, entering T1, with Martin behind me, some lapped cars in front of me, which were still annoyingly slow considering the condition of my car, and some front runners lapping me, I had to work hard to avoid another spin, but it was enough for Martin to go by. and soon had a sizeable gap. A lap later, I was able to attack him again exiting the esses, but it wouldn't really work. But obviously his car was either damaged, too, or he had to save fuel. I had one more chance in the final lap, but again, it just wouldn't work out, so I ended the race in 11th position. I'm satisfied I finished the race, but I don't like the way it developed. To much lost again...

My only aim for this race was to finish without crashing. It nearly went wrong in the beginning but I narrowly avoided two pileups. After that I settled into my own rhythm, kept it on the track, hit nothing and finished the race without a pit stop and in the points. Couldn't ask for better than that.

Brian Janik wrote:

2 in a row,  , apology accepted, you had better pace at that stage but hoped we'd have a cleaner battle so early on.

This is extremely embarassing. I've been racing online since 2003, i've done hundreds of league races and my record says i'm rather a clean racer. Yet in this championship i feel like a total rookie at best, but mostly like an utter idiot. And you got the worst of it twice in three races. That's hardly acceptable. I feel really ashamed by my actions. I promise it won't happen again

Juha Bos wrote:

My only aim for this race was to finish without crashing. It nearly went wrong in the beginning but I narrowly avoided two pileups. After that I settled into my own rhythm, kept it on the track, hit nothing and finished the race without a pit stop and in the points. Couldn't ask for better than that.

Gratulations Juha, finally luck was on your side!


@Gabriel: There was nothing dangerous with my move. I took the chance and I neither touched you or him. Besides, if it wasn't me, somebody else would try. With probably worse results.

I had my car under control there.

Until/Unless I get a better car, if you're coming up to lap me and we are in an essess type turn complex, you're gonna have to wait until we're out of them. I tried to do the right thing and not hold you guys up through the esses and damn near every time it bit me in the ass and I ended up facing the wrong way.

Austin, I would share your sentiment, but not everyone is down that far because of lack of skill, there is a huge disparity between these cars, and different tracks will have different cars with advantages over the others. I was amazed that Yves was, for the most part, so far ahead today. I would've thought the McLaren's would've had a huge advantage in straight line power.

Also, some of you guys in faster cars need to be more patient. There was a lot of peaks here and there, but Raul, that was NOT a passing zone in ANY situation, I'm also sure there's a rule somewhere about keeping at least 2 tires on the track. I don't care who was chasing you, you should've fallen in line and waited until I pulled over for you to go by, NOT dive down on my Right side through the grass at the top of the Essess' You nearly took me, you, and the other cars behind you out. You were not on the racing line because my rights were against the white line.

David Jundt wrote:

I had my car under control there.

I know that. That's not what I meant. I'm sorry if it sounded like I wanted to put the blame for causing the incident on you. But you can't just lap a car that's like 10 laps down every race two wide and be sure he will adjust his braking point accordingly. I mean, it would be nice if you could. It should be that way, in fact. Maybe you're right, then.

Screenies up

http://historicsimracing.org/en/resultatscourse/1477

For those wanting to watch the broadcast back, it can be found here.

Sorry for some intermittent problems, my internet really didn't want to play nice today

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IgymtHIMtQ


Cheers

Petr Hlavac wrote:

Brian Janik wrote:

2 in a row,  , apology accepted, you had better pace at that stage but hoped we'd have a cleaner battle so early on.

This is extremely embarassing. I've been racing online since 2003, i've done hundreds of league races and my record says i'm rather a clean racer. Yet in this championship i feel like a total rookie at best, but mostly like an utter idiot. And you got the worst of it twice in three races. That's hardly acceptable. I feel really ashamed by my actions. I promise it won't happen again

It's alright dude, never thought it was intentional or reckless because I know you're usually clean and fair.
Small errors can get amplified in these cars in a hurry, especially our wingless ones!!! It's bad luck I was on receiving end both times.  
We're good, shit happens, and I look forward to more battles with you in the future

Jason Fitch wrote:

Austin, I would share your sentiment, but not everyone is down that far because of lack of skill, there is a huge disparity between these cars, and different tracks will have different cars with advantages over the others. I was amazed that Yves was, for the most part, so far ahead today. I would've thought the McLaren's would've had a huge advantage in straight line power.

I don't believe it was disparity.

My race was ended prematurely by a driver stopped in a blind spot, directly on the racing line, and I slammed into him at about 230 km/h. Race over. Even in the commentary on the stream, the guys agreed that despite the yellow flag rules today, I had zero way of avoiding this accident. Just a bad part of the track.

I downloaded the server-side replay to see how my victim's respective race went.

- Lap 22: Self Spin
- Lap 29: Self Spin
- Lap 42: Self Spin (leader slammed into him)
Pits to repair damage.
- Lap 51: Gets punted by a faster car because he didn't move out of the way
- Lap 53: Self Spin (2nd place slammed into him)
Retires.

To me at least, that's not disparity. That's someone who lacks the car control necessary to run in a two hour league race. Not everyone is gonna have a clean race or be within striking distance of the leader and I get that.

But I saw a group of cars out there, including the one I drove into, that spun and spun and spun and crashed and crashed and crashed, that were still out there with 15 to go despite being well outside of points-paying positions and numerous laps down. Why were they allowed to do this? I don't understand how that could even be fun for them.

The solution to prevent more carnage is either a 2 spin rule, or a 107% rule. Though I suggested the former on the previous page, the latter is significantly easier to enforce. I mean, if you can't turn a lap within six seconds of the leader over the course of an hour-long qualifying session with infinite resets, what hope do you have for the race?

I crunched some numbers, we had 32 cars today. 10 of them would earn points, another 13 wouldn't earn points but still fell within the 107% range. 23 cars is a pretty good field unto itself. However, that means we had 9 cars out there that were essentially rolling safety hazards. Why do we need 9 extra cars inflicting pain and suffering on those in contention for points?

Austin, you haven't raced in this league long, so allow me to explain something.

If a driver has a protest or concerns about the way a series is being run, they can air those issues via PM with the series admins.  The public forum is not the proper place for this.

I didnt expected so much in this race when i saw how much speed i lost on the straight against the front half of the field. Especialy when i dropped from 19 position almost to the back of the field due to not avoidable collision with the Steve's wreck. That's why a feel a lot of satisfaction with top ten result and with one point.
Sorry Philippe for avoidable hit from the back at the begining of the race!

Jason Fitch wrote:

Raul, that was NOT a passing zone in ANY situation, I'm also sure there's a rule somewhere about keeping at least 2 tires on the track. I don't care who was chasing you, you should've fallen in line and waited until I pulled over for you to go by, NOT dive down on my Right side through the grass at the top of the Essess' You nearly took me, you, and the other cars behind you out. You were not on the racing line because my rights were against the white line.

Jason, first of all, my appologies.. Honestly, I dont remember the moment, this race was pretty frentic for me.
Generally, there was a nasty situation when I cought the cars but after the climb and when starting to downhill the esses. The problem was the speed difference, and more than few times I didnt know there are any cars in front at all, until passing that blind spot, and then seeing the cars was a little bit tricky to adjust the speed, since any corrections to my car were very hard to perform. This is not an excuse though.

A lot of laped cars/drivers were very hard to pass, though. I understand that any manouvers while on esses were very hard to perform, but there was room to let go beffore the esses, on the s/f straight, after the esses, and many of drivers were not so cooperative.

But, since I was battling my car, I know that there is even greater deal in driving non-winged cars.

Again, my appologies for a scarry moment, Ill check the replay to clear it to myself, and do my best not to repeat it.

My first proper race with these cars, and I had a lot of fun despite not being on pace! The BRM is not a nice car - short wheelbase, unrefined aero, too much drag, heavy, etc. But it did manage to pick up a fight, and I had a lot of fun battling with Hackman, Raymond, Gerard, and more. Did two of my most enjoyable overtaking manoveurs at the end of the esses on Adam, and then similarly on Ray a few laps later. That's why we race!

Quote :

The solution to prevent more carnage is either a 2 spin rule, or a 107% rule. Though I suggested the former on the previous page, the latter is significantly easier to enforce. I mean, if you can't turn a lap within six seconds of the leader over the course of an hour-long qualifying session with infinite resets, what hope do you have for the race?

HSO has a long standing tradition of being a friendly place for all drivers, no matter their speed. So a 107% rule is not enforced here unless for some historic reason (F.e. as in Formula 1) the championship merits it.

BUT speed and safety on track are certainly very different things, and same as we are happy to accept slower drivers, we will not be tolerating dangerous, reckless or plain stupid behaviours. Admin decissions regarding this will follow in the next days.

Petr Hlavac wrote:

This is extremely embarassing. I've been racing online since 2003, i've done hundreds of league races and my record says i'm rather a clean racer. Yet in this championship i feel like a total rookie at best, but mostly like an utter idiot. And you got the worst of it twice in three races. That's hardly acceptable. I feel really ashamed by my actions. I promise it won't happen again

I have exactly the same feelings, Petr! I'm putting in tons of laps and finally found some speed for this race just to do the car some kind of justice, then ball it up in the first lap.

I'm sorry, Steve, that you got collected! I had high hopes, the car was very comfortable and I was actually breathing her a little to stay off the lead pack, trying not to be aggressive too early. But I got caught out when 2nd-4th stacked up slightly at T11. Trying hard to stay out of the back of Gerard's Lola, I got squirrely and off we go into the dirt, missed the Armco, and tried to ease back onto the track before the rest of the field got there. Too late! Everybody was cresting the hill before I got going, so I hit the brakes again and looped her at the edge of the track. You know the rest.

My apologies also to Martin if I shot Steve into your path. It was totally my fault and no fault of his.

:drink:So, Petr, we toast the monkeys on one another's back . . . and to locking them in somebody else's trailer at Watkins Glen!

Don't worry Scott. It was a racing incident which happend sometimes. Finally i saw a chequered flag and gained one point. Its not so bad.

Great racing last night, was mainly on my own throughout though.

Pretty good start only to throw it away stupidly on turn 1 lap 2. Went back down to 19th and recovered to 6th so pretty happy with that. Went for an experimental 1 stop and actually paid off for myself. Track didn’t suit my car due to the speed difference but some tracks are coming up that will suit this Porsche so looking forward to the challenge.

Thank you to the back markers. For myself I didn’t have any problems

Alberto Ibañez wrote:

HSO has a long standing tradition of being a friendly place for all drivers, no matter their speed. So a 107% rule is not enforced here unless for some historic reason (F.e. as in Formula 1) the championship merits it.

BUT speed and safety on track are certainly very different things, and same as we are happy to accept slower drivers, we will not be tolerating dangerous, reckless or plain stupid behaviours. Admin decissions regarding this will follow in the next days.

Tout à fait d'accord avec toi, Alberto !

Mais j'ai bien cru que ma course allait se terminer là !

Partie avant tout en rouge sur mon lcd, mais la Ferrari est solide !

Qualifying. I couldn't find any balance with the car today and it felt it was on a knife edge between being too slow or spinning. This made me over cautious and therefore slow. After Scott had jumped ahead of me (well done Scott) I finally found a quicker lap to go a fast as I had in testing.

Race. A good start and got past Austin just after crossing the start/finish line (I hope it was after). I had to fend Austin off for a few laps and that allowed Yves in the lead to open a small gap. Once we had settled down I started to push a little bit and close the gap to Yves although the pushing lead to a small off the Allowed both Austin and Gerard to overtake me. I think that Gerard then had a issue with a slower car and I was able to overtake him and then close up on Austin when I noticed that I was quicker on the exit of turn 1. After a couple of practice attempts to overtake exiting turn 1 I made it though, clean driving by Austin letting me go as I was on the inside for the next turn. I managed to close up to Yves and an issue with a slower car allowed me through into the lead. Again I pushed too hard and slid off the track allowing Yves and Austin to pass. I was closing on Austin again when he found a car sideways in his path and he unavoidably hit the car which resulted in his car flipping. So unlucky Austin. I just managed to sneak past the incident without any trouble. From then on it was just keep pushing to keep the pressure on Yves but he drove well to the end of the race for a deserved win. I'm happy with my second place.
Congratulations Yves. Thanks for the tv coverage. I watched it after the race.
The championship is close for the top 4 now and I happy to be in such a quality top 4.

Scott Urick wrote:

Petr Hlavac wrote:

This is extremely embarassing. I've been racing online since 2003, i've done hundreds of league races and my record says i'm rather a clean racer. Yet in this championship i feel like a total rookie at best, but mostly like an utter idiot. And you got the worst of it twice in three races. That's hardly acceptable. I feel really ashamed by my actions. I promise it won't happen again

I have exactly the same feelings, Petr! I'm putting in tons of laps and finally found some speed for this race just to do the car some kind of justice, then ball it up in the first lap.

I'm sorry, Steve, that you got collected! I had high hopes, the car was very comfortable and I was actually breathing her a little to stay off the lead pack, trying not to be aggressive too early. But I got caught out when 2nd-4th stacked up slightly at T11. Trying hard to stay out of the back of Gerard's Lola, I got squirrely and off we go into the dirt, missed the Armco, and tried to ease back onto the track before the rest of the field got there. Too late! Everybody was cresting the hill before I got going, so I hit the brakes again and looped her at the edge of the track. You know the rest.

My apologies also to Martin if I shot Steve into your path. It was totally my fault and no fault of his.

:drink:So, Petr, we toast the monkeys on one another's back . . . and to locking them in somebody else's trailer at Watkins Glen!

No problem Scott,it just happened in the wrong place just over the crest of last turn,so i could not see your car till last second,was hoping for good result here,the car felt good but not to be,Grats to Yves and on to next race.

i have to agree with Jason Fitch,

i think you all know me Long enough, i have no Problem driving cars, that are not competitive - i have no Problems driving cars difficult to handle. And i try to finish every race and don't give up early.

But that Lola T160 just reacts so unpredictable over every hump. On Road Atlanta the car felt relatively fine, but that small crest at the back-strech was a killer for me.
I think i could have finished this race, "braking" on the straight every lap, resulting to be about 20mph slower than the fastest cars, thats also very dangerousif someone wants to lap me at that Point. (Thats the reason i didn't lift enough when being lapped and lost my car)

Second Thing - yeah haha very funny for me also ... - if you build tracks, please create a possibility to rejoin the track. My car was surprisingly fine after my crash, but i couldn't go on because the track was secured more than Fort Knox.

Third Thing - i cannot believe that laptimes, the fastest cars have been 11 seconds faster than the real cars that time??? Did we drive another track variant or are the cars way too fast? On my quali time i have been 20! Seconds faster than the fastest Lola T160 Chevrolet ? At Mosport it has been the same Thing.