RDHGP S8 - Round 1 - 100km - Westwood Park - Tue 18th Oct 2011

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Stuart Thomson

The Stoat Without Fear ™
Premium
RaceDepartment Historic Grand Prix Season 8 is Go – Everything Old Is New Again
Welcome to Season 8 of the RaceDepartment Historic Grand Prix (RDHGP), covering the Autumn / Winter session of 2011/2012. I’ll admit last season’s cars tricked us during testing a little bit and ended up as almost 3 classes, so it’s lucky that we can put that behind us immediately and go straight to one of the best and closest racing vehicle groups I think I’ve managed to put together. As I’ve been saying for some time now, the TC-65 class never lets us down in terms of racing, and these cars are a superb spread of vehicle types. The TC-65 class is, in my opinion, the best racing class we have available to us, and I emphasise the word racing. The cars are not so powerful that you are merely clinging on, hoping not to spin off into oblivion – which is how a lot of the races end up as the power increases, but well mannered enough so that everyone can almost forget about everything bar racing the person in front of, or indeed behind, you.

I sincerely believe that the testing event we held recently is a genuine indicator of the closeness we will experience throughout the season. The individual cars showed their (relative) strengths and weaknesses over the 2 test events, but the overall pace was pretty well matched across all the cars. I’m hopeful of it being a classic season, with multiple drivers challenging for the title and battles right the way through the field.

This years tracks are a slightly different mix, the vehicles allowing me to have the full choice of track types without worrying that the overall pace of the vehicles will make the races too frustrating.

The season opener takes us to North America, specifically to Coquitlam, British Columbia in Canada and the Westwood Motorsport Park.

s8r1.jpg

Circuit Notes

Located about 10 miles east of Vancouver, Westwood was Canada’s first purpose built permanent road racing circuit, opened in 1959, 2 years before after Mosport opened in Ontario. Designed and built in the late 1950’s, and holding it’s first major race in 1959, Westwood was the brainchild of the Sports Car Club of British Columbia.

Westwood is a deceptively simple layout, created along topological features through the heavy trees, adding those extra degrees of difficulty that makes it such a fun, challenging and rewarding drive, and a superb way to start off our season. While the lap is obviously dominated by that long straight, Westwood has enough in it’s locker to mean that brute force will not be enough to succeed.

Westwood starts on a fairly short, humped straight, short enough that, depending on attendance, some of the lower placed qualifiers may actually be lined up on the exit of the final corner, the Esses. It’s not a hairpin or anything drastic like that, but care will need to be taken under the hard acceleration of the Start.

T1R – Carousel - is an absolute monster of a corner to start the League season on, starting with a non-direct, downhill approach, diving away again down and right, positively and steeply (15°) banked, so it will accept some fairly high speeds for its radius, bottoming out just as the corner opens out. The main dangers in this corner are a) over cooking your entry, assuming that the banking will save you, and b) not allowing for the understeer building up as the banking unwinds into the short following straight. The first lap will mean this is extra crowded through here, so caution will be required to not ruin several peoples races straight out of the gate. Accelerating out of T1R, you have a quick stab of acceleration before standing on the brakes for T2L – Clubhouse.

Clubhouse is a tight and slightly negatively cambered corner, the bumpy kerbs protecting the overly aggressive line, and a slight pinch of radius on the exit meaning that it needs the utmost respect from drivers.

You get on the gas out of Clubhouse, but immediately need to regulate that for the double apexed T3R – Valley Corner Curve. It’s a technical turn, the first part fairly fast, taken with a breathe of throttle, but as it progresses downhill, the second apex just tightens slightly, the downhill nature meaning that the nose never wants to turn in as much as you think it should. You can negotiate T3R easily and steadily, but that may compromise your lap, as it is followed by that long straight.

The long back straight climbs uphill, flattening suddenly and turning slightly left – the Deer’s Leap – just as the car is at it’s least settled, and then the straight drops downhill again, the cars hitting their top speed. The track then rises again through the braking zone into T4R – The Marshall’s Hairpin. Despite the closeness of the cars, they are still very different beasts. The Jaguar will not have the same braking distance as the Abarth, so all drivers need to be aware of what is around them as the braking zone approaches.

T4R – Marshall’s Hairpin – is a fairly standard 180°, the main danger is overshooting once tyres get worn and brakes get hot, as there is a not very welcoming sandpit beyond the turn. Once settled out of Marshall’s, it’s full acceleration towards T5 – The Esses. The first part of the Esses T5aR is approached uphill under full acceleration, but the turn is a blind crest, the car wanting to take off and drift left - into the Pit Entry slip - followed by a downhill, off camber T5bR. Careful line and throttle control are needed here to not suddenly snap out of control as the car goes light and traction decreases.

Exiting The Esses, we are back into the S/F straight and across the line for another lap of Westwood.




westwood.jpg


The Race Director has some notes for drivers. Please see the track map above for location of Race Direction note:-

All Corners Without Exception – The kerbs are not deemed as track, therefore 2 wheels must be within the white lines, on the tarmac, At All Times. Again, there are NO exceptions to this rule at any point on the circuit. Any exception to this rule is deemed illegal, any advantage gained by this method must be ceded immediately. Report people deliberately and excessively cutting. The worst offenders from previous seasons have not signed up, so I hope that this will be a non-issue this season.

Racing Room must be given to all drivers – and this works both ways. Divebombing into and across a corner denies people the chance to make the corner correctly just as much as someone obliviously (or deliberately) cutting the nose off of another driver who has achieved partial overlap fairly.

T1R – Especially on Lap 1. Be aware of people as you turn in here, it has the possibility to cause huge problems if drivers don’t respect each other. Be aware that any incidents caused by reckless or over aggressive driving in Turn 1 during the first lap will be dealt with severely, probably with a “no quali” penalty for Round 2.

T3R – Valley Corner. As mentioned in the Circuit Notes, the exit is sneakily pinched, and the kerbs will throw cars under full acceleration out of control. Be aware of people suddenly snapping across the track after dropping a wheel on the outside kerbs.

T4R – Marshall’s Hairpin. This turn is approached under heavy braking after the high speed straight, so you will need to be aware of the differences in braking distances and relative manoueverability of the cars around you as you go into T4R. Going in too hot will drop you into the waiting sand trap. Care must be taken when rejoining the track out of here.

T5bR – The Esses. Drivers missing this to the outside will be thrown down the Pit Lane. If you get thrown through here, you must use your pit limiter to avoid getting a S&G penalty.

All points on the track – General Items
Drivers may put on their lights (and keep them on) during a timed qualification lap, so other drivers know to get out of the way when safe to do so.
No lights are to be flashed at any stage, under any circumstances, during the Race Session.
No Chat during the Quali or Race except by Race Control for information.
The Track must be re-entered safely so as not to ruin other peoples races.
Car damage must be assessed realistically to know if it is possible to make the pits or not.

Incidents, Investigations and Penalties
As it’s Round 1 of a new season, everyone comes into it with a completely clean slate.

As last season, 2 consecutive no-shows will mean removal from the League.

Please remember, the League staff will only review incidents if they are reported to them.

No report = no review.

Please try and remember the incident reporting guidelines: review, cool off, review again. Only after following the above process, and if you are convinced you still need to report it, should you let the League staff know. Please give as much information as possible during the report (time of incident, drivers involved etc.) Accident reports made within 24 hours of race completion will be ignored.

Any accusations or complaints aired in the Chat during or after a race will mean a penalty levied on the person complaining or making the accusations, even if a subsequent official complaint gets found in their favour. I simply will NOT tolerate any post race finger pointing.

Liveries
You have chosen your car and livery already, and you must only drive your chosen car at any time during an RDHGP event. Every driver has a unique livery in this season of RDHGP.

Scoring System
Points are scored down to P20 (75% distance completion required) so people can fight for some points no matter where they are on the track, and hopefully have a season long battle with people around them in the League.

The Distribution is as follows for 100km events :
P1 - 25 pts
P2 - 22
P3 - 20
P4 - 18
P5 - 16
P6 - 15
P7 - 14
P8 - 13
P9 - 12
P10 - 11
P11 - 10
P12 - 9
P13 - 8
P14 - 7
P15 - 6
P16 - 5
P17 - 4
P18 - 3
P19 - 2
P20 - 1

1 point for fastest race lap
1 point for qualifying on Pole
 
my internet conection was very bad. i think i may have caused some problems. cars were bouncing too many times. after the first lap incident with dmytro i rejoind and climbed up some places. i got up to stuart and every time i got close his car started bouncing back and forth until unfortertnetly i hit him. i appolgize for that . if my internet will not be fixed i am afraid that i will have to withdraw from the league. sorry again stuart.
 
1.5 seconds slower than other guys in Lancias. Quite demotivating, especially since I had no idea where I was losing all that time.

Was alone for most of the race. Both Norman and Roland spun behind me. I apologize if I was at fault there.

Congrats to the podium, see you at Round 2/club races.
 
Well that was a blast. Had a great race from start to finish.Unbelievable how close these cars are! Thanks Tim, Jack and Predrag for the close racing. Great stuff guys:good:

Thanks Stuart for organizing and to all that showed up tonight. And congratulation with the great kick-off for this season.
 
Well that was a shock, started with a full tank and ran out of fuel on the line after cruising round the last 2 laps. Looks like pitstop every race for me, needs to be for tyres too, they were gone after lap 25, probably just as well really or would have run out of fuel at full pace.

Gotta love the jag though, don't mind pitting to drive this round these tight tracks, it's scary as hell every corner.

Congratulations to Ross and the podium and all I was involved with for the cleanest of races.

I will not be around for the next race :frown:, reason in GPCOS, so have fun and I will try and get a bigger fuel tank and some better tyres for race 3.
 
Good to see the times closely matched which gives everyone a shot at competing with several different drivers throughout the season. Very clean, respectful driving from my viewpoint as people could have forced the issue a couple times but waited and chose better times to pass me. Hopefully my depending of position was within the rules. Too bad the next race is 2 weeks away. Well done Ross for the victory. Had a good battle with Hans for awhile, then Knut and Tim. Thanks Stu and cheers to all drivers and podiums.
 
OMG! I've just realized, that session starts at 20.00 GMT and it equals to my 23.00 and race at 24.00! And so it will be until my time is not converted to winter time (if at all will be converted). It will be tough. :frown:

We change to our Winter time on 30 October, Dmytro, and so from Round 2 it all starts at 20.00GMT.

I've just read that your parliament has dropped the "no change" idea and that you will also change on 30 Oct. http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/ukraine-cancels-plan-to-drop-winter-time-change/
 
Not a lover of the lower powered GTL car's, prefer more horses under the bonnet but that aside then it was great fun.
Got good grip off the line and went past a couple of cars only to meet the huge back end of Bob's jag blocking me from advancing any further, so being boxed in behind hm it was just a slow procession around the first couple of corners, then i got a couple of nudges on my tail from Jay which nearly spun me, this let Tim past and i lost the slipstream from Bob n co but managed to get one from Tim but even with that he was still quicker on the straight but i had the inside line for the corner and we had the Big Jag lumbering around the corner in front of us, this time it was Tim's turn to be boxed in but as he tried to pull out to have a sniff at Bob he found me instead and he spun out (sorry) I lifted to avoid the spinning Tim and this let Jay through :frown:

Slowly made it up to 6th but mainly due to others mistakes, was slowly closing the gap to Jay when i pushed to hard at the top of the hill by holding 3rd gear just a bit too long which knocked my engine health down by over 30% just for that one over rev so i had to take it easy after that.

Made a stupid mistake which let Bob & Thommo past, then spent lap after lap looking for a way past Bob, i could see where he was week compared to my car but without him making a mistake i was not going to get past so i just had to keep the pressure on until he made one, so when he put a wheel on the grass in the final bend i got close enough to pass him going into the first hairpin bend (the same corner where i had made a mistake a few laps back that let him through in the first place).

After that it was just a case keep it on track for the rest of the race although the last few laps i was reeling in Mr Babij quickly so it gave me something to aim for and if we had an extra lap or two then who knows.

Bit of a change from the power of last season but still good racing to be had with the differences in the cars.

Thnx all for the race.
 
First league race, so the nerves were a bit taught. In practice I'd only managed a 1:20.8, but after a little encouragement from Stuart I actually managed a 1:19.6. Very surprised was I.

Qualied 12th, and I got a reasonable start, then the spin just after the hairpin left me last. Worked my way back through the field, eventually topping out at 10th. The last 8 laps or so were a nightmare though. I'm not used to such a long race, and lack of concentration + worn tyres meant I started to fall off the track. Jack, then Knut passed me and an off into the sand at the hairpin nailed me into 12th.

So I got to the position I wanted, but I could have been higher. Onwards and upwards I guess. The next track is the definition of twisty, so lets see how the Fulvia runs there.

Congratulations to the podium, and thanks for the clean racing.

Big thanks to Stuart too.

p.s. don't forget the replay please.
 
Q: 1.19.1 - this is definitely the maximum that I can squeeze out from my TVR on this track at this moment. Better result I can't reach due to its weight, gearbox maps and my carelessness (in my best attempt I caught the grass with right wheels at the finish line because of what I lost one or two tenths). Anyway, Ross and Amir were pretty faster than me. So - 3rd place.

R: So good start that I even had to dodge Ross and Amir and go to the outer radius of the first turn. So I realized that I will not be able to become a leader.:redface: One and most unpleasant and unfortunate moment in the race came to me early in the second lap. Amir had better speed at the s/f line and began to enter the first corner on the outside. I did not see him because of my right-handed steering wheel but I felt his car, when I also began to pass out of the corner. It was my fault, I slightly caught the grass and lost control a little bit. Again, my apologies to Amir.:frown:
In the rest of the race, I managed to gain some advantage over Krzysztof, and then off to a pretty decent distance from the others, but, also lose a lot of seconds to Ross (he was inimitable yesterday). Well done, mate! And my 2nd place at finish.

Grats and thanks to all participants (a very decent level of preparation to the event, sorry we have so few left of us).
Thanks to Stuart for his excellent staff.
 
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