GTC-65 Ford GT40 @ Monza & Rouen - Tuesday April 6th 2010

[Carlos Diaz]

Servername: RACEDEPT.COM GTC65
Class: Ford GT40
Track: Monza GP / Rouen les Essarts (1951-73) (No Chicane)
Track Note: ATTENTION! This is not the same track that is found in our RD downloads section (ver 1.02). This one is a smaller download and it has more visible braking points. Most of you already have this track from when we drove the Skylines on it.
Start Time: 19.00 GMT
Practice: 20 min
Qualification: 10 min (1 timed lap only)
Race: 2 x 12 laps
Note1: Click here to read the password and golden rules!
Note2: Anyone who has already downloaded my skinpack for the GT40s, please remove it. I will be updating the event post with the link to Stu's pack as soon as it's available. Sorry and thank you.
Note3: Here is Stu's skinpack. Drop the files inside the archive directly into your "Ford GT40" folder within your "GTC-65" directory.
Note4: This car can be a handful, here's my attempt at making it a little more docile. My SETUP.

 

[Steven Palmer]

Make sure you have this line set to 1 in your .PLR file in the [GAME OPTIONS] section

Replays Dated="1" // Replays have date in filename

That way, you'll not overwrite your race replay with one about 10secs long after the race

 

[Stuart Thomson]

Thoroughly enjoyed that :thumbup:

Monza really isn't a big favourite of mine. It needs a fast & powerful car to not be too boring, but then in these older wagons, the brakes are generally pretty shaky, so that area can get a bit dicey too.

Luckily, the GT40 has some immense brakes, and a bucketload of torque to pull it out of the corners.

Did OK in prac & quali, got a decent enough start, but a couple of laps, I got a bad bounce over a kerb in the second chicane and lost the rear and several places (and then drove into the sand at Parabolica while talking to Steve on TS :biggrin.

After that, it was a bit of a recovery drive, keeping it on the island, had a good dice with Tom, and in the last 3 or 4 laps I was closing down quickly on Amir, presumably because of his tyre maintenance stance, on the last lap I'd got to about a second behind, still closing fast just held off the braking a little too long into Parabolica, and just caught enough sand to scupper any chance I had on the drag to the line, so ended up with a cheeky podium.

Rouen was always one of my favourite tracks in GPL, and the GT40 felt great round here. After prac & quali, it was plain to see that Steve was extremely comfortable (and fast) round here. Again it was a decent prac & quali session for me and another OK-ish start. As the race got under way, Bob had his off and it allowed me to press on, the car feeling really good. Got right behind Amir, but he was braking really early into things for tyre preservation and I nearly wiped him out but the GT40 brakes were just good enough to keep us together and untouched. Because of that, and my reluctance to just throw a reckless one up the inside, Tom caught us up pretty quickly. We (Tom & I) got a really good run onto the back straight into Amir's slipstream), but then he seemed to just stop accelerating and so we had to take emergency avoidance either side of him.

Steve had his downshift issue, Carlos dropped a wheel onto the grass and had an off, and all of a sudden I was in the lead and putting some decent gaps between me and the boys behind.

I had only one real mistake, which was snatching a brake at Nouveau Monde, but other than that, it was pretty painless. Steve started to close up, but as he said, he was running out of laps, so I was able to bring it home fairly comfortably for an unexpected win.

Thanks for the event Carlos. I personally am enjoying your take on GTL and how events are put together. :thumbup:

Gratso to Bob for Race1 win, and grats to the podiums in both races.

 

[Stuart Thomson]

The only other thing that struck me about some of the comments above was that, for some reason - driving style or whatever, I found the GT40 as easy to drive at the end of the race as at the start. Easier if anything, as there was actually some heat in them. I just didn't get the drop off in tyres that some of the others experienced.

It's great that the game goes into that sort of depth :thumbup:

 

[Roman Kruszewski]

Roman,I am sorry that I hit you ,I had major leg problems one moment you are in front then behind an next you ware complete gone,so I did not no exactly where you where on track,an when I hit you from behind,you appear just in front of me,no way to avoid you ,again sorry Roman.

I thougt You don't like me just kidding - no problem Hans, that's racing!

Well as I said ,both races where a big problem, during the race in the chat screen I saw several times
"synchronising game ....msc "never saw that before? it seems that everything was a bid to late even shifting gears and going on or of throttle.

This communicate is defently sign of connection problem, have you set in GTL in Multiplayer type of connection? Since RDLMS event I set it to ISDN and since then I was disconnected once.

 

[Steven Palmer]

The only other thing that struck me about some of the comments above was that, for some reason - driving style or whatever, I found the GT40 as easy to drive at the end of the race as at the start. Easier if anything, as there was actually some heat in them. I just didn't get the drop off in tyres that some of the others experienced.

It's great that the game goes into that sort of depth :thumbup:

+1 The car was getting better and better as the race went on

 

[Stuart Thomson]

Glad it wasn't just me imagining it .

 

[Carlos Diaz]

For me it got better when the tires got hotter in mid race. But I think I am too hard on the brakes all the time and then I am too hard on the gas on my way out of the turns, so I eat up tires. This is because I play with a pad and the full range of motion for the brakes is a little more than 10 millimeters so it's easy to lock the wheels while braking. This is also the reason why I always have to lower the braking pressure to between 92% and 96%. That way I have less chances of locking up the tires.

Something else that I do is set the "Power" side of the differential to 10% or 20%. This allows me to get away with getting on the gas too hard/too early since most times it will let only one tire spin (the inside tire) while the outside one grips, keeping the car's rear behind me. Problem is this also causes the rear tires to wear out quickly since the inside tire almost always spins on turn exit.

Since I am not precise enough with the controls, I have to find ways to dampen any mistakes I make through the car's setup. Unfortunately, sometimes this means killing the tires in a torquey car like the GT40 or Cobra.

I needs a G25.:frown:

P.S. Funny thing though... I did try a wheel for about 3 weeks a few months ago (Momo Racing). I was horrible with it. Resembled more a drunk driver than a simracer.:tongue:

 

[Stuart Thomson]

The Momo's good enough for decent work - but I suspect the learning/conversion curve is pretty steep to go from pad to wheel, to be fair.

I also have my brakes down around 90% as well.

 

[Carlos Diaz]

Yup, I suspected the wheel itself wasn't the problem. Thing is I have been playing driving games with the pad since the release of the first Gran Turismo. And I am a creature of habit lol. So changing over would mean months of practice with the new hardware. I also find that the pad allows me to make lightning fast corrections, so it has its ups and its downs.

I also don't have the space needed for a proper racing seat like a "Playseat" to put my pedals and stuff. My PC desk is right next to my bed, and space is limited.
Plus, the wife doesn't really like the idea of having a full blown cockpit setup in the bedroom haha. Not to mention I would have to explain why I need to spend about 400 bucks for the whole thing lol.

 

[Stuart Thomson]

Yeah - If my rig was in the bedroom, I suspect I'd have had to get it ratified by the Fun Prevention Officer as well.

 

[Carlos Diaz]

"the Fun Prevention Officer":roflol:

That's awesome hehe. I refer to mine as P.I.T.A...Pain In The (you know what)

P.S. OMG I hope she never sees this post...EVER! lol

 

[Hans Sneep]

I thougt You don't like me just kidding - no problem Hans, that's racing!



This communicate is defently sign of connection problem, have you set in GTL in Multiplayer type of connection? Since RDLMS event I set it to ISDN and since then I was disconnected once.

Thanks Roman,for as far as I now there is noting running in the background eating my bandwidth an yes I am on ISDN (have cable) but I have playing around with some services,maybe I have made a mistake there? I try to set back the sings I have altered.

 

[Philip Brown]

Sorry it took so long to get this up, Wow that was fun!

Monza turned out to be one of my better races as I managed to keep it on track and also keep up a good pace. Several times my vision was almost totally obscured by tire smoke from the cars ahead, so I really tried to manage the tire wear and was just able to stay in touch with the leaders, finished 6th. Congrates to Bob and the podium!

I think the GT 40 was made for Rouen, what a great combination!. Unfortunately, I did not have as good a race. The start went OK from 7th I think, but on lap 2 or 3 bumped Roman as he slid sideways across my line into the hairpin, managed a fairly clean get away, but now Bob was right on my tail. I slid wide a few turns later and then Bob got me at the start of the long back straight.

The next few laps where very entertaining as Roman caught up and passed me, then Roman and Bob got together and i was able to get by again, ( for the much coveted 6 th place) . Once again Bob was on my tail and made a nice pass on the back straight again, this time the sparks flew going into the right hander and he made it stick. After that I think my edge was gone and I made several mistakes including a Danny Sullivan style pirouette and a "big off" trying to keep my foot ( thumb actually) in it at turn 1 toward the end of the race...

Great fun, thanks very much Carlos and RD, and congratulations to Stuart and the other podium finishers, also thanks to everyone who showed up to make this such a good event.