RDHGP S8 - Round 2 - 100km - Vayline International Raceway - Tue 1st Nov 2011

Status
Not open for further replies.

Stuart Thomson

The Stoat Without Fear ™
Premium
RaceDepartment Historic Grand Prix Season 8 Round 2 – Phantasie Deutsche

Welcome back to Round 2 of the RDHGP S8. I personally thought that Round 1 was a huge success, and as I mentioned in chat, I honestly can’t remember a closer grid in any previous RDHGP season. What makes that even more astonishing/gratifying is that the cars are so different, and get their times in such different ways, but still – there was nothing in it across the grid.

Not a great race for me personally, being involved in 2 accidents – one I caused and one where I was the disadvantaged party. I felt worse about the one I caused if I’m honest, as I suspect most of us would. Despite that, I was involved in some really good, close and exciting racing, and from reading the feedback, so were a lot of you.

The track for Round 2 is quite a change in profile from Round 1, is a well designed fantasy track, and takes us 5,050 miles East from Vancouver to Dresden in Saxony, Germany, and the Vayline International Raceway.

s8r2.jpg
CircuitNotes
Dresden is located on the River Elbe in Eastern German, about 30km (19miles) North West of the Czech border. One of the greenest cities in all of Europe, it’s central and outlying areas are comprised of 63% being green areas and forests. Vayline is located just outside the Dresdner Heide, the 50km[SUP]2[/SUP] forest to the North of the city.

Like the previous round, looking at the plan of the Vayline layout, it seems simple enough, but once you get your wheels on the ground, you really get to appreciate the subtleties of the track designers art. With fantasy tracks, it is very easy for designers – not constrained by the reality of a real world track – to get carried away and throw the kitchen sink at it. Vayline doesn’t fall into that trap, and consequently it’s a challenging yet not overwhelming or unrealistic experience.

A general indication for this track – Some sections are lined by green kerb surface right next tothe white lines and none of the normal Red/White kerbstones. In these sections,the white lines are the Edge of Surface (EOS) markers, the green surface is treated as kerb. Four wheels on the Green kerb surface will be deemed as an illegal line.

Vayline has a slight righthand curve – T1R – immediately after the Grid and S/F line, under the gantry, and while this poses no problem to navigate, it can just cause problems lining up for T2R, especially if you are racing side-by-side through here.

T2R – is a relatively high speed turn, with sudden junction and no kerb on the inside radius and a fairly benign amount of run off on the outside of the turn if you want (or need) to take a shallow line in, but then that runs out very quickly as the grass bites into the left edge of the racing surface. You need to avoid this bite as the track turns left into T3L.

The visual cues as you go into T3L – the green kerb surface and the way the track seems to kink right before actually turning left – can become off-putting for braking and turn-in. The red tyre piles are probably the best visual cue to use here. Turn in at the first pile on the right, towards the inner pile on the left, and using the end of green kerb surface out on the right to aim at for your exit.

There’s a short, curving straight after T3L, between some extended red & white tyre barriers, and across a change of surface with some white lines from an alternate layout. Again don’t let these visual cues get you off line for T4L, as the inner radius again bites out some of the straight preceding it.
T4L is a slow corner, protected by some sawtooth kerbs on the inside for the too-aggressive line, and a waiting sand trap on the outside for the over optimistic entry speed. It’s a gently climbing turn, which crests, and then drops back towards the T5 Esses.

T5aR is still downhill, under hard acceleration, and needs to be taken close to the right hand edge of the track, as T5bL whips back the other way immediately, straight across the kerbs (see the Race Directors Notes later), and into the uphill T5cR turn, where you need to be very careful to not clip a rear wheel on the tyre pile on the exit.

Hard on the gas out the Esses, there’s a decent length curving straight before you need to get on the brakes for the tricky T6L. It’s tricky because the approach is slightly curved, there is a lack of external reference points, and that the corner itself has a tightening radius into one of the slowest corners on the circuit. It’s a hard turn in, making sure that you don’t drift off the outside into the sand, and that huge bridge wall support that waits for the unwary.

A squirt of acceleration and then slow again for the equally tight T7R, a climbing turn,that again has a little nip in radius near the end. Too much acceleration (or not enough patience) will make your vehicle drift left, onto the recovery kerb, where you will find your nose pointing at a large (and potentially suspension knackering) tyre pile.

Avoiding that pile, and it’s in the braking zone for my favourite corner on the track, T8L. This corner suddenly drops away, making it difficult to get the nose into the apex as it effectively makes it negative camber, and getting the cars sliding out towards the waiting outer wall that will punish any errant lines with heavy damage.

Through T8L, and it’s a blast of acceleration, under the marshall’s gantry to the foot of the hill, and T9L. This is very much a “feel” corner, it can be taken with a“lift-and-drift” approach from wide, or from a tighter line with a firmer dab of brake to get the nose in more and accelerating uphill through the apex. This opens out onto the Grid, across the S/F line and another lap of Vayline International Raceway.

vayline.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.

T3L – Especially on Lap 1. There will be a lot of cars in very close proximity, so be aware of your surroundings. You can’t just throw your car at the racing line if you find yourself in trouble, and hope someone who is already there is expecting it.

T4L – This turn is approached under heavy braking after the short 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 T4L. Going in too hot will drop you into the waiting sand trap. Care must be taken when rejoining the track out of here.

T5bL – The Esses. This is obviously a confusing corner, as it appears to have a big racing surface, with a kerb through the middle of it. We will NOT be recognising that kerb, we will be using the red stakes as our Edge of Surface and following the line the AI use marked in yellow. See below:
vay1.jpg

vay2.jpg


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
After Round 1 there was only one No-Show infraction, for the driver forgetting the day change from Thursday to Tuesday.

Ondrej Kapal gets a no-show infraction.

The Infraction will be removed after he shows up for this race (which I suspect he will) after reading his “Doh!” post.

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
 
Again the slowest Lancia by far, so given up. Was actually thinking of not starting the race, but figured that wouldn't be respectful to everyone else. So I soldiered on. Understeered, caught the grass, and hit a barrier early on, so it was over fast anyway.

Have fun.

I can describe previous season in Fiat like that. With the difference, you were slower only by a half a second, really nothing to worry about in my opinion.

My race was great, had a great start and with fresh tires I was fighting with much more powerful cars. I settled on nice 11th place, but how the race was going tires were wearing off, cars in front started to disappear, but I had speed to be faster than everyone behind. After some lonely laps, Jack showed and fight until the end took the place. Clean racing, a lot of fun, but then tires were really out of their life and the FWD just couldnt held both, steering and accelerating, I had to leave Jack and be thinking of finishing. Once again sorry Jack for the bump, I think it was some moment lag you were given such a force to fly away :( Even you turned into me, nothing serious I almost didnt feel that. I really, really cant understand :(

I must say I like the feeling of common to me front wheel drive cars. But I must admit, the Lancia doesnt behave like a real FWD, it has some mistakes in physics, I think it could have be done better!

Thanks for the race, really looking to another one!
 
First I must say sorry to Jay, because in the replay I see that I turned into you on a corner. I didn't see you at all, before or after the bump and I see that you went off track. Sorry again. If I knew you were there I would have allowed room. :frown:

My race went as good as I could have hoped. I had a fair start and settled in mid pack. As Ondrej mentioned we had a bump and my car flew off wildly but luckly no suspension, steering, or engine damage occured. Same as Jay, I didn't see you Ondrej..sorry. Then a trailing Norman went wide in the same area, came off track and we collided but no steering damage done. Luckly or what. Hope the same for you Norman. I was now a ways behind Hans and it took a good 6 laps to catch him and as I was close to him he slipped off track and I got by. Hard to find a safe passing opportunity. Now I see Ondrej ahead and I slowly closed the gap. We raced with each other until the end ( roughly 20 laps???). What a battle....several times bumper to bumper. After awhile I did manage to pass him, but he got me back rather quickly. As his tires wore, I found that the Abarth still had good grip and I could get close to him on some of the tight corners. With that in my mind and with only a few laps to go, I pounced like a starving Canadian beaver on a fresh pile of saplings at T9 and snuck by the inside and held on to the end. As Ondrej commented, the 36 laps flew by very quickly.

Tough luck to Tim. I hit that same spot in practice and I was very leary of that corner from that point on.

Senad you will rebound very quickly, I am sure. :cool:

Thanks Stu for the event and tips, the Abarth held up well. Grats to podiums and cheers to all drivers.
 
Senad you will rebound very quickly, I am sure. :cool:

Not likely. Third race in a row where the same thing happened. This time I even practiced offline, which I don't usually do :D, been on the server 5 hours before the event, and my time still got killed within 10 minutes of other Lancias joining.

In other news, that was a really enjoyable track :good:

Thanks to Stuart, and everyone involved.
 
I had a surprisingly boring race, not even a single battle, doh! From the start till the end I was driving alone, the gaps were 2-3s most of the time. I made two or three mistakes, first one because of wrong downshifting (from 3rd to 1st) and I used paddle shift! In first race I used seq stick shifter on my G25, and it's way over sensitive, so I missed the downshift in Woodpark also. I don't have luck with shifting this season, and it's starting to be a standard in S8, damn it.

Before that first messup with shifting I was in 6th place I think, after on 9th, and kept that place till the end, no matter that I made another two mistakes because I was tired, cou;dn't concentrate at all.
The whole race was struggling with consistency, my lap times varied at least 1 seconds or so, disaster.
 
Tough luck to Tim. I hit that same spot in practice and I was very leary of that corner from that point on.
TBH it was a bit soul destroying. I'd done that a few times in practice myself, so I knew to avoid it. I got caught up in checking my mirrors, drifted right...1 order of wrecked race please. Gutted

Not likely. Third race in a row where the same thing happened. This time I even practiced offline, which I don't usually do :D, been on the server 5 hours before the event, and my time still got killed within 10 minutes of other Lancias joining.

In other news, that was a really enjoyable track :good:

Thanks to Stuart, and everyone involved.

Senad, I could see you're problem is that you don't trust the car to turn, so you slow down too much :frown: I'll try to remember to send you a fastest lap replay, it may help a bit
 
Firstly, an apology to Tim who i hit about midway through the race. I was following him through the tricky turn 2 complex when he moved over slightly in front of me, probably trying to make room for me, and despite slamming the brakes on i couldn't avoid him. I tried to look at my replay to double-check the incident, but Tim's car was invisible for some reason! (good ol' GTL bug) So sorry about that, especially sicne you were looking very competetive in praccy/qualie.

After Dmytro's frankly ridiculous 1:15.5 in qualie, i knew i'd have to have a great start to have any chance of staying with him in the race, and luckily for me I had probably the quickest GTL start i've ever had! Hammered the little Elite for the next 37 laps, (you can't not enjoy driving this car) and kept it nice and consistent. The track was quite interesting, it had a lot of challenging braking zones but did have a nice 'flow' to it once you got your head around it. I don't think it would be as much fun in a big banger though...

Cheers for the racing guys, muchos thanks to Thommo for organisation and the terrific write-ups. Well done Dmytro & Nils on podiums.
 
Between working overtime and illness I was not able to practise much for this one.
Sorry Jack for the big bump but the Jag just would not change direction, we both survived that one though.
My race came to a sudden end about lap 31 when my rear right caught some grass as I went slightly wide, I then spun across the grass missed the tyre wall and hit the barrier, quite hard. Just when I thought that I was going to finish this one. One slip and my car was wrecked.
Should be able to get some good practice in for the next round ;)
 
Well, after several stories from people who had rather disappointing races, I'd like to balance the scale a bit :wink: and let you guys know I had a ball last night..
Of course I'm no seasoned league veteran so maybe I'm just easier to please but I was very happy to find myself quite a bit more competitive than last time :)
Apart from my practising lots and lots of laps on this track, I think Bob H.'s setup that he so kindly shared had a lot to do with that. :thanks:Bob!!
Surprisingly (to me that is) a lot of his settings closely matched those of my own lets-just-change-this-setting-now-and-see-what-happens setup, nevertheless Bob's made my Lotus way more stable and easier to keep pointing in the right direction, so it's obvious that the subtleties of car setup are still very much black magic to me..

Other than offline practise I found I can still learn a lot from watching others as well; mondaynight on practise server was the very first time I broke the 1:19:000 barrier, and it wasn't until race day I managed my first 1:17:... lap.

Managed 11th on the grid, Race start was fun and clean too. Was lucky to stay away from trouble in the opening laps, had a little battle with Ondrej, and later with Stuart and Jay. After that I was somewhat lonely, some gap to the guys behind while all in front were too quick to keep up with, until I saw Predrag in front of me, recovering from a spin I think? So chased him for a couple of laps but never came close as he pulled away from me slowly but surely.. Alone again for some time until I got to lapping some of the unfortunate people; now there's a new one for me! :eek: And around that same time I got lapped myself too, just to get things back in the right perspective. (what was I thinking !? LOL) Only two laps left by then and it was over already.

So it's true what they say about time flying when you're having fun..:cool: Managed a really decent 10th in the end, so I can be nothing but very happy with that :D

Congratulations to Ross, Dmytro and Nils; Thanks mr.T. for a fun race on a sweet track, hope to cya next time!

[Click image for Full Size, apparently RD auto-resizes them]

 
First I must say sorry to Jay, because in the replay I see that I turned into you on a corner. I didn't see you at all, before or after the bump and I see that you went off track. Sorry again. If I knew you were there I would have allowed room. :frown:

No problem Jack, i out braked myself a bit anyway and didn't realise you was on me out side until we touched, so it was partly my fault :rolleyes:
 
One year of online racing

On 02 of November 2010 I've spent my first ever online race. It was RD club race at A1-Ring with 65'Corvettes and later with Ford GT's. Because of the excitement, my hands were freezing and my heart wanted to jump out. :redface: I have twice qualified for the second position from the start, which is clearly not expected from me. I even led in the first race! But my excitement and luck of experience led me to mistakes. Bustle obviously interfered with fast driving...

Yesterday, Rossco (like Gary in 2010) showed, how to drive fast not only in qualification. I got a not bad time in quali, but I think, that some points of this lap was not my best. So, I took my first ever official/league race pole position. But the pressure of achieved result only confused me. I lost the start, I probably was too cautious so nothing to spoil. Believe me, I would be better started from the 3rd or 4th position. :eek:

Ross was very quick on the first laps. He pulled away from me for 3,5 secs. When I was little recovered, I gradually began to catch up him. 3.5, 3.2, 2.9, 2.5, 1.9 and then a little mistake and I'm off to 6.5s. What can I say, I was just too fussy and had too much thoughts in my brain. My best training lap times with Full tank was around 1.15.8, but in race I managed only 1.16.2 in the middle of the race with much less fuel!
Eventually the whole race I was behind Ross at 6-8 seconds, until I got into an unfortunate incident involving Tim and Hans. They stayed in the chicane and I already had nowhere to go, I have not had enough time. I lost 10 seconds but still finished the race second. Without doubs, yesterday won a much more psychologically stable and skilled racer. Congrats to Ross!

Congrats to Nils and all participants! Thanks to Stu!

Guys, one year has passed as I'm with you. I am proud to compete with such great guys, it gives me real pleasure. In any other company I do not feel so comfortable. Thank you and RaceDepartment!
 
I would like to ask for your replays please, so that I can get some in car shots for the highlights

On the subject of replays, while watching mine I found the reason for my huge crash (apart from poor driving)
https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/hcTfxDjmEBsXQHkSGTtmOQ?feat=directlink

As you can see, the creator has left the wall inside the tyres, which is why I span right across the track. Those tyres also seem to be a visual thing, as I managed to go through them too :frown:, so there was no protection from that nasty wall edge
 
Yeh I did get that, thanks Stuart. It doesnt let me have any in car shots though :(

Any idea when you'll be adding the results to GPCOS? I want to try something with the grid, but I forgot to take a screenie :mad:
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Latest News

Online or Offline racing?

  • 100% online racing

    Votes: 108 7.9%
  • 75% online 25% offline

    Votes: 140 10.3%
  • 50% online 50% offline

    Votes: 202 14.9%
  • 25% online 75% offline

    Votes: 384 28.2%
  • 100% offline racing

    Votes: 521 38.3%
  • Something else, explain in comment

    Votes: 5 0.4%
Back
Top