@mouse: I'm so sorry. I wrecked it and was trying to communicate I had damage, but the voice channel wasn't clear. I had to let the first train of cars past me, which worked 'alright', but then you came leading the 2nd train, I tried to move over and then realized my car wasn't turning properly anymore, I was trying to go to the inside grass and let you have the inside but yeah, couldn't turn so I got awkwardly stuck in the middle of the track. Should've just towed, Lime Rock is not a good track to limp back to the pits. You can see on the picture I was trying to turn right, but it just wouldn't go and I went into the middle of the track :/ So sorry.

Maybe the Star Mazda needs fenders, lol. Well, it was a fun race even though I crashed, so I'm not complaining.

I had no idea, I didn't even watch a replay of the turn 1 debacle. I saved the first lap replay before leaving, but I was too frustrated to give the race any more thought. The first race of the season at Summit Point had a couple spins, but I think I managed to keep it out of the pits that race. It was definitely my best this season. Watkins Glen ended in me spinning several different times, especially with a frightening lap 1 turn 1 brake lock. No car contact in that race, however. I was wrecked at Bristol (watched the replay a dozen times and I still don't feel differently), although I don't think I made any mistakes in that race. At CotA, I was taken out by a lapped car trying to get out of the way. He went to the outside of the corner, I went towards the inside, and he dove back into to avoid Mouse, who was in front of me. It was incidental, but still really unfortunate. At Okayama, it was just another couple spins that did me in.

I want to race and drive at a similar pace to the rest of you but I guess it's just not possible for me. All it takes is one mistake on one turn and I end up laps down, ending up hotlapping. Every race but the first has been that way for me, and it's honestly not even fun anymore. I've made only one or two actual overtakes for position this entire season.

@khann It just seems to be this way with free content, but I'd be happy if Laguna Seca is the only free track we keep on the schedule for next year.

I don't know if it's the updated tires or if maybe I'm actually getting better, but I just drove the F1 at Daytona Road and it was a blast. I won't say I was doing the most consistent laps, but I was in the top 5 before I left the practice session. Other than having to be super careful about getting on the throttle when you're in 1st or 2nd gear, the car drives handles extremely well. Any chance of doing a one-off race with that car again? I know a lot us of bought the car but other than a few races we never used it again.

And that one was my fault :(

i had a pretty good race considering the last session i ran (i think) was the GT3 enduro on the first of january lol. my goal was to stay out of any drama and finish consistently, and i somehow managed to accomplish that by dodging the lap 1 carnage and various people spinning out infront of me. also was trailing mouse for a while, and was really sad to see that gone, looked like he was having a really good battle with hayfourzee.

and mad props to travis for that epic run from 2nd last to 2nd place!

and @thesupernatural its more important to finish in one piece than finish fast. if in doubt, run at 9/10ths and bring it home, than go balls out and end in the pits. you should only run as fast as you feel comfortable with without spinning or crashing. after you develop consistency, you can start pushing harder. and you need to be really heads up when you are around other cars and try to predict what they are going to do. if you see someone put two tires in the grass (for example), its best to just back off and be prepared to dodge him when he shoots across the track, than to mash the throttle and try to get around probably end up getting caught up. as they say, discretion is the better part of valor.

@thesupernatural:

I can understand your dissappointment, I felt like I had the pace to stay on the lead lap and mix it up with those around me. I qualified well and I knew that I could drive the distance with 0 incidents. It didn't end up happening.

You said you saved the replay for lap 1 but haven't looked at it. I'll help with that, I compiled a side by side view of our two cars.

I started out slow as my tires were cold and I was giving Mouse room. Turn 1 is rough on cold tires and I was being cautious.

You started out pretty aggressive passing Neemer on the inside / pit out lane. We were basically 3 wide at the first part of the corner. You were as far right as you could go. Slowbird had gone off track and I was in the middle. I came over without clear indication that I was clear and you were there (and most of a car length back.)

I was disappointed but I wasn't upset. I tried to get back to the pit, realized that it wasn't going to happen, and towed while losing 2.5 laps. I came back and pushed hard even though I was laps down. I got my pace back and made up time on folks.

Accidents happen. Don't beat yourself or anyone else up about it. I'm sorry that we got together and I ruined your race. In the future I'd suggest that you listen to Travis and protect the car. Also, let folks settle things down during Lap 1 Turn 1 (and sometimes turn 2-3.)

@iron1c: It's alright. When it happened I thought you did something dumb and I was angry, but in the replay I could see your car was broken and wouldn't turn. Clearly it was just poor luck and bad timing. It happens, no big deal! Normally I would have lifted in that situation, but I had a ~2 second gap to the car in front and behind and was in a hurry.

There's so many cars that we all want to try, I wonder if we should create a list of races we want to do and we can go through them all during the off weeks and after the season. I'd love to do that full-contact race at Boston, another kart race, a Lotus 79 grand prix, and a Silver Crown race at a short track (to name a few). Next season we should definitely have a break-week once per month and have a weekend full of these kind of races.

@mouse: A break would be nice. Some weird off races would be rad.

@noryia: My spotter told me you were to the outside and I figured yours did the same... you use a lot wider field of view than I do, although with my single medium-size monitor, there's not much I can do about that. I probably shouldn't have been as aggressive but I had a good start and didn't want it to go to waste. I was actually making time on whoever was in front of me before the wreck, at least before I got stuck behind Neemer for a couple laps.

You certainly didn't ruin my race, but I think I might have ruined yours. I'm sorry for that. It's been a such an awful season for me, and pretty much for iRacing in general. I don't think I'm a dirty racer but I can't remember the last time I actually pushed the car to any extent and didn't end up in the wall. I haven't enjoyed a race in a while part of me just wants to leave the league for a bit until I can manage to stay on track for at least a half hour.

@thesupernatural: That's the thing, you didn't ruin my race. I had a great race even with the wreck and tow. For me it was a great time because I got back out there and got back in the groove and put down solid laps. I drove clean (I hope) but aggressively trying to get time back. I let the leaders by but then went back to trying to get time back. Maybe I just like hot-lapping with friends.

I can't say if leaving would help but I'd hope that you'd stay and find whatever you need to be happy when you race.

@noryia That split-screen was awesome! I mean not for you guys, but... still looked cool lol. Didn't realize how much my car kicked sideways on throttle when I tried to slice through the second incident ahead of you rolling over.

I don't believe I know very many guys that started off FAST on iRacing. Obviously some started at a much higher experience in sim-racing and quickly caught on, but they still didn't immediately run for podiums in the fast cars right off the bat. I speak to drivers of just about every level of skill/ability daily; one thing worth adding to the discussion is that the rate of increase in driver ability is pretty much directly proportional to their ability to change. Modifying strategy, changing a racing line, throwing out a setup, adapting to someone else's setup, etc... Figuring out what's not getting done right and then figuring out the method to fix it yo.

Ask questions guys jeeze damn. Make @khann spill his secrets!

-Travis

@mouse: I still think what I did was completely unacceptable, with that damage I should've stopped and towed immediately. Oh well. Regarding the "event" races once per month, yeah I think it's a great idea and likely to happen, judging by post-race talks we've had it seems like schedule organizers are quite keen on the idea. It creates a nice distraction and breather between "serious" races and gives us the chance to try and drive stuff that's fun for a one-off event but not a season. Giant Bomb Historic GP definitely needs to happen! Also I'm not going to say much, since it's none of my business really, but @slowbird dropped some hints about what's being planned during the post-race chat yesterday ;)

@thesupernatural: To me it sounds like you need to starting working on your race mentality before you continue to work on your race ability. It's just as important, if not more.

EDIT:

@maxx77 said:

I am interested

just did some testing at lagina in the RUF.... do the GT races require refuelling? by my testing, i was able to do just about 40 minutes at 15.8 gallons

@davyc412: Yep, the 45-minute races are usually a one-stop race, though it seems like we used to make it less than 40 minutes. I wonder if the fuel consumption has changed in the new build.

my best estimate was between 35-38 minutes. good to know its a stop though. thanks

@slowbird: @davyc412: We definitely couldn't make it to ~40min before, so I'm curious as well if the fuel consumption has changed. If so, this could be very interesting. Remember, we almost needed at least ~10 gal for the stop before. So I guess this would mean no more "free tyres" as well if this is true. Considering that and the increased tyre wear...INTERESTING.

just double checked the timing. ran from 0h41to 1h23 (so 42 minute) with no stop in the ruf with 15.9 gallons - probably could have pushed one more lap out of it to make it a total of about 43.5 - 44 minutes, so just not enough. could have been the change in tire or could be me holding back a bit that caused it.

Oh snap! We could have a strategy battle. Pit halfway through for tires, or stretch it to the end on the tires and just get a splash of gas? WHO KNOWS WHAT THE FUTURE WILL BRING??????????????????????

@slowbird: Welcome back to the stage of history.

EDIT:

@davyc412: Did you use Map 2? If not, you could definitely make it without a stop!

Map 2 is soooooooooooooooooooooo slow though. I think going down pit lane is faster :P

i was using map 1. Though, I'm also right foot braking (yeah, yeah i know, i know) which also might help contribute to pushing fuel mileage.

also, ive been away for a long while... what ever happened to pseg?

PsEG rebranded to Trace ;). He's still around, just not racing as much anymore. Myself and Slowbird have taken over the running of the league.

2 hours of open practise for GBGT is up!

Having some PC issues. I will miss today's race. Sorry guys.

@noryia: Bummer dude :( hope you can get it sorted out soon.

I was super slow all around, practice, qualifying and race. The outside lane had some trouble on the start though and I gained 4 places. From then on...well, I started a train of cars. It all worked out beautifully at the end, with getting a respectable 3rd place. I'm sorry if I annoyed anyone with being super slow, but that's just how races go sometimes, especially since the championship battle is heating up now.

Well, that was a lot of fun haha. I'd done a 45 minute GT3 race at Indianapolis road yesterday for a league I was running in and thought "Hey, this RUF is fun! Maybe I should give that a go!"

Lots of fun, and great pace Khann. I got a little too confident with Map 1, and then had two big spins. @davyc412 No problem with the door-bangin' mate, I've always trained myself to look at what I did to put myself in the situation first. I made a wicked save through the corkscrew but I'm sure that threw you for a loop. Tried to keep it outside and let you go past, but there's not a good way to go two-wide through the downhill lol. Oh well.

I figure I lost about 15-20 seconds on Khann just through spins/incidents. If I had those 15-20 seconds on track I probably would have switched to Map 2 earlier and not taken it off haha, definitely could have saved the extra half-gallon I needed. Was a hell of a lot of fun though, very nerve racking watching the fuel tick away on iSpeed.

-Travis

ya was a good race. had a nice battle with ironic for the first half, then when everyone cycled in i found myself catching up to travis... had a feeling he was fuel saving. let the red mist get a hold of me on my scheduled inlap and hit him going inside of raney... i had never tried it in practice, and got a little wiggly (it was a stupid idea, especially for my inlap). car was toast, went into the pits for a splash and repairs (no tires) and came out fifth (before that my plan was to come out fourth). behind ironic and infront of mouse and started pushing to make up lost time/ground from the crash. pushed too hard and made mistake two and i backed it into the wall lightly letting mouse get ahead. its always disappointing when you let the red mist take over. had some awesome racing throughout the field though so all good in the end!! :D

Oh, also congratulations to the defending GT Champion for his first win of the season!

@iron1c: Thanks :D Gonna need a few more of those to even have a hope of defending said title this season. Definitely seemed like the McLaren had an edge at Laguna Seca.

Pretty solid race for me overall. Had pressure from Travis right at the start, but a mistake at the final corner put Slowbird on my tail. That pressure lasted for quite a while (and I nearly lost it out of the corkscrew) but eventually the gap opened enough that I could relax a little. Was a tidy race until the second last lap. Went in too hot to the penultimate corner and put it in the wall. Thought Travis wasn't going to pit and that I'd lost the race, but thankfully it didn't turn out that way. Car wasn't really damaged so just took it easy on the last lap.

Well that race... happened. I was definitely not used to the Mclaren and it showed! I did have the pace from time to time but not enough to pull it all together for the race. It seemed to be a generally clean race outside of people making mistakes on their own. What a crazy course, that high speed left before the uphill will always have a place in my "I don't trust what I am doing but OH WELL lets hit the apex and PRAY" heart.

Good job everyone and great turn out!

Hahahah I know, I was sooooo pissed. If I had .44 more gallons of fuel, I'd have sailed by.

-Travis

@khann: Well, the interesting part of the season is just coming up. We got 2 double points races, with 2 new tracks in between.

I know I'm horrible at Mid-Ohio and very unsafe; Phillip Island is new to our league but was raced in the official GT Series, so that should be interesting. And the double points finish could turn everything around as well.

Anybody notice the crazy team fighting between Monster Energy and Team AUSBOMB in the GBFD standings?

Me and @khann are separated by 4 points. @sebw and @c0braje7 are separated by 3 points. Monster energy leads by 7 points. After seven races, for the top two teams to be seperated by one point per race is pretty sweet. Four more races to go...

-Travis

@sebw noticed you were running the eva racing mclaren i made a while back. updated it to 2048 for you. also tweaked the purple and added metallics to make it a bit more rich and vibrant and fixed some things that werent properly aligned in the rear.

http://www.tradingpaints.com/showroom/view/11754/Evangelion-Racing-MP412C

@davyc412: Oh man, I realised at some point after I started using that a few months ago that it was a GB duder that made it, I should have thanked you but I forgot :(. It's such a cool idea for that car, the sharp, pointy style really matches that of Evangelion and executed very well. Thanks heaps for updating and tweaking that, I'll continue to race in that livery with pride!

@travis_mihm Yeah! I'm really enjoying this team aspect to the championship, even though I can't expect to fight for wins I really feel like I'm contributing to a good result even in 5th or 6th. I'll be stoked to be on the team that comes second (which is possible as long as we both generally finish in front of Team Toyota) but we'll be doing our best to make Mercedes Monster Energy work for their team championship!

@davyc412: That paint scheme is awesome!

In other news, I should be back on and racing this week. PC issues should be resolved.

@noryia: Hooray! :D

@slowbird: Core i5 > Core 2 Duo. It should be fun to see how much of an improvement a recent processor and motherboard are on the game. I did notice a 2x increase in most frame rates on iRacing this morning in testing but I haven't tweaked any of the settings yet.

@noryia: Yeah, iRacing is pretty CPU-heavy from what I've read. I kinda want to replace my AMD with an i5 but that's not necessary right now, maybe when I have 3 screens though...

@slowbird: 1 big screen, 5760x1080, isn't as big of a deal as 3 little screens, 3x1920x1080, screens. With my core2duo e8500 I was able to get FPS in the 200 range on low settings if it was set to 1 screen rendering instead of 3. With it rendering to each screen (3) I was happy to be at 84. It probably went higher but I was happy to leave it capped.

@noryia: man, I've been seeing my FPS drop into the 80s recently with lots of cars around...and I just can't run those low graphics :P

I bought a cheap Steam key for Race Injection because I saw a screenshot of a Ford GT and when I tried to redeem it, I was shocked to discover that I already had Race Injection! I presume that means this key will still work, if anyone here wants to try and redeem it.

8PP9N-QDCYP-6CQ4C

@slowbird: That is a great, if slightly old, game! Anyone that doesn't have it should redeem this key! Well, one person at least.

I have to run on low settings in testing in order to get 80 fps. When I get into a race, even on low settings I don't get above 45 fps. It even dips below 30 on occasion

@thesupernatural: Maaaaaybe that has to do with your problems of not having a proper feeling for the cars. I know that I get fucking scared and lose my driving ability if a take a frame hit that's more than 5.

@iron1c: Yeah, that's a big drop in performance. What sorta machine / specs are you running?

Hey guys. Remember talking about doing some official-series races together? I think we should pick a day and time to do some Lotus 49 racing; the series which rarely goes official and never splits. It only requires a C license, and all the tracks on this season's schedule have been in a GBRL season. Some guys like to organize on Twitter to do some official racing together, so we should get the forum in too and so some classic GP races. Maybe make it a kind of official GBRL thing. How about it?

(the reason I don't say Lotus 79 is because it's a higher license, some people would need to buy new tracks, and the races are pretty long).

@mouse: I would be down for it but it really depends on the time.