Sim Racers 4 Life-Lola T280 Season Round 2 Sebring 12hr- Results

[Paul Swire]

Looking forward to reading your race reports.

The results files have been added to the dropbox.

[bullwinkle]

was in first turn mess, fell behind then others dropped out letting me move up, was a lot of blocking in some cases oh well. Nikos I am sorry I hit you in the back was not trying to pass, you slowed more than I expected I was hard on brakes but could not get stopped sorry for that. lost spot at end due to error on my part. Going from day to night hurt my eyesight missed some marks. All in all not bad

[kaboltzky]

2nd race for me with you guys and i enjoy racing here! and ending up on the podium all the more
it was a quite perfect race for me. save for 0.1s I reached my personal best in Q and started from P3. start was good and the mighty two gorka and david disappeared almost instantly into the horizon, behind me christoph and john had a hard fight and swapped positions several times so i could keep a gap between 4 and 7 seconds for almost the entire race.
imo the day-night transition was a great idea. a few rounds in twilight were realy difficult but fun.
looking forward to the next race!

[argl]

I had not nearly enough time to come up to speed on this track, squeezed an hour of pratice into my sunday schedule and qualified 10th. Got hit in T1 (thats what you get starting so far back), but carried on nonetheless, slow but steady. Moved up a few places due to others failing, did an uneventful pitstop. All worked out perfectly, given the circumstances. Night fell slowly and despite fumbling witht the switch at the start, headlights were off. I thought "I have my hands full now, I'll wait til the straight comes up to switch them on" - and that was that. Bam- disqualified. If I had read the race anouncement thoroughly, I would have known that race control is very strict with that. So I can only blame myself. Frustrated, but hey. Mid-Ohio, here we come!

Grats to everyone for a very clean and professional race, there are some mighty quick people out there.

[gorgias1976]

Qualy
-------
Everything went perfect. Did my pb in the first lap in a lap at my limit, so decided to take no more attempts and rest for the race. Enough for pole position by a little margin.

Race
------
Started well but I was too cautious braking for T1 due to being on the unrubbered side of the track. So I lost P1 to David.
I didn't expect driving to be so difficult close behind a car at a similar pace. Braking power was affected, car understeered at corner exit, quite uncomfortable to drive.
during the first lap I hit him braking for the first heavy braking, sorry for that, luckily he saved it.
At lap 13 my tires were suffering after being too much time behind him so I went for an early pitstop trying to overtake him using fresher tires. He pitted in the next lap and he came right ahead of me. "Damn I thought, if hadn't lost those 3-4 seconds going wide the lap before, another 15 laps to go in his tail".
A few laps later at the main straight I was quite close to him. I moved a little to the left to avoid any posible incident on the braking and to get clean air on the braking.... but as part of my car was still behind his turbulence I felt the rear of my car move out of control (assymetric braking behaviour). I went straight to the barriers losing the rear spoilers and damaging suspensions.
Had to drive a full lap to get repairs that lasted 239sec. So I was the last driver to finish the race.

[youtube]W4oTwem53nU[/youtube]

Very nice drive from David, it's not easy holding lap after lap without a mistake having another car pressuring from behind.

Very joyfull race, shame for the result.

[deecee52]

Qually

Went out early but couldnt get a clean lap , pitted and waited for a gap in traffic managed to do 2 clean laps then caught traffic so I settled for what I had .

Race

This was terrible , got mega clutch slip at start which I had never had here before , I lifted but clutch wouldnt bite so I was mega slow away , tried pulling off the racing line to let the faster cars past but got tagged and spun at first corner , rejoined and started to chase the pack , got behind Dan and had a good race with him for a few laps but found I was destroying my front tyres , following another car closely robbed my downforce and caused my tyres to lock everywhere , in clear air my brakes never locked , this is something to bear in mind for future setups , I couldnt get past Dan safely so pitted early and hoped to pass him that way , it worked but again got caught in traffic and destroyed my fronts so had to do a second stop , caught up to Jesus on last lap and managed to go under him on last corner . This is one race I would rather forget .

[1959nikos]

Nikos I am sorry I hit you in the back was not trying to pass, you slowed more than I expected I was hard on brakes but could not get stopped sorry for that. lost spot at end due to error on my part. Going from day to night hurt my eyesight missed some marks.

Maybe I did slow more than I should but what I remember there is that I had the same impression every time I followed someone into hairpin, I felt they "slowed more than I expected". After hitting many at the back all previous week I learned my lesson, following somebody after a flat out straight into a slow turn you must brake earlier than you think you should

My eyes hurt too in the day-night transition, the worst part was the sunset, it makes tarmac black as coal :o It takes some time too to remember different look of braking points.

What I will remember most in this race though was t1 at the start.
I started last or almost last, I applied throttle modestly as I guessed there was going to be havoc there, Sebring is notoriously slippery at start straight, and I remember entering a big cloud of distruction braking and trying not to hit anything, cars miraculusly going away from me to the right and to the left like in slow mo, and when the cloud clears up, there is a stopped still car vertically in front of me and Im heading to his side with no hope of stopping. Poor guy, I almost felt sorry for him :

Got me a 13th place, not bad at all for my slow driving in Sebring, Mid-Ohio here I come :o

[DJCruicky]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_ATtnaoIW8
The battle for Poll.
Damm that clutch slip

[1959nikos]

Link works here

[jerry 33]

first off - thanks to tim for letting me use his spare Driving Force GT wheel, cause my spare wheel is broken and I am still waiting parts for the G27.
qually went well for me, I was keeping my head into what I was doing and got my PB and then I looked and it was only good enough for 12th.. what the heck guys, you on steroids??? > 00's - you gotta be kidding me. ;D
I had a really good jump off of the green! problem with that - the guy in front of me (andi I think) had a slow start - sorry about that Andi. but that put me a little late into turn one which turned out to be a good thing - cars going every which way. I got thru that and settled in for a long race. had a nice dice with mel and a few others. mel fell off after pit stops and I like others had trouble seeing at twilight. when darkness came somebody left the race just as I was turning into turn one, the bright lights of the : so and so has left the race, but car is stored in garage - blinded me and I almost crashed the car.. funny now, cause I didn't finished 7th, good for me and tim finished too, so good for team Old Guys.
thanks to all who did/and do all the work for us.. I appreciate it..
on to Mid-Ohio....

[1959nikos]

I was keeping my head into what I was doing and got my PB and then I looked and it was only good enough for 12th.. what the heck guys, you on steroids??? > 00's - you gotta be kidding me. ;D

Im with you Jerry, I think everything under 05s should be illegal.

[gorgias1976]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_ATtnaoIW8
The battle for Poll.
Damm that clutch slip

Interesting to see. I was in the lowest wing configuration but wasn't enought during the race to attack you at the straights.

[donrandom]

Sebring was a good race for me!
Although I was under-performing in Q (again) I managed to start from P7. That was good enough to escape any starting mayhem. At least everything went fine for the cars in front. I even managed to make one or two places in turn 1 as well as immediately opening a small gap to the drivers behind me. Great, that allowed me to settle in for a long distance race already after turn 1. Also the rest of the race went according to plan, besides overshooting once in turn 4, touching Mr. Keene when lapping (Ricky: sorry – I thought that you let me overtake) and almost missing my pit slot because the box behind my slot was occupied at the time –– i.e. things you cannot simulate during practise

The change from the day to night was insane ... especially since I had no idea if my lights were on or off. This state of confusion lasted a few laps and did cost me some seconds. However, the gap to Mr. Pucher in front of me was already more than 10 seconds off, and after Mr. Coyne went to see the pits for a 2nd time (?), I didn't have anyone following closely. So I drove home finishing 5th -- which I classify as a great result (for me).

Again, a great pleasure to race with you guys!
CU in Mid-Ohio!
Ramon

[c.pucher]

almost missing my pit slot because the box behind my slot was occupied at the time

Yeah, that was me and I thought you did quite well to enter your pit ;D gave me something to think about exiting my box too