Sim Racers 4 Life - Eve F2 Season - Final Round - Nordschleife - Reports

[1959nikos]

What a better way to end a season than a 1hour Nords?

Im very glad I made it on time, I didnt believe I could but all the Universe helped me to, all the lights were green on the way home ;D

I tried to stay out of trouble, at the start I let all pass, and I hoped I would do battle with Swire who looked fast, much faster than me.
Unfortunately Paul deserted me as he had a bad crash on the armco at the start of 2nd lap, I guess he took much damage todo a full lap till the pits and he left :-[

At 4th lap a strange thing happened to me. Huge lag started and I had to stop for a long time before it went, never happened to me before.

At this point I would like to say that Im very impressed about the level of racing here at SR4L, I think we have advanced a lot recently, so few accidents after 1 hour at the Nords Hell proves that I think.

So place your reports here gents to tell us about your race, Robert what happened there, you were trying to save fuel money??

[edwin]

My report short version

http://www.imagebam.com/image/a56907456349799

[Hedlund]

First I want to thank everyone here at SR4L for this season. Drivers, moderators and Paul. This was the first season I could participate in almost every race, which gave me my long-awaited title

QUALI
Robert and I seemed to be in our own league today so he was the biggest threat for pole position. My first lap failed when I left track with both wheels and my time was invalid. With only a minute left I could finally complete a lap, and by the time I had almost no fuel left so the car was very light and I managed to break the 8 minute barrier. So it was me on pole again.

RACE
Got a good start but Robert braked late for T1 and suddenly he was on the inside and we touched wheels. He lost 2nd spot to DJ who also managed to overtake me later. So we followed him for one lap then I managed to overtake him on the looong straight. I decided to take it easy and not try to get away so early, so we stayed close 2nd lap too. Then Robert made a mistake when trying to overtake DJ on the looong straight and suddenly we were more spread out. While I was slowly building up a gap to DJ, I saw Robert closing in on him and finally overtake him. I pitted end of lap 4 as planned, and DJ joined me. Robert continued one more lap and I was surprised because he said he would stop at the end of lap 4. So I was sad but not very suprised when he ran out of fuel 5 minutes later and that was the end of his race and our expected battle I pitted on lap 8 as expected and then I did a 5-lap stint to the finish line, without any serious mistakes

See you next season!

[edwin]

And the long one ;D

Quali:

As said before qualifying is not my strength. So i did one timed lap giving me a 12 spot on the grid which i was happy with. Not even close to my pb but didn't matter to me.

Race (take a seat )

I decided to go easy at the start, it's a long race so i wouldn't win in the first corner. Turned out i lost 2 places to Tobias and Jerry.
When entering the ring i was close to Tobias, Jerry was behind again and we stayed close until Armberg. In the tight righthander into Fuchsrohre Tobias lost it on the inside and i wanted to pass on the outside but clipped the grass on the outside and lost it also. Leaving me in the middle of the track looking in the wrong direction. PANIC :o what to do. Jerry or Cosimo ran into me sorry guys!! So i think i let everybody pass and had fired up the engine again. Made a cool 360 turn and got on my way again. Starting lap two in 15th spot, not exactly the way i thought this should turn out but hey i still lived :
Gained a lot spots in the next few laps and in one moment i was running behind Cosimo and Tobias again. End of lap 4 the 3 of us all when into the pit for our first stop. Tobias went out first again and Cos and i battled even in the pitlane. The lap after pitting i made a few mistake Tobias every time was a victim of that......really Tobias i'm so sorry for that.
I managed to run away from these guys and ran into Rick Nauman. Rick made a mistake at some point and i slipped true. after a while i made a mistake and Rick took my place again but at the end of that lap (8) Rick went for his second stop and i could do one more lap. So i started pushing again to look and see if i could pass Rick again due to a better stop and lap. During the lap i decided to not change tires only take fuel and that worked out well......very well.
Leaving me behind Santiago who was evenly fast or faster then me so i thought keep focused and take this spot home.
However in the second to last lap Santiago made a mistake and i took the advantage of that. With Santiagos hot breath in my neck i started the last lap.....panic again...but managed to stay in front of him even gained some time and brought my Eve home 6th spot.
Don't wanna tell ye where i'm sweating but lets say it's all over hehe. Nevertheless i'm proud of the result.
Team Fast and Last Champion and my Teamy also Champ in the driver championship...... 8)

One serious note:

Rule is no chat during race and quali so Dan Minges please please please STOP saying WHEEEEE all the time >

And Jerry and Tim.....come on guys > > > >

Rant mode off

[sdancourt]

I ended exhausted, really, even thoughts about quit before finish line, round my head on the last 2 laps.

Qualy: 9.36 on my second attempt, enough for me and P9.

Race: I decided to make two initials 4 laps stints and ending with a 5 laps stint. Most of us choice the same.
Anyway, I start very calm and manage to be P9 at the end of lap 1, at this moment I was on my place, cant over take the car in front of me and been faster of drivers behind me, so I drive steady till first pit stop, waiting for the fall of some one above me to gain any position, just fishing...

By the end of lap 8, I was in P6, made my last pit stop and reenter the race in P10, knowing that somebody else was piting later than me, so, by lap 10 I was in P6 again but with Ed very close behind me. I managed to control him during this lap, but I feel so tired that begin lose concentration, cant believed that were almost 3 laps to finish, quiting thoughts was rounding my head, the pressure of Ed were growing, from the initial 15 sec. gap, he was 8 sec behind me at the begining of lap 11 and finally I make a mistake just at the start of the second sector, Ed overtake me and I really didnt have energy to follow him, so I let him go and trying hard to finish the race in one piece. Great race Ed!

Great Champ too, many thanks to SR4L, Paul and Nikos..and everybody here...Cheers for The Champ!

[Ricknau]

I had pretty good race... not counting a real bone-head move on lap 5 that cost me a couple of minutes and positions.

I qualified in 8th with a PB on my first try so I parked it and got out of my chair until the start. The start was clean (WTG everybody!!) and I fell in behind my teamie John who trailed Ramon. I imposed team orders on myself and stayed close but made no move on John as he dogged Ramon for the whole of lap one. He then got by him at the looong straight and now I trailed Ramon for the rest of the first stint though I was never close enough to threaten. I was fairly content with this just hoping to make a gain if Ramon faltered. I think I was in p8 before I pitted after lap 4. Lost a couple but figured I’d get them back in the rotation. Was feeling pretty good.

Then disaster hit. On the long straight on lap 5 I needed to relieve some stress and pain in my wrists. So driving with one hand, I would wave, flop and rotate the wrist and forearm of the free hand. First the left hand and then the right. Well I got a little too wild with the motions and flapped my right hand into my keyboard! Instant black screen at 160mph! YIIIIKES! Nothing but audio of the screech, BAM, screech, BAM! I immediately pressed Esc to exit the race before someone hit me but it did no good. (I had no idea where I ended up.) I could not get any screen, be it rF2 or my desk top or whatever to show up. Finally I thought to try the Windows key… and that did it. Low and behold I was still in the car and it was upright and idling and had 4 wheels! I was in the pit entry lane for the tourist area. It took a while to figure out which way was the right direction but once I did I just drove past the gate arms and back onto the track. That all cost me about a minute and now the car pulled hard to one side. It was too late to signal the pit crew so I drove past the pits and took the next lap to assess the car. Ends up, thanks to 20% damage, it was drivable but of course not up to top speed. Edwin caught and passed me on that lap but once I got used to it I decided it was better to stay on track a few more laps than to pit early and take on a ton of fuel and have to make the new set of tires last for 7 laps. So that’s what I did.

The damage penalty added an extra minute or so to my pit stop but then I was glad to have a normally handling car again. I teetered between P7 and P10 depending on pit rotations for most of the rest of the race. I settled into P9 and finished there.

Being that at one point I thought for sure I was a DNF getting P9 was pretty satisfying. And with me finishing 2 spots ahead of Tobias, it looks like John and I claimed the “Best of the Rest” team trophy!!

Good racing everybody. Fun season. Huge thanks to all the Admin guys. We all know this stuff doesn’t just happen.

See you all next season!

[deecee52]

Qually

Went out early and was doing ok until I caught up to Rick who was doing a full outlap , coming out of last corner before the long striaght he lost it and spun across the track so I had to back out and avoid him, this cost me the speed on the long striaght but still netted me a 9.22 , going off practice times I thought this would be ok for 4th but Juraj popped one in and pushed me back to 5th :-[.

Race

Got a clean start and held position , chased after Juraj trying not to use my tyres too much , stayed this way until he went wide at Kallenhard when I slipped through , started to pull away and over the next laps got a healthy 12 sec gap .
Pitstop 1 went ok but I was too tentative on the approach , this became apparent on the next lap when I came up to Juraj just exiting the pits , he had got past me again, chased after him but held back until we got on the long striaght when I used the draft to get by , then slowly pulled away and built the gap again.
Pitstop 2 went OK and I was more aggressive in the approach so as not to let Juraj gain on me again , this time I held position and after that I just tried to keep it on the black stuff , fatigue set in and I was struggling with concentration for the last 2 laps (dont you think of stupid things when your mind goes wandering) but fortunately managed not to fall off and got a 3rd place , I was well pleased with that.

Sorry Cookie the number 3 is mine again for now , but I think I will need some luck to hold on to it.

Its been a great season well attended and well run , I had lots of fun , thnx to everyone involved . :-*

Well done Rik your a worthy champion but now you have destroyed us all wouldnt you like to do something different , like Tetris ;D

[argl]

Well, for the final race I could not make up my lack of talent with the usual overdose of extensive training, so I joined the race with only a handful of explorative laps, none of them without the odd mistake.

For qualifying I managed to do a medium banker lap, successive attempts resulted in close encounters with the armco, so I started in 10th place. The start went not as good as I had hoped, and I lost a few places right there. My plan to take the race slow but steady did not really work out, about every kilometer I made a mistake, either kissign the barriers or spinning. All other drivers seemed to stick to the "slow but steady" plan of mine, so I bumped my way through the first 5 lap stint. In the second stint, things settled down, I fell into a rhythm and even managed a lap without incident. Just before the second pitstop, I managed to bend my suspension due to another concentration error. Luckily, it did not cost too much time in the pits and I was on my way to the finish. In that last stint things went reasonably well, but the incident rate rised again. I did not lose places though and came in home in 8th place.

I really feel we all have accomplished something here, this is the longest race I have ever driven, and on the Nordschleife thats especially daunting. Congratulations to all involved, the whole season was a blast, looking forward to the next one.

[Harri Mac]

Thank you to everyone involved in this league, you all make it a lot of fun and are very welcoming.

I had to be up at 5:30am to start DJC on his journey home, by the time of the race I was super tired. Only drove one real lap during qualy to try and save energy.

On the main race, decided to pit after lap 3 and then do 2x5 laps as I figured there would be enough rubber on the road by then for this to work, decided to change tyres on each pit as there was so little timing difference. During my first pit, the steering wheel looked so inviting, I could have lain my head down and had a snooze. After that it all went a bit strange, I was so tired I couldn't quite work out where I was on the track and kept zoning out, many silly crashes due to not being where I thought I was. Hope I didn't inconvenience anyone, tried to stay alert to let faster drivers pass. I'm extremely surprised I made it to the end.

I am very impressed with DJ, he drove really well after the same early start as me and a long journey, well done I am biased here though

Great driving by Rik, excellent racing and a very well deserved championship win.

Very clean race for the last in the season, everyone drove very well. I'm really looking forward to the next car and tracks of the new season.

[jerry 33]

well - a 2 HOUR race! :o
it all started the day before the race with steering wheel problems - to be exact - steering wheel problems on-line, cause off-line was fine?? most of my energies and thought was on this, and I had it more or less right up to mid practice of the race. thanks to the racing Gods, not in qually or race. although on lap 4 of race it went Bonkers, but Nikos had something similar then with warping too, so it is NOT my wheel.. anywho.
I did a one shot qually and was going to live with it.
a 2 Hour race at Nords really isn't my cup of tea. and having a cloudy day - my old eyes can't pick up the track. I did not have a good outlook for the race.
had a good start, had some battles with Harri, Edwin, Tobias and teammate Tim. all good, all clean. at the end of lap 4 as stated above I hit a Armco at the end of the lap when I lost my steering and pitted for much needed repairs and MY own personal Pitstop : ahhhhh, what a relief! as the race progressed my eyes were really starting to hurt and I am happy Harri who kept the gap behind me was having his own problems with fatigue, or I would have lost that place.
Rikard Lapped me near the end - I think he is a Robot! and I was done, Spent - my whole body was sore and my eyes were SHOT.. I eagerly awaited nikos to finish so I could congratulate the finishers and tell tim about the Steelers who were fighting for a playoff spot- when Nikos finished, race was over, cause he was last one running - right? WRONG! dumb ASS, I was LAPPED, so the field was still out there racing. I said it after the race and again NOW, I am Sorry for the chat. I messaged tim, he being tired just answered me - so it was my fault. :-\
I would like to say it won't happen again, but you guys wait until you become an Old Goot, you will be happy just to be able to do this...
Congrats to Rikard, and the rest of us for a Great season! I agree, great racing, lots of fun.........
Thanks to Paul, Nikos, Gorka, Tim and Chris for all they do to make that season happen.
on to the next one..........

[bullwinkle]

Nothing to report I could not complete a qual lap so started 16th I was able to drive entire race and even break the 10 minute mark (boy am I fast). Was too long and too dark for me but oh well. Sorry Ed my mistake.
Well done Top 3 in points and team championships.

[1959nikos]

I messaged tim, he being tired just answered me

There is a way to chat without others looking at it, its called Whisper.
My problem is that I dont know exactly how this works, could somebody who does know explain us please?
It deserves a sticky.

[Axe]

Well done Top 3 in points and team championships.

hm, final results? no the worst race/result deduction? I expected this based on previous discussion after lola T280 champonship. Is my spot 4 final? has the retro racers team the same 345 points as C&N racing (tobias nord points not added to team points)? is there rule to assign spot 2 to one of the team or is it shared?

anyway
yesterday the best drive of the championship for me, the default setup fits nord/my driving style very well and after jarama where I struggled choosing ridiculous understeer to safer drive this was like fresh air and I very enjoyed the whole race and begged for another lap after finish.

I thank my team mate Tobias for big and strong contribution for team championship appreciating his persistence and effort.

well I think in a part of the season we experienced impressive race attendance. I hope it is not temporary "steam effect" and with new season the crowd will return because having 30+ racers at start is simply wow. I remember start of brianza when all of the cars started to roar I had really goosebumps.

and of course many thanks all of you fellow racers and admins especially, I hope we will meet soon in next season.

[1959nikos]

hm, final results? no the worst race/result deduction? I expected this based on previous discussion after lola T280 champonship. Is my spot 4 final? has the retro racers team the same 345 points as C&N racing (tobias nord points not added to team points)? is there rule to assign spot 2 to one of the team or is it shared?

Juraj I sense you dont agree with something at the points?
Please come forward and say exactly what you dont agree with so Tim will try to fix it, mistakes happen, we are human.

Please say clearly what you mean because the way you say it, I for one cannot understand any of it.

[bullwinkle]

do you mean will we remove a race for everyone ? no we wont Points are final as is.
team are final your team is tied P2
if that's what you mean

[Axe]

I remember the discussion how to allow people to skip one race (holidays etc.) and to prevent destroy their chances in the championship and the conclusion was to deducted for each driver his worst result. So yesterday evening I expected to be on 5-th place because my worst result was 7 points and John Cook's 0 points and I gained only 2 points on him yesterday.
Now i am totally confused maybe something lost in translation :-[
and team points - not added points Tobias scored yesterday. I thought Tim just saving the work on updating the table. We should have the same score as C&N racing.

[Axe]

do you mean will we remove a race for everyone ? no we wont Points are final as is.

yes
thanks god I have just started doubt myself where the hell I got that idea. So I was not dreaming
well it is good for me and probably for the team
but why not finally, why this decision?

[bullwinkle]

if you check the team points today you are tied with C&N racing. I had to get Chris to fix the results because Tobias changed his name in league so his points were in two places till fixed.
We did discuss the removal of a bad race but was never implemented by management. Maybe bring it up again for next season.

[Axe]

I took it as a valid rule applied to this season
all clear now
and thank you

[cosimo]

Not a detailed report, just a big thank you for having me for this race.

It was nothing short of epic!

I like the track. I like the ISI 1960s cars too, unlike the lolas :-)
I put together a quick setup, which I realized too late was totally bust on brake bias, but hey...
(Edwin, didn't use the one you generously gave me because I found it a bit hard for my driving style, as in springs/dampers hard).
Yes, I'm actually starting to understand what's my driving style folks :-)

I made too many mistakes than I'd like, but boy I had fun.
During the race I found myself thinking about those crazy crazy drivers that actually raced those rear-engined bathtubs along the Nords. Wow.

Had a couple of moments chasing down Tobias, Edwin and a few more of you. We were going about 250 Km/h on the fast section leading to Aremburg, or after Kesselchen (just looked it up, it's the scary fast section in the middle of the track). I did feel the adrenaline pumping. Scary shit ;-)

Considered I started last and finished around 10th, not bad.

One of the best races I've had.