Winter Series II - 60's F2's

[Rouke]

Welcome to Legends man

[Bogdan]

Really ill prepared for this one. I never managed to get any decent practice. I also need to be somewhere today, so I hope to come back in time.

Just a heads up - I need to take apart my rig and store it late Feb - late April, so I will be out of commission during that time. Apologies in advance. But I will be back - after these last races in rF2 it's hard not to come back Legends is a great place to race.

In the meantime, I will stay in touch on the Forum.

Later,
B.

p.s. yeah, sorry guys. Things aren't working out for me lately schedule wise. I won't be there today. Really disappointed as I enjoy driving these cars. Have fun.

[Rik Walker]

Disco'd in both club races yesterday & disco'd again tonight. No idea what's going on as apart from one disco in practice yesterday I've not had any other connection issues with rF2.

[Rouke]

Uninstalled liveracers yesterday so that can't be it. did you install the Honda Civic Rik? It seems ctd's etc are more apparent with that car. not sure but...

Was very disappointing to see you go though

[Rik Walker]

I've got the Civic installed but it's not a ctd, just a classic losing communication with the server - all the cars disappear and then the "connection lost" msg. Internet is still up, can ping the T7 server etc so no obvious clues. Nothing has knowingly changed at my end since last week when I didn't have any issues.

I've added the trace command line option in case that throws up anything from any future recurrence. I'll uninstall the Civic as well just in case. I'll probably reinstall rF2 actually.

Grats on the win and nice to see Dale get a podium spot!

One "good" thing is that we can probably discount the liveracers plugin as the source of my disco's yesterday!

[Bogdan]

Congrats on the win, Rouke.

Dale - that's a great podium, especially since you were looking for a better result.

Rik - that's a nice qualifying time.

Sorry for missing the race. I wish I could have been there.

B.

[Rick Stratton]

Must say I was not very happy. After feeling ridiculously off pace last weekend I finally managed to lob some time off - nothing amazing but decent laptimes with a setup I felt comfortable enough to run with all day.

Only to get driven into the wall right off the start line for no reason. Bent the rear suspension and had me crabbing the whole race at the back of the field. My only consolation was managing NOT to get lapped.

[DaleB]

Absolutely had a great race today, was not expecting anything for a result. I was talking with Rouke in practice before the race about how my confidence was so low right now, couldn't put a race together if my life depended on it. Well, there you have it, that's why we race, never quit, because you never know when you'll put it together. I was so frustrated yesterday at Club I just had to walk away for a while. Thought about it a lot during the day after club and wondering what I was doing wrong. The setups we're seeing now a set to be as low as we can get them but I was thinking maybe the suspension is not working as it's designed if it's set that low. So I went the other way today and raised it quite a bit, took me quite a while to change the springs, front and rear bars even the brake bias changes when raising the ride height but once I finally got it balanced the car felt great, much more forgiving then when it was low. Case in point, Ray and I had a great race today, very close, pass, re-pass, etc. But if Ray got onto the rumble strips or curbs his car got airborne where I could run the curbs and strips and not really have any effect. The car was an absolute joy to drive.

Congrats Rouke on your win and to Ralph for 2nd.

[SDucros]

Yeah sorry Rick that little pearl of great driving was me...bit weird tho, we touched wheels and i was dragged into you before i could do anything....all happen very quickly. Wasnt on purpose as it messed up both of our nights. Sorry again

Will practice some more with these as i was rubbish last night lol, not normally that bad promise!

[Rik Walker]

The setups we're seeing now a set to be as low as we can get them but I was thinking maybe the suspension is not working as it's designed if it's set that low. So I went the other way today and raised it quite a bit, took me quite a while to change the springs, front and rear bars even the brake bias changes when raising the ride height but once I finally got it balanced the car felt great, much more forgiving then when it was low.

I had wondered about that. Going all the way back to GPL, Alison Hine had showed that raising the ride height would make these sort of cars more forgiving. But it's hard to get away from the basic fact that in pretty much every car in every sim, lowering the CoG has a huge effect on ultimate lap time. Even with rF1's GP79 mod, most of the cars benefited more from a low CoG than optimising the ride height for the df - maybe not with the cars with lots of simulated ground effect but for the cars I drove it was just easier to go with the low CoG. Indeed, I think one of the reasons I was able to manage to keep the M29 fast with lots of success ballast was because the extra weight compressed the springs to give a lower CoG! I would like to see sims require more realistic ride heights although preferably not through merely limiting the available settings. But that might require changes that would make the sims less enjoyable (eg it's one thing to lose time through hitting a kerb wrong or going off track, quite another to have the chassis split!).

Getting back to these cars, I did find that also minimising the packers helped make the cars more forgiving as that would increase the available suspension travel. That was the main difference between the setup I shared last night & the one I had posted earlier here - don't know if anyone tried the new one, I'll attach it now in case people thought it too late to try something new last night. Gearing apart, I think it should work well at Palm Beach. Hopefully the long straight at PB will also make the Eve & non-winged Spark more realistic options.

[DaleB]

Rik,

That was exactly what I was thinking "The old Alison Hine theory" which worked very well for me, but some people hated having the cars up higher, when I get home I'll post up my setup, but this is a good discussion to have.

[maiph]

Actually I did grab that new setup halfway through practise lastnight Rik and found it much improved on turn-in. I was a second quicker so thanks for sharing

So I qualified 4th just behind the fancied drivers. Up to 3rd after Grant spun then just as I was settling in to pounce on the aftermath of Rik and Rouke's potential battle Rik disco'd, such a shame for the race.
I tried to hang on to Rouke for the first 10 laps I kept the gap around 6 seconds, tried to push, got messy, lost sight of him and then lost focus a little. It was a long lonely race after that, battling to keep concentration with nobody around. Happy to finish 2nd but it was also 3rd from last unfortunately.

[Ray Riddall]

Had good fun racing Dale we were evenly matched, for me these cars are a little frustrating to drive, I think I'm on a quick lap then next corner I've understeerd off , I think not having brake markers didn't help , So far I prefer the modern F2s , but I'll probably change my mind once a setup works for me,

Well done to all finishers

Thanks Ray.

[Rouke]

Such a shame Rik disco'd and then Grant having his weird back-to-garage-moment. should have been a tight race but turned out the same as Ralph, pretty lonely.

But Ralph did keep the pressure on, by now I know all too well one small mistake can have huge consequences and the majority of the race I pushed hard to gain an advantage of 10 seconds.
After that the gab grew but I don't think that was on me.
It did give me a nice flow though and I was able to bring it home without major mistakes and focus on what was happening with the tires, grip levels, etc.

I am still not convinced realroad is even working guys, still no visual evidence and the fastest lap of the race was by me on lap 4. how is that possible with so much fuel and so little rubber? I pushed for 30 laps!

Great to see Dale on the podium after all the struggles. I like how you approached the problem Dale, when you walked away saturday i knew exactly how you felt, been there a couple of time so hats off

I used your latest setup Rik, I didn't feel a huge difference but that was probably because I had not pinpointed the track everywhere (being sick most of the week) yet so any gains could have come from the setup or just improved lines/gearing/whatever.
it did give me a pb in quali though!

[Rik Walker]

I am still not convinced realroad is even working guys, still no visual evidence and the fastest lap of the race was by me on lap 4. how is that possible with so much fuel and so little rubber? I pushed for 30 laps!

I see it (apart from at Croft) and can certainly tell the difference between a green & rubbered in track.

The tyres on these cars are noticeably better for their first few laps so I can well understand setting the fastest lap early in the race. After practice, qual & warmup the track is fully rubbered in and any slight improvements during the race would be more than offset by the loss in tyre performance.