The IGR Dubai 350k

Seems like the lock-up problem has struck once again :-(

Around lap 19 the game locked up for maybe only half a second. Just enough to lockup the brakes and send me into the wall. Sometimes it's just fine for the entire race and sometimes it locks up at random.

I'm having this problem for a couple of months now and I tried to find out what's causing it, but it's so difficult especially because it's completely random. Memtest didn't show any errors, PCMark and 3DMark can run for up to 11 hours at least (stopped it once I returned from work). The psu failed (with a nice bang ;-) ) a month or 2 ago so I thought that might have been the cause. I replaced it with an 850W one, but it doesn't seem to make any difference. Any suggestions more than welcome :-)

What firewall and antivirus software are you using?

I don't use any. Checked everything with AVG last week though, no viruses. Check for spyware as well, nothing found....

I reinstalled Windows XP about 2 weeks ago, kept it as clean as possible with only the necessary drivers (mainboard, gfx and input devices).

Wow... what a waste of time. To work that hard for that long and get beaten because everyone else chose a different icon before the race has got really boring. I've run TVRs, Listers, Vipers, Moslers, Morgans, Alfas, Tyrells, Z3s... I think I've paid my dues. I'll choose fast cars from now on I think, because this isn't much fun anymore.

As for my race: I missed qual due to dinner. Started from the back aiming for a one stopper, so stuggled to pass anyone. Got stuck behind Michael Chriss for ages. My pace was shocking, and no matter how slow I went my calculations always came out about half a lap short. Somehow I hit the half way point with 1L left and pitted, then found Conor in the pits at the same time, clearly pulling off the same strategy but with a faster car. So basically I knew I was buggered at that point.
Came out of the pits and held the gap for a while to Conor, but again was struggling to hit my fuel numbers. Eventually had to slow to a crawl, and Dennis in his 550 just shot passed me for 3rd with 3 laps to go. Then I had to cruise the last two laps in 6th gear and Allen got me on the last lap. I coasted across the line with absolutley no fuel, in the end probably loosing far more than a pitstops worth simply because I cannot save fuel no matter what I do. Frustrating to say the least...

Anyway, cya next time.

Race was going great. Except was getting blocked horribly by a slower car. THen came in to pit half way thru. Selected tires/gas and all then cut motor for fuel and then it just quit and went to the finish screen. I also noticed when I came into pit, it didn't tell me to slow or look for pits. But I was able to get the pit screen and then turn the car off for fuel before it quit.??? Who knows.

Wow what a chitty race I had driving today, starting with a huge lag at lap 1 that cost me 2nd place and almost 3rd.
:( First off big apology to Rob Ainscough I made a stupid move into T1 and was too late on my brakes. There was no contact felt in my car but after watching the replay and your car reaction it appears I punted you :( Really bad move on my part.

Then later in the race while running 2nd in class and 11 seconds ahead of 3rd place Krueger Micheal Chriss lost it into the hairpin while passing me, he went real wide and I thought he went off so I took my normal line and he was there, after the contact he spun and lost a lot of positions. Again I feel this was my mistake :(

After that I really lost my rhythm and a few laps later I spun out in T7 handing 2nd place to Krueger. I tried to battle back but my tires were real bad after the spinout and I couldn't do anything with him.

Last lap I see Marko emerge from the pits just in front of me, I made a move on him but again with my tires lacking grip it wasn't much of an effort and he counter passed easily.

Grats to Krueger on the win and again my apologies to those mentioned above.

Congrats guys.
Nice race while lasted. Great battles with Milan and Denis.
I know now why I broke my engine (second time) and also I learned tonight how to make a pit and not loose 20 seconds at each pit. I am a noob. But one learns while alive :)
Tomorrow I hope I'll give you hell at GTX.
See you on the track.

Woot! Went with a one stop strategy, literally at the last minute right at the start of the race and it paid off quite nicely, I must say. This was the first time I really tried to play fuel strategy in a GT car and the Vette is not the best to start off with since it likes to guzzle gas quite a bit.

Started 3rd and for the first few laps, the car was quite a handful because I didn't practice on a full tank. After a while, Dennis and Allen were much faster than me so I let them by and just focused on using the least amount of gas I could each lap. This really threw me off pace but by the mid way point, I knew I was going to make it all the way...barely.

After the first and final pit stop, the only competition that I knew was on the same strategy as me was Scott so I tried to stay in front of him as much as possible. I was in first after the other leaders when in for their final stops and had a decent lead over 2nd, who was Scott. Milan soon got around him and was chasing me down. Within 5 laps or so, he caught up and passed me with ease. I had no choice but to let him go since if I fought with him, my fuel efficiency would go down the tubes and I couldn't afford that. Luckily, I started running better times than Scott who was in 3rd so I dialed the car back a little more and made sure I brought the car home running on all cylinders. Crossed the finish line with 1 liter of fuel in the tank :)

Really pleased with that race and certainly didn't expect the Vette to be able to run a one stopper. Add to the fact that the car was on rails, it made my race a lot easier. Lapped cars were cooperating as well so I thank you guys for that.

Now off to Brno...ugh... :P

Just didnt have the pace of the top 3 but managed to keep in touch until the pitstops, lost a heap of time somehow and rejoined about 10 seconds behind 3rd. I tried hard to catch up and got the gap down to 6 secs but i started to go backwards from then on. Enjoyed the first half, sickened with the second....

Surprise result but i'll take it... :D Great to get the Ferrari on the victory lane , but i sure was lucky on several occasions today ;) . 3rd place in qualifying but the weird lag in start put me in 2nd place before T1 :o. Kept my place a lap or 2 but then i was slipping and sliding so i thought to let Kent through since he was looking faster , that didn't work pretty well and Rob almost got both of us in last turn.

Then decided to push and see if i can make some gap instead of being on a way. On some point i bummed the T6-T7 and went wide , lost so much exit speed that Kent got me on T8 braking and i settled behind him. Mark was pushing really hard too and on some point i was really in trouble keeping my position , not to mention staying in touch with Kent.

Gap went down just before the pits and Kent was right in front of me and Mark couple of secs behind , decided to go in pits a bit earlier than planned but in the last second i realized that the blue pit light wasn't on in HUD display and i aborted the entry to pits. This really saved me at the end , since i was just about to run out of fuel and the extra lap i did was enough to finish the race eventually :D .

Pitstop went pretty ok but i lost a sec or two to Kent , gained several secs to Mark but he was pushing very hard to close the gap and in one point it felt that i can't shake him off , but then find a new 'gear' and could respond to his laptimes. Kent was still running away and gap was in some point way over 10-13 seconds , but then there was a big chunk of GT cars which went past me in pretty good spots and i lost very little time in the process.

I felt confident that i can reduce the gap when Kent would have to deal the intense traffic coming towards him and soon the gap was around 7 seconds , then Kent run into troubles on T6-T7 and i had a chance to overtake him without a fight.

Kent was still pushing hard but i was pretty pleased to my pace too , car was really good and didn't have any problems with the balance , even when the tires were already quite worn out. I kind of felt that Kent backed off few laps before the end but maybe it was his tires that went bad , anyways i could bring the pace down a bit too and save some fuel.

On a 2nd last lap there was some intense moments when the GT leader got together with an nGT car on lapping situation and i just barely missed them both going between them :o.

This created a big problem since if the leader was behind me on next lap before we cross the line , i would run out of fuel but thankfully Milan managed to recover pretty fast and he overtook me before the lap was done. :D .

That was too close to comfort , but the biggest surprise was that i actually won the nGT race , dunno for sure what happened to Marko , but he had to do a late stop and he came out few secs behind me when we started the last lap so i had an easy job to bring the car home in 1st place.

At best i was hoping for a podium finish , so this was a nice surprise. Didn't really drove so well but the car was just so good that i could keep a steady pace when i managed to keep the thing on track :p. Too many small mistakes again and 2 times i was sleeping while i should have been on the brakes and that created some interesting situations :D :o .

Lappings went so-so ,i could have been a bit smarter few times and did a couple of sloppy calls while giving room to GT cars on wrong places , dunno really why i sometimes get a sudden urge to let ppl by . Should know better already , but the feeling of holding ppl back 'too long' still gets me occasionally :| .

Anyways... thx all for another exciting race , really enjoyed the close battle with Rob in the early moments and then with Kent and Mark , who drove a very nice race.

Congratulations to Milan for the GT win , me for the luckiest drive in nGT and the rest of the podium places too... :D

Cya in next one...

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Samuel