USA e30: Magny-Cours

Wow what a bummer, spent a fair amount of time trying to learn this new game and the cars. Had a decent qual effort although my best lap was toasted when John and I came up on a slow car.

So I was 4th on the grid, in my first Race07 event, joined the grid and was sitting there taking in the sights when I realized my motor was off. I hit the started but nothing, and I could hear other cars reving so I knew something was wrong. I it esc to rejoin the grid and that is when I learned that in Race07 you cannot escape the grid.

DQ before the race even started :( I sure hope this doesn't count as a DNF.

Edit by TM - No Kent, it will not. I will have Todd fix the results

Wondering what happened to you Kent, too bad, was looking forward to having you in the fight.

I didn't have a good qualifying ... part me not finding "the lap" and part getting involved in traffic.

Got a miserable start but hung in there, kept it clean in Estoril and came out 4th. About what I expected after Kent disappeared from the grid -- doooh! It was Eric, Esteban, and Steve in front we all got bunched up in the hair pin (Adelaide) and I tried the outside approach, kept some good momentum and was on the outside of Steve who drove me off into the grass defending his position. I lost some momentum but I had good pace and good race setup - no worries.

I kept the front three in sight slowly clawing precious 1/10ths back, Steve and Esteban were slowing each other down and then something happened at Adelaide hairpin, not sure what but it left the door open for me to fight with Eric. I got up the inside of Eric at the 180, but was pinched down on the curb and couldn't get enough momentum to pull out ahead, I had a big opportunity to push him wide, but wanted to keep it clean. I believe Steve or Esteban or both had recovered and was also back in the hunt.

We came on some slower traffic at Complexe du Lycee I went right whomever was behind me went left and got tangled with the slower car.

Then either Steve or Esteban was on my tail again but dove into the pits?? Don't know why? Then it was a pretty lonely race as Eric had created a 4 sec gap and with only 2-3 laps left there was no way I'd catch him and Eric cruised to victory.

It was a fun race, enjoyed it a lot. Also like to congratulate my teammate Mark P. for helping out with a 2/3 finish which has given Team Venom Racing a good championship lead.

So any idea why my engine was off when I joined the grid?

I know I was chatting before I joined the grid and I have the ignition mapped to 'spacebar' so it is possible that I turned off the ignition before joining the grid but that would be a first for me in any game.

Well, I feel like an idiot. I let the clock run down too far and the race started without me. So I got a DNF after so much practice. I was pretty mad. I am so used to GTR2 with a warmup time that I wasn't thinking.

i had a poor performance this race. i am new to sim racing but i have set my own goals for consistency. i qualified 7th which was a little better then i expected. got a nice jump off the start and moved up to 6th. got bumped a little at the first hairpin and moved back to 8th. ran well in 8th for about 4-5 laps. 2 seconds gap in front and back of me. hit the second set of curbing on the second quick chicane and lost it. fell down to 11th. couldn't make the pass on the person in front and frustratingly sat in place. i had spun at other corners during my practice sessions, but i never spun there before so it was quite frustrating. congrats to the front runners and winner. difficult track to perform well. i hope i can redeem myself in the wtcc event coming up on friday. =)

I also learned the hard way that you can't escape from the grid- realized as soon as I entered that I hadn't loaded my race setup, hit escape, and that was all she wrote!

First off, "Big Apologies" to my teammate "Gary Miller"...I pushed you off a little bit enough to spin you... Very sorry!!! :( ...

Now before this, I moved from 16th. to 9th. place, but "SOMEONE" punted me on the last chicane in the first lap and made me spin....Man was I so mad!!! >{...

Anyways, congrats to the winner...!

That was fun... for a while, anyway!

Caught some traffic in Q on my best lap, but probably would've been third anyway since I was only up a bit under four tenths. Too bad as it would've been a PR, but still got into the 46s so I wasn't too unhappy. Had the makings of a great race with Eric, Esteban, Kent, Rob and I all very close on pace. I think the E30 should make for some tight racing and be a good substitute for the Elise this season.

My 1st gear was set more for the race than the start, so I bogged a bit off the line and expected Kent to nail me, not being aware of his problem - what a shame! Almost got into trouble on the opening laps and fell back a bit when I had a couple of big PC stutters, but it settled down. Despite my own glitches, the server was great to be honest; I was expecting trouble with that many cars since my earlier online experiences with R07 weren't encouraging. Nice to see it can be good. (btw, the online grip was as good or better than it had been in offline practice.)

Got up to the two leaders gradually and snuck under Eric for 2nd when he went wide, then closed on Esteban. I'd really been focusing on braking sooner to improve my exits, and it was working as I set FL (barely) for the race. Unfortunately that had a downside, as I got too close to Esteban off the apex at Adelaide and turned him around. Purely my bad; very sorry Esteban. As always in those situations, I pulled over to wait for him to get going and he got underway in 3rd, with me back to 4th as Eric and Rob had taken the top two spots.

Was looking like some big fun to come with us four running in tandem then, until Esteban got caught out coming off the last chicane by Peter in a lapped car. It was just a bad time to encounter a car there with all four of us in line and pounding it. The front two cleared OK, but I guess Esteban didn't realize the speed differential and hit him from behind, spinning on the front straight. I nearly hit his spinning car, but squeaked by with only the need for some new shorts. ;-)

Got my eyes stuck back in my head and chased back up to Rob thinking I still had at least a shot at winning, but was so focused on his back bumper that I missed the Nurburgring chicane badly and got a stop-go since I'd gotten a warning earlier. Arrgh...

Did my penalty and came out in 10th with three to go and managed to get a couple of spots back, but my head and heart were out of it by then. Was really annoyed that I'd made such basic mistakes, first with Esteban and then the stop-go.

Did a fair lot of practice for this one since I'd never been in the E30 before and am still learning R07's nuances, but in retrospect I was as quick as I was going to get after a dozen laps, and the result came down to racecraft, or lack thereof. A lesson in there no doubt! ;-)

PS - @ Rob - forgot to say sorry for driving you off. I'll have to check my replay since I wasn't aware of it at the time. Out of Adelaide eh?

Sorry to no-show. I had internet connection issues and was not able to log in. I`ll be there next week to get in the way hopefully.

So that's what happened Steve -- no worries with Adelaide, had I been in your position and it was you behind me, I'd have done the same :)

I still can't really "feel" the brakes in these cars, always seems to be an on/off sensation so I always end up modulating brake pressure whether I needed to or not.

Is there any way to make the driver labels appear higher up? They ALWAYS get right in the way of my visual queues during a race -- I think I can turn them off (not sure which key).

Looking forward to the next race.