NASA Formula-T Exhibition

Fun race, lot's going on. I got a good start and picked up a couple of spots, but immediately went wide in T2 on cold rubber and went right to the back of the pack. Settled in and started working back up. Passed a few spun cars and battled my way past Jay Freels over the course of a few laps- fun stuff Jay, you had me every time in T2 and T3, and I'd get away again in the hairpin. Finally I started figuring out T2 and was feeling really comfortable. I was in 8th spot when I came upon Jared after a spin- I played it a little too cautious behind him at the end of the final straight, got on the brakes a little hard and the rear end stepped out suddenly and completely. Skipped across the sand and lost the rear wing on the wall. Decided to hang in there and fight off the DNF, and pitted for repair. The car was a real handful after that, very unstable at high speed- I worked way harder keeping it on the track, so it was kind of rewarding to survive for 12th.

Well that was fun.

As usual, I botched the start and was passed immediately. I need to work on that. Other than that, the first half of the race went pretty good for me. I was able to make up a few positions and put some distance between me and the guys behind me. But soon my inconsitancy began to show and I had a few minor offs. They were enough to allow Peter, Randy and Scott to catch up to me. I don't know if I was going slower now if they were faster, but I wasn't able to shake them this time. Well, Peter's pressure got to me and I punched it too quick coming out of the right-hand hairpin and spun out. That allowed the three car train to pass me with ease. After that I was pretty much alone (except for watching Mike gracefully spin across the track in my mirrors) for the rest of the race. I had a few more brain farts and plowed up a few cornrows for the neighbors but I was able to finish 7th, one place behind where I started.

This was my first race in these cars and I thought they were pretty fun. And it is always fun to race with such clean racers!

It was an entertaining race for me. I qualified 9th but lost my front wing on formation lap when I hit the brakes too hard and had to start in the pits. I had to wait at the red light and it did not turn green until 20 seconds after the entire field had passed. By running consistent laps and with some spinning by others I was 12th by the mid point in the race. I caught 11th and passed in turn 3 only to spin out at turn 5A because I shifted down to 1st instead of 2nd because I was in a lower gear than usual. After getting going I had lost some time and it took a number of laps to catch up again. This time I passed at turn 2 but made the same mistake again but at turn 3. Now Boyd was on my tail and passed me when I entered turn 2 too fast and went wide. Boyd must have had quite a bit of damage as I caught him and passed on the Andretti straight and then went wide again at turn 3 and let him by. With all my mistakes I was happy to finish 10th.

I had a great time during the race. On top fantastic racing, these cars and track being a blast, I've gotta say thanks to Tim for letting me hang onto the lead lap those last few laps. A perfect exaple of the fantastic sportmanship I'm seeing in every race here in the R2P community :)

I was behind a sleeper at the race start and was passed by two cars. rFactor really confuses me. The normal wheel camber settings just don't seem to work for this sim. Default wheel camber up front was what? -4.0 or so? That gives a temp spread of about 30 degrees which is a bad thing...normally. Earlier today I made a setup and ended up with a camber of -2.5 up front and still had a temp spread of 15 degrees. Lap times increased dramatically with that setting also. Tim distributed his setup during practice and I was surprised to see his settings. I ran a few laps with it and was very concerned about tire temps and wear. I chickened out just before the race and reduced the camber to -3.7 front and 2.5 rear. To my surprise I was able to turn faster laps with those settings. Still, during the race, front tire temps reached 235 degrees at times.

I tried to run a consistent race, not pushing the car and watching the tire temps. It paid off as drivers in front of me must have had temp and wear issues. I simply waited for them to wipe out or slow down and eventually moved up to 4th position. Front tires were very worn by lap 22 and a couple of the turns were becoming "slippery". Lap 28 found the front left tire wear indicator at YELLOW and I slowed the car even more.

I had some excellent racing with a few of the fellas. Early on there were 4 of us snaking along the course...I was in back and it's always an enjoyable sight.

Mosport is a really cool track. I would like to do a PCC event here also.

Sorry I missed this one, wanted to have a good race with the NASA drivers. Just after the GTC went to have dinner and my wife took over the computer, that was it.

Hmmm, Fun stuff for me of course, I got lucky enough to finish up top. Had a good time following Darin and Scott around in those opening laps, only to have them exit stage left and leave me up there all alone. Fish and Tommy put up a good fight, but it seems everyone was suffering some issues during the race.

Randy, I read your post-race about tires. rFactor stock vehicles do not model tires all that realistic. Temps can increase well above 200f without issue. I had my tires up into the 230-260 range without any negative effect. The camber can go both ways. Some of my setups have big camber, others are real flat. Track specific of course.

Tire wear wasnt an issue for me. Lap 20 was one of my fastest lap. From then on I slowed only to hold my 20 second gap.

Between me worrying that my tires were running at 230 F, wrestling with my lack of front wing, and Pete Young putting pressure on me by slowly whittling away at my lead on him, this was a real heart-thumper. I tried like hell to hold onto 10th position, but suddenly Darin reappeared from his earlier mishap and with both Darin AND Pete on my ass barely 2 seconds behind me with 3 laps to go I lost my concentration and braked too late in that final long right-hand sweeper, smacking the wall and damaging the suspension.

Held onto 11th, thankfully. The car was a handful to deal with the last three laps.

I've always hated these cars. I've never run Mosport before. I even had issues with the "mod" as I was trying to get into practice, thus reducing my practice time.

However, it's a pretty easy track to learn, thankfully! :) Initially I tried a low downforce setup. It flew down the straights, but sucked in the corners. I tried Tim's setup (high downforce) which was more comfy, but a little pushy. Made a few small tweaks to it, but only had a handful of laps in it prior to the race start.

I had a decent start (a rarity for me) and settled into 5th spot or thereabouts. Lo and behold, this setup felt great! I soon found myself with nearly the fastest lap in the race! What's up with that?! :) Of cource, Tim edged me out by .001 second! ;)

Gradually worked my way up to 2nd place about 5 or so seconds back from Tim. Not sure if I had anything for him, but I was trying. Unfortunately, after passing someone near the slowest corner, I tried holding it just a little tighter than I should've and looped it as I rolled into the throttle. Lost my front wing and my alignment was pulling hard to the left.

Pitted for new tires and a new wing and the car was fine save for the alignment still being hosed. I was behind Scott J. going into T1 when I clipped the grass, spun into the barrier hard, lost a LF wheel, but thinking I only had a flat I made it to the pits only to leave being upset my POS crew didn't change the flat. It wasn't until after I exited that I saw no LF wheel there. D'oh!! :)

Anyway, great race, Tim, and congrats to all the finishers!
Tommy

P.S. I really enjoyed these cars last night!! :)

First, congrats to the top 3.

Oh man, I love open-wheelers, and in particular I love these cars. They are such great fun to race with....

So, I joined early and got the car set up. I had the fastest lap in practice and in quals, which I was REALLY happy about as the car just glided around the track. It let me drift it through the turns if I wanted, but stuck when I needed it to--great car.

Race starts and I was a tad slow off the line. I slid into 2nd and settled in. The first few laps where great following Darin until he snap oversteered to the left on the uphill into the hairpin. I took first and held that a couple more laps. And then...

...I did the EXACT same thing Darin did and stuffed it into the outside wall going into the hairpin. 88 laps of practice and I didn't do that ONE TIME. So of course come race time I just had to :)

So now I've got no front wing, and my suspension is bent to hell. In hindsight I probably could've pitted and done okay . But at the time everyone was still racing pretty well and so I decided to stay out. I was a bit faster down the straights, but my corner speed was a fair bit off for obvious reasons. Slowly folks passed me (and sorry gents, I wasn't giving up any spot without a fight--the racing with everyone was top-notch) until I fell back to 7th. A couple folks had off's which put my back up to 5th just in front of Jay.

I fought him hard for about 10 laps and managed to hang on for a top five. All in all it was a great race. I wasn't happy about the off, but I was quite happy being able to race a damaged car strong enough for 23 laps to finish as well as I did.

Cheers all...