V8-West Brands Hatch

Well,that didn't go well.Got caught up in the spinning cars in t2 and lost the front wing and a flat tyre,long way back to the pits from there.After a lengthy stop for repairs,i came out behing tommy and pat who were fighting for position and consequently holding me up.I had fun following Steve around lap after lap until he started to run out of gas.
bazza

Yeah, looked like one driver didn't show a whole lot of restraint and a lot less respect for the first two turns, and pretty much ruined the race for half the field. :(

That was probably my last race with R2P anyway. From the looks of it R2P seems to be much more popular with the GTR2 crowd and not so popular with the RFactor crowd. :(

Could just be two or three times as many people are playing GTR2 then rFactor and that fact is showing here also.

Lucky

That mess in Druids was on me, I'm afraid. Got under Lucky in T1 when he was a bit slow getting off the line, and then got caught out when Tom D. braked a lot more than I was expecting at the top of the hill. Looking at the replay, he was on the outside going 10mph slower than either Pat or Rich in front of him who were closer to the apex and should've been slower still. I guess I was focusing on the inside line and them, so by the time I realized his speed differential I couldn't get it slowed enough and punted him. Only half-spun Tom, but unfortunately made a mess for me and everyone behind. Barry, you appear to have gotten the worst damage-wise, but Lucky pulled the plug and left even though his car looked OK. Sorry all.

Waited for everyone to pass since I'd made the mess, but saw Barry limping around with a mangled car so I went back by and started chasing. Gradually made up spots until I ended up catching Barry, who had pitted for repairs, along with Tommy C. and Pat. That was pretty intense for a short bit- Barry was great and let me by and then TC pitted, so I stuck on Pat's bumper hoping for a chance to get by. After a couple of laps he went off at Westfield - I'd noticed he was a bit off in the corners, but didn't know at the time he was driving without a front cap or splitter - nice job, Pat!

Ended up leading until I pitted for tires only, thinking a six-lap cushion of fuel (30laps worth at the start) would do it. Didn't even look at the fuel on my tire stop, which was dumb as many times as I've blown it on fuel calcs. Barry followed me in and out, and we ran steady from there until I got the dreaded low fuel light while holding 2nd place. Completely lost my concentration for a bit, but got it together (or so I thought) and managed to get the pit choices done while driving my in lap without going off. Did the stop and within a lap knew I'd probably needed one more liter. Got really annoyed and then went off in front of Pat while trying to drive in high gear to make it to the end. Car was sputtering from Dingle Dell on the last lap and it finally quit in sight of the finish line. Tried rolling it in but no luck.

Two races today, both with good finishes doomed by erroneous fuel consumption calcs in rFactor. One from a mod I could almost forgive, but the other was in the FT which comes with the game. They should just leave the laps reading off the fuel settings and force you to figure it out the hard way if they're not going to be any more accurate than that. Now where's some cheese to go with my whine? ;-)

"i came out behing tommy and pat who were fighting for position"

LOL, there's a string of words that's just not gonna form often!

I took my pit a bit early, was guzzling gas at an alarming rate. Of course I put extra in, but calculated quickly after exiting that I may have screwed the pooch, and still might not have enough to finish. So by lap 12 or 13 I start short-shifting severely. Pat and I already did the multi lap samba before the stop sequences, I was surprised how long it took him to catch and pass me (must have been damaged). Then after everyone stops, wouldn't you know he's behind me again ;)
I was a gear higher everywhere, no way I was going to run with him for more than 10 seconds.
Then Midgely eats away at the gap and sits on my tail for a while, I had nothing for him either, and I was seeing my top 5 finish evaporate, like, well, gasoline. :( He makes a mistake and I get a 14 second gap back! Whew!
I cross the finish line with 2 liters remaining! And no more than 30 meters BEFORE the finish line sits Blankenship, dead on the track, out of gas! OMG! That's painful.
I continuted all the way around on the cooldown lap, the car starts sputtering at that funny little sort-of chicane in the back. I make it rolling thru the last corner and head for Steve's bumper, I was just going to bash him across the finish line so he doesn't get a DNF. I hit his bumper at a good clip, my car shudders ... then I pass right through him!
WTF??? The "Track loading..." screen comes up! ROFL! I was like 10 seconds too late. Sorry Steve, I tried.

Funny! Saw you coming, TC - even gritted my teeth for the impending rocket launch but you went straight through me. Nuthin' left to do but crawl out and walk back to the pits in shame... ;-)

This was my second race on Race2Play, and I had a lot of fun, despite being slow!

I really enjoyed reading your race reports, guys! Very interesting race.

My own race went fairly well, considering that (after reviewing the race results) I was the slowest driver in the field. I was lucky to avoid the first-lap smashup by going onto the grass at Druids, and wound up way farther up the order than I should have been.

Gradually you faster guys passed me, but I had enough fuel to run a couple of laps longer than most and wound up in 2nd for a couple of laps. That was a trip!

Then everyone started coming past me again, but I still wound up 7th, one lap down. Not last! Yay!

I hope more rFactor drivers get into Race2Play because I somewhat prefer rFactor, and I really like the idea of being able to race with people you know, but without having to commit do doing a race at the same time every week.

How can we get more rFactor drivers involved?

Alison

PS. If anyone's interested, I put the results up on the web. Here's a link to an rFactor Report of the race:

http://tinyurl.com/2sqk57

Here's a preview of the Tiny URL link:

http://preview.tinyurl.com/2sqk57

Neat report output Alison, thanks for posting it. Hadn't seen that before. Curious to know what constitutes an incident though, I knew my and Pat's races were busy, but not that busy! ;-) Have to dig around or maybe email Frank about the details - cool program.

And just to add, it was really nice to have you join us. As I mentioned in the race chat, you were in my first-ever online race, a GPL race at Spa back in '98 or so. Had practiced a bunch offline before daring to race real people, and then lo and behold land in a race with you and Randy Cassidy of all people. About wet my pants for fear I'd screw up! ;-)

Hope to see you on track again sometime - SB

Alison, I would think that you of all people are in a unique position to effect change. If you were to put up a bit on your home page about how much you enjoy rFactor now, and say the same on RSC occasionally, people would come running.
Even better, if you were to include that you are doing your online racing here at R2P, it would drive a lot of business towards Tim & Todd. I have no stake in either ISI or R2P, other than being a customer, but I'm totally into what they are trying to do, and deserve to make a living at.
I'm sure both camps are too proud to ask people like you and Steve Smith to spread the word-of-mouth, but I'm not :)