2h of Valencia

Well I had wanted to run this race even though I dislike this track. Was gonna try the GT3 RSR for the first time. Was there for the practice session but my frame rate was just awful, below 20fps, usually around 15fps. I went offline and tried it and it was the same. I tested some other tracks and some were around 20fps but smooth enough to run, others (Dubai and Hockenheim to name two) were 50 or more fps. All the testing was done with 32 AI cars on the track. Valencia is by far the worst track for fps on my system, so I bowed out of this race, I didn't want to ruin anyone else's run.

i had very bad FPS in some corners too

great race Conor, great pace but it proves once again that consistency is the key

Ari sorry for the first touch and i hope when you spun in front of me it wasn't my touch
i didn't feel it so didn't wait :(

forgot to put my pit strategy before the race so had to do it manually in my 2 stops...lost the lead both times... but the fights where incredible, pushed hard from first lap to last

thx guys for the fun

Conrats to...

Conor for his first Enduro win (minus the one G3 win back in season-1 of course)

Adriano for his first win in Season-3 (I dont recall if you had some in S2 or not)

Congrats to Connor, well done! Grats to Adriano also.
Well I decided to do this race last night, it was my first laps at this track, and not many more in GTR2 so I figured this would be my testing ground, I qualified 5th, which was okay considering the guys in front of me were aliens, race started well, I hung on Claus gear box the better part of 15 laps, he was having problems with turn 1 going wide, he eventually completely left the track, I went to pass him at that point and he re-entered the track into my right front, there was no apparent damage to my car, but he later hit the ESC, then I had d boyd on my gearbox I bobbled and let him thru, I tailed him for many more laps until lap traffic, he decided to go around Adriana on the outside of the last corner and me following the leader followed him right into the sand. From there it was 4th the rest of the way for myself, I was satisfied to be on the same lap with the other aliens but…my last pit stop…black flagged, yup…I earned my stripe again, a stop and go for the door man. This was a long race, WOW! Grats to all the competitors for a great race.

And yes...I found it again...

I did not like the track, thought this morning that 1:40's would be gt1 race pace... But it turned out to be a nice track once I found the rythm. I was able to complete the race with only one stop but had to be careful with spinnig or slidding, I held up Adriano when leaving the pits since I repeatedly get black flags at any speed over 9 mph going through pit lane.
Tom

I'll get to my post later tonight, got some stuff to do now. But before i do, i want to apologize to Don for punting him in the final corner in the middle of race. Didn't mean to do that at all, just a racing accident. :(

I was satisfied with getting the pole. It also helped me as for the most of stint 1 I was holding up Nuno. A bit before my stop he got ahead but during pitstops I recaptured the lead.

During stint 2 Nuno made a move which I can only describe as divebombing. I gave him a lot of room and two corners later he either went wide or let me repass, I'm not sure which. Soon after he made a similar move, this time tapping my rear and spinning me around, but he let me pass again. Conor made the most of this and grabbed the lead but soon after overshot a corner and the lead was mine again.

During second stops Conor used some bizarre wizardry and passed me during pitstops. It's not often that someone uses similar pitstops to pass me so I was somewhat miffed. ;-) I couldn't catch him anymore and I spun in T2 when Nuno was pressuring me. There was no contact but I'd say I was influenced by Nuno's warping during most of the race and him being fairly aggressive whenever being behind me. After that I just finished, having lost some pace and motivation.

I'm happy that I picked the F550 since this is not a track that I really like and I'm slower here than usual. It was a really intense race for as long as I managed to stay ahead of Nuno and Conor.

That race was one of the more enjoyable races i have had with any sim in a long time. Winning it was a very nice bonus but i would have been pleased with finishing 2nd or 3rd because battling with Ari and Nuno for the entire 2 hours was so fun. I wasn't even participating that much in the battle either; just sat back a couple car lengths and watched them duke it out. I wouldn't really consider it my first GT1 enduro win in the league because this was only a fun run with some time taken away, but i ain't complaining too much :). Now, if this is how GTR2 enduros will be next season, then watch out, because its gonna be one hell of season :).

Anyway, i practiced the first time on the track with the Vette yesterday and wasn't too pleased with how it handled. However, with a few setup tweaks this morning, i was back up to speed and running 1.30s most of the time.

Qual was a bit of a disappointment IMO. I qualified with a 1.29.4 but thought i was very capable of high 28s. My soft tires thought otherwise and were overheating by lap 3 of the session. I still got 3rd place so it wasn't all bad.

Race started with the 2 Ferraris fighting it out in front of me right off the bat and behind me, Claus and Jeff kept up with my pace for a few laps. After a while though, they started drifting back but to my surprise, i was still right on the tails of Nuno and Ari. Our nose to tail battle lasted for much of the first stint but with the pit stops closing in, Nuno and I made a few mistakes in our own little incidents and let Ari pull away.

Pit stops came and went with a few mistakes on pit road but nothing that warranted a penalty :).....thank god. Those mistakes however put me about 8 seconds behind Ari and Nuno who had already cycled through so i had to hustle to get myself back up with them. And boy did i hustle. I was running low 1.30s but their battling slowed their pace down so i was able to close the gap quite significantly. Finally, my break came when they collided with each other in the infield section and i got the lead for the first time of the race. Unfortunately, i had a brain fart going into turn 7 and almost rammed the tire barriers. I turned it around and continued on, noticing that Ari passed by but Nuno didn't so i guess he had the same mistake that i had. So i continued on in 2nd chasing down Ari until we came to our final pit stops.

For my final pit stop, i did nothing out of the ordinary that was related to wizardry ;), unless you consider no mistakes magic :P. After the stops i found myself in the lead about 3 secs ahead of Ari and with Nuno closing in behind him. So i thought we were all going to collapse into a battling threesome with me leading this time but i really started clicking off some consistent fast laps and pulled away from Ari. With about 20 min or so left in the race, Nuno got around Ari who i believe spun and was closing in fast. This worried me greatly because i knew he was running 1.29s but fortunately, time was on my side and while it came pretty close, i still came out with a hard fought win. :)

It was hard fought in the sense that i had to keep up with the Ferraris' pace and battle back after a poor pit stop, even with an underpowered Corvette. That was tough, but fortunately, the car felt very neutral and was able to put all my trust into it without any hesitation. Anything i wanted it to do, it did, and it did it without error and im very pleased with that. Next season is looking very promising...

Originally I was going to take a weekend off from racing, but the nGT entry list had filled up nicely: A number of names that usually run right around my same times, so I was looking forward to some fun. Unfortunately about half the list didn't make it.

I tried out the 360 GTC and the GT3-RSR the night before. I got similar times with each, and certain things about each felt good ... Discovered you evidently can't toggle the MoTeC views inside the Ferrari for tire temps, but after a few tests figured tire temps wouldn't be a problem anyway, and I liked the better balance of the Ferrari over the Porsche.

Started in the fourth spot, got through Lap 1 OK, and every lap thereafter OK. Early I had hoped to be able to tag after Adriano in front of me, but he consistently pulled away a little pretty much every lap. Around the middle of the race I have 20+ seconds to the car ahead of me and 20+ seconds to the car behind me, and now I'm cruising.

With about 30 minutes left in the race, I started noticing the car behind making up a few tenths per lap. I had to push hard to keep my pace ahead of him. I also thought Barry and Adriano were both ahead of me and speculated it was a GT straggler making his way up ...

It's also at this point my laps started suffering through GT cars. The leaders kept catching me at the backstretch and it kept killing my run to not crowd that left dogleg ... A couple other GT cars were having some difficulty now, too, and I'd accommodate a pass only to go by again on their mistake, rinse, repeat ... Each time I'm seeing the car behind me has taken another 2-3 seconds off the gap, and when he gets just a few seconds behind me I see in the mirror that it is in fact Barry in a Porsche, and that evidently I must be running in second.

So I get back on the horse and start whipping it hard, and am able to stay a few seconds ahead of Barry until he goes off with about 10 minutes left, which wasn't going to be enough time for him to catch me again.

Still was a fun race. Congrats to the winners.

I just took the Viper since I had estimated I could do a 1 stop with it and see if that would be enuff for a win, unfortunately I wasnt very focused and FPS was bad here with changeable weather, low 30s fps almost everywhere.

After just trailing the top3 for first 10laps, max fuel onboard and tires to go for 40laps. Was looking good and I was only dropping a few tents per lap on average.
But then I got a taste of the great collision physics when I got a tap and car did a few summersaults (sp?) resulting in what looked like an undamaged car but infact revealed a tirepuncture.

Too bad seing the winners pace I think my 1 stop strategy could've worked here for a win, even with this uncompetitive POS car.