Historic F1: Kyalami

File that one under character building I guess...

The car ahead of me on the start got away real slow which caused me to bog down and probably screwed up guys behind me.

Then a McLaren comes sideways (I'm looking at the side of his helmet) from out of my field of view into my nose. We slide to a halt, and he just sits there, stuck to my nose, idling. I get extricated after losing 30 seconds or so.

After that I'm happy to say I drove a flawless race, despite the crash damage. Good enough for a podium with any luck. And I ended my DNF streak in Official F1H events.

Congrats to David for getting his BT49 up to P4! Bernie might not feed us to his pigs quite yet.

I saw that Mike, I was right behind you, I lifted and watched him slide clear across the track, and whoever was behind me tagged me and broke the rear suspension. Race over.

Seriously guys, discipline. Not even first lap, not even first turn. If you can't get off the grid clean, don't bother.

Had a fun time spotting for Joe, watching him come flying through the field. :)

It must be an omen for me.
First I decide not to run the series, after somehow reading and deciding it is the 'Historical' version of the Mod and the McLaren would end up with the M28 at Kyalami already - a half useless car.
Then with 30 mins to go to Qual I decide to join the server and see what car it gives me. The M29. Hmmm, not the historical Mod at all.
I quickly adjust my older Brabham setup to suit the McLaren but don't quite have enough time to get it fully worked out in the 20mins left. 6th or 7th position time was ok considering though. With a bit more time I probably could have moved up 0.3sec or so, which would probably still be 4th or 5th area.

For Qualify the car is skatier when more cars are on track so I can't get a good lap and are 10th. Not so good, but still ok.

Off the start I get my usual great traction and surge towards the car ahead which is looking very tardy and maybe even not starting much movement at all. I decide to go right to pass him, seeing I don't know what was left of me and if I slow now I might get rear ended. There looks like a car width and more of room to the right as I head past....until the pit wall starts! WHAM - straight into the end of it.
That was the end of that....

On the grid I could see a wall to my right and didn't think about it really but automatically thought that was the pit wall anyway.

If I had been able to get more practice and the car that bit quicker I probably would have started at 6th area and then not be starting before the pit wall, and thus not be able to run into it.
The whole sequence tells me it is a sign.

well, i think it's going to be hard to defend my title in this car, but what the heck. I went for the Min DF approach as usual and was running 1/3 for wings. In qualifying, i just couldn't get that perfect lap, and thus failed to get into the 1:09's.

At the start, i got a good one and i'm in 3rd for turn 1. I catch Francesco after a few and pass him. My only problem is the car is not acting as i expected. the looseness is not going away as i thought it would. This makes the car very hard to hold onto but i manage for most of the race with the exception of a single spin. Jeff and Steve were just too fast down the straight and thus passed me fairly easily. after my spin i lost a place the Francesco and i caught him and got my place back. from there is was just about holding on as the car was getting even looser. I'll take the 4th but i was hoping for more.

SO much FUN!!! Grats to Tristan, dude was just flyin!!!

I love these cars. But what I love most is the folks I get to race with. It is such a danm thrill to have enough trust to dive into a corner side by side, in a controlled drift, and know that your opponent will hold his line, not run into you, and allow both of you to make it through the corner and continue on with the battle. Today's race was AWESOME! I had a decent qauly, not spectacular, but I was happy with it. Race started off fine, Banta got a great start and quickly made his way around me. It takes me a good 2 laps here before I can get really comfy with the car (cold tires and low pressures). Was relegated to 5th, but once the car was comfy, I was able to make two good passes, one on my good friend Francesco, and the other on my Team Mate (DOH!) Banta. My other Team Mate, Jeff, followed me through, so he and are running 2-3, as Tristan just simply drove off into the susnet. Jeff and I pull a decent gap on 4th and the rest of the field. I decide to give Jeff an uncontested pass, as he was CLEARLY faster than me, and no point in ruining both our races. And besides, I owed him big time, as he sub'ed for my Team Mate in the GT-I race last weekened and did a SPECTACTULAR job! He deserved the 2nd place. After that, we both cruised to the checkered flag. VERY happy with a 3rd place given the talent level the rest of the field showed. A final shout out to Mr. Dipino, started dead last and RACED his way upto a 7th place finish. Kudos to you Joe!

Cya all at the next race!

A short one for me, unfortunately. Jumped into Q using the same car and set from last time at Kyalami so I figured it would be OK. Got held up some in traffic on the laps my Q tires were best, then failed to come back for fresh rubber soon enough to go back out. Dumb!

Start was OK from about 5th-6th on the grid, and spent the first lap and a half hounding Steve. The front three guys were starting to get away it looked, so I got a bit impatient and bombed him a bit under braking. Would've worked, but I inadvertently caught 1st gear in what was a second gear corner and lost grip at the rear. That left me sliding out onto the curb, not only surrendering the spot again but spinning me when I tried to get back on. I really have trouble downshifting these things; they don't seem to have any sound for downshifts, so I sometimes lose track of the shifts.

Anywho, the first few guys made it around OK, but as I was waiting for the car to finally re-fire (which takes forever in these things!), a Ferrari came around and instead of going wide, tried to cut inside at the last second and hit me nearly head on. Sheared my right front wheel off, but thankfully didn't appear to damage his car.

Wobbled back to the pit hoping it could be fixed, but despite a 41 second "repair" delay the wheel stayed gone so that was it. Hated that since I enjoy these cars so much and like driving them at Kyalami. You can really attack here and there are plenty of places to get around. Wish I'd been a bit more patient and chosen another!

This was my first F1 79 experience. For some reason I was slower than myself the day before. I could do high 10s on Softs, but today I only managed to do 12.5 in Q on Q tires.

The race was interesting - after the opening laps I found myself behind Kevin Ransom. He was way slower in turns and did micro-mistakes quite often, and but it's hard to take advantage of micro mistakes and if the slower driver don't want to let you go by, it becomes very dangerous. Dicey, I'd say.

I backed off and let a few faster drivers go by to give them the chance to force Kevin to make a mistake. Didn't help. One or two passed him, but me, Joseph Di Pino and Bert Owens ended up stucked behind Kevin :)

Around lap 11 in the slow left handler, Kevin made another mistake and lost his car - I couldn't do anything to avoid, as he was sliding from inside to the outside, and punted spinning Kevin's car slightly and damaged both cars.

After that I lost my pace and couldn't fight with Joseph and Bert anymore, and just was doing laps ~1.15 to bring my Ligier to the finish.

I used all of practice to hone a comfortable race setup, and just swapped in Q tires for Qualy; they shaved half a second, but only for one good lap. I ran somewhat heavy downforce, but a hard rear bar so the car could rotate on the 3rd and 4th gear corners. After tweaking the differential to suit a comfortable 1:10.xxx pace, all I needed to do was get a good launch at the green and the race was golden.

Well done to all, and especially Joe; you moved up thru the field like a madman.

Looking forward to further racing!

Fantastic time. First, I would like to thank David Banta because I used his setup and basically had to do nothing with it and it was great.
For once my qualy was good and I started third. I nearly pooped myself when at the end of lap 1 one I was second. Tristan started to pull away and then I knew I had to defend my position from Mr.Banta, Mr Smith, and Mr.Stibling: so I nearly pooped myself again. What fantastic drivers these guys are. And clean. My biggest issue was that on the main straight I felt like I was standing still. First David, then Steve, then Jeff all passed me into Crawthorne.I could really stay close with all of them through the very slow left hander just before the second sector time. Slowly though they begun drawing away. When David had his moment I grabbed fourth but I knew it would be very difficult to keep it. Sure enough, about five laps from the end he caught up with me and passed me (Crawthorne....). I was determined to stay close and I made a small mistake in the left slow corner and put two wheels in the grass/dirt/marbles/curb and lost about four seconds. From then it was a question of just pacing myself to keep fifth-- although I perhaps was a bit too conservative since I had to watch my rear in the final sprint to the chequered flag (I don't have the results in front of me, I can't remember who it was sorry).
The only wrong thing with this race is that I did not do any wheel-to-wheel stuff with my buddy Joe maybe at the next track. Again, this was awesome. Tristan you were absolutely brilliant congrats. Steve, Jeff, David you guys are so good to finish behind you feels like a victory. Steve S, I was watching you in practice and you are just so bloody smooth and you *carry* speed so well *thorugh* the apex that I feel like I was learning something.

Congrats to the podium. Tristan dominated. No further explanation needed. The Spaghetti Brothers v.1.0 (Smith and Stibling) were equally stout. Well done gentlemen. Anyone who holds off Francesco and Banta has earned their place.

I screwed up Q big time. Crashed on my first timed lap. I had a nice open track ahead and just pounded into T1 way too hard on cold tires. Maybe one of these years I'll stop doing that.

Starting dead last was a real problem. This meant that unless people had problems, a top five was out of reach. However, I had just a blast working with the rest of the field. I saw alot of tough but clean racing. I should wait until HRH gets the results posted so I can name names. The quality of the driving astounded me. Guys werent making mistakes, held their lines cleanly, and whole bunch of times went side by side in the corners rock solid. If a man went low, he stayed low and if a man went high, he stayed high. Excellent technique throughout!

Francesco, you blew me away with those practice and Q times.
Glad to see that the computer manfactured by Zargani Inc. works well. With my defensemen Chen, felt like I was back in the nets. Great communication, Jerr.

I think we are going to have one badass of a series here. Looks as if there's a new sheriff in town called Bayliss. Tristan, you da man but as a friendly heads up, you are going to have the aforementioned Spaghetti Brothers v.1.0, Banta, and Zargani gunning for you. I cant wait to see the battles in which you guys will engage.

Thanks to HRH for reponding to the outcry headed up by Banta about reinstating the series. These cars are unique and for me, fill a huge void in sim racing. My favorite by a mile. The next race cant get here soon enough.