S3/R2 Croft Circuit

[Aitor Sintes]

a little motivation:

Great video, but am I the only one who's disappointed with the music not being Eurobeat?

 

[Max Barkley]

Because I live in america, the time zone means I won't be off work till I can attend the SRCA races, so I may not be able to attend any more of this season's races, sorry.

 

[Enzo Fazzi]

Broadcast

 

[Reinhard Berger]

hello,

what was this....

the car in front (mike greatrix) was suddently in my car and my car fly in air, then i was in wall and i was not able to drive backwards,
after perhaps 30sec. or more i did hit ESC as my car was dangerous.
this was not my fault, the car in front had crazy lag it looks like, suddently his car was more away, then it was full in my car.

not happy, now i must finished in suzuka, and i neve sure i can make wednesday night.

servus

 

[Jose Sousa]

For some reason the Teamspeak volume on the Windows mixer was muted Didnt hear the code 80 so when I was doing the drive-through I tried to change the volume but it didn't work. I'm not a happy man right now xD It was going so well

 

[Erwin Levasier]

Again I learned a lot this race......
Quali was terrible due to not enough practice (work work work) 2nd last but race pace slowly got better I could stay out longer then the cars around me therefor I only changed the front tires and got back on P14 with a lot of time gained .
I was so busy looking at my data screen to see how much i gained, and I T-boned the barrier in the chicane next time I wont look at my data screen that much it cost me 97 seconds

 

[Toni Ukic]

First of all, a big apology to everyone and especially the race organisers for efin up the code 80. I didn't hear it at all, nor did I hear the green flag, I went when the car behind me went for it, hoping for the best. When I saw everyone going slow, it seemed to me they are stopped therefore I thought I got a disconnection like last time. I kept going thinking the connection might come back but I soon realised I actually missed the code 80 message (when Enzo posted it in the chat). It was completely unitentional and I didn't mean to gain any advantage by continuing the same speed despite everyone being basically stationary. That said, I'll accept any kind of a penalty, even disqualification because it was completely my fault.

 

[Bjorn Golda]

Well, that was a bit subpar on a few levels...

first of all, I feel like some drivers should give the rules more than a quick glance, specifically regarding track limits and slowing down when gaining an advantage, lapping procedure (don't brake on the racing line to let people by!), passing and racing lines during a pass and other things, for example, say, the start?

Speaking of which - the OP stated T11 as the spot to start the race at, and while that isn't a turn (and might be a mis-copy-paste from R1?), it's outlined on the track map. Still, half the grid or more jumped the start, but I think there are automatic reviews in place for this, so it should be all good

Apart from that, IMHO it would be a good idea to add a few event specifics into the OP as well, particularly

• pit-in/-out procedures and allowances while on regular laps: this was clarified in the practice chat, but I think a fair amount of people missed that and kept away from the pit-out while lapping normally. Not a big deal and no danger or anything, though.
• Code 80 procedure - it could've been specified that this would be a Code 60, at which point it should be called that, or just generally call it a FCY instead, relying on the respective pit limiters. Also, and this might be on me just not hearing it, but was the Code 80 announced apart from the short countdown from 5? Didn't hear that, but again, that might've been me, fully bracing for a penalty if it's been announced I also sped in the beginning phase of the then-Code 60 due to the 60-80-confusion mentioned above and because I was running alone at the time, though I slowed down towards the end of the Code 80, and the some.

As for the race itself, I wasn't quite up to pace, rain pace seemed a fair bit better but sadly didn't materialised due to lack of water Had a mostly solid run until half time when a bit of hell broke loose, drivers braking on a full-throttle racing lines for lapping, rejoining the track into a three wide and, ultimately, an incident that gave me significant damage taking 10 minutes to repair. Lapping by myself afterwards to make it to the finish at least.

Ah well, one of these days I reckon, on to round 3!

 

[Aitor Sintes]

Well in the end I finished 8 places higher than when I started, and I wanted a calm race and not to cause issues to anyone (unfortunately that wasn't the case, I deeply apologize to Dahlberg for that maneouver), and in the end I finished fighting with tooth and nail with whoever I had the chance.
God damnit, you guys are quick. So quick.

I hope I don't get too many reports after this race. see you next week.

 

[Florian Koetz]

I was quite surprised by my pace, tbh

Everytime I joined the server in preparation, the track was wet so I basically didn't know how it would be in the dry. So I just took the setup of last round and drove
And I'm really disappointed it didn't rain in the race because in the first part of the race I was actually trying to save some fuel in order to finish without a stop (rain tyres were useless anyways)
The code 80 was really confusing, it says code 80 so I initially drove with the limiter but then the race director stated that we should slow down to 80kph which really confused me. I knew that code 80 was the name for driving with pit limiter but the other part really confused me. I ended up driving a few 100m with 80kph until I asked but I made sure I re-established the gaps from the beginning of the code 80 by driving slower

Regarding track limits: It's hard to know how that is supposed to work. The rules state that we have to stay within the white lines, the forum says that the game will handle it. The same thing with starts: it would make sense to have the general starting procedure in the rules so everyone knows.
It's really strange to look up some rules in the rulebook and some rules in the forum

Anyways, I won't be there next week, thank you for the season and see you guys around

Cheers

 

[Csaba Maczelka]

There was a lot more potential in this race, but today was simply not my day. I started with a drive-through from R1, and then was involved in constant fights all down to the last laps of the race. While these were highly enjoyable, I burnt much more fuel than in practice, so I coudn't implement my no pitstop strategy which could have been the only remedy for the drive-through. I apologize for Victor Gazulla, we had many good fights throughout the race, but I had at least one maneuver that was far too daring - sorry for that.
I'm afraid I won't be able to take part in the final round, which is a shame, because this is the best sim experience I've had since I started racing online in early 2016. Also, thanks for the post-race interview, it was a first

 

[Greg Metcalf]

Thanks all for some great close racing, shame it never rained as i had a wet setup :/

Have fun at Suzuka while i`m sipping cocktails in the sun

 

[Matej Lakota]

pit-in/-out procedures and allowances while on regular laps: this was clarified in the practice chat, but I think a fair amount of people missed that and kept away from the pit-out while lapping normally. Not a big deal and no danger or anything, though.

We didn t change or let anything that wasn t allowed before. Some guys asked me on TS how it is with pit entry and where they can drive, so Enzo just cleared it out.

Speaking of which - the OP stated T11 as the spot to start the race at, and while that isn't a turn (and might be a mis-copy-paste from R1?), it's outlined on the track map. Still, half the grid or more jumped the start, but I think there are automatic reviews in place for this, so it should be all good

Because mistake can happen, I wrote this in announcement:
21:30 - Green flag when you exit turn marked with number 10
and marked with red arrow where race starts:

 

[Victor Gazulla]

What a race today!! I expected some rain during the race so I worked on a mixed condition setup, and it didn´t work fine on dry tarmac. Although I was comfortable with the car, the pace came late to fight for top 10. Another race without incidents and really really fun from start to end. Nice race all, congratulations to the podium guys and in special to the winner. See you all in Suzuka!!

 

[Daryl Russell]

Must say a big sorry to whoever got caught in my aftermath. My son came over to me in the middle of the race whilst getting lapped and snagged the wheel cable. Car veered off to the left. Mighty pissed off with that after a ball out qualy lap my best ever all week into 1.28s Race was a balls up from the start from the stop n go to the confusion from the code 80 where i had several cars rocket pass me whilst i had limiter on...absolute shambles and doubtful now of me ever getting the licence.

 

[Thomas Crabb]

Really Really fun race for me, I had my set backs and I am very sorry to anyone I nudged and such, but if anything happend I kept my gentlemans agreement. Overtaking round croft is one of my best sim racing experiences so far, thank you to Simracing.club and the broadcasters to bringing this race forward and taking it to an audience, my friends had a blast, although I think they may need to calm it a bit, got a bit hard to hear what was happening in TS with them around. Anyway, cheers all, really good racing!

 

[Tomas Beha]

#Crabbwatch !!

 

[Mike Greatrix]

hello,
what was this....the car in front (mike greatrix) was suddently in my car and my car fly in air, then i was in wall and i was not able to drive backwards,
after perhaps 30sec. or more i did hit ESC as my car was dangerous.
this was not my fault, the car in front had crazy lag it looks like, suddently his car was more away, then it was full in my car.
servus

Sorry Reinhard, I saw you coming out of the last corner about 2secs back from me when I had a huge lag and screen lockup. I won't participate in races here again until its not an issue. I was just starting to have some fun coming from the back after what I think was someone doing a bad rejoin in the 1st chicane. Will have to check a replay to be sure.

 

[Mitchell Smith]

Who's this Matt Smith, Michael Smith? I don't know either of these people.

Race was quite standard and boring from a driving perspective. I had a decent qualifying, putting the car in 8th with a 26.5 -- not bad considering my PB before that run was a 29.2, so can't complain. In fact most of my practice here was just trying to get used to my new wheel settings.

After last week with my horrible tyre degradation, I realised I needed to change some of my settings. Previously I had been using 200 degrees on my wheel without FBB -- a bad habit that I never broke from when I first drove with my wheel nine years ago, so obviously it was time for change. It never hampered me enough for me to think that could be causing so many issues because in the games I drive - GTR2 and AC, there's things you can do to offset it.

My tyre wear today was awesome. I double stinted quite easily and I felt much more comfortable with my new FFB settings (thank you so much Ed, for helping me fix my wheel up) as well as my increased degree of rotation. Perhaps I'll increase it more as I drive rFactor, but right now it feels like it's in a 'sweet spot' for me.

Anyway, for the race we started, well, comfortably. Rolling starts are generally very boring, and this time was no exception. We continued as we were, I pulled away from Greg a little, then we took our drive throughs and I had a lead of two seconds over him. That's when the fun started. Linus Lundvall was going along quite a bit slower ahead, and suddenly our pack of three or four cars running quite closely was doing times that were a second slower per lap, or more. Because of the threat of rain I turned my wing up so I wasn't going to beat Linus for top speed, but with all the mistakes he was making I thought surely he would just go off with a little pressure, but to his credit he remained, despite going off the track quite often. But it started to get a bit much when he backed me up into Greg and Miguel, at this point I probably should have pitted but in this position I had to consider, "what happens if it starts raining?" And unfortunately it was my consideration for the weather that probably, in part (combined with the pit box thing), cost me a top ten finish here.

Anyway, we had traffic and for some reason someone had a moment in front of me so I had to lift because the lapped car and Linus (both going quite slowly) were side by side on the straight, then Greg didn't lift and went past me two wheels on the grass, Sebastian Vettel style. Fair play to him, it was an opportunistic move, but he was again defended by Linus.

We ran like this quite a while until we each pulled off respectfully for our stops, and I decided to stay out to see what the weather did. After a while, I decided it wasn't going to rain and pulled in to pit with a 19 second gap to Simon, and around 27 seconds to Greg. I was double stinting and only putting in 20 litres, so of course naturally I would come out behind Simon. I was fine with that. I pull up on my marker, and on the replay it shows me perfect in the middle of the box. A few seconds passes, I look at my fuel. Nothing's happening. Uh...? Okay, so I move forward a meter and suddenly it starts working. So, the pit box didn't register me in it until I was overlapping in the front of it. Cost me around ten seconds, and a top ten finish. A shame, but the 4-5 laps I was out in clear air even with that problem I still managed to come out 10 seconds ahead of Linus, so I was still happy. The car actually felt quite well balanced towards the end of the race, which was interesting because I usually felt like it was easier to drive with a full tank. The only problem is I was navigating so much traffic (blue flags and lapped cars that were quite speedy) that I coasted to the finish. Linus caught me while I was being held up but it was no worries to the finish.

So, that's a very long way to say that my race was quite boring and aside from the rFactor pit stall not being very accommodating there were no issues. Just a shame I haven't been able to show my pace yet -- this track and Palm Beach both are quite similar in that they're difficult to overtake on, so I'm very pleased to go to Suzuka. It's again not too easy to overtake there but it's the only track of the three I have experience on and it's a night race -- super keen! I haven't had an official night race in a league since 2010/11. At any rate I'm just happy to move on because these two tracks really don't appeal to me. As fun as both of them are to drive, they don't particularly make for good racing in my opinion.

While I may not have been able to show my pace today I'm quite happy with my driving. Another race with no drama or incidents, pace for the top ten and good consistency, and maybe the license was in the back of my mind while driving today as well. That's my only goal in this league, after all. Still brought the car home in 11th for decent points. Not bad.

So, sorry for the book but I felt like this race was solid and deserved a proper race report. I've been known to write long ones from time to time!

Cheers,

Mitch

P.S. Thank you for inviting me to talk on stream, but to be honest the race belonged to Florian, and I didn't feel I deserved an interview nor had anything to say about the race that would be interesting, as I said it was about par and quite boring from my perspective. That, and of course I use a webcam microphone so I would be horrified to present that level of quality to what was such an awesome stream. Thank you everyone who brought that stream to life, it was fantastic to watch it, especially the Crabb puns! Thought the commentary and post-race interviews were conducted with impressive professionalism. Hopefully I'll have a new headset shortly.

 

[Enzo Fazzi]

I guess I didn't fully press the button when I announced the 10 second warning, my bad.

On the other hand, a bell should start to ring if you blow past several cars going 60km/h, @Toni Ukic and @Jose Sousa

About the pre-race notes, since it's such a short 'league' we don't check the track as much as we do for, say, VEC races. For next season I'll make sure I know and announce any track-specific rule changes.