Great race last night.

[Naldo]

Well done to all in last night’s race.

Although I did not finish the race, it was a huge learning curve for myself.

I went into qualifying with alot of confidence, having put alot of time in on the track last week due to working night shift I was able to explore more setups and start to tweak things myself. Also started to look at the lap analyzer to compare what I was doing to the WR. Which paid off as I was averaging in the 1:04's and managed to get into the 1:03's the night before the race.

Qualifying went pretty bad. I was really struggling for some reason lapping  1:07's and 6's. Eventually ending up at the back of the grid  just scraping into the 1:05's. Which left me annoyed with myself as I knew I could have done alot better. I started worrying that I had messed my setup up by tweaking it incorrectly. After asking around for the one I had been using from EasyEd, no one had it. So stupidly I made the decision to revert to one I had been using earlier in the week that I had some confidence in.

Two minutes till kick off and someone mentioned fuel..... Damn, I completely forget to work out what I needed. :doh: I hadn’t even ran the car around the track with full race load to see how it handled. Due to the weekly races only being 9 laps. Idiot... Again confidence was hit as I made a mad panic to sort it out. After listening to the conversation on TS, I decide to go for a 50:50 split as Lameduck's pit stop only took just over 3 seconds.

Start of the race arrived and I managed to get a half decent start, I think I managed to gain two places by the half way mark of the initial corner. I was committed and started to power out of the corner, then  was greeted by a head on view of Millesabords car and bang, went straight into him head on. One or two other cars I believe got caught up in it also. A lap or two later and I was running 9th with HerrnRettichsDad in chase.
The car was horrible to drive now, It felt like I had no grip on the rear and There was a weird scraping noise from the car during the bends. I had not hear it before and I knew it was not from the tyres. A few laps later and my times were horrible, 1:07's and higher. Split times were bad also and I was making bad mistakes after the corner exits and I was fighting the back end. Maybe I was trying to hard through frustration?  

HerrnRettichsDad was on me and I ran slightly wide at the first corner, whilst he went on the inside. I ended up next to the barrier on my left and was hit on my right as he came through the inside. This sent me straight into the barrier and I span out. facing the wrong way on the left side of the track. Engine was still running so I quickly span the car around, only to hit HerrnRettichsDad into the rear right of his car. I was unaware that he had also span out after the collision.

Car was a mess and I decided to pit in. I had no choice but to instruct the pits to fix the damage. A 45 second pit stop later and I was running last with over a lap and a  half down.  :sad:

Back out on track again now with the leading pack under half a lap behind me, I carried on and started to get back into it. Ten laps later and I was still really struggling. The leaders were gaining around 3-4 seconds a lap on me, My times were terrible. My tyres were still cold with only the inners with a hint of green. What the hell was happening? All week I was having trouble with my tyres over heating during the 9 lap races....:g: I had moved upto R2's to counter this. But I did not know what was happening now.

The race leaders came and went, as did the main pack.

Two laps down now and my times were not improving, So I decided to just go for it in pure frustration. I got a good run out of turn one and ended up with a split time in the 29's. Great that’s more like it. Then game over.

Too fast into the chicane with no grip. Next thing I knew the car was on its roof after only 23 laps.
End of the day, It was great fun and I enjoyed it all.

What I learned:
Calculate the fuel during the week.
Take the car out with race fuel onboard during the week.
Backup the setups before tweaking them.
Don’t panic and switch setups at the last second.
Don’t get frustrated, as it will lead to nothing.

Things to read up on:
The Sim interface. How to interpret my damage.
Navigating the F12 page and what I can and can’t do.
Understand why my tyres were so cold and what is needed to help prevent it.

[Lameduck]

Great report Naldo.

I also lost it on turn one very early on and went from a comfortable 4th to an disappointing  9th. I had some great racing with Mille Sabords, Slider 46, Mattgirv and Rasta at different stages of the race and finally came in 5th.
Congratz to Three Jump, Deeslider and Slider46 for their podium places and it was great to have mattgirv racing with us again.

Don't want to sound patronizing, but you are doing exceptionally well. I can't count how many one hour races I've not finished and even the speedy Seany can testify after last night how frustrating the one hour race can be.

There's a cracking guide by Bob Smith that can help you with set-ups
http://lfs.thefloatingwidget.net/files/LFS_Advanced_Setup_Guide.pdf but the dMr guys usually have a few answers.

[mattgirv]

Yeah thanks for the great racing last night, good to be back, I was making loads of mistakes near the end whilst behind Slider though fortunately I managed to recover from them all in some sort of zen-like autopilot mode.

Naldo you did really well considering you hadn't practiced with the setup and fuel, it does make a fairly big difference especially when things get hairy. And I think it's only natural when you damage your car, or overheat your tyres to try and push harder to gain time on what you're losing, but it's always better to ease off and try just to make it round as invariably you end up making it even worse. I'm guilty of this more than anyone

I'm surprised I managed to pull through and make it through the entire hour. Even aside from fatigue/tyre/fuel management, you have the really huge problem of the track being evil, one little mistake and you're screwed.

Kudos to Three Jump managing to lap me twice and great racing all round really, accidents happen especially on combos like this. Fast and unforgiving. :taz:

[Seany]

Nice race reports.  I had a real good first half of the race with Dee, and was gaining on Three for a bit.  But unfortunately, while the setup half of us where on was great for the quick races, the tires got too cool over the hour.  I should have done some testing and changed the pressures.  But you know, hindsight and all that

 At half distance I made an error going into the chicane and hit the Armco on the right then bounced to the one on the left, then I was on my roof :doh: .

Well done three Jump Deeslider and Slider46!

It was a great combo and I had some good racing through the week.

[Mille Sabords]

Nice report Naldo, and nice race as well!

I created a mess in T1 - I was going into there confidently, and had to stand on the brakes to avoid Rasta who had read-ended Lameduck
I barely missed him but lost control of the car in the process, and spinned
After that I fought to get back up the grid, but quickly managed to popcorn the engine, making it impossible to compete (approx 10-15 km/h loss on the straight and downhill section, 1.5s per lap estimate). I decided to continue and noticed my tyres pressure choice was good for R2s, good heat management through the whole race.
I made it through the hour... congrats to the almighty podium takers!

Naldo: After 10min races your tyres should be slightly above the optimal temperature (brownish color in F9) - else they will not get enough heat in, especially as they start wearing off (thinner tyres cool way faster in LFS).
2 main ways to get more heat (apart from drifting into corners): lower pressure (although it may affect your top speed) and softer compound. That is why we see a lot of funny XFG setups will rallycross tyres at the back.