GTx: Imola [Novice]

Just great.

My adsl connection fell... Amazing
I have the worst luck ever.
congrats to the winners, bad luck for the people whose adsl line fell.. :((

Good race all. Denis - quite impressive drive for a novice ;)

The rain really threw me off. I was finally getting comfortable again with GTR, then that. I made some setup changes before the race, but forgot to change the diff, so the car was a real handful on corner exit.

A big thanks to Mr. Virt for clean driving when we were close to each other, and also to Mr. Chiastra for missing me when I came back on the track in front of you.

It is fun to be back racing again.

Good race and congratulation the podium!

It was my first race on Race2Play. I started 19th because I couldn't qualify. I finished 5th. So I'm happy!

I didn't expect a wet race. I had problem with back tyre temperatures. I had to stop in the first laps to change tyres from soft wet to hard wet. The situation improved, but it wasn't perfect.
Maybe were intermediate tyres the best choice?

See you on track,
Claudio

Wild race!

Went out with my dev setup that I finally ran a 1
:43 on last night with soft wet's and 30-50 Diff I think. It was slippery! Ease in and short shift it ;). But I took a full tank, and half the way through I realized I need not pit. So I ran it non-stop. Pit light didn't even come on til last lap. But my tires seemed to hold up decent considering all the spins. I've got an ATI gfx card and can't get motec to work, so I loose out a bit on the in-cockpit info and I'm not sure how hot they were getting.

Congrats all finishers, this one was a handful for sure. I think I spun at least 6 times.

It was only my second GTR race ever, I qualified 4th and I'd never driven in the rain so I was a little apprehensive at the beginning. I was a little slow at the start and managed to clip a maserati through turn two. I'm not sure whose fault it was, but I was off and he he looked ok, so I didn't really worry about it.

I was basically at the back at this point, but I was able to pass a few people having a little more trouble than I was. The soft wets were definitely a bad idea, but it wasn't really until I'd pitted about 30 minutes in from 6th, that I realized just how much worse the handling was at the end of the stint even compared to new cold hard wets.

I had definitely had my share of spins, but I was starting to get into a groove when I began to catch Bill. The problem was that for some unknown reason I simply could not see his car. The only reason I even knew he was there, other than the timing, was the spray. Anyway, I stayed close for a while trying to figure a way past, but got too close off the main straight, lost concentration looking for the spray and cooked it into turn 1. I would have been ok I think, but I couldn't see the car ahead of me at all with no or very little spray and rammed Bill right off the track.

My car didn't seem to be that damaged from what flew off... but it felt like it was pulling quite a bit even coming out of the gravel and I was worried about the invisible car issue so I decided to call it quits rather than risk more people's races.

Anyway, congrats Denis, and I'm sorry Bill. I really could not see you unless we were going fairly quickly. Oddly enough, after I hit what seemed to be nothing you finally showed up a couple seconds later dumped in the gravel. I'm glad to see you were able to finish, but I'm sorry if the dmg prevented you from moving up the field.

I was caught off guard with the weather. I should have known, little cloud means rain. I started the race with medium slicks. The car was a handful to drive but I decided to run 5 laps and make sure I was in the fuel window. I took soft wets and a full load of fuel and hit the track. I determined to race the track and and the track only. I ran careful as I could, short shifting and easing it in. At one point I had made it up to 7th but ended up in the sand when I ran into Justus with my rear bumper. No problem at all Justus, I was draging an ancor on corner entry and I'm sure it caught you off gaurd. We both worked the clutches a good while before we got out of the sand. I had a few 4 offs but didn't spin it out so all in all I enjoyed the race very much.

Double Posted

Rain killed me lol I didn't realize there was going to be rain.. I didn't know what tires to use. I started out with soft wet and it was not working out, so after 1 lap I changed to hard wet and crashed it after leaving the pit exit damaging the car. I had to call it a day ;)

Congrats Denis, David and all who finished this very difficult race.

I've waited a long time for a rain race and I got it in spades at Imola! The old Corvette was just the ticket here. I ran with soft wets which seemed to work very well for me. The only thing that made my drive a bit difficult, I forgot to change the diff which made for some very delicate throttle control to keep the rear in check.
I did have 2 or 3 incidents where over anxious drivers spun me around, once when I was in 2nd place! LoL

I would like to mention 2 incidents with the same car during qualifying. As the ideal situation for qual is to be spaced apart so we don't get in each others way, this isn't always the case. In my situation, I found myself rapidly gaining on an F-550 which I hoped would give me a little room to get by without effecting us both too much. Well, as I tried to pass on the outside, the 550 very aggressively raced me for the next corner. Not wanting to create a situation, I backed way off (ruining that lap of course) till he was out of sight. I then went for another qual lap attempt, only to catch the same car again with the same result!!! Please, it doesn't cost that much of your lap time to just let the faster car past. I do the same for faster cars that come up on me all the time. No hard feelings, just wish people would use a little common sense in these situations.

Anyway, I had a real fun time playing in the rain, hope for more in the future.

Dan

Hi Dan.

Sorry about that. I guess that was me. I was just challanging you to race a lap with me. So I really don't know what to tell you.. I thought you took me up to the challange when we raced down the long straight.

I was just trying to have fun.