GP79: Trois-Rivieres

That was half a surprise to be comfortably faster than other cars, and half to even last the race!
My "newer" gfx card is doing exactly what rFactor used to do way back in the last Season Buenos Aires race period, with the prior gfx card! Freeze for 10secs or so and then resume the game with corrupted graphics! And whoi know what will happen in that 10secs you see nothing while the car keeps going on track!

I had a common lousy start and Roberto got ahead right away and I didn't know where he was beside me and I lost a bit of control into Turn 1 so he got clearly ahead and into the lead. But I felt I had no rush to get the lead back as we would most likely run away from others and with a bit of speed up my sleeve eventually I would get past anyway. So the first aim was to sit behind and be patient, though to hound him in 'safer' areas.
Within a lap Roberto looked to outbrake himself at the end of the long straight, so that gave an easy pass and I was off and gone then.

After about lap 10 area (less?) I was 15secs ahead then ,y game froze down the main straight! I immediately hit the brakes, which I had set to be able to use 100% pedal and never lock them up anyway. So when it resumed miraculously I was alive still, but with Roberto then just 0.7secs behind! And a track view that looked like an acid trip! So it took a number of laps to work out the 'new' track so I could race on.

Once I got used to it I was going very well again - as fast as when I could see the track properly! So I just focussed on lapping a safe fast pace. And hoped the PC would not crash big time if it did it again!

After the race at the Monitor screen it was total garbage graphics so I guessed the tect area, sent a message and left the game to reload it, but you can't rejoin a "race session". DOH.

Once again, a race full of excellent 'passing allowances' by cars that were getting blue flags! Very important on such a dangerous track, so that was well done by all drivers!

hehe!! another dnf ...how surprising!!
Christian, do you think it would be possible to have for the next season, if there is one, a lower car damage so we can have fun heu... for a longer period, at least, i know i should practice more or be more patient, but it s hard to run easier, for me anyway... just a tought...if possible, tks in advance!!:)
For the race, all went very well as i had a blast fighting with you Christian :) that is until i barely clipped the wall and ended up with a tricycle!!!
GJ on all who finished again, i had high hopes as this was my hometown race...
seeya

Today I learned about F1 history... the Lotus 80 is one those examples of an "evolution" of a car that gets dumped mid season to revert to good old trusty Lotus 79. Well after the race I tested for the first time and was at least 0.6 secs faster!!! well that wouldn't have been enough today but still with some more practice maybe I've could have fought with Massa.

Now to the race... bad luck at the start.. game synch problem got me freezed for some 10 secs starting dead lastm then on to pass guys until the toughest was Chris... but its ligier decided to go nose diving into a wall, not a big crash but enough for me to pass him. then being lapped by Peter and then Roberto, completed a race finale not too pleasant but well... at least the first half was a lot of fun.

See you all in Mosport... this time in the Lotus 79... I'm done with this Lotus 80.

Too many mistakes due to wrong brake balance i sorted out only halfrace. + I didn't practice, just pick up the lotus thinking was the car here. Not my car, btw was fun to not allow Peter to overlap me too, you was shooting some fast laps trying to catch me

I was lucky to actually make the race! Just like a few weeks back, I forgot all about it and thought it was next week! But this time it was just that I suddenly wondered if I was wrong about that so I went to check the evening before (race is 5am morning - yawn - here) and found out it was this week!

I have had lots of races at Trois, but never in an F1 79 and very surprisingly it was the best suited car for the track that I have raced there out of any other Mods! I just used my Longbeach Lotus setup, but maxed out the wings (instead of the 1/3 max that suits Longbeach better) and it was fast and rock solid too. Being all short sections, plus fatal if you ever lose control, meant it was far more important to have high downforce and safety rather than any high speed ability.

That is now three video cards (All nVidia) that stuff up ONLY in rFactor, the same way! I can play COD2 or COD4 all night without a glitch (like 8 hours straight!). Or any other games I have. rFactor is by far the fussiest game (engine) I have ever seen! And my PC has been upgraded/rebuilt etc numerous times over the year or so - not one item constant and the O/S rebuilt many times too.

They don't run hot at all, by temp readouts and specs still way within acceptable ranges, but rFactor will cause a graphics card crash and VPUrecover sooner or later (well within one hour pretty assured). It trashes the video memory contents - objects or textures - and is just up to luck if it is bad enough damage to cause a total game crash! I am sure there is something amiss in the gmotor2 engine itself, somehow tied in with the video memory management. Or maybe tied in with certain nVidia driver flaws(?).

So now it is off to ATI once again and see how they go with this next 48xx series of cards.... Crossfire this time?

Oh man, what a frustrating race. It was going so well and then still..

No time for practice,so all my practice was just prior to the race. I was planning to use the fw07,but I had major problems with oversteer. As a last minute solution I decided to swithc to the m29. I loaded my Monaco setup for the m28 and went for some laps. It was surprisingly good.

Then I decided to try the same setup on the ligier and see how it would work out. Good as well. A couple of seconds faster then the m29.

Qualified a bit down the field. Didn't get a clean lap so it was ok.

Got off to a very good start and was in 3rd position by t2. Things were going well. I was able to pull ahead of Daniel lap by lap. In a way I was hoping for a podium finish this time..But it was not to be.

4th lap or so. Overheating problems down the straight. Just as I went into 6th gear the overheat indicator would come up.

The setup had rad 2. That was enough for a full race at Monaco in the m28,but apparently not enough for the Ligier around here...Bummer :-(

I had to short-shift like mad to keep the temp down and that meant Daniel was closing in. We had a good fight for position with some fun and fair racing. But I had to be careful to avoid a blowout,so eventually he got by :-(

The plan was changed from trying to get a podium finish,to just try and make it without the engine blowing up :-)

It went well. But it also meant my laptimes were way to slow. As a consequence Emilio was up my rear all of a sudden. We had a long fight for position. I was to focused on short-shifting and preserving my engine, so in the end I lost it and hit the barrier :-(

Lost the front wing and got suspension damage.Still, I wanted to finish the race no matter what.

Didn't make any more mistakes and made it to the end.

Never been so frustrated in a race before. Next time I need to practice more .

Grats to all finishers. A surprisingly high amount of people managed to finish. This was a tough one. But a great track..