Fun-run: TPSCC Test

We have some good discussions going on following this race. Lets bring those discussions to the TPSCC Group so we can better handle the rFactor stock car racing in the future.

Good racing for the most part. Some bad judgement here and there which is true for all races, just an oval doesnt allow you to get away with it as much. Other then that, we got some new ideas and the next one will be better :-)

My first oval race, actually. As in "ever". I don't think I did too badly, but my ignorance of the rules of oval racing were apparent when - after receiving a drive-thru penalty - I basically passed the entire field on my way to pit lane (including the pace car).

I was following everyone else's lead on the start and restarts, as well. I saw a lot of people gun it before the line, so I did, too. In road race rolling starts you don't do that, but I figured it was different in NASCAR.

Call me evil if you will, but I chuckled everytime I saw someone wreck. Including myself, when I mashed into Conor in the last turn.

This was essentially my first online stock car race ever and it showed. I was not comfortable around other cars and having my car get really tight at the end of stints really made things hard.

With that said, it was pretty damn fun....till I crashed :(. I think it was the 3rd caution that I caused. I was running really close with some other cars after a restart and heading down the backstretch, I was paying most of my attention to them until I slammed hard into the SAFER barrier that sticks out in turn 3. That sent me into the rest of the field and I was just a passenger from then on; getting hit like a pin ball and finally coming to a stop at the top of the track. I quit right there, realizing that one of my rear tires was gone. Not too fun there :(. Sorry about that accident.

After that race, I'm probably going to stick with road racing. Can't really go fast with these cars, even with a decent setup. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted :).

Almost forgot. Apologies to Pablo Sixto for sending him into the wall.

MY 1ST WIN AT R2P!!!!That was some race i must say.It was somthing to see all u road racers trying to move these heavy stock cars around like they would respond in the amount of time that u thought they would.My goal was to stay low when ever i could knowing most of u would comeup in turns.That was all fine intill i tryed to take a few up high...omg almost lost the car 2 or 3 times being shown the wall.As far as following the rules it was easy to tell that most here are road racers and do not follow nascar.Like no passing before starting line...no passing someone before pit...lap cars stay low under yellow before green...lap cars need to see the blue flag.All of my short 4 yrs of sim racing was done in stock cars before i found Rfactor...so i had some idia of what to expect.I would also like to thank my team Code3Racing!!! Way to go

I have to publicly apologise to Guille for turning him around when attempting a pass. I ran up to him much quicker than I expected and could not avoid the touch.

I also have to thank Pat Dotson for his set up which helped me out quite a lot.

I have never been an oval fan and these cars are a handful at the best of times. I am also not completely aware of all the rules of Nascrap and did my best to follow what I thought was legal action. It appeared that some guys were racing back to the yellow and some were not, I basically followed whoever was ahead of me. I know it also appeared that I was gaining an advantage during a late race stop by dropping to the apron and passing a few cars to get even with the pace car.

Once the pit lane opened for the leaders and everyone who was going to stop had stopped, the pits were open to everyone else. Since all the cars ahead of me on the track chose NOT to pit and I was more than a lap down to them all what I did was drop to the apron and catch the pace car. I did not pass a single car for position and nor did I unlap myself. I merely moved to the head of the lapped car line which is where I would have been on a restart. Sorry if this caused any problem and I say again I did not gain a single spot.

All in all it was a well run race and once all the rules get ironed out I am sure it will be a hotly contested series.

The starts and re-starts need to be looked at as it really seemed a lot of guys are caught napping and you since you cannot pass underneath on a start it really causes a problem if a bad starter chooses to remain high on the track.

Had a pretty shitty race, I know ,no big surprise but I got turned around twice with no apology and that wasn`t cool. But what bothered me the most was on a restart a couple of cars got turned in front of me so I did an evasive action and dove into the grass to miss the carnage and got black flagged for cutting the track, race over for good driving.Bogus.
Also, I watch Nascar on tv and know the rules, but I don`t remember Tim saying anything about passing high only before the start finish, so when he said green,green, green,I hammered it.
My opinion is that we don`t need a human pace car, I would much rather see Tim participate in the race.I`m just a free member though so I`m sure my opinion wont carry much weight.I have thought about paying for an upgraded membership but for now I`m getting all the humiliation and frustration I can handlefor free.

When the server crashed it took me a good while to get back in so I missed qual. During practice I knew that running in the 30.200s to 30.500s would get me to lap 30 without much fall off. My plan was to stay out and gain track positing by managing the car. This was working perdy well. This and wreak avoidance skills [using the brake to slow when you see smoke] was working toward my favor. Quite a few were pitting very early and passing me at lightning speed but they were a lap down. As I got to my planned pit stop I was just getting ready to enter the pits and the yellow came out so I hit the track and pitted under yellow. I thought about putting in a RR spring rubber because the car felt a bit tight at the end of the run but thought better of it because the tire temps were showing loose not tight. I just didn't want to end up with a loose car leaning on RR toward the end of the race. I got in and out of the pits in a quick hurry by turning off the damage I had from a light tap I got out on the track. I reckon' no one else did this because I came out of the pits in second having picked up six spots. Everyone was in a big hurry on the start. Quite frankly I would have been too if I had been on the inside row. You have to get that lap back. I settled into my pace and let Pat and a few others go hopping they would come back to me late in the run. Another caution caused some confusion as the field didn't freeze and I lost a few spots from cars that passed me under yellow. On the restart I increased the pace. Ten laps to go and I picked up a few more spots. I had one tense moment when a lapped car with good tires was going by me. He gave me a little bump and I got "real" sideways but caught it. This let the third spot car get way from me. All in all a good race considering it's new to us Oval guys and some RC guys have never raced an oval.

Bill I'm pretty sure I was one of the cars that should have been behind you on the restart you mentioned. After watching the replay it looks like you were on the bottom when the cars started gathering but didn't get to the high side until after I had passed you, and indeed it appears I took a spot from you in the process - sorry about that.

I had only one goal in mind for this race: finish.

Despite being one of the slower cars in practice and qualifying, being a victim of the first wreck and deciding to make a full lap with a flat, escaping the second wreck with a bit more wrinkled sheet metal than I already had, and making contact with the wall no less than a dozen times unassisted, I still managed to finish 5th and had a great time doing it.