rec.autos.simulators

Eldred
--
Tiger Stadium R.I.P. 1912-1999
Own Grand Prix Legends?  Goto  http://www.racesimcentral.net/

Never argue with an idiot.  He brings you down to his level, then beats you
with experience...
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I've got a comment Eldred...  You're making me look bad now.  LOL  I can run
1:04.8 at Watkins Glen and 1:27.9 at Monza, but I can only run 3:20 on a great
lap at Spa, usually I run 3:21s and 3:22s though  ::sigh::

-----------------------------------------
Dan Belcher
Team Racing Unlimited
http://simcrash.00game.com

Dan, how does that make you look bad?  You're 3 seconds faster at the Glen and
Monza, and 4 seconds faster at Spa?  In other words, you're still faster...
Besides, that 3:24 lap was the only one of about 15 that I completed without
stuffing it in a fence somewhere...<sigh>

Eldred
--
Tiger Stadium R.I.P. 1912-1999
Own Grand Prix Legends?  Goto  http://gpl.gamestats.com/vroc

Never argue with an idiot.  He brings you down to his level, then beats you
with experience...
Remove SPAM-OFF to reply.

Sure, you're going seconds a lap faster than me.  Can you give me any
pointers?

Eldred
--
Tiger Stadium R.I.P. 1912-1999
Own Grand Prix Legends?  Goto  http://gpl.gamestats.com/vroc

Never argue with an idiot.  He brings you down to his level, then beats you
with experience...
Remove SPAM-OFF to reply.

Personally I believe in the Rudy Ulenhaut school of driving. Ignore speed.
Just drive around.  LINE is the all improtant issue, pratice keeping it on
the road and on the line. Drive as slow as you have to to accomplish this.
Do this long enough and speed comes of its own accord in tiny increments
over time.

This is why I would beat you in a race. I'm no hot lapper, although I adore
spending hours of solo practice. I'm a racer. By learning the way I do I can
run within tenths of my personal best at most tracks lap, after lap, after
lap. I almost never go off the road without help.  I get beat by people who
shift-r more than one time a race now and again, but the day will come when
I'm just as fast as they are, and DON'T go off the road.

It will take a lot of laps to reach that point, but that's all. Just
practice.

My problem is that as soon as  I get flowing and at peace with the car,
someone (she who commands) says "turn that ***y thing down".
That's excuse 27B on page 235. It *always* results in a spin.
Tony

Seriously, it's not that bad. Consistency is something you need to work on
though (ReplayAnalyser shows other laptimes in the session ;-)). I feel
quite pedantic disecting your driving like this, but as I suggested it in
first place, I can't chicken out now.

On the whole I have my doubts about the gears in that setup, but the car
seems to accellerate well enough and there's more to be gained from driving
style than setup at this time.

Let's take it step by step. I made notes (lines starting with dashes) as I
watched the replay and will reproduce them below together with comments.
Keep in mind I made these notes on the fly, so there was no time to dress
them up and make them sound "nice"... hope you understand.

Eau Rouge:

-lined it up wrong, causing downshift to 2nd...

You should have started this section further over to the left (nearly
brushing the wall is optimum).

Les Combes:

- allowed car to drift too far left in preceding kink --> too much speed for
hard turn in (entry too shallow) --> turn not tight enough --> too late on
power down the hill.

The Weslake V12 saved you there, but you can gain loads from keeping it
tighter through the kink (even if you have to lift) and a classic slow in -
fast out line through the turn.

Burnenville:

- ok-ish, moved to inside a little early and lost some speed.

Stavelot:

- not bad... did not slow enough and therefore 2nd part not tight enough,
costing accelleration down the hill (again).

I suggest you shift down to 3rd a little earlier and really turn in
agressively for the 2nd part (aim the car at the flags before you can see
the apex). Running your inside wheels off the track is a possibility.
Basically you should be aiming to get the power down as hard as possible, as
early as possible... there's a long, long fast section following this bend.
Ideally you should be shifting to 5th as you reach the wall to the left on
the exit, but again, I don't know if that's possible using your current
gears. Just try to go up the box as quickly as possible, taking full
advantage of the downhill slope.

Masta:

- missed turn-in and therefore apex of 1st part. Amazing recovery and
accelleration though.

Caroll Smith's Fundamental Truth nr. 2 (about racing lines) states: "The
faster the corner, the earlier the apex". Masta is a _very_ fast corner.
Give yourself room to "make it" and die less often. ;-)

Malmedy:

- not bad, could be tighter, could release more on exit, but adequate.

La Carriere:

- doesn't use enough track. (you notice I ran out of time because of longish
notes in Masta / Malmedy ;-))

There's some time to be found in this section, even after you start using
the whole track (and then some <g>), but I can't do it consistently either,
so I tend to err on the side of safety here.

Blanchimont:

- not good. Wrong approach, uses 1/3rd of track.

The kink before the braking zone should be approached from the left,
allowing you to stay on the throttle longer. Try to stay/drive out wider for
your turn-ins and run your inside wheels across the dirt. Really straigthen
those turns, it pays dividents.

Left hand kink before La Source:

- very good, nice use of track, good line.

La Source:

-brakes too early yet carries too much speed.

Eventhough you start braking quite early (about 30m before I normally do),
you carry a lot of speed into the turn, which you then have to scrub before
you can get on the power again.

I found out something interesting comparing my lap to yours using GPL
SpyGirl and ReplayAnalyser (must have utilities, see your favourite GPL
site) : You go from being 0.2s behind at the exit of Eau Rouge to 1.4s in
front at the start of the La Carriere section and drop back to 0.3s ahead
after La Source, losing the better part of that time in the Blanchimont
section. If you merge the laps in SpyGirl you can see a very grafic
demonstration of this... I gain like the proverbial cannonball through that
section.

Right that's it... IMO a low 3m21s is yours with a little practise and more
use of the track. I don't know what your mindset is when you're driving but
you need to be aware of such things. I regularly need to remind myself to
keep focused and "use" the car.

How's your relation to the car BTW, do you anticipate it's behaviour and
therefore take it where you want to go or are you just reacting to it and
coaxing it where you want to be going?

Would be interesting to know what the other group members think of my
appreciation of the lap (now that I've broken the ice, as it were), feel
free to comment (it can only help Eldred).

Cheers,

Jan.
=---

May I suggest AKG K300 closed shell headphones... not only do they sound
great and keep the game sound/music away from other room occupants, they
also _BLOCK_ enviromental sound. <vwg>

Jan.
=---

That's about it. Overall, and in a nutshell, Eldred needs to use more of the
track. That, and slow down the entrance on some of those curves -- Les
Combes, Malmedy, and Stavelot especially -- to get a better line. Not bad,
but could be improved.

Entrance to Eau Rouge is way wide. You need to enter from the far left at
the bridge, apex the right hander, and aim through the embankment for the
apex for the left hander. It should definitely feel like you're aiming to
drive *through* the embankment to hit that apex. (I've actually plowed into
that when I got in too slow to drift wide, probably by not being far enough
left at the first entrance.)

Les Combes is a question mark. This is one of my favorite passing spots; you
need to be able to drive both the normal and inside lines. As it were, this
one was a little too far inside, and a little late on the brakes, forcing a
tighter turn at the midpoint. I was, and still am, amazed at what you can
get away with in this corner. I wouldn't drive it as a double apex hairpin,
though, as he did in this lap. Still, not bad.

Burnenville has a small straight, or at least relaxes radius, connecting the
second, tighter segment. You should be able to run flat out in the first
part, relax steering, and catch your balance before turning in again. A
moderate lift plants the nose for the turn-in and gets the speed where it
needs to be. You need to stay on the inside half of the track to take
advantage of the road crown. Also, even the Weslake doesn't have much
acceleration potential with the wheel cranked. It's important to get the
entry speed right. Not so high that you drift over the crown, and not so low
because you haven't got the power to gain it back before Malmedy.

At Malmedy, a little slow coming over the peak, but too fast turning in for
the first right hander, causing him to drift off line for the first left
hand entrance. Scrubbed too much speed waiting for the tires to bite again.
Turn in for the left hander was a little early, again bringing him off line
for the right hand exit. The final right hander didn't apex. Use more of the
road, and get the speed down in the entrance. Try lining up for a straight
shot at the first entrance while you're still coming up the hill on brakes.

Masta turn-in was too early and gentle, followed by tightening the turn turn
twice before setting up for the right hand. Not bad, but need to turn once
and balance the car. Again, use more of the road, and hit a definite apex.
This is especially difficult on blind apex turns, such as here and at Eau
Rouge. You have to mentally see the apex and exit when you're turning in.

Stavelot also could have started farther to the outside on turn-in. There
are three definite segments in this turn. The lift here should be
progressive, and it should feel like a balancing act with the throttle. I
end up squeezing in a little more than neutral throttle shortly after
dropping to fourth, to get the weight back on the rears through the middle
segment, before dropping down to third and sweeping in for the (again blind)
very late apex. Entry for the third segment was a little fast, causing him
to drift wide onto the bad side of the crown before recovering for apex.

Cottage was OK, although the preceding kink could have been tighter to the
left-side embankment. This would give more road to use through the right
hand kink.

Quarry is a tough corner to coach. I still don't have landmarks here,
gauging turn-in from a spot near apex instead. The road crown just before
and after apex is steep enough to help, and I like to use it to tighten this
corner. The exit is somewhat tricky; it sometimes doesn't "feel" like it
will take it, causing you to lift unnecessarily. Other times, it feels like
you nailed it, but you end up drifting to the embankment. At any rate, time
spent on exiting this correctly helps tons in the long straight leading to
Blanchimont.

Braking for Blanchimont can be deeper. This is one of the few places where
threshold braking really helps. Again, you need to use more of the road, and
hit a definite apex. Of all the corners at Spa, this first left hander feels
most like a classic textbook corner.

Exiting Blanchimont for La Source, I find myself on the right side of the
track, almost hugging the rail until flicking past the sign post on the
right. The lift on entrance is very shallow, before getting back on the gas
to settle the rear.

You need a definite braking marker for La Source. I gauge this from the said
sign post on the right side of the track. About half a heartbeat past it is
about right. There's little need to point out that threshold and trail
braking are key elements here. You need to watch out for the slope change at
the top, and moderate your braking accordingly. Also, the transition to
neutral throttle has to be quick but not abrupt.

I hope this helps. You're really close to making a breakthrough.

Michael.

Jan Verschueren wrote ...

Would be very intersested in seeing the replay to compare with your notes
Jan. Eldred - do you mind reposting? It was not there when i looked.
Tony

BTW - alt.binaries is a bit scary when you're wondering whether it was sport
or sims so you type "s" . I wasn't prepared to look at
alt.binaries.spanking...

Hehehe... you should see some of subjects in the
alt.binaries.pictures.***a -groups. (not to mention the stuff posted
there ;-)).

Jan.
=---

Alt.binaries.spanking?!?  I don't know why that even *surprises* me...  There's
a lot of WEIRD stuff out there.<g>
No problem, I'll post it again.

Eldred
--
Tiger Stadium R.I.P. 1912-1999
Own Grand Prix Legends?  Goto  http://gpl.gamestats.com/vroc

Never argue with an idiot.  He brings you down to his level, then beats you
with experience...
Remove SPAM-OFF to reply.

Eldred
p.s. thanks for the suggestions...  I'll print them out and study them.
Hopefully, I'll be doing a LOT better in two weeks(I'll tell you why later...).
--
Tiger Stadium R.I.P. 1912-1999
Own Grand Prix Legends?  Goto  http://gpl.gamestats.com/vroc

Never argue with an idiot.  He brings you down to his level, then beats you
with experience...
Remove SPAM-OFF to reply.

Eldred
--
Tiger Stadium R.I.P. 1912-1999
Own Grand Prix Legends?  Goto  http://www.racesimcentral.net/

Never argue with an idiot.  He brings you down to his level, then beats you
with experience...
Remove SPAM-OFF to reply.