rec.autos.simulators

Found a race at the Glen, which was great as I've improved a great deal
there in the Ferrari recently (I'm disappointed if I don't qualify in
the 1:05.xx bracket), and qualified 2nd in 1:05.39, a fair bit behind
the polesitter's Lotus (mid-1:04), but just 0.01s ahead of a bloke I'll
only refer to by his initials (JF - not someone I regularly race
against), also in a Lotus. Time for some good racing, I thought.

Got through T1 okay (seems to be more common at the Glen than you might
think), and at the end of lap 1 JF's right on my tail. At the Loop, he
slips up the inside, but runs slightly wide, so I get him back going
onto the straight - a classic move, with both drivers clean and fair.
My grin widens...

But then JF slipstreams me up the back straight, and pulls alongside
into the Speed Trap left-hander. I'm practically touching the Armco on
the left, but assume he'll make it past, so hold my line and lift off
*very* slightly (as I can't see where he is). Next thing I know, BAM!
I'm upside down. Oh well, Shift-R time.

A few seconds later, I see a "THX" from JF. I assume this is a little
sarcastic, so put up a "SRY" to mollify him, even though I can't see
that I've done anything wrong (I certainly didn't move over on him).
I'm about 10th now, but for 1/2 lap everything's OK.

Then, another message from JF: "That didn't mean THX you know". Then "I
was being sarcastic". And then: "What I meant was *** OFF". And, with
that piercing insight, JF disconnects. I've lost concentration because
of this (now that *is* my fault) and smash into the hay bales at the
Esses. Race over for me.

Looking at the replay afterwards, what's happened is that JF has come
around the outside, and shut the door on me when we were *exactly*
level (at which point I couldn't see him at all). We've interlocked
wheels, and that caused the crash (he retired too). Now, I'd have been
happy to call it a racing accident, even though I felt JF was more at
fault than me. But this really wasn't nice.

The thing is, the success of VROC depends to a large degree on
gentlemanly conduct, and to a large extent it gets it - most of us will
put up a "NP" rather than get into a slanging match. But if you want to
criticise, please do it in a civil way rather than just shooting your
mouth off - especially when you're not entirely blameless yourself.

Yeah, I know it happens all the time, and tomorrow I'll have forgotten
about it, but somehow it hurts more in GPL than anywhere else because
of the "sporting" image of the game. Rant over.

--
"After all, a mere thousand yards... such a harmless little knoll,
really" - Raymond Mays on Shelsley Walsh.

The GPL Scrapyard: Back again! http://www.racesimcentral.net/~gplscrapyard

--Steve

  VROC pickup races aren't any different than a Sierra.com one :)

-John

Doug

JF is from  " The 'Madding' Crowd..".;-))

Morgan Boof

<SNIP>

David -- Just turn the in car chat off! Talk about shit like that AFTER
the race.

Cheers

Gerry

Just to put you right: it *wasn't* that JF!

--
"After all, a mere thousand yards... such a harmless little knoll,
really" - Raymond Mays on Shelsley Walsh.

The GPL Scrapyard: Back again! http://www.btinternet.com/~gplscrapyard

<snip>

It wasn't him. It was someone I've never heard of. And my point was
that it was worse than the usual *for a pickup race*.

--
"After all, a mere thousand yards... such a harmless little knoll,
really" - Raymond Mays on Shelsley Walsh.

The GPL Scrapyard: Back again! http://www.btinternet.com/~gplscrapyard

Criticism I can take. Insults I can accept. Even pointless obscenities
I'll live with. But most of the time the insulter has the guts to wait
for a reply.

And maybe it's true that GPL's sporting image is overdone (as John
Pancoast says above), but equally I get a little tired of people
implying that a VROC race is inevitably some sort of crashfest. 90% of
VROC pickup races not at Monza work very well - as I mentioned in my
post, I've had very few problems with the start at the Glen.

--
"After all, a mere thousand yards... such a harmless little knoll,
really" - Raymond Mays on Shelsley Walsh.

The GPL Scrapyard: Back again! http://www.btinternet.com/~gplscrapyard

Eldred
--
Dale Earnhardt, Sr. R.I.P. 1951-2001
Homepage - http://www.umich.edu/~epickett
GPLRank - under construction...

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

I tape over the bit of screen where the messages appear with black
electrical insulation tape, as turning the in-car chat option off still
serves up the connect/disconnect messages.

Jan.
=---

I take yer point...but I'm not really shocked that you've encountered
rudeness from the hoi-polloi online (and I *know* it wasn't
Frankenheimer--he hates computers).  Actually, I'm surprised at how
civilized GPL pick-up racing is...certainly as compared to NASCAR races,
which resemble the chaos at the Do Lung bridge in "Apocalypse Now."

BTW, thanks for the great pick-up race at Monza the other day!

--"John Winter"

-John

Ok, why?

Gerry

<snip>

Ditto.

--
"After all, a mere thousand yards... such a harmless little knoll,
really" - Raymond Mays on Shelsley Walsh.

The GPL Scrapyard: Back again! http://www.btinternet.com/~gplscrapyard