rec.autos.simulators

Hello,

I just had to post something today, and since N3 is not released yet in Europe
I can't join in yet :)

Thanks to Remco's advices on gearing setup on GSB-chat yesterday i finally
got that 1.29.95 at Monza with the Eagle. Now there is only one way to go,
faster :)

And i still have that 3:30 limit an Spa to beat.

--
Olav K. Malmin
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Hey - me too - I just got 1.29.76 and 1.29.84 on successive laps with
the default Lotus 1.1 setup.

Looks we're gonna kick ass on VROC soon (unless the others are getting
faster as well)!

Sounds like you drive a lot more at Monza than Spa!  ;-)

I find it helps to be *really* aggressive at Spa - you can go for it as
much as you like as it's a super-fast circuit.

Oh, and gearing is *extremely* important at Spa.

Still haven't broken 3:20 though  :-(

Well, I spend an hour every night i'm home on VROC. And i've started to not
finish last. Some weeks ago, I always finished last of those who finished. I
find it better to beat a racer than some hot-shot who spins out, and disconnect
because he doesn't find any interest in fighting for 8th :) I'm still happy
if i finish ahead of someone and if it was a good fight along the way.

I spent a lot of time at Spa before i got my MSFF wheel, but it is easier to
train many laps at Monza than Spa.

--
Olav K. Malmin
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Funny thing is, Spa is the one track where I instantly went faster with
the Aura Interactor vibrating seat thingie - purely because I was more
pumped up than usual!

It was incredible to be blasting down those straights forgetting that it
was only a sim, and I found myself wanting to go even faster rather than
wimping out on the fast kinks.

Normally I prefer tracks like Zandvoort where I'm busy for the whole
lap, rather than trundling down the straight thinking about how badly I
took that last corner!

I've been running the lotus w/pretty much default setups, although i just
started tweaking them, and I've gotten to around 1:32.  Do I need to trail
brake to break 1:30 or can it be done w/out?

Curse you Olav, you swine!  ;-)))
    I've been stuck at 1:30 for ages! best lap 1:30.15. Must admit lately I
have been spending more time at Spa after having the same 3:30 barrier as
you. Finally modified some of Senor Nunnini's setups for the Lotus and have
managed a P.B. of 3:27.2 - IN A RACE!. Might spend some more time at Monza
tonight to see if I can beat the elusive 1:30
                                Cheers..
                                Phillip...

Hehe, well it took me about nine months myself to break 1.30. Funny thing,
I did a lot of practice laps on Monza yesterday, but couldn't get it under
1.30 at all.

I think we have come to a point when setups doesn't do much, but we have to
change the way we drive.

--
Olav K. Malmin
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Neil,

Could I ask where you got your interactor from.  I, like you, am in
the UK and haven't been able to find a UK source for this bit of h/w.

Cheers

Mike

I ordered it over the internet (eek) from this email address:

I think they have a stock of 6000 of the (discontinued) Aura
Interactors, and are selling them for $20 + $45 shipping to the UK
(takes 6-8 weeks) = $65 total.

I gave him my visa number by email (you can send the two halves in
separate emails for some security).

Make sure you specify the 220volt version - I got the 110 volt version
and had to buy a special mains transformer for 35!

He also has a web site but I can't remember the URL, I'm afraid.

I find it very interesting that I always have a kind of 'limit' on a track I
practice often. When I break one limit I'm immediately stuck on the next
one. In Monza the first one was of course the 1:30. Then suddenly I managed
a 1:29:8x. Well, that was the next one. I don't know how much laps I did
with times that were just a few hundreths away from that time. Then, boom
out of the blue sky, suddenly a 1:29:25. Well, there I'm stuck now, with a
PB of 1:29:20 and about 30 times betwen 1:29:20 and 1:29:30. (And I know,
the 1:28 will come suddenly and unexpected... ;-) The interesting part is,
when I compare (with SpyGirl) 2 good laps that are very close in time and
one time I had the feeling for example the Parabolica was very good and on
the other lap perhaps the Lesmos, I find out out that they are driven almost
exactly the same. No very good Parabolica or Lesmos, just the same ***as
in the other lap. Strange, how quick one can get used to a way to drive the
particular turns and how hard it is to unlearn one's habits to get a bit
quicker again...

Peter
Vienna, Austria

I picked one up at a place in Phoenix called   MacFrugals (sp?)
It's aplace that sells discount stuff, store buyouts, . Most cities
have a similar place. Back in Massachusetts and RI  there was one
called Ocean State Job Lot

anyway, they had them for only $9.99

Mike Lewis

Remco also gave some very sound advice on VROC one night. If I've got it
correct he said, "For those who are still above 130 at Monza; take an F3 out
for an hour solid. When you come back to the F1 you will have lost a
second."

I took my F3 out for one hour and have been making 29's ever since. :-)

--
Mark Jeangerard
www.soundchaserweb.com
New Mexico USA

Very reckognizable for me, your story. I'm stuck at 1.28.45 at this
moment, but like you I also got stuck at 1.30, 1.29.80, 1.29.70 etc.
For me the best way to keep improving is this:
I drive 30 laps on Monza. Then I save each lap to a replay.
Then I compare each lap to my 1.28.45 lap, and make notes which cornes
I took good in which lap, and in which corners I absolutely screwed
up.
Then I go back to GPL and watch each replay again, trying to find out
why I took a certain corner to well. With these times, a very minor
difference in taking a corner can make tenths of seconds of
difference.
I try to remeber how I took the corner, and then try it again and
again, untill I can keep driving that corner like I did it before in
my best lap.
This is how I got from 1.29.80 to 1.28.45... and I still see lots of
room for improvement.
The corner which is most difficult for me is the 2nd lesmo, still
can't get that one right. Another difficult corner for me was the
Curva Grande. Finally I felt how I should drive this corner, I
compared my laps with the WR of Woeger, and finally I'm able to drive
it as fast as he does :)

Hope this helps,
Andre

On Fri, 17 Sep 1999 22:16:04 GMT, "Peter Prochazka"

Is it me, or do a lot of guys here just drive on the same 2 or 3 tracks
trying to improve their PBs.  If this is the case then it doesn't
surprise me that you are eventually hitting a "wall" timewise.

I've been playing GPL pretty regularly for the past 3 months and the way
I play it is to do a Grand Prix season so that I am regularly visiting
each track in turn.  I have found that by doing this, everytime I return
to each track, it is with a fresh outlook and renewed enthusiasm and, as
a consequence, I have been able to improve my PB at every circuit during
the first practice round.  Then, once I have set what I would call a
decent enough qualifying time - one that has improved on my previous PB
by at least .5 of a second - I then concentrate on getting my race day
car setup.  In this way my times have been tumbling, and the last time I
was at Monza I managed a 1:28.77 and have done 3:21.xx at Spa and still
see room for improvement at all circuits.

One sad note though, since I have gone the whole hog with the Grand Prix
distance race with my last season, whereas I used to be able to finish
races at the other distances, I am yet to complete a race.  I've come
close on a few occasions, managing about 3/4 distance before one slip in
concentration has seen me ploughing out of the race. :-(
Except, that is, for when I was racing at Silverstone and was lapping a
Ferrari just before Woodcot, went slightly deep into the corner but
thought I had still managed the pass, only to be clipped by the
b*ast*rd.  This spun me round and he then rammed my front end taking my
right wheel off.  When I checked the replay I discovered that the
Ferrari had actually driven on to the pit lane "cobbles" in order to get
on the inside line and, despite my starting to pull away from him as my
Lotus accelerated onto the straight, the *** had drifted out and
clipped my back wheel with his front.  This was only 20 laps from the
finish.

Anyway, I digress, as I said, if you are not racing on all the tracks
then try it, it doesn't take that long to learn a new one - apart from
the ring of course - and it certainly stops things from getting too
stale. ;-)
--
Peter Ives

After reading your post, I felt that urge, that I *must* get rid of my
'barrier' in Monza and finally set a 1:28 time. But because I'm a lazy guy
and analyzing dozens of laps in detail seemed too much work, I tried a
different approach:
Setup change! I was using Nunnini's Lotus 3.1 setup, which feels very
comfortable and quite fast, but I thought it could use a little bit more
oversteer in Monza. So I tweaked around and suddenly, after a promising
1:29:14, a 1:28:88 ! Yippie!:-) And the best thing is, using SpyGirl and
GPLDump, I found out, that I lost nearly half a second in the Parabolica in
this lap vs. my old PB. So there is room for improvement, there is *hope*,
finally!
Well, then I made the old mistake again, trying to push too hard to improve
further. So I went to the Glen with my setup. Having a PB of 1:06.07, a 1:05
is the time I long for. And yesss!, after falling off the Big Bend in lap 2,
lap 3 was a 1:05:99 and lap 5 a 1:05.85. After some other high 1:05's and
the old 'overcooking' issue, I thought, let's try something different:
Zandy!
I love and hate that track: It's so much fun to drift around through these
turns, hardly ever braking or gear shifting, but it's sooo easy to fly over
the dunes when setting a wheel off the track. My PB there was a lonely
1:28.58 among a lot of crappy 1:29's. Well, after some laps of  small and
big mistakes, which prevented me from telling the value of my new setup,
there it was: On lap 12, I nailed a 1:26.73 into the sands of Holland !!! I
was so happy, that I forgot to brake for Tarzan after I saw the pitboard!
What a day, 3 new PB's on different tracks, each breaking a limit to a new
second and all without doing hundrets of laps! :-))))
Well, all I want to say (besides congratulating myself :-)) is, if you're
stuck on a lap time and cannot improve it further, try to tweak your setup.
Another setup forces you to drive different and maybe faster.
So I'm off to Spa, there's a crappy 3:25.xx to beat... ;-)
Well..., please forgive me this lengthy post, but I'm somewhat euphoric
today!

Peter
Vienna, Austria