The schedule is really more of a guideline anyway.
Someone tell Dark?
The schedule is really more of a guideline anyway.
Someone tell Dark?
You guys rock! I just sent Dark King a message. Hopefully Thursday night works for him since it looks like everyone else confirmed Thursday was ok.
In other news, my flight is delayed an hour so instead of getting home around 10pm, looks like 11pm is about as good as I can hope for.
Dark King is good with tomorrow.
So are we on for tomorrow?
dean1484 said:So are we on for tomorrow?
Yes
Warm up them engines boys!!! This could be a fun race. The opportunity to crash and damage the car is very high so everyone has a chance to win or go down in a smoking pile of metal.
In reply to dean1484 :
I ended up with 1 damage to the front from contact with an AI, but managed to avoid damage the rest of the race. After Sauces 2nd pit stop,he came out of the pits just ahead of me, but almost a lap down. I was trying to be a bit more careful, but managed to still turn about the same lap times. Sauce gained 1-3 seconds a lap on me from lap 39 through lap 45, so he was flying, but there was not enough time for him to catch back up unless I crashed and needed to pit again.
My first stint I averaged about a 1:42.6 lap time and after my stop I averaged about the same (1:42.7 or so). Fun race on an unforgiving track.
In reply to T.J. :
You ran a great race, you pushed me into running at a faster pace than I really wanted to from the start. My target lap time was 1:42's, my actual for the first stint was a 1:42.0 but most of my laps were 41's. I did manage to work up a decent lead, but after pitting the gap was down to 5s and I suspect you only changed the front tires to trim pit time. I had considered doing the same but wasn't sure if doing so would lead to more oversteer and decided to play it safe. It turns out you're Mercedes and I'm Ferrari 
Knowing I was only one AI incident away from disaster I tried to open the gap back up but the car really didn't feel good on the new tires, even after a few laps they still felt greasy. Then I had a minor lapse in concentration, clipped the sausage curb going into the first chicane and launched myself into the apex barrier with some force. After that it was really just throwing down the fastest laps I could in case TJ made a mistake but I knew there was little hope.
In reply to e30Matt :
Yeah, I only changed front tires. I was losing time on the track so I figured I should try to gain time in the pits. I did my best to ignore you for the first stint as you slowly pulled away from me, eventually getting out of sight. Resisted the urge to try to hang with you and just ran my own pace.
EDIT: Looking at the lap data, I only beat you on 13 laps out of the 46. Most of those were small gains of less than a second. I picked up a net of 19 seconds on the first pit stops since you had damage to repair and changed all four tires and I just changed fronts and only had damage of 1. I came out of the pits and the gap was only 5 seconds which was encouraging since I knew then I was in striking distance if you made a mistake.
The gap stayed reasonable (5-7 seconds) until lap 36 when when you had your big off and resulting second pit and I picked up a net of 99 seconds on laps 36/37.
Discounting lap 1 and the pit in and pit out laps, my average lap time was 1:42.58, which I am happy with for a race pace.
If you are like me and don't know the Nordschleife well enough to survive a 2.4 hour race on it, there is an almost 3 hour long video describing the track corner by corner. They do not cover the combined circuit that includes the GP track, but we all should know that part like the back of our hands. I haven't watched this yet myself, but am trying to learn by osmosis as I do work on my other monitor.
My race was not great. Bad launch, minor AI stupidity crash right at the start, went wide in T3, went to back, caught up with Dean after many laps, no way I was getting past him, got loose, lost Dean, lost concentration, caught a wall and damage, pit to repair, spun again later, caught most of the AI later in the race and ended up two cars behind Dean. If I ran a perfect race (other than the start) I would have been one behind Dean.
In reply to BradLTL :
Hey Brad, on page 1 it shows 9 laps for the ring. That won’t be a 2.4 hr race. Shouldn’t it be more like 15 or 16 laps?
In reply to T.J. :
Yes, probably. I'm not great at math. 
Brad, are we still using 5x time for the ring or will it be even faster simulate 24 hrs?
I’d be ok with making it slower so we don’t have to drive it at night.
Also, Dean getting shunted by an AI car on the back straight of the GP portion in testing last night led to a question about damage. We all know how hard the Ring is to drive, limping a damaged car for the equivalent of 3-4 laps at a normal track after an incident like that doesn't sound like a good time for anyone.
I agree. In general, I like racing with damage on, but maybe for the ring we could go with visual only?
I'm mixed on damage. It's supposed to make you drive conservative, it's supposed to make you take care of your car. It is supposed to change how you drive. It's supposed to be a major penalty. That is part of this series, so I kinda don't want to turn it off. Over a long race, damage may play a major role in deciding the winner of the race and/or series.
That said, I'm likely to suffer more damage than the rest of you. Here's a gif of my practice...
I sort of like the challenge of the combined ring with damage on, but getting major damage early in a lap, I could see quitting instead of trundling all the way around most of a lap and losing a handful of minutes. I can also see without damage on, that the penalty for having an off is not nearly so severe. I'm in for either way we do it.
A suggestion though, if we want to run it with damage on how about we turn off the AIs? That way, one potential source of damage is eliminated. Sort of a middle ground between damage on or off.
What about the time progression and number of laps? My plan has been to run a few laps each day trying to learn the track so I don't drive while looking at the map to try to judge how much I should brake for the next turn. I'd like to practice with the correct conditions.
In reply to T.J. :
I agree with pretty much all this. The AI aren't slow here, there was only a 9s delta between my fast lap and the top AI in last practice compared to 6s at Oulton. Given how hard it is to pass on the Ring and how close we would be racing with them the likelihood of incidents is quite high. As TJ said, getting dumped by an AI at the beginning of a lap and then having to limp around the ring for 15 minutes is a recipe for quitting.
Getting crashed at all at this track will suck but I think Brad has a point of risk versus reward. Passing is tough here. The AI tends to not like you next to them on the straights. They get skittish and almost panic and hit you. I find passing is best on corner entry and you seem to have the least drama.
So the decision is...
AI and no damage
Vs.
No AI and damage
I'm for leaving it as-is, but all of you whining at me is insufferable so I'll compromise.
I’m going to reserve the right to continue to whine about whichever option is chosen.
I’m leaning toward no AI and damage, but that’s a really big track for only a handful of cars. May be several laps at a time without seeing another car.
The GP track is one thing but dealing with AIs on the nordschliefe seems worse to me than possible damage.
I'm with TJ, I would prefer damage and no AI. I'm fine with the penalty of driver error and failing to take care of your own car (as is my MO), I just don't want to be penalized for an AI driver having a seizure while I'm passing them on a straight.
Another thing is that on a normal track you can mitigate the AI risk by figuring out where the safest places to pass the AI are, you don't have that option at the Ring. The AI tends to be slow in unexpected areas and faster in others, so unless in your testing you have caught the AI at that exact spot you have no idea if they are going to be normal or do the "brake at exit" like they did at Oulton (which everyone here experienced).
There is the point of ending up driving solo but I don't think that will actually change anything. With a max of 16 cars on a 13+ mile long track it's going to get spread out something fierce anyway, it's just a matter of whether there are clumps of AI cars scattered in huge gaps of nothing.
I say leave the formula as is. Keep the AI as I will need someone to race with and damage on so I will have to be carful and not do anything stupid.
Wait, don't you have to have AI on to switch to an AI driver during the race? If so then we have our answer.
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