[Matthew111]

Looks like the cars are nicely matched with the ballast, it was needed lol. What about top speeds now?

[Wally]

I think from memory, they still achieve fairly different top speeds by the end of the long gentrack straight.

[marty]

Looking at the data from gentrack the top speeds are.
R34 gtr 224kmh
370 228kmh
Supra 229kmh
Rx7 231kmh

Overall the laptimes are pretty close and each car still has its own strengths and weaknesses. I think anyone can pick any car and have a fair chance at winning in it if they get the most out of it. Some tracks will favour some cars over others and thats mostly gearing related. Most of the cars dont have much low end power so if you need too tall a gear for a corner it will be a bit slower. All xars are geared quite differently so this will be the main difference between them most weeks.

[Guybrush Threepwood]

I think the Skyline will have the biggest advantage on the smaller tracks with the pull it gets from being 4WD.

But good that we get to change it up.  Personally I think you'd be mad to choose the 370z or whatever it is over the Skyline.  Good that we will all be changing up the cars though for a bit of a mix.

The ballast seems about right.  The RX7 and the Supra seem to have a top speed advantage but slower out of the corners.  I guess with the smaller tracks it will be interesting to see how this pans out.

[slideways]

The only reason I haven't chosen the Skyline is I'm having problems with the downshift from 3rd to 2nd. Seems if I don't rev match exactly it just won't change. Overcooked too many turns so gave up on it. Only car I've ever had the issue with.

[marty]

I think the Skyline will have the biggest advantage on the smaller tracks with the pull it gets from being 4WD.

But good that we get to change it up.  Personally I think you'd be mad to choose the 370z or whatever it is over the Skyline.  Good that we will all be changing up the cars though for a bit of a mix.

The ballast seems about right.  The RX7 and the Supra seem to have a top speed advantage but slower out of the corners.  I guess with the smaller tracks it will be interesting to see how this pans out.

The half season choices are that you need to pick one of the ballast cars and one of the non ballast cars, this makes it a choice between Supra and R34gtr with the other choice between 370 and RX7. For a longer more open circuit the Supra would have an advantage over the GTR but tighter and twistier the GTR will have the edge there.

RX7 and 370 I think a slight edge to the rx7 overall but the 370 is a bit softer and more manageable so may be easier to drive for some, 370 also is likely the heaviest car of the lot and overall should be heavier then the rx7 even with a bit less ballast and you feel this in its long stopping distances. Also if overloading the suspension it can just get away from you but laptime wise it can match the rx7 and its fairly good at probably most tracks but unlikely to be best anywhere. A solid all rounder, I will definitely go the r34 at some point of the season but not sure if it will be start or 2nd half.

[marty]

The only reason I haven't chosen the Skyline is I'm having problems with the downshift from 3rd to 2nd. Seems if I don't rev match exactly it just won't change. Overcooked too many turns so gave up on it. Only car I've ever had the issue with.

Thats not an issue when using h shifter but also you dont really want to downshift too early as it will then lock fronts for a fraction and cause more understeer on entry. If using paddles/sequential then it probably has that shift protection enabled and also considerably longer shift times over manual. Main reason I like all these cars is because they are all h pattern and its the only way to go and surprisingly the short travel of the g25/g27 shifter is quite similar to that in the r34 and r34 manual transmission so has a fairly similar feel to it. The nasty sound of engine screaming at you when you shift down at too high RPM also has a familiar vibe to it.

For the tuesday run hopefully we get a few in so we get some reasonably large field racing so I can make up a promo video and maybe get some more interested to join the season. I think we need about 35 sign up to actually get a grid of close to 30 on any nite which would be nice to see during the season. Was a shame to see such small grids at the end of last season with 10 to 14 being the start numbers from 21 that signed up.

[marty]

I made a little video just of a race with Guybrush and me last nite, Phil was lurking behind just keeping an eye on things. Excuse the slightly agricultural lines used here but I think the lawns wont need mowing for a while after tonights racing there.



I made this for the minorating thread just to see how the system handles minor rubbing as in this race we had 9 contacts reported by stracker. This was actually only 5 contacts as stracker reports both sides of the contacts.

Here is what Minolin said regarding how MR works with these minir contacts.

The relative speeds of the 9 contacts are
0.01517379
5.550079
2.407248

1.354625
1.755023

3.077758
4.233924

6.192453
0.23604


That's pretty low. The formula is simple, you receive 1 CP above 10kph (I think), below it's linearily decreasing. the first has an average of ~2.5 kph relative speed = 0.25 contact points each.

Here is that particular race in stracker.

http://52.62.170.191:50041/sessiondetails?sessionid=6391#

One thing to note is that even when running mr servers its still best to avoid contact but sych minor rubs really wont effect a rating negatively. The close quarters racing will likely give more benefit then even in that 1 race where we rubbed a few times. Total though would have been less then 1 full  contact as the average there with 5 contacts was less then 10kmh all up.

[Wally]

That sounds fair. You shouldn't get penalised just for rubbing.

[slideways]

Hehe, I just love it when I feel the door handles having a kiss. Been some excellent close racing so far.  (apart from a couple of brain fades by me today)

[marty]

I think gentrack is a great little track but it will create more incidents then any other track especially for those that dont know it too well. That chicane has the added safety feature of any car running wide on exit flicking back into the pack. The same with the nothing corner after it, well its a nothing corner till you touch the grass and then its only a matter of time til you hit that wall real hard and again rebound back onto the oncoming traffic.

Even if the racing gets rather messy this week people should not expect it to be as bad once the season starts on any other track. Lucky this isnt a real track though as there would be some fatalities tonight if it was.

[Wally]

Server's up.

[Guybrush Threepwood]

I still don't quite understand how the two contact speeds are decided as to how the contact points are distributed.  Minolin says the average of the first contact is 2.5, but if you add both contact speeds together and divide by 2 it is more than 2.5???

[Bruce]

Ahh, arithmetic,  it just  the way it is! But if you have fun, that's mathematics! 

[Bruce]

Still on the on the way home from a day at work, may.not make tonight