TORA MSA GT24 - Round 1 - Hockenheim GP - 8pm GMT

fun race tonight. first green lap, when nicky kobayashi'ed the hairpin, i thought i was clear enough to cut back around, but made contact giving myself a bit of front aero damage, but speed wasnt effected. some laps later was what put me in a pickle. my teammate knocked the back of my Ferrari into the hairpin.... but it was the lap where the pit-window opened, so i pitted, and from then on, had a great race between Nicky, Duncan and Simon, until one light tap too many damaged my aero damage to the point where i could no longer keep up. So an 8th place finish will suffice

From what I saw, great clean racing from everyone in lobby A. Nickyf1's defensive driving, myself and Duncan teaming up, both MKR ferraris did awesome, apart from the little interteam coming together. Really good stuff.

The Corvette is a worry, but the rules are rules, and its only a "test season" as much fun as it is! So F4H Bullet has a choice. Either keep at 690 and fly into the distance, bring the Vette down to try at 680, or change car. I'll leave it upto you. 2012 season, the Vette will be pegged back further though.

the Ferrari clearly didnt have any legs on the straights in comparison to the Mercedes and Nissan, but i was able to catch up through the tighter sections.

Was battling with ianmr for 2nd before the pitstops. Somehow I lost about 6 seconds in the pit. Yes, I hit the pit wall at the entrance, but that's not 6 seconds... strange. After the pitstops I had a great battle with ATR DAN! Really enjoyed that!

The Camaro is hard to drive in a corner! Hahaha!! Always sliding and correcting it! Very fun!!

Took a few days to the get SLS turned to where it needed to be but got it on track just in time for qually.

Not overly impressed with my qually time as i know the car was a good second quicker but with a lock up into turn 2 I had to settle with 3rd on the grid.

Race started well holding onto 3rd through the first corner in front of Marc which was a big worry before the start. For the next 10 lap I battled hard with Keonigsegg but the Camaro was soo much faster out the corners meaning a lead down the straights until the SLS really stretched its legs. When the Camaro pitted I put the hammer down and really worked the last of the tires. After the my stop I had nice lead of the battle for 3rd which I worked and pulled out to give myself a good bit of breathing space. Happy with 2nd considering where the car was a few days ago and very please with nicky who brought the second M&M SLS home in 5th ahead of a hard charging pack!

Screwed up qualifying, then went and spun out on the third lap of the race LOL. I then put my head down and caught back up, the bmw is super quick on the straits.

yeah it is, if it wasnt that fast in the straights i dont think you would have gotten by me as easily

Well, I've made it through my first online race meet, and it was awful...way too far off the pace in qualifying, then a major first corner shunt. Tell me it gets better??
I can't afford a wheel & pedals right now, so I'm stuck with the damn controller (which I hate btw), and I cannot keep from locking the brakes every corner, I even dialed the brake pressure down to 70%, which killed my entry.

I'm not whining, it's epically frustrating when you know you should be running near the sharp end, but instead find yourself 5-6 seconds off the pace

I'll gladly accept any and all critiscism/advice. *Note, I simply don't have the time to practice more than ~1-2 hours a week.

from my experience when joining TORA buckeye, i spent a few race meetings of the 2009 GTC season running @ 50% brake pressure, until i was comfortable enough to bring the pressure back up. and i too, still use the controller. i have a wheel & pedals setup, but havent used the MS wheel since it downshifted on its own on me. i'm waiting to see if a fanatec wheel is affordable before making the transition

what helped me when i was first learning how to not lock up the wheels was using double sided tape (the thicker stuff) and placed it on what i guess you could say is the bottom side of the left trigger. I would find out where on the trigger is the lock up point and let off just a hair width and then place the tape at that point, that way when ever i would pull the trigger to break i would have a stop for the trigger to go no further. once where i learned where that point was i took the tape off.

I'll be switching to the Camaro SS. Do I need to re-apply?

yeah you do mate but im sure Simon will accept it straight away.

One the brake pressure i used 90% alot when I 1st joined Tora, but this is back when I used the X button to brake and A button for gas. To be honest Buckey i would either test loads with other guys (if you get the time) or go for a easyer car to drive?

Had a bugger of a start, i went into the 1st corner in what i thought i saw was 3rd from 4th. then jenson came right in front of me, of course the inevitable happened and i spun out and ended up last from the 1st corner.

I'm not saying it was jensons fault cus he had the racing line, i started on the right and i suppose came into his line. I have 3 screens so when i saw jensons car dissapear off the left screen i thought i had passed him. sorry if i caused any damage that comprimised your race.

I'm probably the exception to the rule, but I'm more comfortable on the pad than the wheel (until I can find a proper rig for setting my wheel up anyway) aaaaand I run my brake pressure at 110% and just modulate the amount of trigger I use.

i guess you and i are in the same boat Chris. after i got comfortable with the 'No ABS' standard here, i brought it back to 100% at the Sebring race in the '09 GTC, and resulted in an EPIC race between myself and Dan for the win. But now im running anywhere between 105 and 110% depending on the car

BuckeyeBullet wrote:I'm not whining, it's epically frustrating when you know you should be running near the sharp end, but instead find yourself 5-6 seconds off the pace

I'll gladly accept any and all critiscism/advice. *Note, I simply don't have the time to practice more than ~1-2 hours a week.

If you've ever tried to climb the leaderboard ladder, you'd not have been surprised. I too had my first race yesterday, albeit in the earlier 458 challenge and I was in the same boat as you. The other day I was given a rude awakening to see the rules say no ABS, but surprisingly enough it wasn't difficult for me to adjust at all.

It would make a lot of different on how you use the trigger to apply brake pressure. I don't use the edge of my fingers as this area is weaker, more movement/travel and hence not great for fine pressure adjustment. I use the second part of my finger to gently feather braking and it works like a charm.

As for timing, this has more to do with pace. Like me, you're probably using an automatic transmission and in this mode, gear shifts are NOT optimized and are quite pre-mature leaving you struggling to match straight line speed with other cars. On short bendy circuits this won't affect as much but on most full sized GP tracks, this will be a killer. On a Le Mans type track you could be off by miles.


Unfortunately the Xbox360 wheel I used to use was just a wheel and pedals extension of the controller, it couldn't be farther from reality. In the real world, it's not impossible to slam on the brakes hard yet not lock up, because the way the brake is applied is very different. Gradual pressure for a good 75% of travel and harder braking only at the full force 25% remaining travel. The Xbox360 wheel's pedal apply the same step pressure throughout it's travel so you could even lock up while just having tapped the brake pedal albeit with extra force.

The Xbox steering wheel is quite unrealistic as well and not easy to keep control of a car due to the lack of proper feedback. The xbox wheels definition of loss of control is to make the steering completely lose resistivity. While this is what happens in reality as well, I think the effect is exaggerated and I was never able to use any sort of calibration to rectify these issues.

The only wheel+pedal combo that looks and sounds anywhere near realistic are the Fanatec wheels coupled with the new load cell Clubsport pedals. But these too will have to be carefully calibrated for best experience. Only problem is, if you're like me, you'll have to sell a kidney to afford the pair.

My evening was simply no qualifing and no race.Couldnt get in lobby at beginning after a few trys.Decided to wait on invite but never came.Dont understand why but disappointed didnt even get a chance.

I had organised the lobbies from who posted in.

I asked if the people who hadn't posted in we're online, can't remember who replied but apparently you weren't?

garyp3398 wrote:My evening was simply no qualifing and no race.Couldnt get in lobby at beginning after a few trys.Decided to wait on invite but never came.Dont understand why but disappointed didnt even get a chance.

Sorry mate. I never got to qualify but at least I got a race. Should have invited you. Just really didn't know what was going on.
Don't know if there's a particular reason why we weren't invited back to qualify(not that I'd have start from any further forward )

Really sorry GTR, I'll put my hand up that was totally my fault. I (and somehow nobody else in the lobby) had noticed that you dropped out of qualifying until we were all parked up in turn 1 on lap three and I noticed someone was missing from the times. It wasn't til then that I saw you actually messaged me which I totally missed. I'm really sorry mate.

No worries.. At least I had an excuse for my back of a grid start.

Simon wrote:Really sorry GTR, I'll put my hand up that was totally my fault. I (and somehow nobody else in the lobby) *cough* had noticed that you dropped out of qualifying until we were all parked up in turn 1 on lap three and I noticed someone was missing from the times. It wasn't til then that I saw you actually messaged me which I totally missed. I'm really sorry mate.

I told the guys in the lobby. You were in party chat. When you came back we started immediately, so I didn't really have a chance to tell you. And there was the possibility that Evoluzione joined the other qualify lobby. When you were updating the live timing, I joined the party chat and told the guys in the chat about Evoluzione. You were in the lobby chat (with the "y" button thing).

So yeah, sorry Evoluzione.

This was my first TORA race and I really enjoyed it. I messed up qualifying by going wide in the first turn on the out lap and then spinning off on my hot lap. Started at the back of the grid and worked my way up to fifth. Then I had to hold off a charging Conner for the last two laps. Exciting stuff! Looking forward to next week.

You know guys, making a list of the qualifying rooms here on the site would save a lot of confusion.
other than that, seems like a fun time, ill be trying not to botch this week's qualifier.

EZT Trooper wrote:You know guys, making a list of the qualifying rooms here on the site would save a lot of confusion.
other than that, seems like a fun time, ill be trying not to botch this week's qualifier.

That was something that used to be done, it used to be in the opening post, but then it got moved onto Live Timing. So not sure what happened on sunday to say anything about that. But then you get the problem of one person not being able to connect due to some reason then having to change the lobbies around etc