24 Hour Ring in the CLK-LM Race Car

  • Thread starter Mr.Slow
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Since I am trying to go through the game spending as little as possible I got to this race with only a couple of choices: the x2010, the Minolta and the CLK-LM. All are prize cars and are in stock form.

The x2010 would be too easy.
The Minolta: I can probably do sub 8 minute laps on it but I used it for the Le Mans race and the backend is a bit more work than I'd like for 24 hours on the ring.
The CLK: I did a couple of tests and I managed to do about the same times as the competition (8:10- 8:20). I like the handling and it does not seem to get too upset with the high kurbs. I have done the 4 hour Ring race more than a couple of times so I figured doing it in a car that did the same lap times as the competition would be a good challenge. I would need to be consistent do good laps and hopefuly have a really close race.

LINEUP:
A. Vela........................Gt-One '99
C.Rich..........................Clk-Lm Race Car '98
N.Sakurai.....................R10 TDI '06
F. Jefferson ..................McLaran F1 GTR Race Car '97
O. Lilja.........................R8 Race Car (Team Playstation)
F.Mendoza....................Ford GT LM Race Spec II
ME..............................Clk-Lm Race Car '98
J.Ward.........................2000 Ford Falcon XR8
o.Phillips......................Xj220 LM Race Car
D.Bauer.......................Esperante GTR-1 Race Car '98
A.Nurmine....................Mark IV Race Car 67
E.Tyson........................Corvete Z06 (C2) Race Car '63

Humidity is 0%

Hours 0-2
After a cracking start I pit from 1st on the second lap (8:13/8:18) with the sister CLK in second place 10 seconds behind. Lilja in the R8 takes second shortly after and starts gaining on me. When he has the gap down to 5 seconds I make a mistake , spin and he is off into the distance. Vela in the GT-One also passes and by the next pit stop on lap 4 (9:07/8:13) I have just managed to re-pass Vela in the final straight and pit from Second 25 seconds behind.

Here I am glad to see that the R8 takes about 5 seconds longer on the pit stops. So the race is winnable as long as I manage to do the same lap times as him for the duration. I take a deep breath, think positive thoughts and start doing laps as clean and fast as possible. The times improve and finally on lap 11 I have him down to 2.7 seconds. Unfortunately we hit traffic and I can't manage to pass him. Still it is the fastest lap so far (8:04).

We come out of the pits separated by 2.5 seconds. More traffic. The R8 Manages to increase the gap to 3.5 seconds. The Falcon is being lapped and we have a little paint rubbing encounter. I come out the looser with a spin. The r8 is off into the distance again. At the 2 hour mark and after a couple of horrible laps (8:43,8:33) I pit from second 25 seconds behind. I am basically same place I was two hours earlier... Vela in the GT-One is third a good 40 seconds behind and Sakurai in the R10 is fourth 20 seconds further back with Jefferson, Rich and Mendoza in hot pursuit.

Hours 2-4

A succession of mistakes on four consecutive laps saw the gap increase to 59 seconds. I took a few seconds to calm down during the pit stop and was able to bang a few good laps (8:32, 8:04, 8:40 and 8:03) and narrow the gap to 46 on entry to the pit stop (End of lap 24). Then we hit heavy traffic and I had a bad spin on lap 26 (the kind where you end up facing the wall and have to reverse for what seems like forever). At the stop the gap was now 1:08.

During that pit stop (lap 26) some sprinkles of rain started to fall. The humidity indicator was still reading 0% so on went the Racing hards and two laps that saw the gap reduced to 1:05 on entry to the pit stop. At this point we hit the 4 hour mark and the humidity indicator read 6%. Some thought given as to what tyres to put on.

A. Rich on the sister CLK is still running 6th and was lapped on lap 27.

HOURS 4-6
What incredible two hours!
It started on lap 29 when for some reason Lilja basically crawled around the lap. We were pitting on the same lap but maybe he skipped his pit stop and had to pit again on the next lap. The net result is that from being 1:05 behind I went to being 1:20 ahead in the space of two laps. The humidity rose steadily and by lap 37 it was pitch black and 100% wet.

I let the game decide which tyres to go on which was a huge mistake as it was like driving on ice. Lap times were in the mid 10's and from being 2:40 in the lead i went to 26 seconds ahead in the space of 3 laps (silly me tried to do a 3 lap stint). Pitted early the next lap (40) and ditched the Racing Wets. The last stint before the 6 hour mark saw me leaving the pits 2 seconds behind, produce a 9:35 and a 9:22 laps and the pull into the pits (lap 42) with a lead of 1:40.

HOURS 6-8 1/2
Pitch black and miserable sums it up. I noticed that the others switched to a longer stint strategy so I extended mine to 4 and then 5 laps. Very hard to do a lap without some sort of crash/spin. Out of the 14 laps in this period only two were clean (9:01 and 9:02) the rest had a least one off or more.

Olija was steadily lapping 10-40 seconds (depending on my lap time) slower than me however in one of his pit stops he took almost 2 minutes.. guess got out of the car and stretches his legs... At the end of lap 56 he is 6:30 behind.


Hours 8 1/2 - 10/B]
I settled into a nice rhythm and made no mistakes in the next stint. The reward was catching up to Olija at the end of lap 56. Unfortunately i choked and went of on the second last corner as I tried to outbrake him. As I pulled into the pits he was 9:10 behind but I lost 15 seconds in that crash so he was 1:20 up the track when I started the next stint.

The pressure of knowing that I would catch up to him in that stint was causing me to overdrive and loose time. The first lap was a 10:15 instead of the 10:0x I had been doing lately. Regardless I caught up to him two turns before the long straight two laps later and crossed the line 4 seconds ahead. The next two laps I tried to build a big enough margin to come out of the pits still one lap ahead. As I pulled into the pits on lap 66 he was entering the long straight... Maybe if I put less fuel I can ensure I come out in front.


Hours 10-12
The track seemed to have rubbered up. Still 100% humidity and raining but my lap times started to improve slightly and on lap 68 did my first under 9 minute lap. On the next tyre set managed another sub 9 minute lap and on the last stint of this lot managed two.

Olija seems to be doing his usual lap times but with my improved times the gap grew to 8:41 (+1 lap) at the beginning of lap 81. Towards the end of the lap I overtook him and pitted 5 seconds ahead.

HOURS 12-15
Plenty of spill and thrills on this segment of the race!
After re-doing hours 10-12 with similar results I lapped Olilja for the second time on lap 84 as he entered the pits (he had unlapped himself when I pitted). I had a ~20 second lead but by the end of the lap he was right on my tail and just flew past me three corners into the next lap. That was a bit of a surprise and by the end of the lap he had reduced the gap by another 27 seconds.

All this when I was doing my fastest laps in the wet (High 8:30s). The track started to dry up and at 90 percent the game suggested I went to racing Hards... silly me took that advice and posted a 10:21 lap. I pitted the next lap and put inters back on. I kept doing 8:30s but could only do 3 laps instead of 5. And Olilja was doing 8:15-8:20 like clockwork.

By lap 97 the track was finally dry enough (20%) to put racing hards on. The gap had diminished to 1:47. At this point I started doing the same 8:40/8:10 kind of stint that I was doing at the beggining of the race and by the time I pitted on lap 101 the gap was back up to 2:27.


HOURS 15-17
Racing got serious this two hours. I managed to get into a rythm doing 8:3x/8:0x stints and managed to almost break the 8 minute mark on lap 110 with an 8:00.809 lap. Unfortunately Olilja has being doing low 8:0x laps too so the gap hasn't changed.

He also switched to a three lap and then a 4 lap strategy. Very unnerving to know that he can do 4 low 8:0x laps in a row and his pit stop is 1 minute long. I on the other hand can only do two laps and my pit stop costs me 30 seconds in average. So any mistakes are seconds i am loosing with no chance of getting them back.

The gap on lap 115 is 2:17 (he pitted on the lap before) but i had an off this lap and lost 14 seconds so it is more like 2:03.


HOURS 17-19
Fairly uneventful two hours. It was the usual gap-gets-smaller-due-to-offs-gaps-gets-bigger-due-to-pit-stops yo-yo.

Only highlights are: managed to do 7:59.232 on lap 119 and the gap was the smallest it has been (37 seconds) on lap 129.


LAP TIMES FASTEST SLOWEST
Out ....Time . . In .....Time . . Split
1........8:13 . . 2........8:18
3........9:07 . . 4........8:13
5........8:34 . . 6........8:05
7........8:43 . . 8........8:06
9........8:43 . . 10......8:04
11......8:32 . . 12......8:20
13......8:43 . . 14......8:33
15......8:41 . . 16......8:19
17......8:29 . . 18......8:09
19......8:41 . . 20......8:23
21......8:32 . . 22......8:04
23......8:40 . . 24......8:03
25......8:44 . . 26......8:25
27......8:40 . . 28......8:04
29......8:55 . . 30......8:10
31......8:44 . . 32......8:31
33......9:24 . . 34......8:47
35......9:19 . . 36......9:47 . . 36......9:12
38......10:28 . .39......10:20
40......10:37
41......9:35 . . 42......9:22
43......9:35 . . 44......9:18
45......9:24 . . 46......9:35
47......10:03.. 48......9:01
49......9:02 . . 50......9:21
51......9:16 . . 52......9:59
53......9:30 . . 54......9:28
55......9:26 . . 56......9:20
57......10:01 . 58......9:08
59......9:05 . . 60......9:24
61......9:15 . . 62......10:13
63......9:10 . . 64......9:19
65......9:08 . . 66......9:13
67......10:06 ..68......9:01
69......8:49 . . 70......9:16
71......9:01 . . 72......10:12
73......9:10 . . 74......9:03
75......8:55 . . 76......9:02
77......10:01 ..78......9:04
79......8:55 . . 80......8:51
81......9:02 . . 82......9:48
83......8:31 . . 84......8:39
85......8:34 . . 86......8:51
87.....10:22 . . 88......8:52
89......8:34 . . 90......9:14
91......8:46 . . 92......9:20
93......8:38 . . 94......8:25
95......8:16 . . 96......9:01 . . ?/1L + 3:25
97......8:10 . . 98......8:40 . . 1L + 2:28 / 1L +2:22
99......8:08 . . 100.....8:39 . . 1L + 1:47 / 1L +3:02
101....8:15 . . 102......8:53 . . 1L + 2:27 / 1L +2:15
103....8:09 . . 104......8:34 . . 1L + 1:27 / 1L +1:24
105....8:01 . . 106......8:34 . . 1L + 2:14 / 1L +2:18
107....8:03 . . 108......8:39 . . 1L + 1:50 / 1L +1:51
109....8:13 . . 110......8:38 . . 1L + 1:17 / 1L +2:26
111....8:00. . 112......8:34 . . 1L + 1:53 / 1L +1:53
113....8:03 . . 114......8:34 . . 1L + 1:27 / 1L +1:28
115....8:17 . . 116.....8:44 . . 1L + 2:17/ 1L+ 2:09
117....8:08 . . 118......8:37. . 1L + 1:27 / 1L +1:24
119....7:59 . . 120......8:34 . . 1L + 0:53 / 1L +2:13
121....8:03 . . 122......8:36 . . 1L + 1:09 / 1L +1:49
123....8:11 . . 124......8:34 . . 1L + 1:16 / 1L +2:26
125....8:23 . . 126......8:35 . . 1L + 1:55 / 1L +1:39
127....8:01 . . 128......8:39 . . 1L + 1:10 / 1L +2:26
129....8:03 . . 130......0:00 . . 1L + 0:35 / 1L +0:00
 
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What tyres are you using? I'm currently doing this in the 908 on racing hards and getting three laps out of them.
 
Racing Hards. To get the lap times in the low 8's I am being a bit hard on them. So the second lap they start to get a bit greasy towards the half way point. I don't think they'd last three laps though (or the last lap would be very painful anyway).
 
Hours 2-4

A succession of mistakes on four consecutive laps saw the gap increase to 59 seconds. I took a few seconds to calm down during the pit stop and was able to bang a few good laps (8:32, 8:04, 8:40 and 8:03) and narrow the gap to 46 on entry to the pit stop (End of lap 24). Then we hit heavy traffic and I had a bad spin on lap 26 (the kind where you end up facing the wall and have to reverse for what seems like forever). At the stop the gap was now 1:08.

During that pit stop (lap 26) some sprinkles of rain started to fall. The humidity indicator was still reading 0% so on went the Racing hards and two laps that saw the gap reduced to 1:05 on entry to the pit stop. At this point we hit the 4 hour mark and the humidity indicator read 6%. Some thought given as to what tyres to put on.

A. Rich on the sister CLK is still running 6th and was lapped on lap 27.
 
I'm doing this race too. I use Racing medium tyres in front and hards in rear. That works best for me, they degrade at about same rate. I'm pitting every two laps too and I'm in lead of about 30 sec after 14 laps. Oh yeah, and the car of my choice is Peugeot 908 Hdi. I won 24h Le Mans with it and I have no reason to use any other car. I wish it doesn't rain, because during my Le Mans race it rained almost all the time. Good luck to you!👍
 
HOURS 4-6
What incredible two hours!
It started on lap 29 when for some reason Lilja basically crawled around the lap. We were pitting on the same lap but maybe he skipped his pit stop and had to pit again on the next lap. The net result is that from being 1:05 behind I went to being 1:20 ahead in the space of two laps. The humidity rose steadily and by lap 37 it was pitch black and 100% wet.

I let the game decide which tyres to go on which was a huge mistake as it was like driving on ice. Lap times were in the mid 10's and from being 2:40 in the lead i went to 26 seconds ahead in the space of 3 laps (silly me tried to do a 3 lap stint). Pitted early the next lap (40) and ditched the Racing Wets. The last stint before the 6 hour mark saw me leaving the pits 2 seconds behind, produce a 9:35 and a 9:22 laps and the pull into the pits (lap 42) with a lead of 1:40.
 
HOURS 6-8 1/2
Pitch black and miserable sums it up. I noticed that the others switched to a longer stint strategy so I extended mine to 4 and then 5 laps. Very hard to do a lap without some sort of crash/spin. Out of the 14 laps in this period only two were clean (9:01 and 9:02) the rest had a least one off or more.

Olija was steadily lapping 10-40 seconds (depending on my lap time) slower than me however in one of his pit stops he took almost 2 minutes.. guess got out of the car and stretches his legs... At the end of lap 56 he is 6:30 behind.
 
HOURS 6-8 1/2
Pitch black and miserable sums it up. I noticed that the others switched to a longer stint strategy so I extended mine to 4 and then 5 laps. Very hard to do a lap without some sort of crash/spin. Out of the 14 laps in this period only two were clean (9:01 and 9:02) the rest had a least one off or more.

Olija was steadily lapping 10-40 seconds (depending on my lap time) slower than me however in one of his pit stops he took almost 2 minutes.. guess got out of the car and stretches his legs... At the end of lap 56 he is 6:30 behind.

That's a small fail.

Here's a small bad quallity video I'v made .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zk5zSvEdzAU&feature=g-upl
 
Hours 8 1/2 - 10
I settled into a nice rhythm and made no mistakes in the next stint. The reward was catching up to Olija at the end of lap 56. Unfortunately i choked and went of on the second last corner as I tried to outbrake him. As I pulled into the pits he was 9:10 behind but I lost 15 seconds in that crash so he was 1:20 up the track when I started the next stint.

The pressure of knowing that I would catch up to him in that stint was causing me to overdrive and loose time. The first lap was a 10:15 instead of the 10:0x I had been doing lately. Regardless I caught up to him two turns before the long straight two laps later and crossed the line 4 seconds ahead. The next two laps I tried to build a big enough margin to come out of the pits still one lap ahead. As I pulled into the pits on lap 66 he was entering the long straight... Maybe if I put less fuel I can ensure I come out in front.
 
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Hours 10-12
The track seemed to have rubbered up. Still 100% humidity and raining but my lap times started to improve slightly and on lap 68 did my first under 9 minute lap. On the next tyre set managed another sub 9 minute lap and on the last stint of this lot managed two.

Olija seems to be doing his usual lap times but with my improved times the gap grew to 8:41 (+1 lap) at the beginning of lap 81. Towards the end of the lap I overtook him and pitted 5 seconds ahead.
 
WTF??? I resumed the game and noticed that Olija was 6:30 (+1 lap)... that did not look right as I pitted just ahead of him and my stop did not take 2+ minutes... the next lap I double checked the screen and surprise surprise I was back on lap 77 instead of 83...
The time was back to 11 hours and 44 minutes instead of 12:hours and 10 minutes.

So the last stint did not happened...

The upside of this is that I managed to do 8:44 on the out lap and then 8:39 on the next lap. The downside is that the next three laps were 9:05+...

The game is paused now... lets see what happens on the next re-start.
 
HOURS 12-15
Plenty of spill and thrills on this segment of the race!
After re-doing hours 10-12 with similar results I lapped Olilja for the second time on lap 84 as he entered the pits (he had unlapped himself when I pitted). I had a ~20 second lead but by the end of the lap he was right on my tail and just flew past me three corners into the next lap. That was a bit of a surprise and by the end of the lap he had reduced the gap by another 27 seconds.

All this when I was doing my fastest laps in the wet (High 8:30s). The track started to dry up and at 90 percent the game suggested I went to racing Hards... silly me took that advice and posted a 10:21 lap. I pitted the next lap and put inters back on. I kept doing 8:30s but could only do 3 laps instead of 5. And Olilja was doing 8:15-8:20 like clockwork.

By lap 97 the track was finally dry enough (20%) to put racing hards on. The gap had diminished to 1:47. At this point I started doing the same 8:40/8:10 kind of stint that I was doing at the beggining of the race and by the time I pitted on lap 101 the gap was back up to 2:27.
 
HOURS 15-17
Racing got serious this two hours. I managed to get into a rythm doing 8:3x/8:0x stints and managed to almost break the 8 minute mark on lap 110 with an 8:00.809 lap. Unfortunately Olilja has being doing low 8:0x laps too so the gap hasn't changed.

He also switched to a three lap and then a 4 lap strategy. Very unnerving to know that he can do 4 low 8:0x laps in a row and his pit stop is 1 minute long. I on the other hand can only do two laps and my pit stop costs me 30 seconds in average. So any mistakes are seconds i am loosing with no chance of getting them back.

The gap on lap 115 is 2:17 (he pitted on the lap before) but i had an off this lap and lost 14 seconds so it is more like 2:03.
 
[HOURS 17-19]
Fairly uneventful two hours. It was the usual gap-gets-smaller-due-to-offs-gaps-gets-bigger-due-to-pit-stops yo-yo.

Only highlights are: managed to do 7:59.232 on lap 119 and the gap was the smallest it has been (37 seconds) on lap 129.
 
HOURS 19-24
I am soooo thankful for the suspend feature. I was "asked" to move my desk across the room by the better half, which I did without hesitation. Only after it was all put back in the final place the thought crossed my mind "AAHHHH... I still hadn't finished that race!!!"

The last 5 hours were very interesting. Olilja kept taking away seconds and got the gap down to 18 Seconds. I could not work out why as I was doing the usual 8:34/8:04 stints that had worked well so far. I had to start shortfilling the tank to avoid him unlapping himself.

This worked well for a couple of hours until I got to the point where I had to put the full 37 litres for a stint. Fortunately i had also been doing plenty of low 8's and the gap was up to 1:44 at that point. Hour 22-23 saw me driving a bit poorly with a few spins and crashes with lapped cars so the gap went down to 39 seconds.

For the final lap I summoned the Gods of Driving and managed to get into the zone. Also it started drizziling. I decided to go for broke and try to set a new fast lap. The last 4 in laps were 8:01, 7:59.982, 7:57.488 and 7:59.765.

In the end I finished ahead by 1 lap 2 minutes and 14 seconds. Third place was 5 laps back.

I will not try this race again , that is for sure!!
 
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