Caterham Cup - Poll and Warmup Race (Results)

[Austin343]

Caterham Cup Announcement and Warmup Race
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So, please take a minute to vote above if you're interested in participating, and then go ahead and race the warmup here. 👍 Even if you are in the series, you do not have to run this race; likewise, even if you are not interested in competing in the whole series, you may run this race if you wish.


Series General Rules

• All six races will be run in Arcade Mode using the Caterham Seven Fire Blade '02, and each will last one week.
• Standard OLR cleanliness rules apply: Two wheels must be in contact with the track at all times; rumble strips are part of the track; no contact with walls allowed at any time.
• Discussion of times in the race thread during the week will be limited to split times (T1, T2, etc.). Final times are not to be discussed and must be submitted to me by PM before the week's deadline.
• Please save your best lap replay in case I request proof. Some form of proof, a photo at minimum, will be required of the winner each week. I may request proof of any suspicious times, which may include requiring a video or .max file. Posting video or .max replays is encouraged of all participants should they wish to do so.
• Each race will award points towards the overall championship standings to all who submit a clean lap/race time, with the winner receiving 15 points, second place 12, third place 10, and fourth on down each separated by 1 point (9, 8, 7, etc.). No points will be awarded to a non-submitting driver. You do not have to announce your participation in the championship beforehand: anyone may participate in a race and be counted into the championship points, even if you do not plan on running all the races; similarly, there is no obligation to participate in every race. The driver with the most points at the end of the six races will win the championship.

So, onto the warmup race (not counted towards championship points):

Caterham Seven Fire Blade '02 at Grand Valley East Reverse

[I would have a picture here, but my USB device is acting up. ]
As if by magic, a picture appeared....
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Race Specifics

• Arcade Mode Time Trial - hotlap
• Power: 0% (158 hp)
• Weight: -10% (332 kg)
• Tire Type: N3
• Driving aids and transmission mode are open.
• Hitting cones is allowed. All tarmac is part of the track regardless of lines and cones. Concrete areas outside of rumble strips are not part of the track.
  
• Please PM me your final time by Tuesday April 21 by 11:59 pm GMT.

Have fun!
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Leaderboard

Austin343   26.242 - 47.698
Smallhorses 26.180 - 47.715
mcsqueegy   26.287 - 48.102
nige        26.542 - 48.701
raz_10      26.584 - 48.795 
senamic     26.842 - 49.214

Results

Austin343    1'11.578
Smallhorses  1'11.694
raz_10       1'13.080

 

[mustangGT90210]

I would like to vary the tire type and power settings from race to race.
I would like at least one race to last multiple laps with AI not being a factor.
I would like at least one race to last multiple laps with AI being a significant factor.

This warmup is not part of the 6 races for points, correct? I think I'll give it a go tonight. I've been playing Forza lately, so brakes that don't lock up are going to be like a saving grace

EDIT: I can grab a photo of the Cat at GVE if needed

 

[Austin343]

Correct. I knew I'd forget something in the rules. And yes, if you could grab a picture, that would be great.

 

[raz_10]

I would like to keep the Caterham at stock power and on N3 tires for all races (weight will always be -10%).
I would like at least one race to last multiple laps with AI not being a factor.
I would like to vary the tire type and power settings from race to race.

 

[mustangGT90210]

Correct. I knew I'd forget something in the rules. And yes, if you could grab a picture, that would be great.

I'll do that. You'll have it by tommorow afternoon, garunteed

 

[Austin343]

Cool. Again, thanks. It really does make it look more professional. 👍 Thanks to everyone for the votes, too. balang_479, since you voted on the races/hotlaps part of the poll, I assume you want to either vary the power and keep the tires N3, or vary the tires and keep the power stock. Which is it?

I also have splits for the warmup race.

T1: 26.312
T2: 48.280

 

[senamic]

T1: 26.842
t2: 49.214

 

[mustangGT90210]

Can't make a run tonight. Going to a Rays baseball game

For the picture: My sister has my flashdrive hidden somewhere, I'm on the lookout right now. I can no longer garuntee getting a picture, but I'm trying!

 

[nige]

Dusted off the wheel and had a go today Seem to be losing a lot between T1 and T2

T1 : 26.854
T2 : 49.216

nige

 

[Austin343]

That's fine, mustangGT. It's not as though I'm paying you! nige, those times are great for not having played GT4 for such a long time. 👍 And wow, you sure are close to senamic (assuming his T1 is a typo and should be 26.842)!

Edit: It's looking like the majority want stock power and N3s, and half are interested in a race against AI. Assuming any remaining votes don't change that, I can start planning the combos for real. I've got three good ones set up already, including the AI race.

 

[senamic]

Damn, I'm losing time on T2 now. I am going through T1 in ~26.3 seconds, and then T2 in ~50.2 seconds!! I've lost form. Damn. Damn. DAMN! Aww well, I'll get back up there. Just gotta work the most out of this evil DS2! As for suggestions, we must have a round at the ring! Then we could have discussion as T1 T2 T3 T4 T5 T6 etc!

 

[Austin343]

Damn, I'm losing time on T2 now. I am going through T1 in ~26.3 seconds, and then T2 in ~50.2 seconds!! I've lost form. Damn. Damn. DAMN! Aww well, I'll get back up there. Just gotta work the most out of this evil DS2!

Are you sure? 26.3 is pretty fast to be losing several seconds in T2. You must be wheelspinning the whole way up the hill, but you shouldn't be losing such huge amounts of time so consistently...

As for suggestions, we must have a round at the ring! Then we could have discussion as T1 T2 T3 T4 T5 T6 etc!

Shh! I have four combos set in stone and two I'm still deliberating. I won't say any more than that for now.

 

[senamic]

Are you sure? 26.3 is pretty fast to be losing several seconds in T2. You must be wheelspinning the whole way up the hill, but you shouldn't be losing such huge amounts of time so consistently...

Yep, I'm Sure. I don't think I'm nailing turns 4 and 5. I just don't feel comfortable through there at the moment!

 

[nige]

Slighty down on T1 but improvement by T2 !!

T1 : 26.908
T2 : 49.050

After a couple more hours :

T1 : 26.542
T2 : 48.701

nige

 

[Smallhorses]

What. A. Giggle.

I've not driven the Caterham very much before apart from a few laps around Nurb' in my Simulation Mode game, just to put some miles on it and add it to the "cars I've driven" list.

On N3 (Road) tyres, the backend is tentatively poised right on the edge of breaking loose at many points, but it's easy to contain and brings a huge grin to my face while I'm wrestling it back in line.
Finding the shift points somewhat odd, 1st to 2nd seems better if you leave it to the redline, but 2nd to 3rd seems better at around 11,000RPM instead of redlined.

Have some clean splits already, but I'll edit them in here later as I'm going to try beating them for another couple of hours while I listen to the World Soccer Daily Podcast.

Back soon...

*Edit*

T1 26.167
T2 47.807

and lost almost a full 1/2s off my previous lap.

 

[Austin343]

Wow. Incredible splits, Smallhorses. I don't think I'll be able to match them! I haven't personally noticed any benefit to short-shifting in any gear; however, using the redline does indeed seem slower.

I think that's something I'll learn as this Cup goes on: I'm not very good at driving certain cars in the game. The Caterham is definitely among them! Somehow, I just never feel very confident or comfortable driving it, although of course it's tons of fun.

Edit: Apparently, the more time you spend in this car, the more time you shave from your lap.

T1: 26.065
T2: 47.617

T1 was unfortunately very ugly: I had a ridiculous curb hop entering the tunnel that pitched the poor Caterham up on two wheels at about, literally, a 45 degree angle, probably breaking both the suspension and some bones in the process. And I finished around .6 faster all in all, but I lost probably .05 on the end for a really stupid mistake: beginning a lap, it's better to shift to third gear at 11000 RPM like Smallhorses said, but ending, you want to leave the shift as late as possible. (Wait... should I really be giving advice to my closest competitor? ... Smallhorses, I forgot to tell you, it's faster to short-shift in every gear at 6000 RPM. ) Anyway, I shifted at 11000 at the end of this lap. And there's one other strange thing: when I watch my replay, it all looks good until a few feet from the finish line, when the game applies the handbrake and finishes, according to the small lap time that pops up in the upper middle of the screen, about .05 slower than the lap time I know I got and which shows as the big time that fills the screen after the replay fades out. What's up with that?

Also, this is a car that particularly makes me want a wheel. I imagine it would be a fantastic drive, and make it easier to set faster laps with the smoothness that's so critical in this slow-reacting car. Is it, Smallhorses? Judging by your reaction in your last post, and your great times, I'd say yes. I can do okay with the analog sticks, but the first left-left in particular is quite awkward on the DS2, and I can imagine using some neat trail-braking to negotiate it with a DFP or G25. Oh well, you can't get everything you wish for, I guess...

 

[Smallhorses]

Well, Austin, I can't say I'm totally shocked given your abundance of video evidence on here showing exceptionally quick laptimes, so I was expecting you to come back with a few 1/10ths here and there!
The replay issue that you're seeing is a known bug that sometimes happens when the replay is incorrectly mapped onto the track, although this usually results in the car leaving the track or passing through barriers even though it didn't happen in the driven lap. I've never heard of it only causing a small time discrepancy at the finish line though. Given that you've now got a fast ghost to chase I'm sure it'll be possible for you to better even this lap and get a clean replay to show by the deadline.
Have a rather busy weekend planned (going to my first MLS game, will see how it compares to the English Premier League!), but hope to grab a couple of hours here and there to improve my splits too.

With regards to the wheel, it takes some getting used to initially, but I simply can't imagine going back to the pad now. The first 2 corners are handled by cutting the apex of the first while maintaining about 3/4 brake pressure and a small amount of throttle to keep the revs up, drifting out to the outside rumbly and then cutting in hard at around 75mph after slowing further. I did dip 2 tyres onto the grass, exiting the 2nd left, but in this case it didn't cause me to wiggle or break loose as it had on many previous attempts.

You really need to sort yourself out with at least a 2nd-hand DFP (they're available cheap now!) and a MAX Drive! Tell your folks you need them more than a real car and see which they'd rather buy!

 

[mustangGT90210]

I'm finally gonna be able to get some laps in later today. And I just found my thumbdrive that went AWOL

 

[Austin343]

After another session of about half an hour, I finally beat the faulty-ghost lap time (albeit by only .050) with the splits below. Interestingly, only the ghost replay, and not the ghost itself, had the bug in it, because the ghost never slowed down when I watched it come to the line. ([Edit]I watched that old replay again and it was fine, so the error was evidently temporary.[/edit])

T1: 26.242 (overbraked to 79 mph entering the tunnel )
T2: 47.698

I'm still not so sure you don't have a faster lap than I do, Smallhorses, even though I obviously picked up some time on the end. It's too bad that I can't take the turn entering the tunnel properly anymore, because if I could match that turn from my previous best lap with basically everything else from this lap (which included my fastest left-left yet), I would be able to go about .25 seconds faster. As it is, I'm struggling to find hundredths, even on (relatively!) pretty laps like this one.

That is just about how I imagined taking the first corner set, and I can imagine how it's done, I can't do it myself because I've never learned to use anything but full brake on these analog sticks. I'm still not so sure about the Max drive, but I might be able to ask for a DFP for my birthday in July. Obviously, you don't live where I do, but at what type of stores can you get a used DFP? Would Gamestop have them, or is Ebay the best bet, or do I have to call around local stores? Thanks for any input, to anyone who has gotten a secondhand wheel before. 👍

 

[Smallhorses]

💡 Methinks you should start a T2 leaderboard in post #1, and in future reserve post #2 in the race threads for leaderboard / results (double posting allowed in these cases! )

Got an hour before we take off for the Oakland Coliseum for the footy match so I'm going to see what I can eke out of this combo.
Where's all the other drivers? Give 'em a kick by PM! 👍
Let me know if you're struggling for PM space, I may be able to help out by fielding the PMs or making other arrangements.

 

[Austin343]

D'oh! I knew I was forgetting something obvious. I'm just too used to being in these series as a competitor, not an organizer. Thanks for reminding me, Smallhorses 👍, and you may need to keep me on my toes about similar things in the future. I thought about the second post, but I didn't think it was necessary - what's the benefit over a large-ish space between the inital first post and the results table? And about the PMs, I'm not too concerned, because this is only the warmup race and running it is optional. I know from past series that warmups tend not to have as much interest as Race 1, by a significant margin. I may send some PMs on Sunday of the first race if many of the people expressing interest are no-shows, but I don't feel it's necessary now.

Edit: I now have all six combos for the series provisionally determined. I think they're good, and I hope you all agree.

 

[mcsqueegy]

This is a great track, but the car... demands time to get used to! So far i'm almost happy with 26.287 / 48.102, but as you guys already mentioned, using a DS2 with this car is harder than most others. There's still easily plenty of time left, but it'll take time. Look forward to seeing the next races if they're forgiving enough 👍

 

[Smallhorses]

Got a good lap in before the footy last night, knocked a little under a 1/10th off at the line. May have hit my limit with this combo, but I'll see if I get anymore time at it in the next few days.

T1 26.180
T2 47.715

 

[raz_10]

Got my first runs last night. I am way off the pace from you guys

26.584
48.795

 

[Austin343]

Don't worry, raz. It takes time to get used to this car, and when you get used to it, you will get faster. That's what the warmup race is really for: becoming accustomed to the unique handling. I've updated the leaderboard twice or so by now, too. 👍 As a reminder, the deadline is in a little over 25 [edit: actually 26 - I hate daylight savings time] hours. I'll post up the first race tonight so that you have eight days to work on it, something I think I'll do every week when I can.

 

[senamic]

Perhaps we should state the times for closing in GMT? That wouuld clear up a lot of confusion

 

[Austin343]

Did I not...?

Please PM me your final time by Tuesday April 21 by 11:59 pm GMT.

My confusion was due to our daylight savings time, which means that even though I have the time set at GMT -7 in options (which is the one I remember) with daylight savings detection set to automatic, I'm actually at GMT -6, as it says at the bottom of the screen, for 8 or so months of the year, including now.

 

[Smallhorses]

Any objections to me uploading a picture into the first post?
I couldn't resist snapping a few shots of the Caterham.
I've got until 4pm tomorrow to submit my time PM, but not sure if I'll get a chance to run more before that. Had set myself a goal that I've not yet broken.



Take your pick of these, 2 different shots using different focal points, 1 each with the sharp background & blurry car, and 1 each vice versa.

 

[Austin343]

Objections? Of course not! I like the second one most myself. 👍 And if you felt inclined to show your artistic ability in Photomode for six more races, then that would be very convenient, seeing as how I don't have a working flash drive handy! Please don't take that as a request, just a suggestion if you wanted to do so.

I hope the barrier you're thinking of isn't the same one I'm thinking of...

Edit: at your edit to the first post. Nice one.

 

[raz_10]

Well did not have time to run this again submitting my times...see ya all @ Suzuka!!!