Classic (mis)match - Le Sarthe 2 event

[Alfaholic]

Hey all!

Being a bit of a classic car lover (if I was only interested in modern cars I wouldn't be an Alfaholic...) I found the 1000 miles series in the European hall attractive. I had not raced it yet and so decided to do individual events in different cars for a bit of competitive fun. I like driving the old cars, not least because things happen more slowly in them.

After winning at Nurburgring against soft competition in my psychiatric-ward-blue Lotus Elan, it was time to move on to that other long, fast, swooping track - Le Sarthe.

With one eye on the Mulsanne straight, I decided to take the car with the highest top speed - my AC Cobra. I entered the race, and noted the only competition capable of getting within 50mph of the Cobra was a Merc 300SL... should be an easy race.

On my way to the circuit I overtook Bernie Ecclestone on the M4 eastbound to Dover while a road worker on the westbound lane was waving a yellow flag, and therefore had to start the race from the back of the grid. The Cobra had overtaken everyone by the first corner and was miles ahead at the end of the first lap, and so, feeling unchallenged, I quit to go and collect a slower car.

I sent Bob back to France with my prison-cell-grey E-type Jag, while I scooted over on a commercial airliner. Unfortunately the airliner I was in overtook Bernie Ecclestone's private boat while it was sailing past a bouy with a yellow flag on top, and again I was penalised by being sent to hte back of the grid. The E-type met even less worthy competition than the Cobra. Fastest opponent was a Guilia GTA. It was in the lead by the first corner and back in my garage by the end of the first lap, while I dusted off my Alfa Duetto Spider. NOW it should be a fight. I put the Spider on SM tyres, tossed a set of SH boots in the, um, boot, and treated my convertible to a new drop of oil, and set off. Unfortunately on the way there I stopped for lunch, and overtook Bernie Ecclestone (on foot) in a motorway fast food joint while a brazilian football fan was waving his national flag, and again had to start from the back of the grid.

5 restarts later and I was no longer being matched against a Cobra, and looked to have a competitive grid. I drove laps 1 to 17. then Bob took over and he drove superbly to maintain 1st position despite apparently being penalised 10 seconds a lap for using rocket fuel in his jetski while holidaying in Spain. Being very generous Bob pitted at the start of the last lap, so that I could take the chequered flag!

In the end, after over 3 hours of racing, we beat a Sprint Speciale and an Isuzu 117 by 30 seconds! This was far more enjoyable than the two lap sprints that make up so many of the races, and from now on Bob is going to find himself having to share the driver's seat in the endurance events.

Next challenge - Monaco in a GTA!

 

[Pupik]

Tsk tsk...don't you read Ye Olde Sporting Regulations first? They clearly state no overtaking of The Bernie Ecclestone whilist anything else is going about.

Between knowing the colors of a prison and a psychiatric ward, I'm starting to wonder if you weren't hazing other members when you were a frat boy at the Alfa Romeo house.

Nice write-up! I've been putting off the 1000 miles because I wanted to know if the dreaded Cobra rears it's ugly (well, actually it's beautiful) head to stomp on all the nice little 100-120hp cars.

 

[yeti]

Tsk tsk...don't you read Ye Olde Sporting Regulations first? They clearly state no overtaking of The Bernie Ecclestone whilist anything else is going about.

Between knowing the colors of a prison and a psychiatric ward, I'm starting to wonder if you weren't hazing other members when you were a frat boy at the Alfa Romeo house.

Nice write-up! I've been putting off the 1000 miles because I wanted to know if the dreaded Cobra rears it's ugly (well, actually it's beautiful) head to stomp on all the nice little 100-120hp cars.

Yeah it does... The Cobra was always there and you lose to it in anything other than... a Cobra!!!

C.

 

[Spottedlaurel]

Oddly I have never encountered the Cobra in 1000 Miles! or the other Classic Car series, kind of disappointing as I've always gone in with something that ends up overkill.

You can always take advantage of fact that a line-up seems to be fixed for a particular day. Say you enter with a Cobra and the series is filled with 100-120bhp cars, turn the PS2 off without saving. Turn it back on, change into your GTA, Elan or whatever, buy any tuning bits you fancy but not wheels (remember changing cars and tuning shop doesn't advance days, wheel shop does) and you'll see you're still on the same day and the line-up is as before. However, colours do change on the AI.

You can repeat this several times until you feel you've got close competition.

Due to time, sadly I B-specced most of this series. It was amusing watching my co-driver (22-month old daughter...) in her beefed-up Cougar ram the back of the Fiat 500 at 150mph+ on the straight at La Sarthe instead of overtaking - I swapped views once or twice and saw the poor Fiat's speedo reading 130mph!

 

[Alfaholic]

Yeah they're a great bunch at the psychiatric ward. They used to let me stay there sometimes. they gave me this jacket that I really like, but the sleeves are much too long. So I gave it to that Monkey that's always hanging around in a tree in Trial Mountain

As for the Cobra, it appeared once or twice but never when I was in a Cobra. I tended to keep quitting the races until I got a field that I thought would be a bit of competition, but would still lose to me and my B- driver (My girlfriend calls him Belvedere...)

Anyway I did indeed take the GTA along to Monaco. Got penalised for talking faster than Bernie Ecclestone while the sun was yellow, and had to start from the back. Bummer!!! I re-entered a couple of times to get a field I thought would be fun, and ended up matched against a black merc 300SL and a yellow Elan. I thought the Elan would be really quick around this tight circuit, and the Merc's power may make it tough to beat too. The rest of the field was made up of a Honda S800, an Isuzu Bellet, and, um, something that was really, really slow. The merc and the Lotus both had bad starting positions, with the merc lining up directly in front of me, so my game plan was to try get to the front as fast as possible, and get as large a gap as possible while the Merc and the Lotus were being held up behind the slower cars, and then hope that I could maintain the gap, or at least keep those two behind me, if they proved faster. So the first lap was a sprint. At the start the Merc and I caught the Isuzu before the first corner. The Merc shoved through on the right, and got slowed down slightly, while I stormed past on the left, which put me on the racing line into the first corner, and the Merc, which was then on my right but slightly behind me, backed off. He started catching me up the hill, while I was catching the Honda in 3rd place. I exchanged paint with the Honda in a slightly ambitious overtaking attempt on the right hander at the top of the hill, which put a car between me and the fast looking Merc. The Lotus was slow accelerating out of that really tight left hand hairpin, so I steered to the inside and drove past him on the straight. This left that unidentified car out in front, which I think was a Karmann Ghia. Funny how those things always seem to have a great first lap and then just fade away... I passed him on the inside in the tunnel, before he moved over to the inside lane. This put me out in front, with the Merc out of sight. The plan was going well. Now it was time to settle down to some smooth but fast laps, and build up a lead.

I find the GTA fairly oversteery if I am not smooth with the steering and brakes, which would wear the rear tyres out, so I paid a lot of attention to braking in good time, and using as little lock as possible to negotiate the track. I noticed that, on the SM tyres I was on, the car would accept full throttle at the apex of all corners without oversteering, as long as it was settled at that point, so no trail braking. The Merc took a few laps (I can't remember how many) to gain second place, by which time my lead was about 25 seconds. I was lapping at 2:06 to 2:08, and found that the lead over the merc was increasing slowly. He was faster in one or two sections but not over a whole lap. I could lap without killing the tyres and was still fast enough to keep the lead!! Got the lead up to about 30 seconds, and decided that if I could make the tyres last 25 laps at a pace that maintained my gap, I may have one less pitstop to make over the 99 lap race distance. I backed off a little, my lap times fell to 2:08 - 2:10, but the Merc started gaining a little... maybe his tyres were getting into their best form. So I sped up again and just concentrated on lapping fast without sliding about too much. The tyre wear was looking good, so it seemed like the thing to do. Best lap was a 2:03.8xx, for those of you who want to show me how fast a Guilia GTA can really go around Cote D' Azur! Remember the car was on SM tyres and had an oil change. I made it to lap 25 with the rear tyres looking a bit red, and the lap times starting to climb up to 2:10, when I pitted, and let Mr Belvedere take over. The merc pitted on lap 23, which was great news, since I never ever manage to make my tyres last as long as Mr Belvedere, which means we had to make one less stop than my closest competition. Incidentally I did not see the Elan, which finished third, pit once in the whole race, though I am sure it must have!

To cut a looooong story short, Belvedere finished the whole race for me, a lap up on the Merc, on pace setting 3 and overtake on. He did not manage more than 23 laps on a set of tyres, which was really odd, but he drove really really well. One race to go in the series!! I may try the Ginetta for Opera, should be a laugh.

BTW Thanks for the tip about reentering the race without saving to get the same opposition. It makes it much easier to pick the right car for the event, since this series seems to have a particularly large performance spread amongst its entrants.