CTPCTC Pre-Season *RESULTS*

[SuperShouden]

GTPCTC Presents​

CTC Pre-Season Race​

Tsukuba Circuit; 20 lap race (25miles)
Deadline: 11:59pm Sunday, May 16th​

Tsukuba is set close to Tokyo in Tsukuba, Japan. It was once a premier and challenging race track, but is, now, mainly used for testing. And what a test it is. Tsukuba is unique in that it's almost an oval, with only three left hand turns out of 9. That means, for 2/3 of the turns, you'll be turning right. This constant turning in a single direction wears out the left front tire due to the fact that none of the turns are really smooth. All cars will deal with this heavy wear on that left front.

The Problem corners: Because it's such a short track it's hard to pick difficult corners. But, here it goes: Turns 1, 4 and 8: The Hairpins. This track is also unique in that it has three completely different hairpins. The last is probably the easiest, but still not to be taken lightly. The second is the hardest and it's easy to carry too much speed into it and introduce your car to the wall. The first is relatively tame, but since it comes of the second longest straight in the track, it's easy to miss your mark and run off into the sand.

Turn 6 is another hard corner. On good tires, a good car shouldn't have to break much if at all to make it. But this Dunlop Corner is deceptive and if you don't respect it, it'll slam you into the wall.

Finally, Turn 9. The Monster. Coming off the longest straight, this is probably where you'll find yourself in the dirt most often...along with the AI drivers. It's so easy to go too fast and misjudge the speed need for this relatively tight corner, that you'll often over shoot it. Just watch the AI players.

Entries

GS

ST

General Information and Regulations

As with last season there will be three types of race event during the season. There will be 4 Standard rounds of 50mi and 5 Enduro rounds of 100mi and 1 Super-Enduro round of 150mi.

Week starts on Monday, with times to be sent via PM by 11.59pm GMT on Sunday

There is NO HP penalty for joining the series part way through the season.

All rules, regulations, car specifications, and races are controlled by GTPCTC sanctioning body, umm...me for now unless the GTMSA wants to pick me up . Any and all questions should be directed to GTPCTC officials (namely me..and anyone else who wants to help out) and officials will do their best to answer in a timely and accurate manor.

All drivers must run at the specified weights and horsepower settings provided by me for each round. Horsepower and/or weight settings are adjusted for competitive reasons each round based on finishing positions from previous rounds.

* Standard Online Racing Rules Apply.
* No Cheating, hybrids, etc. You must run the car specifications I give you
* Try keeping at least 2 wheels on course. Long races = small mishaps, but absolutely NO shortcuts
* No wall-riding as well. Combined with penalties, this will slow you down considerably, so don't do it.
* All decisions by GTMSA officials are final
* The race track for this season will be defined as the area between the white or yellow lines. This means rumble strips do not count as track.

Race

* Single race (arcade mode) lasting either 50mi (standard) or 100mi (enduro) with the exception of Round 9 which is a 150mile race, but will be considered an enduro.
* Weight penalties in place
* SS, SM, SH tires or any combination thereof
* Strong Tyre Wear
* AI at +5 for GS and +3 for ST
* Ai tyres SS
* Forced Pit Entry penalty system
* ASM is prohibited TCS is optional
* Points for race: 10-8-6-4-2-1
* FOR THIS RACE ONLY: There is a Manditory Pitstop rule in effect. All drivers are required to make at least 1 pitstop between laps 2 and 15. This should make the FR cars a bit more even.


Time sending format

PM me with the following data. Please make sure all details are correctly filled in and DONT MISS THE DEADLINE

User Name:
Class:
Car:
Number:
HP:
Weight:
Total Time:
Fastest Lap:
No. of Pits:

Have Fun and Good Luck!

 

[SuperShouden]

only a few days left.

 

[raz_10]

Just to clarify...I'm testing both cars and only stick with one class after the pre-season. I like both of them but with GTPLMS going I dont have enough time to race all

 

[SuperShouden]

yes, that's why I'm trying to stagger my races with the LMS races. The Suzuka race is two weeks. This Pre-Season Race is a week. Then I'll have qualifying next week. That way, while you're qualifying for one series, your racing in the other. That way you can do the qualifying laps as a victory lap or as a warm up.

 

[raz_10]

Thanks for telling me, I was expecting Suzuka to be due this Sunday

 

[SuperShouden]

Yeah, deadline for Suzuka is the 23rd. this pre-season race is due on the 16th..and it's a short race. you should be able to do it under half an hour.

 

[Parnelli Bone]

Yea, it doesn't take very long. Thankfully...Tsukuba is one of my least favorites.

 

[GTsail]

Greetings all -
I have run my three GS class "T" cars at Tsukuba, and got some amazingly close fastest lap times. My fastest "T" car's best lap was only 0.280 seconds faster than my slowest "T" car's best lap.

The 20 lap race times were pretty close as well with exactly 1 second separating the slowest "T" car's time from the second slowest "T" car's time.

I am also finding that I am no match for the level 5 AI

Good luck with your pre-season race's
GTsail

 

[SuperShouden]

I've got a good question: is anyone planning on submitting times? So far, I've only got mine.

That's good that you're lap times were close, GTsail. That means my last minute adjustments worked. As you chose three of the fastest (with GTO the fastest by far) but, I must say, my GTO race felt better with the lower HP. After my manditory pitstop, I swapped out for Soft tires and got a nice time.

On another note, I have no idea what to do with the ST class. The majority of cars won't have any trouble with their +3 opponents, but with the Audi and STR4, there is a major difference, as they start out with higher HP, so the computer gives them AI with higher HP. As a result, I got lapped...by everyone. Ended with only being ahead of the 5th place 190E Merc. But, I'm not sure if lowering the difficulty would do much. I tried it and it still pitted me against some pretty tough opponents. I guess I might just have to put up with getting lapped as I'm the only idiot in the SRT4 or TT. I think it would be nice to either adjust HP/weight BEFORE a race in GT5 or chose your opponents and their HP/Weight. Then I could choose the cars in each class (two or three of them with 16 cars on the track) and race against them. It would definitely make testing shorter.

 

[GTsail]

*snip*
On another note, I have no idea what to do with the ST class. The majority of cars won't have any trouble with their +3 opponents, but with the Audi and STR4, there is a major difference, as they start out with higher HP, so the computer gives them AI with higher HP. As a result, I got lapped...by everyone. Ended with only being ahead of the 5th place 190E Merc. But, I'm not sure if lowering the difficulty would do much. I tried it and it still pitted me against some pretty tough opponents. ......

How about letting us pick the dificulty level for the race?

That way each driver can decide if he wants a drafting partner, or if he wants to drive without any decent competition.

Alternatively, maybe the Audi and the SRT should run against level 0 difficulty, while the rest of the ST class should run against level 4. The level setting won't be the same for each car, but the competition will be about equal, which is really what you're trying to level anyway.

We are seeing this same problem in the GT1 class in the GTPLMS Series. Due to how strong the cars are and how much ABud has had to adjust the cars to make them equal, some cars are getting strong competition, while others are getting weak competition.

Even in the GS class, I think the level setting is giving some cars very strong competition, while other cars have significantly weaker competition.

Respectfully,
GTsail

 

[SuperShouden]

Well, I ran all the cars on Tsukuba last week and the GS classes weren't too different, and I never got lapped with any of those cars. But the Audi and SRT4 struggle with the more powerful cars after penalties. I think I like the choosing your own difficulty with the stipulation that it must be 0 through 10. preventing anyone from putting it on -10 or something.

 

[Smallhorses]

Got chance to run this tonight, and have submitted times for both classes as I'll now be away until Wednesday.
Had no problems with +5 or +3 AI in either of my cars, and was able to finish a clear 1st in both classes.

Like all race series I believe it's good manners to request that the organiser doesn't look at early submission PMs until after the race deadline passes and believe this is good thing to follow going forth.
It doesn't really matter for the Pre-season race, but what does everyone think of this idea?

 

[oldmodelt]

Like all race series I believe it's good manners to request that the organiser doesn't look at early submission PMs until after the race deadline passes and believe this is good thing to follow going forth.
It doesn't really matter for the Pre-season race, but what does everyone think of this idea?

Always a good idea. In my TTCRS running now, I post my time etc a few hours at least before I open any pm's. It helps that the pm's are time and date coded. Lets people get a feel for the organizer until they know them. Veteran organizers excluded.

 

[GTsail]

*snip* Got chance to run this tonight, and have submitted times for both classes as I'll now be away until Wednesday.
Had no problems with +5 or +3 AI in either of my cars, and was able to finish a clear 1st in both classes.....

In the GS Class, finishing first against the level 5 AI depends upon the car you are using.

Using my T45 Nissan 350Z my main competition was the following Jags:

Jaguar S-Type R
Jaguar XKR Coupe
Jaguar XKR R-Performance

And like Smallhorses, I finished first in the 20 lap race.

However, using my T45 BMW M3, my competition was the following:

Shelby Series 1 Supercharged
Acura HSC
Lotus Esprit V8 SE
Lotus Exprit V8 GT

I finished in 5th place against these cars, even though my total race time was about 1 second faster than my Nissan 350Z race time.

The AI that my BMW has to run against is quite a bit stronger, and I had no chance!

Respectfully,
GTsail

 

[SuperShouden]

Yeah, for ST with the SRT4, I was pitted against a Lotus, Merc 190E, Honda S2000 and a bunch of others

 

[Parnelli Bone]

Okay, here it is. I know we're supposed to PM these, but I'm going public early for this first round. I gots nothing to hide. A PM has also been sent, though.

When I did ST at +3, I reset the grid so that there were a couple rear-drive cars present ('71 Lotus Europa and '80 Renault 5). I did this because all the FFs which show up offer no competition. I was ahead of all of them by Lap 1/Turn 7. Catching up to the rear-drives was trickier. They both started in positions 1 and 2 respectively. I managed to catch up to the Renault by Lap 8 or 9, but the Lotus remained ahead until Lap 10. I was right behind it when it spun out in Turn 9! x1,000!


User Name: Parnelli Bones
Class: ST
Car: MINI Cooper-S
Number: 166
HP: 160
Weight: 1041 kg
Total Time: 23:28.294
Fastest Lap: 1:08.583
No. of Pits: 1 (Lap 11/12)




GS class at +5 proved to be a walkover. By Lap 3, I was in 1st place, so the rest of the race was rather mastubatory.

User Name: Parnelli Bones
Class: GS
Car: '05 Ford Mustang GT
Number: 11
HP: 300
Weight: 1552 kg
Total Time: 21:49.049
Fastest Lap: 1:02.980
No. of Pits: 1 (lap 10/11)



My opinion is it would be nice if we could set our own difficulties, or fudge it around some how. 20 Laps at Tsukuba wasn't really long enough to get bored while getting way ahead of the competition, but I can see some other races (which are much longer) being a borefest with certain cars. Whatever though...I'll go by whatever the rules are and stuff.

 

[SuperShouden]

Since it's pass the deadline, I've looked at the times and will have them up first thing in the morning. I must say, however, the results are interesting. Especially in GS. One of the fast cars was still on top. One of the slow cars got a podium and another of the fastest cars finished last.

ST was a bit of a mixed result. Two Minis and Two Golfs ran and the result was mixed. one set finished in the top two and the other set finished in the bottom three.

However, Total times were extremely close with less than a minute separating first and last. It would have been close racing in a real race, but not too clustered. There was a heated battle for the lead in GS class between the top three positions. I mean there would have been some shovin' going on there. In ST class, the battle for the lead was really with the top two slots, but third would have been watchin' and waiting for the leaders to take each other out.

Good race, great results. I think the main season should be interesting with more cars and longer races.Tire wear should be a bit different leaving Tsukuba, as well. No more of that left front abuse.

Good luck to everyone.

P.S. Thank you to everyone for following the Manditory Pitstop rule. I know with those GS cars you really didn't need to, but there were a couple that I tested that couldn't have made it the entire way, which would have made the times a little out of wack. (And I didn't have to DQ anyone for violating the rule, which is good. Wouldn't have been major, times would have been posted, but they'd been in last place regardless of how fast they were.) So. Thanks to everyone who participated for following the rules. I hope the guys who have chosen multiple cars in a class are close to figuring out what car you want. This week will be Qualifying at Autumn Ring, and by the time Qualifying is done, cars for the regular season have to be finalized.

 

[raz_10]

Hey sorry I missed the dead line (it is only pre-season)
I will be racing with the GTO, the race with the civic was very boring after 6 laps

 

[SuperShouden]

So you're dropping out of ST, raz?

 

[GTsail]

After extensive testing, and driving all over GT4, I am going to settle on the Chevy Camaro SS for my GS class car. Its quite floaty and fun to drive, so I'll do the best I can with it.

Respectfully,
GTsail

 

[SuperShouden]

Nice! BTW, the rest of the races will allow drivers to choose their own difficulty.

 

[raz_10]

So you're dropping out of ST, raz?

Yes, decided to stay in the GS class only.

 

[SuperShouden]

okee dokee.

 

[Parnelli Bone]

Congrats to Smallhorses. LOokin forward to the next round.

I probably would have neared or beat his GS total time if I hadn't made a bad decision towards the end. I ran soft tires on the 'Stang before and after the pit stop. Which means by Lap 20, it was understeering like a mother. And I lost multiple seconds trying to keep it ON the track in that final turn. Didn't brake early enough...Argh!

Again, congrats.

 

[Smallhorses]

Thanks Parnelli Bone! Looking forward to the next race already.

@ CAMikaze: That's a smokin' laptime in the ST class, what did you do, run Racing Super Softs for the final stint? I'm figuring possibly a typo there...

 

[SuperShouden]

i know. I was impressed by that time with the VW. I'll probably award a bonus point for the fastest lap.

 

[CAMikaze]

@ CAMikaze: That's a smokin' laptime in the ST class, what did you do, run Racing Super Softs for the final stint? I'm figuring possibly a typo there...

Well Moe-Eye-Poke me and change my name to Ahhah Ollie Yaboobooed, I did sent a time w/a typo. The Fast Lap for my GTI should read 1'09.369.

i know. I was impressed by that time with the VW. I'll probably award a bonus point for the fastest lap.

Wouldn't be a bad idea, even if I goofed.

 

[SuperShouden]

that's alright. I can certainly change it....well, actually I can't 'cause I don't have those times anymore as I'm set up for qualifying, now.

 

[Parnelli Bone]

Yea, I was wondering about that 1:04 in ST. I was like no way...even with some sort of a short cut it's impossible with the recommended power.

Hey, I have a question about qualifying at Autumn Ring (and other races). Are we supposed to do this with one lap only? Or can we just drive around the track, doing multiple laps while not re-starting the qualifying round? Know what I mean?

 

[SuperShouden]

i think we can do multiple laps.