La Sarthe Weekend ~ Le Mans meets SuperGT

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jjaisli

jjaisli

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I've been running a SuperGT series and the events were scheduled so that we raced on La Sarthe the same weekend as the 24Hrs of Le Mans. It seemed like a good bit of fun and everybody was really pumped for the race.

We use only premium SuperGT cars, tuned to 590PP with Racing Hard tires, all assists off and a gentleman's agreement not to use ABS. Several people couldn't make it for this round so there were only 11 participants in the lobby. But I was very impressed at the low level of attrition and the respect and room given to each other, considering how closely packed the field was during the first 2 laps. The biggest issue is trying to cope with the ridiculous slipstream affect (+34 kmh in extreme cases) and the confusion and uncertainty this creates in trying to determine your braking points. In fact, in most cases, any contact is a direct result of the draft (combined with a bit of lag).

The race ran for 27 laps (just under 2 hours). We started (game time) at 19:00 and set the clock for real time transition, and finished just after nightfall. Penalties were off so there were no ghosting cars, but we set damage to 'light' to avoid unfair problems caused by lag. Grip level set to 'real'. Weather fixed at Sunny.


The First 6 laps of the race:
[YOUTUBEhd]A9BeBGWfYJE[/YOUTUBEhd]


A battle after the first pit stop:
[YOUTUBEhd]_BV0qMFpvhU[/YOUTUBEhd]


The final 3 laps of the race. I was closing down on the car in front of me. He had stopped one lap earlier and his tires were going off.
[YOUTUBEhd]AgL9dWtZ2hs[/YOUTUBEhd]


Available in 720p.


In general, I prefer driving in cockpit view, but I'm forced to use bumper cam most of the time in this series because (at least in the Calsonic Nissan GT-R), you can't see the mirrors in cockpit view and it makes driving in a pack a bit treacherous. But there was one stretch of this race, where I was running on my own for about 5-6 lap where there was nobody really very close to me. And I switched to cockpit view, just as the sun was going down and the lights were coming on. After having watched about 19 hours of Le Mans coverage, the affect was a bit surreal. It was almost like being in a trans, for a brief instant not sure if I was sitting there watching in car footage from a GTE car on TV or actually driving myself. Pure bliss. :sly: It's a shame that you can't see in-car view on the replay from on-line races.
 
No ABS is so hard for me that alone is worthy of a well done sir!
 
Well, I didn't open this thread to make a case for not using ABS. But since you mentioned it, I would like to comment.

1. It's not really as hard as most people think. But without ABS, the stock settings for brake bias of 5/5 make it very difficult. I don't think most people can drive properly with these settings. I'm usually driving between 3/0 and 5/2, depending on the car and tries. For this above race I had 3/1.

2. Most people have trouble without ABS simply because they get used to using ABS and get into a bad habit of just stomping on the brakes at the last minute. It's effective, and aside from the dreadful "skid recovery", ABS is the only assist that generally allows you to drive faster and more consistently. But it's 'boring' and it takes away an additional element of skill.

3. ABS doesn't just stop the car quicker, but it acts as a form of stability control under braking. Hitting the brakes hard in an off camber corner as you're approaching the apex while you have ABS enabled may get the car slightly out of line. Doing this without ABS will send you spinning off the road. There's a much greater challenge not using ABS because you have to think about your braking points and your approach to braking much more carefully. It takes a much greater commitment to run the race without ABS because you also run the risk of locking up your brakes, which not only increases your brake distance but causes premature wear on your tires. And in endurance races, such as those above, where pit strategy and tire wear play a big part, it can make a huge difference.

There was some resistance to not using ABS in the beginning. But most of us who do it, never look back. There's something special about locking up, getting a bit sideways, letting up on the brakes, correcting, over correcting, back on the brakes, etc. It's a different game without it.
 
I need to gain speed and become a decent racer before I attempt that but I'll certainly take that into concideration 👍
 
the videos above are the reason ive just purchased a dfp, racing seat and a few cars on gt5 to get up to speed and race online :) great videos!
 
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