I'm sure I must have posted my 1000 Miles excursions here somewhere but I'll plonk them in here regardless as they are certainly 'on topic', so to speak:
EUROPEAN HALL
1000 Miles Championship
Unmodified Pre-1971 Cars Only
Normal or Sports Tyres Required
No Licence Required
Prize Money: 150,000cr/race, 300,000cr/series
Prize Car: Alfa Romeo Giulia Sprint Speciale ’63 (Value 13,183cr)
1) Nurburgring (25 laps)
2) Opera Paris (95 laps)
3) Cote D’Azur (99 laps)
4) Circuit de la Sarthe II (35 laps)
The first time I ran through this I made very few notes but I think I used an E-Type Jaguar in stock trim and B-Spec’d most of it because of the time investment the series demanded.
The second time I did it I used a Lotus Elan S1, fettling its suspension quite a bit to iron out high speed handling issues. Again, my note taking back then was lamentable and the only pertinent thing to pass on is that I thought that A-Spec points were hard to come by, especially at La Sarthe because of the fast Mercedes (apparently I won via superior pit stop strategy
).
Moving on to the present (May, 2007) I re-examined the possibilities of using the Elan, this time on N1 tyres with maximum ballast. I had her handling superbly (for my taste) but discovered that not only did she dominate the AI on a test I did at the ‘Ring but that A-Spec barely improved at all from the high 70’s that I already had.
I really don’t want to use a Japanese car if I can help it so I examined potential alternatives to the A-Spec “Star Car” (which is the Nissan Skyline Sport Coupe BLRA-3 ’62 (92HP, 1350KG)). The Elan is 105HP and 839KG with ballast, so no wonder the A-Spec was so poor. Other possibles are the Alfa Romeo Giulia Sprint Speciale ’63 (114HP, 950KG), the Alfa Romeo 1600 Duetto (110HP, 960KG), the VW Karmann Ghia (44HP, 840KG) and the Corvette C1 Convertible (152HP, 1309KG).
The Corvette is too powerful I think (tho’ the high weight may help with A-Spec) and
Miko has used the Duetto previously so I’d like to help expand the knowledge base by exploring a different path (altho’ the Duetto would’ve been my first choice otherwise once I realised that no British car fitted the race parameters).
Knowing ahead of time that the Giulia is renowned for its atrocious handling, with a serious mien I load it up with N1 tyres and 200KG Ballast. Pulling on my driving gloves and slinging my tool kit in the back, I head for the Nurburgring for an evening of spannering and testing.
As expected, if a car can have a handling vice then this car has it!
. After a while I end up with the following set-up, that I actually find to be quite good:
Brakes: 4/3
Springs: 9.3/7.9
Ride: 99/99
Damper B: 5/4
Damper R: 7/6
Camber: 2/1
Toe: +2/-1
Stabs: 2/2
Gears: Tranny Trick then Final to 4.410
LSD: 8/24/8
Ballast: 200KG @ -16
The LSD allows for a little leaden footedness and thus compensates for the slight understeer it shows at some points – my thinking is that it’s going to be a long race and I can’t expect myself to be perfect on the throttle out of every corner.
Now to look at Grids. I dug as deep at Grid 20 and found some high A-specs on offer. Sadly, the 200 A-Spec grids had inhabitants such as the Jaguar E-Type and the Mercedes 300 SL or the A/C 427 Cobra-clone.
Grid 1, as
Lugnuts has suggested, was a respectable 160 A-Spec so I decided that I’d try that one. I might have an investigation of the ‘better’ rated grids another time.
Grid: VW Karmann Ghia, Fiat 500F, Honda S800, Alfa Romeo Giulia Sprint GTA, Mini Marcos
So, Race 1, Nurburgring.
I qualified with a 9’55.687, up by 7.978 seconds from the second slot Marcos. The other Alfa sat on trap three. The tyre wear shows that the fronts wear more than the rear by quite a margin but it’s too late to worry about that now!
The race starts and I’m very quickly in for a shock. With the qualifying margin I briefly hoped that this was going to be easier than I thought – how wrong I was. The Marcos was all over me and the Alfa helped out in mobbing his fellow ‘countrycar’!
I help the lead for a lap and then the Alfa ambushed me whilst I blocking the Marcos. Once past me, he started to head into the distance, making a horrific ten seconds per lap on me. I knew from
Lugs what his pit schedule would be and I hung in there, trailing a dismal third, hoping that his performance would drop off as his tyres wore. No such luck and I was quite depressed to find myself still in third place even after the Marcos pitted on lap six.
I now had a decision to make. Did I retire and rethink or stick with it and treat it as a four hour data gathering exercise? Surprisingly, given how bad it was before I sorted the suspension out, I was enjoying driving the Giulia and those N1 tyres were seeming to just last and last. So I stayed in and just accepted that I was going to finish third.
By lap thirteen, my tyres were still only going yellow at the front and I briefly toyed with doing the whole race on one set
. Then I realised that I’d run out of fuel if I tried that, so I might as well pit and see how the other tyre types would wear. I pitted in and switched to N3’s. I’m not sure how far behind I was at that point but I think it was about two and a half minutes.
What a transformation! My best lap on N1’s had been 9’47.xxx. My pit-out lap was a 9’36.xxx and my next lap was a 9’26.xxx as I realised how much harder I could push, especially as the tyres warmed.
I started to do lap-math in my head as I was driving and trying to calculate how much ground I was making up each lap. The N3’s wore quickly but I guessed they would just about do six laps (I prayed that the handling wouldn’t go to pot when the fronts were orange). That meant that I would have to pit again on lap nineteen but I knew the other Alfa would pit twice more. Could I catch him?
I watched the deficit clock like a hawk and I couldn’t believe how quickly I was reeling him in. When I went into the pits on lap nineteen, he was just going around the last turn – if I’d been a little closer I could’ve made intimidating gestures at him over the pit wall
.
I retook the lead on lap twenty-two in a dramatic, clean, overtaking manoever over the drop at Brunnchen (I so wish the replay had still been recording at that point).
That was effectively that. I built up a large lead by the time the GTA pitted on lap 24 and had a margin of victory of 1’06, despite a slow last lap (I ‘role played’ a bit and did a show-off ‘cruise’ to the line rather than keeping flat out
).
Best Lap 9’24.091 Total Race Time 4:02’46.xxx.
That ranks as one of the best races I’ve ever had in GT and just goes to show that you should never quit as even when it looks utterly hopeless you never know what can happen.
*******************************************************************************************************************
Race 2
Opera Paris 95 Laps
Couldn't qualify on pole on N1 tyres, so switched to N3's and did it by five seconds.
Final Drive adjusted to 5.760.
Put the High Street Boots back on (N1/N2 as a trial) and started the race. A-Spec still 160, which was a surprise as I thought the oil would have gone black by now.
As before, the Alfa Romeo GTA was the only serious opposition both in pace and pit strategy.
The hard grade N tyres looked good for the whole race but I pitted on lap 31 whilst they were still green and fitted N3's as I was fed up of being a cheat and trading paint with the GTA in the corners.
An important thing to note is that I think that it is possible to do the whole race without refuelling in the pitstops. I can't say for sure as I accidentally did fill up on one stop (thought I'd turned Fuel "off" but obviously hadn't).
The N3's didn't last all that well but did as much as I expected. I did 27 laps on my first set and pitted in when the wear was affecting lap times too much and it was obvious that I couldn't make them last long enough to only require one more stop.
I pitted on lap 31, lap 57 and lap 77. The Alfa GTA pitted on lap 27, lap 52 and lap 77. I think his pit pattern was messed up by being stuck behind me for so long . Now that I know that a three stopper is on the cards, I'd go in earlier on the N1's and space the pit visits out a bit better.
The highlight of the race was coming round turn five late in the race to find the Fiat 500F reversing across the track ! Anchored up and swerved around him so no damage done other than a couple of seconds lost.
Total Race Time of 2:56'17.980 BL (N1): 1'53.7xx BL (N3): 1'46.273 MoV nearly three laps!
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Race 3
Cote d’Azur 99 Laps
Again, N1’s were not enough to take pole in qualifying. Tried with N2/N3 and that did it, giving pole by 3.338 seconds (2’16.529).
In the race, I could just keep ahead of the GTA on N1’s but I couldn’t make a gap of more than three seconds. He went in for his first pit on lap 30. I pitted on lap 36 with the front tyres still green and more than half my fuel still remaining. BL on N1’s was 2’14.639.
My second visit to the pits was on lap 57, having run N3’s fore and aft, garnering a BL of 2’08.438. The fronts were shot by this point and costing me three or four seconds per lap. Checking the fuel showed 31 units left (a usage of 0.85/lap), which was not enough to finish the race so I topped up to 41, just to be on the safe side (mathematically 36/37 should’ve been enough).
I decided to try an N2/N3 set of boots but these turned out to be much slower than N3’s, turning in 2’11’s rather than 2’08’s. They looked like they had enough life in them for the rest of the race but I pitted on lap 78 and changed back to N3’s as I found the understeery, tho’ stable, feel to be not to my taste.
The GTA’s three-pit strategy was 30, 58, 86.
Best lap of the race for me was 2’08.035, TRT 3:40’22.536, MoV 1 lap and an indeterminate portion of another lap
.
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Race 4
Circuit de la Sarthe (non-chicaned version) 35 laps
I qualified on N3 tyres with the Final Drive set to 4.410. Poled up 7.9 seconds with 5’28.465. The car tops out at 123/124 on the Mulsanne. Try a Final Drive Ratio of 4.670 to see if it is faster. Turns out to be a fraction better, hitting 125 down the straight. Increase to 4.860 and go for qualifying again. Got pole with 5’23.340 (up about 13 seconds).
That big margin turned out to be an illusion tho’ as the GTA dumped me into the sand in the first chicane :grr:. Trailing badly after than encounter practically off the start, I pitted on lap 5 and switched to N3’s. I was already way behind and persevering on the N1’s was a non-hope strategy as I was not catching up at all, so I felt I had nothing to lose.
That turned out to be a good move as the tyres appear to last forever on this circuit
. I hacked away at the GTA’s lead until I caught him on lap 14 and gradually began to pull away. Lap 20 saw a sudden leap in my lead, so either he had an ‘off’ or encountered traffic problems and I took the chance to head for the pits for my second stop. I took on a splash of fuel but didn’t need it as I’d refuelled fully in my first stop and the last 15 laps had only used 37 units. However, I didn’t want any surprises
.
The GTA also pitted this lap, which was a relief as I’d begun to worry that he was never going to go in.
From the moment that the lead suddenly increased markedly, the race was in the bag as I knew I had a pit-in-hand, so to speak and could’ve pitted again if I wanted to. However, the tyres lasted 15 laps with no dramas.
BL 5’18.485 (I’m not sure of the tenths, why doesn’t the game store proper race stats?). TRT 3:09’37.xxx. MoV about half a lap or so.
One mystery is that I got 161 A-Spec for race 4 compared to 160 for the other three and yet checking HP after the series it was still at 114, so I’m at a loss to explain it
.
Also, by experimenting once I had the lead, I can dispel the myth that it is faster to cut the chicane at the end of the lap. On hard sprung, race tyred, plastic-missiles perhaps, not on Road Tyred, soft sprung, old classics
. There was another La Sarthe myth I looked at too, which is that it is faster to run down the Mulsanne on the rougher, dusty strip at the roads edge. I can report that, no, it isn’t. Taking that line chops two MPH off your top-end speed – again, this probably doesn’t hold true with race cars but is immediately obvious with a low powered old car like the Giulia.
So far, (therefore) I've found the Lotus Elan / Fairlady combination is best. There is another, slower combo of cars that can possibly run against including: the '68 Honda S800, Karmann Ghia, and '65 Toyota Sports 800. Eventually, the Karmann Ghia can't keep up with the others (it has to take extra pitstops since its rear tires wear out faster) but for awhile, I've sometimes seen this posse duel with me.
+Rep
Can you swap up to S1s?
I really really wanted to win so that the last hour+ wasn't just a waste of time. So I switched to R3 (medium) tires. A bit of a cheat, yes...but my lap times went down dramatically. The heavy understeer which I was dealing with throughout the GV300 was now gone. Try it, and tell me you can't feel the difference.
