Dragon Trail 300KM - 2018 Edition - Race Finished!

rallymorten
..and thus concludes the racing action of the 2018 Dragon Trail 300KM. A race in which I proved just how important it is to keep somewhat active if you want to not crash and burn on the final lap :lol:

I have received 1 stewards inquiry, regarding @WaikeCU not using both tyre compounds. I'll be looking into that (and any other incidents you feel like should be reported). If nothing else comes up, expect the final results tomorrow.

Speaking of incidents, I'm looking at the incident involving @Tomsoft, myself (and @whiteusagi ?) and my take on it is this:

Tomsoft has just overtaken me coming into the final hairpin. He drifts a tad wide, and I spot an opportunity to undercut. He loses the rear end entirely, and I happen to be at the wrong place at the wrong time (which, come to think of it, basically sums up my life). As far as I'm concerned, nobody's done anything decidedly wrong here.

I'm a bit more interested in the part involving whiteusagi, however. Whiteusagi is coming up on a slower Tomsoft fast, and because Tomsoft hasn't made any clear intention to move towards the pit entry at that point, tries to go around him on his right. At this point, Tomsoft *does* start moving to the right, and inevitably, contact happens.

If we were a super duper ultra highly serious somethingorother, this would be where I'd assign a penalty to Tomsoft, but considering the game had him do a full lap with a broken engine, I'd consider that enough karma.

The other incident I want to give quick thoughts on is me vs. @buraspo on lap 16:

Coming into the braking zone at what's actually T2, we're side-by-side. I do back out of it a little bit, but get an awkward bounce off of the kerbs, which sends me into buraspo's rear quarter panel, sending him spinning.

Personally, I'm putting this one down to 70% my fault. Depending on where you measure it, buraspo was indeed fully ahead, and thus I didn't back enough out of it. As I say, however, it depends on where exactly one would measure it, because at the point of impact, I'm about halfway alongside, and as we enter the braking zone, it's a dead heat.

I've been looking through the rules of racing to try and make as informed a decision as possible on this one, hence why I'm coming to the conclusion that it sits somewhere between a racing incident and my fault, tending to the latter, which is why I at least did the honorable thing and waited for him to recover. I'd like to hear what everyone else takes away from this, though. @Drex124 you might still be on for that top 10.
Click to expand...

Well I guess I forgot we had to use both compounds *facepalm* pitted on lap 1 for damage, pitted on lap 8 again for damage and then I finally got on with my race. Still ended P2 somehow...
 
Great event today @rallymorten, better finish than my DNF from last year. Here is a few snaps from the race. Congrats again @Freddude on the amazing drive.

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GT Weekly Special Report: Dragon Trail 300km

Saturday, 24th of November 2018
Report by Kiefer Mackinnan

The Dragon Trail 300km is an Endurance event that is open to all sorts of Gr.3 machines and all sorts of drivers around the world. While it may be a casual enduro, it still has some professionalism included in it, especially with teams such as Starscream Enterprises entering three BMW M3 GTs to this event with their drivers @damonc84, @Freddude, and owner @Miguelinho. Then we got Half The Race Gone with their representative @Hasse R in the Atenza, and finally we got newcomers RZQ and Kadokawa Racing Project in their No.6 Subaru WRX Gr.3, here in its 2017 Blancpain GT form that brought him and Antonio Westbrooke to a 6th place finish in the championship. The grid is shaking up to be one of the best enduros ever existed in modern history.

Speaking of which, the event is formed in 2017 with an inaugural race, with a grid mostly dominated by Bimmers, with an odd GT-R and various others. This year is the first, as far as we know it, time that we see an Itasha car in form of said KRP Scoobie. Grid is still dominated by Bimmers, again, but this time, no Z4 is in sight.

Onto Qualifying and after 10 minutes, pole position is held by @Miguelinho in one of the SSE prepared M3s. We do also see @WaikeCU's No. 55 KitKat Porsche doing well in here as well. RZQ and his KRP WRX can only muster a 9th place start.

The race start is where all the action kicked off, when the KitKat Porsche is involved in an accident in the Esses section, then on Lap 2 on the same section, HTRG's @Hasse R and SSE's @Freddude came into a collision, to which the unlucky RZQ ends up tagging the front of said SSE M3. What made KRP even more unlucky is that they accidentally told the repair crews to back off, which causes their driver to trundle back into the pits for damage repairs at the end of the 3rd lap, putting him at a massive disadvantage, especially when the driver switches to Hards for a longer stint.

Into the middle stages of the race and RZQ came into a fight with a recently pitted @rallymorten in his Toby Morrish BRG Vantage GT3 and a fast approaching @Tomsoft in a Red Bull R8 LMS. That is until RZQ call it quits after getting passed as he pulls into the pits to switch to the Medium tyres, therefore completing the rule that you must use both compounds at least once, plus he already topped up for fuel on his damage stop.

The final stages of the race saw RZQ pulling in again at the end of Lap 47 for a new set of Mediums to rush to the end, and he finished 8th, a lap down from race winner @Freddude from Starscream Enterprises, in fact, it's a Belgium 1-2 with @WaikeCU in his KitKat Porsche! Unfortunately for the KitPork, it underwent an investigation that he used Mediums all the time without ever switching to Hards. DNF's include @Hasse R who allegedly had a blown steering rack, @Tomsoft with probably a terminal suspension damage, and @WhiteFlight1 who had terminal visibility issues for whatever reason it might be.

We came into the KRP pit garage to ask RZQ some questions.

Kiefer: "How's your first experience here, is it fun?"
RZQ: "Yeah, it was nice to meet people I haven't raced before, especially the Starscream guys, they performed really great in those M3s!"
Kiefer: "I heard that you had a boring race because of your repair crews getting misheard, then what happens if they even bothered to repair your car?"
RZQ: "I would probably in the fight for a podium spot!"
Kiefer: "Will you come here next year?"
RZQ: "It depends on me!"
Kiefer: "Which drivers you want to see in next year's Dragon Trail 300km?"
RZQ: "I would say that I would like to have people like kazuki-0626, @Tidgney and @LLOYDZELITE69 to race here next year!"
Kiefer: "Whoa, that's some famous stuff! How's the future will hold for you?"
RZQ: "I will return stronger, and a different livery perhaps?"
Kiefer: "That's it for today, see you next time!"
RZQ: "Yeah, see ya later!"​
 
I've had a look at the replay, and as it turns out, @WaikeCU did indeed not use the Hard compound. Given the difference in pace between the two tyres and the length of his shortest "real" stint, I'm applying a 45 second time penalty, which relegates him to 4th and the BMWs to a podium lock-out. I blame PD for an unbalanced BoP.

I'm also bumping myself to below @Drex124 for my collision with @buraspo

With that all in mind, I consider this the final results:

upload_2018-11-25_13-56-32.png


As for what's next, I did vent the idea of a Gr.3/Gr.4 multiclass one at Barcelona, there's still the Group 4 Super Tourers thing I teased at this exact event last year and has come to a whole lot of nothingness since then..
 
rallymorten
I've had a look at the replay, and as it turns out, @WaikeCU did indeed not use the Hard compound. Given the difference in pace between the two tyres and the length of his shortest "real" stint, I'm applying a 45 second time penalty, which relegates him to 4th and the BMWs to a podium lock-out. I blame PD for an unbalanced BoP.

I'm also bumping myself to below @Drex124 for my collision with @buraspo

With that all in mind, I consider this the final results:

View attachment 782297

As for what's next, I did vent the idea of a Gr.3/Gr.4 multiclass one at Barcelona, there's still the Group 4 Super Tourers thing I teased at this exact event last year and has come to a whole lot of nothingness since then..
Click to expand...

Darn @rallymorten... You just want a M3 podium! :lol:
 
Report of my own race/view of the race.

Quali:
Being the first to get out of the pits for the qualifying gave me a small advantage (struggling with lap times if I'm behind someone or in the middle of traffic). That advantage wouldn't really help me that much, as my times were way slower than I had expected, resulting in a 8th position.

Race:
Starting now from 8th, the start went well for me, barely any mistakes, even grabbing some places until the first chicane. Although getting safely through the chicane, I lost some places by being too careful, having to catch them up now lap by lap.

The end of the 4th lap(?) was a hard hit for myself, struggling to keep the car on the track after entering the third sector during a battle with rallymorten and whiteusagi, I finally seemed to find the gap to overtake rallymorten, however, losing the control on the outside of the corner and hitting rallymorten first, resulting in a front suspension damage, and then getting hit by whiteusagi (since I wasn't paying attention what's happening behind me/ 100% my fault there) while trying to enter the pits.
Since I entered the pits sideways, I got respawned next to the pits and had to complete a lap with a damaged suspension and engine.

**(Apologies to both drivers involved there.)**

On Lap 25, I found myself in a battle against buraspo and rallymorten again. While trying to stay in buraspo's slipstream in the S corner, my car started to understeer heavily, almost hitting rallymorten (who was trying to make a pass on me at the time). Luckily, I managed to slow down my car fast enough to avoid the accident.

Near the end of the race (lap 45 to 58), my mentality gave up, resulting in several crashes into the deadly final chicane.

Although it's probably one of my worst races I'd in a long time, I can still say that I'm happy that I was able to participate.
It was my first time in a "league" race too and I didn't expect to get into such a competitive and respective field.
I'll try to improve on my mistakes and hope to be able to join next year again.
 

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