AC Multiclass Abarth 500/Maxda MX5 @LeMans, Wed 8th June 2022

[thom462]

Good to be back after two weeks. Had not much pratice so was lacking pace at the first laps but could do a legal 05.04.5 at the end. Had a good fight with Carsten which was fun. Besides the interesting battle with the two car classes, what a legend track, always special to drive here.
Thx for organizing and cu all next time.

 

[Douglas Aird]

I didn't get it right in qualifying and ended up p8 but could have been a couple of places better in a tight midfield.

Ok start but lost a couple of places. Got past Omar on the second chicane of the main straight but he was right behind me after that. Then we had a couple of touches braking into Indianapolis which spun me round. Omar waited, thanks for that, but I lost 2 places and a chunk of time.

After that the rest of the race was me trying to catch Robert and keep Raul behind me. All three of us pitted at the same time and I got a really good one (fuel only). Robert was about 6 seconds ahead and I had some hope when I reduced it to 4 seconds but started to fall back again and was 10 seconds behind at the end. P10 in the end.

Enjoyed the race and lowered my best by 2.5 seconds by getting into the low 5.06s.

Great pace from the podiums, especially Allan for mixing it with the Abarths. I was hoping to gain some places if the Abarths had to make a second stop but it was not to be.

Thanks for organising, Han.

 

[stigs2cousin]

After a good qualifying and an interesting start things went backward for me.
The Abarths and Mazdas had quite different characteristics which made for exciting laps.
After Han caught me (on the straight, no art in that ) I managed to elbow me back to the front in the Porsche Curves.
Few laps later I tried the same feat again and cocked it up spectacularly
so Han got pushed into the wall. I gave the position back and repented for the remainder of the race.

The pitstop strategy is an art that eludes me completely so there is an opening for crewchief once again ( a high risk job, one predecessor got sacked, the other is still missing.....)

Thanks to everyone for a nice and fair race and especially Han for organizing

MFG Carsten

 

[Dzul]

I had a bit of a flat, lonely race with sprinkles of action. I couldn't get a clean qualifying lap due to traffic (it can happen here apparently, haha!) so I resigned myself to start at the back. Probably not a bad place since there was a group collision at the Dunlop chicane on the first lap and had I done a time I most likely would have been involved... but I managed to dodge the derailed carousel and carry on.

Right on the first lap it was made obvious to me what the differences in straight speed are between the Mazda and the Abarth since a fiery 500 just breezed past at the end of the Mulsanne straight. I also had Omar @maxilogan in his MX5 on similar pace behind me and we had a good scrap for a couple of laps. It was specially exciting going two-abreast through the Porsche curves and in pursuit at the Ford chicanes, trying to get a good exit. I managed to get past but he stayed close. We were closing in on @Douglas Aird and I managed consecutive quick laps until the pack I was in pitted, me included. After that I tried to catch up with Doug but he had better pace on the second stint and I didn't help myself with a couple of bad exits here and there.

At some point I had @danny26 closing in (probably after his pitstop)... again, the straight speed of the Abarth put him ahead of me at the end of the Mulsanne straight but I caught up at Indianapolis-Arnage and got next to him through the Porsche curves but thought better of it and let him take the Ford chicanes first 'coz I knew the straights were coming so I had no chance and I was hurting my times to the cars behind me. So, like I said, a bit of a flat, lonely race with sprinkles of action. Hopefully I'll manage a better starting spot on the next one.

Congratulations to the podium places, well done chaps, blistering pace! And thanks again for organising Han @HF2000 this is proving to be a great combo! See you on the next one lads.

 

[640er]

Thanks Han for organizing and congrats to the podium.

Not much to add from my side. Boring race for most of the time. Got past by the Fiats on the straights with no real chance to fight them. Had at least one little fight in the end with Paul but it was clear that as soon as we will get on the next straight, he'll breeze past me

Interesting to see how Alan managed to stay up front fighting with the Fiats

 

[Shed 17]

What a race! Strategies, tactics and how close was that finish after 60 minutes of cat and mouse racing.
While the Le Mans circuit might seem boring to some with its longs straights, it remains one of my favorite tracks despite my own race being compromised by a perceived lack of fuel. The Race Fuel app and Crew Chief both indicated that I would need a splash and dash at the end so I decided to pit 15 minutes from the end to give me time to make up time lost. But as all other Abarths made it to the end I might have been a bit over cautious.
Or maybe it was because of these.....

Over the last few days I have been laying 1000 Dutch antique clay pavers in my garden and my theory is that one of these got stuck on my right foot and at least another 50 found there way into the back seat of my poor little Abarth!! Now I'm not saying that because these were made in the Netherlands that Han had any thing to do with my fuel range anxiety, but he did get closer on each lap after his slow get away.
But well done to the podiums and thanks to Han for setting this up, a really exciting race from start to finish.

 

[HF2000]

Thanks everyone for joining. I had a great race, intens but also relaxing because of the long straights.
With these cars it's so important to have the turns and the chicanes right. You get punished with a lot of time lost on the straight afterwards.
But you have enough time to lign up the car for a good turn.
Paul and Allan had a great qualify so I started 3rd but a really bad start (staying too long in 1st) made me loose several place to Mazda's. With the top speed of the Abarth I was able to overtake them all so in lap 4 I was 2nd behind Paul with a gap of about 5s. Surprisingly I was slowly closing the gap which was less then 2 seconds when we both did our pitstop. I overshot my spot so lost a few seconds there and the gap was again 4s. I started slowly closing in on Paul when he went into the pits for a second time, leaving me in 4th behind Mazda's that didn't have their pitstop yet.
When they did I moved up to the ranks and when Allan came out of the pits I was at top speed at the start/finish straight. I came beside him in turn 1 but not on the ideal raceline so it got very scary in Dunlop. Somehow managed to stay in front of him and on Mulsanne I could create a gap enough to stay ahead in the curvy part of the track. The last two laps Allan came into strike range when my front tyres were worn and especially the last chicane became very tricky. In the last lap he was on my tail just before the chicane and we past the finish line with only 0,2s between us. And that after 1 hour race!

It was a great race with lots of action and also because it felt so satisfying to overtake Carsten in my crabwalking shithouse twice in this race!

Congrats to the other podium guys and see you next time on Kemora which can be very interesting because it's short and has also sectors where one of the cars have a significally advantage over the other.

 

[pcmoreno]

Just got to check the results. Do I read this right? After 1H the winner was decided by 2 tenths! Amazing.

Also, Go abarths!

I really did miss something not joining this race. Sounded like loads of fun.

Congrats to organization and winners. These events are just get better and better

 

[stigs2cousin]

It was a great race with lots of action and also because it felt so satisfying to overtake Carsten in my crabwalking shithouse twice in this race!

Yeah have right at with your celebrations

As mentioned before everybody and my grandma can overtake on long straights with higher topspeed.

If you wanted to gloat gloat about Okayama where you outsmarted ( not outdrove) me!!

(Oh yes, don´t go looking for your Crew Chief, he got shanghaied in a dark alley )

See you next Wednesday.
( And if I join on tuesday you certainly will outdrive me because for the live of me I can´t keep that tailhappy shitbox on the track )

MFG Carsten

 

[maxilogan]

Ok start but lost a couple of places. Got past Omar on the second chicane of the main straight but he was right behind me after that. Then we had a couple of touches braking into Indianapolis which spun me round. Omar waited, thanks for that, but I lost 2 places and a chunk of time.

Pretty intense race with interesting battles, though not necessarily close ones.
I hadn't time to read the forum in the afternoon so it was a complete surprise to me that the schedule had changed and was back to normal (at least for the race start hour).

Managed to get an interesting spot on the grid (midfield? Someone pinch me to see if this is true!) and made a good start gaining a couple of spots. I noticed that the race start is one of my strong points, I always manage to get some advantage in one way or another.
I especially enjoyed the first two or three laps where the battle was close and fierce, really curious to see the replay (haven't done it yet) because there was a moment on the Mulsanne straight where we were three wide with a fiat and I'm sure that will make for a great photo.
Unfortunately in all the chaos I managed to bump @Douglas Aird , in a way that I have to yet understand. I thought I left space enough but we were three wide in a tight spot. Sorry for hijacking yours and mine race

This led me to having to battle for the back spots but it was enjoyable anyway: the rest of the race was spent trying to keep up with @Dzul Raul's pace but while I managed to get some advantage through Mulsanne and Indianapolis, he was blazing fast in the last two chicanes and always got away with little to no time lost. Great driving mate!

I made some errors but less critical than usual and this reflected on the consistency stat that has been one of my best figures (let's not talk about the near-miss episode with @Kek700 Ernie, I surely did not expect the crabwalking box to have to brake so much earlier than what I usually did, and I almost rear ended him entering the Ford chicanes).
I feared the moment in which I would've had to stop because I hadn't time to practice neither stopping at the right place nor getting into the pit lane without losing too much time, plus the last time a pitstop was involved my team was on strike and no one presented himself to change my tires and refuel and I had to leave the race.
This time luckily everything went well (paying your team does lead to great reasults)! I initially planned to refuel 25 L just in case, but as I heard someone on the pre-race chit chat saying that we would have needed a full tank (which I started with) plus 10 L, I decided to lower that amount to 20 L while driving in the pitlane. However that proved to be just over the needed amount and I had to lift and coast in the last two laps because I was worried about not having enough fuel to reach the end of the race. This allowed @davejevons to get close but not enough to be really dangerous if I managed not to make any error, which I did.
I don't know how you guy manage to consume such a little amount of fuel per laps..

All in all, I'm satisfied, I got to know this track on which I already raced in the past arcade flying visits but never fully made it mine as I didn't like the twisty sections before and after Mulsanne, but I now learned to enjoy them a lot, and I also was able like usual to shave off some time from my PB during the race.

Thanks @HF2000 Han for organising and cheers for your deserved win, I don't know how @Allan Ramsbottom managed to get so close to you in a Mazda, his pace has been really outstanding (as usual, I should add), cheers to the other podium finishers and see you on track next week!

 

[davejevons]

LeMans was a lot more fun to race on than I had anticipated. After getting wiped out at T2 I had a great battle with Colin in the early stages. It was a shame he had an issue and dropped back as it could have been an even longer battle. I was catching @maxilogan at the end but he managed the gap very well.

Can I make a plea for us all to make sure we apply the Golden Rule please? There have been a few incidents recently where the Golden Rule hasn't been followed and it's incredibly frustrating waiting on the side of the track when you've been wiped out only to find everyone else has gone and you're a long way off the back of the pack.

As a reminder of the rule:

Golden Rule​

If you hit another driver during a Club race and disadvantage them, you are required to slow (or stop your car if necessary) to let the other driver regain the position on you. This shows respect to your fellow drivers and will encourage drivers to be more careful. Please use some care when letting the other driver regain position, and do not immediately stop your car on the racing line where it can cause further accidents.

 

[HF2000]

LeMans was a lot more fun to race on than I had anticipated. After getting wiped out at T2 I had a great battle with Colin in the early stages. It was a shame he had an issue and dropped back as it could have been an even longer battle. I was catching @maxilogan at the end but he managed the gap very well.

Can I make a plea for us all to make sure we apply the Golden Rule please? There have been a few incidents recently where the Golden Rule hasn't been followed and it's incredibly frustrating waiting on the side of the track when you've been wiped out only to find everyone else has gone and you're a long way off the back of the pack.

As a reminder of the rule:

Golden Rule​

If you hit another driver during a Club race and disadvantage them, you are required to slow (or stop your car if necessary) to let the other driver regain the position on you. This shows respect to your fellow drivers and will encourage drivers to be more careful. Please use some care when letting the other driver regain position, and do not immediately stop your car on the racing line where it can cause further accidents.

Hi David,

Please contact the driver that didn't obey the Golden Rule to hear his version and maybe get his apology. If you both disagree (in a friendly manner of course) or you are not satisfied, please report it to me. I will have a look and give feedback to you both. I probably won't sanction right away as I believe in second chances. Only if drivers repeatedly are reported or have been deliberate causing collisions (like the Italian Torpedo last year) they will be banned (temporarely or permantly).

 

[HF2000]

Race for next week: https://www.racedepartment.com/thre...0-mazda-mx5-kemora-wed-15th-june-2022.236129/

 

[maxilogan]

Only if drivers repeatedly are reported or have been deliberate causing collisions (like the Italian Torpedo last year) they will be banned (temporarely or permantly).

I don't remember this episode

 

[Douglas Aird]

Pretty intense race with interesting battles, though not necessarily close ones.
I hadn't time to read the forum in the afternoon so it was a complete surprise to me that the schedule had changed and was back to normal (at least for the race start hour).

Managed to get an interesting spot on the grid (midfield? Someone pinch me to see if this is true!) and made a good start gaining a couple of spots. I noticed that the race start is one of my strong points, I always manage to get some advantage in one way or another.
I especially enjoyed the first two or three laps where the battle was close and fierce, really curious to see the replay (haven't done it yet) because there was a moment on the Mulsanne straight where we were three wide with a fiat and I'm sure that will make for a great photo.
Unfortunately in all the chaos I managed to bump @Douglas Aird , in a way that I have to yet understand. I thought I left space enough but we were three wide in a tight spot. Sorry for hijacking yours and mine race

This led me to having to battle for the back spots but it was enjoyable anyway: the rest of the race was spent trying to keep up with @Dzul Raul's pace but while I managed to get some advantage through Mulsanne and Indianapolis, he was blazing fast in the last two chicanes and always got away with little to no time lost. Great driving mate!

I made some errors but less critical than usual and this reflected on the consistency stat that has been one of my best figures (let's not talk about the near-miss episode with @Kek700 Ernie, I surely did not expect the crabwalking box to have to brake so much earlier than what I usually did, and I almost rear ended him entering the Ford chicanes).
I feared the moment in which I would've had to stop because I hadn't time to practice neither stopping at the right place nor getting into the pit lane without losing too much time, plus the last time a pitstop was involved my team was on strike and no one presented himself to change my tires and refuel and I had to leave the race.
This time luckily everything went well (paying your team does lead to great reasults)! I initially planned to refuel 25 L just in case, but as I heard someone on the pre-race chit chat saying that we would have needed a full tank (which I started with) plus 10 L, I decided to lower that amount to 20 L while driving in the pitlane. However that proved to be just over the needed amount and I had to lift and coast in the last two laps because I was worried about not having enough fuel to reach the end of the race. This allowed @davejevons to get close but not enough to be really dangerous if I managed not to make any error, which I did.
I don't know how you guy manage to consume such a little amount of fuel per laps..

All in all, I'm satisfied, I got to know this track on which I already raced in the past arcade flying visits but never fully made it mine as I didn't like the twisty sections before and after Mulsanne, but I now learned to enjoy them a lot, and I also was able like usual to shave off some time from my PB during the race.

Thanks @HF2000 Han for organising and cheers for your deserved win, I don't know how @Allan Ramsbottom managed to get so close to you in a Mazda, his pace has been really outstanding (as usual, I should add), cheers to the other podium finishers and see you on track next week!

No problem, Omar. I had a look at the replay and I had Ernie overtaking me on the left and you just behind me on the right.

I didn't think you had an overlap so I moved over to the right to take the left hander but you were either braking later or had a slight overspeed on me. As a result there was minor corner to corner contact and with AC minor contact gets somehow exaggerated, taking us both off.

Racing incident in my view so all good.

 

[danny26]

At some point I had @danny26 closing in (probably after his pitstop)... again, the straight speed of the Abarth put him ahead of me at the end of the Mulsanne straight but I caught up at Indianapolis-Arnage and got next to him through the Porsche curves but thought better of it and let him take the Ford chicanes first 'coz I knew the straights were coming so I had no chance and I was hurting my times to the cars behind me. So, like I said, a bit of a flat, lonely race with sprinkles of action. Hopefully I'll manage a better starting spot on the next one.

I think I remember this - were you on the outside coming into the first right-hander of the Porsche turns? I was bricking it at this point I'd made a mess of the previous corners and I struggled through the Porsche section at the best of times in the Abarth. I definitely didn't want to cause contact while we were on the edge of grip through there so I was about ready to yield and wait for my straight line pace on the Mulsanne, but the Mazda held back at the exact moment I was expecting to see it breeze past into the next apex.

I had a few battles through that section but that's the memory that sticks out, it was thrilling stuff from my perspective so thanks for the action. Apologies if I was a bit wild through those corners, my composure is improving but there's still some learning to do when taking my crabwalking shitbox wheel-to-wheel against a real car

Can I make a plea for us all to make sure we apply the Golden Rule please? There have been a few incidents recently where the Golden Rule hasn't been followed and it's incredibly frustrating waiting on the side of the track when you've been wiped out only to find everyone else has gone and you're a long way off the back of the pack.

Hi Dave, just wanted to add my general input to this, but it's not aimed at any specific person or incident:

I'm guilty of causing a fair few accidents on RD races over the last few months and I'm always mortified and straight onto the push-to-talk with apologies. BUT - as racing enthusiasts we all know that there's a potential to cause accidents without realising it was our own fault, and if anyone feels like I've hurt their race, please call me out on voice chat or elsewhere and I'll drop everything to apologise and pull over, it's only fair. I don't think I caused any incidents in this race, but if anyone has a different experience, please feel free to call BS. The last thing I want to do is leave someone feeling like I've wrecked their evening without a care in the world.

I think I'm lucky - in all the RD races I've had I've only ever felt like someone might have bent the Golden Rule once, but then talking to the other driver after that race it became clear that there was a netcode/latency issue in AMS2 with no-one to blame, and all was well. I'm aware that more egregious incidents have affected others though, which is why I felt the need to make the above point.

The one moment I remember last night was in the melee at turn 2-3, which I believe started in the midfield and caught pretty much everyone. Colin and I rather hilariously ploughed head-on into one another while trying to symmetrically U-turn from either side of the track. At the time I laughed it off and checked the minimap to ensure we both pulled away at the same time, but I've just read that Colin eventually had to fall back due to issues - Colin mate if you had trouble as a result of our synchronised swimming moment I am so sorry! Likewise to everyone caught in the mess at the start - if any of that was caused by me taking drastic avoiding action over the kerbs at T3 I apologise.

Thankfully this is all justifying my imminent decision to spend lots of money on more screens

 

[Alfred Wayne]

@davejevons sorry again about that bump in T2. All of a sudden I was in the middle 3 wide going through those turns and got hit from the left and pushed into you. Started to slow to wait for you, but then your car got itself pointing the right direction and it seemed like we were ok. At least until that other car came across our hoods and got only you

By that point I kept going as it seemed like a new incident, but I'm curious what others would have done there.

 

[Kek700]

Ha Ha , cheeky move from me, held my breath and went for it, really expected a scenery visit.
After the next bend, no one in my mirrors, really hoping I had not been responsible for it, even though I knew I was not exactly guilt free..

 

[JamKart22]

I think I remember this - were you on the outside coming into the first right-hander of the Porsche turns? I was bricking it at this point I'd made a mess of the previous corners and I struggled through the Porsche section at the best of times in the Abarth. I definitely didn't want to cause contact while we were on the edge of grip through there so I was about ready to yield and wait for my straight line pace on the Mulsanne, but the Mazda held back at the exact moment I was expecting to see it breeze past into the next apex.

I had a few battles through that section but that's the memory that sticks out, it was thrilling stuff from my perspective so thanks for the action. Apologies if I was a bit wild through those corners, my composure is improving but there's still some learning to do when taking my crabwalking shitbox wheel-to-wheel against a real car



Hi Dave, just wanted to add my general input to this, but it's not aimed at any specific person or incident:

I'm guilty of causing a fair few accidents on RD races over the last few months and I'm always mortified and straight onto the push-to-talk with apologies. BUT - as racing enthusiasts we all know that there's a potential to cause accidents without realising it was our own fault, and if anyone feels like I've hurt their race, please call me out on voice chat or elsewhere and I'll drop everything to apologise and pull over, it's only fair. I don't think I caused any incidents in this race, but if anyone has a different experience, please feel free to call BS. The last thing I want to do is leave someone feeling like I've wrecked their evening without a care in the world.

I think I'm lucky - in all the RD races I've had I've only ever felt like someone might have bent the Golden Rule once, but then talking to the other driver after that race it became clear that there was a netcode/latency issue in AMS2 with no-one to blame, and all was well. I'm aware that more egregious incidents have affected others though, which is why I felt the need to make the above point.

The one moment I remember last night was in the melee at turn 2-3, which I believe started in the midfield and caught pretty much everyone. Colin and I rather hilariously ploughed head-on into one another while trying to symmetrically U-turn from either side of the track. At the time I laughed it off and checked the minimap to ensure we both pulled away at the same time, but I've just read that Colin eventually had to fall back due to issues - Colin mate if you had trouble as a result of our synchronised swimming moment I am so sorry! Likewise to everyone caught in the mess at the start - if any of that was caused by me taking drastic avoiding action over the kerbs at T3 I apologise.

Thankfully this is all justifying my imminent decision to spend lots of money on more screens

The only "issue" I had was lack of talent and not enough practice. Glad everyone else had fun but there was too much straight for my liking. My poor exit from the corners was killing my lap time - coupled with the mayhem at the start made it a pretty lonely boring race for the most part.

Next track looks more fun so onwards...

 

[Douglas Aird]

Ha Ha , cheeky move from me, held my breath and went for it, really expected a scenery visit.
After the next bend, no one in my mirrors, really hoping I had not been responsible for it, even though I knew I was not exactly guilt free..
View attachment 573053

You did give me a small tap to let me know you were coming through but not enough to disturb me. I had given up the corner to you already on the way in which is probably why I slowed early (and being careful on cold tyres). I didn't really fight any of the Abarths (apart from trying to keep close to Danny for a tow) on the basis that they would be stopping twice, which turned out not to be the case for most.