AC Multiclass Abarth 500/Mazda MX5@ Meadowdale Raceway, Wed 26th April 2023

[Boukâh]

I loved this track! Felt like going fast behind my desktop . All the shaking in the banking etc, so cool. Nice flow to sector 2.

Decent qualy, with a PB after I turned that app on in CM

First three laps of the race were awesome! I'm being very cautious in the first corners, relying on radar and spotter mostly, since I have limited view, losing some positions, but after settling down I had a blast racing Simon, Robert and Douglas, sooo much fun! This is what it's all about for me.

Until the warping thing on the straight with Douglas, he was sitting next to me on the passenger seat all of a sudden. Happens a lot when drafting lately. Few spins on the straight and back to business... Still enjoyable, because I like hotlapping as well . Did an early pitstop, put my head down and worked my way back up. Had a decent pace and I was having fun, so, what else can a man wish for? A few positions further up the field maybe, but it was fine with me. Later on some laps chasing Robert and Han again. The latter playing with hay at some point, leaving his position to me, thank you Han! Slowly realing in on Robert, but just touched the sand on one of the last laps in the race, just couldn't get close enough to battle in the turns one more time. Was nice hunting though!

Great racing guys, 3, 4 wide in the first turns, good fun!

Thomas, Jaari and Simon, congratz to the podiums, thanks everyone, thanks Han! Enjoy your holiday.

 

[rippin.rex]

I finally got points. So much fun.

 

[Boukâh]

I finally got points. So much fun.

And good points they are! nice racing man!

 

[rippin.rex]

And good points they are! nice racing man!

Thank you, sir. Great race.

 

[Douglas Aird]

Surprised myself in qualifying by finally getting into the 1.53s and p5.

Steady start but fell back a few places in the early couple of laps by being cautious and being on the wrong line 2 or 3 wide in a couple of corners.

Then the warping incident mentioned by Bouke and I was close to the back.

Started to recover and caught and passed Jonas just before the 2nd last corner. Then he tried the repass up the inside but we touched. Thanks for waiting, mate.

Immediately pitted and missed my pit box and had to reverse.

Managed to do low to mid 1.54s for the rest of the race and one lap on the 1.53s and recovered to p12, chasing down Han but needed another 5 laps or so.

Congratulations to everyone. Special mention to Jose for getting some really good laptimes, your practice is paying off.

Have a great break, Han, I will miss most of the May races as I am on holiday, too.

 

[Dzul]

I followed the live timing on Emperor on the trip back home... this is how the Fazzi-Train looks from above...

 

[Shed 17]

Thanks Han for finding another superb track that promoted some great racing.
I had a ball racing with Allan, Carsten Ernie , Simon and Kimi at sometime during the sixty minutes.
Again, I wasn’t the quickest but keeping it on the black bits helped the overall result.
Well done to the podium, especially Simon who was flying, well done Simon, you are learning very quickly!
Have a good holiday Han, I’m away too and will miss a couple of weeks of racing.

 

[Kek700]

I really enjoyed that race, I had one of my pre-race premonitions all was not going to go smoothly, and it did not. But it did not dampen my enthusiasm for this circuit, and the close racing with Abarths and Mazda, I don't mean that to sound like a contradiction.
I try my best not to race the Mazdas, sometimes it is difficult not to and not to lose time, so it may look as though I am racing a Mazdas, but I am not. Ironically I do not usually race other Abarths, occasionally I will, but not often. it is the race that I am interested in.
My enthusiasm to overtake Allan was my downfall, was it worth it, heck yes.
I had a conversation with Rasmus some weeks ago about replays, which I have just watched, he outlined how to tell if it was me warping or the other car. Being an old git, I have forgotten what he said.
I had two warpers, one on the straight and one with Allan. Both Mazdas were both blameless, as I am getting a sneaking feeling it was me, even though I have a very low ping.
But I may just have been unfortunate that the server picked on me, and gave me my own special warp.
I know with the last conversation with Rasmus about this, ie, from my driving seat, ( replay ) it was not as obvious. as I had assumed.

Have a great holiday Han, look forward to seeing you in two weeks.

 

[stigs2cousin]

Not so fast, still life in the old Am4 yet. Get a 5800x3d plus an RTX 3080 and it's powerful enough to do it all for a lot less money

I´m afraid it´s not that cotton dry anymore.

At least here in Germany they try to sell last gen 3080`s (10gig) !!!!! for 4070 money
(which offers more performance for less electricity )

Same with the 5800x3d, still 340€ .

If you go AM5 you can upgrade again, AM4 is on it´s last leg.

I bought AM4 in 2020 and upgraded to 5600x and 3080 last year.
In AC with 1080p triples plus 4th monitor capable enough, I limit FPS to 120.
1440p triples could work, no Idea how other sims would perform.

I´ll leave the last word to @RasmusP

Good Night Carsten

 

[thom462]

What a great track! Was super close in lap 1 and after being in the lead I concentrated to deliver constant laps. My recently bought T300 was a big help doing this, the T150 was good as well and great value for money but I think I can go little bit more precise, fast and constant with it. After first practice laps on Tuesday I was stunned to see Allans low 1.53s as I was running 1.55s. But did some more practice and finally could get there.
Of course having no battles is not that fun but the target to do constant laps and achieving that is as well great. I never felt bored in the race. Jari was not far behind in the first half so there was no room to relax.

Results: https://simresults.net/230426-F4p


Thx Han and all for racing, cu next time

 

[RasmusP]

CPU AMD fx6300, GPU AMD RX560 4GB.

Rasmus, can you help Jason?

It's not worth the grief mate. Upgrade the thing and start enjoying it again.

That's quite an old CPU

don't worry Steve, one day i will put my foot through the thing and be forced to build a new one.

Great summary of the conversation. That CPU is really old and wasn't even great when it wasn't old
If you can somehow spend the money, get a 5600 (non-x), a cheap B350/B450/B550 mobo and some 2x 8GB DDR4 with at least 3200 CL16.
If it needs to be really cheap, you could even buy an A520 motherboard.

But the best bang for the buck would be a B450 or B550 mobo.
Or going Intel with some i3 13100 and H series motherboard.
Not future proof, but also not 10 years old!

7600X + B650 mobo + 2x 16GB DDR5 would be the best investment right now, but also pretty expensive! Right now, a 5600 non-x + B550 + 2x 8GB DDR4 is unbeatable when you're on a tight budget.

The 5600x is quite a capable CPU for AC, i´m running it myself.

Indeed! Great CPU honestly. Still the best efficiency for simracing, even better than the 7000 CPUs!

For PC that has to be updated quite a bit I´d go AM5, even if it means you need (at least) CPU, MoBO and Ram. Probably also power supply and GPU, so not much you can keep

AM4 or AM5, he needs a new CPU, mobo and RAM no matter what.
Upgrading to something with DDR3 wouldn't make sense. Any AMD with it would be too slow and the Intels with DDR3 are really old too by now.

Not so fast, still life in the old Am4 yet. Get a 5800x3d plus an RTX 3080 and it's powerful enough to do it all for a lot less money

Yes and no. That only works if you already have an AM4 mobo + DDR4 RAM.
If you don't getting a 7600X build costs the same, gives almost identical performance and is as future proof as it can get.
If you have an AM4 system, buying a 5800X3D instead of getting a new mobo + ddr4 is a no brainer though

If you go AM5 you can upgrade again, AM4 is on it´s last leg.

I bought AM4 in 2020 and upgraded to 5600x and 3080 last year.
In AC with 1080p triples plus 4th monitor capable enough, I limit FPS to 120.
1440p triples could work, no Idea how other sims would perform.

I´ll leave the last word to @RasmusP

The resolution doesn't matter for the CPU, but the 3080 would be suffering with 1440p triples!

 

[RasmusP]

I had a conversation with Rasmus some weeks ago about replays, which I have just watched, he outlined how to tell if it was me warping or the other car. Being an old git, I have forgotten what he said.
I had two warpers, one on the straight and one with Allan. Both Mazdas were both blameless, as I am getting a sneaking feeling it was me, even though I have a very low ping.

Quite simple:
Pinpoint the moment you see the car warping.
Then watch that moment again while looking at the other cars.

If everyone (or more than 2 cars) is warping at the same time, YOU are the warper.
If only that single car is warping and every other car is fine, that single car had the issue.

But the best way to find out is by checking the replays of other drivers. If everyone saw the same car warping, that car had the issue.
If everyone saw YOU warping, you had the issue.

And if everyone saw everyone warping, it's the server

 

[Dzul]

Great summary of the conversation. That CPU is really old and wasn't even great when it wasn't old
If you can somehow spend the money, get a 5600 (non-x), a cheap B350/B450/B550 mobo and some 2x 8GB DDR4 with at least 3200 CL16.

I can vouch for a very similar combo. Here are my specs, it's not new hardware so it's much cheaper now if you can find the parts, BUT it is very stable with a single 34" monitor and even a Quest 2 VR headset:

MOBO: Gigabyte B450 Aorus Elite, ATX (AM4)
CPU: Ryzen 7 3700X (AM4)
GPU: RTX 2070 Super
RAM: 2x8GB 3200MHz CL16

I'm looking to upgrade this summer but it depends on how much the bathroom renovation will cost

 

[thegreatradish]

Well thanks everyone for another great evening of entertainment

It turned out to be a frustrating exercise for me, I didn't manage to get near my practice lap times at all, just wasn't in the same groove last night as I had been over the weekend. I had some good wheel to wheel racing early on, was tagging along behind Han and Kimi in P10 but then I think I borked my own race at this point.

This will probably seem really stupid but I thought it made sense to me at the time. I filled the car with enough fuel to go just over half distance thinking I'd run light and refill when I came in because the pitstop is mandatory anyway. So, I pitted, refuelled and thought what the heck, I'll put some fresh tyres on too. When I left the pit (after sitting there for an eternity) my fuel gauge said the tank was FULL From that point on I felt like I was towing a caravan, the acceleration was non-existent and I was way off the pace, not only of everyone else but of my own pre-stop lap times. To put icing on the cake, I binned it spectacularly trying to catch Jose, who, to his credit, was driving very consistently and it ended up being me who made the mistake that I was hoping to pressure him into...

Lesson learned about strategy - KISS I take it you guys start fuelled up for race distance, pop in, add the 1L and go? So, yeah, frustrating as I said but, would I do it again? Hell yeah

 

[Dzul]

Lesson learned about strategy - KISS I take it you guys start fuelled up for race distance, pop in, add the 1L and go? So, yeah, frustrating as I said but, would I do it again? Hell yeah

That's the spirit... I did that as well at one of my first races... at Monza.
I even punted Allan then, at T1 of course... I hope he doesn't remember!

 

[thegreatradish]

Oh I bet he does I suppose I knew really it was a gamble, I should have tried and tested these things during practice or asked for advice but I like to live dangerously haha

 

[thegreatradish]

..

 

[thegreatradish]

Sorry guys, happy to start last and even happier to pass half the field in the first two corners but then hitting a bouncing unstable car sent me flying off track and given the choice of driving on my own for an hour or leaving the scene of events i chose the latter. What a bummer, see you all tomorrow

Hey Steve @gearwhine, sorry about my outburst in quali

 

[stigs2cousin]

Well thanks everyone for another great evening of entertainment


Lesson learned about strategy - KISS I take it you guys start fuelled up for race distance, pop in, add the 1L and go? So, yeah, frustrating as I said but, would I do it again? Hell yeah

Yeah,
someone you shall not be Han ned fudged with the server settings until his favorite Shopping Trolley could survive an hour on one set of tyres.
Of course that means you can thrash the Hairdressers Porsche around without tyre penalty

Have a look at the app Racerdata for a good fuel calculator.
At 40% consumption fueling for race distance doesn´t carry a huge wheight penalty and gives tactical freedom. Than you only need a 1l splashndash to pacify the race director

Carry on Carsten

 

[gearwhine]

Hey Steve @gearwhine, sorry about my outburst in quali

Thats ok William, i was trying in vane to get a good quali lap and you were trying to race me until we came to blows in the end. If i had more time for laps i would of let you past. We race when the red lights go out, not before mate