AC Multiclass Abarth500/Mazda MX5@Misano, Wed 1st March 2023

[Douglas Aird]

Question, did anyone else have some lag here and there? At one point the game slowed down for a short time and another thing was when I was close behind Dave, he seemed to drop back all of a sudden (you can even see it in the replay lap 16) , had to brake hard, we luckily just barely touched but that could have been a lot worse. It made me keep some more distance further on, to be able to counter that lag in case it should happen again.

Is that server lag, low ping speed from one of the drivers, where does it come from?

Yes, but only on the last lap. Not sure if it's the server or people lagging, though.

 

[Shed 17]

Question, did anyone else have some lag here and there? At one point the game slowed down for a short time and another thing was when I was close behind Dave, he seemed to drop back all of a sudden (you can even see it in the replay lap 16) , had to brake hard, we luckily just barely touched but that could have been a lot worse. It made me keep some more distance further on, to be able to counter that lag in case it should happen again.

Is that server lag, low ping speed from one of the drivers, where does it come from?

Richard gave me a fright when he seemed to turn on his side and disappeared into middle earth on the very last corner right in front of me, not sure what happened as he didn’t get back but something was going on.

 

[eN1xes]

Congratz to John for p1 really well deserved , to Jason for p2 and Thomas for p1 class and podium . unlucky i was not being able to continue the race but i saw the pace of every1 was really good so well played all

 

[Medilloni]

@HF2000 Thanks for organising tonight Han, enjoyed that far more than expected!

Congrats to Thomas and Jason for the podiums - and stonking fastest lap Jason!

Epic 1st few laps with Thomas, Fulvio and Jason, super close, enjoyed that - so much I just watched the replay

Slow off the line but surprised I was catching Fulvio and Thomas later, then with Jason joining made it a 4 way nightmare Pitted early to avoid the battle and tried for consistency and avoiding (the fecking) penalties. Watching the split times latter half, hoped I'd done enough to get the cut right... was so relieved to get it right, then keeping the gap to Jason who was putting in stonking lap times.

Great to see new peeps here, hope you all enjoyed it!

------------------------------------

I dedicate tonight's win to Nature's Aid CBD Gel, arthritis season is a beatch

 

[thom462]

Content with the class win and pole. Could keep the Abarths behind me couple of laps but the damn straight was too long, so they were able to get by just before the braking zone so that was a little bit frustrating, but hey it's multiclass so I should not whine too much. Could keep Jason behind me but he did a 1 lap undercut which was succesful for him. They could even do high 54's in the race. After that I had no Mazda to fight with so it became a little bit dull. Backed off couple times as I was not sure about the penalty so I slowed down not to get a drivethrough. No lag here on my side.
Thx for organizing and all attending, great to have such a big grid! Lapping and blue flag was ok, last race was different. Congratz to podium and cu all next time.

 

[HF2000]

Really enjoyed this one. I started with low expectations due to not having practiced at all. Happy to get finally in the 57s in practice and able to repeat that in qually, I started the race from 19th and focussed on staying out of trouble in the first lap. That went very well and after that I concentrated first on following the Mazda's to see which lines they drive and where I loose time on them.
But there's a limit what you can learn from that because in the Abarth you can't copy the racelines from a Mazda. The understeer prevents that. So when I sorted out the strengths and weaknesses on this track. I began to overtake some Mazda's on the straights. I managed to climb to pos 9 but the cars in front where clearly faster. I started defending Robert and Douglas behind which was quite easy by pulling away on the straights enough so they didn't get a real change of overtaking in a corner. They were wise to do an undercut and so for my second stint I came out behind Robert. I managed to set a new PB several times and even could hold my pace steady in the 56s.
With that I matched the speed of Robert but not enough to close in for an overtake. Happy finishing 10th and being in the top of the most consistent drivers.

Congrats to the podiums (Jason and John 54s? Really?).
Thanks everyone for racing in another great event.

My compliments for @Mr. Wallace and @Giando Fraschini with their debut which was a very good one! I hope you enjoyed it and will come again to race with us.

For next week I don't know the track yet. I will probably post it on Friday because tonight we're having the first race on Bahrain in the shadow F1 championship with the Formula Agile.
If you're watching the F1 races, you might enjoy it more if you know the track from a driver perspective yourself. You will find that watching the onboards give you a new dimension of viewing. https://www.racedepartment.com/threads/formula-agile-championship-2023.255944/
There are spots free and it's not a problem if you haven't practiced much or haven't got a setup yet. The default is not so bad.

 

[davejevons]

Really enjoyed that one. I hadn't practiced much so I was improving as the race went on. Some good battles along the way with Dave, Bouke, Colin and others. I didn't quite have enough time to catch Paul at the end.

I did fall foul of the penalty system though so need to work on making less track cuts. I was surprised as I thought the limits were very generous on this track.

It might be worth checking that the system is applying drive throughs rather than time penalities as all I got was the notice that I had been given a penalty. Either that or perhaps we should tell people that if you get a penalty you have to do a drive through? It did feel unfair on Colin that I finished ahead of him on the track and the penalty applied after the race. A drive thorugh would be a better option, IMO.

Question, did anyone else have some lag here and there?

Yeah, I also experienced this. It seemed more noticeable in lower speed corners. I assumed it was my connection but a few people said they had issues.

Thank you for organising it Han.

 

[RasmusP]

It might be worth checking that the system is applying drive throughs rather than time penalities as all I got was the notice that I had been given a penalty. Either that or perhaps we should tell people that if you get a penalty you have to do a drive through? It did feel unfair on Colin that I finished ahead of him on the track and the penalty applied after the race. A drive thorugh would be a better option, IMO.

It's set to give a drive through but you apparently didn't see the message and ignored it

If you don't serve the penalty, but the race ends before the laps allowed to serve the drive through, you get a time penalty.
The other possibility would be to get kicked from the server after a single lap, which none of us wants..

You can check the server configuration on the acsm website. Colin did this already on page 3:

Event details...

View attachment 643771

It seems that you've got the penalty within the last few laps since if you won't serve the drive through within 2 laps, you get kicked

You can check when you've got the penalty on acsm too. I'm on the phone though, so won't check it right now.

 

[Dzul]

It was a fun race with good moments and frustrating bits... my biggest problem was understeer... I was using my usual setup which works on most tracks but on this one I felt I was not able to turn the car at specific corners as on others. Overspeed was an issue too, so I started braking earlier and down-shifting further in order to decelerate properly (thanks for the tip Andre), which worked at the end but at the cost of some time. It took me a while to get into the low 57's (even had a few 'red' 56's), mostly with low fuel, so I knew my race was compromised from the beginning. However... I had a solid start and quickly got into a rhythm, and the fun began already on lap 2... I had good chases and scraps with @homer1007 (Dave) at the first stint, @davejevons (Dave) in between our pitstops and @WRT 53 (Theo) at the end... and I'm sure I'm forgetting someone else, sorry. It was hard but fair defending and passing, real fun! Too bad I had 3 off-tracks and a 20 sec. penalty but they happened in the pursuit of excellence...

Regarding that, the 'penalty messages' are placed a bit too high on the screen and don't stay too long so, in the heat of a battle you can't take your eyes away from the car in front or the back to read that you have to serve a drive-through... if the message was there. I believe this can be fixed with a bit of UI magic, where you have a little 'traffic light' (like flags) to let you know how many 'strikes' you have and when you need to serve a penalty... but that's not for us to fix unfortunately. Oh, and I also saw a few people glitching on the first stint but that was about it.

Thanks for the thrill Han and congrats to the winners and podiums... I can't believe the front guys got into the 54's... I really have to rewatch the replay, just for that.

 

[HF2000]

Regarding that, the 'penalty messages' are placed a bit too high on the screen and don't stay too long so, in the heat of a battle you can't take your eyes away from the car in front or the back to read that you have to serve a drive-through...

You can use the stock Chat app. The messages appear in that also and longer.
Btw. you only get the message at the start/finish line so you only have to look at that moment.

 

[KDiesel]

Found myself behind Han so I pitted early to avoid being part of an Abarth train. Sadly I exited the pits just behind Kimi's Abarth and spent the second half of the race right on his tail. I felt that I was faster but couldn't find a way past.

On the last lap we were heading into the first left hander very close together. There was a huge game glitch for me and suddenly we were both at the apex and touch and spin. Kimi gave me the place at the end but I don't think it was necessary. Thanks Kimi. P11 in the end.

I wasn´t sure what happened there so I slowed down, I suffer also some lag, not much but you can notice it.

 

[Douglas Aird]

I wasn´t sure what happened there so I slowed down, I suffer also some lag, not much but you can notice it.

Thanks again, Kimi.

 

[JamKart22]

There seems to be a bit of a bug in the cut lap warnings because I got a 1/3 cut warning message on the first lap - even though it was disabled on the first lap. I then managed to get two more to take my message up to 3/3 cuts - so was living dangerously for the rest of the race.

For those that don't know, you can tell if you've cut because Crew Chief will tell you (well worth getting if you don't use it already) and the lap time on the Race Essentials app (another must for me) will turn red.

I did try to slow down to avoid the cut penalty but I wasn't sure what my average time was so still got the cut warning. Any know of an app that shows average lap time?

 

[JamKart22]

There seems to be a bit of a bug in the cut lap warnings because I got a 1/3 cut warning message on the first lap - even though it was disabled on the first lap. I then managed to get two more to take my message up to 3/3 cuts - so was living dangerously for the rest of the race.

For those that don't know, you can tell if you've cut because Crew Chief will tell you (well worth getting if you don't use it already) and the lap time on the Race Essentials app (another must for me) will turn red.

I did try to slow down to avoid the cut penalty but I wasn't sure what my average time was so still got the cut warning. Any know of an app that shows average lap time?

This Multilaps app shows all your laptimes in a session so I guess might help a bit

 

[davejevons]

It's set to give a drive through but you apparently didn't see the message and ignored it

If you don't serve the penalty, but the race ends before the laps allowed to serve the drive through, you get a time penalty.
The other possibility would be to get kicked from the server after a single lap, which none of us wants..

You can check the server configuration on the acsm website. Colin did this already on page 3:


It seems that you've got the penalty within the last few laps since if you won't serve the drive through within 2 laps, you get kicked

You can check when you've got the penalty on acsm too. I'm on the phone though, so won't check it right now.

Fair enough. I received the penalty about mid-race but then got the second for ignoring the drive though on the last lap. Should it have kicked me then?

I'm flagging a potential bug arising from a difference between what the server is set to do and the message received as I went over the line. The message didn't mention a drive through but said 'a penalty has been applied'; suggesting I just carry on. I'm not sure if it is track specific or something more general. It's also worth highlighting that the penalty's are not incentive compatible as you face a lower time loss for ignoring the drive through than serving it correctly.

I appreciate the obvious way to avoid all this is not to cut the track, of course!

 

[HF2000]

even though it was disabled on the first lap.

No it wasn't but it will be for the next week.

 

[HF2000]

This Multilaps app shows all your laptimes in a session so I guess might help a bit

Multilaps seems a solution indeed.
It looks like the reference lap is a kind of average. And you can also use the colors. If it's near white it's the average I guess.

 

[JamKart22]

Multilaps seems a solution indeed.
It looks like the reference lap is a kind of average. And you can also use the colors. If it's near white it's the average I guess.

It's perfect as you can configure reference lap to be Median...

 

[HF2000]

It's perfect as you can configure reference lap to be Median...

View attachment 644400

And with the lap count you can make it as small as you like!

 

[RasmusP]

Fair enough. I received the penalty about mid-race but then got the second for ignoring the drive though on the last lap. Should it have kicked me then?

I'm flagging a potential bug arising from a difference between what the server is set to do and the message received as I went over the line. The message didn't mention a drive through but said 'a penalty has been applied'; suggesting I just carry on. I'm not sure if it is track specific or something more general. It's also worth highlighting that the penalty's are not incentive compatible as you face a lower time loss for ignoring the drive through than serving it correctly.

I appreciate the obvious way to avoid all this is not to cut the track, of course!

Thanks for investigating!
ACSM says you've got the penalty on lap 27 with 2 laps to serve it. Not really in the middle, but definitely not 2 laps before the end, since you did 31 laps.

@HF2000 Did you disable the automated kicking?

About the visibility of the penalty messages: I'll have a look into the config. Didn't get to it yet, sorry!