AC Multiclass Abarth500/MazdaMX5@Hernad Valley, Wed 8th March 2023

[Boukâh]

Big crash ahead of me in first lap, lots of smoke, could avoid two cars but then there was Andre, big bang, more smoke sorry Andre couldn't avoid hitting you . So, from there on lost focus, not my track today. Try again next week.

 

[Medilloni]

My apologies for not giving notice for missing tonight Han, I was home but as soon as I put headphones on Tinnitus kicked off Hope y'all had a good race.

 

[HF2000]

My apologies for not giving notice for missing tonight Han, I was home but as soon as I put headphones on Tinnitus kicked off Hope y'all had a good race.

No worries but sorry to hear that, John. Tinnitus is a very nasty disease from what I heard of it.
You missed an very interesting one. I think that's the best description of it. And we missed you to give some challenges to the Mazda's.

 

[homer1007]

This track seemed to work for me, consistently fast times in practise and highest ever pole in 6th. Spent the first few laps chasing Colin and Jari and managing to keep up whilst they battled. A Couple of laps later Jari and I tussled on a corner and traded a little paint but nothing that won't polish out. Spent most of the first half in a comfortable 7th (but still tense simply for being in a single figure position).

Somewhere around the middle of the race I had a full airbag moment when I bounced off the concrete hay bail carefully left on the outside Apex of the fast sweeping turn. That dropped me down to 9th, managed to get back up to 8th for the finish.

I think I'm a bad person but I was laughing my ass of listening to some of the comments from others as they bounced off things on the track. Had a few code brown moments when I came across stranded cars but somehow managed to avoid hitting any of them.

Definitely a fun way to spend an hour. Dad stuff takes priority next week so will miss the race but may see you on the practise server.

Thanks again Han for making it happen

 

[Douglas Aird]

Off the pace this week but managed to squeeze a decent qualifying lap for p9.

Gained a couple of places at the start but tapped Jari in the village, sorry Jari, and lost them again.

After that I made several mistakes and slid into the midfield.

At the end I thought I had a chance to catch Kimi and Jason but messed up the last corner and got a box full of neutrals so lost a place to Ernie.

Almost caught him but had another crash and settled for 13th.

Well done to everyone.

Podiums were in a different class and great p3 for Callum.

 

[HF2000]

Well I think that my evaluation of this event is best described as "interesting and not boring".
The voice chat was very amusing as Dave also said.
My performance was really bad with a lot of environmental collisions.
Strange race as I got lapped but I also lapped others.

Congrats to the podiums. Great work to stay out of the barriers and fences.
Thanks all for joining. Hope to see a lot of you next week here: https://www.racedepartment.com/thre...-mazda-mx5-jeddah-wed-15th-march-2023.256280/

 

[Giando Fraschini]

Thanks for the race.
I truly had bad luck, caught in the wrong place in the wrong moment when the first lap crash happened in front of me. Went last from 12th. Recovered to 14th in 8 laps and then i had the middle group in front of me ahead of 23 secs. And after almost 30 mins i lost force feedback for a few seconds went out in a corner where i never made mistakes before and was blocked behind the fences. Had to esc to pits. Decided to get back on track and i stayed and fight with many cars, i had the speed to fight with the middle field even if i was overlapped. Sensation is I could've been quiteclose to top 10 performance wise. Hope to keep this pace also next time and to be a bit lucky.
Ciao

 

[Kek700]

My apologies for not giving notice for missing tonight Han, I was home but as soon as I put headphones on Tinnitus kicked off Hope y'all had a good race.

I was thinking of you on Sunday, my arthritis was really bugging me, hands kept seizing up, and now I find you to have ringing in your lug holes. ( took me years to eventually come to terms with it, I now have it in tune with all the Beatles songs )

Is there no end to the torture handed out to our poor pensioners?

 

[Medilloni]

No worries but sorry to hear that, John. Tinnitus is a very nasty disease from what I heard of it.
You missed an very interesting one. I think that's the best description of it. And we missed you to give some challenges to the Mazda's.

What's that? Eh? Thanks Han, seems to go hand in hand with arthritis season for some reason

Was a bit gutted 'cos the Abarth could definitely get close to Mazzer times here (within .2, half fuel), maybe we should form a League of Abarth Gentlemen and swap info/setups

 

[Medilloni]

I was thinking of you on Sunday, my arthritis was really bugging me, hands kept seizing up, and now I find you to have ringing in your lug holes. ( took me years to eventually come to terms with it, I now have it in tune with all the Beatles songs )

Is there no end to the torture handed out to our poor pensioners?

Hehe, it's a bugger mate, soon as I put the headphones on it was over.... thinking some lighter earbud things might help but haven't found anything so far (seems covering the whole ear makes it worse)

 

[stigs2cousin]

Han,

nice find of a track, thanks for that (and of course for organizing )

My own race was mediocre to shitty, I apologize to all the people I inconvinienced (read killed)

Honorable mention for Giando (I think) who tried to get out of the way in the first village and got killed for his troubles Sorry man, I just didn´t get it as we were on the (my) racing line and your braking caught me by surprise.

The lack of practise proofed deadly as I found two sec and several offroad challenges/ concrete bails to embarrass myself and spoil the fun for others.

About the Crashfest part, I think we´re getting better there, the L1 T1 cluster**** is steadily marching along the track.I think we are at L1 T5 now?
In about 25 races we may even have a crashfree lap one (yes, it´s THAT bad.)

Oh, yeah, I was on Discord but PTT didn´t work (again) though I had bound a control for it.

I love this

 

[gearwhine]

I really enjoyed that race. I had already driven a few laps on the track so i was familier with it, so i just picked one of my now many setups saved. Did not practice much but was still surprised when i saw the gaps back to me on track and only made P16 Quali. Stayed out of trouble during the first lap mayhem. Cars everywhere all over the track and with a bit of ducking and diving was able to get into a steady pace and gain positions. A good fight with Richard which i lost after many laps of holding my own and Ernie despite being in a trolley was eyeing me up as his next victim, reached out a little to far and crashed into something hard. One very minor off at the tight turn before the hill and i romped home in 9th. Good enough for me when i consider how far back i was. Well done Han, a good venue which was enjoyed by most of us i am sure.

 

[Dzul]

Bumpy. Housey. Fency. Eventful to say the least. I had little practice beforehand so time on track was precious yesterday. It got me under the 2's but grassy track limits prevented me from booking those laps as valid and so qualy was mediocre... and during the race Jim was unhappy with me... "FFS man stop cutting the track!" It's grass Jim, just grass...

I managed to squeeze through the L1 incident and gain places but that luck ran out a few laps later with other people's incidents. I did cook an outbraking-myself moment before the double-left "hairpin" at the back, which sent me into the houses behind the palisade. I manoeuvered myself back on track, last of course, and started to climb back slowly through the ranks. I managed to catch up with Han at some point but got distracted and forgot to lift once, broadsiding the fence and spinning again. After that it was just keeping it on the black stuff and abide to blue flags when necessary. Apologies again for the couple of brown codes I triggered through incidents of my own. It was indeed not a boring race, but also not an easy one. Congratulations to the winners and podium finishers and thank you for the mind-bending choice of a track Han. Happy the next race is not rural country coz after yesterday I won't be missing fences and hay stacks.

 

[Shed 17]

I couldn’t make this race and having only driven a couple of laps in practice I could see that it would be ‘entertaining’ at the very least.

But I did manage to log into the Emperor server live timings function ( just like the F1) and could ‘watch’ the race unfold from the comfort of the sofa. And what an interesting experience it was!

From the start, with Allan making a break for it and then Cameron leading up to the pitstops , Fulvio doing what Fulvio does and charging through the field to Colin and Robert having a very close battle in the last four laps, I could see it all. What was ‘ hilarious ‘ to watch ( probably not to experience on track) was the explosion graphics when there was a crash, and that was happening a lot on this challenging track.

So if anyone can’t make it or doesn’t fancy the race , take a look at the live timings, I should have logged into discord too, that would have made it even better.

Well done all on what looked like a real struggle to keep it on the black stuff.

 

[JamKart22]

Really enjoy these Fat-Alfie style tracks. Fast, flowing and very punishing if you make a mistake.

Loads of practice got me a decent base lap time of around 1:59. Didn't quite nail qualifying with what I was capable of but it appears that others were struggling too - so started P5.

Nice clean start and made up a place after Thomas went off. Was then Jasons turn to go off in the tricky hairpin section which saw me up to P3. Had a nice battle with Jari for a while, swapping places. I think Jari then made a mistake so I was back in P3.

Obviously Fulvio breezed pasted to drop me back to P4. I think I then started cruising as I was on my own. That was a big mistake as Robert started closing the gap and we then had a great battle for the last few laps as he tried to find a way past. Fortunately this is a hard track to pass and hung on to P4.

Thanks for great racing gents. Love the big grids we're getting now

 

[KDiesel]

What a great track and just noticed I won Abarth class, nice surprice.

 

[Twoddle]

That was a nice track but the Abarth hated the bumps in the braking zones, It only took until lap 2 for them to catch me out and went through the house at the double left hairpin dropping 11 places. After that a had a few decent laps gaining a few places back until I rear ended gary(sorry) luckily didn't spin him and he carried on, I on the other had spun and lost all the time and positions I just gained back.

Spent the last several laps chasing Kimi in his Abarth. A lag spike merged our cars together, that didn't end well, we got back going with out losing any places I believe. After that I was a bit more cautious and ended up following him across the finish line in P11

That was a difficult track for everyone, There was chaos and trouble every lap somewhere it seemed.