OK the first 2 hour Endro race at Frog Hollow Raceway has been raced and won, and just like in the Movies Ford v Ferrari the b#@@%y Ford Won! (that is so painful for a Holden man like myself to have to write that
), anyway the good news is I managed a podium spot
, the bad news is there was only 3 teams and my team finished 3rd
, despite starting on Poll and running a close 2nd most of the night and I stuffed up a pit stop at lap 400 ish and lost track position and never got it back
.
Race Format:
- Laps 520 to simulate 2 hours as RCS64 has a maximum Endurance Race glitch of 58 minutes, race actually took 1:52:13 so it was pretty close
.
- Teams of 2 drivers, max laps per driver 280, min laps per driver 240, max laps per driver stint 60.
- Penalty of a 1 lap deduction from final result for each excessive lap infringement.
- Teams based on qualifying session where each driver runs 5 laps with both a Ford & Ferrari to post best times and Team One is 1st & 6th (my team
), Team Two is 2nd & 5th & Team Three is 4th & 5th (winners).
- One team member drove while the 2nd team member marshalled and acted as race engineer advising fuel, tyres, stint laps etc.
Lessons Learned:
- Don't adjust Fuel Tank size, whilst it can even up the number of fuel pit stops between slower & quicker cars the quicker car with the smaller tank has a faster re-fueling time so gets an advantage anyway.
- If a car is uncompetitively quicker than other cars just adjust the Power Control level at each stage to bring the car back to the pack and don't worry about never giving it 100% if it is just that quick (I didn't adjust the ID 4 GT40 car enough and the team with that car just figured out to run on a lower tank volume to blitz the field (less trigger use less fuel stops etc.).
- Back Up Cars are a must, my Team's car had a front axle mount snap off which is not a quick repair so the replacement car kept us in the race. Only 1 car killed in 2 hours of Digital racing is probably a fair outcome
- Next time we are thinking of having teams only marshal their own cars which will bring the Track Call function more into play and require Damage Repair pit stops, our race only had 2 Track Calls in 520 laps so Damage Repair was not an issue (Teams had 4 Damage Points each).
Technical Stuff:
- Pretty impressed with the robustness of SSD to run for 2 hours uninterrupted and have car chips, lane changes, RMS and cars (except for 1 casualty) to run so well
especially on a track that is now 14 years old.
- Only issue is the race actually ended on lap 518 being 2 laps short, the 3rd placed car was actually the first to show on the RMS screen as Finished, the 2nd placed car was next and when the lead car crossed the S/F line the race ended. Not sure if this is a gremlin in RCS64 like the 58 minute Endurance Race maximum as we have never raced for this long before, no big deal just feedback knowing that RCS02 is next Gen
.
Anyway the Race summary is listed below FYI showing that the ID 4 car GT40 No 60 had an average lap time 1 second faster which gave it the 39 lap win despite me trying to even these cars up, Oh well I will be much better prepared for our next Endro event and tonight's race was a barrel of FUN despite me finishing last ....oops I mean 3rd