ACC ACC Season 2 Monday's rnd 4 Bathurst 2hr Intercontinental GT Challenge

Not much else to be said about that pitstop! 25 seconds or more before the jacks went up plus the 14 seconds I had damage for led to a very long stop.

Aside from that, it was a great Quali for me. I was holding p3 until Shawn beat me in the dying moments but I'll gladly take 4th.

Race started well. I made a mistake coming out of the cutting and Coanda passed me, albeit briefly as he lost it going through McPhillermy. I then had a fairly long ride with Daniel Benefeld who I just couldn't get away from. I have to save fuel in the Merc but I had to go full beans as I couldn't pull away. Then the mistakes kept happening, touching walls here and there, letting Daniel pass and get away as well as Matt Frost. I got a second wind before the stop and wad holding on to the back of Matt. I was in two minds apart repairing the car but I thought I'd better do it, knowing what I'm like with Bathurst. We have a love/hate relationship you see.

Then the pit stop happened...

After that I came out about 7 seconds behind Brad Jesson and I spent the next 45 minutes trying to catch him, We got to around 3 seconds before he lost it coming out of conrod. Very unfortunate, I think I may possibly have caught him before the end but I don't think I would have passed him.

All in all I think p6 is ok considering I lost 40 seconds in the stop.

Congrats to the podium

Tried to make it as easy as possible @TakFR, I doubt it was middle of the road honestly, I let a few people pass there and it seemed fine, maybe your one wasn't delivered perfectly. not all of them can be.

It's a two way road, problem from my side is lot of the time Pro rated drivers are piling on the pressure, wanting the AM car just not to be there at all. I aimed to give the position up within first 2-3 corners of getting the blue flag for this reason. Going through the S's while getting tail gated didn't feel safe because my break points are earlier than Pros - Pros should know this too but it's somehow AMs fault every time. This is something that @andyo450 is really good at, not once did he tail gate me even though he's usually leading the race. Where middle of the grid guys want to murder every corner, expectation is that they should pass immediately and their lights are already flashing when they're more than a sec behind.

I'm fine with being held up, I was just planning to wait and leave it for the straight but I get some people don't tend to do that, . It's just not a passing spot and letting people through there hurts both you and the passer. Especially since it was at the braking point for Skyline so while braking I had to veer off to the right suddenly which very nearly turned me into a pinball through the esses. I get it's a hard thing to do since some drivers are very aggressive when trying to overtake backmakers but it was almost the literal worst position to make that decision.

If people are going to wreck you trying trying to lap you aggressively point it out, you shouldn't have to just slam on the brakes in an unsafe part of the track just because someone is behind you. Either the car being lapped or the one lapping being unpredictable is dangerous. Hold your line until a safe spot is found to let them passed, and it's not just you either for sure you were just the one I had to scariest moment overtaking.

That was a disaster for me. In the opening laps, i think just at the sun rose I locked the rears during the descend and hit the walls which meant I need a tow and put me a lap down. No biggy, I can make up the defecit, it's 2 hours long after all. I still felt confident in the car as well, and as I'm unlapping and making up places, I defended my position and got bumped in the rear which lost me a couple of places, and my pace started falling off, did the mandatory stop and everything went downhill. I tapped the outside wall of forest elbow are few times, only light damage but then I kept losing pace and confidence. Locked rears again at the descend which sent me back to the pits, and I had a screw up with the pit limiter which gave me a penalty. Locked the rears once more at the same palce, except I had cars behind and I might've screwed their races, so I apologise for that. I had big damage and couldn't turn the car and got stuck at the apex of forest elbow and Steve collided with me, completely my fault and I apologise immensely for that.
2 hours of Bathurst is tough and a huge congratulations to Laurensson for the win.

A weird bogey spot for me was the final Murray's Corner, where taking too much kerb on exit can spit you across the left of the track - one time I even hit the left wall.

I have to admit I'm still not getting ACC. It doesn't feel natural, in slow corners. It's all push, and waiting for the car. I'm not confident in slow corners. Maybe it's realistic for these cars, or maybe I haven't adjusted my driving style from AC well enough. Maybe it's the setup, maybe it's my FOV... these are all the kinds of things you can think about for 2 hours...

No worries mate and sorry for the outburst in discord, really venting at myself not at you!

Here's a video of all my blue flags in the last 30-35m of the race in Skyline/Esses: https://imgur.com/a/PFg0eOF, that was the length of my saved replay. You can see 2 safe passes by the Porsches in Skyline in how it usually played out and what I generally aimed for. With @Jeremy Talbot in yellow AMG at the end it was close and I was too hard on brakes but didn't expect him to follow me wide, this is maybe what happened with you too @TakFR.

Again I don't recall your exact passing, and it's not aimed at you, but if you don't have enough time to manoeuvre out of an AM driver's mistake ahead of you maybe you're braking too late under those conditions. There's a lot of drivers on the grid and I don't know what each one is like through the S's. I do know @Frostwa comes in flying as shown in the video

My point is yes I don't give up the positions perfectly every time but aim to do it, of those 6 passes in last 30mins 5 seem fine to me except the last one with @Jeremy Talbot I could've done better.

Great race @Kcender87. Well done on the win. Nice work on third @Shawn Jacobs.

Hard to be dissapointed with second but I am a bit. I had the speed to win that one but just made a few silly little errors. At one point there was a slow car across the top so I lifted a bit to be safe but did it in the wrong spot and lost the rear. It didn’t do too much damage and I still had good speed afterwards but I dropped out of P1. Then in the pits I made the choice to repair a little bit of damage, which in hindsight I probably shouldn’t have done. I was banking on a better pitstop than I ended up having.

I think I spent 45 laps or something like that pushing flatout trying to close the gap down so that was a bit of a fun time.

Well done to everyone that finished that one. Tough race.

One thing I’ll add to the blue flags conversation is if you are letting someone past on the straight, save yourself some time and don’t do it at the start of the straight. Had a few let me through straight after Forrest elbow coming on to Conrod. If you don’t accelerate from the corner as you are letting someone through you will be down close to 2 seconds by the time you get to the end of that straight, if you just lift a bit half way down when you are both at speed already you will only lose a few tenths and the guy behind will be happy to get a bit of a toe from you as well.

Great race fellow Andrew! I pretty much knew I would be in trouble on lap one on mountain straight given how prodigious the GTR is in a straight line - it was damn hard staying under your bumper over the top for all those laps too as that nissan got a fat ass!
I ran as long as possible to give the impending clouds a chance to play out before diving into the pits and almost overshooting it. Then when the heat came at the end I think i lost my slight advantage over the GTR in the corners while it maintained its advantage in the straights. Having the spotter call out smaller and smaller gaps without being able to respond is...stressful. I figured the only thing i could do was keep putting lapped traffic between me and you as quickly as possible and hope you found them over the top and not on the straights
For what its worth i thought all the running over the top and generally (racing or in traffic) was bang on point. I dont intend to put anyone under pressure with the flashers from way back but use them more as a heads up so that if I arrive on you at some terrible part of the track its not a surprise resulting in a surprised or erratic reaction to jump out the way and into a wall / off a cliff
Further, the seat didnt catch fire and the brakes survived - good times all round

I planned a two stop race since I assumed I'd tap the walls and ruin the aero and really have no idea how long the tyres last. It worked out ok because I'd scraped the wall and rubbed doors with someone who'd lost it over the mountain. Very surprised I even lasted the whole race tbh. Had a nice little battle trying to pass Marty's slow Porsche early on. Congrats to podium and gotta give it to Smitty and Smiffy for hangin in there the whole race and making blue flag passes relatively easy, Thanks all, good race

That race start looks so freaking good!

I must admit that one ended up pretty close! It's honestly not the best place to let someone pass, I was more than happy to sit behind you until conrod. But it all worked out so all is good although I needed to change my underwear after that

I like all of the race reports but mate, @krunch, yours are the best and even help to expand my understanding of the human condition. That is, if we sim racers can be said to be truly human...

My race summary, didnt think I would make the start as I was stuck working late.

Got to qualy with about 9 minutes left, first qualy lap someone crashed ahead of me at the dipper bouncing off all walls and blocked the track. I had nowhere to go, hit their car and someone behind hit me.

So escaped and had another go got in a banker lap then traffic on the second lap so not a great time but at least I made the start. Pretty strong field here so an average lap will give an average grid spot.

I had no pit strats set as I normally do that in the prac before the race and I didn't join that session, didnt quite get it done before the timer ran out and it sent me to pits. Luckily you guys said it was ok to restart the session letting me make the grid and finish my strat setup.

In the race it was clear it was going to be tough passing anyone, I made some spots early due purely to others misfortunes. Then Bueller got past me with some good speed compared to what I brought to the party.

After the it looked like I was going to have a nice race long battle with @Godzilla I was able to get close but never really into a passing position.

I followed him for quite a few laps we dodged a few close calls over the mountain with some interesting traffic situations we mostly negotiated. I nailed a wall exiting the elbow then he got one later as a car had an incident coming down the mountain. I then came across another slow car and avoiding a collision with another slow car there destroyed my car into the dipper.

I had to pit then as car was trashed, a very long stop for repairs and not enough stint time or fuel to make the finish. Just planned to run a full fuel stint then have a quick run to the line.

@Godzilla pitted out not far ahead of me then I chased him down and resumed our battle, he had another slower car mostert his way down the hill and he hit a wall trying to avoid that collision. This gave my porker some hope in making a pass, a few times I went the outside but still didn't have the pace to get into a proper passing position. Then I had a decent run and managed to get the inside line, I wasn't really planning a pass but there was a tiny overlap. Not sure if I ran wide but thought I held the tight line, unfortunately there was a small contact as Serge turned in and it spun him at griffens. I think he rear ended the wall fairly hard, I tried to redress going very slowly that lap and let 4 or 5 cars past but his car was so badly damaged he still couldn't catch me. Sorry about that mate was a shame to end your race.

From there I just grinded out the rest of the fuel and stint time, managed to keep it clean all stint other then that one touch and had no damage. I figured I would test out the stint timer as it looked close with about 6:10 left on the stint timer as I crossed the line, I figured I would get in 3 laps and have just enough fuel to do this too.

I entered the pits with 1.5L and 2 seconds of my stint remaining lol, cutting it pretty fine there. Still no idea why pit radio they tell you stint is over with 5 minutes remaining. I will need to check the actual regulations if they get 5 minutes past 65 minutes or a real max 65 in enduro stints. I had 11 minutes left after my stop and I fuelled it or 14 then wanted to have some fun laps finally. The car felt amazing and I was on for maybe a sub 2:01 on my first flying lap, then again out of the dipper there was another car playing pinball just ahead of me. Nowhere to go again and hit that car pretty hard, this damaged mine pretty bad and it was about 3-4 seconds per lap down from there as I dragged the wreck to the line over the next few laps.

Was nice to get a longer race in, I knew it was unlikely I could match the top pace here. A perfect race by me may have seen me close to 3rd possibly. The race was far from perfect and so the result was much the same.

Nice to see another good solid turnout, we have an Easter break on Monday's as it was expected people will go away. This is unlikely for most but we will stick to the schedule and have a 1 hr mid season fun run at Spa next week. I will test a bit more extreme weather for this race and maybe see conditions change a bit during the race in typical Spa like fashion.

Oh didn't notice the break for next week,I'm down for a wet race. The gtr is scary enough for me in the dry, but I'll welcome some wet race practice

Nah nah, it was completely understandable!