Quote from Rikje :

Really nice site you have gentlefoot! Are you going to add more of those trackguides cause they are absolutly awesome

Thanks mate. Yes, the plan originally was to do one for each round of the GFC. Then I quit my job and started a business so am too busy to do them. I do intend to add more though. Its very satidfying creating them. Just need more hours in the day

Quote from mr_x :

3 of the same problems I'm having too, I left college 1 year ago last week, and I still haven't got a job. IT Jobs in the Newcastle/Durham area for people without previous working experience are very hard to comeby.

I'm beginning to think about re-locating just so I can find something. 50k a year would be nice, but I don't have the experience, and programming confused me! :P I'm after a job in the technician/hardware side of it all.

One thing does strike me though GF. How come you have to find your replacement? seems a bit odd to me. Surely that's HR's job.

When I left uni I was prepared to go anywhere. I think you need to do that at the start of your career mate.

Quote from Rikje :

Sorry for the late reaction. I've had a go with your setup Gentlefoot and it's just brilliant. it reminds me of a setup I used back in demo in the XRG. It consisted of sliding through the corners and it was really quick.

I've done a few laps just doing what you typed and I just pumped out a 1.09.02 without any problems. I know I can go a wholelot faster with this setup. Gonna have a look at your hotlap now and see where I can win more time

Glad to help my friend

btw - that hotlap was not a very good lap. I missed several apexes so don't copy it too well

Hey, have a look at my trackguides too at http://gentlefoot.com

Last edited by Gentlefoot, Thu 26 Jul 2007, 15:05.

Quote from spankmeyer :

Hi.

How about if you continue to work for full 5 days a week - but send the money from the 3 days to me?

hehe. I would mate honestly lol but the fact is I can only afford to do only 2 days because of the tax advantages I mentioned.

Don't get me wrong. I'm only working two fixed days a week for one particular client. The other 5 days I work for other clients. I probably will end up doing more hours in a week now but that's fine by me because now I choose when those hours are. If I want to work on a Sunday morning or a Saturday night I can. If I want to do a trackday on a Wednesday I can do that too.

Quote from Blackout :

So 50k a year and you are leaving the job? May I ask, why on earth?

Because I don't want to work 5 days a week. Now I work only 2 days and I can still pay my mortgage and bills.

It also means that because I now have a limited company and work for a variety of clients I pay corporation tax instead of income tax. I only pay myself £526 per month in wages. That is tax free because of the Lower Earnings Limit. The rest I pay in dividends.

And I also get to write off much more costs against profit - e.g. phone bills, some fuel etc. There are all sorts of ways of reducing my tax bill this way.

Now I work on my terms, when I want to, for who I want to. I'm much happier.

I've been doing high pressure IT jobs for 10 years. There's only so much you can take, especially in an industry like Insurance.

When I graduated in 1996 my first job as trainee analyst programmer was £16k p.a.

Then I was promoted after 1 year to analyst/programmer and got about £24k p.a if I remember rightly.

Promoted to senior analyst programmer a year later and my wages jumped to £32k p.a

I then left that company to take a senior analyst programmer role elsewhere for £40k p.a.

When I took the job I am now trying to fill it was inititally on a contract basis at £30 per hour but after a couple of years they wanted me to go permanent and made me an offer I couldn't refuse - £53k per year + bens.

Pretty normal here for a heavyweight developer or manager role.

But then you have to remember the high cost of living in the UK. My mortgage is £1000 per month. I pay £1300 per month in taxes. Petrol was costing me around £60 per week. Household bills are around £250-£300 per month.

Last chance to enter today. I won't accept any entries after the end of today because if people don't practice they are likely to cause accidents.

All the GFC events have 32 man grids. No problems on any tracks so far.

No takers?? £50k a year!!

I have recently left the job that I have been doing for the past four years for a UK based insurance administrators.

The job was simply to oversee all IT activity and to carry out support and development work. To do this I needed Visual Basic / VBA experience and to understand the nature of IT in the heavily regulated Financial Services sector.

I now need to find my replacement. The salary is excellent by most people's standards. The job is in the South East.

If you are interested to know more please PM me.

GF

Quote from stnwolf :

I have been racing for a bit and I am interested in a solid beginners league to possible enter into. Any good ideas?

StnWolf

The GFC is aimed at beginners. It's not all about pace and more about care and awareness.

Having said that it is very intense with the dual car classes and you would need to be well used to using your mirrors and look left and right controls.

Sign up if you want. Only two reserves for Sunday's race and that will mean you will almost definately get a grid slot. Always been 6 or 7 no shows at each event so far.

See http://gentlefoot.com/LFS/forum/index.php

Should links to my track guides go in here do you think?

Quote from cyrusyn :

Hi everyone,
Here is my latest spr of XR GT @ blackwood. I was trying tail braking and am not sure if I was doing it right or not. If you could check this spr out and let me know how I was doing and how I could improve further, I would appreciate a lot.

Had a quick look and didn't see too much trail braking (btw it's TRAILbraking not tailbraking).

The idea of it is that you get the front loaded up just to get the nose in
to the apex. You do this by not coming off the brakes totally as you guide the car to the apex. It's easier to see and do in the FOX I think.

Quote from Rikje :

thanks nathan for the setup. I'll try it out tonight. Also I found out that I only have problems with the oversteer setups. Like I said I prefer neutral setups. When I have the proper setup I can be really quick and often get into great fights. Too bad I don't have those fighs that often. Anyone able to point me out how to create a neutral quick setup btw ? Or a guide whateer ?

Had a look at your laps mate. Not surprised you made a few mistakes. When I tried your set it felt to me as though there was a little bit too much mid corner understeer and way to much power oversteer.

I have attached a very fast setup for you. Don't change anything in it . Just try and get used to it and the lap times will fall. I have also uploaded a hotlap (although not that hot) to the Hotlap ranking. Its ranked 153 and is a 1:08.63. I haven't driven this track for a long time so those laps you see are really me just warming up. I'm sure my PB will drop into the 7s with some effort on my part.

Watch the hotlap and try the set. Try and copy what I do.

This is how I approach the lap:

T1 - Brake 75m out and turn in late aiming to apex right between the 2nd and 3rd drain covers. Don't let the car drift out wide, stay tight and point the car towards the first apex of T2.

T2 - You need to have it fully floored as soon as you have the car pointed in the right direction nice and straight after leaving T1. Take a tiny bit of each kurb and be ready to release a bit of steering lock if the back goes light.

1st split time needs to be low 23s.

T3 after the long straight - brake at the start of the kerbing on the left, turn in late aiming to apex at the second set of barrels. Use all the exit width you can, right across onto the green fake grass stuff.

T4 S - Try and straight line this as much as possible. Take all of the second kerb on the left that you can and use all the width on exit.

2nd split time needs to be low 49s

T5 - 4th Gear, nice late turn in and all the width on exit. Very straight forward corner this apart from the fact you have to get back across the track as quickly as possible for the final turn.

T6 S - This corner is flat out. Turn in from as far out right as possible and turn in just where the kerbing on the right finishes. Just keep trying it flat and eventually you will find the line.

Quite a tricky circuit this so be patient.

I get this message when trying to join some servers. Is this a test version or something?

btw - we will be fast around this track. FO8 class has the top two times in the world on the FO8 hotlap rank and FOX drivers have the 1st and 3rd fastest times in the world in the FOX rank.

come join me on the GFC servers and I'll give you a few pointers. I've got plenty of top quality sets too. Ones that are driveable and able to run WRE pace.

Should be in there tonight at some point. If I'm not there I'm sure some other GFC community members will be about to help you.

GF

I still have a number of reserve slots available for this weekend GFC race on Sunday evening.

There are only currently 2 reserves and historically there are at leas 6-8 no shows.

So if you would like to race please sign up.

http://gentlefoot.com/LFS/forum

Quote from DeKo :

fair enough, wasnt paying attention, thought he meant there was another one tonight.

Storm was referring to the 3rd round of the GFC tomorrow night.

Quote from AK-Chester :

Only two FO8s finished.
:bigeyes2:
Fun race though, thanks!

Great race last night. Everyone was pretty sensible if they had accidents and didn't move back onto line or anything. Quite a buzz passing 3 stricken cars in the fast section down from hilltop to the tram line.

I had a great race and even got into the lead of the FOX class, 3rd behind Huppis and Stormy, after define made a small error and outbraked himself I think at the end of the tram line. Then had pressure from him for about 15 laps as he made up the 3 seconds he'd lost to me there.

Really exciting. Just a shame the way it ended. Must have been the last lap for us FOXs. Loose barrel at the chicane sat right in front of me and swerving at that moment wasn't really an option. I hoped if I hit it dead straight-on with no lock at all I might get away with it but it spun me out and onto the grass. Then I hit something very gently, think it may have been define as he came past and the car did the old 'boing' thing and flipped me over. Typical!

Two issues with LFS here. Firstly, why aren't the barrels tied together like in real life? Second is the well known issue of the 'boing' crash detection.

Aah well.

Quote from obsolum :

Is there a maximum number of each car that can join? Like 50 - 50 or something? Or is that completely up to the drivers? Because I would imagine that most people go for the FO8? Could be wrong, though.

Anyway, I won't join because a) I have to get up early for work tomorrow and b) I have hardly any experience in the FO8 and I tend to get bored with the FOX because it's a tad bit slow I'd love a 30+ lap race for GTR's though! Hardly any server seems to do that

No rules on numbers of each cars - generally its pretty close to 50/50. And trust me, you wouldn't get bored in the FOX in this format. It is extremely challenging trying to be fast while FO8s are suddenly appearing behind you all the time.

Have a read of some of the post race chat in the forum and you'll see what it's all about.

There will be a 34 Lap Race around Fern Bay Gold on the GFC server tonight at 21:00 UK Time. This is a dual class race featuring the FOX and FO8. This is an extremely intense form of competition. As a FOX you have one eye on your mirrors and as an FO8 you are constantly having to lap FOXs cleanly.

There will be an hours practice before the race. If you intend to take part and have not competed in this format before then some practice before hand is highly recomended.

You should also read the rules for this format at http://gentlefoot.com before you join the server. Rules can be found in the forum. Anyone not following the rules will be issued with a 24 hour ban.

GF

Last edited by Gentlefoot, Fri 13 Jul 2007, 09:20.

If you come to my server (GFC) when I'm there I'll watch over you

I always make sure racers are fair to new guys trying to pick up skills on my server.

Will be on there in about 30 mins probably.

Just checked - you don't get it in practice either

I'm sure I've seen it offline at some point though.

Quote from jjones :

I believe u get sector times online as well as hotlapping, im sure of this, so a adon tool would be a waist of time as its allready there,

You only get a split 1 and a combined split 2 time though. He wants to know the individual times i.e. the time from split 1 to 2 and 2 to end of lap.

You may get this info in practice mode but I'm not sure.