The online racing simulator
#51 - JJ72
well as you can see T1 ain't 90 degrees either
Quote from JJ72 :well as you can see T1 ain't 90 degrees either

It's nothing like as tight as the old Woodcote. So it should be able to be taken flat with easy, doesn't even feel to me like the tires are squirming on the limit. If your struggling with the FO8 you're going to find the F1 car blows your mind.
#53 - JJ72
Actually corpse would be a much better comparison, isn't it?
Quote from wE1l :Nice video, well although I never drove a car that frantically I guess in the vid it DOES go sideways a tiny bit. It's worth mentioning that the sound only happens when the driver takes slow corners, which means that the sliding might be too tiny to be noticed.

You should try so you'd get a view what it's like. AND it happens at higher speeds (in this video) too. Just other sounds are much louder so it is harder to hear.

edit: Physically still friction force is much stronger than a 'sliding' friction force. Strange thing but tyre has most grip when it's sliding a little bit. Other surfaces lose it as one of them (or both) starts to move independently. I guess rubber features push that point a bit further than that.
Quote from Cue-Ball :Oh, is that all? 3 seconds is an ETERNITY in auto racing. Especially at a level like GTR. I wouldn't say that coming within 3 seconds of real life timing is any sort of accomplishment.

Not that it really matters. So long as the playing field is level, and so long as the car feels right and reacts like you would expect it to, the time in which it can lap a track is almost insignificant.

Well after combining the factors (ajp listed those already) that make driving fast lap times in a computer game much easier than in real life, I think the 3-5 secs isn't that much. I think it's just not possible to even get 99% accurate times. No matter how realistic the sim is it's always just a game.

Look at yourself
http://www.fiagt.com/results.p ... ion=Combined%20Qualifying
http://www.schuerkamp.de/zope/gtrank/mchForm

remember to look at the qualifying times
Quote :becky u raced TKM? u racin anything nowdays or have u given up?

Years ago, back before trying single seaters then settling with Pro Karts. I had a bad crash a few years ago and only had 1 go back in a kart since which was a couple of months ago. I hope to return to racing again soon but my new job isn't really paying enough right now to get a new kart atm so we shall see. I would like to return to Pro Karts and could just about afford one - but I cant afford to use it, so there's no point diving in yet.

Quote :Without being rude a kart is not the same as a proper racing car. In car racing a lot of people have fear not only for themselves but for others (ie. parts of car that go flying into crowds) maybe top drivers just don't get this sense of fear anymore...

I dont want to be rude either, but i've done touring car and entry level single seaters in my time aswell as karts yet neither I am referring too here. I can't link you to a web page for it or recall the name of the program but I saw on telly last year a documentary which showed an American scientist who had looked into why race driving often runs in the family, heck half the grid are inbreds ... even I often race with my brother.

What he had found was that fun+fear where related and that if you get too much "fun" it becomes "fear". Sucessful racing drivers where genetically disposed to having a higher threshold for both fun and fear and took a lot more in their stride before becoming stressed.

A high threshold for fear is practically a prime requisite for being a racing driver, the squeemish may enter - but are unlikely to do as well. That's why I said fear isn't really a factor, sure we all feal fear, we all have our threshold - but if fear is stopping you from putting the throttle down then you aren't going to win a club series, let alone become a professional race driver.

Quote :Driving bellow the limit is easy. Finding the limit is easy. Driving at the limit is very hard with any G forces.

I think maybe I missunderstand the origonal point this was on, we seem to be talking about different things.

Quote :You done 8000 miles in your kart since March? Even with testing no one ever does as much as they could do in a sim.

Yes true, but there comes a point where you cannot learn anything more constructive. Over the years I dont know how many miles i've done of my "home" track, maybe it is 8000 miles ! lol, but the point is there is nothing I can do to learn that track any more than I have done. I'll still be faster at the end of the day than the start though - that's because of a related issue, LFS has constant weather/track conditions, the real world doesnt. Every day the setup needs adjustment, sometimes quite drastically, even though i'm racing the same track.

Quote :You can't share setups even in supposedly identical machinery they will never handle exactly the same and the car/kart will not be exactly as you left it.

Setup is a constantly moving grey minefield in the real world, a rise of a few degrees track temperature can mean a totally different castor angle which might in turn require an adjustment to chassis torsion(kart) or roll bar settings (car) or something else, it certainly means changes to tyre pressures... The perfect setup is always moving, but in LFS it isn't, that's a key difference, but LFS does have wind already and maybe oneday temperature fluctuations ... The fact that it isn't simulated doesn't mean it can't be.
Quote from JJ72 :Actually corpse would be a much better comparison, isn't it?

You ever been to Silverstone?

Copse is a much much tighter and flatter corner than the first corner of Westhill. Nothing, not even the FOX would stand a chance taking it flat.

@Deggis - The GTR laptimes are 9 seconds a lap faster than RL @ Spa.
But some other tracks e.g. Estoril had only 3-4 sec difference. Spa seems to be bad example because N-GT cars were faster than real life GTs. Difference between N-GT cars seems to be smaller.

FYI, and I'm not a GTR fan, actually I don't even like it.
Quote from deggis :
FYI, and I'm not a GTR fan, actually I don't even like it.

No worries
#60 - J.B.
Quote from ajp71 :Copse is a much much tighter and flatter corner than the first corner of Westhill. Nothing, not even the FOX would stand a chance taking it flat.


Depending on aero setup, F3 cars can actually take it flat.
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(KiDCoDEa) DELETED by KiDCoDEa
Similar time, oin a realistic (ultra-realistic) game, would mean that you are wasting your time driving pc games instead of beeing a real f1 driver

lol
Quote :70 in a kart feels like about 150+ in a car

Now all we need is a kart that only does 70mph and we can all be fearless , the slowest adult kart is a twin 4-stroke which, properly setup with tuned engines, will do up to about 80-85mph at the fastest point at my home track, Rye.

Quote :Putting fear aside has got to be the daftest thing you can do.

Not taking the opportunity to gain an extra tenth is the daftest thing you can do, it's the difference between winning and being a rank amateur. Fear is not what stops you from hitting the car in front, I think this is where my opinion varies. I rarely feel fear on the race track and when I do it's a case of I dont want to let the team down and spin and nothing to do with personal safety.

Even mid accident i'm not scared, I switch to momentum planning mode and try to recover the car with as little loss of time as possible. If I know the barrier is coming i'm planning how I want to hit that barrier. If I froze in fright and hit it at the wrong angle i'll be in hospital, there just isn't time to be scared even when you know you're going to be hurting - simply because the brain says, "i'd rather hurt less, please".

What stops you from doing LFS-T1 antics is risk assessment, it's a simple calculation of whether the overtake is better performed now or the next corner.

I personally feel fear before a race, it dies away the moment the lights go green and I dont feel it again until a week before the next race.

You might ask then why so many people have trouble at T1 in LFS? Well sure i've got it wrong in LFS before, i've got it wrong in real racing before too - but on the whole if anything my own starts in LFS are generally more gentle and far safer than the ones I make in real racing (not including taps from behind) because in real life it's easier to look to the sides than it is in LFS.

I can tell you why I think so many people crash in LFS, it's not a lack of fear, it's simply because of a lack of understanding of how it can be done and a lack of awareness of what is around them. In LFS I suffer from side awareness, I do look sometimes but it's not as easy as the real thing so I often fail to use as much track as I could in order not to effect other drivers.
Quote from Becky Rose :
Not taking the opportunity to gain an extra tenth is the daftest thing you can do, it's the difference between winning and being a rank amateur.

It can also be the difference between life and death you've just got to know when it's time to say enough is enough.

Quote :
Even mid accident i'm not scared, I switch to momentum planning mode and try to recover the car with as little loss of time as possible.

You can't do anything but try and sink into the cockpit when you see a car flying over your rear wing. Which is why the accident @ Russel was such a terrifying experience even if only one corner of the car was damaged. When you have no control of whether the car will glance your head or give it a good biff that's when the fear kicks in.
Quote from ajp71 :No I've never driven a proper kart, nor do I claim to have. I don't know how much fear you actually feel in one but I'm sure once you know your relatively safe your fine. Having only driven hire karts I don't feel any fear in them knowing that the only chance you actually have of hurting yourself is in a T-bone (which obviously can still be pretty nasty even @ 30) but unless your being a dick you won't have that. This results in harmless high contact highly competitive fun

Sorry, BUT:

If you don't know about kart racing you should better not draw any conclusions about it.

Maybe you didn't happen to know that a proper racing kart can produce g-forces that are high enough to break the drivers' ribs just from cornering. I know that because my cousin once did that.

And believe me that these kinds of cornering speeds CAN be scary, especially in long, fast turns.

And also believe me that even a proper 100cc racing kart can go faster than 30 - be it mph or kph. On the short tracks you usually drive on with karts, you mostly don't get faster than 130 kph (dunno what's possible on a looooong straight... ). But again: approaching VERY tight hairpins with 130 kph and maybe some kind of wall behind it can also be rather scary.

I also see that you are 16 years old and you say that you have not driven proper karts so far. So I think you have also never driven any other proper racing vehicle on slicks either. Am I right? If yes, then you better should not talk about real racing as if you know what you're talking about.

Watching real racing and doing it by yourself is a world of a difference. Even if it is only karting.

Please don't take this as an offence - it's just a fact.
Firstly about the karts the speeds I was talking about were 70 mph (because that's what the first poster had said). I'm sure it can be scary at those speeds but seeing as the poster said they felt no fear I was simply saying that what they had been driving may have seemed less scary than big single seaters with no run off areas.

Quote from Christian Seidel :
I also see that you are 16 years old and you say that you have not driven proper karts so far. So I think you have also never driven any other proper racing vehicle on slicks either. Am I right? If yes, then you better should not talk about real racing as if you know what you're talking about.

No I've never raced but been around club racing circles all my life and have never heard any of this I feel absolutley no fear at all bollocks in the racing circles I've been around (or believed it at least).
Quote from ajp71 :
No I've never raced but been around club racing circles all my life and have never heard any of this I feel absolutley no fear at all bollocks in the racing circles I've been around (or believed it at least).

Of course not. A race driver without fear is dead in no time.

You might feel comfortable with the speed you're going but this is something different to feeling no fear.
Quote from Christian Seidel :Of course not. A race driver without fear is dead in no time.

You might feel comfortable with the speed you're going but this is something different to feeling no fear.

That's basically what I was saying. Becky reckons she felt no fear but I can't believe this partly because she's still here

Sometimes things can get mis-inturpreted like the definition of taking a corner flat. IMO taking a corner flat means taking it with the throttle to the floor and no attempt to loose speed on the way in. Some people say it means that you take the corner with the throttle floored but even if you brake before the corner and then come back on the throttle that means taking it flat. I've heard people taking copse 'flat' if you use the second definition and in that case the F3 car will take it flat.
#68 - J.B.
Quote from ajp71 :I've heard people taking copse 'flat' if you use the second definition and in that case the F3 car will take it flat.

No, I mean flat as in flat throttle, top gear, no brakes, only steering. I've never heard of any of the other definitions.
Quote from J.B. :No, I mean flat as in flat throttle, top gear, no brakes, only steering. I've never heard of any of the other definitions.

Blimey are you sure? I suppose with a high downforce set the entry speed would only be about 135 mph but I'd of thought Silverstone would still be a low downforce circuit.
#70 - J.B.
Yes, but I'm sure it was a setup for one of the shorter layouts which need more downforce than the GP curcuit. And I can't imagine that there would be any other car than an F3 that could do it. After all they are a little under-powered for their levels of downforce.
Quote :Becky reckons she felt no fear but I can't believe this partly because she's still here

Fear is an emotion, the mental process that leads to the decision to back off and not hit another car is not emotional, if we all drove with emotions then there would be more women in motor racing!

The decision is purely a logical/calculated one, and has nothing to do with personal safety.

You mention a specific accident, that's the kind of accident which for me might leave me in a state of shock after the event, but in the build up to it i'll be plotting trajectories and planning how I was going to come out in front and trying to pre-empt the other drivers actions.

Once the accident was inneviteable i'd be planning how to reduce it's impact either in terms of lost time or in terms of the crash severity.

I havn't had a car come over the top of me but I have had two hospitalising crashes in my time, to give you an idea of just how important personal safety is, these are the stories:

I'm not saying these are stories of bravery, brovado, or indeed common sense - because they're clearly everything but and in terms of my subsequent actions on each ocassion perhaps a bit stupid - but I consider myself a reasonable amateur racing driver and this is how much fear of personal safety is a factor in my racing:

Story 1) Testing a lightweight ultra modern high tensile plastic wheel thingy that was to be introduced to Pro Karters. The darn thing couldn't take the heat stresses and the outside front "collapsed" on me going round a full throttle bend. The kart was written off into the barrier, I finished up at the next bend with karts passing either side of me.

I ran back to the pits and got into my own kart and carried on driving whilst the wheel people tried to fix their kart. When I got out I noticed i'd flattened the top of my helmet in the crash.

Story 2) I was doing an endurance race in the last round of the club championship a couple of years ago and neaded to beat a certain team (which meant 4th place) to win by 1pt.

My brother started the race and had a problem at the start (wet tyres on a drying track) but he got up to 5th by the stop, I took over the drive and got us into 4th and came up on a backmarker as I approached the hairpin.

The backmarker decided he would race me for a bit of fun and tried to outbrake me. It should be made clear that my kart was one of the slowest in a strait line but it had the best brakes in the pack that year - all of it's speed came from significantly shorter stopping distances compared to the other karts, we'd invested significant testing time and parts budget into them. The hairpin was "my" corner .

I planned on going around the outside, he planned on late braking and as he had the inside line he thought he'd get away with it easily. He realised too late that he'd left this braking thing far too late and pressed down too hard on the pedal in an effort to stop, he spun the kart around instantly and ended up going into the corner backwards.

Sadly for me this is the heavier more solid end of the kart with out the crumple nose cone, and it hit me hard and square on the side having only made a passing effort of reducing it's speed since the braking zone started, it shattered three ribs on impact and did significant damage to the kart - but it was still driveable.

It was another 25 minutes before the pain was too much and I radio'd in for a driver change. Despite every fast bend being painful and being aware that I could make the injury worse by racing I carried on as long as I could.

After the race my brother had recovered us to the 4th place we needed just ahead of the other team, but pieces lost from the kart resulted in us being under weight and the penalty put us to 5th and 1pt behind our goal.

I lost my job, had significant repairs to do on the kart, was in pain for well over a year whilst my ribs stitched themselves back together bit by bit and it would be two years before I raced again - but i'll be damned if fear of further injury was going to stop me trying to win that title.

Any racing drivers who spend their time on track backing off "just in case" aren't any good at all. They do exist btw, i've lapped them.

Fear just isn't something most racing drivers need to think about once the race starts, and as I tried to highlight earlier the people who are good at racing do tend to have a very high threshold for fear ... It takes something like car racing just to get into our fun threshold.

Why do you think I race? I spend most of my time bored out of my skull waiting for the next thrill to put some fun back into my life. I was born that way, like my brother and my father before me who all have or do still race. It's in the blood.
Hmm. What kind of fear are you even talking about? Everyone who has been in accident knows that it is usually too short time to fear anything. Was it 0.1 seconds or 5 seconds, imho of course.

Btw. becky, nice signature
Quote from LRB_Aly :oh I remember the time when I used to play F1C. There were tracks where the top drivers drove a lot faster then in real life. I think A1 track was one of those where you could match the times of a real life Ferrari with cars like the Minardi.

Yes I also remember this. Cars were getting way faster times, and doing impossible turning maneuvers. illepall

I had a video of it once of someone doing absolutely outrageous times on various tracks... I just cannot agree on the fact that the times are very similar to reallife because of this, wE1l.
*damn double post*
huh just a question WE1l (outta the topic i know) , you're not originally chinese, are you ?? , i'll bet you're just working there or moved there...

FGED GREDG RDFGDR GSFDG