Sebring 6/13/2006 Kevin wins both race and Season 4 Championship

The 4th season of Fresh Fish ended last night at Sebring. A good turnout for the final race and qualifying was exciting with Kevin, Bill, and John running between a 2:54.9 and 2:56.1. Bob split the groups in the 2:58s while Gil, myself, and Tom rounding out the grid. From the race history, it looks like Kevin and Bill had quite a battle.

From my vantage point I had people to race with all evening. Eventually I caught up to Gil and spent several laps breathing exhaust fumes looking for a clean way past. Finally I was able to catch a reasonable draft and make my way around in the braking zone.

As everyone unwinds after a long season, we've had some conversations about how to get to around 12 or so people per race. One possibility is to merge with a league that Arturo knows. They race on Wendnesday nights around the same time and we're entertaining how we could successfully merge the two groups. If anyone has any thoughts, we'd love to hear them.

Thanks for another fun season of racing! --Jeff

Bill's Race Report

What is it with these few tracks, like Sebring, where winning the pole gets one on the outside of the front row relative to the first turn. I've seen this on others, and I can't see the justification for such a configuration, other than to perhaps make for a more challenging race for the pole sitter. That was certainly the case for Kevin. Only because he was on the outside was I able to get into T1 just ahead of him, and the Lotus's slight edge on the straights made his getting by difficult enough to make for an interesting race. Throughout, I felt that the Lotus had quite a top speed advantage, as the BT7 audio faded well away on the long straights. Though looking at the replay, that advantage was only 2 mph at the top end. I would have guessed that it was more than that---.

My use of an earlier brake point than Kevin expected in the curve entering the long back straight resulted in contact in L3 that sent me at 90 degrees to the roadway, headed into the green. At that point the BT7's gyrations did a second contact, on the Lotus' nose, rotating it back onto the desired course while still on the road. Now that's what I call a most sporting effort by Kevin to make amends for the contact (wink, wink). That second contact sent Kev off into the grass, and by the time he was back up to speed, I had the benefit of a 6 second lead. Now, I wish I could say that in sympathy for the guy racing with swollen feet and toes, or perhaps to reciprocate for Kev's sporting second contact, I took the next few corners at a reduced pace, and even intentionally grazed the immovable haybale in T1 to allow Kev to get back on my tail, But , in truth, I was simply worried about damage from the contacts, and by the time I had confidence restored in the cars handling, the 6 seconds had been frittered away, just 1 lap later.

The next several laps were great stuff, with Kev getting alongside a couple of times upon exit from the esses on the dash into the hairpin. But the cool one held off until L11 when he did a nifty, clean pass entering T3. The Lotus took up the slack almost to entering the esses abreast, but the KF esses traverse was much cleaner than the BK version, and the dash to the hairpin was too short to get back into contact. From there on, the BT7 slowly pulled away to race end. Great drive, Kev, and congratulations on another Season Championship!!

I've certainly enjoyed the racing this season, and with Gil and Rich now aboard (though we gotta get Rich's connection problem fixed), and possibly more entries from another league, the future looks good for OFFRS.

---

Donnybrooke 5/23/2006

Bill's race report

Ah yes, race preparation is oh so important.  Donnybrooke got the "can't load the track" when I installed it on the computer I've been using for GPL (uses a VOOdoo 5500 video card),  So I went to the newer machine (with TI 4200, 8X, 128 MB), and it took D-brooke just fine.  Practice went normally before tonight, but trying to join the race gave the dreaded "bandwidth mismatch".

After several unsuccessful tries to join it occurred to me that I should have gotten AP's core.ini.  So off to OFFRS for the download, and after quite a bit of frantic mucking around The BW mismatch didn't show and I joined, only to be immediately shunted back to VROC.  Racking my brain, the only other thing that occurred to me was to get the GPL.exe from OFFRS.  More increasingly desperate efforts finally yielded a stable joinup with 3 minutes to go.  Gad!
 

Got 2 laps of practice, at least, and was glad to be there for flagdrop.  Alas, the rhythm was not yet "there", and even though Picking up a few positions in the first lap, a solid encounter with the bridge abutment left me on my head, and the pit stop yielded a waaaay-back last place at the end of L1.  At least now there would be no distractions to getting into the rhythm.  And from there on things went rather well, got up to 4th, and was apparently closing the gap to third.  But that all ended with the accursed freeze! Man, I hate that!!  Tom also had a freeze at about the same time.  I've seen cases in the past when 2 racers had freezes at the same time.  Could we make the replay available? I'd like to see the race action, and look to see whether our 2 freezes were simultaneous.

Congrats to those on the podium. Sure wish I were around to see a bit more of the front runners, but I have to accept the lesson that without good preparation,  that is an impossible aspiration.

One more to go---c'ya there!

---

Rouen 5/9/2006

It was good to be back after a brief hiatus.  Qualifying was uninteresting for me due to the lack of track time leading up to the event.  Not unexpected that I was at the back of the grid just hoping to keep the pack in sight for the race.  JWK was on pole with a blistering 2:04 and Tom and Bill were close, both in the 2:05s.  At the start I managed to keep it on the track and move up one spot.  At this point I was with Bob and Tom just keeping them as close as possible and Arturo was filling up my mirrors.  A few laps of this and TJ went off track down in the braking zone if I recall.  Then I was chasing Bob but TJ was able to draft by down the long backstraight and make the pass under braking.  The racing was tight until eventually Bob and TJ made small mistakes that let Arturo and I by. We were running in P4 and P5 through the end of the race. Arturo was applying pressure but we stayed in that position through the end, several seconds away from JD.  Congrats to Bill for a great win.  I'm sure the action up front was exciting.

--Jeff

Bill's Race Report

Well, after the abysmal results seen at the prior two races,
Rouen certainly was a much appreciated reversal of fortune!  With
the good luck to eke out a front row qualifying position, just ahead
of Arturo, but more than a second behind John's pole time, the scene
was set for possibly seeing a brief time in the lead, maybe even
through T1! That was about the best I could hope for, but then
that's what makes racing the fascinating game that it is, with the
imponderables so often governing the ultimate outcome.
  At the flag drop I thought I had a good start, but in just a
second or two TJ went rocketing by me into about a 30 yard lead
halfway to T1! I thought "Man, if TJ got his car doing that this
race is gonna be a joke!".  But at that point his car blinked out---
just another case of warp---whew!.  With that I seemed to have the
lead, for now.  But John's BRM was right behind, and keeping the
lead for a full lap didn't seem to be very likely.  But exiting the
hairpin, the BRM audio faded greatly, but didn't go away
completely.  Hey, maybe I CAN lead for the whole lap! The pit board
showed just +1 at the lap end, but so far so good. Another lap with
+1. And another!  Then +2! Jeez, things are looking good.  But there
was no improving on the +2, and in a few more laps the lead was back
down to +1. Not so good! It occurred to me that the wily JK was
simply shadowing me so as to avoid being taken out by a mistake by
me, and that would make it an easy march to the finish and the win.
  Sure enough, at about halfway JK apparently decided to boost the
pressure, and put the hammer down a bit more forcibly, and the BRM
audio got louder and louder over a lap or two.  I just kept trying
to stay on the paving to delay the upcoming position change as long
as possible.  Again, exiting the hairpin, the BRM audio faded away,
and looking at the replay, it looks like too much engine with a
wheel in the grass was the cause for the BRM's spin.  With that, the
+1 went up to +7, with 4(?) laps to go. Big pressure drop! But I
knew I had to maintain the pace and keep it error free to keep John
at bay to the end. But the replay showed that John was now nursing a
sick BRM, and the margin steadily increased to +19 at the checkered
flag drop.
  It was really a fun race, and probably one of my cleanest ever.
It's the sort of thing that makes one want to return for the next
event on the schedule. See y'all at Donnybrooke!

John's Race Report

John's race report

A good race for me except for the scoring problem. I was praying to get a jump on Kevin hoping I could outdrag his BT7 on a couple of the long legs before he started eating me up in the braking and cornering areas. Even with low fuel I figured I'd be 2 to 5 tenths slower than Kev with my race setup. Fortunately I was able to run some clean laps with good consistency early on and was able to get about a 4 or 5 second lead where it basically stayed for most of the race. According to Pribluda my best race lap was a 1:32.75 but most of them were in the 1:33.3 to 1:33.9 range and I only had a couple in the 34's when I went wide at Abbey a couple of times. Congrats to the podium and Kev for getting fast race lap.

 

Too bad Bill discoed, JDK couldn't make it and Arturo missed the time. I'm sure the familiarity of Silverstone would have made for some good racing with a fuller grid. Aside from seeing Jeff after he pitted for the blown engine I didn't see anyone.

 

Let's hope we get a good stable connection and turn-out for Snetterton.

 

JWK

Well, I hate to admit that the prospect of a race at Dundrod would
scare the s--t out of me, but how else to explain the sudden urgent
urge for a pit stop just as the SMI server was coming online?
Fortunately, that was taken care of without too much time lost from
qualifying, and I had to be rather happy, and also  surprised, with
second, over 7 seconds back of Kev's sub 3.40 mark. I had little
intent of trying to race with Kevin and thought to not dispute the
start. But the Lotus had the starting legs on the BT7, and as I came
abreast I was afraid of congestion piling up behind if I backed off,
and so passed with the intent to easily yield up first place early
on.  Bad idea!!!  Paying too much attention to the car behind, I
found myself getting into the permeable hedge exiting T2.  Having
done that quite a few times in the last 2 weeks, I had practice at
maintaining control there and was able to ease back onto the road in
the vicinity of T3, luckily with no other cars yet there, and Kev off
on his merry way unmolested.  Not so merry were those coming up from
behind when I got more than just a bit sideways upon rejoining the
course, with absolute mayhem shown in the replay as evasive actions
by first John, then everyone else following bollixed up just about
eveyone's first lap.  Totally my fault, guys, I'm really sorry!

Once past that I settled into a comfortable pace that I hoped would
allow me to stay within the oh-so-narrow none-contact part of the
course.  First lap margins were about 20 sec. behind Kevin, and about
the same ahead of Jeff. Up through lap 6 my pace was quite
consistent, losing roughly 10 sec. per lap to Kev, and approximately
maintaining the interval to Jeff.  Then the pit board suddenly showed
the gap to Jeff at 2 sec.!  What the---- has he discovered Kev's
shortcut?  I've seen cases in the past where the pit board showed
erroneous time gaps, and in retrospect this was one of these times.
But not knowing that I thought I had better up the pace, and that led
to some errors degrading my lap times, with the worst being eased
into the permeable hedge outside the midcourse decreasing radius
turn.  I tried to ease back onto the road, but it took too long and I
came to an instantainous stop in one of those immovable haybales.
Fortunately for me, Jeff also had some errors and never showed up to
take the second slot, even with my stop-and-go in the pits.

What a tough course!!  I spent a lot of time learning it in the past
2 weeks (the advantage of the retiree).  It wasn't until day 4 that I
completed a lap without a shift-R!  I found it hard to remember where
I was on the track, with similar curve sequences and elevation
changes at a couple of places.  I finally found that verbalizing the
upcoming curves was a good way for me to accurately anticipate the
upcoming bends.  But even with all that, the entries to several bends
were never elevated out of the white-knuckle-hold-your-breath
category.  The fast pacing and almost error-free lap chart shown for
Kevin is an awesome achievement, in nmy humble opinion.

I think we all look forward to the more familiar venue of Silverstone.
 

Had one of my better starts and followed Kevin very closely going into turn one, but then again he was in the BT7 and I was in a BT11. Followed Bill for a few laps with Jeff right on my gearbox. When JD spun and Bill went off the edge of the track I tried to squeeze by but caught Bill’s front tire sending him and I off into the sand. After we got going again we caught Jeff and the three of us ran close for a few laps till we caught Bob who was struggling with a default setup. We had a nice four way battle for a few laps till Bill went wide at turn one and we lost Jeff some where. Bill and I continued to run close till we caught JD and we had some close racing with JD till he looped it again in the same spot as earlier in the race. After that Bill and I ran close till finally the dunes grabbed Bill and flipped him several times. Then I just tried to keep the gap from me to Bill and make it to the finish.

Tom

John's Race Report

I got off to a good start outdragging Kevin's BT7 to T1 and not getting tangled with anyone. I saw that Kevin lost some ground getting going after a small fiasco and had new hopes of a possible win in spite of the potential his great qualy time showed. I worked on trying to be smooth, maintaining concentration and not overheating the tires.

 

By mid-race Kev was really making up ground. I was estimating his rate of closure and figured he'd have me by around lap 28. As it turned out he was right on me at the end of that lap. I was hating the thought of losing out on the last lap and tried pushing harder. All I did was go slower and overheat my left front to the point I was getting understeer if I didn't get the rear end loose early enough for each corner. Throughout lap 29 and 30 he was right on my tail. It's not comforting to have a fast cagey guy poised to pounce at the slightest bobble! I had overworked my front left to the point I was afraid of pushing right off the track at the last turn (Pulleveld) and slowed a little more than usual catching Kev off guard and got enough of a tap to spin me. Luckily the spin messed him up also and we both got out of shape. I wound up back on the asphalt sooner while he was having to pedal lightly on the grass for a bit. I was able to get up speed more quickly and re-pass him before the S/F line for the flag. (I think he may have accelerated a little less than max to afford me the opportunity also) We crossed the line 0.07 sec. apart.

 

Great driving by Kevin both in catching up and the close quarters stuff. Congrats to Tom for driving a steadily to a well earned P3. I also nominate Kev for the Sportsman award in car selection. Great to see a fast driver having to really work at it with a handicapped car.

  

JWK 

Kevin's Race Report

Interesting race to say the least. After getting a good lap in qually i knew John was going to out drag me into T1. I was hopeing to stay close enough to brake deep and run around th eoutside. On the run down to T1 I was keeping an eye on the gap with John when a Lotus ( bill ? )  chopped thru between us after getting a rocket start.

 

that jammed things up and I jumped on the brakes to keep from steam rolling the lotus and got bogged down. Car after car went thru as i tried to get the revs built back up. Well atleast going to have some fun trying to work my way past everyone.

 

Going into the banked right hander all hell broke loose on front of me. It looked like 2 cars got together and everyone scattered. I picked up 3 spots to get back to 4th.

 

Spent a couple of laps dueling with Bobby B and eventually got past in the last turn. Bob stole a draft of the back of the BT7 and we went towards T1 side by side. I went in waaaay deep on the outside and managed to hold off bob.

 

JD was next in his ferrari. Folowed JD for a couple of laps and got past in the lef thand hairpin. With 20 lpas to go i was 15 or so seconds behind JWK.

 

 With 3 laps to go i was within a second and trying to figure out if it was going to be possible to pass. I could see John struggling a bit and kept an eye for an opening. thru the switchbacks in the back part of the track I was all over the back of his car. I thought i wouldtry and take a wide entry into the last turn and square off underneath of john when he slid out mid corner. I was intending to take a tight line in the last left but when I saw john taking a conservative approach to the last turn I changed plans and dove the right. This was going to be close. I was able to get about halfway alongside but since i had to stay in tight John was able to sweep across the front.

 

The rear of Johns car stepped out and he was sideways in front of me. since i had to stay on the brakes i lost the back of my car as well and slid into the grass drivers right without actually spinning. Even though i didnt feel an impact i was wondering if we got to close and crash detection is what sent john sideways. Instead of trying to get good accel I left the car in third gear and tried to let it pull from low revs while john was getting sorted out. I knew the BT11 was going to outdrag me to the line ( which was fair if we had touched) and I wanted to see how close we could make the finish. turns out .07 margin is about as close as it gets.

 

Kevin

Arturo's Race Report