Looking for help on The Ring

[DC_Tox]

I'm slowly learing all GPL tracks to trim my lap times...

I was wondering if someone who's good at the Ring can drive me through it... Many of us rookies have the same problem, I believe.

I watched several replays (including the cool Dixie Runners' server replay posted in July) but I simply get lost in the middle of the track, I spin and lose my concentration to bring the lap to an happy end...

It's very hard to learn, I was wondering if some of the great ones can drive in front of me at an acceptable speed, with a bit of easy (early) breaking, so I can follow and learn the lines by imitation.

Can we arrange some time where the best can "train" us rookies?

I've heard of something "similar" from GPL:W! but I can't access their site (it seems that you need a login to see anything)

[JeffR]

You should try out the ring trainer, available here:

RingTrainer Main Page

It lets you learn the track a section at a time. My preference was to learn the sections in reverse order, so if I continued beyond a new section, I would end up with a section I knew, and with warmer tires.

There's also a replay analyzer, which includes track maps:

Replay Analyzer Page

I drive just the Ferrari, as it's the easiest of the 3 fast cars to drive. NurBurg is a difficult track, not just the size, but also a lot of tricky spots. There are a lot of dips, bumps, and a jump that upset a car, and some of these aren't that visible. You need to avoid any significant steering inputs when going over these.

One tip I've discovered is handling the jump about 1/6th of the way into a lap. There's a bush lined road leading up to this jump, which is followed by a right bend. The trick here is to floor the throttle just before reaching the lip of the jump. Landing rear tires first won't upset the car. For me, I brake a bit during the approach, then floor it. After landing, I brake a bit again for the right turn, then pretty much stay on the throttle for the high speed section that follows.

Another tip, although not that usefull, is that if you lock up the tires, what little steering is available is always reversed, as long as you keep the tires locked up. I used the straight at NurBurg to test this.

[D_Man]

My suggestion is just to use the Cooper with a basic Alison Hine setup and treat it as a Sunday drive. When you start to know the track you can start increasing your speed.

I am very slow at the Ring with a PB of 8:32 (including one spin), but I can cruise around taking it easy and short-shifting in around 9 minutes even. I used to think I would never break the 9 minute barrier, now it seems so easy.

The trick is to learn the track and not burn yourself out trying to go fast too soon.

Dave

[rms]

Again, this is precisely where FD and FG shine. You don't spin out from too much available power, and have more reaction time to learn lines.

rms
rsquires@flash.net

[JeffR]

I've heard of something "similar" from GPL:W!

I think JR Pearson is involved with this. He has a downloadable document on the training, and a generic setup for the Ferrari. His web page is here:

http://www.jrpearson.homestead.com/

I've emailed him and he replied that for NurBurg, you should set the height on the Ferrari to 3.25 to deal with the dips and bumps.

The the minimal steering concept doesn't seem to work well here. All of the fast replays I've seen at Nurburg involve a lot of pegged steering wheel maneuvers. The car needs to be slung around so that it's already drifting when entering corners. The cars seem to be setup with a bit of understeer, like my current setup:

rates 100/120
bars 160/120
toe in -.200/+.175
camber -.50/0
height 3.25/3.25 (many use 3.00/3.25)
diff 80/45/4

[DC_Tox]

Thanks all for the good suggestions, I'm already trying some of them. I think that the definitive key issue here are time & patience It's a long process, but rewarding

[DCMattius]

I can usually be on during the weeknights eastern time. One good way is to follow the AI guys around it. They usually take the first lap at a slow and steady speed. It's a pretty good way to learn it. Just get about 2-3 car lengths behind them and maintain that distance. In the main screen, choose Single Race and throw some AI guys there. I put all the ring setups I use on the DC-GPL sight. Let me know when your on.

Matt

ps. definately don't try to go fast until you can go smooth under 8:30. You should be able to coast/not skid and get under 9. Don't let a spin discourage you either. Just get going smoothly again. It's a long track. I've done under 8:30 with multiple spins. I would also suggest watching many replays. Seeing where people break and shift and what lines is key.

[JeffR]

I've looked at a Greger Huttus replay at the ring (a sub 7:50). What is he doing to brake so quickly at the end of long straights? The down shifting sounds a bit strange and fast (throttle and brake at the same time?). Also during a few of the corners, the throttle sounds like it's being blipped, what does this do?

[WCOutlaw]

Greger uses a technique like a lot of the faster GPL guys, called trailbraking - basically using the gas and brake to balance the car through the corner (with these cars having no downforce, you have to slide them to be fast)...

About the braking - he uses extreme clutch/diff combo's so that you have to brake and gas it a little to keep the car from spinning...

You may've noticed that the car tends to wander to the side under hard braking, this is because the car slumps down on the suspension stops, causing an uneven weight distribution, causing the wandering... to avoid this, you can use cadence braking (manual ABS basically) or what I do is stomp down, and just correct the turn (wheel is often to 35 degrees when braking to avoid the wander). I never use more than 50% of the brake pedal movement though, apart from emergency situations, as it's more efficient to not lock, etc. and the car slows down well enough anyway.

Greger is the fastest driver in GPL, I'd advise getting some more replays of other people - as his times are truly magnificent and will demoralise you :P

Look up trailbraking, you'll get the hang of it once you get into the Physics of GPL and how it all handles...

As for braking with gas, that's another story, I don't do that - I use Greger's GH setups - his GH2 series are the brake/gas ones, and I have difficulty driving those, but the GH ones I can drive comfortably now...

I am nowhere near the best GPL driver around on these boards, but I have a lot of replays that I can upload and link to or e-mail you to help you out if you need it... I am also available if you wanna take the cars out for a spin - just gimme a time (inc. timezone )/day and I'll see if I can make it

[DC_Tox]

@Jeff:
I still haven't tried the Ring Trainer, but I'll eventually do it to separate short sections to learn. Btw, when you press ESC and then re-enter, you're dropped with cold tyres, or is there a way to avoid it, keeping hot tyres from previous runs for the next one?

@Matt:
I tried following the AIs, thanks for the hint. I still need to remove some spin also there, or I have to wait for another AI

@Phil (Outlaw):
Why on some tracks you're allowed to brake really heavily without wandering (at the end of front straight in Kyalami, for example), while on most others you can't do it? Is it the road surface modeling?

Can you describe how do you do the tailbraking exactly? I'm trying it since long but I'm not sure I'm following the right sequence of actions and % of gas/brake/steer. If it helps, you can make an example on one turn in Monza, Silverstone, Spa or Kyalami, the only tracks that I know enough to follow your description.

I'm mostly online on late night hours GMT+1 (including week-ends but not the incoming one), so I fear that many of you won't find me easily... But, who knows? Hope to meet ya soon online.

[JeffR]

@DC_Tox:

The ring trainer is really nice. I'd like to find out if there's a patch to let you start off with hot tires, this would be nice to go with the ring trainer. This is why I learned the sections in reverse order. As I worked my way backwards, I'd continue on with the ones I knew with warmer tires.

To reduce spin, you might want to try a 80/45/4 differential, with toe in set to -.200/+.175 (front/rear). The tail will drift, but a bit more controllably.

When heavy braking, a car will pull if the track is sloped, or if the tires aren't evenly warm. It helps if you don't stomp on the brake.
Start braking a tad sooner, while smoothly ramping up on the brake. Still there are a few spots at NurBurg where I still need steering correction to compensate for the pull. I've mostly memorized these now, which helps.

About trailbraking, it's probably something I can't do with my setup. I use two joysticks, right for steer, left for throttle and brake (common axis), and oodles of buttons on the two sticks, which helps. Right stick trigger = shift up, thumb = shift down, little finger clutch (rarely use this). It may sound bizarre, but I'm used to this, and also it's similar to radio control (I fly rc aircraft, mostly gliders).

Instead of trailbraking, some corners can be taken by approaching them a little fast, then letting off the gas and cranking the steering wheel, the car will slow down and corner, and not spin. I think that diff and toe in setups help here. Phil could help explain this, I'm not sure which setup factor allows this. However, I've read that a 45 rear ramp is important for tracks like ZandVoort, where brakes aren't used much.

BTW, I redid SilverStone, and Monza, working on getting all tracks below 103%. After this, I need to run the Braham since I used it to just do single runs at all tracks and the times are terrible. You've still got a better time at Monza.

@Phil (Outlaw):

I'd be grateful for setups, replays, and any advice from you. I improved on my braking a bit. For some reason, you can brake harder at higher speeds without the wheels making noise. Just under a +45 on my GPL rank now. Got a few more 103+% rank times to work on.

My email is :

JeffR aka Jeff Reid

[DCMattius]

One thing I forgot Corrado. In GPL, the physics of the car change as you race by default. The tires get hotter, the breaks get hotter, the car gets lighter because of less gas. In PU, nothing really ever changes unless you're playing with damage on and hit something. You'll notice that it takes about 1 Nurburgring lap to get the car tires hot and car brakes hot. In Monza, it takes about 3 laps. You should see a difference on how well the car brakes and also how well it takes corners when the tires and brakes are hot. Both the tires and brakes can become too hot. Try just coasting around the ring without accelerating much on lap 1. I remember how frustrating it was even trying to coast and spinning, but after a bunch of laps, that will go away.

Matt

[JeffR]

When using the ring trainer, I "pre-heat" the tires. First I pin the nose to a wall/fence, and spin the rears for about 5 to 8 seconds (depending on brake balance, see next). Then I go backwards, and then back forwards for a few runups to speed and lock up the wheels.

On my first few full ring pass runs, I was using the ring trainer at the final straight, doing the same thing, but this would allow me to run just one lap at the ring to get a lap time.

[WCOutlaw]

Matt, I don't think there's a brake physics model, but certainly tyre heat is a factor (tyre wear isn't modelled though)... though I don't know...

Basically, with the exception of the Ring, I always just use the first lap to warm the tyres, I find after 5-6 hard laps, it gets past the prime, as it were - I usually do a little clutch drop out the pits to light them up for a second, and then just drive as normal - if I have to reset in a race, and need to heat them up, I floor it to the top of 2nd gear, change down to 1st and lock the brakes at the same time to warm both front and back up - ensuring no-one is around to rear-end or crash...

Apart from actual straights, my wheel is rarely pointing where it should be in turns, under braking, I'm often having to turn a little to keep the car straight (as the car wanders), etc. - quite fun

I'll take Turn 1 at Silverstone, as I know that one - Curva Grande is a very hard turn (T1 at Monza) but isn't really a trailbraking turn, it's just hard to pull off right.

OK, I should upload a replay to support this, so I'll do that as well - I'm doing it from memory, as I'm slow at GPL again now (whilst I get back into it).

Brake down to 2nd gear (very rare in GPL where you should use 1st for any corner, with Ring being an exception) and turn the car in aiming it at the edge of the wall (around the apex area) - if it looks as though you're gonna hit the wall, use the gas to push it out a little (steering wheel should be turning left a little through the turn, well, back and forth, to get the slide happening) - it's hard to say %'s of how to steer/gas/brake it - as it's dependant on driver, car temps, situation and track/turn - you'll get a feel for it...

Silverstone is a great track to get trailbraking practice, as is Zandvoort - and to a lesser (more difficult way) extent Mosport.

I am free anytime now, as I'm unemployed, so if you want to e-mail me on phil@racerplanet.com - I'll try and make it for a race, etc... Last night was my first venture onto the game in a while - and today was into getting 28:5x and 28:6x in the Eagle at Monza again - which isn't my car (I prefer Ferrari everywhere - low 29s I got today at Monza) so I hope to get back to speed soon...

Replay of a 1:28:09 lap at Silverstone in Ferrari

Hope this helps (btw, Matt is a far better driver than I, listen to him )

[JeffR]

WC Outlaw replay

I'm impressed. I can alway tell an expert by the amount of tire squealing involved. I noticed blipping the throttle in corners. Do you use brake and throttle at the same time?

1:28 at monza

I can see I've got a ways to go, my best is 1:31.01 (so close to a 1:30). I'll get back to monza later, as I had 6 tracks to get sub 103% on. Did Kyalami and Rouen tonight, so now down to 4 tracks.