Posts by Badbeatbill

I was not feeling fast, but after Alex turned Kelvin into my path, on lap 23, I had to deal with 5 minutes of optional repairs.
Sadly couldn't get that fully fixed in the remaining caution. Still felt really slow even with only minimal damage remaining.
So 20th is the best I could do.

Good comment about the racing standard in voice chat, Alex. Tho I would have not spoken up after having damaged two cars earlier.
Since this wasn't even a yellow flag, you are going to come off easy from that incident however way you turn it...
Huge loophole in the yellowcard system sadly. Not making any fans with moves like that.

Guess that happens when you are further back in the field. So put myself in that spot. Even predicted that cars not holding a line on the low side would spell trouble. Just didn't get to dodge all of it.

Quote

7.6.4. When displayed with an orange circle, fondly known as a “meatball”, this indicates your vehicle has suffered excessive
damage and it is unsafe to continue racing. The driver must return to the pits for required repairs before completing 3
laps or be disqualified.

I got mine on lap 184 out of 187. So I guess you get 3 laps after the lap that you get the flag, and/or they let you go if you reach the white flag.

This my second Phoenix race in a row that I finish with a meatball flag...
Happy to hold on to 5th.
Coming into this session I was not expecting to be able to make my tires last for a full tank. NIS on wednesday was rough for me.
In the end I didn't, but atleast I just about managed it correctly.

Sorry Jakub for lap 110. Did not mean to run into you.
Track wasn't made very wide by the car on my left side, but I should have braked a bit earlier.

Congrats Bruno.

Could not get the rears to help me out here.

Got lucky with the caution and the track position that gave me. The 6th place finish feels like a steal.

Also, new internet provider for Petr and Jakub? Or some other fix/change?

I did not notice a single 'Smetana blink' during this race. Or did I just not drive close when it did happen?
I can imagin it would be very welcome for you two, to no longer have that happen.

Tactical mistake taking 4 tires on the green flag pitstop. Tho in the end, this did give good grip on the final laps.
Some close racing in the end, but pretty boring before that.
Surprising to find myself in the top 5 in the points again. And very strong start of the season Jonas!

Just to repeat a personal wish;
I would love to run Atlanta, Daytona and Talladega with 50-60% fuel tank restriction. Even when Nascar does not do that.

Funniest surprise pole position by Sven. Congrats!

So many cautions.. Happy with my 5th place finish.

I was not that good on 1 hotlap, but managed to hold on and claw back at times.
The slidejobs pulled off were impressive, and I got to do a few of my own.
Not sure how some could run the speed into and on the outside of T1-2 and not kill the RF much faster. Tho eventually it seems like it took a toll on those that overdid it.

Made contact with Alexis on one pitstop. Actually turning him into the pitwall. But you really turned so late and stopped it right on my path into the box. Don't feel like I could have easily anticipated that. My damage was not that bad and could be fixed same stop, but track position lost.

I killed my car running on the seam. Got loose in T4 and manage to save it in a way that only made be hit the outside wall.
Looks like the seams got a lot of people loose in a nasty way.

Too bad, I was liking running the top when it was 'open', and top 5 would have maybe been possible.
Couldn't make the bottom work, but likely because I wasn't keeping track of the seams well enough.

Quote from Marvin B.

Strictly speaking it was open setup everywhere, but Volker had posted all of his setups publicly and free of charge. Since they were by far the best, everyone ran them and maybe moved the weight distribution forward a bit if one found the car too loose.

I ran lots of league races against Volker and he dominated like nobody did since then. Andreas Wilke won a race here and there on merit and someone else beat him maybe once or twice in a 36-race season, but that was it. The main risk was the high number of cautions due to N2003's netcode and the fact that any car contact sent the front / outside car spinning into the wall.

I do remember the VH setups, indeed.
I suppose it's not that extreme at this point in time, haha.

Quote from Smokey

So wie's jetzt geregelt ist läuft's doch prima. Die Meisterschaftsentscheidungen sind meistens sehr knapp, wenn auch immer die selben Protagonisten diese ausfechten. Mit dem überbewerteten Sieg würde das höchstwahrscheinlich anders aussehen, und die Gruppe der Meisterschaftskandidaten nochmal geschmälert (siehe A vorige Saison mit dem ollen Holländer, der nix gewinnt aber dennoch bis zuletzt Chancen hatte ).

Hey, that guy won at Phoenix .

That points fight was only interesting because big fields can create some chaos, that I was slightly better at surviving that season.
And what I feel Nascar should be about (not stages btw, realism aside). But you won't stop dominance from being boring, can only be jealous.
When all races end up being mostly green atleast 80% of the wins (if not more) go to Jakub or Carsten. And lately mostly to Jakub.
As you could see towards the end of that season (Jakub finishing 1, 3, 1, 3, 1, 2, 1). I suppose stage cautions could help, but I feel dominant drivers will still end up winning the most points in those situation. If not even more points.
You can't really stop that kind of dominance with different rules. For me the only fix is big enough fields with some random moments, or sit down and learn to enjoy not having a lot of chance at winning. It does make the occasional win feel good.
I often wonder if winning 5 in a row feels as good (I wouldn't know how that feels ).

Outside of that only few people actually run all races. For different valid reasons. Running all races is a must to have chance (atleast since I have been here).
Personally I would like some drop races (perhaps excluding the last 3 to 4 races of a season, to not have confusing/annoying points situations at the end). But that would only help the dominating drivers even more, so they can polish off the bad results. It might keep some more people interested/able to be in that race.

I'm going to race limited races this season. To see if I miss it, or like having my sunday evening to not be commited to this.
I know I should not complain being able to run top 5 at times. But still bugs me too much that the gap to the winning standard feels incredibly large in a lot of circumstances.

One really would not expect this kind of dominance in a fixed setup league, but here we are.
I know from way back in the day what results looked like when guys like Volker or Greger Huttu were running races. Not that I raced against them, but remembering other results back in the day. Tho I am not sure how much of that was fixed setup racing. The overall picture is that same as what we have now.

Fun race.
It felt like me and Jeroen had it just about under control with 11 to go, but then a caution came out.
I was pushing Jeroen in the middle lane, and Manu was behind us being 1 lap down.
Sadly, after that Manu was gone. Tried our best to make that work, but pro blocking moves cost Jeroen heavily on the final restart.

On lap 78 I made contact with Petr. Thankfully no damage for me.
That looked like someone mirror driving so hard, that they ended up nearly punting Daniel while moving right.

Good win Jonas!

Nice season Jakub. I don't really belong at the top anyways.
If we don't have the "big field" potential for chaos, and strategy that comes with that, I am just top 10 material at best.

I don't expect we will get enough starters for Rockingham to even have a shot at overtaking you in the points.
Not sure yet if I even want to buy the track just for that. Last I drove Rockingham was probably in Nascar Racing 2003.
To gain the 25 points I'd have to win at a new track, over a 22nd (or even 23rd) place finish to get back to the lead.

Bad luck I guess, incident right in front of me.

I'm sad I lost about 4 spots in the final few laps. But tires were done, and I still had a bit over 1 minute of damage on the car.
So I'll be happy that I managed to bring it home in 9th.

Commanding win!

Also, i'm all for not too many tire sets, but four sets was a pretty low amount of tire sets for this track.

More damage limitation. I'll be happy with 7th place finish.
Felt ok on long run, but would have lost more points if this had less cautions. So won't complain.

Sad that Steini got robbed of a clean fight for the win.

I wish I knew how to drive this track.
I was really hoping someone could keep Jakub from a win (for my points position), but nobody even seemed to get close.

First stint did the most damage for me, I think. And final caution gave me a chance to move up two more spots.

Well, that was as close as I could cut it. That is a very welcome win.
Couldn't do it on pace, so had to try something else.

Put on fresh tires on lap 94 (after old set only did 12 laps). And started watching my fuel.
I could make it easily on fuel, but I got a meatball on lap 185 out of 187. One lap earlier and would probably not have been able to finish with that. Could not have cut it any closer than that. Also with Kevin and Jakub just about catching up thx to the meatball.

I feel we lose strategy choices by adding more sets of tires.
How strategy surrounding number of tiresets works out also has to do with field size. As in possible loss in track position and/number of cautions, which is often influenced by number of drivers entered.
I won't be upset with any change either way, just my two cents.

On somewhat unrelated note, I miss the smaller fuel tanks on the Talladega/Daytona races (once upon a time...). Not realistic, but would spice up the races there.

Not my best race. Would have been fine on long run, but was shuffled back for various reasons.