I don’t get it, the Aardvark here shows 35.7 months of engineering time 
I use the standalone version, probably why the difference of versions.
Better luck next time for me then, it was great fun preparing a car for this challenge.
Anyway, great stream @Flamers, watched the whole 3 hours of it. Cheers 
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Results
So we had 13 entries, through the process of scrutineering 3 cars unfortunately were voided
This left us with 10 cars, all of which I have driven on steam, some I did the laps for off stream during the week so I had enough time to get the results out in a timely manner.
On testing day the sponsor was revealed, the leading drinks manufacturer, VItiaCo. With the agreement to purchase 100 vehicles as well as full spares kits for them the testing began.
For the results I am going to go in reverse order:
10th - Puma
The car sounds amazing, unfortunately it is let down by the lack of grip on power. The car has far too much over steer so it means that unless all 4 wheel are perfectly straight using more than 50% throttle is a real challenge. The car also has problems with the ABS kicking in under heavy braking. It is likely these 2 issues are related and it is probably linked to too smaller tires on the car. This meant that the driver was not able to fully extract the performance from the car in a lap. The difficulty in driving made the VitiaCo reps quite cautious in recommending the vehicle as this was a series aimed at younger drivers.
9th - City E
Overall the car handles very well, the brakes seem to suit the car and stop in a timely fashion without kicking the ABS in too heavily. Unfortunately there is a small amount of over steer when really pushing which can limit the amount of performance you can extract from the car.
It seems that a lack of power was the limiting factor with the car, with a bit more tuning it is likely this car could have been a real competitor.
8th - Julio Mk2
This is my car, so no review 
7th - R85/GT-C
A little too much under steer, especially at low speed makes it difficult to get around corners. The car also feel a little bit under braked which makes big stops a bit of a challenge. The road version of the car could possibly do with a little more work to make it more usable as a daily driver. The styling is not quite striking enough for the VitiaCo reps to buy into.
6th - Eagle 707
At low speeds this car was by far the best car that was entered, providing endless fun around the handling track. So much so that the VitiaCo reps struggled to get the test driver out of the car. Unfortunately the fun that was had at the handling circuit was not matched at the full circuit. The car was unstable at speeds over 130mph which made the VitiaCo reps nervous putting this forward, knowing for well that some of the circuits would have top speeds at, or above, this figure.
5th Rutherford Martlet
In simulation the Martlet was an absolute rocket, providing the fastest simulated lap time. When tested in real life the Martlet dropped down the order considerably, likely due to the difficulty in controlling that amount of power.
It was also noted by the VitiaCo representatives that the car didn’t make a lot of noise which seemed a little strange for a race car.
4th - Luna
The breaking in the Luna is smooth with the ABS only kicking in under extreme heavy braking. The steering is sharp is high speed and gives you the confidence to push allowing you to attract the most out of the car. The traction down low is a little lacking which means the car can get away a little, even with ESC turned on when accelerating out of slow corners. If slightly larger rear tires were used this would more than likely solve this problem.
Overall the Luna was a solid performer however the race car didn’t stand out in any particular category. This was further compounded by the less striking appearance of the race car when compared to some of the other vehicles.
**3rd - Seishin by @RedSawn **
Although not the fastest simulated lap time the driveability when on the track more than made up for this short coming. Being one of the cars that the test drive had most fun in around the race track showed how planted the car was and how much it could be pushed to its limits.
With a good amount of detailing around the front and sides the VitiaCo reps could see the car becoming part of the series, with a little more detailing on the rear it would have been the best car there.
2nd - Viper by @vinodkrishnanr
The rear wheel drive nature of the car allows for drivers with real talent to show there skill. The car corners exceptionally wheel and is very pointable, however under braking the brakes do let it down. The brakes has a large amount of fade which can make heavy stops a real challenge. This meant that the Viper didn’t produce the fastest lap times, either in simulation or real life.
However where the Viper really made up ground was on the handling track where the pointability of the car really showed. Coupled with it’s striking looks and great sound it made for a very strong contender.
1st - Hotshot by @droya
One of the fastest cars, both in simulation and in real life. The Hotshot was actually the fastest car on the day. Whilst it may have been the fastest car it was not the most driveable, at low speed the car can be a real challenge to keep under control.
The VitiaCo representatives will by work together with Droya to refine the car into something that will be nearly as fast but much more driveable as part of this series.
Roundup
I hope you all enjoyed this and it gave you a nice challenge that was hopefully a little different to what you have done before. I am sorry to have to exclude 3 cars but the rules are the rules
I enjoyed hosting this and will be hosting more in the future
Link To Results Spreadsheet
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Can’t wait to see what challenges you host next.
This is actually my first challenge that I’ve done, i’m really surprised and happy that I won.
Wow, third at my first go, thank you very much. I’ll have to look at the VoD to see the final thoughts.
Looks like I killed my chances at the top spot mostly by trying to fit to old S2000 regulations - i.e, 2000cc max and no turbo. Can only go so fast in a mostly average NA car, especially on a time budget. Perhaps should have tried the Race intake and semi slicks at the least for more simulated time and horsepower.
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Welp, I was expecing that - aero in BeamNG works totally different to aero in Automation - I think that the rear wing on the Eagle 707 was producing more lift than downforce in Beam…
On a side note, I wonder if those young drivers will be safe in a car that has more power than some GT4 cars…
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Puma being oversteery? What you expected from car made as RWD and lightweight? Thats the reasons why you got electronic, to act as training wheels. Abs blocking? You know that braking isn’t just flooring brake pedal and hoping for best is what real racing drivers do.
Car was designed to be not powerful car being close to Cup car specs to teach young that higher classes aren’t cars like in games people often plays and forget that car isn’t a toy. If you got skill and learn with it, higher classes of cars would be just another step on staircase, but what do i know about cars. F1 or GT3 are probably very easy to drive with this approach of yours.
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I wonder how a real Clio Cup car would do here - with 205mm road tires, 217HP and a top speed of 161km/h…
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Some of the road cars would be faster it around the track
Having driven Ariel Atoms, M4 GTP’s, Caterham 7’s as well as single seat cars I do have a degree of an idea of what I’m talking about. I’m not saying I’m an expert but I do at least have an idea what they feel like.
A Caterham, whilst it has less power also has no aids to help you and you can pretty easily get a hold of it and be pretty quick in it.
The idea of this wasn’t do build a GT3 car, which are vastly different. It was to build something that would be an initial step into racing, typically for 16-18 year olds. At that age you also have to think that the parents are the people who are funding the drivers and they want it do be safe (as possible)
The aero was defiantly a little off, the sense of lift at ~130mph was a little… Off putting?
So essentially not my car in any way shape or form, got it
Ariel atoms and caterham 7 are open wheels and even lighter cars with more power ratio and still have issue with oversteer on my car that i can hold easly. M4 Gtp, the Touring class car with more power and more weight and still you have oversteer issues. Well i have no questions anymore.
- power to weight is not the sole determinant of understeer or oversteer
- no mention has been made of the suspension or chassis setup under dynamic conditions
- nor that the Automation graphs only capture the behaviour in static or single variable conditions
Does anyone here really know what they’re talking about???
p.s. forgot 4. Beam has some trouble with Automation exported FR cars because the rears of front-engined Automation cars tend to be a lot lighter, and therefore the loading and traction is reduced. You’ll find the Beam vanilla FR cars behave rather differently.
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For me power to weight tells that more power is available and car could get more wheelspin due to this and when not carefull it actually could make stronger oversteer or understeer due to that. TVR cerbera is a hell of
a car, but i never gonna try to fight what you said strop, i know you have waaay more experience than me. Good to see you here man
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To be honest, one of my bigger complaints is just that so much emphasis was put on raw speed and power. If I understood correctly, all of the drivers are going to race in the same car, so laptimes should barely matter, but they were by far the most important factor. If I was racing, I wouldn’t really care how much power my car has and how fast it is, as long as everyone in the race has a car with the same performance.
Some good cars have received a small amount of points because they were “underpowered” - for example: City E, Puma, R86. I guess my Eagle 208 would also get 7-8th place at most, because it “only” had ~230HP.
If someone was able to make a 600HP+ 2.0 engine fitting into those rules, it would have probably won. 15pts for automation time, 5pts for 0-60 time, 10 or more pts for beam time etc.
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Well, to expand on that, it depends on the dynamics of the car setup i.e. how much weight is transferred and how quickly the force is transmitted through the wheel, both driven and not.
You’re not wrong in that in a rear-wheel drive car, power oversteer would be easier to provoke with more power. It’s just that this is not always the case as some cars are set up to be so understeery or neutral that even if the rear breaks traction it doesn’t kick out too much. The amount of kick and how easy it is to catch would depend on the circumstance (bumps, uneven surface) and how briskly the rear behaves compared to the front i.e. the swaybar, spring and damper setup.
I’m genuinely curious, though. I didn’t want to barge in on somebody else’s judging, but feel free to send me your model and I can find out what the issue might have been.
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Oh thank you strop i will send you files to check in if it helps me make better RWD cars in future.
In general i just like driving RWD cars due to fact that they are more punishing and less forgiving.