I’m fine with every-other-day.
Sounds great
Russell should be here with the goods in a short while 
all aboard the hypetrain!
2 Likes
The second race of the Automation GT Challenge continues with the 20 cars duking out a 12 hour long battle on the corners of Sebring. All the teams have assembled and the pit boxes are alive with anxious buzzing, betting and praying. Will the WSD domination continue? Could one of the DNFers from the previous race bung a major spanner into the works? Half a day fueled by pure adrenalin, petrol fumes and the smell of rubber will see the outcome of the second round of the AGTC.
Wheeling out the cars for qualifying, the plethora of engine notes cut harshly through the air to the backdrop of aircraft moving about in the airport. Tyres squeal as drivers flick their cars into corners to build up heat. Slowly the variegated caterpillar of cars build up speed and rack up lap after lap.
The lap times are announced, in seconds. While the Borch twins ran seriously quick times, they will still be just as much at the mercy of luck, fuel economy and the reliability of their cars when it comes to the race. GBF brings in a surprise top 5 finish, just half a second quicker than Nohda who round off that group. The Erin does indeed seem to be lacking pace a little, while the Torana is also a little outclassed. Sinistra's monster doesn't appear to have been tamed yet either, struggling to string together a clean lap.
Now, onto the real thing.
Key
- Lap time = raw lap time in Kee which we call the qualifying time
- The single character wide column to the left of the purple is the number of fuel stops made
- Purple is the number of errors made by the driver
- The column with the cut off heading “pit” is the amount of time your car spends in the pits refueling
Again the cars that heavily rely on turbocharging seem to be that much harder to control and therefore lose out in the long run, the only outlier to this trend being Smooth who has risen from the depths of DNF to secure an impressive 2nd place. The average number of mistakes made by drivers in turbo cars this time was around 92 or 93 whereas racers behind the wheels of naturally aspirated screamers only mucked up 83 times. The Sinistra continues to hold up it’s reputation of being untameable with the driver making over a hundred mistakes over the course of the race.
Borch #1, the WSD, stretches it’s legs for Sebring and takes home another win, with the previous race’s #2 being pushed out by the Smooth. Montrouge, Cavallera and Nohda are the remaining 3 in the top 5. In the middle of the pack were the interesting cars, the other Borch for instance. When on the track it simply breezes past everything as long as the driver has everything under control but loses out by not allowing that performance sustainably. Team Zabhawkin seal another race with an average result. Scarab seems to have suffered some misfortune and drop back to 9th place. And even more unfortunately, the Torana doesn’t seem to have seen the end of troubled times having crashed out, but surprisingly the only one to do so. Sinistra and Stryker have both got their act together, but only one fares well with the Scimitar ending up in a respectable 6th while the Sinistra struggles to cling on. The Erin is either off sightseeing at the rear of the pack or just way out of it’s league.
At 321 laps completed @strop has yet again taken first place.
However, others are not far behind, seeing as the WSD is only 3 laps ahead of 2nd place, the Smooth, this time. 3rd, 4th and 5th both finish about 7 laps after that and 10 laps down on the first Borch. The bottom half of the top 5 seems to be most hotly contested category with all three cars finishing less than a lap between the trio.
Congrats to @strop, @AirJordan, and @EnryGT5 for finishing on the podium!
bonus content!
Seen here, the pretty GBF spotted in action.
15 Likes
If Daytona was our biggest liability, Sebring too was an unknown quantity. WSD figured it was going to have to spend more time in the pits than the rest, and just hoped that a faster lap due to turbo performance but also easier drivability due to its unique dynamics would make up the difference. But that was a close call.
It would be unexpected for the WSD car to have to pit at all for fuel in the shorter races, so it’s now attack attack attack!
Thanks for the more detailed information. It really shows what my car was tuned to do, doesn’t it.
I see you added labels to what some of the columns do, could you please expand that further? For example, I don’t quite understand how two cars that have a 5 second a lap pace and made the same number of mistakes could finish 8 laps apart, with the slower car in front.
Note to self: Borch≠Birch. Stop misreading it you tw@!
On a more serious note: I think my points are missing. Vri’s car got points although it’s in a lower position than mine. I have 3 theories of this:
- Dem points got mixed up
- Dem statistics got mixed up (as in my car was slower than actually shown)
- I’m dumb and don’t understand how the scoring system works.
Could someone clear this up please?
2 Likes
Yeah, I finished 16th, one place out of the points. I think something got messed up.
1 Like
Orchid is very pleased they managed to come ahead of Erin in this race. Congrats to Strop on another win !!
2 Likes
My dudes.
91 seconds of errors
We’re doing well here. The strategy is working.
I STILL say that we’re doing better than the real IMSA Toranas, even though 5 of the 6 IMSA Toranas went on to actually race in local events and finish.
We’re doing better than the one IMSA Torana that almost got it’s bodykit, never raced and has sat in a museum since the 90’s.
3 Likes
80 laps down after a 24 hour race. 40 laps down after a 12 hour race. Multiplied by my nerdity, that should have me finishing exactly 34 laps at Atlanta.
If I get that prediction right, I’m going into the share market. 
I’m afraid I don’t have the answers to all these questions about the calculations, direct them to @Speedemon 
Yay! The tire-burning kilo-horse monstrosity finished the race!
3 Likes
except for the fact in the shorter races you won’t gain 2 minutes difference for the extra pit stops due to my booschted fuel economy 
Shhhhhhh…
1 Like
So you told Ram you’d each alternate doing races, fair enough. He does his half, and the time comes for you to do your half, and you dissapear on him? There’s being lazy and then there’s just plain rude. You really need to learn to be a more competent host as well as learn to put in your effort.
You have 3 hours to make me eat my words as of this post.
Woah cello settle down and have a Snickers 
that came early. Like, maybe a day early
I agree with DoctorNarfy. Speedemon has no credit when it comes to hosting challenges and the slightest bit of smoke is enough to suspect of a fire.
Getting ram, who does his stuff on time and predictably, to help is a big plus and this challenge will have to be finished eventually. And for that following the agreed upon schedule is fundamental.