Before the weekend (Bathurst halted all LFS over the weekend ) I managed to get a good 12 lap GTR race at Aston with about 12 cars.

The thing I had forgot was how snappy and alive the car feels once the tires are fully up to working temp, something that just never happens with the common 3-5 lap sprint races that are the norm on most servers.

I just don't understand why more people don't run longer races so that tires become a key part of how you drive, you miss out on so much race craft on the short print races.

I get the feeling that the lack of longers races mean many people never race long races and hence do not understand the difference between qualificaction (hot lap) pace and race pace. They just drive every lap at qualification pace.

Its great watching them pull away only to have cooked their tires in a few laps and then have an off because they have pushed too hard for too long.

on longer races, you have more time to get into the rythm and dont have to push so hard. You really get to know the car and track after 40 minutes or so of straight racing. i'm good at conserving longetudinal grip and warming up all of the tires evenly, while i've noticed most other drivers are more aggressive with braking. You dont have to think much about how your driving style affects tiress and fuel (and suspension damage ) on shorter races.

i rememeber runnin a 60 lap ATC race at aston club in the XFGTR and i managed to keep one set of soft tyres for the whole race.

others were loosing out because they sped off at the start screwing the tyres up.

yeah same here redman. i thought i was going to blow my tires for sure. they heated up, but hten they leveled out and cooled off. i was 2nd and then i spun out on last corner of last lap. race was about an hour long

Quote from Gabkicks :

yeah same here redman. i thought i was going to blow my tires for sure. they heated up, but hten they leveled out and cooled off. i was 2nd and then i spun out on last corner of last lap. race was about an hour long

Yep, I forgot I was on R2s and had to nurse them the whole race. Still managed 4th and the tires on optimal by the end of the race

Rhythm is the key to race pace and it takes a few laps to fall into it. Then the skill becomes driving just below the absolute edge so you keep tires and keep on the track.

Roll on live track is all I can say so track usage also becomes a factor.

My solution to this problem: qualify at race pace. This is especially helpful when you want to get into a rhythm for the race, just do it in qualy. Sure it means you might not qualify at your best but it's worth it in the end.

Car control over the limit and general consistency are skills not so noticed on your typical 5 lapper. I'm sure people think I'm daft when I set a car up to handle well rather than judging by lap times, but I'll start doing things differently when I'm consistently finishing last.

I agree with all said here...I did a 10 lapper today (about 11 min total time) and even though that's not all that long, it was still enough to make me worry about how I was treating my tyres, which was really nice. It is a shame that 3 laps is a short race and 10 laps is considered quite long...I would rather see 10 laps as our short races and say 20 or more for the longer ones (depending on track of course).

The problem is that very many choose to bail out of the race if they have a little accident, or a bad day.

People join the track even though the race is going on.

Those and much more happends on public servers which cause it to be hard to run long races on public.

Quote from MyBoss :

The problem is that very many choose to bail out of the race if they have a little accident, or a bad day.

People join the track even though the race is going on.

Those and much more happends on public servers which cause it to be hard to run long races on public.

Yeah, it's annoying when they give up easily, over a little bump or forced wide onto the gravel.

I love doing long stints, because we can use our actual driving experience of pacing and warming up the tyres. Just like in Formula 1 really.

i find its best to do alot of practice on the race set b4 qual and try get as low to my entering time (in a league i do you have to hl to sort divs etc) and if i get close i know as soon as i hit qualifying i should be able to knock down the pb