Hi guys,
Unfortunately I'm stuck at the hospital with an I'll family member. I won't be able to make the race, but I hope you won't cancel the series if there are only 9 drivers. Good luck everyone.

Cheers Ahmad.

We have gone all Ali - G with the password haha

Well, crappeties!
Try as I might, I couldn't get Rfactor to run this am.

All was working well last night, signed on and dropped a few labs with birdski, Teamspeak was fine, momo was fine, but no force feedback.

I installed the logitech software from their website to see if that would help win 7 get the force feedback going, used compatibility mode and all, and that must have been what created the conflict. At least after that, it seemed my momo showed up in device manager ok, with the proprietary momo screens showing all the buttons, force feedback options, etc, so I was excited to fire up Rfactor to see if I now had FF ingame, but that was not to be.

No matter what I tried this am, I could not get Rfactor to make it past the splash screen/intro movie. I got the 'real driving' splash then no movie, no rfactor, just a dark screen. I uninstalled the logitech software and still no go. THe only way rfactor would start up was if I unplugged the momo. THen it would run fine. As you know, you have to have your wheel plugged in when rfactor starts, or it's not detected and you have no wheel in game.

Just reinstalled Rfactor to see if that would help, but right now i'm just bummed because I missed SPA!

Hope you guys had fun, I was thinking about ya. Even with the race restart, I'm still not done trouble shooting, and it's times like this I HATE windows and all the complexities that make up these sims/os's/games. It's a love hate relationsship. It's the price we pay for our hobby...

Consoles anyone? If they had the complexity and expandability of Rfactor and other games, you bet! I hate this part of pc gaming. It's part of why I didn't come back to race ... the pain of reinstalling and setting everything up. Unfortunately I'm spoiled now, can't hardly race without force feedback, not with F1 anyway.

Hopefully I'll be back later....back to troubleshoot a little more.

Spa report



Practice

Spent acouple hours this week love this track and had a decent set up.



Q

Q went very well set a PB. good enough for 3rd and not far off the top.



Race


Well we all know the problems @ the start and once it was all figured out I was starting last... this was going to be tough to finish well.

I made an ok start and somehow passed abunch into T1 and I made a all or nothing charge up the hill and got by Col and soon found myself in 3rd! wheel to wheel battle with purolator I think to get that spot but I knew I had to if I wanted to catch L-C and Ahmad.

From there I pushed and pushed and tried not to make mistakes I gained on L-C but could'nt get close enough. the gap hovered from 2-3 seconds for most of the race.

On my in lap for 2nd stop I nearly lost in Eue Rouge but saved it fortunately but lost a good 2-3 seconds...

I was now 5 behind L_C and Ahmad was pulling away .5 a lap it seemed. I managed to get back to 2 seconds to L-C but it was'nt enough.

Great race everyone too bad about the server problems.

Qualifying

Equalled my PB of a 1:46.9xx so was happy with that but the rest weren't far behind.

Race

As David said we all know the problems at the start, in one of them I was last and found myself amongst the leaders at the end of the first lap so was hoping for the same for Kurtz n David on the actual start that worked, thankfully that was the case.

LazyC started behind me and he kept the gap pretty steady around 1.5 seconds for the first few laps but then once the fuel burnt off I was able to go a bit quicker and started pulling out a gap. I pitted a few laps after LC, David n ColKurtz which allowed me to pull away another 4-5 seconds after the pitstop phase and did the same at the 2nd stop.

My 2nd stint was very consistent mainly in the low 49s, I was faster in practice dipping into the 48s but could only do it once today. In the end I didn't need to push as I was pulling away from LC and David but couldn't afford to make any mistakes so I just brought it home without taking any risks.

With 10 seconds covering the top 4 after the 1st lap and winning by 18 seconds I'm confident I had the right strategy to win even without the server problems, but for sure it would have been closer. Hopefully next time we won't have any problems as even another 5 more minutes and I would have had to leave.

Thanks to all who made it and stuck it out and special shout out to Ktel for participating and grabbing 5th, great run, and Alex for finishing the race in 4th, well done guys.

Congrats to LC and David who had very solid and consistent drives to take out the podium positions.

First of all thanks to Ahmad, David Carney and LazyC for the setups. The junk I came up with was just hopeless. Too much downforce, but still not enough stability - not the best of combinations.

Congratulations to Ahmad, LazyC and DC for making the podium. Also to Coutie for making it through the race.

Qualifying:

ok - I even was faster in practice, but 1:52 smth. wasn't too bad for me. Eventually I felt to be "in the groove"

Race:

somehow I lost my concentration. To get one wing very early is unlucky, but it can happen. To loose it at the Bus Stop chicane one or two laps later, a place I never managed that before, is embarassing. It was clear there was no chance to catch the guys in front of me then.

Later on I lost it again, plus a slight damage suspension. No big deal, I thought, they will repair the suspension.

Or did they?

The car still felt sufficiently ok though. Not as quick as before, but as long as it has 4 wheels I was determined to try. I got suspicious though: no repairs for suspensions here?

Later on I managed to crash at Kemmel. It was dark here by then and I wanted to switch on the light on my table. Normally no problem when driving, today a very stupid idea, as the car moved a bit sideways (remember the suspension?) and I also accidentally slightly moved the wheel.

Ka-boom... I recently saw the armco myself, it looks pretty rugged. I can testify to the modders, they simulated it well.

Unfortunately this also caused Col. Kurtz to crash. Unless he says otherwise I believe I am responsible for his crash right after me. Iirc we didn't touch, but he must have been taken by surprise. Sorry, Col. - my fault!

Trudging back to the pits and staying out of the way I had the car fixed. Or so I thought.

Gettting out it was clear, that it was undrivable. Hence I once more trudged along, again staying out of the way. Grass,gravel, anywhere, but not on the track, keeping an eye out for the cars still running.

Finally I got back into the pits, hoping the mechanics would not just replace the rear wing this time.

But the mechanics merely changed the tyres. Hence I had my definite verification, that suspensions are not repaired in FSOne 2008. After all, this is not like the 1988 mod in that. So that was it, 7th was anyway more than I expected before.

Oh, and for the record, I threw no tantrum at home

lol that was some pile up purolater.. u and colkurtz have a love affair :P it looks like he hit your front wing which unsettled his car and made him crash, then ktel joined the party lol

I was praying you'd hold your line but knew you'd had to give (most likely) into Pouhon. well done and yeah that was the most exciting part of my race aswell.

I don't know what was happening with the starts but I kept getting DQ'ed for jumping even though the lights were going out as far as I could tell. Thanks to Doug for restarting and allowing DC and myself back into the race.

At the start I'd become distracted and was unsure what position I was in or what setup I had selected. The lights went out, nobody moved so I waited for the other cars to start moving. I can't remember much of what happened on the first lap except for seeing a Williams fly right by me.

After a couple of laps I'd settled down, was sure I had the right setup, and began concentrating on catching David and LazyC. After a few more laps I was within a second or two of David but then did a couple of 360's exiting Eau Rouge which put me back 8 secs. I then slowly started to drop further behind.

Later on I had another moment exiting Eau Rouge and was just glad that the car was still undamaged. By lap 20 I'd settled for 4th and just wanted to finish, but Purolator had an accident ahead of me and I slid off the road distracted by the smoke and debris ahead. There was no contact between Purolator and myself so no blame can be given, but my car was finished and my race was over.

I look forward to Monza, and congrats to Ahmad (again), LazyC and David.

Unlike a few months ago I learnt to hold my line by now Being on the inside it was pointless to push further to get into front, I would have ended up on the outer line by courrtesy of g-forces and there was already your place. I reserved my brain-farts for later occasions.



So Ktel lost it too in the pileup? I totally missed that, so sorry to Ktel as well!

Next time I better switch on the light before the race.

EDIT: just watched the replay. Ktel lost some time by spinning, but his car appeared undamaged. The accident appeared later, he ripped off a wheel.