Spent most of my sim racing time the past few days at the Ring. I cleaned up my BMW M2 lap a little, found a few seconds out there. I also hit the track in GT4, where I felt my lap was slower than it could be. Managed to improve to 8th, one place above the pro driver haha. I drove the 911 Clubsport.

I drove a few more cars too, finding a bit of time. Then I hit the track in the Crossle 9S, and good god that was frustrating. I spent close to an hour failing, and finally gave up having posted no time at all. I think I can be fast in it, relatively speaking! I think I can slot in to second, just behind the immortal Sebastian Reeh, but I can't seem to get through it without doing something that invalidates the lap, even running off in the next to last turn. I'm gonna get this one dammit, if it is the last thing I do.

They say, the “s” is for sport, as in sportscar. I’m not so sure. I tried it once and after learning that it behaves like the evil, ill-tempered mirror universe version of the “f”, I ran away screaming.

Could it possibly be worse than the NSU?

The 'S' is for sh!t haha

Actually I like the car, pretty sure I do anyway. But it has this nasty tendency to just get out of balance seemingly of it's own free will. I'll be tooling along fat and happy, dancing on the pedals and suddenly I'm in the armco. I chose the second-placed ghost to run against and was way out in front of him but just couldn't manage to put together an entire lap. To drive it as long as I did last night and not manage to get a single timed lap is sad.

And no, the NSU TT is far worse. That thing is the worst. Maybe my least favorite sim car of all time. And that's saying something.

Hit the Nordschleife again in the 9S, and managed to complete a lap. I actually put two laps up, the first of which was an agonizing .147 behind the ghost I was running against. I lost like 3 seconds in the final sector and got passed down the long final straight.

Went again and got pretty far ahead of the ghost, and then had a huge moment where I nearly spun around twice, but still managed to beat it by nearly five seconds. I reckon that flub cost 2 or 3 seconds easy. This is a very difficult car to lap fast, consistently. It gets angry over bumps and kerbs, and if the balance gets upset it's hard to catch unless you get on the binders, and there goes the lap. So the more you push, the closer you are to starting over, which I guess can be said about any car really, but this one is on another level. Just five players have posted a Crossle 9S time at the Ring.

I spent a couple of hours at Raceroom’s Mid-Ohio in the IndyCar in honour of this weekend´s race and slotted in a close second to Derek on the chikane layout, then on to the full circuit and I made it into second slot, behind Derek again. So close now; but not quite there yet.

It is funny, how the best laptimes tend to come early in the session and then I fight a long time for minor improvement.

Well done in the 90S Derek, it is clearly car that requires a lot of skill and patience.

I even thought I had it made on a lap where I was up .2 seconds but lost all that good time in the last sector!

Holy smokes! Great driving. The gaps are nearly non-existent, especially on the chicane course. Very nice, I am impressed

I hit the Praga competition last night, hoping to get in to the top ten percent and just managed it I think (it's a moving target as more drivers post laps). I found maybe three tenths to move up a few spots, but frustrating I couldn't do better. Overdriving, which is what I think helps explain your comment about fast laps coming early. Maybe

Thanks. Did you try it? Complete a lap?

A long time ago I tried it, at Charade I think. I don’t remember completing a lap. I remember not liking it much though. It is my NSU TT. Perhaps I should try it again just to see if it is as much a handful as I remember.

There are two Crossle cars, the 90F, which we drove at Charade and the 9S which is the one I'm talking about at the Ring.

I was asking if you had tackled the Nordschleife in the 9S.

Confusing numbers! The 9S, the S stands not for sport but for spin. I haven’t taken it to the Nordschleife and I won’t for a good while, if ever. I just took it round Mid-Ohio full course to get to know it a bit better and am having a tough time with it. Tippie Toe everywhere and with very limited setup options as well. It likes to rotate like a drunken sailfish. I won’t go anywhere near the Green Hell while I learn this car.

It does sound gorgeous though, can’t fault it in that. And it looks quite good too. Maybe I’ll get used to it

It's not a terrible car, but it has the suspension of a 1977 Lincoln Continental. It floats over crests and bumps, responds too sluggishly. Like you have to think a half-second ahead to counter something that has yet to occur. I tried all sort of tweaks, and there isn't much that can be done, as you noted.

When I logged on last night I decided to clean up my 90F lap at Nordschleife, and managed to knock about three seconds off to sit behind the immortal Sebastian Reeh. Then I thought, let's have a look at Mid-Ohio and saw your lap so I did that one. Then I switched over to the 9S. It was hard work, lots of laps -- or attempts at a a lap -- before I was able to get a good one. Finally I ran the Pagani Zonda to set a time.

I figured I’d give the Crosslé´s a day off, instead guiding the Fez 296 around Mid-Ohio and - again - grabbed second behind you Derek. I would love to pip you but on the other hand, I would probably not achieve these laptimes without a bit of friendly competition with you.

The free test period comes to an end soon, that is why I decided to give the Fez the send-off today because I don’t think I’m going to buy it anytime soon. I find its handling puzzling. Very hard to trail-brake and when moving the brake balance to the rear, suddenly it snaps. I also reduced rear wing because there was a ton of unnecessary downforce over the rear-wheels causing the car to understeer badly through corners. It still does that though. At least this was my impression. Other setup changes I tried and ultimately rejected as they seemed to have no beneficial effect; e.g messing with the suspension, roll-bars or preload.

We discussed great racing tracks for the IndyCar series to run at and we mentioned Sonoma which is available in RRRE, but I find the Indy layout quite bland and especially the hairpin turn at the end of the lap bereft of visual clueas or interest. Have you tried Sonoma in RRRE?

I have not, but I will. There's an IRL layout, which I guessed meant Indy Racing League. The configuration changed a few times as I recall for Indy Car, and it was a 2.2 mile version that they ran on last. I'll have a spin here in a few cars later and see what I think.

I like the 296, and have set most GT3 class PBs in it so far. If I can get the balance right in the setup it is nicely responsive when changing direction, feels connected front and back more than maybe some other cars in the class like the 911s and the Mercedes. But then I like just about every car in the massive GT3 class, and if you add ADAC and DTM and the other similar series there are a lot of cars to drive. I drove a Ford GT GT3 last night and liked it a lot.

I turned up at Sonoma IRL layout. Took the 296 out first and feel like I turned a pretty solid lap. Then I swapped over to the Formula US and really had a good time. The track is fast-flowing in a car this quick. Each input comes fast and that makes it fun. And I am thinking this is the layout I recall from the Papy Indy Car 2 days, but it's been so long. Felt familiar in that way though. It's been in other sims of course too, but specifically wondering which layout Indy Cars raced on. This felt close enough and it's a nice match for this class of car. A couple turns are difficult to get used to since they are temporary, marked out with cones, and the corner is flat, plus you're sitting so low, that it is hard to nail the entry, hard to see the turn in

Set up balance in the Formula US is challenging. I need to dial in a car that can take the hairpins and chicanes well, and also go fast over those first two righthanders over the crests where it wants to float and get loose, which are two competing balance directions, really. Ended up with a solid setup with just a few tweaks in the end, to the springs and engine braking, a touch of diff and the usual brake adjustments.

With just a couple days left in the current RaceRoom competitions I wanted to clean up a couple laptimes if I could.

I've done this a number of times over the past two weeks, usually leaving frustrated and unable to improve. Went to Dubai first, in the Praga. First couple of stints were more of the same, a few tenths behind my ghost. It's a fixed setup event so no suspension magic is possible.

But then something clicked, especially in the first sector. The first three turns are so key to hitting that long straight in good order, and I was placing the car better, in turn picking up the throttle sooner and finding good time out there. In the end I managed to knock 1.3 seconds off my laptime with big gains in the first sector and minor gains elsewhere. Super happy with that lap. Fastest American, clipping my phantom rival axial terra by three tenths haha.

Then I went to Red Bull Ring and finally managed to improve, but only by a couple tenths, but picked up 30+ spots on the board. Ran that lap with front wing of 2. But I have to say I feel like aero and drag in RR have minimal effect. I just don't see the sort of gains I'd expect when dropping the aero angles, that there is too little difference between high aero and low aero in terms of max velocity. I understand that better exits with more downforce, presumably, will factor in to the speeds reached on the straights, so my assessment takes this in to account. So I really don't know how much effect running a low wing has on my lap here. Those couple of tenths were probably not due to the low aero. Even with a slight improvement I am woefully off the pace here in this car.