Degen Simracing Team - Beta

Michael Hart-Jones on Donington

admin — Fri, 21 May 2010 08:47:14 +0000

Well what can I say.

Quali:
After 100’s of laps I had my quali setup ready and headed out. I put enough temperature into the tyres and brakes and pushed hard through Goddards to get the flying start I needed. My lap through to McLeans was faster then I had managed before and I felt sure I was going to get myself into a good position. I rounded Coppice and ran a little wide but managed to keep myself on the track facing down to the Esses. As I came down to the bridge before my graphics locked up and my system froze for a few seconds, my 1:32 was now looking like a 1:37 . I got throught the Esses unscathed and made a good run into Adelade. Once again out of Adelade and in to Goddards my graphics locked up again.

My final time 1:42

Race:
Well with everyone dropping out and rejoining I was left a little confused as to who I was meant to let through and who to keep behind me. David, you only told me of one person in TS then sprange another one during the start phase. I know at least 3 passed me so……

Well I know I was near the rear so had all the work to do. My first lap saw Richard Tranter and someone else coming to blows down in to the Esses and giving me 2 positions. Go me. I held my position closing in on someone ahead but was slightly off line through the Craner Curves and so lost the backend and gave the wall at the Old Hairpin a light tap. This put me dead last again. For the next 3 to 4 laps I pushed har and saw my splits with Eckhart drop from 11 secs to nothing. I finally caught him in to the Esses and made my pass as he slithered across the grass, missed you braking point?, and he gave me a friendly nudge into Adelade, Don’t worry it was not hard or cause any issues, So I pushed on though Eckhart did stay with in 2 secs of me for the next 3 laps. I pushed again for position and as I came around McLaren my frame rate dropped from 30 odd to 1 frame per second. I managed to pull off the track and hoped that I could regain some FPS but it was not to be. I retyred there and then as the leaders began lapping me.

Donington down the drain

admin — Thu, 20 May 2010 21:10:19 +0000

One upon a time, in the early ETC day’s Donington was the home GP of Degen Simracing Team. Practicing this week, seeking for the right car setup for the bumpy swingy circuit hoping to score points like we did last week.
Last week, I did a complete reinstall of my computer and it seems my steering wheel is not set up right. On the straight at some point, my wheel turn right. You don’t want that when you’re in sixth gear racing.

After doing lap after lap, it was hard to find that extra bit. Because the STC version of Donington got big curbs on the chicane, I set the springs, anti roll and bumps to the minimum. That gave me half a second. Still I was not happy with 1:34.4.
In the qualification on the server I was a second slower, pole was five seconds faster then my time: 1:30. Just before the race started I was talking with Michael about out pit stop strategy. I was planning for a one stopper, but since there a big change of rain at Donington, we desired to go for a two stopper.
The race started quite good, I started 17e and could keep up the pace for a while until I got overtaken (I would say pushed) on the right in the first corner. Stayed cool and continued racing. Then a Cor car was overtaking me but I could manage to stay with him and overtake back a few laps later.
After a few laps Michael told me on the radio he had major problems with the frame rate. He told me he could not race like that and had to retire.

Than I got the steering wheel failer again, the wheel turned in by itself and I went of into the wall, first I thought I did not hit the wall hard, but then there was silence and the engine gave up on me.

Zero points.

Now, let me just concentrate on webdesign and the team. Let some other driver do the racing for us. This was not the result we were hoping for, I was trying to make it to the finish. Two races to go in this Blue Cup. Let’s focus on the next event.

Daytona here we come

admin — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 10:18:48 +0000

So after last weeks damp rainy race on Sugo in Japan, where we saw a come back of Lucas Degen after not racing online since about 18 months. We are of to the USA to do a race on the famous Daytona track. Weather conditions are looking good; sunny 26° and we are looking at a good pace for this one. It’s a fast track, half of the STC version of the Daytona track is inside the oval, the other half on the oval itself with a chicane in it.

We did some time attack this week to get to know the track and to find a better setting for the car.

Driverslist to be announced.

On to Hockenheim

admin — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 18:57:08 +0000

Tonight we on Hochenheim, the German circuit. Keith Ettles did a 1:44.903, Andy Docherty did not set a qualification time but did a 1:49.860 in practice. Let’s race.

Keith Ettles: A disappointment start of the season

Keith Ettles — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 18:40:29 +0000

Well overall the race was a disappointment, which is a shame as I had high hopes. I didn’t realize it was raining in qualifying and I went straight out on soft slicks. I went back into the garage to change tires and adjust for wet but it was set to STCC rules so I had to start last. From starting in 24th place i had made it up to P16 when it was time to do my pit stop. Auto pit didn’t work on that track so I was unable to take on fuel and change tyres so had to quit. A great shame as I was hoping to make up more places in the 2nd half of the race. My co driver Nick had a worse race as he was told to change his profile name a fe minutes before qualification. In doing so he lost all his setting for his wheel and this meant he had very little response from his wheel. He didn’t finish the race.

The positives I can take from the race are that the Seat GT has good speed and my lap times were a lot closer to the other guys than any previous season of the STC. Hopefully things will improve for race 2. Why they gad is set to dry during practice, wet on qualification then dry again on warm up and race is beyond me.

First race at Bahrein 19th and 21th.

admin — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:30:34 +0000

After winter testing on Thursday, 11 March we were down at Bahrein – Shakir Circuit for the first race at the Simracing Team Challange. It’s been over a year Degen Simracing Team been down on a track. In November we merged with AnE Racing to be Degen-AnE Simracing Team.

With a 2:04.780 Dragos Haba - Roaring Pipes Maniacs did his first pole position for the season in his Marcos STC. In the end, Vincent Staal – DHR SimCraft 2 went for victory.

Keith Ettles and Nick Carnell driving for AnE-Degen Simracing Team in the Seat Cupra STC finisched 19th and 21th. Keith Ettles did not finisch and Nick Carnell had a Suspension problem and could not finisch the race after doing 23/43 laps.

Keith Ettles about the race

“It was dry during practice but the rain cam in qualification. That ruined it for me, I went out with soft slicks and had to press Esc, qualification over. Started in last place then up to p16 come pit stop and pitstop didn’t work, tried twice more and same results, race over.”

Replay of the race, click here. Powerd by PSRTV

Looking forward to the next race; Algarve March 25th.
Race chart
Race results

Working on team structure

admin — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 16:41:55 +0000

Since AnE racing merged with Degen Simracing team to AnE-Degen Simracing team, we have a bigger team and we want to do better then in 2009. Not only on the track but most important, off track. When you work in a international team where we all have jobs, hobbies, wives, children, parties or troubles, you need strucure. I must admit planning is not my hobby, I did not win the structure-of-life award. In 2008 it was hard to keep a team together being manager, skinner, webdesigner and racer at the same time.
Because of this, I went looking for structure in life. I asked around an noone really had a good answer I was looking for. It was my brother who showed me his agenda, added with tasks day by day, week by week. Even what he eat when on what day. A bit too much for me really, I want the next day to be a surpice. Anyway, a co-worker and friend of mine showed me Google Documents.

Here’s how it works, I hate sending documents or getting them. We don’t need to send everything by e-mail. And what if you made a mistake in the document.. you need to sent you’re whole team a new update. So use Google Document. Take 2.50 minutes of your time to take the Google Documents Tour. All documents have a home.

We will work like this at AnE-Degen Simracing Team so we get better off track to get better on track.

Quiet alpha launch of our new website

admin — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 22:24:55 +0000

So here is is, our new website. To be honest, it is nog what I hoped for since there was a change of plan this week in the back-end. But at least it is online and now I can work on the beta version and launch it as soon as possible.

Special feature: Race Results and Calender

admin — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 23:24:53 +0000

A few weeks ago, I was searching for a plugin to use for this website. To show the race calander showing upcoming races or events how you like to call it. There were some plugins on wordpress.org, but they did not fit my needs. Some were for team results were there are only two teams.. I even gave a friend of mine a task to build the plugin for me. Then, when I was about to give up, I did a final search because I just could not believe I was the only one in the world who wanted a plugin to show motorsport raceresults.

When to Google and did a search on “wordpress plugin race results” and there is was! A plugin for Wordpress. I contacted the owner Ian Haycox about the plugin, asking him to setup a demo account for me. Ian responded the same day and whitin 24 hours he send me and URL, login and password to test his plugin. I tested it and it seems to be what I was looking for.

Just now I’m installing the plugin to this website, it wil take some day’s to get it running. Drivers, teams, events, circuits, points etc need to put added to the system. The great thing is, I can add points for STC or Racedepartment races from the past. So I could show results from my former teammembers, Oliver Wickers, Andreas Loffler, Patrick Duivelaar, Simon Bode and Thor Qualmann.

Well back to work there is lots of work to do and christmas is coming up. So when you are playing monopoly with your family, I’ll be working on my website. But in 2010, we will have a great website.

Cheers.

Building the mainframe

admin — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 20:35:37 +0000

Today we started building our new website. Since we want to have the best simracing team website there is, we need to use proffecional tools and proffecional thinking. We don’t want to get into detail too much, but we can tell you we are building our website on the 960 grid framework. This is a standard framework webdesigners and front-end developers use for designing and building websites.

We have just finished building the mainframe and wil continue filling it with the images and changing the stylesheet. We will not go live with this new website this year, it is scheduled to go live for 2010 before the start of the STC Blue Cup. Stay tuned.