My dad owned a 3.0 CSL (didn't have the body kit, those were unobtainable) via a grey-market importer in the late 70's. Being insane, he didn't think it had enough power so he got some Schrick cams and found a guy at Road Atlanta who managed to tune it where the car could pull up to its ~7500rpm redline. It was insane. He died 2 Christmases (sp?) ago. RIP, dad - I hope you're up there driving your "Bat out of Hell" (what he called it). Probably doing that and banging stewardesses (that's a whole other story). The 70's were great.
This post contains cams, a womanizer, and a 3.0 CSL, and it ends with "banging stewardesses". If that ain't the 70's in a nutshell, IDK what is. HEAVILY underrated decade.
So at the Spa 24 this year, they had lots of stuff to celebrate the centenery of the race, and one of the support races was Heritage Touring Cup - and that race was FULL of cars like this, including lots of Batmobiles!! It's cool to see the cars running on the modern Spa-Francorchamps, but only in sim racing can you get the original experience on the classic track layout 💖
I think they should have done a sort of parade round the old layout with the older cars and have hade a section where they could have the opportunity to go reasonably quick. One of the greatest racing cirquits of all time in my oppinion! Cheers from Sweden!
I went to the 24h last Sunday and they had the CSL on show (it ran the day before). It's a special place with all the history. If you are ever in the position to do so I can highly recommend going to the Spa Classic. It has to be one of the best events for classic racecar enthousiasts in the world with everything from classic touring cars like these to Group C to more recent GT1's and LMP's. And they get driven pretty hard as well so it's like being in a massive car museum were history really comes alive.
Man, that was absolutely terrific! The sound of those classic touring cars back in the day must have been absolutely visceral! I have been watching some old editions of the Spa 24 Eurosport coverage recently. It makes me shudder to see the race start from a standing start right up to the mid 90's - 60+ Super Tourers threatening an IRL Turn 1 meme, especially as that Turn 1 happens to be Eau Rouge. Not for the faint hearted.
The corner before Stavelot is Holowell. The corner(s) before the run up to Blanchimont is La Carriere. And the corner before you run straight into La Source is Clubhouse. In addition to Eau Rouge, Blanchimont also used to be tighter. The World SportsCar Championship atarted using the Malmedy chicane in 1974. Yes, you should definitely turn off Pit Lsne Speed next time. Since they've expanded run-off and whatnot now, they probably could put the old Eau Rouge back, maybe Blanchimont, too. And with the lowers pseeds, perhaps some sections of the extra space could reasonably be trimmed back, actually. For all the complaints about gravel, it frequently does quite a good job of arresting vehicles, and I'd rather that than some of the alternatives. Additionally, not having paved run-off means drivers don't end up using it like it's part of the track. Isaakyan wouldn't have had his blowover in 2018 if he hadn't been blasting right over the hill, and certain other incidents might not have happened, or certainly wouldn't have been as bad, had drivers not been so inclined to abuse the bounds. And I think car integrity has sufficiently improved since Zanardi in 1993, for instance, that we could get away with more in certain settings, and still with better outcomes today.
I watched all of this! I really enjoyed all of it. I love your commentary, the editing and of course your racing. Great content on this channel! Def gonna download this. Just got RF2. Looking forward to trying it and seeing the differences vs AC, ACC and AMS2
It was a nice touch when this year's parade route from the circuit to the Town Square in Spa had the original circuit as part of it. Hopefully this route will be used in future years. 😊 Also, loved watching Spa 24 Hours simulation on GTR2.
RF2 just feels amazing! Especially this track and this set of cars feel amazing! FFB and physics wise rf2 with good quality vintage tracks and good quality vintage cars is the peak of sim racing to me! Thank you for this amazing video!
I got a ride in the #25 CSL at Lime Rock Park when I was a kid. I probably wasn't able to fully appreciate it, but even now I'm not sure I would be able to. I know the car was also available in Enthusia where I'm sure I drove it a little, but I ought to try taking it for a race in Assetto Corsa or something soon.
I have to congratulate you. What you've done here is nothing short of brilliant. I can't even imagine the amount of tweaks you did to make this good, this engaging. The talk, the way you drove, everything was absolutely incredible. PS - you were right about the dawn - it gave me foose bumps of my old days doing endurance as it's definitely a magical time.
The video is great, but almost none of this cars raced at the 24H of Spa Francorchamps in the 70s. Instead you could easily find them on the 24H of Le Mans or in the IMSA Series. The BMW Batmobile version shown, if my memories are correct only run on the USA. The cars used in 24H of Spa up until 1977 or 78 were Touring cars and some lower powered versions of the Porsche 911 or Chevy Camaro. Then the leading touring cars ( BMW 3.0 CSL and Fors Capri Zakspeed ), become more proweful, to the point that they were almost Le Mans prototypes, disguised as touring cars, and FIA an end to it. On the other hand you also had the 1000Km of Spa endurance race where you could find GT cars like these and even prototypes like Porsche 917 and Ferrari 512s.
I had proper disbelief about how the marshalls positioned on eau rouge until you mentioned marshall fatalities. How did they not see that coming? Rough times
If you set "Autocalibrate AI Mode" to '2' in the player.JSON file, when doing a practice session the AI will 'learn' the course. Its best to disable fuel and tire wear and let the AI do many full length runs. They'll do a couple dozen laps and then come into the pits and 'save' their findings. There is some more detailed instructions here: forum.studio-397.com/index.php?threads/ai-learning-step-by-step-guide.47657/ It doesn't replace a good AIW file, but it can help them get those final few tenths
It's kind of a shame the Spa 24 wasn't a GT race during this era (The Capri and CSL would have been the only eligible cars out of this group for the real thing.) but, then again, if it wasn't a touring car race we wouldn't have seen such mad entries like Mazda RX3s, Plymouth Hemi 'Cudas and, of course, AMG's "Red Pig" Mercedes 300 SEL.
