iRacing

Testing for week 4;

iRacing have released the first videos o fthe forthcoming Lotus 79 and it’s looking rather lovely at Watkins Glen!

The Lotus 79 is ridiculously fast, it’s going to be a real handful when we get our hands on it at the start of August.

Joyous news! iRacing’s Steve Myers posted this in the members forums;

“Lotus 79 will be in the build for the start of next season.”

That means it’s only about 5 weeks away! To celebrate, we have some new screenshots of the beast at Watkins Glen to drool over;

iRacing Lotus '79

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Riley Daytona Prototype

Due to work & family commitments I missed out on Laguna Seca last week so it was off to Watkins Glen with one of my 4 drop weeks used up.

The only laps I’d done around Watkins Glen were a disasterous race in the Radical last season and in the Spec Racer Ford when it was released at the start of this season so although I was reasonably familiar with the track it needed a lot of work in the Riley to get up to speed.

Practise went fairly well and I put in a qualifying time of 1:43.684 which put me 98/151 which is not too bad and only the 2nd time I’ve been in the top 100 qualifiers this season!

I planned to do 2 races this week with the first acting as a warmup for the second.

That was the plan anyway, race 1 was a complete disaster, I started 17th but lost a few places due to a poor start, a tangle ahead of me going into the chicane for the first time meant everyone had to brake early but the driver behind was completely caught out, failed to brake in time and rear-ended me through the chicane to end my race on lap 1.

-63 iRating, -0.38 SR and ZERO championship points. Not a great start…

So, the pressure was on for race 2. I started 16th out of 24 as the #19 ranked driver. I felt pretty comfortable with the car with some extra practice under my belt as it looked like I could handle the drivers behind me so I was looking to pick up a few places.

We made it through the chicane this time but another lap 1 incident nearly finished my race when the driver in front oversteered right in front of me coming out of T6 “Chute”. I thought I’d evaded him cleanly only for a 0x incident to register which shortly became a 2x as (I assume) he lost control. The car was undamaged though so maybe luck was on my side this time.

Things settled down quite quickly, pulling away from the cars behind I picked up a few places as others crashed out and found myself in 13th behind Haydyn Bevis who was running exactly the same pace. We had a titanic battle for nearly the whole race. I thinkI was marginally quicker but I was unable to get near enough to try for a pass until he made a mistake through T7 “Toe”, I switched to the outside to pass but in my enthusiasm I dropped a wheel on the grass, lost momentum (as well as a 1x incident) and the chance was gone.

That proved to be my only shot at 12th place. As the laps ran down and the leaders caught and lapped us I came out of it worse and dropped a few seconds behind so I had to settle for 13th.

A season best 89 points puts me up to 3rd in my division and I got +27 iRating back to take me to 1768. No change to my SR with those 3 incidents.

My target of 500 championship points is looking quite possible now with 318 in the bag after 4 weeks against a mid-season target of 250.

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My team-mate Don does an awesome job of avoiding the chaos at the start of a fun SRF race at Watkins, see those babies fly!

Another great vid of the Spec Racer at Watkins Glen

One of the first Spec Racer Ford races in iRacing, at Watkins Glen ‘boot’ layout;

I had high hopes for a decent finish at Watkins Glen to finish my season in the Radical SR8 on a high.

This season has been a bit of a roller-coaster with high’s and low’s but not much in-between but lying 5th in my division, I just needed a reasonable result to jump a place up into 4th.

For the first time this season there were enough drivers to split the field and I was placed in 7th on the grid amongst 16 others.

The start was a little crazy with numerous evasive manouvers required by many drivers through an error strewn first few turns but I came through without any contact sitting in 8th.

The remainder of the first couple of laps passed uneventfully with a pack of 4 of us testing each other out.

Coming out of turn 10, disaster struck, I got the power down too early and half-span, coming to a full stop just off the racing line causing one car to spin to avoid me (I later found out he din’t pick up any incident points. Phew!) .

It was a horrible mistake but worse was to come… subsequent unforced spins on laps 9 & 13 dropped me all the way back to 15th and I was on the point of quitting in frustration, I hadn’t ever driven this badly in all my time in iRacing. Stupid, stupid, stupid!

Only the thought of saving my SR kept me going and with some undeserved luck I picked up 5 places as other drivers ran out of fuel, disconnected or ended their race in the pits.

Unbelievably, this was just enough to put me up to 4th in my division with 47 points with only 2 days of racing left for my opponent to respond. Fingers crossed!

The cost was quite high, -0.13 SR to take me down to 4.86 and -8 on my iRating.

A practice lap in the Riley MkXX Daytona Prototype at Watkins Glenn;

Shannon Whitmore of the iRacing staff has posted this video of the Impala at Watkins Glen.

Can’t wait for the new build to try it out, good to see it can turn right as well as left