Archive for the ‘Daytona’ Category

2012 iRacing Daytona 500

Sunday, February 26th, 2012

The last few seconds of my Daytona 500

My iRacing Daytona 500 (iRacing members only!)

The 2012 iRacing Daytona 500 was a huge event with over 1600 racers taking part. In previous years this volume of racers has caused major problems with the event (such as major delays and even postponement) but iRacing have invested resource into changing the infrastructure powering the event to handle the large volume – and this year it paid off. The event ran without a hitch as my race session saw 38 race splits for a truly epic event (I made split 6).

The race itself was good fun with everyone taking it pretty easy and keeping it respectful, and we had long green runs for large portions of the race. I had two major incidents during the race – lap 123 had a pretty big wreck that I made it through (reasonably) unscathed.

Towards the end of the race I was in very good shape and firmly in the lead pack racing for the win. As we saw the ten to go my luck ran out when a car on the inside line completely lost control, demolishing my car and causing “The Big One”, sending me down the track on my roof for 500m+.

A 5 minute tow followed by a 5 min partial repair and I limped it home in 16th place. Still, not a terrible result and I saw the chequers, albeit 7 laps down.

Started : 35th of 43
Finished : 16th, 123 points (9 incident pts)
iRating : +27
Safety Rating : A/4.96 (-0.03)

First World Tour Events of 2012!

Wednesday, February 22nd, 2012

About to get speared by a wayward Solstice

2012 iRacing Roar Before The 2.4 Results (iRacing members only!)

The iRacing World Tour once again features in 2012 and the first event was the ‘Roar Before The 2.4′, a one hour race at the Daytona International Speedway. The event saw a 60 minute multiclass event where the VW Jetta TDi, Mazda MX5 and Pontiac Solstice shared the track to compete in three separate class races.

I was very much a Solstice racer in my early days in iRacing (~2008) so welcomed the chance to race it again in a main ‘marquee’ event such as the World Tour so the choice of car was very easy for me.

A total of 787 racers took part in the Roar and my race session had 11 race splits (I was in the second split). A full race list of 41 cars took part in my race, with 9 Solstices (including me) – not bad for an entry list.

Unfortunately my race was severely affected by a collision on lap 2, just a few minutes into the 60 minute race. At the bus stop a fellow Solstice driver behind me lost control of his car, cut the bus stop chicane and speared into the side of my car leaving me with no chance to avoid their out of control vehicle.

Annoyingly that had me limp to the pits and repair my car, costing me several minutes of track time and put me a lap down. The rest of my race was reasonably uneventful as I just put the laps away and only gained positions when Solstice drivers ahead either crashed or blew up their engines! I was still pleased to make it back to 4th place out of the 9 racers in my class.

Started : 5th of 9 Solstice, 37th of 41 overall
Finished : 4th of 9 Solstice, 27th of 41 overall. 1 laps down, 106 points (6 incident points)
iRating : -6
Safety Rating : A/4.68 (-0.18)

2012 iRacing 2.4 Hours of Daytona Race Results (iRacing members only!)

The disappointment continued the next day with the weekends main event – the iRacing 2.4 Hours of Daytona. This main event has a chequered past for me. In 2010 (the first year of running) the event was not multiclass and generally was a big success. 2011 turned out to be a disappointment after not making it to the chequered flag. This year was unfortunately another disappointment but surprisingly (to me) it wasn’t due to it being multiclass, or me getting wrecked. The problem was hardware related.

1094 racers registered and formed 26(!) race splits. I was doing really well in split 6, having worked my way up to second by lap 11, only for my PC to lock up and blue screen! By the time I had restarted the PC I was mired in the back, around 30th place with a very long amount of racing left to do. I couldn’t really muster the enthusiasm for another solitary race just hoping to gain positions from the retirees so I called it a night and quit the race.

Started : 7th of 42
Finished : 42nd (last!) 81 laps down, 2 points (4 incident points)
iRating : -143 (believe this to be a record loss)
Safety Rating : A/4.40 (-0.22)

Here’s hoping the 2013 event improves on these results (it would be hard not to!). The next World Tour event is the fabled iRacing Daytona 500 on 25th February 2012.

The second annual iRacing Daytona 500

Sunday, February 20th, 2011

Action from the second iRacing Daytona 500

My iRacing Daytona 500 (iRacing members only!)

The second running of the iRacing Daytona 500 took place on February 19th, and like last year it occupies the second event in the iRacing World Tour series. I had mixed feelings about the event as last years event resulted in a DNF and a record number of incidents in a single race (19!). I knew what was in store, and decided to race anyway.

Last years event had over 1300 racers and this years event surpassed that with almost 1700 racers signed up to race. Unfortunately the iRacing infrastructure couldn’t handle the sheer volume of racers at once and so the race had to be delayed by two hours – midnight.

Thankfully once the server mayhem was sorted 1464 racers took part in the rescheduled race to form 37 separate race grids of ~40 racers each.

My race went exceptionally well (especially considering I was certain I’d not make it to the end). I did my usual approach of trying to stay at the rear of any pack that I was in (to reduce the risk of getting rear-ended when slowing for any wrecks) and I wasn’t far from the action all race! There were 11 caution/wrecks in my split and I think I had to drive through most of them with only a couple happening safely behind me.

It doesn't look likely, but I dodged this wreck!

As the race continued I slowly increased my position and in the second half of the race I was firmly inside the top ten. With 15 to go I had risen to 5th place and was set for a great result when I made a mistake in the pack and made slight contact with the outside car – enough to turn us both around. I was very annoyed at the mistake but thankfully it didn’t destroy everyones race behind me. It was approaching 4am by that point and I guess I had probably succumbed to the tiredness slightly.

Lap 189 - A mistake in the pack late in the race

I was lucky in that I didn’t hit any barrier in that accident so I chose to not use my single car reset and raced on to see the last ten laps home. When the race went green I quickly realised my car was more damaged than I first thought, and soon enough one of my guages was overheating massively. I was pretty sure the engine was set to blow so I moved to the back of the pack I was in (8th) and decided to try and limp home. A final caution at the very end allowed me to slow down and save the engine for an 8th place finish, which I was very happy to get.

Started : 36th of 40
Finished : 8th, 141 points (2 incident pts)
iRating : +66
Safety Rating : A/4.99 (no change)

The next World Tour event is scheduled to use the Street Stock at Thompson Int. Speedway on April 9th.