Archive for the ‘Daytona’ Category

Disappointing start to the iWT 2011

Saturday, January 29th, 2011

A poor start to the 2011 iRacing World Tour

2011 iRacing Rolex 2.4 Race Results (iRacing members only!)

I had mixed feeling about this years Rolex 2.4 event. Last years event featured the Daytona Prototype only (and it was a GREAT event). This years was a multiclass event featuring the Daytona Prototype and Ford Mustang FR500S. I’m not a huge fan of multiclass events, but I really wanted to race the event so I chose the Mustang and set about joining the race.

Clearly, multiclass racing with two different car classes is difficult and very risky, but the race got off to a good start. My split had 29 Daytona Prototypes and 11 Mustangs. We got through the first lap well, slowing down for some pretty big Prototype crashes, and the chasing Mustang pack settled into the long race ahead.

We were doing a good job when the DP’s started to catch us. The first few were reasonably spread apart, but the following pack of Prototypes caused havoc in the bus stop, and a spinning Prototype veered directly into my car and destroyed my race – lap 4.

Lap 4 - The Prototype spun around and veered into my path

I used my reset and set about racing once more. I was the only Mustang out of the 11 who had used a reset so I was stuck in 39th place, racing no-one (very boring!). A few laps later it got a bit busy entering the oval section – Prototypes going high and other Prototypes going low. As a slower class car, changing your line = death, so I gritted my teeth and held the middle of the track. Unfortunately a following Prototype clearly thought I was not going to hold my line and drove into the back of me, causing a wreck (and involving a few other cars too). So, wreck number 2, race over.

Lap 10 - The lapping Prototype, moments before contact

Can’t say I didn’t expect it, a disappointing start to the 2011 World Tour.

Started : 6th of 11 Mustangs, 35th of 40 overall
Finished : 11th of 11 Mustangs, 39th of 40 overall. 81 laps down, 8 points (8 incident points)
iRating : -117
Safety Rating : A/4.50 (-0.49)

The iRacing World Tour 2010 Marches On At Daytona

Tuesday, February 16th, 2010
The iRacing Daytona 500

The iRacing Daytona 500

My iRacing Daytona 500 (iRacing members only!)

The second event of the iRacing World Tour 2010 was a ‘virtual Daytona 500′, held the day before the Sprint Cup start their 2010 season with the real Daytona 500.

I joined the race despite the very late start for me (midnight) and it was a pretty cool event. Some 1344 racers turned up to form 32 race splits, which actually was a little bit lower than I expected.

The race itself was pretty tough though, but pretty much exactly as I expected. 42 cars in my split meant cautions every couple of laps, and also plenty of incidents along the way as the race unfolded. I got caught up in a big wreck on lap 20 or so and had to use up my reset, but even so the wrecks (and incidents) continued.

Eventually my race had to end due to another wreck on lap 131 of 200 (after over three hours of racing!) but it was still a pretty cool experience. Due to the race length I picked up a new record for incidents in a race but that’s to be expected I guess so I’m not too bothered about it. I would have hoped for less cautions in the race but that’s the byproduct of having 42 cars at Daytona, racing online.

I finished 14th in my split, and saw my oval iRating increase to a new high point of 2501.

The Rolex 2.4 is a huge success

Sunday, January 31st, 2010
The start of the iRacing Rolex 2.4

The start of the iRacing Rolex 2.4

iRacing kickstarted their 2010 “World Tour” this past weekend with the first event taking place at Daytona road course.

The iRacing World Tour is a series of virtual events that are closely based on real world racing events over the coming year. This first event corresponds with the Rolex 24 endurance race (a full 24 hour racing event).

The iRacing version saw the Daytona Prototype vehicle in use for 90 laps of Daytona, in an event that took over two hours to complete. The race was a huge success as 950 racers took part, and interest in the event was sky high. A total of 24(!) races were split off and hosted at the same time, which took place just a few hours before the real event started in Daytona.

iRacing Rolex 2.4 Race Results (iRacing members only!)

I had a great race – and didn’t really suffer with loss of concentration over the 90 laps as I feared. I ended up racing in the third split (I was ranked 86th of the 950 entrants). I was hoping to finish the race incident free but I suspected it wouldn’t really come to fruition. I took a 4x hit early on (lap 7) which was OK really as it meant I didn’t have to really worry about maintaining a clean sheet for the rest of the race. Later on I made my one and only major mistake in the race and took an extra 1x off track excursion.

I made a short highlights reel of the race. Not the most exhilarating race recap I’ve seen but it serves as a nice memento of this landmark racing event.

iRacing did a fantastic job at hosting this event which went off without a hitch. There are many events on the calendar to look forward to and it’s truly great to have such a strong community backing to these events – it really makes them special. The next event in two weeks sees a re-enactment of the Daytona 500 to coincide with the start of the Sprint Cup. I’m 90% likely to race in it (although it starts at midnight for me).