Archive for the ‘Daytona Oval’ 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)

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.

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.