Archive for the ‘Oval Road Odyssey’ Category

The Odyssey makes a memorable debut at Zandvoort

Tuesday, April 20th, 2010
No quarter is given through the tight turns of Zandvoort

No quarter is given through the tight turns of Zandvoort

Oval Road Odyssey – Zandvoort GP (iRacing members only!)

The penultimate venue in season two of the Oval Road Odyssey league (‘ORO’) took us to the newest track in iRacing’s library, Zandvoort. I had never driven the circuit before (in any sim), and my only experience with the track was when I did the last batch of ‘Real Or Virtual?’ comparison images (available here).

The race was a cracker – another exciting race in the late models, and one to remember! I had a very good starting position with second on the grid but soon lost that advantage as I tumbled down the order to 13th place due to yet another turn one incident (having a bad run of luck in that regard lately).

The scene was set for a spirited fight back, and over the 16 laps I was able to salvage a decent result (not as good as I’d hoped, but OK nonetheless).

As usual, the highlight reel follows!

ORO visits Silverstone

Tuesday, April 6th, 2010
ORO racers battling it out at Silverstone

ORO racers battling it out at Silverstone

Oval Road Odyssey – Silverstone National (iRacing members only!)

Another memorable and enjoyable race in the Oval Road Odyssey (‘ORO’) this week when the league visited Silverstone. It was also the first time I raced at the National circuit which is a very short layout. The entire field was closely matched and the race would turn out to be extremely competitive throughout the grid.

I didn’t really have a great qualifying, netting tenth on the grid where I could have earned 7th on a good lap, and the race itself took a turn for the worse when I lost four positions in the first few turns, thanks to some close battling with rivals on the track.

Over the course of the race I had some good battles, and some very narrows escapes. In fact I don’t think I’ve ever had a race with so many close escapes without getting caught up in at least one race ending impact!

In the end I was able to fight my way back from 14th to a finishing position of 7th. I made a short highlights reel of the race from my viewpoint, which is embedded below :

More turning right in a late model…

Sunday, March 28th, 2010
ORO racers compete at Road America for their season two event.

ORO racers compete at Road America for their season two event.

Oval Road Odyssey – Road America (iRacing members only!)

I haven’t posted about Oval Road Odyssey (‘ORO’) before on this blog, but a recent race at Road America is a good time to talk about this excellent league. The Oval Road Odyssey is an interesting weekly racing league that seeks to take the Chevrolet Late Model to a range of road tracks in iRacing and let the motor run loose in (usually) 30 minute race events. The late model is primarily an oval car in iRacing, but it also serves as a really great road racing car and is a lot of fun to race.

I first had a taste of road racing the late model back in 2009 when iRacing ran a fun event at VIR, and I blogged about that back then (here). The ORO started up last season and currently is working its way through season 2. The website for ORO is www.oval-road-odyssey.com. All comers are free to join in.

This weeks race took us to Road America in a lengthened 60 minute race with a mandatory pit stop. I didn’t have great pace and qualified 9th of 25 so I decided to run an extreme pit strategy and come in for my stop at the first possible opportunity. My hope was that it would put me in clear air for the first half of the race where I could lap at maximum pace without getting caught up in any battles or spins in the pack.

It worked pretty well – I had to put in a few laps before my pit window opened up (the late model fuel tank would only do around 21 of the 24 race laps in one fill) and generally my opening laps were good. I picked up a few spots and avoided all the early carnage, in spite of some (very) close calls! I climbed to 5th before diving into the pits on lap 4.

I left the pits in 15th and whilst I didn’t have a perfectly clear track, I was able to dispatch a few of the slower cars and generally make good progress.

A great moment happened on lap 14 as car #22 took his pit and left the pits precisely as I was barreling down the pit straight. It was extremely tight and close racing as we both entered turn one side by side, driving by inches! We had a little battle for a while before #22 spun out during a passing attempt and retired.

The final stages of the race saw some more action as I gained a couple of spots by virtue of a spinner and finally an unlucky entrant running out of fuel on the last lap! End result was a fourth place which was great considering the starting position!

I race in ORO each week and I’ll post more about it when appropriate.