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)

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.

Close encounters at the final chicane

The next event in the iRacing 2011 World Tour recreates the Formula One Belgian Grand Prix. Run on the same weekend as the real world series, this event sees the first time that the iRacing FW31 is used in a World Tour event.

Last years World Tour had a similar event to coincide with the British Grand Prix but unfortunately the FW31 wasn’t released fast enough to be used, so we used the Lotus 79 for a classic style event (my race writeup for that event is here).

363 racers participated in the event, forming 14 individual race events. I started 10th in my split (the fourth split). I was pretty concerned about getting wrecked in turn one (especially as I had been looking forward to this race for a long time and had put a lot of practice in) and sure enough it was a very messy start. Luckily I picked my way through the spinning cars and no-one hit my car.

I settled into what turned out to be a really enjoyable race. I had decided to go for a one stop strategy and it turned out that a lot of the field had chosen two stop strategies. So as the race progressed the cars that drove away into the distance at the start eventually came back into play once the pit stops had worked their way out.

In the final third of the race I checked the race order and found that I was in a very good position – all the cars ahead of me had another stop to make. Sure enough, I soon found myself in first place with a 10+ second lead, and brought it home for a very memorable win!

Belgian Grand Prix results (iRacing members only!)

Started : 10th of 26
Finished : 1st, 142 points (1 incident pt)
iRating : +50
Safety Rating : A/4.98 (+0.34)

There is a similar World Tour event in October to coincide with the Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka – a great track.

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Facing left to navigate a right hander

For the first time since 2008 (when I raced in the Advanced Solstice) I am in the hunt for an overall series win in iRacing. Racing in the multiclass Grand Touring Cup series I have been racing the MX5 against the often faster Jetta cars and have been picking up some good results which has me in a very strong shape for a top three finish when the season finishes in a month or so.

So it was with regret that a vital Silverstone race during week 9 resulted in a messy lap 3 wreck that saw my position tumble from the class pole position all the way down to 13th in my class (20th overall), and firmly last.

Realising that the Jetta drivers always have a powerful launch against the under-powered MX5 cars I tried to signal my intent to take the inside line for the first right hander at Silverstone (directing faster Jettas to pass on my left) but it seems this wasn’t received by the Jetta behind, as he put us three wide going into a fast turn 1. A moment later, another car clipped my rear quarter panel sending me into a spin and out into the weeds.

I was seeing red as I had been looking at a strong win (I was on class pole, and had a clear pace advantage over the second place runner) so with a tight grip on my wheel I set about seeing how far I could catch up. After half a lap of frantic driving I was surprised to see that the class leader hadn’t been able to scutter into the distance (the erratic Jettas around him had seen to that) and I was only around five seconds back, albeit with several hard racing cars in between.

I did my best to dice through the field and eventually fought my way to second place, on lap 4 of 19. I was five seconds back, and around 1-2 tenths faster per lap than the leader. It would be tough.

Racing hard, I had some success and managed to slowly claw my way back within two seconds with a few laps to go, but it was not to be as a rogue Jetta (one lap down and in 15th place no less) had caught up to me and started racing me (for no gain to his race as he was far far back from his next competitor). His wild moves and general disarray slowed my progress and allowed my race rival to trot into the distance uncontested in some nice clear air.

Had I been able to convert this mess into a win it would surely have been my greatest victory in iRacing, but as it was it remains just one interesting event and a reminder of what could have been.

Here’s a short race highlights clip of the initial spin and mission to get back through the field.

iRacing Grand Touring Cup race results (iRacing members only!)

Carl Zeiss are looking at expanding their well received ‘Cinemizer’ product line with a new HMD that is believed to use a pair of high quality OLED screens, along with proper HD resolution support. The current Cinemizer Plus already has very good integration with mobile devices (iPhone etc.) and their next product is scheduled to extend this with support for VGA and HDMI inputs. Potentially this type of HMD can support some very immersive experiences whether it be watching movies, playing games or even simulation racing.

Zeiss are currently running an online survey where they are seeking interest in their new Cinemizer OLED HMD and if you have any interest at all in a new device like this I strongly encourage you participate and show what you’re looking for most. I’ve been following this product launch with a view for integrating with iRacing, so I’m eager to see what it can offer.

The online survey is at http://www.gfk.com/video-eyewear

A final total of 975 racers took to the track and my race split was the fourth race split, as determined by qualifying time. As always, my race objective was to make it to lap 200 and see where things lined up, and stay at the back of the field if I had to. I started the race from the pit lane and managed to avoid a few of the early wrecks as things got settled out amongst the field.

Unfortunately I didn’t come close to finishing (yet again!) and again it was through no fault of my own – on lap 31 two cars collided down low and as I slowed and moved high to drive past one car slid up to the highline and collided with me, sending me into the wall with race ending damage.

Looking through the other splits it seems that most races have less than ten finishers at the end, so I suppose a winning strategy next year is to sit in the garage for 100 laps to pass before taking to the field. That won’t get me a win, but a top 10 is almost guaranteed!

2011 iRacing.com Indy 500 results (iRacing members only!)

Started : 23rd of 32
Finished : 25th DNF, 169 laps down, 27 points (6 incident pts)
iRating : -81
Safety Rating : A/4.99 (no change)

The next race in the iRacing World Tour is the Michigan 400 (NASCAR Sprint Cup) on June 18th.

This time last year the iRacing Indy 500 was the very first World Tour event where the grids would be set by qualifying speed alone (not iRating as per usual). This has since been adopted as the standard way of assigning race grids in World Tour events and it has worked out pretty well.

My race last year was cut very short with just 17 of 200 laps completed (I was wrecked under caution!) so here’s hoping I can go the distance this time around. Here’s also hoping the iRacing servers can hold out, as I expect we will surpass last years registration count of 759!

Please delete any older version of Racing Rivals (no uninstall necessary as the application doesn’t leave behind any registry settings) presently used and download the latest version here.

If you have any problems/questions, contact me here.

No doubt a highly complex piece of engineering to integrate into the existing simulation, the new tyre model looks to be included in the next car in the iRacing fleet – the Nationwide COT. The NTM will also be merged into one of the road cars (exact car TBA).

In other news the build will likely include :

• Membersite awards – iRacing’s reward system which will have similarities to Xbox achievements. Set to be 74 in number, these should provide an interesting way of marking key moments in an iRacing career and hopefully they’ll be carefully designed so as to not be a detriment to the racing (e.g. an award for ‘over 100 incidents in a race’ would cause HAVOC in official races!)
• Okayama – Set to be a free track to all members this Japanese track marks the first of a number of Japanese tracks coming to the service in the coming months (can’t wait for Suzuka!)
• Pit repair is in for all the cars (I don’t really care about this feature personally, I’m happy for wrecked cars to stay wrecked)
• No word on the FMod sound improvements – it’s all eerily quiet on that front (pun not intended). The initial implementation was pretty lacklustre (it provided crackling output for me, and sim crashes for others) but it is still an anticipated feature and could really improve the immersion in the sim.
• Graphical improvements – Shawn Nash has hinted at further improvements to the graphics engine in the next build, including optimisation for members who currently suffer from momentary stutters, even during high FPS situations. They’ll also be reworking/improving the Skip Barber car model.
• Animation improvements – I’ve been hoping for this for some time now, and staff have finally revealed that they are working on improving the animations in the sim. Instead of having completely static drivers in the race replays, we’ll start to see visual effects such as driver arms moving in relation to the steering wheel (and hopefully, but not yet mentioned, buffeting helmets due to g-forces). Watching replays with lifeless drivers is immersion sapping, so I’m eager to see this sooner rather than later
• Telemetry – not much has been mentioned other than we’ll be getting telemetry exported in a industry-recognised format, along with a third party tool to read it. Useful to those that are looking for it.
• Hosted racing – more controls for hosted racing, including the ability to schedule smaller sessions (e.g. a one hour session, which will work out cheaper than a four hour session) plus the ability to schedule events up to one year in advance.

iRacing staff also dangled some pretty significant carrots for the next build (season 3, in July). Those improvements include the new tyre model for the rest (or at least a significant number) of the cars in the iRacing fleet. Work on an animated pit crew was also mentioned (I suspect this is a bigger project than the July build).

We’ll also get headlights (in the cars that have lights) in July. Useful not only in night racing, it’ll be valuable in mixed class racing to indicate when faster cars are coming through. There’ll also be new content coming, including Iowa, Suzuka, Ford GT and the LMP.

All that and plenty more to come as iRacing continually add to the service.