Archive for August, 2009

Pro Series Race Report – Week 4 Laguna Seca

Monday, August 31st, 2009

Pro Series Race Results (iRacing members only!)

I missed last weeks Pro race at Sebring (the race clashed with the Indycar Series race at Sonoma…) so I made my next appearance during week 4, the race at Laguna Seca.

I had a great build-up to the race, as I entered the Daytona Prototype race just before the main Pro race and managed to lead all 40 laps from pole) taking my first DP race win! Unfortunately by the time that race finished I had missed qualifying for the Pro race! So I started 19th, last place.

I wasn’t too annoyed at starting last. Even with a good qualifying lap I’d probably have started 17th at best. And starting last meant I was almost guaranteed a safe first lap as I could really hang back and assess the situation, without having someone drive into the back of me.

How wrong I was! Even when you drive as cautiously as you can, you still can’t avoid every lap one collision!

After cautiously driving the first corner I quickly came into a situation where some cars collided ahead and I did not have the time or space to slow down quickly enough. Unfortunately my car was damaged in that hit (the steering was affected) but even so, I had a really good race and managed to pass quite a few cars on route to a 10th place finish. Had it not been for the unlucky 4x at the start, it would have also been incident free.

And so, on to the next one!

Cool VW Jetta TDi Cup video…

Wednesday, August 19th, 2009

The VW Jetta TDi Cup is the newest car to arrive in iRacing. It’s a 170hp, FWD automatic that offers extremely tight and competitive racing. As this video shows!

Pro Series – Week 2 @ VIR Full

Wednesday, August 19th, 2009

Pro Series Race Results (iRacing members only!)

As I mentioned in my previous post I was going to make my debut in week two, where the Pro series was at Virginia International Raceway.

It was quite unfortunate for me, as the Daytona Prototype is a car that I can’t seem to get a representative speed in, and the combination with the car and the track meant I was seriously off the pace. Typically I’d expect to be up to 3 seconds off the top times on a large track like VIR, but here it was probably more than that.

That said, I still wanted to race even if it was just for last place. The race had 33 entrants, so my split was 16 drivers for a strength of field of just over 4000 (my highest SOF yet).

I had a nervous start and it took quite a few laps before I could get into a rhythm but I was able to get a good, clean result, finishing 9th of 16 and taking 119 points. That’s probably representative for me, and even though I’m at the wrong end of list for raw Pro pace I still had a great time. Just being in ‘the big show’ was enough of a goal for me!