Archive for May, 2011

2011 iRacing Indy 500 Race Report

Sunday, May 29th, 2011

This weekend saw the second running of the iRacing Indy 500, a race I was very eager to finish following last years DNF after just 17 laps. By way of coincidence, I managed to achieve almost exactly the same qualifying performance as last year. Last year I qualified 193rd of 636 competitors. This year was also 193rd of 638! Both a similar number of qualifiers, as well as exactly the same qualifying spot!

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.

The Second Annual iRacing Indy 500

Tuesday, May 24th, 2011

This weekend brings the next event in the 2011 iRacing World Tour, with the second running of the iRacing Indy 500 event. Last years event (my race report is here) saw a combined total of 759 racers take to the grid for a full length virtual recreation of this prestigious event.

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!

Racing Rivals v1.2 released

Thursday, May 5th, 2011

A new version of Racing Rivals (more information here) has been released. Version 1.2 introduces a graphing feature to allow visual representation of iRating and safety rating, across both Road and Oval iRacing licences.

Racing Rivals Graph

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.