Archive for the ‘General Musings’ Category

“You Shall Not Pass!”

Monday, August 2nd, 2010

Just had a pretty entertaining battle with a driver in the Star Mazda at Laguna Seca (during the Intel GP series that is running during week 13).

I caught up to him swiftly during a practice session and set about trying to pressure a pass, or to try and force a mistake. Taking advantage of it being a practice session, I drove more aggressively than I would during a race. It was a lot of fun setting up runs (faking moves right then diving to the left) but I was quite surprised by some of the dubious defending I saw. His repertoire included :

  • Weaving to break the tow
  • Blocking/multiple lane changes (I go inside, he blocks the inside, I move outside, he blocks outside)
  • Chopping me off when I have pulled level on the inside (spotter had called out)
  • Finally colliding with me when I had the inside line

Now with it being an open practice session I didn’t mind the manner of the driving as I had fun attempting the moves but after the collision he actually started insulting me! Now I realise I was driving somewhat aggressively but the only reason I was driving in that manner was purely down to the extent of the blocking – I was having a fun battle (also, I would not try a pass at turn 6 in a race!).

Had it been an official race I would almost certainly have protested any one of a number on his moves, (e.g. the clear blocking, to name but one).

Am I wrong? Was the defending acceptable? Feel free to post your thoughts in the YouTube clip.

Real Vs. Virtual – Texas Edition

Monday, May 31st, 2010

Another round in the ‘Real Vs. Virtual’ series, visiting an older track in the iRacing range – Texas Motor Speedway. Thanks to Jay Bonvouloir for once again allowing use of his photos for use in this series.

Check out the comparison video :

Source images can be seen by clicking here and you can also see the previous sets in the series by clicking here.

Racing Rivals – competitive stat tracking in iRacing

Saturday, May 8th, 2010

Racing Rivals is a new application for iRacing members that allows racers to easily pull up historical comparisons with every driver they have raced in the iRacing service.

A lot of times when racing I felt it would be really good to be able to pull up a racing history with a particular driver – e.g. I might have a great race with someone but not recognise the name – have we enjoyed great races in the past? Or, perhaps I’ll have a scuffle with an overexuberant driver and so I’d like to see how our previous encounters fared – have we had aggressive encounters in the past? How can I find this out?

Racing Rivals can handle all this for you as it collects all your racing history into a lightweight application that can offer simple stat tracking of a number of areas. You can view the data in a simple leaderboard where you can see your top ‘rivals’, or you can search for a driver amongst the thousands in your history. Once found, you can view the stats between you to see who is getting the upperhand and from there you can pull up all your racing encounters (with quick and simple links back to the official iRacing.com results).

No doubt one day iRacing will offer this kind of rival/comparison features inside the main member site but until then, enjoy Racing Rivals.

More information (download locations and installation instructions) can be found here.