A couple of good weeks

Xmas week was a bit busy so I didn't write a post, my iRacing time was a bit limited so I did as much racing in the time available that I could. But, things went reasonably well considering how little time I spent on Practicing.

In the Skippy, we raced at Oran Park the week before Xmas. Oran Park is a track in Australia which is now closed but was much loved in Australia  It's very tricky - lots of elevation changes and fast sweeping corners and as bumpy as hell. I did reasonably well - 12 races, 1 win, 8 top 5 finishes but never really got into the right races to score big in the championship (more about this later). But, overall not bad at all.

My best drive of the week was probably in the Star Mazda at Spa. I'd hardly practiced at all but managed to get a 5th place in one race.

On the ovals, I had my 1st experience of superspeedway racing. It's crazy - to to able to stay with the pack, you have to team up with another person and basically push each other around the track as a tandem. Fun but scary! My best oval race was a 3rd place in the Late Model class.

For Xmas week (week 9 of the 12 week championship season) we had Laguna Seca for the Skippy. I like Laguna and it suits my style. The 1st few races were disasters - I twice jumped the start (my wheel was playing up and I eventually had to re-install and recalibrate it) and then I spun from a good position in one race. But, then things picked up and I had a few really good results, culminating in a brilliant result where I finished 2nd in the race where some of the very top guys were competing. The results sheet is below and that gives me a chance to explain some of the mechanics of iRacing.

The car number is iRacing is significant - it basically shows the drivers relative overall ranking, so the best driver is No 1 etc. The next few columns are standard race result information. The Inc column shows how many incidents you had during the race (running off-track, losing control, making contact with another car etc). I had 1 - I think I ran slightly wide on 1 corner. The championship points scored in each race change depending on how strong the field is - this race was extremely strong so the points are high - the 127 I scored is my best ever score. The Div column shows what division each driver is in (this is determined by your rating at the beginning of the season) so I was racing against people in way higher divisions than me. The iRating shows the current rating and the change caused by the race and the licence column shows what licence class each driver is and how your safety rating is changed by the race.
The race was interesting. At first, it seemed pretty straightforward - after a couple of laps I was running 5th and slowly losing ground to 4th place (and rapidly losing to the top 3) but pulling away from 6th. It basically stayed the same until lap 10 when the guy in 4th place (Car 8 who finished 3rd) spun and I passed him. I'd be cruising until then but of course I had to push  hard after that to stop him from catching me - my last 5 laps were all within .2 of my fastest lap). On lap 11 the race exploded - 2nd & 3rd touched each other and the 2nd placed car had to pit and then the leader blew up his engine so suddenly I was 2nd but being caught by the 3rd placed car. I managed to hold on but was sweating for the last few laps!
Another fun part of the last couple of weeks has been the release of the new McLaren MP4-12C GT car. It's really good fun to drive and the sound is AWESOME. I need more practice with it though - it's very difficult to set-up and I'm not particularly competitive with it - yet...

I love Zolder!

I had a great week with the Skippy at Zolder. 16 races, 4 wins, 14 top5 finishes. The only two "bad" results were a 6th and 7th - and in both of those I was taken out by someone. For some reason the track seems to suit my style of driving - I've been pretty fast but also really consistent whilst a lot of people have been crashing.

Apart from the wins - most of which were pretty straightforward, I had some awesome races. IN one, I was within 1 sec of the 2nd placed car for 13 laps but couldn't get past him and couldn't force him into a mistake. For the last couple of laps, I backed off - I thought we both deserved a break from the pressure! In another, I broke my fastest lap 5 times in a row and still lost ground on the leaders. Eventually I had a spin trying to go even faster so backed off and settled for 4th. But, the best week racing I've had - my rating has gone up a LOT...

The other series have been OK but nothing particularly noteworthy. Most of the oval tracks were not particularly interesting and I had some really boring races. There were also some really short tracks in operation and they are just a joke - basically you try to stay of of trouble. The other road races were on tracks I really don't like. The Mazda was at Suzuka so I was rubbish and the Riley at Road America - I was 10 secs off the pace in practice so didn't bother doing any races.

Next week Oran Park for the Skippy - practice looks good so hopefully I'll have another good week. The big stock cars are at Talladega so my 1st experience of Superspeedways - it should be fun!

Still no info on the protest against me - I guess it's either been dropped or they take their time making decisions...

I'm either lazy or Mediocre - or both

The last week or so have been interesting on iRacing. In the Skippy, I did pretty well at Lime Rock but since Tuesday it's been racing at Suzuka and I am completely hopeless - 3 secs off the pace and I crash every couple of laps. I haven't even bothered to enter any races - it would just be embarrassing :-)

Still, for the championship you can drop 4 out of the 12 weeks so I'm still in a good position, as long as I don't have the same problem at too many other tracks. I suspect the problem is that, especially with the Skippy, practice makes perfect and I'm just not prepared to put in the hours practicing - I'd rather race in other cars and ovals - hence the title of the article. Next week should be good - the Skippy is at Zolder and I've already raced their in the Mazda, Riley and Corvette - and done well - so hopefully can get up to speed in the Skippy quickly.

The good news is that I've been doing better elsewhere. I'm getting more and more competitive in the Star Mazda (which is much more fun to drive than the Skippy anyway) and the Riley DP. I'm also OK with the Corvette CR6 - at some tracks anyway. I've also had a couple of good results with the Spec Racer Ford sports car.

I've also had some good oval results, particularly at Rockingham which all the real oval drivers seem to hate but I love - it's as bumpy and slippery as hell so you actually need to drive the car at it rather than just throw it into the turns. Because even on the ovals I'm a "slow in, fast out" driver, I also do much better on long runs between pitstops - I always make up a few places towards the end of races as people wear their tyres out.

I've also been involved in a couple of protests. One I made after I was rammed in a Corvette race. Unfortunately I didn't save the replay file properly so I ended up withdrawing the protest. There's one against me pending but I've got no clue what it's about - I've just had a notification that a protest has been made about something I did. More details next time I guess.

Some weird things do happen on iracing (just like in real racing). This week, the Star Mazda has been running on an oval track. In one race, I was in the top 5 battling in the middle of the group of cars and the caution came out. I pretty much immediately backed off and the guy behind me slammed into me going into the next corner and then yelled at me about it. !!!!!!!

OK back to practising - or maybe I'll just skip that and do a race :-)

I managed to survive a week of racing the Skip Barber at Okayama with my division championship lead intact, but badly reduced. I dislike the track intensely - I was always on the verge of a crash (or actually having one!) although did manage to get a couple of half decent results. I ended up with 2 completely different car set-ups - one which was pretty fast but was prone to crashing on lap 1 (when I say prone to crashing, I mean I crashed on the 1st lap 5 out of the 6 races I did with that set-up) and 1 that was reliable but slow....

Elsewhere, the week went pretty well. I'm getting better with the Star Mazda and also the Riley DP and I also had some really good oval results - including my 1st race win with the Legends 34 Coupe.

I'm still the top points scorer for England - actually I've got double the points of the 2nd placed person. This doesn't mean I'm Englands best driver - just that I've done a LOT more races than most people.

This week, the Skippy moves to Lime Point and I'm good there - hopefully I'll have a better week there. I need to get some good races in - my rating suffered BADLY last week.

What I am struggling with is getting any traction in Malaysia for iRacing. I've hardly found any users so before I can do anything with creating a league, I'm going to need to promote iRacing here. I've got contacts at Microsoft so I'll try to speak to them and see if they'll help - being Windows based, it's a nice fit. 

Up and Down days

Just like life, in iRacing you have good days and bad days and that's where I've been the last couple of days. Before I list disasters, I need to explain a little about how iRacing works.

Each year is split into 4 x 12 week seasons. At the start of each season, drivers are assigned divisions based on their performance and, in each race series, you compete for an overall championship and also a divisional one. The points gained in any race are based on how strong the opponents are - so if you're in a race with very good people, the winner gets more points than a race with low ranked people.

Each week, you race on a different track and your best 25% of results are averaged for your point score for each week. At the end of the season, your best 8 weeks count towards the season score. OK - got all that?

Tuesdays are the beginning of the week so for people in their first season like me, it's a hard day because there's new tracks to learn in each series you compete in. I've come to have low expectations for results on Tuesday but yesterday was just a string of disasters. In the Skip Barber series - my main focus - the new track was Okayama which I've raced on with other cars and always struggled and the Skippy is no exception - in the 4 races I did yesterday, I crashed in all of them - twice self inflicted and twice but take outs but other equally incompetent drivers :-) Other series were no better - in 4 oval races, I only made it past the 1st corner once (and on that one I then drove into a huge accident a few laps later.

My biggest crash of the day was at Indy. At the 1st corner I got squeezed onto the grass and then came back onto the track right in front of another car. The replay looks like the kind of accident you hold your breath for in real life until the see the driver climb at of the remains of his car...

Wednesday has been better. I've won a couple of Skippy races (but in low ranking races) and also had a good run in the Riley DP in the endurance race. ovals have gone better as well - no crashes and some pretty decent finishes.

Apart from the Skippy, my other main objective is to be the highest points scorer for England in the club competition.  I'm in the England club rather than the International alone which includes Malaysia because my Paypal account is based on my UK bank and address.  This looks like the easiest objective because it's basically dependent on performing OK in a lot of races and that's exactly what I'm doing.  But, this does conflict a bit with my objectives in the Skippy. Explaining that is a bit complicated so I'll leave that for another post.

John King2 - iRacing Career to date

My "name" in iRacing is John King2 (presumably there's another John King out there somewhere!). I joined in October 2012 and have made petty decent progress. A couple things of remember about me:

1) I'm pretty ancient so the faster (and more twitchy) cars are a bit more of a challenge to my reactions
2) I'm playing for fun so want to race and so the cars/series that require you to do a lot of set-up work on the cars are not going to be my favourites :-)

So, what's become clear to me is that I can be reasonably competitive in the Skip Barber single seater and so that's been my main focus. I'm also OK in the Star Mazda, the Riley DP sports car and some of the saloons - the VW Jetta and Mazda MX5. I also race some of the ovals, although really only for fun. I especially like the Legends car - it's awesome to drive on the decent size tracks.

As of today, I'm already at the top licence class (outside of Pro) for ovals and in Class B for road racing. At the end of week 3 for this season, I'm leading my division championship for the Skip Barber.

As a relative newcomer, I have to learn all the tracks as they change each week. Some of the tracks - like Spa - I obviously know the layout and have driven them in other games but learning to go to the max on each track takes time and practice.

In future posts, I'll give regular updates on the races I do, good or bad :-)

Can Simulation replace karting as a talent search tool?

For many years, karting has been young driver first introduction into motorsports. Virtually all the modern F1 drivers started this way and, at least in Europe, South America, Australia and Japan, works well as a talent search and driver development formula.

In smaller countries, like Malaysia, the picture isn't so good. Sanctioned Karting exists but is extremely expensive compared to local income and so is dominated by kids with rich parents. There are also only 6 races a year and these are nowhere near as competitive as the average club race in Europe. So, for some time now, I've thought that karting in Malaysia isn't doing what it should be doing to find and develop talent. It's too expensive and not competitive enough to give the drivers enough race craft to be able to adapt to single seaters quickly. And, it's getting worse - basically all the drivers are learning now is 1) The person with the most money wins and 2) It's OK to push people out of the way if you want to pass them. 

So, I think we need an alternative and the more I think about it (and play it myself), the more I believe that on-line simulation would be a better way to find talent in smaller countries like Malaysia. In particular, the way the game works with iRacing will develop the right behavior and thinking in drivers and also give them constant wheel to wheel action with similar performing drivers in exactly the same cars. Obviously there are limitations - you don't get a same physical challenge and a mistake loses you ratings points rather than puts you in hospital. But, it can work - Lucas Ordonez went from winning the Playstation league to Le Mans in one giant leap and did very well.

So, my idea is (at least as an experiment) to create a Malaysian league within iRacing and offer prizes to the best 15-16 year old. The prizes will be 1) A days coaching and testing with a Rotax kart and 2) Free entry to the myKart race series. I'm also talking to single seater teams about the possibility of doing something with them.