End of Season report

So I've just finished my 1st season of iRacing. I've taken a different approach to a lot of people - most people concentrate on 1 or 2 cars/series but I've raced in a lot of series. That's because I've got time to do a lot of racing and also I wanted to try out a lot of cars before focussing on a few. It also allowed me to learn the majority of tracks available which puts me in good shape for the next season.

Here's a list of my results:

Oval Series (all Division 7 out of 10 divisions)

Advanced Legends 13th in championship. 1 win, 9 top 5 finishes out of 14 races

Late Model 14th in championship. No wins, 8 top 5 from 34 races

Street Stock 4th in championship. No wins, 4 top 5 from 8 races

NASCAR Class A (Cup cars) 10th place, no wins or top 5 from 8 races

NASCAR Class A Fixed set-up 6th place, no wins or top 5 from 12 races

NASCAR Class B (Nationwide series cars) 21st place, 1 top 5 from 22 races

NASCAR Class B Fixed 28th place, 6 top 5 finishes from 29 races

NASCAR Trucks 52nd, 9 top 5's from 22 races

NASCAR Trucks Fixed 42nd, 3 top 5's in 20 races

National series (using the old Nationwide cars) 3rd place with 7 top 5's in 28 races

So overall in the ovals, I was very consistent but seldom near the front. Mostly I went for safety and hung at the back, learning about the cars and tracks. Next season I'll be more aggressive and go for wins when I can. I'll be in division 6 next season and will try for high finishes in at least the Late Model, Class B and National series.

Road (all Div 6)

Grand Am series using Riley DP car. 3rd place with 3 top 5's from 19 races

GT Challange using Corvette CR6 car. 29th place. 4 top 5's from 6 races

Prototype & GT series using Corvette. 5th place, 3 top 5's  from 4 races

Spec Racer Ford 5th place. 15 top 5's from 51 races. Frustrating not to win any - I was very close a number of times...

Skip Barber 2nd place, 18 wins, 76 top 5's from 149 races. 

Star Mazda 2nd place, 1 win (my last race in the championship!) with 17 top 5's from 57 races.

Grand Touring Cup using VW Jetta, 5th place, 2 wins and 10 top 5's from 12 races

From next season, I won't race the Spec racer Ford - I'm not that good with it (and don't really like driving it) and it's also the one where I've had the most incidents so it's been the series with a negative impact on my safety record.

I won't race the Skip Barber as much - actually a lot of the races I did were in the 1st 3-4 weeks of the season while I was learning how to race - the Skippy was very good for that. So, I'll spread my racing out a bit more evenly and hopefully also race the Lotus 49 car which is promised to come out "real soon".

I'm pretty happy with the way it's gone - I've been reasonably competive with most drivers (although there are a group of "aliens" who are just too fast from pretty much everyone, including me. Hopefully I'll be even more competitive next season with the experience of the cars, tracks and set-ups I've gained. I'll be in Division 5 so a tougher group but hopefully I've improved enough that I can win one of the championships....

Changing Priorities

The last week or so I've been racing in different cars and series to see what I should run in the new season in 3 weeks time. I've carried on with the series like the Skippy I have been doing but just doing enough to score decent championship points and then stopping so I can do other races instead. Because the best 8 weeks from 12 count for the championships  it's actually pretty difficult to gain any serious ground in the championships once you get to week 10 so now's the best time to experiment with other cars.

Previously I'd already done a couple of races in the Corvette CR6 and I've done a few more now. It's a real handful but fun to drive but the races are combined with super fast sports cars so can be nerve racking, especially when there's big field. One race I did had 35 cars at Laguna Seca where the sports cars were lapping in 1m 15secs (about 10 secs faster than us). It was just crazy - once they starting lapping us basically all I could do was stay on the track and try to keep out of their way. The real problem is once you start moving over, you get slower so even more cars come behind you - you see the picture.....

I've also done quite a few races in the VW Jetta TD. It's really good fun to drive - lots of tyre squealing and oversteer but it's a pretty quick car. The races are combined with the Mazda MX5 Cup cars and the Jetta is significantly quicker. I had one very lucky win in the Jetta - I was running 3rd and the leaders managed to take each other off with a few laps to go.

I've also done a lot of oval races, especially in the trucks at Talladega. Awesome fun - one of the other guys shared a really good set-up so I've been really competitive. Haven't won a race yet but had a few top 5's so getting closer....

The problem with trying new cars is that your rating tends to drop. I've lost quite a few points over the last couple of weeks but I guess I'll be able to recover them once the new season starts.