Season 2 Nearly Over

We're in Week 10 of my 2nd full season now. Because of the series I'm racing in, and the time zone I live in, it's becoming increasingly difficult to find races I want to do during the day. But, I'm still keeping up with the schedule and have had some really good races.

For ovals, I've been concentrating on the Street Stocks, National Class and the Trucks. In the Street Stocks, I'm actually leading my division championship but now we're dropping low scores from previous weeks, I'm likely to lose out next week - my main competitor has got a very low score to drop so he should overtake me. Still, 2nd will be a good result. I'm also 2nd in the National series but with little chance of catching the leader. In the trucks, I'm in the top 10 but slowly getting better - maybe next season I'll have a serious attempt at winning the division championship.

For road racing, I'll all but won 2 championships, both using the Corvette CR6R GT1 car. Mathematically I could still be beaten but it's extremely unlikely, I'm also 2nd in a 3rd championship with the CR6R - with an outside chance of winning and in the same situation in a grand Touring championship using the VW Jetta.

In the time trials, I'm already won 12 division championships although as I explained in the last post, this isn't a great achievement - just persistence...

Time to start planning for next season - I'll probably cut down on the number of different cars I drive and concentrate on getting better in a small number rather than mediocre in lots of cars. The new Kia saloon car should be available so I'll probably race that - I seem to be best in the GT and Touring cars - single Seaters and outright sports cars are too fast for me :-)

Season 2 - Mid Season report

Not much time to update the blog recently - my normally life has been a bit busier and I've also been racing like mad whenever I could. The racing schedule I've set is crazy - 14 different series using 10 different cars so practice time is limited to say the least!

Ovals races (Division 6)

Late Model

The late Model is a Oval stock car based on the real cars (unlike the main NASCAR cars) but modified heavily. great fun to drive, especially on the medium size ovals. I'm currently 5th in the championship. No wins so far but I'm getting closer all the time.

National Series

The National series uses the Nascar Nationwide cars from a couple of years ago. The races are crazy - no cautions and plenty of crashes. I tend to hang back at the start and pick up places as people crash and wear out their tyres. I'm currently 2nd in the championship with 1 win (and lots of top 5's)

Modified SK

The modified are custom, open wheel cars with a powerful engine. very difficult to drive - the power makes them oversteer a lot so you're often sideways on the smaller tracks. This is tmy 1st season with these so I'm taking it easy. 6th in the championship but getting better all the time - maybe one of these days I'll win a race....

Street Stock

As the name suggests, these are stripped down street cars. Fun to drive, especially this season because the tyre model has changed and it's made the cars slide a lot more. I'm 3rd in the championship with a bit of the chance of winning the championship. No wins yet but I've been pretty close.

Class B

These are the current Nascar NNS cars. There's 2 series - one for fixed setups and one with open setups.

I race these for fun and I'm not really competitive in the championships.

Class C

These are the Nascar Trucks. Again 2 series for fixed/open setups. I'm much more competitive in these and I've won one race in the open series - although that was by tactics (saving fuel so I didn't have to make a late race fuel stop) rather than outright pace. In the Open series, I'm 5th in the championship and in the Fixed I'm 8th.

Road Series (Division5)

Grand Touring

This is a road race series usng VW Jetta's, Mazda MX5's and Pontiac Solstice cars. I race the Jetta which is the fastest of the cars on most tracks although the championships are by car class.

I'm 2nd in the championship and have got a decent chance of winning it. I've had 4 race wins so far this season.

Grand-Am

Again a mixed car series using the Riley DP Prototype sports cars and the McLaren MP4-12C GT car. I race the Riley.

I'm 4th in the championship but no race wins although I'm consistently in the top 5 in most races.

GT Challenge

Another mixed series using the Corvette CR6 GT1 car, the McLaren and the Ford GT. The Corvette is the fastest of the cars and I drive that.

I'm leading the championship with a pretty comfortable lead so should win. So far, 2 race wins and 12 other top 5's in the 14 races I've done.

Star Mazda

These are single seaters similar to F3 cars. The main feature of this series is that there's almost always a big 1st corner crash so I tend to start from the pits and make my way through the carnage. Currently 4th in the championship with 1 win (from the pits!)

Prototype and GT Challenge

This series uses the HPD ARX sports Prototype, the Corvette and the McLaren. I drive the Corvette. The HPD is significantly faster and so a big challenge is when they're lapping us - I've been taken out a couple of times, even trying the stay out of the way....

Again there's 2 series - for open and fixed setups. The Open setup races are long - 65 minutes and so a pit stop for fuel is needed. The problem is that participation is low in these series, especially the open one and the only official races tend to be in the middle of the night for me...

But, I'm leading the open series and I'm 3rd in the fixed. I should win the open and I've got a decent chance in the fixed. No races wins in either as yet although I've been pretty close - in one race I was leading with a lap to go and got taken off by a McLaren I was lapping :-(

Apart from the races, I'm also doing time trails in all the series. These are 10 (for oval tracks) or 5 (for most road courses) lap single car against the closk. tests. I've found they help a lot checking the car setups for the races. Out that many people do them very regularly - especially the fast guys and so I'm leading the championships in all 14 divisions!!!!

OK, enough for now, back to racing....

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.

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.