iRacing catch-all

Had a gem of a find today - if you Netflix, do a serarch for: Skip Barber Going Faster - this is the book that Jeff was talking about ordering. It's a companion DVD. I've not seen it, but I'm sure it'd be most interesting.

Race for tomorrow: 3/19/2011

SCCA Spec Racer Ford
Summit Point - Short Course
Practice starts 10:00 AM Central / 11:00 AM Eastern
180 Min Practice
25 Min Qualification
15 Lap Race

This will be open qualifying, so others will be on the track with you. Old style GP qualifying.

I'd thought about doing the Jefferson Reverse circuit, but I think this one will give us some better racing. The track is a bit wider and definitely faster. Drifting the last turn is fun (if not fast).

Since Shane is going with SRF/Summit today, I had an idea for Sunday that will still let everyone race:

Street Stocks at Charlotte! That will mix it up a bit, and give our oval guys a chance to shine

Some oval racing would be really cool. Do the street stocks work at Charlotte or are you riding redline down the back stretch? I know there's a gearing change you can make that will let them run out a bit faster on the top end, but pinging off the limiter sucks.

Edit:
About to launch the race - Password is the standard: goodjer

Nyxs Optare wrote:

Some oval racing would be really cool. Do the street stocks work at Charlotte or are you riding redline down the back stretch? I know there's a gearing change you can make that will let them run out a bit faster on the top end, but pinging off the limiter sucks.

Edit:
About to launch the race - Password is the standard: goodjer

Yep, they work fine there. Just lower 4th gear ratio to around 3.75, maybe a bit lower, and you'll avoid the limiter.

Thanks to Shane for hosting today. Sorry I only lasted 3 corners.

Race for tomorrow: 3/20/2011

car: Street Stock
track: Charlotte Motor Speedway - oval
Practice starts 10:30 AM Central / 11:30 AM Eastern
120 Min Practice
qualifying at 1:30 PM EDT, 3 lap qualifying
40 lap race

Let me know if anyone can't make that time frame, I'm flexible. I'm hoping all 6 of us can make it.

Edit: I just found the 'free tow' I mentioned in voice chat today. It's set in the hosting options. I think this gives each driver one "free tow", meaning you pit but are allowed back on the track right away, as opposed to being locked in your pit stall for 90 seconds.

Edit #2: if you guys wanted to, we could run the iRacing setup called "Charlotte Oval Fixed", so the race isn't won in the garage

The time looks OK to me, and I'm also fine with running a fixed setup.

I ran qualifying last night at Lime Rock / Miata and was doing generally fine (but 1:04 time, which is about the best I can manage so far) until I was brutally rear-ended on about my 3rd lap. 'Sry M8'. Yeah, whatever, it happens, I guess (every time). At the end of the session I looked and the guy had 22 incidents. 22!

I don't see how I'm ever going to make progress on the road circuit.

Don - start from pit road. It will help you avoid the T1 pileups.

Great racing by all today. I was looking over the lap times and everyone was improving out on the track. Those little cars were fun.

The fixed setup is fine - just make sure it's not the setup for that little tiny oval that uses pit road as the back stretch.

DonD wrote:

The time looks OK to me, and I'm also fine with running a fixed setup.

I ran qualifying last night at Lime Rock / Miata and was doing generally fine (but 1:04 time, which is about the best I can manage so far) until I was brutally rear-ended on about my 3rd lap. 'Sry M8'. Yeah, whatever, it happens, I guess (every time). At the end of the session I looked and the guy had 22 incidents. 22!

I don't see how I'm ever going to make progress on the road circuit.

There are a lot of very raw drivers in the Nvidia cup. iRacing is experiencing a surge in membership due to a lot of promotions they are running, including free first months, and such. Their front page says "Signup .... RACE NOW!", urging people to get right out on the track. So, in rookie, you get a lot of guys coming from Forza and GT5 and jumping in the deep end without learning to swim first (or thinking they know how to swim). I ran this sim with a gamepad myself for the first week, but only in test mode. I didn't go near a public event of any kind.

So in short, it gets better past rookie. And Nyxs' suggestion to start from the pits at LRP is a good one. I got 5 top 5 finishes doing that, including a couple of 3rd's. Don't qualify, don't grid. Just wait for the grid timer to expire and then click the "missed start" button. you'll be 'held' in your pit stall for a few extra seconds, then released. Allow the inevitable misfires and pileups to occur on T1 and T3, and then breeze on past them.

T1-T2 at LRP is the big danger zone by far, esp in the lower splits. This happens a lot: guys overshoot T1, go off in the grass, then blindly re-enter near T2 and either can't see or don't care about oncoming cars. When entering T1 pay close to attention to guys re-entering unsafely.

If you drive LRP safe, you'll usually get a top 6 finish, if not better. A ton of new drivers try to jump right in and race without practicing. I think most of these people will quit before they reach D-class.

edit:

Nyxs wrote:

The fixed setup is fine - just make sure it's not the setup for that little tiny oval that uses pit road as the back stretch.

Yeah, it's the reg. oval setup. Rich (NauticalNaught) ran it today and turned some 36.7's with it, which is just 2/10th's off the world record.

In the street stock Charlotte drives like Daytona which means if you mess up it could make for a boring race the rest of the way since you'll never see anyone again. Drafting is going to be the key to keeping up with the pack and catching up if more than one driver loses the pack.

I ran 11 laps there today and that fixed setup eats the crap out of the right front tire if you are dead set on turning the fastest lap you can and trying to hold the bottom line in the corners.

NauticaLNaughT wrote:

In the street stock Charlotte drives like Daytona which means if you mess up it could make for a boring race the rest of the way since you'll never see anyone again.

That can happen in most any race. Happened to me today at Summit Point when I screwed up on the first lap, hit a wall, and sat in pit row for 90 seconds. Never saw anyone again till I got lapped near the end of the race.

Mx5/LRP: I altered my entry into turn 1 toward a higher line (I was hugging the curb before) and managed to get down to 1:02. Not consistently though. With a higher entry, I can consistently hit 1:03, so that's something -- about 1 second improvement just in that one spot. I take that turn in 3rd. I can't quite keep it in 4th and get through cleanly.

I've never done this, so I hope this works. Here's a replay of a couple of laps: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/23892179/mx5...

DonD wrote:

I don't see how I'm ever going to make progress on the road circuit.

3 races today. Clean runs on all 3 (exception of 'off track' in turn 1, but nothing big). Started from the pits as suggested and I'm now at 3.48SR. Woot!

Best lap now 102.1xx
Getting there..

Hosted session is up.

pw: goodjer

car: Street Stock

track: Charlotte Motor Speedway - oval

Practice starts 10:30 AM Central / 11:30 AM Eastern

120 Min Practice

qualifying at 12:30 CST/1:30 PM EDT, 3 lap qualifying

40 lap race

I wasn't able to get fixed setups to work. I went to select it from "available setups" but the Select button was ghosted out. So, honor system to choose "Charlotte Oval Fixed", which is located under iRacing Setups in the garage.

Lap 12 I was passing Don and midway through 1 I came up in front of him, looked like he moved his wheel a bit and went into the wall, probably ruined the rest of his run, sorry about that. I need to work on passing from a different angle than my normal line, I was way off the gas to stay down low but I think Don let off the gas as well early not knowing what I would do when we got to the corner.

I like oval racing but with so few guys I'd much rather do it on a 1/2 mile track or less.

Good race all. Another win for Shane!

I was hanging close (haha, 3 seconds back), until the pit. My inexperience showed and I didn't realize how much those cold tires would affect me. I kept losing grip on T4.

And yeah, next time we do ovals we can try a short track I guess.

Don this might help you it might not at LRP coming off of Turn 6 and down towards Turn 7 I stay full on the gas and when you hit the bottom the car will compress, I let off the gas for just a moment I don't use any brake and then I turn the wheel to point at the rumble and hit the gas again, fully on the gas before I get to the rumble, it's pretty sudden turn of the wheel in that moment and sometimes it helps to hook the rumble a bit to make the corner but you should come off at around 100mph. Granted I'm running the roadster and not the cup car so my gearing is different. The roadster only requires you to shift twice a lap at LRP, once down to 3rd under braking into turn 1 and then back up to 4th between turns 4 and 5 unless you really blow turn 6 and I've seen guys shift down again there to get speed back for T7.

Regarding the group race. Yeah, I let off the gas and drifted high to let you through once I saw you get down low on me. I was off my usual line and off speed and it sucked me into the wall. Not really your fault, just inexperience on my part in running another line through there.

I'm hoping to get out of those Miatas now that I have a SR of 3. If I don't run another road lap, I should get my promotion to D next week.

Some highlights of today's race.

Cool. Thanks for doing that.

DonD wrote:

Cool. Thanks for doing that.

Indeed. Thanks Shane.

Well, I used the last of my credits from that sale, and added this one today:

Radical SR8

IMAGE(http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g81/ziffel66/Radical-SR8-2.jpg)

IMAGE(http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g81/ziffel66/iracing_08_5_cd_gallery.jpg)

Thanks for that Shane. Great donuts at the end.

In the SRF/Solstice races, are all of the cars racing each other, or just cars of the same type?

It's too bad the track is going to change. Summit is a fun track.

If you're running in a mixed series, the cars are only racing other cars of the same make. SRF and Solstice do not compete, they just share the track.

I ran a few laps last night at Summit in the Ford Falcon V8. It was an eye opener, and absolutely NOTHING like the SRF's that we ran the other day. It was twitchy, powerful as all hell, hard to stop, and made me nervous (reminded me of Certis, kinda).

We (Me and Jeff, or one of the Mike's - I forget who exactly) were talking about maybe picking a series to run in as a group while everyone kinda gets up to speed. Something in either the R or D classes. Figure we can agree on a series and practice together whenever we're online, and it will go to doing something that will improve your SR at the same time as you'll be preparing for that weeks race. So the question is.... What is everyone running - specifically? What would you maybe want to run as a group? There was some mention of the D class Mustangs. The Skip Barber series is also a lot of fun if you want to run open wheel stuff. It's also good training for the Star Mazda series.

So - chime in and we'll see if we can come to an agreement.

I am ready to focus on one series. Skip Barber gets my vote because I think those cars teach a lot about how to drive iRacing better. But, I know they are driving some of you nuts. That is why I suggested the Mustang. I am up for anything, but I just want to stick to one for a while. And, I agree it would be fun as a group. Sorry I missed yesterday. I had a big assignment due and had to take care of business.

Found another site from which to download setups:

http://www.racesetups.com/search

On that page just click the down arrow and select the car you're looking to setup. If you select more than that, it seems the search often comes back empty. They're not so many setups for each car so a specific track may not have a setup, but finding a similar track's setup might be a good place to start. Just FYI for y'all.

I'd be happy with doing the Skip Barbers series as well. They remind me of the F2's we used to run in Grand Prix Legends waaaay back in '98.

Damn clicky index finger!

I'm game for pretty much anything that I qualify for. With Road, I'll have to buy a car regardless, so whatever you pick, I'll get.

I do kinda like the Mustangs (or the idea of racing the Mustangs as I haven't yet tried it).

I'm hosting another practice session for the Mustang tonight at Mid-Ohio Full Course, 1900-2200 EST. This is the next track on the Mustang series schedule. The purpose of it is to decide if this is the series we are going to choose to follow. I have been practicing with the SB at Watkins Glen off and on today. I think that is the other option on the table. All are welcome to join and run some laps to see if they like the Mustang option.

This is what y'all get when I buy the full version of Fraps... I gotta use it somehow, right?

Video of last nights practice: Mustangs at Mid-Ohio