SimRacing.org.uk

Car: Skip Barber Formula 2000
Track: Virginia International Raceway (Grand East) [Editor's note to historians: iRacing got this wrong and reversed the Grand East/West names in the summer of 2012]

Practice: 18:00 for 135 mins (approx)
Qualifying: 20:15 (15 mins)
Race: 20:30 - 13 laps (approx 40 mins)

Start: standing
1 'fast tow' (reset) available for each driver (available by pressing SHIFT+R by default)

Practice: A server will be available from approx. 19:00 - 23:00 the day before the race

Password: see above (#post_event_password)
Driver lists can be found on the championship standings page (https://www.simracing.org.uk/smf/index.php?action=LM2R;group=243;theme=33)

Thanks Pops, now I've realised the problems I've been having with the mechanics thinking it's a laugh to swap in a quick steering rack without telling me and I can swap it back I'm hoping to enjoy this more than the last round  :)

Glad you've got that sorted Pete :)

Looking at the records here, a really good lap used to be around 2:55. I think that will be around 2:52 in the new build.

Seems I've some improving to do, my best with old build was a 3:03  :'(

I got frustratingly close to, but not below the 3:00 mark.

Irritating isn't it?  At least I'm not alone and I know I'm not ten seconds off the pace.

This falls on my backshift week so I'm out no matter what.

I'll make sure I've got some good excuse prepared to make sure I miss this one. :-X

So anybody started testing yet?  I want to know if 2:58s are embarrassing.

2:58's are good IMO.  I've just got into 2:58.9.  This is a fun place  ;D

3 min per lap? What is this, Le Mans? ;D

This track was deffo designed by a shrink.  ::)

In fact I'm having so much fun here, I'm starting to "get" the Skippy :)

Had a go today and got down to 2.57.4, but I think there is a fair bit more to come - there are a lot of places to make little slips in the lap. I might sneak into the 55s with a better setup and a following wind, but I'd be amazed if anyone here gets close to a 52! :o

Pffft! I haven't tried yet! lol ;D :whistle:

How wrong was I, LOL!

I should be good for this and probably every other race morning noon and night for a while.

Ah, the power of positive thinking. :yes:

I will note my current occupation as iRacer on my CV.

I've just been through the same thing. But I've been lucky enough to find myself a new job after just a month, which wasn't too bad.
Good luck. (though I hope your iRacing career takes off ;))

Sorry to hear that Kerr, I'm due to hear if i still keep my job in the next week or so.

Though i am secretly looking forward to become a full time simracer, shame it doesnt pay the bills tho'

Gawd, who put that extra tarmac in to the circuit. Struggling to adjust to the new layout and not really a fan of this track anyway.

On the brighter side its Brands in the Mazdas next week 8) :whistling:

All that's been confirmed is the Baker Oil Tools factory in East Kilbride is closing We have downsized twice in past year and we could see this coming.

People have been told to stay away from work before at meeting on Monday.

I guess we will be on "gardening leave" for a while and hopefully after almost 13 years service I get a good pay off.

Not a lot of good jobs on the go at the moment but no point getting worried until I need to!

It's been a long time since I've raced here and can't remember what is the East and West versions of the track.

My lap times are mid to high 2.57s(from ages ago) when I looked earlier  but no idea where I will be this time.

54s? you Sure Brian?

Sorry to hear about your job  :( Looks like I can say goodbye to another skippy championship then  ;)

Can't get times right, forgot what day of the week it was today. God it's starting already.

Post changed. 57s but that must have been a long time ago

Looks like I was a tad out with 2:52's then :D

I can't get under 3:01 at the moment. Very frustrating indeed! :-[

Think i'll miss this, just dont get on with it plus the skippy.

Stick the baseline setup on, drop the tyre pressures to your preference (try 22/25 F/R to start) and maybe drop the brake balance back a bit and try again.

If it understeers turn the wheel more.

It's not a difficult track if you just concentrate on the exits.  Oh, and remember to brake before the hairpin. ;)

3:01's for me as well atm.
It's a long old lap to not make any errors and lose time on a good lap.
The East part of VIR seems to be causing me the most problems.

Hopefully my PC will be fixed in time for this. I didn't even get as far as overclocking it after fitting my new massive Noctua cooler before I managed to fry one and a half power supplies, a very expensive graphics card and probably a cheap(ish) motherboard. :-[

One and a half! Thats quite a feat ;D

I've started a practice session for tonight.

Usual password

Hmm, having just done a Corvette race jumping into the skippy is pure torture. Not only are the cars dog slow they are almost undriveable around hairpins and off camber corners. I did the Corvette VIR race last week and I wasn't 15 secs off the pace (ok shorter lap) but at least every tiny little mistake wasn't punished with a rear end off on it's holidays god knows where. What with a 3 + minute lap I don't have the pain threshold to endure it and learn all the blind corners. Sorry.

I jumped in for a little practice and simply can't remember this track.

Only did 8 laps and everyone was full of mistakes and did a 2.58.1. I hate trying to guess what I could do on the basis of a not so perfect lap.

The Skip seems really alive here and tail out action is the way to go again.

A little concerned about my PC and internet.

I'm in St Andrews and it's back to BT connection and no longer cable like my normal racing home.

Firstly my connection dropped right off in Vette race earlier but came back after 10 secs in the red when everyone disappeared.

Then my PC crashed again. It happens once every now and again with the Vette being the normal culprit. Never does it crash twice in the one day even after running all day after a crash.

The one is fried so good and hard that the power rocker switch no longer sticks in the off position. :o The half is probably fried and I'll do what I always do with suspected dodgy PSUs - chuck it away.

Thanks for hosting Stuart

Regards
Gary

I've finally broken the 3:00 barrier. Yay!  :laugh:

I think I broke all other barriers except this one. :P

I've now unbroken my PC with a new mobo, PSU and 5870. All in a lovely new CoolerMaster HAF-932 case. Just got to clear out a space next to my desk for it to live in, since it's too heavy to be lifting it up behind my monitors where the old one lived.

Great track! Should be a fun race.... just need to avoid mid-corner lifting through panicking when the guy in front gets a tank-slapper on!  :laugh:

Server is up!

Looks like work may keep me out of this one  :(

I hope my stomach can take it after all those pancakes  :laugh:

Huge apologies to Darren Seal for my extremely ill-judged rejoin.  I tried to stay on the outside but the rear tyres bit and pitched me across the track.  I should have waited.  Sorry Darren.

Talk about hero to zero!!  Got my first pole then binned it on lap one, took out Darren rejoining then had to wait a bizarre 4 minutes 30 seconds for a tow!!  As soon as I saw that I gave up.

How is the tow time calculated?  Any ideas?  Gary came in the at the same time and left after about 30 seconds!!

Great fun with some nice close racing for a good few laps with Paul (sorry again for the slight rear ender at the hairpin) and Robert before being punted off (no hard feelings at this end Robert, one of those things!) and then lost my concetration a bit.

Got back into it chasing after Iain and Donald and had a great scrap with Iain for a few laps before getting past at T1 and then promptly spinning off at T4.  Another off saw me smack the barrier and with a late tow ended up last of the finishers :(  Should have done better really, my incident tally tells it all really.

Well done to Brian on the win.

Cheers, Ross.

Stuart I'd been sitting there for a minute already.

Stupid on my part, the spin was clumsy and thankfully everyone missed me, crashing when being too hasty trying to overtake James was stupid, bent suspension saw me needing a tow.

On the plus side the resultant drive was bloody good fun.

Oh and Paul R how did you launch that thing off the line, my start seemed better than the front row but yours was ballistic.

Congrats to all

Gary

PS sorry for the heart attack Dave

Wow!  What a race!  ;D

I didn't count on getting very far after getting disconnected 3 times during practice.  It threatened to drop me twice during the race, but it held together and I'm glad it did!

Had a scrap with Robert until he spun off, then it was down to holding off Paul until the end of the race.  Both of us pushing like crazy!  Improved my PB by 0.8s  :o

I knew that if he got past, I wouldn't see him again.  Great race Paul, thanks!

I reset my router just before qualifying as I'm using BT here and I thought the thing was not going to restart.

Once it did restart there was only 9 mins to go. I did my outlap and then was on a flyer only to spin at the last bend.

Picked up pace but backed out on the straight as Purdie had more speed and was going to pass.

I stopped and reset forgetting there was little time left.

After my outlap I realised time was tight for a fast lap it it must have been down to the last second.

Not the best lap but good enough for 2nd.

Gifted the lead on lap one and some other bumps left Paul Richards and myself with a little gap.

Felt at 2.57s that was quick enough and I eased away a little.

Soon Paul lifted the game and I needed to respond and that required mid 56s which I could do.

The gap remained constant between 2.5-3secs for the next 7 laps before Paul went ultra attacking and set some outstanding times the last few laps.

It was another close fought battle with Paul as per usual but it was sad to see so many front runners drop out early.

Wow! 40 minutes racing and 0.4s separated Don & I at the end  :surrender:

Great intense racing and zero incidents too.

Bugger Darren, it was me you screwed up.  I was first bon you and had to take to the grass.  The two cars behind me had time to react and got past.

You owe me lunch for that. ;)

Quite unexpected result getting on the podium, but par for the course round VIR where consistency always counts for more than speed, especially on the sillier layouts with all the Mickey Mouse stuff.

Got a fairly good start, and unlike a public race I trusted Darren enough to fight my way into 5th round the outside of turn 1.

Then coming up the hill and out of South Bend I could see Gary was out on the grass - I didn't know what direction he was going to lose it in, moved left ready to jink right if he spun back across, then decided he was going to go straight on and slide across the track in turn 11, and delayed turning in until he'd cleared me - by inches I think! :o :laugh:

That left me 4th - good job too, otherwise it'd have been me in the firing line instead of Darren coming out of the Spiral. :o Stuart's indiscretion there left me 3rd and with Paul and Mike fighting between themselves I just had to keep it clean to maintain that to the end - not always easy when the rears started to overheat every few laps and I had to keep slowing down a little bit to cool them. ::)

---

It's something along the lines of distance from where you are to the pits, going forward, multiplied by some constant, plus some constant. So if you reset early in the lap it takes longer than if you reset later. But it's always painful.

---

I was not happy to see various chat messages during the race itself - one merely unhelpful, we have a working protest system, please use it - and one containing language which was completely unacceptable. >:(

I'll get you next time, I was annoyed, I did a 13 lap stint in practice with the only off being avoiding action

I'm sorry for an inapropriate choice of words :-[ ... which completely described my feelings at the time. ;)
I'm not sure I'm gonna bother anymore with this car. :(

It took me until now to really get the hang of the Skippy, but I'm glad I have because racing it when you get some confidence is awesome.

What has finally cracked it for me, is to concentrate on not trying to carry a lot of speed into the turn.  If you do that, it swaps ends.  Go in a bit slower and power on through the turn.  I also use slightly higher front pressure and the front higher than the rear.

nice choice of track and car for me because I have been driving the skip since i renewed and the last week was the Long Course VIR... so i just had to learn the mad bit in the middle  :)


Cheers Brian, I would have lifted buit that was my final chance for a decent time after screwing my last laps. Even worse I didn't get a decent time  :-\

Was regularly getting under 3min lap in practice and I didn't in quali.... ::) ..... putting me 13th. This turned out to be a blessing as I missed some of the spinners on the first few laps....... I ran 3rd in a 4-long Legends train and had some tough racing with Pops and Don  :thumbup1:

... it is hard to keep momentum in this car... got a good run down the backstraight on Don and bounced the limiter once and lost my advantage instantly. I think to get a tow in these cars requires a 3 mile long straight with no crosswinds!!  ;D

I'm happy with 6th  :) ......grats Brian!! Battling disco's and limited practice and PaulR  :) very impressive average lap times 2m57's!!!

Maybe it's just the track - I enjoyed it on Race America. Or maybe it was Milan losing at home. ;)

Whoever designed that crazy middle section of the layout is a sadist  :D

Sorry I missed this one as I normally like long, technical tracks like this. Everything went pear shaped late in the afternoon and it took until 10pm to work out what the problem was. I fixed it, but as so often happens, I don't understand why it went wrong in the first place!

You dropped out a few times in the first half of the race.  It took an article of faith to keep my foot in and hope you'd reappear in front.


I don't know actually, I couldn't have gone that much quicker.

It was one of the most intense, protracted battles I've had in a sim.  I tried everything, I even dropped back at one point to see if you'd lose concentration and make a mistake but no chance.

Brilliant.

Paul
:)

I enjoyed that last night.
Had a good scrap with Pops throughout the entire race, Ross was also in the mix for a while and kept Pops busy enough for me to manage to hang onto a slender lead from start to finish. That was about as good as I could of gone. No overtakes, but a consistent drive gave me a better result than I was expecting.
Was a shame to see Darren depart so early as he'd shown such good pace during our practice sessions.

Good fun, thanks Guys.

Very dissapointing race for me all in all.

I couldn't really complain with my lowly start position - it was still a PB - and the race started pretty well, certainly at the back people were excercising common sense and taking it easy for the first lap .... which makes it doubly bad that I span on the last flipping bend!! Numpty.  Somehow the back stepped out and decided to overtake the front.  Thankfully I didn't contact anyone or anything, but I think it shook TT's concentration as he span just after me :(.  Once I was back up to speed there was just TT behind me, and the gap to the Legends train in front of me was 10 seconds, and with us (Pops, Don and I) being very evenly matched in terms of pace, it needed a cockup from one of them to allow the gap to close any.

In the end the mistake came from me on lap 6 - spinning the car on the exit of South Bend  (rookie error  :-\) although thankfully I never left the track and gathered the car after a quick 360 so I only lost 2 seconds - and that undid the hard work I'd put in to close the gap down a little.

Another spin in the same flipping spot put me into the wall and left my car looking more than a little sorry for itself.  Although it was drivable, the time loss was enough to allow Gary to close me down and pass on the run into the final lap.

A top 10 finish is no consolation for a race ruined by a couple of stupid errors - half the Legends on circuit should have been duking it out for the distance and I'm gutted I missed out on it :(.

Also sorry to see Darren and TT disco early :(

8 Legends drivers! Is this a legends only series? ;)

Gulf have increased this years sponsorship cheque  ;) we all got one of these  :laugh:

(http://wjzoon.com/watches/tag%20watches%2032.JPG)

Mine always shows one hour early. ???

I did a few laps in testing and am normally pretty strong at VIR and was doing mid 56s on full fuel. The only problem was the rears were getting rediculously squirmy after just 5 laps so decided I would adjust the setup for the race taking a bit of weight off the rear. Spring perches from 8 --> 6.

Due to the little man I didnt get on the server at 7:30 as hoped and only managed 3 corners from the pit before it swapped to qually. As I had not praticed with the setup I decided to qual with it in prep for the race. That wasn't a good move. I was expecting the car to be a little more more understeery but its whole braking characteristics had changed and it was just ploughing. On my first flying lap I ran wide and put a rear on the grass spinning me. I carried on but now was back in traffic and with my mind on trying to keep a gap in front and not hold anyone up behind I went off again. Then getting a bit of clear track and time running out i braked for t1 and the car went straight. I then put the setup back to 8 perch but only had one fast lap left so had to go conservative to post a time for sure and ended up 4th so not too bad in the end although beforehand I was hoping to challenge into the 2.55s.  

So as I wasn't happy with 8 with race fuel or 6 perch I went for 7 in the race and take it steady in the opening laps to get a feel for it. I got a good start. Not sure how but I got a quick reaction after the lights turned green and got away a fraction before everyone in front of me. This was enough to get me up on the outside of Gary into T1. As long as you can hang on the outside then the pass is gaurenteed as the next two corners are left handers. So up to 3rd and taking it easy and Simmo and Brian edged away. Gary dropped back too which meant I didnt have to press on while getting a feel for the car setup. Simmo then dropped it in the Spiral leaving me and Brian clear.

I kept taking it easy and dropped into the high 57s and Brian continued to edge away. I was getting more confident with the car and my times were dropping but Brian still edged away. The gap went to over 2 seconds so decided it was time to press on and nearly lost it in T1. This pushed me back to 3 seconds and then I gave myself another sighter lap but was then feeling great with the car. Pushed into the mid 56s and Brian responded so the gap closed a bit but stayed at 2.5 seconds. With 5 laps to go I decided I had to try and pressure Brian. By now Dave was quite far back so I had a bit of a safety cushion for a spin. I went for it basically, especially through Oak Tree where I seemed to gain quite a bit of time. The times dropped below mid 56s and was closing in. But Brian is too good to panic and was still doing error free 56s so although I was closing it wasn't quick enough and I ran out of laps 0.9 sec back.

Congrats to Brian and Dave for his third place. Shame to see PaulH couldn't make it as he is always good at VIR and would have made it a 3 way battle. Well done to my Legends team mates with solid drives and unlucky to Darren and TT.    

I did not have enough time to try out new settings as I needed time to learn the track.

Last night I ran with my old setup which is spring perch at 10, tyres 23 all round and 8 ARB.

8 ARB made the car very tail happy. 6 was safer but slower by a few tenths.

Didnt have lot of time to practice for this, but in all i made my way up to 4th, behind Dave, and then lost concentration and went off twice, then trying to get back to 4th I went over my braking limit into turn 1 and took someone off :(, then decided to retire..

Me...but no worries, no damage done and I'm not sure it made much difference to my race.

Cheers, Ross.

ah Sorry Ross, was looking forward to this race, and since i left i didnt have a replay to find out who it was involved, Sorry again..

I've  uploaded the replay (92MB) here;

http://www.legendsracing.net/iracing/SRouk_Skip_VirGE.rar

Sorry Iain, what do I do with a .rar file?

I feel I need to point out that this guy is supposed to be a programmer!  ::)

Download winrar.

Paul
:)

unrar it :)

ty Pops:)

I use 7-Zip, unpacks pretty much anything.

Snap, and unlike WinRAR is free  :)

Moderators report for this race has been published.