iRacing Season 1 - Skip Barber @ Lowes (Road) - Nov 24

[Mike Wrightson]

PlusNet is due to switch me onto this 21CN thing in the near future, hope it doesn't screw up my gaming

I was going to be racing tonight, but we took our parents out for a meal and my Mum took suddenly ill.  After an anxious couple of hours with an ambulance crew and A&E, she is OK and back home.

I'll be at the next race.

[Brendan]

Sorry to hear that Michael, best wishes to your mom.

After mucho practice for this one, I was fairly confident of a decent finish here.

I'd managed better times in practice but settled for 2nd behind Paul Richards on the grid after failing to secure a tow on my qually lap.  After the first couple of laps I was still with Paul but not quite close enough to make a move.  Luckily for me he spun at the tight right hander and gifted me the lead.

Very rarely in sim-racing do I get the feeling of having a great car underneath me and this allowed my to really push on and break the tow to Simmo who was close behind.  After gradually extending my lead over team-mate Paul H, I was delighted to cross the line for my first league win since UKGPL in April 2007  and a Team KC 1-2 was the icing on the cake.

Thanks all for a great race.  See you next week.

[Paul Richards]

Congrats Brendan great drive

I started ok from pole but as expected couldnt pull out any where near a big enough gap in the infield to break the tow. After nearly being passed into T1 for the 3rd lap in a row I pushed really hard again and over did it sticking my Left rear on the grass as I braked for the tight right over the crest before going onto the oval. Instant spin and back to 7th. Was catching back up to the train when Ian spun also causing Dave and Simon to spin and I gained a few places. I then found myself in 3rd chasing down PaulH. He lost quite a bit of time while lapping MikeC. I was only about 1.5 secs behind heading into T1 and Mike who stayed tight on entry to T1 to let Paul past. He then spun mid corner with his car sideways exactly where I was going to exit. I lifted to try and adjust my line but that lost the back end and I ended up sliding out of control straight into Mike's car as he then faced backwards. Sorry I couldnt avoid you Mike I saw you ended up upside down! Front wheels were ok but one of the rears was knocked out. After a couple of laps of nearly crashing I reset for the first time in a year probably, (not through lack of crashing its just not allowed in C class and above!)

I also forgot to untick the pit options so stayed there for a good 2 mins. Really annoyed with myself I spun again exiting the pits on cold tyres and went a lap down. Running last of the cars still going in 17th. After that I strung a few good laps together and slowly began to hunt a few spots down. Had a great chase with Ian and it took me a while to get into his tow. Once there I was able to get a good run and pass round the outside of T1. We were both catching a few cars and gained a few more spots by passing and the odd retirement/spin finishing 9th.

Not one to remember but was fun.

[Paul968]

How I managed to get 2nd out of that, only the gods know  Unlike Brendan, I had absolutely no confidence in the car and was a long way off my best times. Partly this was down to the rushed timing (sorry about that everyone, my brain was obviously elsewhere when I worked it all out  ), but I think the main reason was the recal of my pedals earlier on. It seems that it resets the brake curve setting, which I normally have quite high. I was hardly touching the brakes but locking up or losing speed at all the wrong times.

Anyway, 5th in qual wasn't great but SBG was a bit tardy off the line and I gained a place into T1. The next few laps I was right behind Stuart, who was following Brendan and Paul quite closely. As soon as we closed up in the infield section it got rather hairy, as I didn't trust the car enough offline. I just settled in behind Stuart and hoped things would improve. Paul was the first to help out by spinning, and then Stuart and then Paul (again) went off while passing Mike, which left me in 2nd with a nice lead over 3rd. Brendan was on a different planet as far as I was concerned so I just ran safe laps and hoped the others didn't catch up. Towards the end, Simon was gaining quite quickly, albeit from 6 or 7 or seconds back, but I had enough in hand to raise the pace just enough to stay ahead to the finish.

Congrats to Brendan on a faultless drive (in my setup I should add - we'll have to call you Lewis  ) and to Simon on a very strong 3rd. Another couple of laps and I'd have been sweating big time  Great result for the Kerbies - at one time we had the top 4 places! If you like a good battle, watch Simon vs Stuart in the first half - excellent clean racing.

[Burtoner]

I still couldnt connect last night  :'(

Waiting for new transfer to ISP end of week, so hopefully I be sorted for next weeks race.

[Dave 'Gizmo' Gymer]

ISP-wise I had the opposite experience last night - after over a week of iffy connections I bounced my router just before joining last night and for once it was rock solid, like when I joined IDNet.

[ginsters sponsored]

I also forgot to untick the pit options so stayed there for a good 2 mins.

Me too, how do you untick pit options?

[popabawa]

If you hit the relevant key, it's F4 and F5 for tyres and fuel I think.

You highlight using the arrow keys and hit the space bar to untick the selection so it then doesn't perform that action when you pit.

I usually do that whilst sitting on the grid at the start of the race so I don't forget

[Dave 'Gizmo' Gymer]

Incident reporting was broken for this race because of the quote in "Lowe's" - I've just removed the quote for now.

[Adam Parle]

One to forget for me.

Set a new PB in qually so was very pleased with that, but the opening laps weren't kind to me at all.  I got a 0x for a light tap on someone in T1 (hopefully no damage there), and then the rest of the lap was pretty steady.

Round the oval a couple of people got a run on me, I stuck near the outside to keep a good line into T1 but clearly I wasn't the only one with that idea!!  I had nowhere to go and once the wheels got tangled ended up in the wall.  The car was drivable, but not 100%.  Both right hand wheels were a lot closer to the body of the car, half the front wing was gone, and quite how the nose was still attached is beyond me.

I decided against resetting, but it was always goign to be tough once people got close.  Round the oval I was getting caught hand over fist, so shortly after getting up to 5th as people fell off, I went back through the ranks.  One silly spin let Don and Pops catch up with me, and although I seemed to be able to make a bit of a gap in the infield, once we were on the oval that gap soon closed.  A couple of laps later Don got close enough to throw it up the inside at T1, and I was powerless to stop it.  Due to the different lines I very nearly clipped him as I couldn't see him when I turned in ..... and when Bully did the same move on me the following lap I did nudge him which ran him wide and into the wall .  Sorry mate.

Pops got an easier pass - I must have had a bit of lag - all the cars and the timing info dissapeared ..... it totally put me off and I seemed all ready to carry on round the circuit rather than turn in at T1 .  After a quick U-turn it was back to business, but the detour would cost me another couple of places soon after as Paul and Ginsters flew by.

More off track antics for me than I would have anticipated - I'm putting it down to the car damage.  I hope Laguna is a bit kinder to me ...

[Truetom]

Haha, who would think I'd be the fastest most fortunate Legend. I'm sure this will change on the next race already. I guess my 6th place is mostly due to being careful enough not to make a major mistake. Had a frightfull moment after some laps at braking into T1 and got tapped a bit from behind. Managed to stay on track and I don't think the car had any damage influencing the driving. Had some close laps with Simmo but mostly just concentrated on staying on track.

Skip is a toy - gimme some racing cars!  

BTW, Pops - you look like Bob Dylan.

[Ken Murray]

If you hit the relevant key, it's F4 and F5 for tyres and fuel I think.

You highlight using the arrow keys and hit the space bar to untick the selection so it then doesn't perform that action when you pit.

I usually do that whilst sitting on the grid at the start of the race so I don't forget

Just to mention all those functions can be mapped to wheel buttons if prefered. You can map a buttton to scroll through all the black boxes, which I find usefull for when I'm driving.

[Simmo]

Don't think it was me TT? 

I really enjoyed the race, although finished a little frustrated.  I made a last minute switch to Pauls setup in practice and it really helped.  I'd found other setups on the iRacing forum and they were all lop-sided to cope with the banking but made it a handful in the infield.

Anyway, was really chuffed to qualify 3rd with a PB.  Hung on to the front two for the first few laps and when Paul R spun I inherited 2nd.  Couldn't keep up with Brendan but was edging away from Paul H until I caught Mike C who seems to be my bogie backmarker!!  I caught him as we came into the left hander before the banking.  He went very tight and slowed and I assumed he was letting me by on the outside so I carried in the speed to take that line.  Unexpectedly to me, Mike then drifted out to the middle, I had too much momentum and had to lift and cut back to the inside sharply to avoid hitting him causing me to lose the back end and spin.  A misunderstanding I suppose.

I rejoined in 4th behind Paul R and right infront of Simon.  Got 3rd back straight away when Paul collided with Mike C while lapping him!!  Had a great battle with Simon for quite a while and he pulled a very clever move on me at Turn 1, forcing me to defend on entry, swinging wide at the last minute and cutting under me on the exit.  Unfortunatly I made a mistake the next lap and lost the tow to Simon.  Simons pace was very consistant and whilst I did initially catch backup a little, after a few more minor mistakes I decided to settle for 4th rather than bin it!!

Great fun though and really looking forward to Laguna, my favourite track!!

[Truetom]

Don't think it was me TT? 

Erm, or was it Richard Ames?

[popabawa]

Just a quick reminder to everyone to please report any incidents that you want us to look at.

It's not about pointing fingers and handing out penalties.

These cars are quite different to what most of us are used to so it's important to look at the incidents of car contact and explore ways they could possibly be avoided next time.

I thought Lowe's made for a much better racing experience than Summit Point, It certainly looked to me like there were less incidents of car contact

Oh, a big WELL DONE to the 2 drivers who came through with zero incidents; Brendan and me