iRacing Season 4 Mazda - VIR (North) - Aug 3

[ross.mcw]

oh dear, I'm going to be so off the pace tonight....was relying on a bit of last minute practice!

[Blunder]

Whole site just gone down for maintenance!
A few are still in the session.
Lets hope it is up soon!?

[Truetom]

It's ridiculous.

[popabawa]

Aaaaaaand we're back

[Legzy]

Only managed to put in a few laps on Sunday for this before tonight & it showed.
Gave up after numerous off track excursions.

[popabawa]

Dave, looks like something has changed in the results export, the Greasemonkey script doesn't seem to be working.

[Dave 'Gizmo' Gymer]

Dave, looks like something has changed in the results export, the Greasemonkey script doesn't seem to be working.

Yeah, the format of the results page has changed again.
For now, here are the results.

[Adam Parle]

After being away on holiday for all last week I was looking forward to getting some practice .... but after my son severed his finger this weekends praccy was out.  Little man finally had sugery on his finger this morning, and I got a green light for the race.

30 mins of practice didn't iron out the creases the new build put in for me, and I was happy to qualify infront of the back row of the grid.

The race started well enough, but I was never threatening to overtake anyone.  A few silly errors let folk by, and with about 7 to go I got 3 red bars, and was expecting a disco .... it never happened, but it screwed my FFB.  As a result I was even slower, and span a couple of times.  A missed braked point on the penultimate lap led to a big excursion, and autocrossing doesn't suit the Mazda.  Totally knackered the steering, so I parked up in the pits.

Not fun,  and a lot of hard work.  Hopefully practice will sort that out, but I'm a bit worried about my connection ... there were numerous instances where I was fearing a disco ....

Ho hum, after the last couple of days I wasn't expecting to race, so I guess it's a bonus I managed it at all.

[Ben "Welling" Summers]

Hi Guys,   after a long lay off with house g/f + time = wife =< Money and a new job  I am back in the cyber race world

Ben "Welling" Summers and Ian Bassi will be back practicing in the Mazda in the next few days.  Maybe we should start with Daytona Road

Do we have to apply, or are we magically still in the championships ?   I think I still see passwords

Guys guys   hope to she you on a track very soon

[picnic]

That was disappointing for me. Not used to being almost competitive! Martin got me at the start simply by keeping up and being on the inside row. Followed him for lap after lap but only once thought I had a chance to pass. Sadly the rubbish netcode in iR meant I wasn't always sure where his car was and I really should have known better while negotiating the final downhill corners. At best I'm only barely in control and sadly I reacted badly to a swerve Martin's car made about my turn in point and that put me off line, I then spun out by taking too much exit curb. If I had kept my distance I probably wouldn't have made that mistake, but then that's not racing is it  

Great driving my Martin, sadly not by me in the end.

[Simon Gymer]

After wolfing down my dinner to make it in time for qually and having done about 3 laps with the game at all since the new build I wasn't exactly prepared. However, with another 2 laps before qually I wasn't liking the feeling of aids on or off so it wasn't looking good at all.

With the aids on having to lift on upshifts doesn't making any sense, but anyway, ok fine, have to lift, used to that from GPL. With aids on the downshifts seemed even more odd than with aids off. Ok it at least shifted when you press the button everytime, but it seemed to clunk into gear rather than just slot into gear. Will have to try and find time to try it with aids on again to see what's what there.

So anyway, I raced with the aids off as I thought I would at least benefit from not having to lift to shift up, so one less new thing to remember. Downshifting was hit and miss though, sometimes it would change and sometimes not and when it wouldn't it then didn't seem to want to do it at all so I ended up in 4th when I should have been in 2nd etc. Blipping on downshift didn't seem to help and even just letting the throttle off completely didn't always make it shift down. In the end I sort of drove around it driving higher gears than I wanted in some places. What I couldn't get a grip on also was when I downshifted sometimes it would be perfectly stable and then others sudden snap, but you can't feel any of it whilst your shifting like a real car.

Anyway, off the start I couldn't find 1st, sorry about that, I was desperately hoping it was in there somewhere. Ended up using the clutch pedal to get it going after getting flustered. Soon went off at the last corner as I just caught the edge of the grass, but managed to avoid the barrier and spent another 15-20 seconds getting back on the track as I'd slid quite a long way. After that it was just trying to work out how to drive the thing, passing people as they crashed out in general. Got lapped by Brian and Mike with a couple to go so that put me out of my misery preventing me from doing another lap I didn't want to do.

Not a fan of that circuit anyway (in any configuration), so to drive a car that felt pretty unfamiliar with a shifting model that I couldn't get to grips with unfortunately for me was not fun at all. I just hope I can get to grips with the new transmission model as I didn't feel particularly safe tonight either and I hate that feeling. Looks like a lot of you have worked out how to drive it though.

[Kerr]

I'm the opposite of Simon, I think VIR is a great circuit in nearly all layouts.

I did not have much time to practice, 30 mins last night and I think 50 tonight and to be honest I was struggling to get to grips with the car.

The odd fast lap followed by a crash was happening all too often in practice.

Qualifying went well enough. Back into the 19s although not as quick as practice and that was good enough for pole.

The opening few laps of the race I was quicker getting up to race pace than Michael and pulled out a gap. The gap then was remaining fairly consistent until I caught up with a few cars to lap and that allowed Michael to catch up a bit.

Followed MJ for part of the lap to wait until the main straight to outrun him thinking that Michael would lose about the 3secs I did trying to find somewhere suitable to pass.

I was a little unsighted to where MJ was when I went up the inside, but I've watched the replay now! That allowed Michael to keep the gap down a little.

Maintained a steady pace for the rest of the race to get off to a great start to the season with a win.

Good race all

[Mike Wrightson]

Dashed home from work and straight on to the server to get my eye in.  As usual, the car feels slightly different online and I made one setup tweak to help the front end.

Qualifying went OK, managing to put in a 20.5 although I was expecting better than that TBH, I had run that fast in race practice offline 

Still, 2nd was all I was hoping for against Brian's 19's, and sure enough that's where I lined up.  Held off James into T1 and set about getting everything up to temperature and into a good pace.  Now I wished I had not added a click more fuel, the car felt different again, but I kept into the low 21's and it felt better as some fuel burned off.  Brian pulled a 5 sec gap at one point but as we hit the backmarkers it came down to only 3s and I finished 2nd only 3.5s behind.  I'm pleased with that, a good start to the season

The laptimes were consistent though I did have the odd missed shift when old habits had me holding some throttle.

Now, Daytona Road 

[Dave 'Gizmo' Gymer]

Importer fiddled and results now up.

Sadly the rubbish netcode in iR meant I wasn't always sure where his car

I wonder if your connection was struggling a tiny bit - when you spun your car blinked out and back giving me a nervous moment.

I did about 2 laps earlier just to see if the car had changed in this build and it had so I thought I'd give it a go. Took Mike's setup which felt a bit odd - higher at the front than the rear wasn't helping - so I tweaked it a bit but still never really felt comfortable.

Race was 'interesting' - grid was a bit of a concertina job at the start but we all seemed to make it through the first few turns without incident. After that I settled down and just ran at a relatively conservative pace, letting people spin off in front and watching the battle between Blunder and Picnic.

Thanks to everyone who spun for standing on the anchors - it really does make it a lot easier to dodge you.

5th was far more than I deserved for just driving round at nine tenths and staying on the track.

but it seemed to clunk into gear rather than just slot into gear.

They've put that noise in deliberately so you know it's gone in. Stupidly you can't hear it in some cars.

Blipping on downshift didn't seem to help and even just letting the throttle off completely didn't always make it shift down.

I was only really having to blip into a couple of corners where the downshift was mid-bend, just to stop the rear breaking away. Most of the time it was shifting down quite happily without a blip or the clutch - quite different from the Radical which needs a blip most of the time.

I have to say I still don't really 'get' the single seaters. I've got next to no feel for them, and once the car starts to break away if I don't react absolutely instantly I can't save it, which ends up with me unable to push at all in races.

Do we have to apply, or are we magically still in the championships ?   I think I still see passwords

There's no registration required beyond the forums, just turn up.

[picnic]

I wonder if your connection was struggling a tiny bit - when you spun your car blinked out and back giving me a nervous moment.

Perhaps it was me  Nobody was blinking to me but the cars wander across the track, sometimes quicker than at other times, and cars obviously don't follow what any normal person would call the racing line. Done it since day one. I suspect local European servers would help heaps.

As for the new build I'm still struggling to see the problems you guys are having. The only problem I've had is when I've made a haddock of a corner and come out slowly in to high a gear and you can't change down with the throttle on. I've never been any good a holding the throttle on while braking so downshifts were not a problem for me at all. I haven't even tried the new build with the aids off yet. Suspect without the sequential I'll really struggle.