iRacing Season 4 Radical - Mid-Ohio (Chicane) - Oct 19

[Paul Thurston]

Sod it.

That's all I have to say really.

[popabawa]

Are the lap times have been rounded up for some reason?

Yup, something odd happening there

[popabawa]

Despite being super-slow, that was a really enjoyable race, I was battling with Martin almost the whole way until I grabbed too much kerb on the exit of the chicane and binned it with 4 to go.

[Kerr]

Are the lap times have been rounded up for some reason?

Yup, something odd happening there

That was good English by me. Half a question, half a statement.

You know what I mean

[Mike Wrightson]

Intense race, really enjoyed that!

I thought my setup would be slow but save, but it turned out to be quite fast, which was nice.  I could have used less understeer in the slow turns though.

Qualified 4th with a new PB and got a good start to hold the place.  Followed Brendan and expected Gary and Paul to pull away, but they weren't and we even started to close up.  Then Brendan dropped it and I was now following the lead pair.  Then Paul dropped it and I was 2nd!  I could only just hold on to Gary and the gap grew slowly, Paul caught up again and as he got close to striking distance, he spun again.  I had turned down the ammount of fuel I was going to add, as I was using far less than anticipated.  Pitted at the same time as Gary and didn't change tyres.  He didn't either and we both emerged ahead of Paul.

Paul started to put the pressure on and after defending his best chance, I knew I could get 2nd if I did nothing silly.  Then Paul binned it again and the pressure was off.  I focussed on Gary and went for it to see if I could close up.  Amazingly I was closing in and saw he was sliding around a lot.  Nearly got a chance on the last lap, but there was no way through.

Great race fellas, congrats to all finishers. 

[Darren Seal]

Joining the server tonight I had low expectations;  I had done zero practise, had no setup and felt under the weather (man flu   ).

Luckily my Phillip Island setup came to my rescue and somehow I managed a respectable 5th on the grid.

The race started ok, but on the 2nd lap @ T9 I took too much inside kerb and half-spun.  This put me back to 10th with an uphill battle ahead of me.

I soon managed to work my way back up to 7th and found myself quickly closing in on the 3-way battle for 4th, between Simon, James and Brendan.  On lap 19 I finally caught up to the back of the train (Brendan).  I knew I would struggle to get by and any attempt to do so would just waste valuable time.  So I took the brave decision to pit early for fuel, flu tablets and no tyres.  

It was a risky strategy, but it was my only shot at trying to leapfrog the 3 ahead of me.

Surprisingly it worked, just!!!    As I approached T1 I could see Simon leaving his pit stall.  There was a mad scramble for both of us around T1 and then a drag race up to the chicane where I just edged ahead.  phew!!!

That was part one of the plan complete, but I knew part two (staying ahead) would be far harder...  

I now had both Simon and Brendan on fresh rubber breathing down my neck.  I knew I had to try to withstand the initial attacks and hope their advantage would soon wear off.

Lap after lap I just did enough to stay ahead.  As my tyres destroyed themselves the pressure from behind became more intense.  But I knew providing I didn't make a big mistake the guys behind would have to perform something special to get by.

Unfortunately on lap 31(?) Simon just tapped my rear @ T2 spinning me around.  Simon waited for me and let me regain the position (thanks), but Brendan was now long gone with 4th securely in his pocket.  

Don't worry Simon, no bad feelings here.  It was only a small tap and could of even been down to the net code.

Simon and me resumed our little battle for a few more laps until Simon made a mistake @ T1.  This allowed me to give my knackered tyres some much needed rest, and then when Paul spun a few laps later I was free to cruise home to an unexpected 5th position.

Thanks Simon, Brendan and James for a great race.  I'm glad I decided to turn up.


Congrats to the Gary and the podium guys...

[Fred Basset]

I've not raced here before and to be honest I wasn't really enjoying it with the practice sessions I've done. I found an improvement to my setup in the practice session last night but just as I started to go for a time the left hand monitor of my three screen setup started blinking on and off. This has only happened once before and a reboot fixed it so I did not really get time to try a lap on low fuel.

My first qually run was done on higher fuel than normal to confirm my setup change was working. I did one low fuel lap at the end which was good enough to pip Paul for pole, just.

Paul and I ran a fast pace for a few laps and started battling which meant that we did not pull away. We had quite different lines at the end of the straight and on one lap I was a bit dozy and left the door open for him. I could have been a bit more aggressive but had a feeling that I'd be able to stick with him at that point. I kept close and with his sneeze induced spin I was through to the lead again.

I got the gap to Mike out to around 5 secs but lost much of that with a heart stopping moment when Martin was rejoining in the chicane  and a poor pit entry. (Martin did nothing wrong here just had to lift at a point I didn't really want to)

Mike and I stopped the same lap, neither of us going for tyres. The gap ebbed and flowed and I could see Paul had caught Mike and was hoping their squabble would allow me to pull out a bit of a lead, that didn't happen though so I concentrated on driving an increasingly loose car as precisely as I could. I started the last but one lap with a comfortable 2 second gap but took the corner section at the end of the straight badly and lost a second. The last lap was interesting and after a poor exit at the point Paul spun with a couple to go Mike was all over me, however I knew that with three corners to go I just needed to cover him  and we finished like that with less than a seconds gap after an hour of racing.

As I said last night phew!

Now, I'd still like to know what is wrong with the colour of my car?

Gary

[Simon Gymer]

I had a very enjoyable race too. As usual my race pace was far superior to practice or qually, shaving 4 tenths off my qualifying time in the race with race fuel (it's all about the rythum) and doing quite a few laps in the 1:21s when I hadn't ever been below 1:22 before.

Early on it was a battle with Oily, who I got past, but with the pit stops coming up my pace was dropping and Oily, Darren and Brendan were all catching up, so I decided to pit for fuel and tyres. In practice I'd been going through tyres like a monster so decided it wasn't safe enough not changing tyres. Came out just behind Darren who hadn't changed tyres, but lap after lap despite sitting right on his gearbox I just couldn't get by. In hindsight I wish I'd had the balls to do a massive divebomb on the outside or inside at the end of the one proper straight as I'm sure I could have held it, but I wasn't brave enough and not getting past Darren ruined my chance to get 5th or even 4th.

Once we had our little tangle I was all over the place and never regained any decent speed or composure. With a few laps to go I was planning on slowing right down to let the leaders lap me so I had one less lap to do. Then Oily span and gifted me a position, but was only seconds behind which forced me to try hard again. Damn you!

It wasn't the net code Darren, but that's kind of you to say. I thought you were heading for the outside so I headed for the inside and it was too late by the time I could see you actually then heading for the apex. Sorry. Luckily no damage for either of us, but it did let Brendan have two easy places.

Some great battles and I'd just like to thank Oily for doing a sympathy spin when he saw me fall off at T1 behind Darren. Very kind of you to look even more of a fool than me.

There's nothing "wrong" with the colour of your car Gary, although it does for some reason make me want to lick it as you fly past me.

[Fred Basset]

I do wish you hadn't told me that

[mr_oily]

Cheers Simon - I couldn't quite believe I'd done that either, I think I'd have got at least a 9.2 for my 360 though which is what counts . I was experimenting with dropping to third for T1 which seemed to be paying off but I just clipped the yellow curb bit with the left front and it was curtains.

The more embarrassing moment was just after you pitted though! I was feeling a lot more comfortable in the car than I have in a while and when you ducked in I genuinely thought I could do a Schumacher-esque demon lap or two and stand a chance of getting in front but I went so hot into the chicane that there wasn't a hope in hell of making it around the hairpin and found myself sat backwards in the kitty litter.

I really enjoyed that though, having half an hour's praccy I wasn't optimistic but during the race I think the TS guys thought Martin and I had passed out or something, I was in the zone! I really must remember to turn off the wall heater that sits right behind my race seat off before I start the race next time - I'm all for simulating real race conditions but that was possibly a tad unnecessary!

I've always loved this track, even the VLM version for PnG etc and the challenge of driving the Radical smoothly to go quickly was just a joy - plus it lends itself really well for overtaking if you're quick enough to be in that position! Anyway I'm up for doing it again a.s.a.p!

I wonder how the Lotus would go around here....could be a Friday job

I don't think it'll be quite the same experience but you guys are of course more than welcome to join us on Friday for some fun in the Mustangs around the short version of this place...

https://www.simracing.org.uk/smf/index.php?topic=8516#event2437

Thanks for a great event Pops and hat off to you boys at the front... a .21 dead is just disgusting quite frankly, definitely time I got some more iR practice in me thinks!

[Dan Minton]

My money's on Mike to do the double and take both championships...that would be something.   No pressure eh Mike. 

[Mike Wrightson]

Oh thanks!