iRacing Season 4 Radical - Zandvoort (Chicane) - Nov 23

[Paul Thurston]

Frex will get to realistic levels, and yep, £1333.00 that's about the price BRD would have been asking for their wheel.  Far too much engineering needed for a mass-market wheel, which is all the G25/27 is.  That said, they are also the best mass-market wheels

No, we can't really complain about the G25/G27 for the price.  I had mine apart a few months ago to check it for wear and there simply wasn't any.  Not bad for what must be a 3-4 year old wheel that's had a lot of use.

I'd love a Frex but proper Engineering costs proper money.  There are no shortcuts.

Paul

[Mike Wrightson]

I'd love a Frex but proper Engineering costs proper money.  There are no shortcuts.

Quoted for truth.

See you on track everyone.

[Blunder]

  Sorry i couldn't make this one

[Simon Gymer]

Only 7 of us there. I was 7th in practice, 7th in qualifying and although I was up to 5th in the race, one tiny mistake as I ran a tiny bit wide half way through the lap I couldn't stop before the barrier and it jammed me into it and I couldn't get off. I lost 50 seconds trying to get off the barrier, shift+r'd, waited 2+ minutes only to find my car was not safe to drive. Drove around one lap at half speed and retired, finishing 7th! :-)

Hope the rest of you guys finished. I was having a good race up until then, chasing Darren, passing him and then closing on Paul. But it wasn't meant to be.

Ended up using 102% FF, 0, 0, centering spring on but at 0 and then 4 in game. I beat my time from yesterday without FF, thus proving it was more to do with practice than the force feedback.

[Mike Wrightson]

Busy race and very hard work.

Qualified 2nd and Gary, Brendan and I broke away at the start.  I was faster but couldn't get close enough to try a pass, so once I got to a decent pit window, I pitted early.  I had to try something as I wasn't going anywhere as it was.

With more fuel back onboard, it was sliding around a lot more, but I had to push as I was sure Gary wouldn't change tyres.  I only had 4 sec to go to Darren and I soon caught him.  Thought I might be able to clear him, but I still couldn't get close enough to pass   Must be something in the setup, once behind another car, I'm stuck!

I was very surprised to see Gary behind me a few laps later, and even back behind Brendan!  Eventually Darren pitted and I just needed to keep an eye on the 8sec gap back to Brendan.  Until he spun and put Gary back to 2nd.

Spices up the championship again!  Well done everyone.

[Darren Seal]

I really shouldn't have raced...  Felt crap all day and only joined to boost an already poor turnout...

Lack of preparation showed..  I was well off the pace and it took all my concentration just to stay on the track.    I went for a splash and dash strategy but stupidly had enough fuel for 45 laps instead of 35.  

After Mike pitted he soon caught me up.  I knew he had a big gap over Brendan and Gary, so I didn't yield position.  However, if you had gone for it Mike I wouldn't have contested.  Once Brendan dipped inside 10 seconds I thought it was best to get out the way and pit..  (nearly running straight into the pit wall in the process   )

After that I strolled home to an easy 4th.

Congrats to Mike for the win and to Brendan and Gary for the podium...

[Fred Basset]

Well I made a mess of that, it really was a comedy of errors.

Logged in, steering wheel offset, reboot, login again loses me a good few minutes with practice. Then I couldn't get team speak to work. Then I came out of the pits and I couldn't get the pitlimiter to disengage all losing lots of time

Eventually things went well in qually with pole with some new fastest sector times.

The first 16 laps or so were intense, I think Mike was lighter but we were less than a second apart for the whole time. When he pitted I put in some good laps and then made the crucial error, decided to pit late and although I was not speeding in the pitlane iRacing judged I'd made an unsafe pit entry and gave me a 15 second penalty. I'm still pretty gutted about this, not just for the loss of position but it would have been fun to go head to head with Mike for the last laps.

Chasing Brendan down I made a couple of errors and dropped behind him a way but was still third after Darren pitted. With Brendan having a problem on the last but one lap I got a very lucky second.

This was always the track I was worried about as I'd not driven it so second will do nicely but that win would have been nice.

Anyway Mike and I have a showdown in two weeks for the championship.

Well done Mike, Brendan

Regards
Gary

[Mike Wrightson]

You still hold the advantage with dropped scores.

If my calculation is right, I need to win with you 3rd or lower to win the title.  Had you been 3rd tonight, it would be winner takes all in 2 weeks.   

[Paul Thurston]

Another race, another cock-up.

Practice went as planned.  I was as quick on low fuel as I expected and pitstop practice went fine.  Qually too was OK.  I wasn't as quick as I possibly could have been but Brendan was quicker than I could have gone anyway so it didn't matter.

The start went well.  Dave alongside down the main straight but I held the outside line and kept 4th.  After that I had to concentrate to stay ahead but after a while I started to make a gap.  The person behind me varied a bit but Dave and Simon both made mistakes and I was left with Darren about 7 seconds back when I stopped.

The stop was fine.  When I came out I saw that Darren was going longer so I knew I'd have to push to stay ahead.  Then I came into the awkward right left in the middle of the track.  Went round the right hander fine then braked or the left and the back end just snapped round.  I reacted, it snapped left and was thrown into the barrier.  I don't have little accidents.  Race over.

I'm still puzzled as to why it did that.  Maybe something broke.  It's a pity, it was a good little battle with Darren and I was enjoying it.

Well done to Mike.

Pity about the low turnout.  Watkins Glen next.  Great track.

Paul

[Fred Basset]

I can't believe how low the turnout was here last night to be honest, great track and car combination and seven people turn up.

What are we getting wrong, we've changed cars a number of times but it always gets down to the same few only racing at the end of a season

Gary

[Fred Basset]

You still hold the advantage with dropped scores.

If my calculation is right, I need to win with you 3rd or lower to win the title.  Had you been 3rd tonight, it would be winner takes all in 2 weeks.   

I watched my pit entry last night and I clipped probably a metre of the whiteline which was very costly in terms of points. Still it does make the Glen an interesting race.

Yes I have a 47 point lead after you drop a score, shame its not 127 but thats life so we'll just have to do our best next time out. To be honest I don't do this for race wins or winning the championship I do it for the type of driving Mike and I enjoyed for 16 laps or so last night.

Brilliant fun, he was quicker behind me in most places apart from the exit of the chicane but I was neat tidy and had some in reserve for after he pitted. The challenge of racing whether its for 15 or 1st is what makes this fun.

Regards
Gary

[Dave 'Gizmo' Gymer]

Shambolic performance from me.

Never found a comfortable setup and my confidence kept dropping during practice. In qualifying I couldn't even match my practice times on low fuel.

Got a good start and almost stole 4th from Bananaman. After a couple of laps following him I realised that my setup was completely different from his and that I was much faster in the slow corners, but misjudged an attempt to squeeze  by out of turn 10, caught the grass and had a major moment, allowing Darren past.

That was the beginning of a long an painful series of mistakes as the car repeatedly oversteered and understeer seemingly at random, sending me off numerous times. After one of my bigger spins I decided to pit and see if more fuel on board would help the balance. It didn't, but it did slow me down enough to stop going off quite so much.

Darren came out of his late stop some 30s up the road and I lost all remaining interest and concentration. The last few laps on light fuel were a nightmare, and I was actually hoping that one of my offs would put my in the barriers and out of my misery, but no such luck.

I'm now out of the championship fight but unlikely to lose 3rd as long as I turn up to the final round. I just hope there are some more takers for the finalé!

[Adam Parle]

Wow - shocking turnout

Having had a very busy week I hadn't had a chance to practice before last night - so I got on the server as soon as I could.  It was too little too late though ... I've struggled with the Radical all season ... and the chicane was a nightmare for me.  I was having enough problems round the rest of the track, but almost every other lap I got the chicane wrong ... under braking, over the kerbs, getting back on the power ...

Well done to you guys that raced, and finished .... I would have loved to have been able to race - but I took the sensible option and retired before putting up a SRouk record number of incident points

[Brendan]

Yes, the turnout wasn't great was it.  With the tail off towards the end of a season inevitable, I suppose this confirms that a 12 race season is a few too many.

I'll apologise in advance because I think I may be absent from the final round(s) as my G27 has got to go back to Logitech for repair. 

[mr_oily]

Sorry Pops/ all, combination of reasons for me - shattered, not practiced and have done Zandy to death of late in one series or another so just couldn't muster the enthusiasm required, despite wanting to try some of the FF settings you guys have been posting.

I want to get involved in a championship again as it's what's missing from my racing at the moment but as it's quite late in the day I'm just gonna hang on until the new seasons starts and use the time to check out a few other series for ideas!