iRacing Season 5 - Phillip Island - January 02, 2011

[Adam Parle]

Server is starting now- don't practice too much you lot ... I don't want too much catching up to do tomorrow.

[Raimo Piiksi]

No problem there. First time on track with this car.
We are only allowed to practise on official SROUK i5 Practice sessions right? 

[Dave 'Gizmo' Gymer]

I'm going to switch to GT3 from now on, partly to even numbers up overall and partly to do so within the team.

[Adam Parle]

Server is up - see you in there in a bit

[Blunder]

Rats...  :'(

Robin and I had a little incident...worse thing was I ended up in the barrier with what looked like little damage but
I was stuck on the barrier and had to reset
I then outbraked myself slightly while distracted by traffic / Rob spinning in front of me and Nick passing me!
Sorry Nick, nothing I could do (once I had made the error.) I was crossing my fingers you had seen me!

Exited... I hate not finishing

[Reign Man]

Ploughed into an incident at hairpin. Concentrating on the car ahead of me, thought I'd made a pass at the hairpin to find cars moving across the track to rejoin. Nothing I could do.  Reset didn't work, my car stayed damaged. ??!

Not exactly a good start for my first race back.

Grats to those that finish.

I hope the next race is better.

[Dan Minton]

Made a major balls up off the pitstop and got disqualified .   

Apart from that really enjoyable ,  PI is such a good track.

WD podium guys.

[Nick Phillips]

Rats...  :'(

Robin and I had a little incident...worse thing was I ended up in the barrier with what looked like little damage but
I was stuck on the barrier and had to reset
I then outbraked myself slightly while distracted by traffic / Rob spinning in front of me and Nick passing me!
Sorry Nick, nothing I could do (once I had made the error.) I was crossing my fingers you had seen me!

Exited... I hate not finishing

No problem it was tough out there to pass and be passed, so only one accident like that is not a bad count.

Caught out by Jamie on Lap 7, thought he was going past a Mustang on the right and he broke instead, not expecting brakes at that point I sent him off track, sorry for that one.

Apart from that, bloody hard work, managed not to hit any Stangs on the way past although on such a tight track with such a speed differential there were a few hairy moments.

[Adam Parle]

I really shouldn't have raced that one ....

Having got back from a week away 20 mins before the server went up it's fair to say I was unprepared ....

It was pretty uneventful from the back of the field, although me and Andy mixed it up for a while.  I had a perfect pit stop - a first for me, before getting caught out when Mike span it and I ploughed into him.  After that there was black smoke spewing out of the back of my car so a reset was in order...

More mistakes let Andy overhaul me again, and a few others too ... and after more tragic attempts at lapping I retired before I took anyone out.

After driving over 350+ miles to get back today .... that was too much driving ... not enough fun.

[DarioF]

I suppose i couldn't ask more of my first race. The first stint went by quite uneventfully after i got a good jump, except when i had to escape some mess at the first hairpin. I pitted on lap 26 i guess and rocketed out of my stall... 110kmh was probably a bit too fast thou! So i served a neverending 15 seconds penalty on the following lap, but in the end i was able to pass Raimo after some two wide action and Dave taking advantage of a Corvette.

The quality of driving was very good despite PI being quite narrow and at times difficult for overtaking. Congrats all! See you next time!

[GizMoTo]

wondered where you had gone Dan that's a bummer


I'm soaking wet, sweat dripping everywhere knackered but I managed 5th place   which I'm chuffed with

well done Podium  


got to say a very BIG thank you to everybody on track today that was a cracking race it's not a very wide track for 2 cars with such a big speed difference but from my POV the awareness was superb {must have been as i didn't have a scratch on Dans nice paint work }

so my hat off to you all  

[Brendan]

That was intense.

Was pleased to start 3rd on the grid and was happily chugging away, trying to keep wear on the RF tyre to a minimum.  All was going well until it came to pitstop time, I was faffing around with the fuel and ended up outbraking myself at the hairpin which let Darren by.  Dived into the pits a few laps later but had a shocking stop after a Mustang pulled out in the pitlane (no idea who, but no hard feelings anyway).  

After the stop, I set about catching Darren and keeping Mike at arms length.  I wasn't really making any headway on Darren, but I wasn't losing much time to Mike either so I sort of resigned myself to a cruise to the finish and a podium.  That was until I made a balls up of the slow right hander and ran onto the grass, allowing Mike right onto my tail.  All of a sudden I had to pickup the pace and defend like crazy.  I held station for a few laps until coming up behind a Mustang at the uphill left hander.  The speed differential caught me out slightly and I locked up the rear which allowed Mike by.

He gradually pulled away form this point although some traffic did allow me to keep in touch until the final lap at least.

Overall, pleased with 4th place but a little disappointed that with a tad more compsure it could have been better.  Grats to the podium.

Laguna next.......I'd take 4th there all-day, hate the place.

[Brendan]

Forgot to add, huge respect to the Mustang guys.  I can't imagine how difficult it must be.  You guys must have eyes in the back of your head.

[Robin Durrant]

Well I failed epically down under but I must admit I had some fun.

Got an ok start and was battling with the pack. Had a scrap with Martin and a Vette and unfortunately I tried passing Martin on the outside and we both ended up in the gravel. Unfortunately that left Martin in the wall.

Got back in to the groove all alone and was tagged on the front straight by a Vette which broke my steering. I then reset and coming out of the pits tagged on to the back of Raimo where I stayed for pretty much the duration. He pitted and I carried on. Missed the melee at the hairpin and basically kept out of trouble.

Got a tap off one of the leading Mustangs in the last ten laps. It's amazing the already bargelike handling on the Mustang can actually get worse!

I hope the GT2 Ford hurries up

(The patience of some of the Vette drivers was seriously ace tonight. Thank you)

[Darren Seal]

After starting 4th on the grid, I'm very happy to finish 2nd.  Steven was in a class of his own and totally deserved the win.

I had great battles with Brendan and Mike in the first stint, but after my pit stop I found myself all alone with a 15 second gap back to Brendan.  Phillip Island is a tough track and the smallest lapse in concentration can end your race.  With that in mind and the fact that Steven was miles down the road, I decided not to push too hard and to do enough to keep the gap back to 3rd above 10 seconds.  With 2 laps to go I was bang on target, but then I seemed to find at least 2 Mustangs fighting for position at every corner.   Not wanting to ruining their races and also risk ending my own, I took a cautious but very slow approach.  In hindsight maybe I was too cautious especially as Mike gained 6 seconds on the final lap, making me sweat during the final 2 corners.

Great race.  Congrats to those who finished and to those who finished on the podiums...

Thanks Adam for hosting...

See you at Laguna, it's going to be interesting.