iRacing Season 5 Endurance - Laguna Seca - January 16, 2011

[Adam Parle]

Server should show in a moment .

[popabawa]

Gutted, lost connection twice in quick succession on lap 2 so I decided that was probably it for the night.

That was shaping up to be a good scrap with Martin and Raimo too  :'(

[purdie]

really sorry Borchers  I should have backed-off by the backmarker but thought there was enough room, ended up on the sand and then was just a passenger.... sorry for ruining your race 

[Darren Seal]

Nightmare qually!! Not one clean lap
Nightmare race!!  :'(

I knew I was in trouble when I saw both Adam and Mike had jumped me on the grid in the dying seconds of qually.  Then to make matters worse I then let Brendan through on lap 1.

I knew I had the pace here but with Brendan and Adam battling ahead we quickly lost touch with the leaders.  By the time Adam and Brendan had a coming together the top 2 were 20 seconds down the road.  To add to my frustration while stuck in Mustang traffic I was hit going into the last corner; which turned my neutral handling Vette into a tail happy monster.

I managed to fight my way back to 3rd, but I was soon back down to 8th after I had to swerve to avoid a Mustang going into the braking zone of the last turn.  I guess he didn't see me and just pulled over....  Anyway, once my right wheels hit the dirt there was no chance I was stopping...

I decided to pit early in the hope new tyres would tame the beast, but infact it made things worse.....  Eventually the Corkscrew got me and I spun facing the wall on the inside...  I tried to do a 257 point turn to get out of there (not wanting to reverse on to the track) but eventually got beached, so I quit...

Sorry to hear about your problems Purds and Pops...

See you all at the next race...

 

[ginsters sponsored]

Good race that

Real fun battle with Dave. I need to have a few more iR starts before I know whats going on, and he rather jumped me. He made a "cut" mistake at corkscrew and I slithered pass. My first ever iR stop didn't go well and I overshot. Come out 1 second ahead of Dave and the battle was. Trouble was I had shot my bolt. My poor little hands (aaargh you say) were aching and my arms falling off. A strong ff feels great but I need to turn it down before next race Very impressed by the pace of Dario and Raimo.

Though Vette fellows were mainly very good, I was dived bombed a few times and oddly into corkscrew which wasn't very bright. I would imagine there are easier tracks to multi class race on to be fair  

Congrats to all and I look forward to next one.

[IanBassi]

A difficult race at a difficult track.  Computer crashed on lap 3, and by the time it rebooted, and wheel and pedals were working, I was 7 laps down.  Still pleased to get back on track, get some more experience, and finish the race.

Thanks for hosting, and thanks everyone for making it a fun event.

Ian

[Adam Parle]

That was hard work.

I was gutted to see Pops disco early, as there were a few of us of similar pace likely to be mixing it up.  After Raimo got hit I was one spot further up, and then Blunder ran onto the kitty-litter out of T6 and I got past up the hill.

Due to his damage his pace was a little down, giving me a chance to stay ahead.

A solid pit stop marked the end of me seeing any Mustangs at all really, with the pace in P1-4 being a step beyond what I could manage, and although in terms of racing in-class it was dull, the Corvette's made sure there was never a dull moment.  There were a few "moments" when I got swarmed, and ended up frozen in the middle of the track as they all swept by ... sorry for any confusion guys, due to the closing speeds and the lack of room by that point it was tough to say what to do.

Grats to you guys on the podium - awesome pace.



As ever - if there are reportable incidents, do report them - we want to maintain the highest of driving standards here, and the moderation process is part of keeping standards from slipping.

Cheers.

[Mike Wrightson]

That was a battle of survival just to finish!

Got a good start to jump past Adam, and Steven and I were soon pulling away from the field.  I was slowly losing touch though, so decided to settle down and drive my own race.

All went well for a while until the tyre performance dropped off a cliff.  Suddenly I was all over the place and the car just felt horrible.  Two spins followed, getting slow-dows at the corkscrew, then got into the pits at half distance for new tyres and fuel.

That felt better I thought, lets look after these tyres.  I then promptly had a huge slide at T1.  Great!  Plodded round just trying to get to the finish unscathed, but had a few misunderstandings with the Mustangs, even getting a slow-down at T1 after contact with Ian Bassi.  Sorry Ian, thought you'd seen me there

Struggled to the finish from there, no longer caring about gaps or laptimes.

Thank god that's over!

Congrats Steven, you were in a different class... again

[Brendan]

I knew this wasn't going to be a quiet one.

Had to attend to a minor family emergency during qually so only had about 7 minutes to set a good lap (which I didn't).

Before the race, I hastily decided on a 2-stop strategy as I was taking so much out of the tyres and hoped that something a little left-field might pay off.  Start was clean-ish and I got the jump on Gary.  After 4 laps I was up to 3rd after Adam and Darren had made small mistakes.  Coming up to the first round of lapping I think I caught Adam out with my braking for the final turn, he therefore nudged me off track and I lost the 3 places I had gained.  At the end of the straight were some more Mustangs and under braking I just went in a straight line and chopped Raimo off.  Sorry Raimo, not sure if it was damage to my car or driver error, hope it didn't affect you too much.

Hit escape in disgust but had a few moments to calm down and decided to try again, but now on a 1 stop strategy.  Rejoined a lap down in 15th behind Mike in 2nd.  This was convenient for me as it gave me something to focus on and by the time we caught up to the back of the pack I was hopeful of being able to take advantage of Mike lapping and slip through with him.  This worked twice with Simon and Ross I think.  Anyway, with 27 laps gone I had to pit for fuel and try to make my new tyres last the final 37 laps.  Entering the pitlane I thought I had pressed the limiter, but obviously not as I was soon given a penalty for speeding

A very long stop later, and I rejoined with Simon right on my tail and closing.  Spent the next few laps trying to get my tyres up to temperature and just managed to sneak back past Ross for 8th when he took his stop.  Spent the rest of the race trying to chase down Ian and although I got the gap down from 36 to 6, there just weren't enough laps.

So much more fun than I expected considering my hatred of Laguna.  Grats to the podiums, and great work by the Mustang drivers.  

[DarioF]

My practice for the race were the 10 laps i did in the server yesterday, i hate the track with a passion so i couldn't bring myself to do more.
I had the speed here and there but i had no real hope for the race: in qualify i was surprisingly close to Samu, but as the green dropped he took off and i just minded my own business and brought it home with way too many mistakes but still in second. I hope i didn't cause trouble to the Vettes, i just switched to 7 so the fresh iR install still had the insanely wide fov in the virtual mirror, i couldn't see a thing.

Thanks for hosting and grats to the winners!

[Samu81]

Had almost zero experience from here with Mustang before the race so I was a bit worried. Tricky track and I have done maybe 10 laps here when Mustang came out at last April. Especially while this track aint at the Grand Am -calendar so the tyre issue was a big ? -mark for me. I knew from my Grand Am -experience that Mustang could do these 55 laps (or 1,5 hours) without pitstop, but finally I decided to get fuel for around 40 laps and see how the tyres are going to wore.

Qualifying was a disaster for me, I couldnt get a single clean lap and got twize "slow down" message from corkscrew   Eventually average lap of 1.38.4 was enough for pole - with just few thousandth of second between me and Dario.

 Start was a bit hasty but also Dario didnt get best start so lucky me. Then after maybe 7 or 8 laps Dario just dissapeared from my F3 -window and from that moment I went to "safe mode". Slowed down and tried to yeld Vettes as much as possible in order to minimize accidental contacts. Made my pitstop around lap 40 and took new tyres. I saw from tyre management window that I could have easily done whole race with same tyres so another waisted 6 or 7 seconds there. At this point the gab between me and Dario was around 22 second so I decided to do few hotlaps in order to see how the car is behaving when pushed to limits. I got almost 0,7sec better laptime than in qualifying, even while avoiding two Vettes at that lap  
After that I just slowed down and cruised to finish. Easy win after Dario made mistake or so, otherwise would have been different story.

Thanks for every Vette driver out there, I felt so much safer and relaxed here than at official season Grand Am -races. I really could trust on you guys  

Results:

http://members.iracing.com/membersite/member/EventResult.do?&subsessionid=2980830&custid=18021



PS. Nice to see you Dario here, I remember how we had some really nice fights during last spring Skippy seasons  

[BorchersDK]

No worries Purdie, there wasnt much you could when you first came on the sand. Gave me quite the scare though.. BAM, hehe .
I had a pretty good race, all taken into account. Got T-boned in the Corkscrew on L18 when in pos 4, and had to Shift+R (was in doubt if it was allowed, but since the option was there, I guess it was allowed?), and when back in the pit I filled the tank, and hoped for the best.
Was now last of the Vettes, so my race now was just 'damage control'. I was surprised to find myself in the top 10 not long after, and when the pit stops started I quickly made up a few more places. Was right behind Adam and really wanted that 4th place, but I had to make a choice. Do I gamble or do I play it safe, cause if I went back on the lead lap, then I wouldnt have fuel enough, and the leader was just some 10 sec ahead on track at that point. I opted to play it safe and started to save fuel, I crossed the line with 1.1 laps left in the tank .

I was surprised how well my tires held up, I had 65% on Front Left and around 71-73% on the others, and that was after 47 laps of driving. Granted, I didnt push as hard as I would normally have, cause I was worried about my tires in the long run.

But what a hard race, never really had an opportunity to relax, there was constantly something around that required my full attention. Was great fun, and super cool to finally do some long races again - has been a while.

Thank you all for a great race, I'll defently see you for the next one.


P.s. Sorry to 5th on the grid (cant remember your name, sorry). At the end of the pacelap in the last corner, I gave you a tiny notch. Hope I didnt bend your car in any way - never know with the iRacing collision.

[IanBassi]

That felt better I thought, lets look after these tyres.  I then promptly had a huge slide at T1.  Great!  Plodded round just trying to get to the finish unscathed, but had a few misunderstandings with the Mustangs, even getting a slow-down at T1 after contact with Ian Bassi.  Sorry Ian, thought you'd seen me there

I can not remember that, did we have contact?  I did not have any contact incident points.  Half my fault as I don't even remember seeing you

Ian

[Robin Durrant]

I hate it, I hate it.

Horrid qualifying. Every lap was messed up one way or another. Nobody's fault in particular. Just crap.

Race, got off to a good start and latched on to Adam. Then whilst being lapped, I was turning in whilst watching my mirror and had quite an expensive and spectacular roll.
That casued a reset and put me out of contention. I was really just wanting it to end.

Can my roll be included in the end of season highlights?

[Adam Parle]

Yes - good racing that Robin.  Shame it didn't last longer.