iRacing Season 5 IndyCar Championship - Infineon Raceway (IRL) - Mar 29

[Mike Wrightson]

Congrats on the championship Simon.  I crashed at T1  made it far too easy for you.

Words can't describe how much I hate this track.

[purdie]

got back from Brands testing today just in time for quali, locked my keys in my car and waited 2 hrs!! 

First lap threw me in quali when it went in a different direction from testing last night  lollll

got in a banker lap and started last.... managed to get half way - lap 15, before the smallest mistake meant I ruined FR wheel suspension 

great pace Dave and Simon, watched a few laps after and you were in quali times! 

[Simon Gymer]

Must admit, that really isn't my favorite track either. It's just too fiddly for such fast cars. But none-the-less, you drive what you are given and so I set about the task of trying to create a setup from a cross of my Barber one, my previous IRL one and a Gregor Huttu (impossible to drive) one. Right at the death of the practice session I found the secret setup change that turned the car from pretty quick every 5 laps (when you weren't spinning), to pretty quick every lap.

I was desperate to get the 1:17 in in qually as I knew I had it in me and managed it at the death of qualifying to take pole ahead of Mike. It looked like it could have been another Barber Motorsports Park epic battle, but as we came into Lap 1 Turn 2 and Mike slid off it was a big anti-climax. I will admit I was also relieved, but I'd rather have had the adrenaline rush of Mike chasing me than such a damp scuib end to the championship. I know you probably didn't feel like it but you could have reset as the same thing could have befallen me at any point in that race.

Anyway, with Mike retiring I felt comfortable and eased it home with a fairly comfortable margin ahead of Gizmo.

Thanks for organising and hosting this series as I've enjoyed it despite the low turnouts and thanks Mike and all the other people I've had close battles with.

[Ken Murray]

I came last of the finishers, but at least I finished this time! And I very nearly wasn't last after a great battle with Ian throughout, eventually losing by 0.023secs. This is what that looks like:

[BorchersDK]

Oh man, Im so sorry guys. I just woke up from falling a sleep after dinner. That was not part of my plan, and now my entire night is messed up aswell  
Damn, I really looked forward to this one too. I enjoy the car around here.

[Mike Wrightson]

I don't like resets, I'm too used to rFactor which doesn't have them at all.  If you can't drag the car back to the pits for repairs, you're out.

I'm really in the doldrums with iR and I need to get out of it.  Not feeling at all comfortable driving it, so if someone finds where I dropped my mojo, please post it back to me..

[Dave 'Gizmo' Gymer]

If I'd known it was that layout I'd have gone and done the SR8 at Brands, but seeing the small turnout I decided to stick around and see if I could nick a podium after last night's good testing result.

Struggled all the way through practice to adapt the Long setup to the IRL layout - in the end I changed almost everything but the spring rates; it still didn't feel good but the times were competitive and my usual rule of thumb is that at Infineon, if you can avoid going off you'll do well.

Improved the car a little more in qualifying by tightening the diff even more and that was good enough for third. I was quite pleased to be behind the championship contenders as I really didn't want to interfere with that battle. I half-jokingly said over TeamSpeak that somebody would go off at turn 2 on lap 1, thinking it was most likely to be me (and not for the first time) but it was a huge surprise to see Mike lock up and slide off.

Ken applied lots of pressure in the opening laps as Shark made off into the sunset. I didn't have great pace, partly through inexperience, partly because I was trying to drive a very controlled pace and avoid getting into any wrestling matches with the steering, and partly because I had no real idea how much fuel was needed and had therefore elected to start with a full tank to maximize my pit window.

After a while Ken and Ian had a coming together, which took some of the heat off, but I could see Ken was starting to close up a little again. Near the end of my stint my rears started to go off quite badly and that put the kibosh on any plans to do a long first stint, so I pitted one after half distance in the hope that I could bang some good laps in on fresh rubber and make sure neither Ken nor Ian could catch me.

That worked out well, and in fact Ken's stop ended up being much longer than I expected which gave me a comfortable gap, so I backed off a lot once the tyres started to go again and just cruised home in second.

Well done to Simon for the championship win, and Mike and Ian for their championship podiums. Also glad to have helped Team Shark to a team championship win that's beyond emphatic.

[GizMoTo]

yes Ken that was close .have to say the closest finish I've ever had in IR  


I'm still sure F3 had you in front just before the the line, I couldn't see your car at all so I just kept my foot to the floor

after practising the wrong layout   I wasn't even sure if I should start the race as I had no confidence in myself on the worst layout of this track there is,

things started feeling a tad better late practice then I qually I dipped under 1:19 which i was chuffed with

at the Start Ken got the jump on me and the race was on   a few laps in and made an almighty mistake and ran into the back of Ken at the tight last turn ....don't know if i hit the brakes later than last lap of if Ken got better stopping power but I misjudged it big time {sorry again }, I sat looking at his car down the track just hoping he could continue hadn't even thought about damage to my car after what seemed an age he got moving only then did i consider my own car I moved off behind him feeling the car for the first half lap and it felt good I could see that Kens car seemed fine also so I got back down to the racing game. happy we had both survived
I drove my car hard as I could leading to the pit-stop  and had just decided to give it 1 more lap then dive in for the stop when I made a mistake at the chicane at the end of the short back straight, this shook up my plans so I dived into the pits right away while my pace had been interrupted.
Pit-stop went very well {I paid the pit crew this week } got back on track then I saw on F3 Ken was pitting due to quick time drop so I floored it as hard as I could that lap hoping to at least be back on his tail but I must have done better in the pits as I crossed the line he was just moving out of his pit stall so I was past him keeping 3rd place but it was close .very close  

the rest of the race I was to be hones over my limits I think I saw 2 personal fastest laps at least in that second half of the race but I couldn't shake Ken then on the final lap final corner I went a fraction wide Ken took it very "tight"   and we both floored it to the line  and the picture above says it all

thanks Ken for one of the best races ever in iRacing talk about sweat my shirt will take a week to dry out  

and to top it all I ended up 3rd over all due to BorchersDK  not turning up {that sleeping potion worked nicely  }

and I helped get Team RVS 2nd place in the teams championship  all in all a very satisfying season

thanks for the good organising and letting me run the races it's been a total blast of a season

Laters Ian

[Burtoner]

My apologies for hitting Paul at the chicane, I actually hit the gravel beforehand on front left so when i braked i was just skidding into you

[Paul Thurston]

My apologies for hitting Paul at the chicane, I actually hit the gravel beforehand on front left so when i braked i was just skidding into you

I suspected you weren't entirely under your own control as you hit me in slightly odd way.

It seemed to only give me a puncture as a fresh set of tyres fixed the car.  I set off and decided to throw caution to the wind which worked for a lap or two then I started getting into silly spins and decided to get out of people's way.

It's been an enjoyable season overall.  Congratulations to Simon who's been quick everywhere and is well deserving of the title.

And Mike, we all go through that mate.  Just get racing.  Have a look at the official Rad series, there's a great little community built up on the Rad forum plus a thread on the England forum.  The Saturday afternoon/evening races are generally excellent.

Paul