very good man

Here's my car for the upcoming VOWS Season 5. It is based on Formula 1 2011 season. I will be driving for Spector Racing. Team owner Wesley was able to recreate my old helmet from FiHS / rFR and that is a nice touch.

So far, I have the fastest laptime on the leaderboard for preseason testing, even faster than the reigning champion. But I have lead testing and practice sessions many times before. I know the fast guys and the aliens are saving something for race day, while I am pretty much maxed out.

At least I have setup the car to my liking, if only for hotlapping. With a clear track, I can safely drive around and complete the race distance. How the car will behave when in an attacking or defending situation is another matter.

for me it was Tuesday

OFR Season 4 Review

I finished 4th in the final standings, not bad I guess since I missed the start of the season and got disco'ed in Round 2. I got two podiums, 3rd in Norisring and 2nd in Macau, I also got pole position in Macau. My performance improved throughout the season, as I got familiar with the fixed setup, and as the grid thinned out as some drivers abandoned their campaign.

There was no stopping Nicholas Ramacci, he was simply the fastest in these FE cars. I think only Marco Santoni had the speed to keep up with him but he quit midseason as did other drivers. The other drivers who finished ahead of me, Arturo Smaglia and Mark Kyere, were faster than me, but I beat them in some races when the conditions favored me.

Overall, an amusing season, with some wild and wacky races at first when there were plenty of drivers who seemed only casually interested in racing, and then some nice, straightforward, clean racing towards the end when the grid was reduced. It was a lot of fun to see myself racing on Youtube.

But the most important thing to happen this season was my finally getting on Discord. It has opened up a lot of opportunities for racing with various leagues. I didn't know there was a large community of rFactor drivers on here. There will be more races and more chances to win in the coming days.

a notion of truth

Here's the schedule for Virtual Open Wheel Series Season 5. Pretty much a standard F1 season slate, with the addition of TT-Circuit Assen. This is the only track on the schedule where I haven't raced before. Familiarity with the tracks will certainly help my overall performance. And it will be good to return to my "home" track of Interlagos. I haven't raced there in a long time.

And here are the teams and drivers. There are some familiar names on the roster, guys I've raced with before at rFR, SRO, and OFR leagues. Looks to be a fast, experienced grid. Max Reichel is the current series champion.

Preseason testing for VOWS Season 5 has been going well. My best lap is right up there with the fast guys, but it was a lucky lap. I haven't been able to string together my best sector times consistently. I'm starting to get comfortable in the car, and have a good idea which setup values to change to produce the desired effect. 

This week though, I am in Macau for the finale of OFR Season 4. It is my first time to run on the famous Circuito da Guia and wow it is a doozy. Half the track is a flat out blast through wide straights, the other half a twisty rollercoaster through narrow streets. It is a perfect venue for the Formula E street fighter cars.

yoiks and away

(image from Spector Racing)

Gonna drive for Spector Racing in Season 5 of Virtual Open Wheel Series. Juris B will be my teammate; I raced with him in rFR and it was nice of him to recommend me for the other seat. Looks like it will be a big grid so I don't know yet how fast I will be. But I am very happy to be driving a proper F1 car again, after running different cars the past year or so. The VOWS mod is based on the 2011 F1 season, which I have some experience with. I even won a couple of races with an HRT some years ago.

A server has been opened for preseason testing and now it's time to practice and find a good baseline setup for the car. There will be refueling and a mandatory pitstop during the race, which means I have to figure out stuff like tire wear, brake wear, engine temps, fuel consumption, etc. and form a basic strategy as well. The schedule hasn't been released yet, but most of the track suggestions are circuits I am familiar with so that's good for me.

Welcome to Night Fast

the primordial soup simmers, a lake of fire
full of sound and fury, devoid of desire
yet down in its belly incubates
the first molecules that can replicate

so cold creatures begin to profligate
arise the elite, the masses, and the reprobates
their lives they laboriously pledge
to the abyss of vainglorious knowledge

awareness returns in a flood of light
a strange sensation with a bit of fright
memories form, rumors are rife
then come the dreams of a better life

perform the night fast as much as possible
with the minimum of decibels

then these are the monsters we will defeat
a tisket, a tasket, a trembling heartbeat
a strange phantasm that circumvents
a podium finish at every event

voltaic

OFR Season 4 - Midseason Report

We have reached the midseason point of OFR Season 4 and I find myself in 9th place in the overall standings. In terms of lap time, I'm close to the fast guys and I have a chance for a podium at every event. But the races have been a bit wild and wacky, because some drivers don't practice enough and also because of the nature of Formula E tracks; mostly narrow and lined with walls. Any mistake almost always affects another driver and causes an incident. I qualify well enough, but I get taken out or get swamped by the slower guys during the race itself.

There are two things that OFR League does that I haven't experienced before. First, the live streaming of the race event on Youtube, which is really cool. I feel like I am one tiny step closer to my dream of becoming a driver for a popular sim racing league. The other, a live steward facilitating the race itself, with full course yellows and penalties. It adds another dimension of realism when a human being is watching and controlling the race.

The sad news is my team boss, Andrej Borotovsky, has left the league after some conflict about the rules concerning rude behavior in the Discord channels. Markos Zervos, my teammate has also been absent the last three races. So now I am alone again in my campaign. Anyway, I am optimistic that I will move up to 6th or 5th place overall by season's end. 

Electrical motion is in the atmosphere

OFR Season 4 Intro

Just got signed up for a drive in Open Formula Racing. I will be replacing Andrej Borotovsky over at Loser Racing. (He is also the team owner.) I will be teamed up with Markos Zervos, a driver I know from rFR League. It's this league's Season 4 and I have already missed the first race.

This season OFR is using a Formula E Gen2 mod, and unfortunately I do not have any experience with these cars. The soft whirring of the electric motor is disconcerting to me after years and years of running with high revving F1 combustion engine screamers. It's hard to judge the actual speed of the car based on just the sound. And there is only 1 forward gear, so while there is no shifting, there is also no clue to the current speed based on the gear that you're in. I guess I just have to make it a habit to check the speedometer more than I have in the past.

That cockpit halo doesn't help either. I feel like my head is always at an angle, looking to the sides of the central pillar, like some pet dog sticking its head out the side window during a car ride. Why couldn't they make the halo with two pillars on either side of the cockpit? They could mount the mirrors on those pillars, too.

Anyway, right now the order of business is practice, practice, practice. The league server is online and still set to the Adelaide track from the previous event. So far I am about 5 seconds behind the fastest times set on the server. That is unacceptable and I have to find some speed. The cars are fixed setup so there isn't much I can do about that part. I just want to get used to the unusual sensory input and figure out where to put my eyes during the lap.

soft earned money

SRO Classic Formula 1 1978 LE Series Results

full results here

A fair season overall, with 4th place in the final standings. I couldn't keep up with the fast guys, particularly Ricardo who dominated this series with 6 wins from 6 races. But, I was clearly in the midfield with a chance for a podium finish at every event. Also, I think my general speed and confidence has improved. It is something I can apply when driving other cars.

Now it is time for another break as I wait for another rFactor 1 series to open at SRO. I think I will try to look for other leagues still running rFactor 1. There are still so many servers listed on the Matchmaker. Perhaps the problem is my aversion to social media. It seems the best way to get in touch with leagues nowadays is through that tweeter and facebooking thing.

Reticulated Phyton

powdered water

Just signed up for SRO Classic Formula 1 1978 series. Races will be 1 hour long and car performance will be all equal. The series will start around two months from now, so there is plenty of time to learn the car and set it up. The Saturday late night start time is also favorable to me. Based on my performances from previous SRO series, I can expect to be running with the fast guys here.

negligible < slight < minor < moderate < marked < major < extreme

SRO Series Post Mortem

So I finished 4th overall in the Group C series. Not bad, but I was definitely one of the faster drivers in terms of single lap speed and should have finished higher in the standings (maybe even win the series). I just couldn't manage the traffic better in both qualifying and the race. My years running as a backmarker and getting used to letting faster cars pass did not prepare me for moments when I was fighting for position. It didn't help that I my connection speed is slow and I have so much lag. Anyway, it was fun to lead a race for a few laps and to finish on the podium for one event.

As for Formula B, I abandoned it because of schedule problems, but I was running good in that series as well. I have been racing for a long time and it is great to not be a backmarker anymore. It seems like I will be forced to take a break for now, though. There doesn't seem to be any rFactor 1 Sunday night series coming up. Maybe I will try to look for another league or something.

outside da kulambo

[06:51] if objective reality is true
[06:51] then i am loser
[06:52] could existence be farce really
[06:52] i will sleep anyway
[06:55] no way out
[07:02] who knows when they are going to die?
[07:03] they just know that they will
[07:03] can technology prevent this
[07:04] so far
[07:04] it just makes things worse
[07:05] you do not need a vacation
[07:06] when you are compelled to explore perception
[07:09] coldwave heatwave retrowave
[07:09] the same thing killed your idol