OEL OPC1 Prototype Challenge Series Finale - 250 Miles of Sebring
I got the pole position, the fastest race lap, and I led every lap to take the win... It's a Grand Slam in Sebring. I practiced hard for this race, over 700 laps (including a couple of full race distance simulations against the AI), tweaking the setup, optimizing the strategy, working on my fitness, and it all paid off.
Unfortunately, Elia Tartari got punted off at the start and hit the wall, and the crash damage might have contributed to his engine failure on only the 11th lap. But I had the pace and the confidence after my extensive practice sessions. I think I would have won anyway even if the ET finished the race.
The victory in the final round, along with ET's untimely DNF, also means I take the overall championship by a slim margin. A fortuitous result after the disco's I had in this series. It's really because of the generous points scoring system and the small grid that I was in the fight at all.
I'm on pole position for the finale of OEL Prototype Challenge Series, the 250 Miles of Sebring. I trained hard for this and I'm happy with this result, but the real payoff comes next week when we race. I'm surprised to be more than 1 second ahead of the ET. Usually, it's me chasing the alien. Well, I was on pole for the previous two rounds in Fuji and Watkins Glen, but not by this much. It must be a car advantage or some setup exploit. Of course, I was running a qualifying spec. If the ET was on his race trim, he might be ahead when it counts.
F1 CWC Season 2002 Round 3 Interlagos - After 2 DNFs due to disco's, I finally finished a race in this series. I was lucky to get 2nd place after the two drivers ahead of me ran into problems on the last lap. But I was also unlucky to get tangled up with EcoWarrior again early in the race.
We had a heated battle during a practice run for this event. It got so bad that they actually asked me if I had a problem with them, and to stop racing them so hard. And they even threatened to reciprocate my aggression if it happens again. (We also had a controversial clash at the Monaco race of the previous season.)
But this shouldn't happen really, I mean EcoWarrior is normally faster than me, and they even got the pole position and the fastest lap of this race. I should be eating their dust during any race. But it happened again same as in Monaco; they were running a long stint, and their car was heavy with fuel. At that point in the race, I was quicker but was stuck behind them. I had to overtake as soon as possible or otherwise I would compromise my own race. With only 35% Grand Prix race distance there is little time to be patient.
And it seems EcoWarrior has not learned that long stints are not a viable strategy in this particular series, because the fuel consumption rate is at 4x. You will lose so much pace even if you run just 1 extra lap due to the considerable amount of fuel (and its corresponding weight) needed to run longer. Also, I think EcoWarrior is a gamepad or keyboard user and their steering movement can be jerky at times. It can be hard to predict their behavior and to trust them in wheel-to-wheel situations.
I have been sim racing many years, and I've always been a slow guy. It is unusual for me to have to fight for position. If I make a mistake in such circumstances, it is nothing personal and not because of malice or forethought. Anyway, I only got a warning and not a penalty for the trouble I caused in this race, but maybe the strategic decisions of the other driver involved contributed to the incident unfolding. And if I wasn't so aggressive during this brief exchange, I would probably never have been in a position to inherit 2nd place at the final stretch to the finish line.
I am following two cars who are fighting for position, a Mclaren and a Jaguar. It is early in the race, and they are faster than me, so I am not thinking of any overtaking attempt. I am just trying to stay close and apply some pressure. We approach a right turn that requires heavy braking. The Mclaren is ahead of the Jaguar and on the inside. I see the first turn marker at 150m, and I line up behind the Mclaren with the Jaguar to my left, so that I have a bit more space ahead of me coming into the corner. As I pass the 100m marker I hit the brakes, but the Jaguar jinks to its right and I instinctively twitch the steering to the right as an avoiding action. There is a snap of oversteer and suddenly I am careening through the grass and out of control. I shoot past both cars and end up in front them at the corner exit, causing a collision with the Mclaren.
The replays show something very different happening. It appears the two cars ahead of me are side by side at corner entry. I line up behind the Jaguar, I brake at almost the 50m marker, and then I quickly veer right to avoid the Jaguar (it doesn't jink it at all) as I try to follow the Mclaren into the apex. It looks like an overly optimistic maneuver that would have been hailed as brave and opportunistic if I had pulled it off. But then the snap oversteer occurs and I am out of control as I go through the grass and cut the corner, sliding into the collision.
It is bothering me now, that there is such a discrepancy between my perception and memory of the event and what was recorded by the server and shown on the replay. Online simulation racing can be a very idiosyncratic experience, with factors like graphics performance, network latency, controller input lag... One driver may have better framerate while another driver may experience stuttering because of the inherent capabilities of their respective PCs. Sometimes a car might blink or seem to warp across the track due to inconsistencies in the connection. A car or driver may behave differently depending on the type of controller that they use, wheel, mouse, keyboard or gamepad. On one terminal it may appear that one car has bumped the other into a spin, but on another terminal, it appears that the other car has just spun on its own.
Are we even really racing against each other? Or do we each have our own little race, and these are just all occurring simultaneously? Is it just some individual imaginations that are coalesced into a mass hallucination through a myriad of computations? And then ye old paranoia kicks in, and I start wondering if the conditions of sim racing are an analogy of what actually happens in real life and the outside world.
Maybe it is just my cognitive dissonance for making such a reckless error despite all my years of sim racing experience. Anyway, I apologize for the incident and accept the penalty.
OEL Prototype Challenge Round 4: 180 miles of Watkins Glen - Well I got pole position, and I was leading the race comfortably when I disco'ed on lap 8. That's twice now in this series that I have retired while in the lead and 3 DNFs in 4 rounds so far. Maybe the Dome Honda had a bit of an advantage on this track, as I was faster than everyone even the ET, but the car failed again.
Meanwhile, I have withdrawn from FactorFlip Racing League Indycar Series. I've been racing in leagues for more than 15 years and this is the first league I entered that has a "calendar" without any specific dates. They just announce that the next race is on 1-2 days before the event. I don't like this casual scheduling, so I abandoned this campaign.
As for F1 Classic World Championship, preseason testing has been going well. I have switched to the BAR Honda car, because I encountered gmotor 2 errors with the Toyota car. On the hotlap, I'm about 1-2 seconds slower compared to the fast guys, but I think the gap will be smaller when the cars are in full race trim.
FactorFlip Racing League Indycar Series Round 1 - Texas Motor Speedway 125 laps
A wild and wacky race for the first 25 laps or so, with multiple incidents involving several drivers all over the track. This caused a few full course yellows that didn't help much because the automated pace car wasn't doing a good job. I ran as high as 3rd place early on in this chaos, but eventually I got tangled up and was even punted into a Herbie-style fence riding stunt.
In the confusion of it all, I got a couple of stop-and-go penalties for speeding in the pitlane and overtaking before the start/finish line during one of the restarts. I lost a lot of time and fell away from the leaders. By the time the race had settled down I was still in the top ten albeit a few laps behind.
At this point I could only trundle around, my damaged car's top speed had been reduced, and I didn't even have a good setup in the first place and was just running the default. I only learned this race was on less than 24 hours from the event start time. So, with the lack of preparation, unfamiliarity with the car and the track, and all the mayhem at the start, I was happy and relieved to be running at the checkered flag and finish the race in 8th place.
OEL Prototype Challenge Round 3: 300 km of Le Castellet - Well, I finally finished a race in this series. As usual it was 2nd behind the ET. I just couldn't match his speed; he was around 2 seconds faster per lap. I did lead the race for a few laps when ET crashed at the end of his first stint and had a long pitstop for repairs. That got me in front, but he erased the advantage soon enough and was more than 40 seconds ahead by the finish.
Meanwhile, preseason testing has begun for F1 Classic World Championship - Season 2002. I'm gonna run with the newcomer team Toyota. As a replacement driver the previous season I hit a podium streak, so I think I will do well over the full series this time. With the 17-race schedule, we will be racing into next year.
VeeRace Imola 24 Hours - Around 16 hours remaining, I've been driving in the dark for about 2 hours, and my eyes have started glitching. The video screen appears to ripple slowly, points of light sprout into little trails, and I can't spot my braking and turning cues. I'm slipping and sliding away, going off the track, and I've hit the wall a couple times. So, I park the car and retire from the race.
I underestimated the darkness. I didn't do enough practice laps in these conditions. Maybe if this race had been run on a track with lighting facilities like Abu Dhabi or Bahrain, I could have persisted. Still, I appreciate VeeRace for staging such an ambitious event. Big thanks to the admins and all the drivers for this rare chance to test my limits.
I signed up for the VeeRace Imola 24 Hours. I will attempt a solo drive to the checkered flag at this big event. I finished a 24 hours solo drive before, a long time ago, so I know it can be done. The main concerns are my fitness (as I am much older now), the wear and tear on my hardware, and the reliability of my Internet connection.
I know it's foolish to take on this race alone, when there are many drivers available to form a team, and there is even a VeeRace Community Team that I can join. But I do not want to bring a team down with my unstable connection. Although driver swapping is an integral part of rFactor 1, if the active driver gets disco'ed, the car gets DNFed and nobody else can reconnect and resume the race for that car.
I have been waiting for a challenge like this for many years now. Anybody can do a quick race, but when the endurance aspect is introduced, it becomes a true competition and the great ones come forward. For that last little bit of meaning and purpose I might still have, I must take this chance.
I am leading the race, ahead by more than a minute, when I come into the pits for my first scheduled stop at about 1/3 race distance. The pitstop is usually a little over 30 seconds, so I switch off the engine to prevent overheating as the tires are replaced and the car is fueled up. This has been my standard procedure in all the past OEL races. As the service is nearly complete, I try to switch the engine back on but I get no response. The engine has died and my race is over.
I had problems with the engine of this car blowing up or dying all throughout preseason testing. I thought I had solved it, but apparently not. And now I've thrown away a victory. I'm gonna turn down the engine a bit more for the next race. The laptimes will suffer but it is more important to get to the checkered flag. I haven't finished a race at all in this series. It's been very frustrating.
I look back on the bad things I've done, the mistakes I've made, all my failures. I don't think it was because I was hurtful, or cruel, or even evil. I feel it was impulse, or foolishness, or just plain ignorance. I am not making excuses, I'm just saying. I won't contest any proof of the otherwise. I attempt to make sense of it all, but the more I try, the more the world I see becomes a merciless nonsense. It seems I have fallen into an entropy of meaning.
Signed up for Factor Flip Racing League's Indycar Series. Gonna run car #66 for VR25 Motorsports, (I've raced against the team in OEL). I've done a shakedown of the car, and the default setup is easy enough to drive. It's just a little hard to see out with the halo and the aeroscreen. The schedule is a mix of traditional circuits, street circuits, and speed ovals. Been a while since I've done an oval race, I think the last one was the ill-fated RSRA Indianapolis event.
With the OEL Prototype Series and F1 Classic World Championship ongoing, this will be my third active series and I am a tiny bit worried. The last time I tried three concurrent series my performance suffered through all of them. This will be like some sort of Triple Crown challenge, with LMP, F1, and Indycar series from three different leagues. I hope to do well with these fastest types of cars.
Oldschool Endurance League's new series OPC1 Prototype Challenge is on. Races will be around 90 mins long, no driver swap allowed. Three different cars are available, the Dallara Audi R8S, the Dome Honda S101, and MG Lola Judd B01/60 X26. I pick the Dome Honda S101 for more power and top speed advantage.
Preseason testing has been difficult. The engine keeps blowing up and I have to keep short-shifting to complete a lap. It is not an enjoyable driving experience, and my lap times are slow. Maybe I should just switch cars or something. I open up the engine.ini file, looking for info about the optimum RPM limit setting. Turns out I set the RPM limit too high. With the proper setting, I can now wring the engine out to the redline and utilize the power.
With Daytona's basic track layout and my straight-line speed advantage, pole position is a possibility. But Elia Tartari is still the superior driver and the reigning champ of OEL. I give it everything I have, and at the end of my Qualifying run my hands and feet are shaking and there is a jackhammer in my chest. I take pole position by 0.007 seconds.
The race is a different matter altogether. First, I consider the fuel strategy. The capacity of the fuel tank dictates at least 2 stops for a 51 laps race. With a long pitstop, lengthy pitlane, and very slow pitlane speed limit, 3 or more pitstops will take too much time and is not viable. So, 2 pitstops and 3 stints of 17 laps is the way to go.
There are six different tires available: 2 types of compounds, ZR and S4, with each compound having Soft, Medium, and Hard options. The ZR compounds have the better grip overall, but they heat up too fast and that makes them hard to use optimally. I lack the talent to use these compounds, so I choose the S4's.
The Hard S4's are too slow, and I don't need the durability for a 17 laps stint. The Soft S4's offer the best grip but only last for 10 laps more or less, and then they fall off a cliff. The Medium S4 seems to be the correct compromise. But after checking my individual lap times and my overall stint time, the Soft S4's are still the best. Even if I slide around for the final 6-7 laps of the stint, the time gained during the first 10 laps are good enough for a faster overall stint time compared to using the Medium S4's. I might be wrong.
I get a good launch at the start and at the end of the first lap I am in the lead, 2 seconds ahead of the ET. For the next 10 laps or so I am able to maintain the gap, and then the tires die and ET reels me in. He tries some overtakes but I am able to defend until it is finally time for my pitstop. As I peel off into the pitlane, I brake too hard at speed limit line and spin the car. I lose a bit of time recovering and turning the car around. At the end of the pitstop cycle I am in 2nd place, some 20 seconds behind ET. I am able to nibble away at the gap for another 10 laps and then the tires are dead again. ET pulls away and easily increases the gap. Just as I enter the pitlane for my second pitstop I get hit with the dreaded disco and that is the end of my race.
Another series in the books, big thanks to our host Iker Vera, all the participating drivers, and everyone else at Humble Racing League (HRL). Nahuel Spirka is the champion, and he was miles ahead of everyone else. Seems like he figured out the bizarre physics of this mod and won 6 of the 8 Races. He was also usually on pole position and by a considerable margin. Just a dominant performance all throughout.
As for me, I finished 3rd in the Driver Standings. The team I drove for, Action Express Lotus, also finishes 3rd in the Team Standings. Apart from the series champion, I was the only other driver to score points in every race, which includes a podium finish in the final round at Suzuka.
It was a difficult run of it overall. I started the series 4-6 seconds per lap slower than the fast guys and could only fight for the lower points paying positions. After doing a deep dive with the car and trying various setup tricks I got up to 2-3 seconds slower per lap. The number of drivers showing up to race was also drastically reduced and this brought me up the pecking order. It was really only my attendance that pushed me up the Driver Standings. In terms of pace, I was nowhere.
F1 Classic World Championship 2001 Season - Round 7 Monaco
I got the call up to race in F1 CWC 2001 season a month ago for Round 3 in Brazil. Unfortunately, there was too much lag to be able to race. It was the same problem that prevented me from running in the previous 2000 season. A number of drivers have come and gone since then, and I got invited again to race in Round 7 in Monaco. A nightmare of a track to make a season debut, but I was up for the challenge. The ping times were too high and spiky again on the practice server, but on the official race server the connection was good enough for me to race.
With fuel and tires rate set at 4x, there were two strategies to choose from in the 20 laps race. You could go two stops with the Softs or 1 stop with the Hards. Of course, I tested both strategies and found that it was faster overall to go with the two-stopper. The faster laptimes with a lighter car and grippier tires would overcome the time saved by doing one less pitstop with a heavy car and less grip. However, in Monaco where it is tight and there is no room to overtake, track position is king.
I qualified 3rd with a so-so lap, and this put me in a position where I had to be aggressive and decisive. EcoWarrior qualified ahead of me, but based on his early race pace it was apparent that he was doing the 1 stop strategy. It was a short race, so I knew I had to make a move soon if I was going to make my pitstop strategy work. Years of being a backmarker did not prepare me for this situation.
My first lunge, going into the right hander that leads into the hairpin was clean. And then it looks like EcoWarrior runs into me at the corner exit. I missed the braking point going into the hairpin and hit the wall, but I didn't hit EcoWarrior at all. The next two bumps towards the end of the lap were my fault it seems. The first hit I misjudged his speed (maybe he braked too much) and the next hit I didn't place the car correctly (he had space on the outside but turned in). I'm not sure about the "terminal suspension damage" though. Damage was set at 60%, and if the "crash" was hard enough to affect EcoWarrior's suspension, I think it would have detached my front wing as well. The final overtake on Rush I think would have been clean, but Rush turned into me at the exit. I think he was surprised that I was there and that I got alongside. Anyway, I accept the penalty which is a grid place drop in the next race.
I suppose it wasn't a great race overall for me. I got 2nd place at the finish, and I made it happen on the track. At Monaco, too, of all places. But maybe some drivers will think I made some dirty moves.
A little bit wild at the start, and an even crazier finish, but a mostly lonely race for me in Suzuka. Elia Tartari was on pole as usual, speeding off into the distance, but this time he had Barnabas Rozsavolgyi chasing him. We lost the Ferraris of VR25 Motorsport early on, because of a bizarre bouncing bug, so I found myself in 3rd position. I was falling away from the leaders but pulling ahead of the guys behind me.
Barnabas was able to overtake and led the race for some laps, but after the pitstop cycle Elia had regained the lead and pulled up a bit of a gap. I just kept it clean as it was clear I didn't have the pace to keep up with the leaders. For most of the race it seemed like I was watching the trackmap and the leaderboard on the HUD more than I was driving. The best way to watch a race is to be in it.
Barnabas made another pitstop and maybe put on the wrong tires or something because suddenly he became erratic and was losing loads of time. Meanwhile, my tires were dying and I couldn't push anymore. I caught up with him around 10 laps to the end and we had a lively battle for 2nd, exchanging places several times. He was definitely having some issues and would make mistakes that allowed me to pass, only for him to retake the position with his superior speed. I was ahead going into the chicane at the end of the final lap, but he did a great move to overtake and get 2nd place at the finish line. The gap between us was less than a second.
I got DQed by the RFE Tire bug on my Qualifiying lap, so I started the race from the back of the grid. I did a clean race and got past some slower cars, but I couldn't match the lap times of the fast guys. It was low attendance again and I finished in 4th position. At least, I didn't get lapped. That moved me up another spot in the Driver Standings to fifth, and with (team leader and owner) Balint's podium, Action Express Lotus jumps up to 3rd in the Team Standings.
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OEL Blancpain Series Finale - Suzuka 250km - Qualifying
I got P2 in Qualifying, once again ahead of everybody else except the ET, who was more than 2 seconds faster. Not a lot of cars/teams signed up for this big endurance race, so the league admins decided to cut the race distance in half (from 500km to 250km), and driver swap has been disallowed to expand the grid. This also means it is no longer a double points scoring event, and that makes Elia Tartari the OEL Blancpain Series Champion.
With the previous round moved to one week later and the big OEL event just two days before, I did not have a lot of time to practice for this race. Consequently, I did terrible. I got mixed up in some incidents with other drivers, made some big mistakes on my own, and I even went off the track during the formation lap! Pathetic.
But because of poor attendance, I actually finished 4th. Somehow, my worst drive in this series produces my best result so far. I even move up the Driver Standings. Strange things happen in the world of simulation racing. For sure I could have done better but the result would be the same really, as the drivers who finished ahead of me were faster than me anyway. Maybe I wouldn't have been lapped or something. I just look forward to the next race and put this embarrassment behind me.
OEL Blancpain Series Round 4 - Silverstone 2 Hours
For the first 10 laps or so, I was able to stay within 1 second of the ET. I was on my limit, using all my energy, and killing the tires. For a moment I thought I had a chance to win, but it became clear ET was just pacing himself and had speed in hand.
I began to fall behind, I had used up the tires and was getting tired. I was first into the pits and ET sped away into the distance. In the clear air I was able to put in some good laps, and at about halfway through the race I took the lead when ET went in for his pitstop. It was only a matter of time though until ET retook first place.
After my second pitstop I did my fastest laps of the race. But it was all for naught. ET was too far ahead, and I just spent all my energy. ET did a splash and dash and promptly showed how much speed he really had. He was more than 2 seconds faster in qualifying and it was the same when comparing our fastest laps in the race. I felt thoroughly beaten and just cruised to the checkered flag.
HRL Super Formula 2022 Series - Round 3 Sportsland SUGO
It was a wild start, with some cars blinking and warping because of lag. Then there was an incident early on in the race and the Safety Car was sent out. The slow laps behind the safety car were a bit dangerous as I was following a lagging car. And then during the restart I got tagged into a spin and fell into my customary last place. After that it was a bit of a lonely recovery drive back up to 7th place yet again.
This race was postponed to 1 week later and so I was able to put in some practice sessions. I did hundreds of laps testing different setups and I was happy to find a stable platform that wouldn't punish me so hard if I made a mistake. The result: my Qualifying lap was more than 3 seconds slower than the pole lap. Looks like the fast guys are going with a looser setup, getting quicker rotation and carrying a higher speed through the apex. If I try to drive like that, I'll crash. I think I'll stick with my safe and forgiving setup.
