Need to be more consistant..

hello all, sorry I missed a week again, life has been so busy it was Wednesday before I realised I hadn’t posted this so I figured I best wait until next week to keep it consistent on the day of release at least. So here you have another long read and a double Blog :)

After rushing back from Donington yesterday we made it back in time to do some more racing. The VRS endurance was quickly followed by Race Asylum Team Tourer, one on iracing and the other on Gran Turismo 7. First up we had the VRS Endurance on the mountain (Bathurst), we knew it would be carnage from the start and it was. I got stuck behind an incident at turn 2 on lap one and I was stationary for a good thirty seconds, once I got going again I had some decent pace but a few more scrapes with the wall and mostly unsighted cars in the middle of the road meant I picked up some more damage and was driving around with four minutes of damage, it didn’t make much difference apart from more understeer and a bit off the top speed. After two hours in the car, I handed it over to Yvonne as I needed to jump on GT7 and do a race on there. Yvonne managed to run consistent laps but she got taken out by another driver for not giving enough room, she completed the required repairs which was seven minutes but still had nine minutes of optionals, she decided she would drive anyway, took it steady and managed to bring the car home in eighteenth but we could just have easily had a top ten result.

The Team tourer event was a bit hit-and-miss for me as I couldn’t get the last two corners right on the indy track but on the full GP track I was flying. The lag problems are still quite bad on GT7 and unfortunately, I took two people out in separate incidents, there was nothing I could do as the lag was intermittent and not constant which made it harder for the other drivers around me. In race one on the Indy track, I spun out at least 3 times and so I finished a lowly tenth but in the feature race which was on the GP circuit I fared much better and finished fifth although I should have challenged for a podium, a spin cost me again.

Wednesday this week saw the RPM league race on Bathurst as it follows the iracing calendar, I knew I had resnoble pace around here from racing at the weekend and the main aim was to keep it out of the wall, something I almost achieved but more on that later. Qualifying was my usual, not fast but not slow either, I was only maybe half a second quicker than my race pace, and that pace put me in the midfield in fifteenth place, but luckily it was top five in class. The main aim in the race was to look after the car and not do anything stupid, I mostly achieved this (with a couple of wall taps) and within half an hour I had caught up to the lead three in my class. This then started an hour-long battle for the podium that continued during the pitstop window, It looked like it was all said and done in class with a few laps to go as position two had to fuel save as they under fueled, this left me with a twenty-second gap to the new position two. With the huge gap, I decided to take it a little easier to ensure I brought the car home, that was a mistake as I lost concentration as well. On the last lap, going over the mountain I ran a little wide and I couldn’t save the resulting slide, so I hit the wall hard at Skyline resulting in a spin and several wall hits. Luckily the car could still go forward, just. I limped the car the last two kilometres and what should have been a comfortable win in class resulted in a win by less than two seconds, although a win is a win.

Another project I’ve been working on for the last few weeks was released this week. I managed to put my video editing skills to good use as I made a promo video for the Screen to Speed event which is happening on the fourth of march in Las Vegas. It is a Sim racing competition for women and female-identifying persons, it is running alongside the Nascar event that is at Las Vegas Speedway on the 4th. Here is the video for you all to enjoy :)

Sunday, is supposedly a day of rest, not in the sim racing world it isn’t. Again I had to step in as a reserve driver for the team tourer event on GT7. This week we were at the Nurburgring in Germany, the sprint race was on the GP circuit and the feature race was on the Nordschleife 24hr layout. Opening up with the sprint race I qualified third, I made a pretty decent start and fought my way up to the second place, this is where I was to stay as the leader was just that little bit too quick, on average half a second too quick. The feature race was to be run during the night but that didn’t bother me as I know the Nordschleife like the back of my hand, with the reverse grid start I had to make it through the field and create as much of a gap to the sprint winner as I knew they were fast. I wasted no time and carved through the field, helped by some drivers going a little wide on some corners on the Nordschleife, all to my benefit though. I drove hard and fast and chased down the current leader who actually had a good pace, I took the lead with about twenty minutes to go but on the last lap the sprint race winner was hot on my heels and got past me, in my exuberance to try and take back the win I overdrove spun and lost second, now in third I had my teammate behind me in fourth, as he was going to get full points and my half, I stopped at the line and let him take third as to maximise the points for the team.

Quickly after the Team Tourer we had to travel again as I needed to be at Brands Hatch bright and early Monday morning for my ARDS test, the test that you need to pass to get your racing license. So on a cold winter morning, I was at the track and ready to go. Firstly I had to pass the written exam, no problems there, almost got tripped up by the flags as they are always waved in real life were as you just get a stationary one in the Sim. Then came the driving part of the test, which I was more nervous about as I haven’t really had much track time. So out I go in the BMW M4 and it was a blast, the first time going through the compression between turns one and two is insane, the only thing close would be taking off in an aeroplane, it is really difficult to stop your head bobbing down in the compression. Two laps in though and I had found my feet and was picking up confidence. On my first assessed lap and I nearly overshot turn one and said “oh shit” in the braking zone which made my instructor laugh a little, I held onto it and still made the apex so this was good, the rest of the assessment went off smoothly and I was back in the pits all too soon. So it is official I am now allowed to go racing!!!

The rest of the week was much more chilled out as I got to spend time with my son as he was on half-term holiday, we just played computer games and watched some movies, it was nice to relax and recharge for a few days.

see you all next week from Vegas :)