My Sim Racing attempt : 2020/2021 Edition...

[Lions]

I feel bad saying this but I generally get bored by this stuff, but I agree! This was very cool!

No shame in being honest. I find there's a lot of stuff I have no interest in watching that other people love.

Fun to see your progress, Reg!

[Reg]

Fun to see your progress, Reg!

I realize it's not everyone's cup of tea, but I'm glad to hear you guys are having fun following along on this little journey.


Today was Round 5 of the schedule, and this was going to be the most bonkers round of all.

Situated (fictionally) on the sandy coast of Jamaica, this would be on the small, tight, fast, dusty Fern Bay track.

The track is barely 2 miles long, and somehow 38 big, fat GT cars are crammed onto it.

Oh, and turn 1 is what has been dubbed .. the "death chicane" by most drivers .. a narrow, fast left/right flick.
.... I mean, look at this thing!
This is turn ONE! As you can imagine , 38 of us hurling into there at once, tons of drivers ate tire bundle sandwiches all day long.... including a few ending up on their lid.




The event itself

Given the chaotic, infuriating nature of the track, a lot of drivers stayed away this round, so qualifying for the race was basically a formality.

We did, however, get our full field of 38 cars. I qualified in 28th place , so I was pleased with that!

I won't spoil the race if you want to watch it (link below), but I will tell you that it was wild ... full of cars flipping over, accidents galore, great racing, unpredictable pit strategy, lots of caution periods, blown tires... and one exhausted PEBA'er , who is now old enough to have gotten leg cramps from sim racing for 3 hours

But it was a hell of a lot of fun!

You can watch the race here , by clicking on this link.

Skip to 35:45 (here) , if you want to go straight to the start of the race


Here is the starting grid for this round :

[Reg]

This race was by far my best ever in this NDR GT2 competition.

My best result up to this point had been 23rd place.

But today I nailed the timing of my pit stops perfectly, drove as cleanly as I could, tried to stay away from accidents and trouble (despite being pushed off on Lap 1, hence the slightly battered bodywork during the broadcast), and I brought it home in 12th place!!! .... and beat my team-mate for once!

Final results are here

[Denny]

This race was by far my best ever in this NDR GT2 competition.

My best result up to this point had been 23rd place.

But today I nailed the timing of my pit stops perfectly, drove as cleanly as I could, tried to stay away from accidents and trouble (despite being pushed off on Lap 1, hence the slightly battered bodywork during the broadcast), and I brought it home in 12th place!!! .... and beat my team-mate for once!

Final results are here

I watched probably half of the race, jumping ahead here and there when I got weary of yet another safety car being out on the track....very exciting!

My observations:
-EIGHT safety cars during the race! Could people be more reckless? Does lag play a role in the crashes?
-I enjoyed the irony of someone smashing into the safety car when already under yellow
-That Picanco fellow running fifth for much of the early going had such a pretty car; I was sad when he had to drop out.
-Unfortunate luck for Dennis Lind; I was hoping he could make a dramatic comeback at the end but it was not to be thanks to all the yellows.
-Exciting at one point seeing you and your teammate running side by side! And great job keeping mostly out of trouble on such a narrow track and getting a good result.
-On the game itself, maybe I am showing my age, thinking of more primitive graphics of days gone by....but it is still so amazing to me to see a completely imaginary track rendered in such a realistic fashion. It was absolutely beautiful, particularly the rusting truss bridge.
-At the same time, I found it odd that oftentimes the announcers did not know what had happened on some part of the track, and apparently have no facility for replaying a bit of the action, to show major incidents and so forth.

I can't say I will be a regular viewer, but this one was quite fun to watch!

[Lions]

I ended up watching the race yesterday while working. It was good background noise and I was quite surprised to find that I enjoyed the broadcast enough to watch the whole thing. I really only planned on watching a bit here and there, and I did tune it out during stretches like some of the safety cars, but overall it was reasonably compelling. The announcers did a good job and I would glance over whenever I heard Reg or Meade called out. I think I would really like participating, but I don't think I have the time or interest in investing in the hardware needed.

Some questions for you, Reg:

• Do you still use the same wheels/pedal combo posted earlier?
• How are the liveries created for the cars?
• How different are the cars themselves? Is the difference between the front and the back of the grid primarily due to driver skill, or do you invest in your car to improve it and make it more competitive?

[Reg]

I watched probably half of the race, jumping ahead here and there when I got weary of yet another safety car being out on the track....very exciting!

My observations:
[...]

I can't say I will be a regular viewer, but this one was quite fun to watch!

Glad you had fun watching, Denny!
I was really happy to see Dennis Lind get a good result. The guy has had tough breaks all season, but he has been mega fast.

I agree with you, Picanco's car is gorgeous. One of my faves too! The teal (is that the right color?) really pops.

Honestly, the main reason for all the safety cars is the choice of layout by the organizers. Fern Bay already has that awkward chicane in turn one, which they tried to artificially tighten with cones and tires .. but the layout they chose was extremely short and ill-suited for our big cars... not to mention narrow, dusty, and with really tall and unforgiving concrete curbs. Hopefully in upcoming seasons, they can at least select a longer layout (which Fern Bay has). It doesn't fix the other issues, but at least we wouldn't be driving directly on top of each other the whole time

The channel that broadcasts this is still relatively small (less than 200 subscribers on youtube), but they did mention after this race that they were working on coding and implementing a replay system in the future ... I agree that it would help the commentators a LOT if they could do that!

[Reg]

I'm really happy you enjoyed that, Frank! Even though we weren't able to behave any better than we did.... haha

Some questions for you, Reg:

• Do you still use the same wheels/pedal combo posted earlier?
• How are the liveries created for the cars?
• How different are the cars themselves? Is the difference between the front and the back of the grid primarily due to driver skill, or do you invest in your car to improve it and make it more competitive?

- Re: Wheel - I do still run the same wheel, actually. A pretty unremarkable and uncomplicated Logitech Driving Force GT wheel. I'd love to have a Logitech G27 or G29 one day, but i'm still too cheap

- Re: Liveries - The livery is just a .jpg/.bmp file with a template with some required elements for a particular series (numberplate, series logos etc). Some teams have a "livery guy" that's really good with photoshop or something ... but I know there are a couple guys in most series that, if someone asks for something, can cook something pretty nice up. A bit like here in PEBA with logos, really! If there is a vision, someone can make it work. I actually attached the raw image file for my car livery, to show you what it looks like

- Re: Cars and performance gap - There are 3 cars in our series, and they each have their own characteristics.

***** the FXR is 4WD/Front Engined/Turbo : it's considered the slowest, but the most beginner-friendly as it's the most stable to drive. Hard to make it "front of the grid" fast because it's hard to loosen up the rear end of the car .. the all-wheel-drive makes it chronically hard on front tires. Some guys (like Verzinskas, Weber, and the whole Gum Garage team in our series), have gone all-in and embraced what we call "The Bus" , and gotten relatively fast with it!
***** the XRR is RWD/Front Engined/Turbo : that's what we use ... it's the most powerful, but very clumsy in slow corners. It can very much feel like an untamed beast. With enough hours to kill, you can add finesse and get this car to be fast almost anywhere, but by nature it's a handful. Because it's so wild, it's real easy to burn up rear tires.
***** the FZR is RWD/Rear Engined/non-Turbo : It's the opposite of the XRR ... a bit less speed, but more nimble and more responsive (no turbo lag). It's also possible to be very fast if you have the right setup. You sacrifice a bit more outright speed, but this car is usually easier on tires overall, so in longer events (1 hr+), it can be really appealing. It's an EXTREMELY popular car for endurance races.

So, depending on what suits you, there's different cars to fit different folks.
I'm going to say, generally speaking, there isn't TOO much of a difference between the cars. (Of course, some drivers are newer and will be off the pace regardless)

In our series, we run 'open' car setups , so once you get a feel for the track and can get, say, 3-4-5 seconds from the fastest time (there is a 24-hour practice server available), then you start working away at car setups and getting that perfect one for you to chip away at the last second or two. That's really where the difference lies. The more you can refine your car setup to be fast and suit how you drive, the faster you'll be!

Most big teams keep a library of setups for different car/track combos so they start each event with a bit of a leg up .... small-to-mid range teams (like us) have 'some' setups accumulated over time, then it's a matter of refining it to fit that track. That's a skill I've acquired racing this series ..... 'frankensteining' elements of setups from different tracks to create a new setup for a new track. Example: my setup for Rockingham had Kyoto suspension (but mirrored, as it was anti-clockwise rather than clockwise), the gearing from South City, with steering geometry/wings of a setup from Blackwood..... and it got me into the race!

If there's a will, there's a way .. LOL

[Lions]

That looks like a FaceGen uniform file but for a car.

[Borealis]

That looks like a FaceGen uniform file but for a car.

That's exactly what I thought... I wonder what we'd get if we slapped that in as a uni...

[Reg]

The final round, Round 6 at Aston, was last Sunday.

Generally speaking, the event was pretty much a bummer.

Thanks to being busy at work, I put very little practice for this round ... but managed to qualify for the race with the skin of my teeth.

Here is the starting grid for the last round, with yours truly on the 17th row.



In the race, which you can watch here, I basically became non-existent, and finished in a lowly 34th.

Still, the race itself was a nailbiter! Check it out

[KenH]

That looks like a FaceGen uniform file but for a car.

That's exactly what I thought... I wonder what we'd get if we slapped that in as a uni...

Streets would love to sponsor a powder blue, pinstriped car.

[Reg]

We have one race left this weekend .... just in time to then re-focus on baseball

After a long season, we will now run a 6-hour endurance race, the "6 Hours of Westhill" , this coming Sunday April 4th!

Of course, the race will be broadcast LIVE on Simbroadcasts.TV 's Twitch channel!
The broadcast starts at 10:30am Eastern Time on Easter Sunday... and the race itself runs from 11am-5pm!

Unlike the rest of the season, drivers will now team up to drive one single team car for the whole 6 hour distance!
This is my favorite style of sim racing. I've done 3, 6, 12, 16 .. and even once a 24-hour endurance race online and it's fun as hell!

My buddy Jared and I (Angry Angus Racing) decided to team up with an old Czech friend of ours, Martin Kapal (SAVAGE SimSports), to create a one-off "SAVAGE Angus Racing" entry
As usual, we will run car #98

Streets would love to sponsor a powder blue, pinstriped car.

Funny you say that...
Despite the choice of colors, we got a call from Mr. Streets himself. He said he had some extra money to spend this coming weekend.
.... notice anything ?

[KenH]

THIS IS SO COOL!!!! I'm totally writing about this!

[Reg]

The event is now LIVE!

We start the race in second place!!

[Borealis]

Go, GO Speed Reg, Go, GO!!