The iRacing 24 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps! August 1st!

iRacing 24 Hours of Spa - August 1st 2015!

With the addition of driver swaps and endurance rules, this year will see the first ever 24 hours of Spa on iRacing!

Members of the GB iRacing.com sub-forum have been doing the weekly endurance races almost regularly since the feature was introduced (these races last for 3h) and recently took part in the 6 Hours of Watkins Glen, the longest race we have attended so far. This saturday will see the first virtual 24h race at Spa, one week after the real race. And we are going to try and do this!

Most of you will know the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps as the host of the Belgian F1 Grand Prix, but it's also a great track for all other kinds of racing! This race will be a multi-class race. That means: Four different types GT3 cars will compete against each other in the same class, but at the same time there will also be a field of LMP2 cars on the track racing each other - with the maximum field size being 60 cars! Yes, that is as insane as it sounds!

After having driven it in the 6h of Watkins Glen, the GB Racing Team's car of choice will be the HPD ARX-01c. Roughly 480bhp strong and only weighing 1819 lb, the HPD is a high-downforce, fast and exciting car. But it is also quite fragile as some incidents in the 6h of Watkins showed, a slight touch of the curb can already damage your suspension. Nonetheless, with this car/class being the fastet on track we will be racing a lot of GT traffic which should make things quite interesting!

The race will start on saturday at 1300 GMT (check your local time here!) and drivers in the team will take turns driving the car, changing the driver in the car during pit-stops. To overcome the issue of timezones, our team features the finest selection of international drivers, from every coast in the US, to Europe and even New Zealand! We hope the car survives to the end and we don't crash horribly on the opening lap - that would be a bummer. The main goal for our team is just to survive and make the whole 24 hours - if we can actually compete for a good finish that's a bonus!

Summary

Starting Time: August 1st, 1300 GMT (convert time here!)

Cars: LMP2 Class: HPD ARX-01c (the one we're driving!)

GT3 Class: BMW Z4 GT3, Ford GT GT3, RUF RT 12R Track, McLaren MP4-12C GT3

Length: 24 Hours!

Setup

Get it here! (Updated 29.07.2015. European date format is the proper format!)

Current Target Laptimes

As of Wednesday, your current target laptime should be between 2:06:xxx and 2:08:xxx.

As of Friday, laptimes in traffic should be anywhere from 2:07:xxx to 2:10:xxx depening on number of cars.

Driver Times

Put in your times over here!

Stream

Stream at: http://www.twitch.tv/pseg (for the whole 24 hours! whoo!)

To the GB iRacing people: Please quickly confirm you are participating in this. Setup and lap times can (and should!) be discussed freely here, we will also make a spreadsheet of the times when each driver is available to race. Will update this post with that information later. See you on track!

Keeeeeen.

I'll make myself available for the full 24, but once we've worked out who is racing when, I'll find a time to have a nap.

that seems wise

sign me up for some america hours

I'm afraid to commit to this since I haven't had my wheel set up for a month or so now, but this seems like as good an opportunity as any to dust it off and see if I remember how to drive.

I'll likely be available from around 10 pm GMT or 8 am my time (AEST, someone tell me if I've messed up timezones here) right through to the end to do stints as needed, but I'll need to block out some of that time for eating and stuff.

Any group practices planned ahead of the event?

@sebw: If you're too afraid to commit to it you can still just join Mumble and hang out! If you want to race, there's no group practice planned and we're going to handle it like the endurance races we did recently: We agree on a setup (in a reasonable timeframe before the actual race, but usually shorter than optimal) and discuss laptimes here or on Twitter. Strategy is usually done on the fly, because let's face it: Something will throw us off anyway. There's some special quirks with the HPD (fuel being calculated in weight; in-car settings) that I'll discuss in the opening post later this week. We don't enforce a strict requirement on laptimes, but in the endurance races we're usually within 1.5 secs of each other - since the HPD is high-downforce (making it super easy to lose loads of time) and Spa is quite long, I'd say being within 2 secs of each other should be our goal for this, but Rule #1 is: BE SAFE! DON'T CRASH! The current situation is that there's not going to be a single fast repair, so destroying the car would be a huge bummer.

Also, this is of course for everyone, you don't have to do multiple stints or anything, it's totally fine if you just want to do one! The fuel load of the HPD should last somewhere between 50-70 minutes so you can just do one stint and still claim contribution to all of this! :D

The setup we used for Watkins was actually a Spa setup. That thing was pretty stable and easy to drive.

Just gave it a go and yeah, it's good. Eau-rouge and Blanchimont easily flat. Low speed is a little iffy (especially the final chicane) but if you're smooth with the throttle it's not a big deal. I just did a few test laps and was pretty comfortably doing 2:06s with race fuel, so I guess that's a reasonable time to aim for.

Here is that setup. You may want to move the brake bias a click to the rear, I was locking my fronts a little.

You guys are just crazy.

I'm still not sure I'll be able to race, I'm changing rooms around and don't have the racing rig fully setup right now, but I'll try to get it together.

I made some changes to the mumble channel per @iron1c 's suggestion. There is now a Racing channel for those on the track and a Paddock channel for everything else.

I've yet to even purchase the HPD, so I'll go ahead and do that relatively soon so I can drive a few stints.

I have constructed an elaborate chart describing my approximate hours of potential availability!

hope you guys have better weather than the actual blancpain race had last weekend

@slowbird: Such a chart is a great idea and I shamelessly copied it - there is now a Google Doc Spreadsheet linked in the first post where you can put in your times - I've added a 4th colour for being available "on call", basically meaning you're in the house/around but not at the computer, ready to jump in if there's an emergency. Who knows what could happen during 24h, all of this planning could fall apart horribly when someone suffers a real-life mechanical issue :D Connection issues, broken wheels/pedals, other stuff...happened before!

Edit: Also updated the original post with the setup!

Man, I would love to be in on this but I'll be away all day on the 1st. Bummer! Maybe I could be around for the last 4 hours of the race...

I was going to put myself on the calendar but let me make sure I can get to the target times first as I'm usually super slow with the HPD.

Added my times. Looks like I'll be good for an early stint and ready to hold down the late night (EST) with Slowbird.

Couple of things:

1. When Khann said 2:06s were "a reasonable time to aim for" he forgot that he's one of the fastest people here. I put in a bunch of laps and almost did a 2:06 until I messed up the last sector; my best lap was a 2:07 flat. I wouldn't worry too much about speed, even 2:08s are probably fine.

2. What IS important, however, is not crashing the darn thing. I had it get SUPER loose a few times in Blanchemont or whatever the fuck that turn is called, and also in Eau Rouge. I wouldn't mind an extra click of downforce or whatever, but it's up to you guys.

3. The GT cars are SUPER in the fucking way all around the track. We have no chance of trying to pass them cleanly unless we are extremely careful around them. If you catch one at the wrong spot, you might even have to use the runoff area to avoid them.

4. The saving grace here is that there should be no incident limit for this race (even if it says there's a 17x limit, the game is lying) so feel free to use that runoff wherever you want! Just be careful because some of the curbs will spin you into the wall.

5. The last chicane is impossible to take with any sort of aggression. Just brake super fucking early, unless there's a car behind you. If that's the case, let him past and brake SUPER FUCKING EARLY. Don't get on the power in the middle of it either.

6. Tire fall-off is huge. I was noticing it after just a handful of laps.

Nah, when I said 2:06s were something to aim for, I just meant somewhere in that ballpark (meaning.. not doing 2:15s). My best was only a 2:06.6 or something. 2:08s is absolutely fine, that's probably about where we'll all be lapping.

I agree that a little more rear wing wouldn't hurt. Might slow us down a touch, but stability is nice for a race that long. Won't help with the low speed instability though. Maybe soften the rear suspension/ARB a bit to give a little more grip? Will try that at some point, because yeah, it's a little dodgy if you're heavy on the throttle.

All of these changes would introduce understeer though, which means more front tyre wear. I haven't done enough laps to get a feel for tyre wear, but if it's as bad as you say, then everyone is gonna be dealing with it, so we'll just have to take it as easy as we can.

GT cars are definitely a thing. Care will be needed. Going slow for a few corners is better than destroying the car though.

@khann: Didn't mean to call you out there, heh. Just didn't want anyone to get discouraged if they couldn't do 2:06s in their practice runs. I think I could do it if I tried long enough, but it's so easy to get an off-track at Spa.

I do worry about adding more understeer, but it probably beats ending up in the fence. I'm not 100% sure what to do on the setup stuff. Low-speed turns will probably be alright once we settle into a race pace instead of pushing for laptimes.

The first practice run I did, I was keeping the speed up as I went, but mostly because I started out so slow. Once I did my second run, I had more confidence in the car and was much faster the first few laps, then started to fall off.

Alright, got a 2:08.5 so I put my times in the sheet, I'll probably stay up for the start to make sure we get through the first few laps, then go sleep.

I'll spend a while practising for consistency and safety, especially around those GT cars (pro tip: no passing at all at eau rouge, even if they back off and seem to be off line, I learned this the hard way)

I just did a few laps to see if I would be in the ball-park as I haven't driven the HPD for a while.

I can run 2:06's quite comfortably in default weather (I think I dipped into them on the second lap) but you guys should be extremely weary of front tyre wear, because the set is so understeery (is that a word?) Perhaps it might be worth it to dial out some of the mid-corner understeer. Of course in an endurance race it will always be a compromise, but I think too much understeer will lead to a lot of tyre problems later in the stint. Adding a click of wing won't hurt though, although the set felt very stable to me in all scenario's.

Maybe some good data after running 14 laps in traffic:

It seems like the fronts are wearing at twice the rate of the rears. At the end of the stint we'd be looking at roughly 60% fronts, 80% rears. It might be worth it to reduce the camber on the fronts a bit to see what happens?

This sounds absolutely awesome and a great initiative. I cant join in becouse im gonna be partially drunk this weekend and even though i can put down good lap times now and then im not the reliable driver you would want. Give me a couple of good laps and i would push it over the edge on the subsequent laps and destroy your entire endurance urn.

Purchased the car and a few laps. Managed a clean 2:07.5. Setup felt good but a bit more downforce would be alright for this race. Going to practice tomorrow night and I'll get faster and consistent.

I'll whip up a simple paint too if I have time.

Yeah, after doing a practice session with 60 cars and constantly dodging 1-3 GT3 cars per lap....2:08-2:10s are totall fine with the traffic you get. Be safe is priority number one! Don't throw away all this preperation in turn 1 of a 24h race :D

Looks like you guys have plenty of duders so I'm just going to tune in and drop into mumble from time-to-time since I haven't raced consistently in months so I wouldn't want to ruin the show.

Has anyone qualified yet? I think there's a few sessions left. I guess if we all did laps, the fastest one would count, probably? (I think you have to be registered before the start of the session for your qualifying lap to count though)

I'm gonna jump in and try to do a few laps I guess...we're using the proper "Giant Bomb" team I assume?

Yeah I think we should use the main Giant Bomb team.

Also I think we're gonna run the setup as-is. Tried some changes and they didn't really help in a huge way, but they did kill laptimes a bit. Just be careful on the throttle out of slow corners and don't be too wild on direction changes.

I have my alarm set, so I'll be there about a half hour before the session opens. I think my iRating is still the highest so I'll register the team and hopefully it gets us in a decent split. I'll be there for the first 3-4 hours and can do a stint.

Kind of sad way to end this whole thing but I had a real great time. Thanks for putting this on, sorry to be the one in the car when it flipped, but it was a lost cause at that point (though maybe the beer in the interlude between the engine blowup and replacement was not the best idea...)

I'll probably be up for the petit le mans, we can give it one last crack...

Good effort, everyone! Sad to see you retire when you were dominating in P1 around 10 hours in, but it was a spectacular exit!

What happened?

@borklund: The team was leading their split, 3rd of 6, for a good portion of the first half of the race. There was one major incident, not sure at what hour that moved them down into 2nd and the car had lost some pace. Then with less than 9 hours to go, a few minutes after I took this screenshot from the stream actually, there was another accident. That one required about 30 minutes in repairs and the engine wasn't the same after that. The team continued to run it at a very slow pace but in 5th or 6th overall still until the engine finally gave out and they had to retire. I can't get the stats from the race yet, seems the iRacing website might still be processing them.

I had a great time following along and hope to get my stuff together to get back to GT3 racing and more of these events. Congrats for the good showing to the racers, @khann@slowbird@iron1c@mouse@sebw and to @Trace for broadcasting the whole thing.

I had a great time too; fun times hanging out with everyone. We showed what we could do but it just wasn't to be this time. It's a couple months until Petit Le Mans, so we'll be ready. Plus we'll have the Nurburgring 24 after that!

With all the updates coming to iRacing, and two massive tracks, next year's endurance schedule is going to be so amazing. We have an awesome team and are going to kick ass. :D

Obviously I wasn't around for the drama because I was off...doing something else, BUT! Man, those first 8-10 hours were so much goddamn fun, intense and an experience that I'll remember for some time. The potential we showed was bigger than I would've anticipated and one day we'll carry one of those results across the finish line!

Yep, that was an awesome time. Lots of highs, lots of lows, some flipping and a bunch of smoke.

Thanks to everyone who raced and chatted with us throughout, and a big thanks to @Trace for the stream :D

Next time I'll try not to crash and smash up the car ;_;

Man, did all of this race take place in glorious sunshine? 'cos that's not the Spa I know and love.

@shindig: Yeah, an unfortunate limitation of iRacing :(