Yup, looking forward to some DW12 action as well - I just hope the field will be big enough to support 100 laps of excitement.

For COTA....ugh. Need to get a good result in FD to stay competitive, but GBGT will be all about damage control.

2 hour practice for FDX is up and running RIGHT NOW, come join us!

EDIT: Aaaand the race session is live!

Holy shit. Attendance was good enough for this day and it was insanely fun. Those cars are fast and close racing is nerve wrecking. Then I died.

So congratulations to @mouse for winning our first FDX race, I'll be handing out bonus points tomorrow. Seb will get a bonus point for the pole position, Mouse, Khann, Seb, Trace and Me will get one for leading at least a lap and I will get 2 bonus points for leading the most laps. Also the leader before the competition caution at Lap 50 and Lap 80 will get 2 bonus points.

That was great fun. Racing close in those cars is nuts.

The end of that race was nuts as well.

Yep, DW12 confirmed fun on ovals! Maybe Formula Duder will someday be a weird series where we use the DW12 for ovals and the Star Mazda for road courses! (just kidding)

In other news, I really need to stop making stupid mistakes that wreck other people's race :(

I'd like to thank my sponsor, The United States of Amerca, for giving me a fast hot-rod today. It was a fun race, and I'm excited to race it at other tracks once it gets the "short oval" wings.

#USA #USA #USA !

Is the FD race overlapping with the NASCAR race tomorrow night?

Wow that race sounds like it was amazing. That gives me a lot of hope for the future of this car. Big grats Mouse. Did anyone happen to save the replay or make a video by chance?

@thesupernatural: Yes, it is. That's why I'll do a few mins of open practice and then just show up right when quali starts again.

EDIT:

So, here's yesterdays bonus points:

Hey guys I'm in California again this weekend so I'll be taking my second drop. Next week I also have a hockey tournament on Saturday but I don't know when it ends so if I get home in time I'll race. After that I think I'm good for the rest of the FD season.

@maxx77: http://www.twitch.tv/bifflog2/b/544581403

I am back from vacation but tired from travelling so I am probably skipping the race today. Might be back for tomorrow's race but we'll see.

@bifflog: Man, those last 20min look insanely cool from the specator cams.

@noryia: we'll just pretend you're recovering from a bad crash and will soon triumphantly return like Niki Lauda :P

@slowbird: I am pretty sure I have a ruptured ear drum so there is that... Basically the same thing right?

Formula Duder qualifying starts in 15 min. Practise running now.

@iron1c was ineligible for fastest lap at the last Formula Duder race! Why, you might ask. Well, he somehow found a way to complete 19 laps around Circuit of the Americas without letting a single one be incident free. Some call it risky, I call it style! Although I can't be one to talk, with a mere 7 clean laps.

@thesupernatural: Didn't realise it at the time, but apparently I only did 2 clean laps. Wow. Not great.

I still hold the FD "Most Incidents" crown. Ain't nobody got nothin' on me.

@noryia: Yep, totally.

Well, even though the track was difficult, I enjoyed the challenge of keeping it on the tarmac. Maybe next time I won't be so scared on the start!

Starts at CoTA are terrifying haha. Especially in an open wheeler. You're almost sure to get a little nudge at the top of the hill in the GT cars no matter where you are on the grid!

HUGE points haul for Team Monster Energy with @c0braje7 getting his first Top-5 finish of the season! Was expecting to be annihilated by @khann and @slowbird because I had done a handful of laps in the Star Mazda at Road America and that was it for this week. Hadn't ran the West configuration in anything, but figured out that middle strip of the course about halfway through the race, and the rest I knew from the SM visiting the full course earlier in the iRacing season. I was using my setup from the Full config, like I said before the race I would have gladly shared it if it weren't an extremely difficult setup to run. Should have joined the practice session there, the setup was fast but very hard to be consistent. I was lucky to have the practice on the setup at CoTA Full and already know how the car would handle, but was still caught out by a snappy rear end more than once haha. Had to feed her lots of partial throttle into corners to keep the rear end from rotating too much.

Okayama is going to be a blast. It's a tough track because it's deceivingly quick. It will lull you into overdriving the car very easily. Getting the slow switchbacks right is crucial to your lap times, and that's 99% driver there!

-Travis

@bifflog: I'm glad you streamed that, it was nice to watch. Sucks you had the worst luck possible though; when you said your tire was mangled I didn't imagine THAT! It seemed like the game tried to repair it, but not all of it. Might be worth reporting that to iRacing, seems like a really messed up bug.

I had a good time in Formula Duder. I often enjoy races much more without practice. No pressure to get a good result; just drive and see what happens!

EDIT: @Trace I enjoyed the focus on the jumps at the end. :D One of these days I'll go through races from last season and do a montage of cars flying through the air.

@mouse: There's a fine line between too much practice and not enough :D at least for me.

@travis_mihm: I was running pretty good but got caught out at turn one with a spin. I had a fast line through it but it was always on the edge and it got the better of me. Good race all and I hope I can make the GT race today!

There's not much to say about my race. Except that I fucked up.

Now today really has to be about damage control.

I noticed a lot of people staying way to the right of the track for T1, and then cutting the car hard at the top of the hill. There is a hump on the right side of the track that will unload the car as you brake for the corner. This almost always sends the tail-end out (Especially in the Star Mazda) and makes it very hard to get the car turned in and put the power down without looping it. The way I took that corner was to start on the right side of the track, but start the braking zone just before the white line towards the top of the hill, and then angle the car just a bit to the right of the inside curbing. Didn't want to hit the curbing, just be next to it. The hill was more gradual there and the car could be controlled much easier under braking which allowed for a bit more rotation mid corner without the risk of looping it. The only downside was that it's a little harder to keep the inside wheel from spinning coming out of T1 using the middle-line approach even if you do it right. But get used to that for Okayama haha.

@thesupernatural: You owe me exactly one cookie :D

-Travis

Let me start by apologizing to @slowbird for making contact while I was being lapped. I was trying to stay out of your way to let you get by as quickly as possible. I feel horrible about making contact with you. Looking at my replay, it appears you made through relatively unscathed. I hope that is the case.

t was a bit of a frustrating week for me. From trying to learn the course to finding a setup that I was comfortable with. I found I either had a car that understeered badly to one that oversteered too easily. I think I'm going to be spending more time trying to learn how to adjust the setup the Star Mazda. Hopefully, next race I won't end up looking like this:

At least the Circuit of The Americas taught me how to fly in the Star Mazda...

EDITED: Fixed youtube embedding.

@slowbird said:

You need to practice learning tracks faster. :P

@mouse: I'm pretty good at learning ovals fast, but road courses are another story :P

@boatman_: No worries man! Accidents happen.

@travis_mihm:

A chocolate chip for every clean lap!

@thesupernatural: that's a tasty looking biscuit

Qualifying for GBGT starts in 35 min. Practise is running now.

If everyone pit twice I could have been 3rd with some luck (most likely fighting Slowbird for 4th). I did a little math before the race too, after Khann said it'd be a two stopper, but clearly I messed up my calculations as well. My plan would have worked! Instead it ended my chances before the race began. :D FUUUUUUREGUIHRGUIQEHRGIU34HT8934T3GBPRUEBHVREIBPGREDGERGREGERGECCCKKKK

I had a surprisingly drama-free race! I didn't hit anyone and only had one small half-spin. I'll take it!

Congrats to the podium finishers and big hugs of sympathy to those who had misfortune.

I think today's race finally sold me on the RUF. I couldn't stand it at Summit Point and had technical difficulties at Lime Rock, but the car was lovely to drive today. 7th place wasn't a great finish, although I was conserving fuel and planning for a single stop (as I think most of us were). I wasn't worried about position until the later half. I only had 3 or 4 spins, none of which took me into the wall, so I consider it a success!

Well, I had 2 semi-spins and a slow pit in/out-lap (not sure which, but I had traffic on one) but this race totally went way better than expected after looking at the practice results and made up for yesterday's race.

Congratulations to @c0braje7! Once again it seems like@khann got the worst of it.

Sorry about the confusion with fuel :( Let this be a lesson to never trust my fuel strategies.

Another terrible race for me, though the result didn't end up too bad. Glad to be done with COTA. Entirely my own doing @iron1c. For whatever reason, the brake bias I was using without issue in practise made my car feel absolutely terrible in the race. Guess it was just the difference in the way I was driving.

The schedule is going to have a couple of slight adjustments, but until that is finalised, all you need to know is:

GBGT NEXT WEEK IS 75 MIN OF SEBRING AT NIGHT, NOT WATKINS GLEN.

Watkins Glen will be moved to later in the season.

WHAT?!?!?! Oh my God, sold. I'll be there in a Black Adder RUF haha.

I effing LOVE Sebring, and I LOVE endurance!!!

-Travis

Right there with you on being excited for that race :D

Time to start practicing Sebring. Looking forward to it. I had some small spins and I recovered well. I did oversteer into one of the walls which ended my chances for a 7th place finish as I felt like I was starting to catch TheSupernatural. Felt really consistent in the beginning of the race but not so much in the last few laps.

I know that most everyone hates that track but it flows well for me and it worked out tonight. I really enjoy the fuel and tire strategy in GBGT. Good job everyone for making it through a tough track! The sweeping right with a HUNDRED apex's is ridiculous no matter how many laps you do at that track.

Yup, super excited for Sebring, possibly the most excited from all of the races we're doing. Actually, most definitely the most excited. Road Atlanta is equally as good, but we've already done that multiple times.

Won't be able to practice before the actual session though (SOOO much stuff to do this week!), so I guess it'll be about damage control again. Which worked out pretty good at COTA.

I shouldn't attend BOMBCAR this week since I have to take an exam 5 hours later - which would probably mean like 3.5-4 hours of sleep. But we will see :D

@khann and/or @slowbird would you guys be so kind as to post an updated calendar here. The one I have printed (from before the season began), the one on iRacing and the one on danlisa are all different now.

Just make a chart here with all dates (even off-weeks) to clear up any confusion as to what we're racing and when. I still don't fully understand why Watkins and Sebring got swapped/whatever happened.

While I can't help you with the calendar, I can explain this:

The BMW has a ridiculous straight line speed advantage (it shouldn't have), if you do your setup that way. While this was no problem at something like Daytona, since you still had to do the infield and would be totally fucked, it is a problem at Watkins Classic - that track is pretty much all straights. Because it's definitely a thing that shouldn't be this way, the hope is that the build will fix this issue, so Watkins got postponed until the new build is live. I think the reason for swapping it with Sebring was that Watkins was supposed to be a 75min race, so it got swapped with the other 75min race so we would still have one of those next week. And that race was Sebring.

@mouse Sorry for the confusion. Here are the updated schedules. I'll update the scheduled league sessions to reflect this. I can't speak for BOMBCAR because there are a couple of different things going on there.

Formula Duder

GBGT

@iron1c: Makes sense. STUPID BMW! :D I guess the Ford GT3 will be amazing until it gets "fixed" for S4. I'll probably switch to that and put "Vapid" manufacturer logos on it; the Bullet was always my favorite GTA car. :P

@khann: Thanks man!

Okay everyone, I've got good news and bad news! The bad news is, I'm bad at making schedules. The good news is, for those who are going to Gamescom (I hear rumors of at least two of you), the BOMBCAR schedule now features a break that week, so you won't miss a race in the Chase! And for those not going to Gamescom, we'll do something else fun and crazy in that timeslot.

Also available in table form: