@noryia: Yeah, that's the difficult part. It seems the best would be a weeknight in the same time slot as our other races (9:45EST to be specific), or before Formula Duder at 7:45EST (race would end at about 8:25 so people could go do their extra practice). Actually, that pre-FD slot would probably get some good attendance at that time.

@mouse: The 6:30 PM (PDT) time slot might work for me.

Interesting post about the fuel mapping on the DW12...

DW12 Throttle Mapping Comparison

Demystifying Map 1, 6, and 7

@noryia: Acer desktop something. I'm not really a computer science guy and despite how much I'm on the computer, I don't really know all that much about it. I'd say it's about 7-8 years old and the graphics card is at least 3 years old.

I just ran my first GT3 public race, as well as my first race at Sebring. Went well for the first 20 minutes or so, until I forgot how to take the final turn and plowed into the wall nose-first at about 100mph. Completely totaled the car. I also happened to be the slowest car on track before that so the only people I was ahead of had crashed out, but it's kinda what I expected. I'm pretty sure I ended up in the top split because even with a 1600 iRating I was ranked 19th out of 22. It was definitely fun for the first 20 minutes, so I'll take that.

Also ran a couple public races earlier this week in the SRF and Skippy, with my only goal to protect the car and run within my limits. Both races went pretty well. Definitely a confidence booster. I don't know if it was just me driving more conservatively, or the tire model changes in the update, but I felt a lot more grip in the rear wheels in the Skippy than before. It'll still spin, but I managed to keep it incident-free for 25 laps at Lime Rock.

@c0braje7: Seeing that reminds me: What ever happened to Charlie?

@iron1c: I thought about that too, he was a good guy to have around. Maybe we can invite him back by making some nice comments on his YouTube videos.

@mouse: Yeah, ok.

WHO'S EXCITED FOR TALLADEGA?!

@iron1c: Oooh! Me! I'm excited! TALLADEGA, LET'S GO AWAY, LET'S GO AWAY! TALLADEGA USA!!!!!!!!!!

Congrats to Iron1c on the win! That's two in a row now. Boom, confetti.

@slowbird He won because I allowed it. HERE'S WHAT HAPPENS NEXT TIME:

Yes, I uploaded that for this post. I'm sure it will be useful in the future. Also, it's fitting that Russ has a yellow/blue car, like me. :D

@mouse: I'll be honest, I didn't expect it to end as smoothly as it did :D

EDIT: I also like the description on YouTube.

should be able to make it tonight, but unfortunately wont be able to make it to the enduro tomorrow, which sucks because thats the one i had actually put in some practice already for lol.

EDIT: just did a few laps. never done this layout in an open wheeler before, never realized how insane the transitions were before :O

Oh is tomorrow a longer one?

@thesupernatural: 75min, double points.

Exciting stuff!

I just finished my first IndyCar road race and I'm not sure whether I'm just bad at the car or bad at Mid Ohio, but that was a tough race. I doubt I'll start outside of the pits in those races given my experiences in iRacing (I can't drive with cars behind me - either they hit me or I outbrake myself) and the fact that these cars have some very impressive brakes. I managed to spin it 4 times in 36 laps, which I guess is what I should expect. Still ended with a gain in SR due to the fact that it was 38 total laps, which I think is a bit long for my tastes but I'll probably end up doing one a week anyway

@thesupernatural: You should race the MX-5, it's a great car to learn in. It'll teach some discipline in the "smooth is fast" department since overdriving that car will hurt you. There's the new "Advanced MX-5 Cup" this season with all premium tracks and 25 minute races. I recommend it, you'll have some great racing in that series! (I'll be racing that this season)

ya, MX5 is a really good place to learn to be smooth, and also to hone racecraft, as the grids are big and youll always typically have somone to race with. the skip is good to learn how to balance the car as well (its pretty much required to be able to balance the car with the throttle at all times to go even slowly in the skip without spinning out), the mustang and solstice are good for re-inforcing late apexing and "slow in, fast out" which may be beneficial in some GT cars (solstice is a good rookie car to start with too, actually was THE rookie car when i started).

i would recommend picking one car (something without tons of mechanical grip... i.e. the cars mentioned above), and just focusing on just that single car for an entire season instead of jumping from car to car. spending a lot of time in a single car has a lot of benefits in that it will help you learn the smaller nuances of that car, which will help you become smoother in that car, which will feed back into better driving habits. jumping from car to car may end up with a more choppy and aggressive driving style as (for example) the approach to a high downforce indy car is very different from how you approach a GT car, or touring car and jumping back and forth may allow bad habits to transfer back and forth without you realizing.

I never really enjoyed the MX5, even when I was a rookie. It's tough to pick a single series or maybe two to run in. I was really interested in running the IndyCar road series but after today's race I might have to rethink it. Once school picks up in month I doubt I'll have time to do more than one series, so I'll have to pick by then. I suppose right now I'm just trying to decide which one I want to run.

@thesupernatural: the new mx-5 is a champion, although its still obviously very slow. If your problem with it was insane spins that shouldnt have happened that is basically gone in the new build.

@thesupernatural: The MX-5 (and Solstice) really are the best cars to learn some racecraft. They're the rookie cars for a reason. It wasn't immediately clear to me either, but after driving them for a fair amount (just like Davy the Solstice was still the Rookie car when I had my first account) it became apparent why Rookies get thrown into those cars. Man, our MX-5 season last time really was fun and tought me so much about self discipline and racing.

On a different note, we talked about it very shortly during yesterday's post-race discussion, but since there were only 6 people there:

No FDX race this August. @khann and @slowbird have some neat things planned for both break weeks we have this month, so look forward to that! DW12 action will return in September though and we will make up for the fact that we miss a race this month. And then some ;)

Bad news, everyone! The evil Camaro has scored two consecutive wins, and increased Chevrolet's lead in the standings! Can you believe that nonsense? Only a few brave souls can save us from this terrible fate by joining Team Mustang!

Better watch out WWE, after this race Team Slowpoke is only 10 points back!

Well, I'm really sorry to @neemer for ruining your race. You were doing really well up to that point. Otherwise, it seemed like there was a lot of close racing up front and all through the pack! Sebring is a pretty great track.

@slowbird: There must've been a curse on the lead position, because everyone who was first spun at least once while leading.

@slowbird said:

Bad news, everyone! The evil Camaro has scored two consecutive wins, and increased Chevrolet's lead in the standings! Can you believe that nonsense? Only a few brave souls can save us from this terrible fate by joining Team Mustang!

Well... I had to buy a new car because the Impala was made obsolete, so I went with the Mustang. I could switch to that in Bombcar, but would it be ethical? Maybe a bribe would help make me forget my morality a bit...

@maxx77: Never forget which manufacturer got you a win.

you could always make those points up in formula duder :p (still work in progress)

I think the fact that it was the club circuit helped a lot. Really bumpy in that first half but I really easy track once you get going. I was never a fan of Sebring until I bought the track last week. Between the GT3 public race and today's Formula Duder race, I've got to say it's definitely more enjoyable than some of the others I've bought (looking at you, Mid-Ohio). Tomorrow night's race at Watkins Glen should be a blast, just hopefully not a blast into the wall

@maxx77 said:

HOW COULD YOU EVEN THINK THAT? BETRAYING YOUR CHEVY FAMILY. AGH!

:D

I had a fun time in Sebring; pushed pretty hard early on to prevent Seb from catching me, but when he spun I went into safe-mode and accepted a cool 4th. I'm so happy we get to run Richmond next weekend!

To finalize the week of racing 5 different series (SRF, Skippy, Star Mazda, GT3, and IndyCar Road), I raced the Star Mazda at Spa. I elected to start in the pits, along with two other drivers. Those two ended up finishing 2nd and 3rd. Lap 1 was absolute carnage out there, as you can see from the pic below. I passed a couple cars in the opening laps, although I suffered some minor rear wheel damage lap 4 after getting bumped from behind coming out of the chicane. Still managed to drive it home to a 6th place finish, which I am definitely pleased with.

^ Why I started in the pits

@thesupernatural: Eau Rouge does not mess around lap 1. I was doing Spa practices (even though I'm at D license, not sure if you guys knew you could do public practice a license up) to get used to the new build and you cannot take that flat out on the first lap like im sure these guys did.

Actually the pole sitter (the upside down black and red car on the left), after botching turn 1, was going particularly slow, braking before the turn, and ended up colliding with another car, creating a chain reaction. I think they could have used a bit more patience, but the pole sitter continued to complain for a couple laps afterwards. Kinda sad. I think half the field didn't make it past the first 5 laps.

GBGT practice is now live! Hope to see you all there :D

That race was crazy.

Bleh, my internet has been dead all weekend. Was really looking forward to all of this weekends races, too. Hope you guys had fun.

@khann: that was really unfortunate timing, you missed out on a double points race :(

Next week should be pretty good too, though! BOMBCAR at Phoenix (looks like we're going with the new version), then our first ever Richmond race in Formula Duder, and GBGT goes to Phillip Island!

@khann: I think Neemer was the only driver out of ten of us that failed to spin at some point. Pretty crazy race

@thesupernatural: Yeah, it was definitely fun but spin crazy.

I made some bad setup choices at the last minute. I shouldn't have changed my setup at the last minute and add more wing back. I had the stability that I wanted but I didn't have any top speed unless I was in the draft. Stupid mistakes with pit speeds and a late spin / wreck kept me a few laps down. I felt like I had a pretty clean race up until then.

On a different note not league related note. Blipshift is having their 24 shirt sale. If interested go here.

@noryia: I noticed, at least in the RUF, that my lap times were mostly decided by how well I took turn 1. I tended to gain .3 or .4 in the straights and then lost it in the turns because the RUF doesn't do high speed cornering or trail braking reliably. I went slow in/fast out on every single corner besides the flat out esses

@thesupernatural:

Yeah, I know I was struggling with Turn 1 but got into a grove for the last 1/2 of the race on Sunday.

@thesupernatural said:

I'm not sure about that; RUF is just as good as the other GT3 cars since the new build. Turn 1 is definitely make or break for your lap, but the RUF can handle it. I found that my braking point was most important there; too early and I'd hit the apex wrong (and have a wide exit), and too late would cause me to have a slow exit since I'm not able to accelerate through the apex. Hitting the curb just right is important as well.

No doubt the RUF is awesome now; I had plenty of pace to take podiums in the last two races but just made too many mistakes.

Oh, and someone upload the results to danlisa already. I need to see how bad my 8th was to my standings. :P

@mouse: I'll do that now. My bad! (e: sorted. Man, missing that double points GBGT race really killed my championship hopes. Didn't help with FD either.)

Also, trail-braking in the RUF can be really helpful. (I actually thought it was better in rear-engine cars, but it seems I'm wrong about that)

I made a short highlight video, mostly for @khann so he can see what he missed. But why not share it with you guys?

Things I'm aware of:

• No music during non-race scenes. I can't upload videos with music from Germany without having to clear the licenses. Yes, even "free" tracks. It's dumb and I couldn't be arsed to do it for this.
• All of the used fonts are extremely offensive to the eye.
• The championship standings pages are the worst. Hard to read, not accurate and man, screenshots from spreadsheets? Jesus.
• The TV cameras at Sebring are horrible.
• Not everything's in there. I tried to focus on championship or race deciding incidents. (So, when someone from either the race or championship top 3 had issues)
• I ran out of time and motivation somewhere during the editing of the GT race.

Like I said, I'm aware of those things and at first it wasn't meant for the public, but I thought some of you might be interested ;)

Man, looks like there was some pretty great racing :D Shame I missed it :( That was quite a battle for the lead in FD.

The Sebring TV cameras are offensively bad. I've created a TV4 camera set using the editor for several tracks, but that's normally just for fun. It looks necessary at Sebring in order to have quality TV cameras

You can get good camera angles here.

@slowbird said:

Bad news, everyone! The evil Camaro has scored two consecutive wins, and increased Chevrolet's lead in the standings! Can you believe that nonsense? Only a few brave souls can save us from this terrible fate by joining Team Mustang!

Hm. Guess I'll show up this week, then.

@Trace: I'd like to Apply for some racing with duders! I'm filling in the form now.