@slowbird: That was pretty nerve-wracking.. but a nice bit of excitement to end the race. Still pretty hilarious that he got DQed at the very end of the race.

Purchased Zolder, so I'll learn it this week and probably do a sprint race before the weekend. I'm definitely in for the Sunday race, and Saturday is slightly possible if I'm home and not busy (it'll be like that all season).

Made a Zolder setup. It's very close to baseline (which feels fine), but with some changes to make the chicanes/curbs a bit more easy to handle. Go ahead and make any changes if you want. I might post an updated one later too.

It's a pretty fun track, a lot like Montreal I think. Only 42 pit stalls, so that's the max we'll see in one race (~100 teams again and it'll split into 3).

Also, don't be surprised if the car's got a different paint again. :P I'm open to any ideas too; I like painting these virtual cars.

@mouse: Be sure to put even the older paints up as showroom paints on tradingpaints. People really seem to like the other GB ones I did. I used giantbomb.com as the sponsor. More GB on the track!

@mouse: I really like the colour scheme of the current paint... so my request is that you keep that :D

Made another: Zolder Setup 2. Let me know if this one sucks as much as the first. To me it doesn't understeer as much. I don't know.

As for paints, I'll stick with the colors we have, but switch up the designs a bit. ;)

The setup is good for sprint weather, but if the endurance practice is accurate, the weather is gonna be way different for that race so it will have to be tuned for that. Much less grip, and understeers a good bit.

That's a shame :( I really like how the setup feels with the sprint weather. Hopefully we can tune it to be somewhat similar for the endurance races.

@mouse: Setup was good for me in the sprint race. I just didn't do well by it. I did a 1:29.3 in qualifying. Seems like not many people have this track as there was only 16 people in my race last night.

I've never paid attention to weather in iRacing, so I never adjusted a setup for that. No need to make any big changes I think (suspension/shock changes would make the car feel too different). Slight changes to ARB/differential/tire pressure should help if the weather is causing a bit of understeer. I'll experiment tonight too, and we'll have a plan for the weekend.

Speaking of this weekend; I'm actually not able to race on Sunday, but I'll make time on Saturday. Are most of you planning on doing both races again?

I'll be doing both.

I'm gonna try to do both races again, unless I sleep too much.

FYI, if you want to try the endurance weather, you can find a practice session for it by hovering over the little icons:

@slowbird: As long as you have the series selected in the "Race Now" tab, "Test Car on Track" will load with the series' set weather. (nicer to test setups without others on track).

I don't know if there's much that can be done about the setup. The track has way less grip, and that'll hurt everyone. I made a few adjustments that seemed to work a little, but.. meh.

@mouse: Yeah, hopefully I can get used to the lack of grip and everyone else will be slowed down by it as much as I am, lol.

Just did a sprint race, started in the pits (literally last, I let the other two pit-starters pass me) and drove from 30th up to 11th by the end. Just barely stayed on the lead lap. Caught 10th place on the last lap but couldn't get quite get close enough. And 9th place had some kind of spin and barely got across the line before we caught him. Race pace was in the 1:30s, pretty sure I could have done some 1:29s if I had clear track and less mistakes when the tires were still good. Car squirms around on old tires but that's normal.

Best part was, I only had a single incident point and it was from 2 wheels barely in the grass while pushing super-hard on the last lap :D

I'll be there for both races, but I dunno how much practice I get in before Saturday. Going on an 8h train ride RIGHT NOW, tablet loaded with iRacing Zolder videos and shit to prepare my myself mentally.

Second half of the Silverstone 6hr is on when we race the Sunday race, which is a bit of a bummer. Ah well, you guys will have to keep me up-to-date while I'm driving :D

@slowbird said:

I just did a sprint race and had a freakishly similar result. Started from the pits (26th), fought up to 11th and just barely had 10th at the end. I was on him, but the leader had caught me too and I did the "right thing" and let him through. Had another chance on the last lap but didn't manage. Had only a single incident as well, and my clean-air laps were in the 1:30s. :D

That was actually my first ever GT3 Sprint race; since I'd heard it was a crash fest I stayed away until now.

@mouse:

:D

(It probably would be a crash-fest if we started on the grid...those chicanes...oy)

@slowbird: @mouse: I've done 3 sprint races now. One was super clean (had a couple of good battles) and I got crashed out of the other two. From what I could tell though, I was one of only a few that had any issues with crashes... seemed generally clean otherwise. I started mid-pack for one race and at the back of the grid for the other two.

It's a really fun track. It can be fairly easy to get an off-track on exit of a few corners when you're pushing hard, but it's not too bad. Pretty much nowhere on the track to rest either, which is a bit of a pain.

So, I'm not having much fun on this track, struggling to get high 1:31s, crashing a lot and my internet keeps dropping out while racing. With that in mind, I can't see myself being motivated to get up tomorrow morning at 5 am for this week (can't do the second one at all.) Good luck guys!

Sorry to hear that Seb... but if you're not feeling confident/motivated, that's understandable. See you at the next one :D

Bad news, my video card is crashing again. Doesn't seem like it was overheating at the time, so I might be unable to race because I can't predict when it will crash on me. It was less than 20 minutes into a practice session when it happened.

@slowbird: Uh oh :(

I won't be able to make the Saturday race but I'll be at the Sunday race. Send me a twitter message if you need the 2nd team. I didn't get to add anyone else as admin on GBeast yet.

If there's enough drivers on Sunday: Anyone want to make the 2nd car a BMW this week?

Seems I always end with you guys in the same lobby. I was all alone in the team today, but that didn't seem to hurt much ^^

Quali was horrible from my part, 21st.. but after a lot of crashing in sprint series lately my goal was to take it easy and just regain safety rating.. finished 3rd. :D

Sorry about kind of dive bombing you guys btw.. scary part is i didn't plan on doing that. Was letting off the throttle to let you guys take the corner, but did it too late so I just ended up braking later than I was supposed to instead. But I guess you are alert when I'm around these days...

Looked like you guys had a pretty good race as well. That finish at 100 laps was confusing as hell.. I kept going until 3 hours even though they waved the flag.

@phouchg: Great result man. Your pass on us was fine :D You seemed to be faster anyway.

We had a bit of a run-in with 3rd place which meant we had to do a quick run through the pits for repairs (luckily we still had a fast repair). We may have been a little closer to you without that, but ah well.

Yeah the 100 laps thing is super dumb. I did one or two extra laps after the flag just to be sure, but didn't do the full 3 hours haha.

Alright, Computer-Crashing Team Slowbird is ready to race tomorrow! I've acclimated myself to the BMW. It seems fast, I'll give it that. It's a bit too easy to spin the tires exiting the slow corners, though.

I think it will be me, @iron1c and if someone else wants to jump in and race with little to no expectations or pressure, we'd be happy to have you! We might do great or we might finish 99 laps down.

@slowbird: Bad tyre spin even with the TC cranked?

Computer-Crashing Team BMW Quali Setup: LINK!

Computer-Crashing Team BMW Race Setup: LINK!

@khann: yep! High TC helps a bit, but still easy to lose it.

@iron1c: got it!

This weekend was fun! I'm so much better in the BMW though. Our race went way better than I could've ever hoped for! Great job @slowbird, especially the recovery after those close calls :D Could've ended way different!

That was a lot cleaner race than I expected. No computer problems, nobody took us out, and we did consistent laptimes the whole race! I'm starting to actually like Zolder.

@slowbird: Yep, this is my first week racing at Zolder and I really like it. I'm a bit messy as far as off-tracks go, but it's a really fun track when you get into a bit of a rhythm.

Great result for you guys.. especially since you were considering yourselves the "no expectations" team :D

Look at these chums here on the first page of points! (I'm on the next page, with one less race in the books)

I have the highest incident points of the top 15 :( Look at dat Mouse though. Clean as a mother fucker.

@slowbird: Managed to catch me as well in that screen ;) I got the lowest safety rating... embarassing.

Hahaha, 5x and A 4.99. I don't know if I should be proud of that, or start being more aggressive.

Great result by SlowB and Iro; awesome guys! I was wondering how Team GB's race went? I saw you guys were just outside the top 10 then fell back.

@mouse: I think that's something to be proud of, considering your pace has been solid in every race as well :D

@khann: It is a bit surprising though, considering @mouse's love for the "chrome horn" :P

@phouchg it's not all bad, at least you're not a C or D license :D

Also the Ford feels SOOOOOOOOOOOOO good to drive! Why does it have to be so hard to make it go fast? I don't wanna drive the other cars, they're so not cool...

@mouse: I took over the driving. :( I was slow and got also got hit around like a ping pong ball a bit. I did a shorter stint to hand back over to Khann so he could try to salvage a result.

@slowbird: Yeah I've had a real bad week with crashers in the sprint-series though so might be in C-class soon. ^^ Really impressed by you guys with round 5.0 in A-class. Talk about skills in staying out of trouble.. something I really need to work on. (You might have noticed..).

Second month of iRacing though so hopefully it'll come ;)

Another race this weekend and another track I have never raced at, Road America. Hope to see you guys again in one of the races. :)

@phouchg: Yeah, you'll be fine. Experience definitely helps :D

I've done a decent amount of laps at Road America; most of them learning the track since I just purchased it. I found a setup on the iRacing forum that works well, modified it a tiny bit: Road America McLaren Setup. It actually feels really nice; could work out as a nice baseline for future tracks. I'm currently doing 2:08s (Endurance series weather), but I'm still figuring out a few turns so I can go faster.

I just got done with some testing as well. Managed a 2:05.0 (2:04.5 opt) on the sprint weather with race fuel... not sure how different the weather is to endurance.

Fiddled with a setup a bit. Started with the Zolder setup and modified it quite a bit. Turns really nice, could maybe take out a click of rear wing (though the stability through the kink is nice). Let me know what you think @mouse. I'll give your setup a go as well.

Setup is here

This track is pretty fun, but surprisingly tricky. I think I'll need to get a good amount of practise in here, or this'll be an incident heavy race for me again. Really easy to get an off-track exiting a few of the corners.

Based on last week, I've decided not to worry about endurance weather until at least Friday. It somehow changed so much between early practice sessions and later ones :D

I've done a bunch of laps now too, definitely enjoying this track a lot more than Zolder, but all the long straights mean it's so easy to lose a bunch of time if you mess up the corner before them. I'm able to consistently get 2:06.7s (2:05.4 optimal) on sprint weather with race fuel and Khann's setup (with ABS 8 TC 2), so still a fair bit of practice to go. @mouse Your setup seems less stable than Khann's, especially after about 10 laps or so, but that may be a small tweak.

Also, I found the source of my Internet trouble, router had some ram issue so I threw it in the bin and got a shiny new one, all good now :D

Word on the iRacing forums is that higher wing doesn't have a huge effect on straight line speed... so if adding a click or two (5 seems to be the maximum recommended) rear wing helps plant the car a bit more, that might be worth a try. Could upset the balance a bit though.

Also, put the ABS at 12 (off) for a laugh. These cars are really rough without ABS :D I put it at 12 thinking it was maxed and was wondering what the fuck was going on.

Yay for internet troubles being fixed @sebw :D