iRacing, won my first top split race!

[Kenadian]

Hey guys, I think practice really helped me today because I had my best race to date since joining iRacing.

Qualified in the high 1:03's at Okayama Short which was good enough for a position of second on the grid in the top split. Took it easy and just concentrated on driving cleanly and held back a bit in my trouble spots.

I was in a comfortable second gaining time from the 3rd place car so I had a good comfortable margin to not worry about traffic. The car in front of me was just faster so I didn't even try to keep up as I think he averaged close to a second/lap faster than me.

He lost it in "Wappy Corner" coming onto the straight and put it in the wall which gave me first with about a second over the field. I just kept on keeping it clean and opened up a 2 second gap at one point.

Just decided to lay back a bit and continue racing clean which saw the second place guy close to within a second but he lost it a bit in the reverse hair pins (I'm guessing) which gave me over two seconds back.

The best part is that it was a completely incident free warm up and race and I broke my best time with a 1:03:787 :icon_eek:

Anyway, it has everything to do with practice today so thanks for that guys!

 

[Shilka]

I guess the Swahili spotter pack made all the difference eh?!?

Well done buddy, good racing!

 

[Kenadian]

omg I haven't laughed that hard in a long time, Swahili Spotter Pack, rofl :icon_lol:

I wasn't kidding about tears streaming down my face on that one. I could barely even see what I was doing for the better part of a lap.

Maybe that's the key, not actually watching where I'm going.

...

Incidentally, in this race I didn't look into my mirrors that often. In fact, I think I looked at relative times more than anything so I'm wondering if that had something to do with it?

I'm going to try disabling the giant rear view mirror for the next few weeks and only use the cars real rear view mirror if I need to look behind me. Maybe this will help me concentrate on facing forward and keeping the laps clean.

 

[Shilka]

Might very well help, I noticed that I drive much cleaner during races because instead of looking at the section times and +/- time thingy in the top I look way better at the road itself, and am able to hit the apexes much better as a result.

Looking forward to lime rock as I practiced the hell out of it but never got to race it. Will have to adapt to the pesky invisible chicane after thgat hill, but I guess practice will help there...

 

[Kenadian]

I actually practiced Lime Rock Chicane last night and it's not too bad actually. You lose a few seconds off your time but that's not too bad.

The tough part is breaking into the hill prior to the chicane but if you take a narrow entry and go wide through the hill (treating it as a corner), it naturally spits you out into the chicane. You just have to manage your speed well because it's an immediate left on a car that that isn't completely settled yet.

Miss it and you shoot straight across the road into the tire wall at relatively high speed.

I managed a high 1:03 last night in a test session.

 

[Wotan]

Congrats Duke! The Wappy corner gave me 2nd place twice in my last races on Okayama Short. Once the leader went in, once the guy in front of me.

 

[Wotan]

Yesterday I did my first testing of Spa in the Skippy, so far I'm as slow as usual but the track is fantastic . Thursday evening I would be up for some Lime Rock practice in the Mazda, if anyone is interested.

 

[Shilka]

I might be there thursday, can't promise anything, but I'll try my best