VLN Championship Series

ShadniX

Core
The next VLN race is coming up this weekend. The time of day for this race is "Afternoon".

@Jes_971: Do you have time for the 14:00 GMT race on Saturday again?
 

ShadniX

Core
The last VLN race weekend is over for me, ending the season with three solo runs in a row.

Today was definitely the most interesting race traffic wise. As usual I didn't put in a qualifying time, which might have been a mistake this time around. For once, the bottom split was filled with three classes, so qualifying might have put me in a higher split - or at least on a good starting position.
I started from P23 in a field of 27 GT3s. I had to take sudden evasive maneuvers coming out of turn 2, when a spun car decided to come back on the track at a 90° angle. Unfortunately, I spun my car in doing so, and slotted back into the field behind the Mazda starting grid and the pit starters.
Somehow, I managed to get through the traffic in front of me unscathed and managed to drive back into top 10. I started to loose concentration in the last hour, having a big "oopsie" coming out of Pflanzgarten which I could fix using the fast repair. Had another small issue by missing a braking point at the end of Döttinger Höhe, but the car was ok-ish. I finished the race on 7th place.

Looking back, my personal best race was probably the one two weeks ago. That was a GT3/Porsche split. Started from P18 of 32. Although I got killed on lap 2 in Aremberg by someone who lost it over Schwedenkreuz, I was able to drive the whole 4 hours without major issues and finished 7th place.

The best race overall was definitely the 6 hour race with Jes, which we finished 6th.

Overall, I took part in six races and finished 13th, 6th, 24th, 18th, 7th and 7th in class. With one exception, all races ended running on track. Considering these were my first excursions into endurance races, I'm pretty happy with the overall result.

And the many hours on the Ring probably helped a lot in the last league race, too.
 

Deb

Moderator
Looks like there is going to be an unofficial VLN Championship League over the winter. Received an email with this link.

http://members.iracing.com/jforum/posts/list/3577184.page#10761572

I think Bedo and I are going to do this. Not sure what car yet, may even try the Kia or Mazda just for grins. Does anyone else have an interest? Probably could use 1 or 2 more drivers just to make sure we have enough on the team to cover all of the races since there is only one drop race.
 

Deb

Moderator
I have to miss the first one too, flying back that Saturday. Was hoping they would do the 24th instead of the 17th, oh, well :( Hope to do the rest though. Not sure if it will be the AMG or Ferrari, will determine after today's BOP.
 

ShadniX

Core
I'll drive the Merc again this season and will do the first race this weekend. I'm open for a second driver if someone wants to jump in with me, otherwise I'll run it solo.
 

ShadniX

Core
First VLN race of this season done - time to give this write-up thing a try.

As last year, VLN splits are determined by qualification time. My qualy time this time around was actually kind of decent, putting me in 4th split of 6. Quite a change from the bottom split I found myself usually in. My split had a three class field, consisting of 19 GT3s, 16 Porsches and 13 Mazdas.

I started the race from 12th position. The leader decided to break check the entire field before the green, twice, which lead to a few 4x contacts in the field before the green.



Also, the Porsche field decided to not leave a gap, which made the slow break check start rather interesting.


Suddenly Porsches in the middle of the GT3 field

Overall, the start wasn't too bad and I got through unscathed. After things settled down a bit, I ended up being part of a three car group which was running pretty close together for the first stint...


Symbolic picture for my first fuel stint...

I got in front of the group at the last time over Döttinger Höhe just before the first pit stop and got out a couple of seconds in front of them in 6th place. I managed to get some distance between us, leaving me with a quiet second hour. At the end of the second stint, I pitted while being in 3rd position. I had to take a bathroom break during the second pit stop, which lost me ~15 seconds, but at least got rid of some optional repairs (no idea where I picked those up, probably curb damage). Apparently, I still need to work on my real life pit stop.

I got out of the pits in 5th place, having the same two cars from the first stint around 10 seconds in front of me again. I slowly cought up to them and we eventually got one more position on track, giving the group positions 2-4. Then lap 21 happened...



Contact...





The second place was mine, served on a silver platter. The remaining 1,5 stints were rather uneventful and I was able to finish in 2nd place, 20 seconds behind the leader and 37 seconds in front of third place.


*wheeeeeeeeeeeeeee*

Minor curb damage aside, I finished with a clean car, the fast repair still available. This is my best VLN result so far by far and I'm really happy with it. Big thanks to @SavreticD for sharing a setup for this race. It felt really good.

On a side note, the Sebring 12h really helped me in terms of learning to overtake slower cars. As far as I'm aware, I haven't killed any Mazdas or Porsches. I was much more confident overtaking slower classes - and hopefully did most passes fast and on none stupid locations - for the most part, anyway...


Overtaking at 190kph... this is fiiiiiiiiiiiiine....

Still open for a second driver, especially for the six hour race in August.
 
Hehe np, anytime :)
I can see you are happy, nice,I like that,I'm happy for you :)
Volker and I did 2nd race, it splited this time.P2 for me and P3 for Volker just Volker did his pass for P3 the last lap in 2nd Carousel and then needed to defend on straight, he did it :)
 

Nejtun

Moderator
Nice write up Hans and great result! Congrats :)
Not even going to ask how you go the photographer to stand in the places he did to get those shots, looks kinda dangerous..
 

Deb

Moderator
Congrats!!!!!!!!!!!!! Sounds like a great race and great write up! Hopefully I'll get to do the second one.
 

Skid_Marc_

Staff member
Admin
That is so awesome @ShadniX!! Were those two teammates? They look like they have similar cars, but maybe that is a coincidence. Nice write up and pictures, too!
 

ShadniX

Core
Congrats @SavreticD for 2nd place in your race.

(...)Not even going to ask how you go the photographer to stand in the places he did to get those shots, looks kinda dangerous..
Uuuuuuuhmmm.... "No photographers were harmed during the making of these pictures." :p

(...) Were those two teammates? They look like they have similar cars, but maybe that is a coincidence. (...)
They actually were - 1aB Racing. It wasn't even a hard hit - car #555 just slightly understeered at the wrong moment in this corner, giving the #11 car a very slight tap at the side which was enough to unsettle both cars and send them flying.
 

Deb

Moderator
So do you get iRating for VLN now? And split and grid position are both determined by qualifying time? Last year there were a lot of folks that didn't put down qualifying times.
 

Deb

Moderator
:mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:

We did VLN today. We started in 11th. Bedo had us in first after three laps and by the end of his second stint, we were in the lead by 1:15 minutes. I got in the car for the third stint. After my sixth lap we were leading by 1:30 minutes. Then, I don’t know if it was iRacing or my computer, I come through the pit straight to finish my sixth lap, the computer freezes, can’t escape, can’t do anything, just keeps reverberating in the same position, picture totally frozen. Finally, I ctrl alt del our of iracing completely, reload, but now we’re in 12th place. Then on my second lap, it stutters again, not as bad, but I go into the fence. Game over, we finished 15th :(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:( Worse iRacing day of my life!
 

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