Be Excellent To Each Other

There was no oval action going on this afternoon, so I decided to give the all-new 2016 Mazda MX-5 a go around Okayama Short. Qualified 7th and finished 3rd with no incident points despite some desperately crash-happy rookies being involved. It's such a fun car to drive!

One week left to go in 2016 Season 2 and I'm looking pretty well placed in most of my series:

SK Modified - 1st/142
Tour Modified - 2nd/60
Super Late Model - 2nd/68
Late Model - 3rd/232
Street Stock C - 3rd/200
National - 4th/326
Class C Fixed - 56th/555

I will be specialising a lot more next season, dropping both Modifieds and the Street Stock. I want to concentrate on the Class C trucks and National series, with a view to moving up to the Class B Xfinity cars the season after. I will still probably do the odd LM and SLM races though as I love them.

And as much as I love oval racing, next season will also feature turning right! Not only will I be taking part in the VLN Endurance Championship series in the new Global Mazda MX-5 (4-6 hours around the combined Nordschleife and GP-Strecke course at the Nürburgring), but I'll also be taking part in the Cadillac Cup, which are 25 min races in the Cadillac CTS-V Racecar around a variety of courses including Spa, Watkins Glen, Donington and Laguna Seca.

So yeah, had a bit of spare time today. So I ran the NASCAR iRacing Series Coca-Cola 600, which mirrors the real-life race that is happening tomorrow. NiS is the premier NASCAR series on the service using the Sprint Cup cars. 400 laps around Charlotte Motor Speedway - it took 3 hours and 50 mins. I finished 3rd out of 31 cars! And technically I was the 'worst' driver in my split (according to iRating) - I had car #31!

I'm absolutely delighted. I wasn't particularly fast, but stayed out of all the wrecks and just got my head down and put consistent laps in. And I gained enough safety rating to fast track my B Class oval licence.

You can relive all the action here if you like https://www.twitch.tv/themindsweeper/v/69127602

So... I'm taking part in rounds 1 and 2 of the inaugural Pitlanes Euro V8 Supercars series at Barber Motorsports Park. A car I'm terrible in at a track I've not raced before, so I'll just be happy to get round and finish each race.

It's being broadcast here on Saturday evening:

Decided to sack it off as I hadn't managed any practice at all. Good job I did as I won my split in the NASCAR iRacing Series race @ Bristol Speedway instead.

Game looks fab

Watch me trundle around at the back here at 7:30pm.



I'm not even joking, I'm going to be shit!

That is weird to watch... Has a commentator, they even did a live interview with the winner of the first race via teamspeak.

You overtook someone dude, well done!

I finished 16th out of 17 in the 30 min sprint race. Was 11th at one point but I dived into the pits as almost out of fuel but then the white flag came out which lost me a few positions. Still, didn't totally embarrass myself.

Now it's the 60 min feature race!

It's going to be funny watching it back later.

Well the feature race didn't go so well. I made a good start but lost the back end on lap 2 and took someone else out with me. Limped back to the pits and needed 3.5 mins of damage repair. This put me about two laps down and the rest of my race was managing tyres and letting faster cars lap me.

Still, my fastest lap using this car/track combo went from 2:02 down to 1:54, so I definitely made some progress! And enjoyed it which was the main thing. Two hour endurance race at Mosport in a fortnight's time.

Stop making things I didn't even know I wanted to race.

Damn, that thing couldn't turn right even if it wanted to

In fact, on dirt you have to turn right to go left.

Every five year old knows that.

I compete in a Sunday evening NASCAR trucks series which has some of the very best oval drivers from the UK and Europe in it. Last season I finished 5th in the championship, but due to a quirk of the scoring system, I didn't actually get any top 5 finishes. I had a pretty decent result on Sunday. You should be able to spot me in my distinctive #62 Colman's Mustard Toyota Tundra at around the 20-min mark. The video is from the point of view of the chap who runs the series.

Been roped into the World Cup of iRacing Enduro Cup this weekend. A 24-hour race around Le Mans in the GT1 class cars. There's seven of us in my team running the Chevrolet Corvette C6.R, so I'll have to do 2-3 double stints, which are about 1.5 hours each. And we're going to get destroyed by Finland anyway.

I've just seen the rota and I'm running the 2nd and 4th stints (roughly starting at 13:30 and 16:30 BST), and am on standby for the 1st and 3rd should there be any problems with our starting driver. RaceSpotTV is broadcasting the first 6 hours, so you might get to see me commentated on! Let's hope I don't stack it at Mulsanne or something...

Race starts at midday tomorrow.

Sorry I'm washing my hair.

Administrative cock-up meant that our drivers were registered to the wrong teams, so I've been practicing with the Corvette for two weeks but have now had to drive the Aston Martin.

Despite all our drivers now racing the wrong car we're not doing too badly considering. Corvette is in 7th and the Aston is in 12th out of 16 teams. 7.5 hours down, 16.5 to go!

I'm going to go for a nap as my next stint is at midnight.

And my race is done. Three double stints, 76 laps, five and a quarter hours, 3 spins and no damage! Best lap time 3:59.2.

Will see where we are in the morning.

Last hour! Corvette is in 4th chasing Canada in 3rd, eight seconds a lap faster, but needs to be double that to catch them I reckon.

Our Aston tangled with what must have been a drunk driver or someone who had let their toddler have a go, because they were driving at 60km/h and weaving all over the road. Blown engine again! Luckily Asia also blew their engine so became a race to see who could swap their engine quickest. Looks like we're going to hold onto P11.

We finished 4th and 11th. Not bad considering we were all driving the wrong cars!

Good work. Who won?

Wait. How many teams where there?

16. DEATCH (Germany, Austria, Switzerland) won, Northwest A (USA) 2nd, and Canada A 3rd.

I don't work this hard at my job.

Nor do I. I was on call for work as well this weekend!

iRacing World Cup Intimidator East Qualifying race being broadcast very shortly (psst I'm in it):

Is it you in the 26 car?

Yes

Well, that wasn't personallly good for me, but we had a strong team finish and I still got 100-odd points for qualifying in the top split. We should be in the final next Friday. Just need to find out if I'll be picked now...

Qualified for the final in first place with 1529 points (I scored 149). DEATCH join us in 2nd with 1217.

West qualifier is tonight.

Lol

You're certainly getting your money's worth at least.

I try not to look at my Steam stats. I don't play an awful lot of games, but I do tend to get hooked on stuff.

How much has that cost per hour?

I had to update my spreadsheet!

£1.35 per hour of track time if you don't include the PC or Oculus Rift. ~£5 if you do.

£5.42 per hour to be precise.

£1,624.93 in hardware
£58.37 in membership subs
£31.50 in car licencing
£453.67 in track licencing

£2,168.47 in total since 13th July 2012.

You haven't just played iRacing with the rift though, have you?

~250 hours in iRacing with the Rift - it was definitely my primary use case. I've dabbled with some other things but nothing of any substance except perhaps Lucky's Tale. I've been waiting for the touch controllers.

In other news, images have been released of the new dirt models. Hopefully these will be put into place for 2017 S1! I can't wait to drive the Late Model!


Street Stock


Winged Sprint Car


Late Model

After playing it with the Rift, do you ever play it now without? Or is it so much of a game changer (god, I hate that phrase, but it's at least appropriate here)?

Oh god no. It is a total game changer. It might be different had I gone from triples to VR, but I doubt it.

Once it loaded up on my monitor instead of the Rift as I'd accidentally unplugged it, and it looked so flat and wrong (title). Like controlling someone driving a car as you watch through a window, rather than 'being' in the car.

Oh yeah, the World Cup Intimidator Finals is on tomorrow night, 11pm. http://www.iracing.com/live. UK and I, DEATCH, Northwest and Carolina all submit ten drivers each. I'm hoping to be picked for it.

Very good value, i think.

Hobbies are subjective, I am sure I have spent more on sports kit etc. As long as you like it and enjoy it, it is good value.

Well a things worth whatever people will pay for it. But £450 on tracks, Jesus! Is that mostly just ovals as well?

No, I've got quite a number of road courses too: Spa, Le Mans, Nürburgring (GP and Nords), Silverstone, Bathurst, Suzuka, Laguna Seca, Monza etc. I've been racing GT3 and V8 Supercars on and off this season. I know they're expensive, but they're all laser-scanned in great detail by a small team.

There's also a great UK&I club community and I race every Sunday nights with some of the the best oval racers in the country - getting involved in the World Cup has helped getting my name known and improved my driving too.

Saying that I've just had to shell out another £68 for subs. Last year I paid £33 as they had 50% off in the Black Friday sale. Just 25% off this year, plus the £ tanking.

Well I just got the pole and win in the practice race we've just done so fingers crossed that'll secure me a place in the team for tonight!

Will be going live at 11pm at http://www.iracing.com/live

I qualified 11th and finished 9th, on the lead lap! More importantly we finished with five in the top ten and looking at the provisional results it looks like we won overall.

I went over the line backwards.