It was a private session with the Black Adder Motorsport teammates. So, won't say much today, but will leave you with some images. I still need too get a livery, but I will wait till I get a spotter color finalised. Till then I will continue to run the Wild Dogs Racing livery.
After the last couple of private tests at Okayama, I had not touched the BMW Z4 GT3, since I wanted to concentrate on iGTC and races within that. Somethings came up however (more sometime else) which has made me now concentrate on this car again.
Ran a few session with the my teammates at Black Adder Motorsport, Richard Brazier, Gianluca Belardinelli and Paul Rogers . You helped a lot, not only when you were in car guiding me, but even when you were just discussing among yourselves about corners that you had problems with. Initially I did not face the same problems, because I was too slow to face it. As I got quicker, the problems that were being discussed, became relevant to me too.
L-R : Richard, Gian and myself.
We jumped a couple of Open Practice sessions before each of us headed our ways for the night. Mine went like this:
That was my impression till I watched a part of the race with John King (in the Kia) and I took the CTSV out on the track. I spun a few times and gave up, since our team session in the mustang was starting.
Just a few hours ago, I decided to tame this thing that I could not keep pointed in the right direction for the life of me for a few laps in a stretch. I thought it would be good practice in throttle control, that may help with my Mustang driving.
I got to know the outfield, the tyre barrier and other American vehicles a lot. ;)
Seems like finishing 4 places down from the starting spot is the rule of the day. Started this race in 4th place. Looking at the starting grid, I new keeping 4th would be hard, but wanted to fight for a top 5.
In Black Adder Motorsport livery
Another reason I wanted to do well, was that I finally had the confidence in the Mustang to run the team livery. The bar has been set so high in BAM, I feel odd running the official livery when I am slow and not so sure. The reason why I have an alternate set of liveries for all my cars.
I finished my first race of the week. First race that is longer than 40 minutes for me. When I signed up for the race, there were around 35 signups. Pretty large field is what I thought, but it split**.
For someone who didn't get any decent qualifying I was surprised to be on pole position for the race. I think this is my first pole in iRacing yet.
Did some qualifying today and got in a 2.33.4xx second lap. I have done 32s, but I feel that this accurately shows my race pace. Didn't go faster and quit the session.
Another thing running on my mind is that, during the qualifying, my screen froze. But, I could hear the game going on in the background and the car crashing into the exit of turn 3. Not sure why that has happened and dread to think what would happen if that happened during the race start when all the cars are bunched up. I would end up spoiling the race for way too many people.
The image for this post is from an Open Practice session, after the above mentioned Qualifying. I disabled, anti-virus etc. etc. and did some 20 minutes of running just to see if the machine would freeze again. Nothing happened and I hope what happened in Qualifying was a one off incident.
Do you think I escaped the spinning car and the wall?
The morning race seemed to have run full. Let me try to get a race in today.
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Have been missing the starts all day, so put in another qualifying session. I went 2:32.206 without much effort. Hope that form remains for the race. :D
Its again time for Mount Panorama. My first Grand Touring Cup track in iRacing. I've been only doing practice sessions all week long and a couple of Time Trials. Though I am a few seconds faster than last season, the pace of my teammates has made me feel S.L.O.W.
The fast guys like Marco are almost 5 seconds faster than my time currently. To think that I am already 3-5 seconds faster than last season makes it scary how fast they are going.
Will just continue more sessions and see how it goes.
And, if you didn't know, this round at Bathurst is 40 minute long races. Unlike the 25 minute races for the rest of the season. So, do not forget to put in more fuel. A little under 10 Gallons should be good enough in the Mustangs.
Open practice time.
Escaping a spinner going up the hill
Another shot of the v1.5 of the "Wild Dogs - Powered by Takeaway Boxes" livery
Hope all of you had a good and safe time this New Year's eve. Wish you all the best for 2015.
The plan for when I planned to move up in class, was the RUF C-Spec. That's what I thought. But, it seems like the whole team is on BMW Z4 GT3 and with team races coming through thick and fast it makes sense to test in this car. The track picked was Okayama International Circuit, since that is the one that I am pretty comfortable with at this time.
John King, had put in a track guide for this and I took it out for a bunch of laps initially and ended up with a 1.32.862 lap time It was decent, but it felt a little weird and I also knew that something did not feel right. I put the video up so that John (and later Lewis Cugaly) could take a look and give me feedback. Analyzing on iSpeed told me that I was still driving this a little too carefully, like the Ford Mustang.
A remark about ABS and Traction control is what hit me! I had not thought about it in the first stint and had been a little too careful.I put in another stint and improved the timing immediately. The driver aids on the Z4 make it feel like cheating almost. 1.31.763, which was a second almost from the previous time. Still a lot further to go, but I ran out of time with other commitments.
At the end of the testing session, it was clear to me that I am no where close to being able to race with a team. So, I've for the time being gone back to racing Ford Mustang FR500S while doing open practice and testing with this car.
The big loser in all of this? The RUF RT12R C-Spec. Not sure, how I will fit that into the whole picture. It was one of the cars that drew me to iRacing.
