The grand finale is over. What a day.
Actually, this was more than a day...
Several months ago, @
Calum McLure (one of my old Xbox league racing pals) told me he was signing up for the VWEC in August of this year (?) I couldn't resist the challenge and we decided to form a team for the event. Sim racing and being part of a live broadcast (5 minutes of fame) really appealed.
Sim racing was something I had wanted to try since first joining RD a couple of years ago - watching 12 hours of Sebring and 24 hours of Le Mans. I was captivated by the live broadcasts, the team focus and it just seemed like a whole different world - especially as I practised throwing a T-cam car around on f1 2011 with my new Madcatz racing wheel (no ffb). It took me another year and a bit before I bought a gaming pc and started learning all of the games that the old heads had practised for years - race 07, rfactor, gsc, gtr evolution. I was pretty rubbish and my driving killed the tyres. Rfactor 2 - spinning constantly as I didn't understand a green track...and it was bugged.
I digress... Calum and I asked @
Mark Greenall (another xbox racer and champion)to join the team. We became TXL Racing. I became team leader as Calum had other sims on his plate and studies to do.Calum would be skin maker as he had some clue about it. I requested a black car - Knight rider, A-Team Van, Airwolf, Streethawk...All the childhood programmes I watched with striking black shiny vehicles. Super vehicles. Calum then took that on and designed a stunning black and green car - completing the Xbox link.
Round 1 at Malaysia was heartbraking. Calum had to pull out beforehand. Whilst I learned to test the tyres using Motec data analysis (to form a good setup) and although mark and I developed good pace, our race was destroyed with CSR Fanatec disconnects (my wheel) during the race. this resulted in spins and shredded tyres. Mark then had issues and quit out. We had practised for about 8 weeks and in 1 hour, our race was over. Gutting. After a good nights sleep, we both agreed to come back stronger.
For round 2, I wanted to increased the size of the team and bring in some good guys with experience. I noticed a very strong racer called @
Frederic Schornstein was available. He impressed me not only with his speed, but with his tyre management and fuel conservation. He seemed a wise racer in the ilk of an ALain Prost. A professor but with a German mentality. That's a compliment
If I could myself one pat on the back, it would be for persuading freddy to join the team! However, I was worried that as bahrain was an 8 hour race, we might still need another driver because calum or mark might drop out. I noticed a guy who was usually faster than me (from club races) was @
Matt Horst. Matt seemed interested but he was trying to get the most out of arma 3 and some other new games. I knew matt was consistent and had a really strong mind. nothing phases him. Thankfully matt agreed to trial.
When you add quality to a team, like lewis hamilton at mercedes, things just kind of spiral out of control - in a good way.
freddy threw himself into early testing, taking our malaysia setup (which had lots of positives) and adapting it.In return, I like to think I added something to his life by introducing him to Motec!(He is now far better with it than I am!) Suddenly we had a really quick setup which mark liked. Matt and I liked it but it felt a handful at first. the downforce was much lower than last race. it was a bit like moving out of home for the first time. Out in the open. No safety net. I formed checklists, freddy added to them and took them on and all of us contributed to testing, thinking about things we needed to do. strategy, wet runs, drivers swaps. you have to know that, even with super drivers, this was a learning curve for us all. Our race times came down. personally, i invested in a g27 wheel which had stiff pedals compared to the fanatec. my times came down from 2.06 something to a pb of 2.00.056 in online practise on our server which was fastet than a lot of gt2 drivers and near the gt1 lower order. Freddy was low 1.59's in the end which is just insane. importantly, however, all of us could go a full stint with no fuel issues and no tyres issues.
Inspite of being caught up in traffic and only qualifying mid gt2 pack (way of his pb), freddy built us an early advantage in the race. mark greenall pulled out last minute due to personal circumstances which was gutting and so we had to adapt. matt horst and myself building the gap further whilst other gt2's had issues. poor calum waited and waited. in his first stint, we pulled him out of the car after 5 laps so matt could do the rain stint. when he eventually took to the track at night, we were 1 minute 30 seconds up...only for HDR profile issues. we watched as he lost 5 seconds a lap, not realising that he was driving in pitch black! for my seconds stint, the pressure was on. another gt2 car tried to unlap himself but gave me a nice tank slapper. only 30 seconds up, i had to finish the stint or we faced doing another pitstop- it would mess our strategy up. my times were initally 3 seconds+ off my best times which would have meant we were losing too much time. i pushed and pushed even getting into the 2.02s but the car was leaning and awful. this meant i spun out twice or maybe even three times,costing more time. on pitting we had to wait for repairs for 45 seconds. freddy drove ANOTHER stint for the final stint and close the gap to project resistance but we finished 10 seconds back to close the gap to someone like ruben suarez, so much,on a stint...for me, that was the best stint I ever saw someone do. I think people now know who @
Frederic Schornstein is! we were all gutted as that was our big chance and really, we should have won. then again, this is endurance racing. not bad for a first outing.
winners take the knocks and come back stronger right? so in preparation for the 12 hour race, knowing mark might not be able to make it, we signed up @
Matt Sentell. I first saw matt drive at mid ohio rfactor2 in the club events. one day he was on server and about 2 seconds slower than me after a few laps. a day later,UK time (he is in the USA west coast), I noticed he was about 3 seconds quicker and winning the club events. impressive. @
Matt Horst, a fellow american, also knew of Sentell's qualities( i don't like using surnames, but you can understand, it gets a bit confusing at times!).Sentell had seen us get a little unlucky at bahrain and fancied a piece of the action. Suddenly the team got even stronger. Now we had 2 guys in the team who were unusually quick and clearly intelligent ( oh, and matt sentell just happened to reveal that he was the software engineer for Grand prix legends - what a legend he is!) you had matt horst who is a smart cookie and just incredibly consistent, calum- a cool head who has been getting good results in GSC and improving all the time and myself. with all the input from freddy, matt and matt and me kind of keeping the group together, we all fed of each other. i think it did freddy good to have someone of his level in the team and sentell to have freddy. this time, matt sentell took the setup and made it. it was exceptionally quick but also a bit loose at the rear - exaggerated by the fast nature of losail. freddy's iniial times were low 2.00s. mine were 2.06s. matt hors was 2.01s. sentells' were 1.59. low. now freddy is determined and likes to win, so i hoped we wouldn't have any number 1 driver issues. fortunately i realised what a great attitude these guys have. by the end of testing (the guys can correct me if i'm wrong, freddy had achieved a hotlap time of 1.58.3, matt sentell had achieved the same - to the tenth. matt horst had done 1.59 mid and i had done 1.59.2 the difference being that, although i could keep the tyres going for a full stint, no issues...the temperatures at this track could flare up in an instant an handling would be difficult. in race practise, without mistakes i would say that those three guys were 20+ seconds quicker than me. freddy had this great ability to go 100% from the off whereas myself and matt horst had to work out way in. calum was nowhere to be seen and the race was getting closer. by final practise, freddy's times were in 2.00s average, as were matt sentell's and mine and horst's were very close - averaging in the 2.01's. i'd learned, with help from the guys, a great setup, the best lines and from practise, where to push the tyres and where not to.
Race day approached and calum had to drop out. he had a night shift at work and hadn't had enough practise due to other commitments. he was amazing by agreeing to give up his day to be an engineer with abotu 2hours sleep. we are all grateful for this. Sentell would come in late as he was so far behind in time zone - about 8 hours. qualifying: somehow on a greenish track freddy got a 1.58.06? somehow marginally faster than project resistance. both teams were in a league of their/our own. project had added a star driver from their gt1 team who had pulled out last minute.
in the race, freddy had an early spin but due to circumstances, he resumed the lead in class - others spinning out and project taking their drive thru from last round. project pitted first, pitting from behind freddy. when i came out of the pits for the seconds stint, their star driver was hotlapping in 159s on an aggressive tyre strategy.after cold tyre outlaps and hitting heavy traffic, within 3 laps the broadcaster said i was 30 seconds behind. i'm still not sure how this happened/. i made no real mistakes but due to heavy traffic i was lapping in 2.02s andonly when i got clear air could i go in low 2.01s. i ended my stint with half yellow tyres. i hadn't pushed them enought but my objective was to keep us in the game. matt horst took over. we were now 45 seconds behind on pitting but after the next pit stop, somehow 55 seconds behind. again project maintained their agressive strategy and the gap kept going up- even tho matt horst was driving great. we seemed unlucky in traffic but we knew that project had a 45 second pit stop extra to make, maybe more. we also had matt sentell to come.
by 7pm, we were just about still in the running but definitely outsiders for p1. project were doing an amazing job. however, the nail in the coffin was when matt sentell couldn't perform the swap with freddy due to a bug in the game. he had to do an extra stint and then quite out. this cost us 5minutes! we were now about 1 and a half laps down on rfn motorsports for p2. freddy burned his hand with boilling water and even with that, he and matt sentell did swap afetr swap until the end. with 50 minutes to spare, we were 25 seconds behind. rfn. this came down to 16 seconds but sadly matt was pushing so hard that he had a couple of spins which he wouldn't normally do. even with two spins, the gap finished at about 16 seconds. what an unbelievable effort!
So p2 at bahrain, p3 at losail. Overall finishing p2 in the gt2 championship. Overall that was what we deserved. We didn't get the win or the p2 that maybe we deserved, we spent months practising and being consumed by this event.however, we all made new friends from different parts of the world. we all learned something new about each other, about racing, about setup, about rfactor 2 and endurance racing.
i think we all feel exhausted now and need a break but we will be back. TXL Racing will now focus on the formula 3.5 renault series in open wheelers. we have TXL black and TXL white so watch out for us and support us please> I'm certainly hoping to keep in touch with the team for some time and you never know, we may come back EVEN STRONGER in the next VWEC! Perhaps you could be one of the team?
To finish, aside from thanking my team, I would like to thank ALL OF THE DRIVERS, especially the gt4 who were amazing in lapping situatios, ALL OF THE MODERATORS and ALL OF THE COMMENTATORS who did a great job. there are definitely lessons to be learned but you guys allowed me and many others to experience great friendship, great teamwork, great learning and best of all....our own individual 5 minutes of fame.
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