iRacing - hosted GT3 Club Races - Sundays @ 9:00am EST

[SnappyDEe]

OP has been edited - sessions are now two hours. Sessions require password which I will post the day of the race.

These RD club races are casual events I am hosting for the purpose of providing the opportunity to race using the iRacing service but without the pressure of worrying about iRating and Safety Rating. The majority of the tracks will be base content but there will be some of the more popular paid tracks mixed in as well. All skill levels are welcome to join in and race. Please race respectfully and have fun.

Two Hour Sessions: 1 hour practice, 15 minute quali (single car, 4 laps), 45 minute race. Race fuel limited to 46 percent. You will have to pit so use the time in practice sessions to find your stall. There are also 2 fast repairs available.

Session requires password which I will post up here on the morning of the race.
Password = Senna

The cars:
BMW Z4 GT3
McLaren MP4 12C GT3
RUF RT12R Track
Ford GT3 GT3


Sunday December 27th, 2015 @ 9:00 am EST - Okayama International (base content)

Sunday January 3rd, 2016 @ 9:00 am EST - Daytona circa 2007 (base content)

Sunday January 10th, 2016 @ 9:00 am EST - Spa (paid content)

Sunday January 17th, 2016 @ 9:00 am EST - Laguna Seca (base content)

Sunday January 31st, 2016 @ 9:00 am EST - Summit Point (base content)

Sunday February 7th, 2016 @ 9:00 am EST - Interlagos (paid content)

 

[SnappyDEe]

Did my GT3 race and wasnt so good. I was the farthest up BMW in qualifying(7th) among the fast Mclarens and Ruf's. Leader brake checks 3 times almost causing pile ups, other than that, was a clean start. From there I was in no mans land, not quick enough for the pack of Mclarens and just quick enough from the rest. I got passed by one BMW during pitstops but quickly gained on him. Made a clean pass in the 2nd chicane, then heading into the last chicane, he miss judged his brake marker and ran into the back of me. I had a chance for 5th through attrition but from that hit it set me down to 8th.

Im ready for Sunday

Sorry to read this. How bad was the hit to your SR and iR?

 

[SnappyDEe]

Sorry to say guys, but I'm out for this Sunday. Forgot my wife is traveling starting Sunday morning early so we're all getting up to wish her off. Then I'm solo taking care of my boy for the week. Have fun and hope for another awesome video, or two. Good to know Shadowplay doesn't hurt the fps, been meaning to turn it back on, but this season's build is not as stable yet. Still getting a few stutters and frame drops and didn't want to chance making it worse.

...as far as the time slot, it's early for me for sure but works out too as we finish right when the fam wakes up. No time will be perfect but if it has to change that's cool too - the more the merrier. Maybe since this is for fun we should try different types of races, not sure what's available but we could try: spec/fixed-setup races (included content), reversed grids with double 20 min races, standing starts, night races are always fun, and maybe even team races with driver swaps just for fun/training if we choose to go into an endurance race sometime.

These are all good ideas. In fact, now that you mention it, I should have booked the Daytona event as a night race. We can go back there at night if you guys want to. Team racing events might call for some more participants though.

 

[SnappyDEe]

...oh and as an aside. FINALLY got some good races today. This week had brought my SR down to 1.5 or so. Did some TT just to bring some life back into it from all the pinball at the track. The 10A PST race was really loads of fun, good battles, some rubbing, nail biting pit stops and finished 9th. ...then squeezed in another at the 2P PST race and this one wasn't as exciting but I won it! Well... through attrition but a win is a win, right?

Very hot track so slippery everywhere, qualified 2nd - nail biter as I dropped a wheel first lap and spun so had to start my 2nd lap from the pits. Wasn't a good lap so surprised by the position. P1 was clearly faster and half way into the race he spread the gap out to 10 seconds but thought he got collected by back markers after pitting. Didn't see him and suddenly I get the call I'm in P1! Led the last half of the race, maintaining the gaps and trying my darndest to keep a cool head and NOT spin. Got the checkered flag, full parade lap, zero incidents. Feeling a little redeemed.

This is great! Congrats on the win!

You gotta make a video.

P.S. what NVIDIA driver are you guys using? I haven't been able to use Shadowplay for a while now.

 

[Fritz Anker]

Thanks! it wasn't a very exciting race (nobody was really close except myself and P1 the first few laps) so it would take my inner Spielberg to make it a good one.

Yeah, team racing would take a few more folks for sure, but it still would be fun to give it a try. Even with six of us we could have three teams - use a short track to keep the cars relatively close (Like Summit?) Just eager to give driver swaps a try, sounds like fun!

NVIDIA has been going nuts lately releasing drivers - I have the most recent not sure the version number. I still have to turn Shadowplay on though, and make some space on the HDD to actually save a video.

 

[James Nance]

Sorry to read this. How bad was the hit to your SR and iR?

This is great! Congrats on the win!

You gotta make a video.

P.S. what NVIDIA driver are you guys using? I haven't been able to use Shadowplay for a while now.

Actually surprising, I guess since I kept going and finished it was only a -5 points from both SR and iR, didnt feel too bad in the end.

Im using the current Nvidia drivers, never had any issues using shadowplay. Like Fritz said, the current build of iR is a little unstable but I dont find it too bad to not make videos.

 

[SnappyDEe]

Great race with Fritz just now! I qualified 4th and Fritz qualified 5th. Battled with several other cars. Moved up to the lead briefly the settled into 2nd. Had to defend (cleanly) and other cars attacked cleanly. Tight pit stops. I came out 4th after my stop but when they cycled through I grabbed 2nd again and just made a little gap. Fritz dropped back a bit after the first few laps but then fought back (with at least 3 other cars, mind you!) and started catching my but ran outer time/laps. We finished 2nd and third respectively. Wow! What a race.

Thanks Fritz! A couple more laps and you would've caught me. Great job!

 

[James Nance]

Great race with Fritz just now! I qualified 4th and Fritz qualified 5th. Battled with several other cars. Moved up to the lead briefly the settled into 2nd. Had to defend (cleanly) and other cars attacked cleanly. Tight pit stops. I came out 4th after my stop but when they cycled through I grabbed 2nd again and just made a little gap. Fritz dropped back a bit after the first few laps but then fought back (with at least 3 other cars, mind you!) and started catching my but ran outer time/laps. We finished 2nd and third respectively. Wow! What a race.

Thanks Fritz! A couple more laps and you would've caught me. Great job!

Thats awsome, great to hear.

 

[Fritz Anker]

Thanks! That was some race. When I saw you in practice, I thought - SO glad I didn't skip this race. Really tight qualy times, but you got me! Didn't get a great start - pole sitter has a big advantage here and I was a little late on the gas. Then in the early laps, my TrackIR pulled a little bit (think the sunlight coming thru the curtains upset it) so took it a bit slow in the back stretch to recenter it and lost some positions, then just after getting it right I managed to blow right past my brake point in turn 3? and went off and lost even more. Thankfully, you guys were nice and tight up front giving me a chance to make up time lost.

Pitted a bit early as I couldn't get beyond a car in the hopes to find some cleaner track and that paid off. Looked like all of you pitted closely and that gave me another chance to rejoin. Had some really really good battles and was able set up Carsten in the hairpin for the pass before the last chicane, looked at the time left and tried my best to catch you but came up short. Really fun.

Captured it all on Shadowplay and saved the replay. Have to dust off some video editing programs and see what I can do. Was too fun not to relive a few times.

 

[Dave R]

Are you all running in the GT3 Sprint Series?

 

[SnappyDEe]

I wish the splits always turned out like that. The were almost 80 participants in that session so our split was really tight.

Fritz, we should run the same livery.

 

[SnappyDEe]

Captured it all on Shadowplay and saved the replay. Have to dust off some video editing programs and see what I can do. Was too fun not to relive a few times.

Anxious to see what you come up with, Fritz.

 

[Fritz Anker]

Anxious to see what you come up with, Fritz.

Pressure's on! Was pretty good on the Mac years ago, but don't have any good editing programs for PC. We'll see what I can do with Movie Maker...

 

[Fritz Anker]

I wish the splits always turned out like that. The were almost 80 participants in that session so our split was really tight.

Fritz, we should run the same livery.

I'm game, I just did a simple paint so it wouldn't be plain white. Want to use yours?

 

[SnappyDEe]

I'm game, I just did a simple paint so it wouldn't be plain white. Want to use yours?

I can modify the one I have. You know, add our names with the US flag. We should have a working name for the team. We will also need a team engineer and a spotter. Some day, I guess.

 

[Lars Hansen]

Pressure's on! Was pretty good on the Mac years ago, but don't have any good editing programs for PC. We'll see what I can do with Movie Maker...

You may want to take a look at Lightworks (http://www.lwks.com).
Professional editing software for free.
The freeware version is limited to YouTube format (that is, 1280x720 .flv), anything else requires payment.
It does things a little differently than e.g. Sony Vegas, and it's not as intuitive.
But there are literally hours of tutorials on YouTube and once you wrap your head around how it works, it's extremely powerful.
Not to mention that it renders files around six times faster than Vegas does.

 

[Lars Hansen]

What can we do to get some more drivers to join in? Do we need a different time slot? If so, what would work? I'm open minded so just throw it out there.

Well, I'm game for Sunday at least.
Looking to get back into iRacing, and this seems to be a gently intro.
So I might as well give you guys someone to lap.
I might need someone to walk me through how to join hosted sessions though.

As for getting more drivers to join, that's something that every club in RD struggles with.
Changing the time-slot usually won't work though. What you gain in one end, you usually lose in the other. Besides, if it's a race people want to join, they'll find a way to make the timing work.
We have an Aussie in the R3E Club who gets up at 4AM to race with us before he heads to work.....

But a fixed set-up series is definitely a good idea.
Most simmers (myself included) aren't great with set-ups, and while the stock set-ups might not be great, there is some comfort in knowing that at least everybody is in the same boat.
There are few things worse in sim-racing than losing 2 seconds a lap, and not knowing whether it's the set-up or if it's simply because you suck......Albeit in my case, I'm reasonably sure it'll be the latter.

Trying to figure out which content will be the most popular is an exercise in futility.
Peoples taste vary to such a degree that it's almost impossible to get them to agree on anything.
I do think the current series is very good.
Mostly base-content with two of the more popular payware tracks, and let's face it everybody loves the GTs.

Another option would be to have two shorter races, instead of one long one (i.e. 2x20min), and use lower-powered cars, like e.g. the Skippies or SRF.
The idea being that the cars are easier to handle so less chance of spinning, and a two-race format gives you the chance to learn from race 1, instead of doing laps for 30 minutes in the backfield.
But again, this is just personal preference.

Finally, I'm not sure what other RD clubs you guys are racing in, but it might be an idea to go on a tag-frenzy, and simply tag every one you've ever raced with.
Not all of them will have iRacing, and not all who do will be able to race on Sundays, but getting the word out there surely can't hurt.
If you want, I'll be happy to tag the usual suspects from the R3E club, and see if I can lure some of them over to the dark side.

 

[Dave R]

Lars just click on the hosted tab and you should see Race Department and David's name. He'll put the pw up soon.

 

[James Nance]

I'll just about race anything and anywhere in iRacing. Short two race format is also something I like, something we did in the club races in R3E, with reverse grid for the 2nd race, made it more interesting.

 

[Dave R]

Just tell me what to buy lol

 

[SnappyDEe]

Well, I'm game for Sunday at least.
Looking to get back into iRacing, and this seems to be a gently intro.
So I might as well give you guys someone to lap.
I might need someone to walk me through how to join hosted sessions though.

As for getting more drivers to join, that's something that every club in RD struggles with.
Changing the time-slot usually won't work though. What you gain in one end, you usually lose in the other. Besides, if it's a race people want to join, they'll find a way to make the timing work.
We have an Aussie in the R3E Club who gets up at 4AM to race with us before he heads to work.....

But a fixed set-up series is definitely a good idea.
Most simmers (myself included) aren't great with set-ups, and while the stock set-ups might not be great, there is some comfort in knowing that at least everybody is in the same boat.
There are few things worse in sim-racing than losing 2 seconds a lap, and not knowing whether it's the set-up or if it's simply because you suck......Albeit in my case, I'm reasonably sure it'll be the latter.

Trying to figure out which content will be the most popular is an exercise in futility.
Peoples taste vary to such a degree that it's almost impossible to get them to agree on anything.
I do think the current series is very good.
Mostly base-content with two of the more popular payware tracks, and let's face it everybody loves the GTs.

Another option would be to have two shorter races, instead of one long one (i.e. 2x20min), and use lower-powered cars, like e.g. the Skippies or SRF.
The idea being that the cars are easier to handle so less chance of spinning, and a two-race format gives you the chance to learn from race 1, instead of doing laps for 30 minutes in the backfield.
But again, this is just personal preference.

Finally, I'm not sure what other RD clubs you guys are racing in, but it might be an idea to go on a tag-frenzy, and simply tag every one you've ever raced with.
Not all of them will have iRacing, and not all who do will be able to race on Sundays, but getting the word out there surely can't hurt.
If you want, I'll be happy to tag the usual suspects from the R3E club, and see if I can lure some of them over to the dark side.

All very good suggestions. I will keep them in mind. The thing about the present format is that a 45 minute race with a pit stop sort of emulates the official series. I was also thinking that maybe we should switch cars after a few more races with the GT3s.