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Race Department v8 Supercar Championship
By Benjamin Crooks | Mar 01, 2010 05:09 UTC | 351 Views
Round 1 - Bahrain 150KM
After initially entering the RD v8 Supercar Championship I instantly had PC problems with a failing PSU, delays in ordering this meant I could not get any practice in for the first round. The PSU arrived on the day of the event and after a quick complete rebuild of my PC I managed to get the mod downloaded and the track and get 3 laps of practice in before the race started so I knew which way the circuit went at least.
I arrived on the server just before the race was about to begin so I filled up the fuel and joined the grid from right at the back in 23rd position. I had forgot that traction control was allowed in the race however I still got a better start than most around me instantly making up around 5 places. As drivers dropped out and pit stops were made I got up to 15th place. I was in a few battles between 15th and 18th with spins from myself and other drivers, I eventually managed to finish the race in 14th place after getting used to the car and track. My fastest lap was 2 seconds off of the fastest race lap. This was not good enough.
Round 2 - Barbagallo 100KM
Again in the 2 weeks before the round at Barbagallo I came into trouble with my PC, this time I had a failed hard drive. I managed to get a copy of XP and install it onto my second hard drive a week before the race was due meaning I had time to practice for the event.
Before the race I still did not know that Traction Control was allowed in the league and had thus been practicing without it. Still however my lap times were respectable at 55.2 to 55.6 during a full race simulation. The night before the race I decided to go onto the practice server to get to know my competitors and compare my own pace, I then found that I was able to use TC and instantly got my times down to 55.0. Hearing that some drivers were capable of 54.5 I set my target of braking the 55 second barrier for the next day. I managed to get down to 54.8 on race day and felt ready for the race with expectations of a top 5 finish.
In qualifying and practice before the race it was quite clear that myself and Gregory Degreef would be battling for podium positions with the 2 Team Vodafone drivers Hannu Karesola and James Johnson. Gregory, Myself and Hannu were able to get under the 55 second barrier in qualifying which set us up with great prospects in the race to come.
The race started with me and Gregory going into T1 side by side, coming out of T1 I didn't want to head into the essess side by side too, so I backed out and gave Gregory the line with plans of catching him later in the lap. However even with traffic it was difficult to catch Gregory who had some astonishing pace. I managed to catch him for a few laps and was around 0.5 behind but was not close enough to even think about a pass, especially on such a difficult circuit for overtaking, the track being so thin there isn't much room to get side by side for too long and following was very difficult also with the high curbs.
Towards the end of the race I felt my tyres start to loose grip and backed off after having made a 10 second gap back to 3rd placed James Johnson and not seeing myself catching Gregory who by now had a 2 second gap on me. However I backed off slightly too much and heading into the final turn 10 laps from the end I got a slide on which I was too slow to react to. This sent me into a slight fishtail so I used the brakes to control the car and went onto the grass on the inside of the track. Returning to the circuit I hit a ditch I couldn't see, sending the car onto it's nose. I regained control of the car and returned to the track just in time to beat James into T1. I knew I was capable of making a gap on him as I had been doing earlier in the race so I put my head down and set about getting some space between myself and him before he could attack. 2nd place was where I would finish and better than I expected.
Round 3 - Surfers Paradise 100KM
Finally no PC problems and I was able to practice for the race properly. Leading up to the race it was apparent that the set-up was going to be a key element in the race and getting it stable under braking for the big stops at Surfers Paradise. I learnt a lot from a set-up I received from Gregory Degreef and adapted many of his idea's into my own set-up to achieve the stability under braking necessary for the top spot. I had seen Gregory set a lap time of 1:45.3 so my target was to be able to set lap times around 1:45/46 during the race and a mid/low 45 for qualifying. I managed to do this however my qualifying pace wasn't very good, I had only been able to set a 1:45.8 before the qualifying session began. During the qualifying session I managed to get into the rhythm of the track and set a PB of 1:45.6 which I was confident would give me pole position and did.
The race started with myself and Gregory on the front row again however this time the roles were reversed with me in pole position. Heading into T1 I remembered where to brake from a few practice starts I had done on my own and managed to out brake Gregory. Then Ryan Callan came in deep on the brakes and overtook Gregory. I knew this was my opportunity to create a gap before Gregory managed to re-pass and I set about distancing myself from them. I managed to get the gap out to 6 seconds before Gregory passed Ryan again and began chasing me down. Before getting into traffic the gap was fairly static. Then in the traffic the gap came down to 4 seconds as I passed through the lapped cars and then back to 6 seconds again as Gregory passed them. Near the end of the race I figured Gregory had sat back a bit as the gap got up to over 8 seconds so I eased off the pace slightly, however weary of my mistake in round 2 I didn't let up too much. I guided the car home with a small error on the final lap with a barrier to take my first victory of the season. The win has put me in 5th place in the championship as the double points race at Bahrain had hurt my title contention a lot.
02/03/2010: After penalties applied for cutting after the race I got a 30 second penalty placing me in 2nd place.
The next round is at Oran Park on Wednesday 10th March. Oran Park is a very technical and tight circuit like Barbagallo yet extremely bumpy like Surfers Paradise. The set-up is again going to be a key element in this race so the 2 week break between Surfers and Oran Park will be very welcome for all competitors I am sure.
BenjiMC