142 Search Results for "grand"

• Mark Fox

  • Views: 5
  • Since: 4 hours ago

• Thomas D Card

  • Views: 16
  • Since: 2 weeks ago

• Gary Wood

  • Views: 8
  • Since: 2 weeks ago

• Chris Walker2

  • Views: 6
  • Since: 3 weeks ago

• Kevin Wilson

  • Views: 171
  • Since: 11 months ago

• Nolan Scott

  • Views: 183
  • Since: 1 year ago

• Quick enough to hit a wall Quick enough to hit a wall

  • From: Brian Holmes
  • Description:

     

    I’ve hit a wall but it’s the right one. I can be quick in most of the cars I can race (the two Solstices, Spec Racer Ford, Jetta, Skippy, Mazda and Radical) but can’t quite crack those alien times. Like so many others here I’m a second or so off the alien times and can’t seem to find that extra speed.

     

    Testing over the weekend in the Mazda, for example, I set a 1:44:1xx in the Star Mazda at Silverstone. Scott U’Ren is currently leading the Star Mazda championship (2009 Season 3) and I had the good fortune to be in a practice session with him. His best recorded time at Silverstone Grand Prix circuit is a 1:43:536 but someone else who was in the practice session with me, I forget who now, set a 1:43:2xx – so I’m about a second or half a second off the pace in the Mazda.

     

    Later on in the Jetta around Infineon Long I did a 1:51:949, which again was off the pace by quite some margin. Championship leader Andre Gomes set a 1:50:850 in practice but his best ever recorded time is a 1:50:676 which he did in qualifying in 2009 Season 3. So I’m about a second off the alien times in the Jetta too.

     

    Earlier in the weekend I was in the Skippy at Summit Point – Jefferson Course and set a 54:644 after much practice and buggering around with the setup while championship leader (2009 Season 3) Klaus Kivekäs set a best recorded time of 54:289 in a race.

     

    Where are these guys finding that extra speed? Try as I might I just don’t know.

     

    Another area where they differentiate themselves from me is that I’m just cracking those numbers once or twice and then settling into times that either differ by half  second or so every lap, which shows that I’m inconsistent, or times that are consistently a half second slower. In cars on tracks where my times differ quite a lot from one another I often end up crashing out of a race.

     

    However, all of this is a giant leap forward for me. I used to be a solid two seconds or more off the alien times in a given car on a given track and that was after days of practice.

     

    What’s changed? The biggest single difference, besides the obvious one being that I have a few more laps under my belt, is that I have refused point blank to use other people’s setups or the defaults that are provided by iRacing. I insist on making my own setups now and while I still feel like a blindworm groping around a rotten apple I am making some progress.

     

    After some careful studying bells ring, alarms sound and occasionally, bulbs begin to glow, however dimly, while I spend hours in practice fiddling and tweaking. And all the while I’m doing more laps, getting more in touch with the car, more in touch with the track, more in touch with my PC hardware.

     

    I’m not just aimlessly fiddling with setups or changing numbers arbitrarily either. I picked up a copy of Going Faster! Mastering the Art of Race Driving compiled by The Skip Barber Racing School and published by Bentley Publishers. I have read it cover to cover and now reference specific sections.

     

    I don’t suggest that this is the definitive book and that you should rush out and get a copy if you want to go faster but this book’s explanations and theory resonated with me. It’s combining what I discover on the track with the theory presented by this book that deliver those light bulb moments for me. My suggestion then is that, if you want to improve your race craft, find some authoritative resource that resonates with you. The alternative is to labour excessively and rely on natural talent but that’s the long and torturous route. I’m not a masochist and I don’t like to hit walls.

     

  • Blog post
  • 1 year ago
  • Views: 264
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• Oak Tree- Grand AM @ VIR Oak Tree- Grand AM @ VIR

  • From: Sara Black
  • Description:

    The safety car came out so many times at this race. This is at Oak Tree. =)

  • 1 year ago
  • Views: 122
  • Not yet rated

• Douglas Allen

  • Views: 173
  • Since: 1 year ago

• Best Gazeebo on Earth Best Gazeebo on Earth

  • From: Sara Black
  • Description:

    Gazeebo of the Esses at VIR after Grand AM.  =D

    ...Terrible picture of my face, by the way.

  • 1 year ago
  • Views: 208
  • Not yet rated

• Sara Black

  • Views: 252
  • Since: 1 year ago

• Much ado about something - the Much ado about something - the Lotus 79!

  • From: Eric Hudec
  • Description:

    “FAST! Unbelievably FAST!”  That’s the first thing that popped into my head the first time I drove a development build of the Lotus 79 in the sim.  I just couldn’t believe the grip, the acceleration.  I always figured I have a pretty good idea of just how quick a Grand Prix car would be behind the wheel.  But the sensation I got when I finally started making laps just blew me away.  The car just screamed up the Esses at Watkins Glen.  130, 140, 150 and then 160 mph all before reaching the backstretch!  On the brakes hard at 175 mph and shoot like a canon through the Bus Stop.  “Wow!” I thought to myself, “How could any sane person ever strap themselves in one of these things for real”. This thing is literally a rocket ship!  The funny part is I didn’t get the full sense of how much performance this car was going to have. Although the stats on paper look very impressive, driving it just something entirely different.

     

    I started here at iRacing.com in early March of this year.  Within a few days, I thought it was a pretty cool perq to get to visit Highcroft Racing in Danbury, CT to check out the Lotus 79 that is housed there.  Now Duncan Dayton, the owner of Highcroft, has some unbelievable race cars on display in his shop, but the Lotus 79 is the crown jewel.  I’ve been to a number of historic events but never had the chance to see a Lotus 79 in person.  The thing is a masterpiece.  It was obviously one of the most dominant GP racers ever, but it also looks the part.  It has big aggressive wings, big aggressive tires and, of course, a proper Cosworth DFV engine.  This thing epitomizes the wild and sexy 1970s Formula One era.  iRacing had unfettered access to this car.  My colleague, Ian Berwick, and I spent the better part of two full days measuring and taking photos of every inch of the car so we could get everything right when we began modeling the 79 for the sim.

     

    Once back at the office work began on building up the suspension, chassis, engine and drivetrain components.  Doing this kind of work is a pretty straightforward process – nothing too abstract.  The really interesting work was searching for information to develop tires, on which little information exists, and especially the groundbreaking aerodynamics that were the predominant reason the car was so successful (although a couple of guys named Andretti and Peterson helped a far amount!). 

     

    Essentially, I had to start from scratch developing downforce and drag numbers from anecdotal information I was able to gather by asking a lot of question of a number of people, some of whom were intimately involved with the car’s development.  Basically, I had a target and I reverse-engineered all the downforce and drag contributions of the sidepod tunnels and the floating skirts as well as the front and rear wings.  All of this was based on the tones of aerofoil data and first principles of physics. 

     

    What turned out was a double-throw-down rocket ship!  The great thing is Divina Galica, our own in-house F1 driver, and the great Mario Andretti verified much of my interpretation of how the car felt to drive.  The ’78 World Champion made comments that correlated well with how the 79 performs in the sim.  The thing I took away from our conversations with Mario was just how stable the car was and how easy it was to tune.

     

    So far, in the time I’ve spent at iRacing, the Lotus 79 has been by far the most fun car to work on.  Developing setups, tweaking the aero and tires, has been an ongoing process to make the car feel better and better.  I hope when it gets released everyone will feel the same sensation I felt when I first drove it:  “WOW!  This thing is FAST!”   

     

  • Blog post
  • 1 year ago
  • Views: 1811

• Simon Walker

  • Views: 60
  • Since: 1 year ago

• iRacing Tour Update: Watkins G iRacing Tour Update: Watkins Glen, John Henry and the Boston Red Sox events

  • From: Sean Siff
  • Description:

    Hello Fellow iRacers,

    Today I write you from our headquarters outside of Boston MA.  In the following blog post I am going to re-cap for you our four previous events.  We spent two consecutive weekends at beautiful Watkins Glen in the Finger Lakes region of New York.  Also, we traveled to Red Sox headquarters at Fenway Park in our hometown of Boston MA.  We just wrapped up our final tour stop for this season at the SCCA June Sprints at Road America in Elkhart Lake WI. 

    If you are a motorsports enthusiast and you have never been to Watkins Glen, it is a place that you must eventually visit… especially if you love it and race it as an iRacer.  When you come to the Glen for a race, you can basically view the race from any corner on the track.  I recommend the straightaway from the toe of the boot to the heel, but any spot is great.

    We attended the Glen Grand Am Rolex series event two weekends ago.  The NASCAR Camping World East series raced as well, so it was a quite a full schedule for only Friday and Saturday.  The event highlight?  Definitely the amount of iRacers that came up to introduce themselves.  Big thanks to members Terry and Debbie Daul for spending some time with us along with a large contingent of the iRacing NY club.  I got to meet many of you including: David Holzwarth, Jeffrey Olivares, Jason Shomper, Will Schneekloth, Chris Hughson, Arthur Daley, Mark A Carpenter, Eric Hopkins, Mark Hopkins JR, Donald Hopings and Tom Glad.

    A few pro drivers came over as well, many of whom are fellow iRacers: Trevor Hopwood, Matt Bell, Sylvain Tremblay, Bryan Ortiz, Nick Ham, Jonathan Bomarito and Dave Maynard.  Congrats go to Chris Hughson for the fastest overall time at Watkins Glen, yes, even faster than any of the pro drivers!

    Our second weekend at Watkins Glen was for the Historic Sportscar Racers.  It was our first event of that type, but it was a lot of fun and we were quite well received.  Highlights included seeing the 2005 24 hr of LeMans overall winning Audi R10.  It was an awesome car to see in person.  I would like to say hello to a few current iRacers who were also in attendance:  Matt Clark, Florian Fischer, Juan Lopez-Santini and Roger Johnson.  Thank you to the whole group of drivers and officiates who made us feel welcome.  The weekend ended with one day of the local BMWCCA NY/Patroon chapter.  We look forward to more events like this later this season. 

    Our third event was very unique for us:  We brought the iRacing trailer back to our home city of Boston MA to the heart of Red Sox nation… Fenway Park.  We set up outside the park for the big game… an awesome Major League Baseball showdown; Red Sox vs. the dreaded NY Yankees.  Some baseball fans got the ultimate iRacing/Red Sox treat; they got to meet John Henry, our company owner and founder.  It was a thrilling to have Mr. Henry come down to the trailer!  It was his first look at our project and he seemed pleased with the result.  Even though he was quite busy with the baseball game, he spent time meeting the iRacing staff and happily signed many autographs for some lucky baseball fans who came over to check us out.  I was curious to learn what racecar he enjoys driving the most, and he told me that he likes the Formula Mazda and the Chevy Silverado. 

    Our final event of this leg of the tour was this past weekend at Road America.  We were there to support the SCCA, one of our current partners.  Thank you for checking us out if you made it over to the trailer this past weekend. 

    We are working on more plans for the rest of the summer.  As soon as I know what events we will be attending, I will make that available right here on this blog. 

    Thank you again for reading my blog posts over the last four months.  I appreciate your support of our tour and for making iRacing.com one of the greatest online motorsports communities.  Please keep in touch. 

  • Blog post
  • 1 year ago
  • Views: 481

• John Bell

  • Views: 224
  • Since: 1 year ago

• Wes Kunkler

  • Views: 204
  • Since: 1 year ago

• Milwaukee IRL - iRacing Tour U Milwaukee IRL - iRacing Tour Update

  • From: Sean Siff
  • Description:

    Hello iRacers!

    I just got back from the Milwaukee IRL race and it was an excellent event all around.  We were treated to some proper Mid-Western hospitality, and for those of you who have never been; it was a very cool city.  But now, on to the racing!

    One of the event highlights was having former F1/current IRL driver Justin Wilson stop by our trailer to help us set up the Star Mazda to turn left around the Milwaukee Mile.  Big thanks to Justin for his help in developing a proper set up on the racecar.  It is not hard to imagine that he had one of the fastest iRacing lap times of the weekend.  Period. 

    Justin brought with him to the trailer his brother, Stefan, and fellow Indy Lights drivers Gustavo Yacaman, James Davison, Martin Plowman and James Hinchcliffe.  Each driver set very fast lap times using Justin’s set up.  Lucky iRacing member, Everett Paddock, stopped by the iRacing trailer before the group arrived and got to ask Justin some questions about his time in Formula 1, and driving in the IRL.  Justin is an awesome guy to talk with; he is very down-to-earth and always putting in the extra effort for his fans.  This was another great example of that. 

    I enjoyed the honor of following him on stage for a quick chat with the Indy Downforce club.  For all of you iRacers, the Downforce Club is a great deal for any of you who are fired up about the Indy Car Series.  You can join for less than $30 for the entire year and get a front row seat for driver interviews and some other great members-only discounts.   I arrived early in the afternoon to listen to the final 10 minutes of Justin Wilson’s interview.  The interviewer had Justin talk about iRacing to the audience and describe how he has used our software and been a part of the testing since the early days.  It was great to hear him speak about how iRacing has helped him train. 

    Like our previous events, it was fun to meet with you, our current membership.   Fellow iRacing members Brian Simpson, Michael Schmidt, Mark Sternig and Mark Schmieding came out to see us and some great Indy Racing.  Again, it is always great to get your support and to have you see the way we are sharing our awesome software.

    I look forward to seeing some of you at Watkins Glen this weekend and next for Grand Am Rolex Series and historic racing, respectfully.

    SCHEDULE UPDATE:

    June 4-7:  Watkins Glen NY:  Grand Am 6 Hour

    June 9:  Fenway Park, Boston MA:  Red Sox Tour Stop

    June 12-14:  Watkins Glen NY:  Historic Sports Car Racing

    June 18-21:  Road America, Elkhard Lake, WI:  SCCA June Sprints

  • Blog post
  • 1 year ago
  • Views: 247

• The Historic Grand Prix at Lim The Historic Grand Prix at Lime Rock Park

  • From: Iain Mabbott
  • Description:

    See the post here;

    http://blog.popabawa.net/2009/06/02/the-historic-grand-prix-at-lime-rock-park/

  • Blog post
  • 1 year ago
  • Views: 162
  • Not yet rated

• Lime Rock Park - iRacing Tour Lime Rock Park - iRacing Tour Update - Memorial Day

  • From: Sean Siff
  • Description:

    Greetings Fellow iRacers,

    The iRacing tour spent last weekend at Lime Rock Park, getting to visit with race fans that came out to watch the Grand Am Koni ST and GS races, along with two awesome Historic Grand Prix races.  Historic Grand Prix was awesome to watch, and we got to see a lot of the cars as we were paddocked with our trailer right next to the almost 20 vintage F1 cars from the 1960s to the early 1980s.  iRacing’s own Divina Galica expertly piloted both a rare Brabham and Hesketh to two top 10 finishes… and considering the competition, this was a great achievement.  In case you didn’t know, Divina actually drove an F1 car in the early 1970s.  This is quite an excellent accomplishment, especially in the 1970s.  Watching Duncan Dayton’s John Player Special Lotus 79 got us all pretty excited for the launch of our iRacing version. 

    In support of the event, we hosted a fast lap competition so that some of the fans could try their iRacing skills against a few pro drivers.  Spencer Pumpelly, from the Koni GS Porsche TRG team posted the weekend’s quickest time in the Star Mazda of 47.9 seconds around Lime Rock Park in the Lime Rock Basic setup.  Good friends of ours Adam Burrows and Trevor Hopwood of the ST-classed RSR Camping World Mini Cooper S came by to put in some fast laps as well. 

    I guess news of our tour has traveled well as we were bombarded by fellow iRacing members who came by to check out our trailer and simulators.  I was pleasantly surprised to meet all of you and definitely enjoyed getting to talk to you.  The following members came by to visit us:  Jared Vaughan, Bob Brodeur, Harry White, Charles Stout, John Nelson, Peter Gustafson, Jeffrey M. Strong, Brian Oritz, John Capello and Dan Montanaro.  Thanks for your continued support!

    For all of you members who have not had a chance to see us on the road, you should know that we have had the privilege of working with some excellent iRacing driver coaches along the way.  Elivan Goulart and Duncan Burke both from the Sport Car Drivers Association worked with us this past weekend and helped coach the public through many demos of our software.  Big Thanks!

    As of right now, we are in Milwaukee for the IRL race.  If you are in the area, definitely come by and see us.  Back in the office we have been hard at work in the wake of the NASCAR announcement planning out the rest of the year. 

    In answer to some of your questions, we will be continuing the tour into the summer.  We have not yet finalized any dates after June, but when we do, I will be sure to share them with you through this blog or through the online event calendar.  See you on the road!

    SCHEDULE UPDATE:

    June 4-7:  Watkins Glen NY:  Grand Am 6 Hour

    June 9:  Fenway Park, Boston MA:  Red Sox Tour Stop

    June 12-14:  Watkins Glen NY:  Historic Sports Car Racing

    June 18-21:  Road America, Elkhard Lake, WI:  SCCA June Sprints

  • Blog post
  • 1 year ago
  • Views: 510

• Historic Grand Prix at Lime Ro Historic Grand Prix at Lime Rock

  • From: John Nelson
  • Description:

    Footage and photos from the Historic Grand Prix meet at Lime Rock Park in Lakeville, Connecticut, Monday May 25, 2009. Video footage shot with a barely adequate point and shoot digital still camera, still photos taken with a Canon Digital Rebel DSLR.

  • 1 year ago
  • Views: 280