Tag: LuckyDog

Beating a dead horse

At the last Lucky Dog race at Thunderhill, the following incident was caught on video. This turned into a big debate on the Facebook page Lucky Dog Racers with armchair analysts laying fault to one, the other, or both sides.

YSAR Official

I thought I would give the official YSAR opinion of the incident. By official, I mean armchair-official.

  1. Turn 10. At the start of the clip, you can see that the POV Miata is cornering faster than the BMW ahead. It’s clear from the driving of the BMW in T10, that the BMW driver is not an advanced driver. That’s okay! This is Lucky Dog Racing League, and all levels are welcome. So how do I know he’s not an advanced driver?
    • At the entrance to turn 10, the driver has left a half car width on the right. There’s no reason not to take a larger radius. Even if you were sandbagging so as not to pass the Super Dog time, you would still take the largest radius to save on consumables.
    • The driver chose a late apex line, but given how short the following straight is, there is no reason for this. Experienced drivers at Thunderhill know that T10 is an early apex corner.
    • The driver tracks out to the middle of the track and then steers out to the exit. That’s a low-intermediate level interpretation of the racing line.
  2. Turn 11. The car is way over-slowed at the entry of turn 11. You can see this by how much the Miata catches up in the braking zone. At this point, the Miata driver has some idea about the driver ahead and should be thinking “welcome to LDRL racing, let me give you some room so you can have great race”.
  3. Back straight. The race down the back straight shows that the Miata isn’t only faster in the corners, but also down the straights. It’s a faster car with a faster driver. By the time they enter the braking zone, the Miata has overtaken the BMW and is probably 1 car length ahead. The pass is now complete. At this point, the race for this corner is over. It’s time for both drivers to get through the final pair of corners together as fast as they can, to the benefit of everyone. By everyone I mean the drivers, their teammates waiting for their turn to drive, the car owners who don’t want to repair perfectly good race cars, the drivers’ loved ones who want them to return uninjured, every other team on track who doesn’t want the race shut down for a yellow flag, the organizers who want to deliver a fun yet safe event, the people at Walmart who don’t want to deal with angry customers, etc.
  4. Turn 14. The BMW driver re-passes the Miata in the braking zone. At this point, the BMW becomes the car attempting to make a pass. It is now the responsibility of the BMW to make a safe pass.
    • The Miata driver already knew the BMW driver was inferior and now had knowledge the he is also aggressive and dangerous. It’s time to give that car a lot of room and avoid it as much as possible. I have no idea why the Miata driver continued to race for this corner. He endangered the success of the team by endangering the car. This is the first stint of a 14-ish hour endurance race. What the hell are you thinking?
    • The minor contact between the cars is silly and both drivers are at fault for driving so close to each other.
    • The BMW has entered the corner way too fast. There is no way for the driver to navigate this corner without either braking or going off track. Dive bombing followed by braking mid-corner is no way to make a safe pass. It’s reckless and irresponsible.

Some of the discussion on FB turned to “why didn’t anyone ask if the drivers were okay?” I have to admit that I didn’t. I’m ashamed of that. I should have thought of the drivers first. From the POV of the Miata, it didn’t look like the BMW got hit particularly hard, but apparently the car ended up on its side and the driver was shaken up. After watching the video again, I could see how the BMW might end up in the K-wall at 60 mph. That would suck. So yes, if you’re the BMW driver, you have every reason to ask “how come you weren’t concerned with my well being?” I hope you also understand that by fighting for a corner you had already lost, you endangered yourself, another car, and reduced the race time for every other team on track. We have a right to ask “what the hell were you thinking driving like that?” Where is your apology for driving like a jackass? We all need to own our faults. I’m sorry I didn’t think of your well being. Now it’s your turn to apologize.

I saw a couple comments that said “why wasn’t the Miata farther out on the left?” I’ll tell you why. Setting up on the typical school line in a race with people of suspect skill and intentions is a great way to get punted. Want someone to hit you in the rear tire and break your suspension? Set up on the outside and cross the whole track to the apex. Rather than positioning farther to the left, I would have made the pass and positioned myself in front of the BMW. That would close down the inside line and make the cars go through the corner in a line rather than side-by-side. Yes, that would have ruined the speed through the next corner, but since the Miata was faster, it wouldn’t have mattered.

LDRL TH5 2020 recap

Late Start

Due to unforeseen circumstances, we left for the track about 9 hours late. We were supposed to leave Davis at 9 am but David was delayed and he didn’t arrive with the truck until almost 6 pm. We quickly loaded up and then headed for Esparto where the Yaris was vacationing under the care of Mike “Tinyvette” Meier. We made it to the track just about 8 pm when the tech inspection was supposed to be closing, but there were 10 cars still in line, so no problem. Everything checked out fine for us, but my old Miata was getting some extra scrutiny.

Miata #581

Before the Yaris, I was on a team that raced a Miata. It participated in Lemons, Lucky Dog, ChumpCar, a bunch of HPDEs and even an SCCA race school. It went through half a dozen Lemons themes, hosted an all women’s racing team, and was rented out to a friend’s team while their car was getting fixed. During its tenure with us, it grabbed 3rd place in B class in Lucky Dog (Laguna Seca) and 3rd place overall in ChumpCar (Thunderhill). Eventually I started to spend a lot more time with the Yaris and the Miata sat in my driveway for a year with a bad engine. And then we got a JDM engine and it sat for another year doing nothing. I was going to sell it and then instead I donated it to Deaf Power Racing, a new team whose mission is to get more deaf people into motorsports.

Under DPR care, #581 has had a whole host of problems. They inherited an incomplete build and a partial Lemons theme. In their first outing, a few weeks ago, the engine bent a valve. So they went into the Thunderhill race needing to install a new engine, which they did the day before. Their reward for all their hard work was LDRL officials giving them a hard time for the cage. Not only was the cage built by Evil Genius Racing (owner John Pagel is head of Lemons tech), it also had previously passed inspection by NASA, SCCA, Lemons, ChumpCar, and even Lucky Dog themselves! Anyway, their cage issues got resolved but that was just the start of their problems.

When the green flag was thrown on Saturday, they didn’t make it through the first stint before they came in with a broken diff hanger. That never failed on us, but I guess they fail eventually. The next calamity was that the axle wasn’t replaced correctly, so the diff oil leaked out and the diff over heated. So after working for several days straight they had a pile of broken bits to show for it.

Guest Drivers

I run guest drivers on my race team all the time. There are lots of people who pay money to enter a race only to find that the car they were supposed to drive has died for one reason or another. Being the sap that I am, I like to give such unfortunate people a chance to walk on the mild side. I’ve met some really nice people doing this, and that’s probably what reinforces the practice. DPR had 3 arrive-n-drives and no car. So we cut our stints down and made room for them. I would have made room for the owners too, but they thought it would be best to prioritize their paying customers.

Lucky Coincidence!

It turns out that one of the drivers, Taylor, had a rather unexpected connection to me. Not only does he know Ben Dawson, a dear friend and former teammate of mine back at the start of my racing adventures, he had also driven on his racing team. That meant Taylor had actually driven the second car I had given away: my 1986 BMW 325e. That now lives in North Carolina with Winsome Racing. Now if you’re counting cars, you might think that Miata #581 was car #1, but actually that was #3. The first racecar we gave away was our 1988 MR2. Don’t get excited, I don’t have any immediate plans of making the Yaris #4.

Lucky Find!

Guest driver #2 turned out to be a really important person to meet. Ryan is a former StopTech employee. Not only could I share with him my love for the StopTech 309 compound, he also told me what was wrong with my brakes. The Yaris doesn’t use stock calipers because the pad choices were so limited. It was either EBC Red or Hawk HPS, neither of which was very good. So I upgraded to a larger caliper from a Corolla. You have to use a different rotor, but otherwise they bolt right up. StopTech 309s are made in Corolla sizes, which is why I made the swap in the first place. Here’s the problem: the Corolla piston is probably a little bigger. That means it takes more pedal travel to operate the brake and it results in a softer pedal feel. And here I thought I could never remove the last bit of air. Ryan said he would give me a professional brake analysis if I sent him my part numbers and corner weights. How cool is that?

Change Happens

Lucky Dog Racing League is changing. While some change is inevitable, the direction the league is going is away from me. It’s probably better for the health of the series to embrace fast, expensive cars, but it’s leaving budget, grassroots racing behind. Sure there are a few teams showing up with single axle trailers, but there are more with stackers. And while there’s nothing in the rules preventing someone showing up in a 1980s econobox, there’s also apparently nothing stopping people from bringing cars that compete in NASA E0. The speed difference isn’t safe or fun. Next year they will have a B-Spec class. On the one hand, that’s a nice concession for newer cars like mine that are currently illegal because they are too new. On the other hand, B-Specs are rare, and I’d probably be the only one in class. Participation trophies don’t motivate me. I want to dice with cars of similar speed. The growing speed differential between my Yaris and the top cars is making racing less enjoyable for members of my team. As a result, the Yaris is leaning towards more Lemons and less Lucky Dog in the future (I think).

Video!

I drove a half dozen laps at the start of the race on Sunday before the double yellows came out. I got to dice with a few Miatas during that time. Thanks, that was fun!

Incident Report

Just got back from a race weekend at Thunderhill with Lucky Dog Racing League. This happened to one of our drivers.

https://youtu.be/1s4N8IgWE5A

The new splitter didn’t survive. It got bent pretty bad and we had to remove it because it was cutting a tire. Here’s what it looked like before the incident.

I’ve got to collect my thoughts for a bit before I write the race report. It was an unusual race for many reasons.

Post-race analysis: drivers

Let’s take a look at some of the telemetry traces of the Triple Apex Racing drivers from the last race.

Danny vs. Danny

The first thing I want to discuss is Danny. I’m usually a couple seconds faster than Danny. I was on Saturday. Then we switched tires on Sunday and everyone went faster. But was it really the tires? In the speed trace below, Saturday is black and Sunday is red. I’ve displayed the top 3 laps each day. Saturday he was doing 3:39-3:40 while Sunday it was 3:36s. What I see here is that he’s driving differently. On Sunday (red) he started backing up the corners. He gets his braking done earlier and gets on gas earlier. Most of the time, his minimum corner speed is higher despite the change. The fresh tires may have contributed a little to his higher speed, but I think it’s mostly because he’s getting better at driving a low powered FWD car with an open diff. His usual car is 911 GT3, so yeah, it’s a little different!

 

Danny vs. Ian

Due to yellow flags, I didn’t get many fast laps. I did a 3:38 and 3:37 back to back. You can see these starting at the 10:00 mark in my video from the last post. In my 3:38 lap, I lose 1 second passing an E36 in T2 when it changes line mid-corner. Then I pass the yellow Miata in T5, messing up my T6 entry, causing another loss of a second on the run up to 9C. The 3:38 could easily have been a 3:36. On the 3:37 lap, I lose a little time making a pass in T2 and then 1 whole second in T3W while I wait for a fast E36 to get around me. So that too could have been a 3:36. Had I gotten a bunch of clean laps, I’m pretty sure I would have been doing a bunch of 3:36s. Could I have broken into the 3:35s? I don’t know. For the most part, Danny and I drive pretty similarly. Below, the red lines are Danny’s fast laps (as above). The black is my 3:37 and the blue is 3:38. This is a speed trace from 7W to the SF line. We have a slightly different way of doing 1W, but the rest is similar enough that you might think it was the same driver.

Randy vs. Danny

So I’m sure everyone wants to know how fast Randy was (green lines below). Faster than Danny (red lines). Where is he faster? You might expect it’s the fast corners, but it’s the slow ones. He gains nearly 1.5 seconds in T9C alone! And he was only 1.8 seconds faster than Danny. T9C is on the far left of the graph. But he’s also faster in T7W and T11. How? Mostly by running over curbs. As the car owner/builder, I don’t really approve of that.

Post-race analysis: aero

At the last Lemons race I did a lot of lightening, which is good, but I also turned the car into a parachute and destroyed our top speed. This race we made two aero improvements.

1. A-pillar deflectors

This is simply a piece of plastic that bulges out a bit. The intent is to have the air go around the window instead of into it. Randy Pobst signed it.

Let’s take a look at the top speed on the main straight before and after the new “aero package”. The top speed went up from 92.0 to 95.4. It’s even more dramatic when you look at the speed trace.

2. Rear wing

Normally, all you have to say is “wing” but I need to emphasize “rear” here because we made an aero joke at the last Lemons race.

Note that we didn’t actually run this on track.  It was just to give Mario and Daniel a laugh when they drove in and saw the wing on the wrong end of the car. Here’s a picture of the same wing installed on the roof. Also, there’s a note I wrote to try to persuade Randy to take a stint in the Yaris.

So what did the rear wing do? The #1 place I felt it did something was in T1. I usually have to brake in T1, but with the wing holding down the rear end, I was able to do a brief lift and then go right back to throttle. You can see how much faster I can do T1 in the graph below (blue is with wing).

The wing also turned T8 into a straight. It’s normally a corner that gives some people a fright, but with the wing on there was no drama at all.

Conclusions

I think the new aero worked. I guess the next question is if we can make it work better.

Randy Pobst is a sweetheart

The Lucky Dog race at Thunderhill was good fun. Ultimately, we didn’t place particularly well, but as we’ve found out over the years, it’s more fun racing for giggles than trying to win. So we were leisurely about pit stops and put some guest drivers in the car. One of those drivers was the Internet celebrity pro driver Randy Pobst. Randy has a reputation as a fast driver but there’s a lot more to the package. He’s very approachable and knowledgeable, and he listens as well as he talks.

FUUUCK. I only had one camera working on Sunday when Randy was driving and it was pointed to the rear.

When Randy got in the car I told him to “bring it back whenever”. Given that he drove it until the end of the race (~60 min), I think I believe him when he said he was having a lot of fun. Apparently the Yaris reminded him of his old 80s Golf. Randy wasn’t the only person who had a great time in the econobox of doom. Lemons veterans “Crazy Mike” and Steve “Chotus” Warwick also drove and loved it. Mike was an “official” Triple Apex Racing driver this race and Steve was a stud driver, piloting some 4 or 5 cars on the weekend. That reminds me of a quote.

I never had a 10, but one night I had five 2s… and that ought to count for something.

— George Carlin

Every time I race the Yaris, it reminds me of why I built it. I love driving and hate wrenching. Despite appearances, the Yaris is a great driving car. It’s also cheap to run and tougher than it looks. It got side swiped twice during the race and just shrugged them off. The one annoying feature of the car is inside wheel spin from the open diff. That’s something I may address in the off season.

Look for some video and telemetry posts in the near future.

Aero Thoughts

I haven’t looked at the data yet, but here’s my seat of the pants impression of what it did.

  • The wind deflectors on the A-pillars did something. There seemed to be less noise in the cockpit. Did they improve top speed? I think so. In the last Lemons race we lost a few mph on the main straight and I think we got that back.
  • The wing probably added useful downforce in T1 and T8. I always take T8 flat out, but this time it was a really boring flat out. In T1, I usually brake lightly, but this time I would just breathe the throttle off for a heartbeat and then go right back on. No brakes needed. That allowed me to make some passes on higher powered cars.
  • The interior of the car still smells a little of catalytic converter, so I think some fumes are getting in from the rear. I want to fix that somehow.

I won’t know if these impressions are correct until I check the data. I’m fully prepared to be wrong!

Thunderhill Ready

Before the last race, I did a lot of lightening. The biggest win was getting an extra set of doors and gutting them to metal skins. While they weigh 50 lbs less each, they leave a larger hole and have no mirrors. That probably negatively affected our drag as top speed was off by 5 mph. Lap times were about the same though, probably due to better acceleration. Since there wasn’t much to do to get the car ready, this weekend we added some features that may improve our aerodynamics.

In the picture below, you can see a white piece of plastic on the A-pillar. This bulges out a little which we hope will deflect some of the air outward, so that the window doesn’t act like a parachute. The plastic is very heavy and shouldn’t move even with high air speed.

I also added a wing to the rear. This is a present Mario gave me that we had at one time installed on the front of the car as a sight gag. Now it’s installed in the correct place with mounts I hacked together. It’s more sturdy than I would have thought. No idea if it works, but even if it doesn’t give much down force, maybe it helps prevent air from the tailpipe going back into the cabin. Or maybe it creates lift and gives us carbon monoxide poisoning. Who the hell knows?

The last piece of our “aero package” is an air dam that I will attach once we get to the track. It will be interesting to compare data from the May Lemons race to see if top speed improves on the main straight and if we get any extra grip in the fast corners.

The only thing I’m concerned about at this point is the rear tires. The 8″ rims aren’t fully covered by the wheel wells. I guess I’ll order some fender flares.

Race Prep: Lucky Dog Thunderhill

The last race of the year for me is just 1 week away. I love racing on the 5 mile track and I love Lucky Dog Racing League. I just checked the supps and was met with a bit of a shocker. At some point I believe this race was advertised as running the second day in the reverse direction, but somehow that changed. That’s a real bummer. I was looking forward to that. Or maybe I’m mistaken and that came to me in a dream. Sometimes I confuse dreams for reality. I have a funny story about that…

I don’t follow politics at all, but early in the Obama presidency I remarked to a friend that I thought it was a really smart that Obama’s VP was blacker than he was. That way people wouldn’t assassinate him for fear of the next guy in line being even more threatening (or whatever). That was something I dreamed because apparently Joe Biden is actually white. Back in the 70s, Saturday Night Live used to do skits where Garrett Morris played Mondale as VP. The joke was that Mondale was so easily overlooked that nobody realized he was black (Garrett Morris). Anyway, I had somehow confused Garrett Morris, Walter Mondale, and Joe Biden. Then again, there are people who would say that Obama is actually whiter than Biden… so maybe I had it right all along. I try to steer well clear of political content on this blog, so apologies for this short political interlude.

Speaking of dreams, wouldn’t it be awesome to get Randy Pobst to drive a stint in my car? Well, it turns out, he’s going to be at the race and he’s going to be driving various cars. I immediately sent an email to HQ to sign up for this, so it may happen. That would be a dream come true. If it does, I’ll be sure to post some video and telemetry analysis. I’d love to see how much better Randy drives.

Prep

As it turns out, the Yaris requires minimal prep, and there really isn’t much to do between races. The car is amazingly robust and simple.

  • Change oil and filter
  • Change front brake pads
  • Swap doors (I keep the ones with windows on when parked)
  • Reinstall fire bottle (I just had it recertified)
  • Reinstall window nets (I had them out for the Lemons race)
  • Pack

So what’s the packing list look like? Some things are large and bulky, like tires, but I also have lots of “kits” that aggregate related items, which makes packing and storing simple. I can generally get everything ready to go in a half hour.

  • Stuff
    • Jack, jack stands, wheel chocks
    • Fuel jugs, fire extinguisher, splash pan
    • Chairs, table, ice chest, EZ-up
    • Tires (see below)
  • Kits
    • Tool box (sockets, box wrenches, gloves, etc)
    • Power tools (impact, drill, air pump, light, vacuum)
    • Spill kit (absorbent litter, brush, scoop)
    • Brake kit: pads, fluid, catch can, brake tool
    • Service kit: oil, filter, funnel, paper towels, glass cleaner
    • Radio kit (UV-5R radios and accessories)
    • Race kit (tire pressure gauge, pyrometer, log books)
    • Telemetry kit (RumbleStrip, AiM Solo DL, Yi cameras, memory)
    • Fix kit (nuts, bolts, tapes, adhesives)
    • Electrical kit (multimeter, fuses, wires, crimper, etc)

Tires

The Lucky Dog Racing League is now sponsored by Hankook, and part of that arrangement is that the Hankook RS-4 is THE tire for the racing series. In order to get on the podium you have to run that tire. Ultimately, this is a fine thing, because it saves money on average. The RS-4 is a great endurance racing tire that has a combination of grip and longevity that is hard to beat. In very rough terms, they are a couple seconds slower than the cheater 200s like the RE-71R, but last 2-3 times as long.

Given that my car isn’t 15 years old, meaning I may get classed in Super Dawg, and is slow even for a C class car, it’s unlikely I will get anywhere near the podium. So the tire rule doesn’t really impact me. That’s good because I have several tires to burn through. This is what I’m bringing to the race.

  • 2 Federal 595 RS-RR 225/45/15 on 15×9 rims
  • 2 Federal 595 RS-RR 225/45/15 on 15×8 rims
  • 2 Hankook RS-3 225/45/15 on 15×8 rims
  • 2 Bridgestone RE-71R 205/50/15 on 15×8 rims

 

Race Report (-ish)

Recently, the Lucky Dog Racing League started an online racing league using iRacing. iRacing is actually a great platform for private leagues because they do all the hard work for you. All you have to do is to decide who (public or league only), when, and how (track, cars, weather). You do have to pay $0.50 per hour and everyone also has to pay their monthly subscription. But as someone who has tried cheaper solutions, this is well worth the price. I contemplated starting my own league based on Assetto Corsa because they have some important tracks that iRacing does not (e.g. Buttonwillow, Pacific Raceways, The Ridge, Portland International). A hosting service is only about $5 per month, and with that you can hold as many races as you want and nobody has to pay any subscription fees. That sounds great, however some tracks have only 8-12 pit boxes, so unlike iRacing, you can’t host races with 40 cars. That’s a deal breaker, but there are other important reasons I won’t go into that make iRacing the better choice for league racing.

Pre-race prep

Round 1 of the Lucky Dog sim series was at Okayama. This is a track every iRacer knows because it’s part of the track rotation in the rookie ranks. I don’t think I’ve raced it since I was an iRacing rookie back in 2013. And I haven’t been using iRacing much since mid-2015 (I got into DiRT Rally, Assetto Corsa, and Overwatch). Getting ready to race in the Lucky Dog series meant I had to put some time into iRacing, the Global MX-5 Cup car, and Okayama. Whenever I do virtual training, I keep a log of my best and optimal lap times for each ~20-30 minute session. Here’s what my log shows about my lap time progression over a few days.

  1. 1:47.286, 1:46.880
  2. 1:46.936, 1:46.514
  3. 1:46.883, 1:46.361
  4. 1:46.578, 1:45.889
  5. 1:46.163, 1:45.595
  6. 1:45.764, 1:45.273
  7. 1:45.620, 1:45.079

How did I drop 1.5 seconds? It’s mostly about learning the track better. I improved every session, which begs the question: how much faster could I go? Probably not much faster. A couple tenths. If I wanted to go faster than that, I’d have to spend a lot of time tinkering with setups. I generally drive the baseline/default setup. I know that there’s a few tenths or even a half second in the optimal setup, but I find that work tedious, so I rarely do it. Sure, I could download a setup someone else crafted, but part of me thinks that’s a form of stealing even if they’re giving it away for free.

As part of my pre-race prep, I also wanted to know who I was racing against. So I looked up some of the drivers in the league. iRacing rates every driver with iRating, which indicates their general skill level based on race results. My iRating is currently 1907. It’s not that good and not that bad. The names in the league that I recognized had iRatings between 900 and 2200. That indicated I would probably be running up front. However, it is possible to have a low iRating because you were a victim of rookie race carnage and didn’t do much official racing afterwards.

Race day

The race was set up with 20 minutes of practice, 10 minutes of qualifying, and 30 minutes of racing. During the practice, I set the fast time at 1:45.9. There was a pretty large range of driving ability on display with people crashing here and there. That doesn’t happen often in the real world because people tend to be more cautious. In qualifying, I never got a clean lap and settled for 3rd. Given that the #1 driver did a 1:45.5, which was 0.1 seconds faster than my practice sessions, it wasn’t likely I was going to catch him even with a squeaky clean lap.

The race started as lots of races start: with an incident in Turn 1. The #2 driver got hit and had to go back to the pit for repairs. The carnage behind us meant that me and the #1 driver got a couple seconds gap on the first lap. Over the next 10 minutes or so, we lapped well off our best times as we jockeyed for position. We went around a lot of corners 2 wide. I think we were both having a great time and built up a decent lead. During this time I noted that my advantage was in the fast corners and his was in the slow ones. My guess is he set up his car to oversteer more. That would get him rotating better in the slow corners but maybe not have as much grip in the fast ones. Alternatively, it may have been technique. The last corner on the track is a slow one, so I knew that if I was going to beat him, I’d have to be ahead in the middle of the track where I was faster. Another thing I noticed was that he braked a lot later than me. I’m not used to driving with ABS and as a result, I tend to brake more gently than I probably should.

Somewhere about halfway through he made a little bit of an error and I took the lead on the straight that followed. On the next corner, he went inside of me, misjudged the braking, and hit me. I had set up sort of wide for the corner, not really taking a defensive line. Given the previous 50 corners we had negotiated without incident, I figured we would do the same here. But I brake earlier than he does, and when he saw that, he probably thought he could dive inside. Two wrongs don’t make a right, they make dents. After that, neither of our cars were the same. Our lap times suffered and our 15 second lead eroded a little every lap. Towards the end of the race he had a really bad corner and nearly lost it. My gut instinct was to slow down to make sure he was okay. I think I even said “hey, are you okay?”. What I should have done was speed past him for the win. But I didn’t and he won by 0.4 seconds a lap later. That’s fine with me. I don’t race to win. I like that spirit of competition, but I don’t chase trophies.

Post-race thoughts

As entertainment, a virtual race with 15 identical cars can’t compete with a real race with 150 unique cars. However, it’s a heck of a lot less expensive than real racing, so the fun per dollar is hard to beat. More importantly, the worst health risk is RSI, not burning to death. While there isn’t much passing, it’s still good practice for race craft. I haven’t decided if I want to race in the league every week. DiRT Rally 2 is coming out in a couple weeks and I love driving sideways.