Live stream
Stream was cut short as i was called as a driver for 52 laps
Worse scenario ever
Lap 1, a driver that was qualifying our car last round didn’t slow down for the Degner pile up and rammed me off the track (thanksfully hitting just the rear)
note: I’m really disapointed by driving standards in that race. It felt worse than an official GT3 Challenge week race.
People in the first stint were really racing the 6 laps of Suzuka as said above
Car didn’t look like much damaged, just some speed so I went on without stopping in P59 (another car had to tow)
And then in lap 9 I touch the curb outside 130R and iRacing software launch the automatic McLaren instaspin sequence and I hit inside wall just with the front (thanskfully)
I don’t feel any damage but it wasn’t worth trying a lap with a damaged car at that point so I pitted to take optionnal repairs.
There was 1’57 repairs, but I first did full service. Then the repairs went on but strangely, seconds were twice longer so it was about 3’30-4’00
Repairs finished, I engage first and…. nothing… we couldn’t get released
I tried… Jon Hall tried… I tried …. Jon tried… I tried and tried and tried…. So after a few minutes we just called it a day and Jon disconnected to ride his bike and enjoy the day.
I tried a few more time and after another handfull of minutes PMed Phil Diaz on TeamSpeak to tell him we were out, striked by another pit bug.
After a few words he told me that maybe we try to both leave the server…
I left and rejoined and …. it worked. So after a few meters in pitlane I stupidely towed instead of just park the car so that I can go in NWSS forums and ask Jon to come back.
I started running again 12 laps down…
Before the race I added Andy Gooderson to the team and gave him the set, just in case Jon has real life issues as a back up. But he only did a handfull of laps on Thursday and didn’t like it much.
He didn’t feel like it so he tried other attempts at reaching Jon, even going into a session where Fuller was practicing to ask him if they exchanged numbers for Spa 24 before…
We calculated that I shouldn’t go over 110 laps to avoid disqualification and my m8 Andy (love you) started to practice during my 3rd stint!
I gave him the car after lap 103 and he went on to complete the race with no issue….
The pit bug cost us about 10 laps (+ the fact that Jon is way faster than Andy and I) and the lock-in for Spa where it will be 3 times harder to qualify than Suzuka.
Reading the forums, it looks like we were the only one killed by a pit bug this time.
Andys Report
Well that was different and unexpected.
As JB said i was asked to race the last stint and a bit ..52 laps to just get the car home and finish.
well after a while of trying my best to find someone else to drive i could not let a friend in need down…crap
So ok all i had to do was drive round…well that sounded not too bad, so i jumped in and swapped with JB
then for the first time i had Massive frame drop like Antti Pihlaja, i am like oh wtf
I run here and other track with 3 screens and the lowest it drops at Suzuka is 75 frames after turn 1…no problem and runs else where on track at 150+
well this race it was down to 35 frames and not going much above 55…oh FFS
that first stint as the hardest thing i have done at iracing…it as that choppy i felt sick, but i could not let JB down so stuck at it
i had no places to make up so just try and stay out the way as much as possible.
At the Pit i took a risk and got out the car and went to options and dropped my cars to 10 and got back in quick and hope the pit went ok
it gave me upto 90 frames so the last laps were better…..but stuck with the plan to keep out the way.
I hope i did keep out the way mostly and not mess anyone up.
I was happily streaming the race for 4 hours plus to being asked if i would drive. i don’t think that the memory cleared out before i joined the race and hence the bad FPS. Next time i will be restarting the pc after streaming.
Well done to the Podium guys and all that Finished.