The 2012 Season 2 Schedule is out, for those who don't know already...

http://members.iracing.com/jforum/posts ... 74262.page

Two noteworthy changes are the addition of a Cadillac Cup (open to all members) and a new track: Motegi.

I had thought about focusing on only one or two series this season, so that I could work on becoming more competitive, increase my iRating, and possibly become a front runner in a series.

However, I'll want to try the new Cadillac. Plus I've been running the ongoing Skip Barber & Grand Am Premier series, so I might as well run their respective "regular" series to get more practice in the cars / tracks. And I really like running the Star Mazda / IndyCar / HPD ARX-01c.... So looks like I'll be doing the same as Season 1; dabbling in a bit of everything.

What series are you running?

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1997 Talon TSi AWD
2008 EVO X MR

I've been doing the Mazda Cup at Limerock and Okayama... Lots of fun, but more often than not you get hit and down goes your rating

Just the other night I had a pretty good race coming in 4th at Okayama (and that's after starting in the pits so I wouldn't get nailed in the first corner). I raced cleanly athough I put 2 wheels off on occasion, passed with lots to spare, and stayed on my line making no enemies ...but after I went by the checkered I pulled in down by the pylons (way over out of the way) on the left at turn 2 and a guy comes up from behind and nails me. Tada! -0.05

Once I get my rating up high enough to finally move on, does the carnage get any better?

Stacy

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The fricton circle for my 911 Porsche resembles more of an oblong... I'm either trailbraking or accelerating while trying to get it to turn!

I'm only doing the Skip Barber Premier Series.


All depends who is around you....

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"The future is already here — it's just not very evenly distributed."-William Gibson
1989 Van Diemen - Formula 2000 Continental

D & C class series are a little better, but not by much. It's not until you start running in the B & A series that you really notice a big improvement in driver safety / etiquette / car control. However, it's also much harder to be competitive in the higher series.

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1997 Talon TSi AWD
2008 EVO X MR

I frequently get bumped off the road (I'm still doing D series races) although a few have been my fault (single file going in to a tight right hander is not good business).

As for season 2, assuming an upgrade, I will be gunning for the Skippy premier series and Indycar. I might dabble in the V8 Supercars series, but given my experience with the Mustang, it might end terribly.

As Sebastien Loeb always says, "ve'll see."

I don't own the Ford Falcon V8 Supercar, but from what I've read it's a real handful. The series also suffers from low participation (i.e. not many races go official), however the community has organized a few time slots to all gather at the same time. The forum would have all the info.

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1997 Talon TSi AWD
2008 EVO X MR

That's a problem many of my favourite series suffer from. At the moment the Falcon is still a maybe, because on average I do prefer sportscar racing to open wheel, however the challenge is in the open wheel cars on iRacing, so it's a bit of a tough decision.

Maybe I will still make excuses and go tearing around in the Jetta every now and then. I love that car.

Whoo hoo ...Just won my first race (I had to share )

Ok, who's ready for an ARMS league rematch?

Stacy

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The fricton circle for my 911 Porsche resembles more of an oblong... I'm either trailbraking or accelerating while trying to get it to turn!

Congrats!!!

iRacing is working on a adding a bunch of new league functionality, which will make setting up / running and ARMS league much, much better next time around. I believe the first release of the new functionality will be in Season 02.

With that being said, Spring / Summer is probably not the best time of the year to start up a league, so maybe we should plan for next Fall when people are less busy.

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1997 Talon TSi AWD
2008 EVO X MR

So what's everyone think of the new Cadillac CTS-V?

I found it quite loose. It almost seems like it rotates around a center axis. Kinda weird. And I don't really like the sound of it on-throttle... Sounds to "digitized", not a realistic engine sound IMHO. Although the off-throttle burble is cool.

It could be a fun car / series with the proper setup.

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1997 Talon TSi AWD
2008 EVO X MR

Haven't had the chance to take it for a spin yet...been having too much fun testing and tweaking some parts of the Indycar. Damn that thing is fast and sticky. When time permits I might give the Caddy a few moments, but it isn't really a car that piques my interest. Call me crazy, but American steel rarely gets me going (save for the Mustang)

I just finished updated the iGeekSheet™ for Seaon 02. Made some changes:

• Created drop-lists for cars and tracks. Just click on the cell and select the appropriate car or track from a list.
• Instead of repeatedly entering WR (world record) and PB (personal best) lap times, I created lookup tables for each. Now WR & PB lap times will automatically be populated based on the selected car & track.
• Changed the previously used car images to larger "series" images.

I was going to make it so that the current week of each series was automatically highlighted (easy to do in excel), but it seems that Google docs conditional formatting is not quite as feature rich.

Anyway, here's the link. The "Season 01" tab is still the old format, whereas "Season 02" is the new format:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc ... yekE#gid=4

On a related note...

Recently I discovered a tool called iSeason that tracks a lot of the same information as I do with my spreadsheet. It's called iSeason. It's missing some elements that I want, so I'm going to continue using my iGeekSheet™, but iSeason could be a good alternative for those interested in this kinda thing...

https://sites.google.com/site/iseasonsoftware/home

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1997 Talon TSi AWD
2008 EVO X MR

Been playing around with the CTS-V a bit, its fun.
It drives a LOT like our Corvette, turns in very aggresive, pushes mid corner while part throttle, then goes all kinds of loose when you do get WOT.
Overall, slides and moves around a ton, same as our car, pretty cool, for me anyway, good practice! I am working with diff settings to simulate some things we are doing with ours, and trying to get the setup working as close as possible.

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Paul

I did a couple races in the Cadillac at Mid-Ohio last night.... It's growing on me. Now that I've found a good setup (off the forums), it's much more drivable and quite fun. A bit of trailing throttle keeps it stable through the corner, and a full lift if/when you need the car to rotate a bit more. Looking forward to the start of the official series.

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1997 Talon TSi AWD
2008 EVO X MR

While everyone else was racing in Truro, I was collecting awards in the virtual world.

Took me 5½ months to reach 10,000 laps.

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1997 Talon TSi AWD
2008 EVO X MR

Anyone running the Indy 500 this Saturday @ 12pm? I've yet to run the Dallara INDYCAR at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Oval, but will likely give it a go. At the very least it should yield a nice SR boost. I'm oh-so-close to fast tracking to an A class oval license.

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1997 Talon TSi AWD
2008 EVO X MR

Come on...What could be more enjoyable than sitting at a computer for 4.5 hours driving in virtual circles on a nice sunny Saturday afternoon.

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1997 Talon TSi AWD
2008 EVO X MR

Watching grass grow, paint dry, brakes bleed...take your pick

I'm thinking about running the World 600 race later on that evening, maybe this one too

3 hours later, finished 5th out of 32 with 0 incidents, and a pile of iR & SR points. Now I need to see a chiropractor.

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1997 Talon TSi AWD
2008 EVO X MR

I thought this was kinda cool...

It was recently announced that the top drivers in each division of this season's Cadillac Cup will win prizes. I've only run half of the 8 weeks to date, but thought I'd look to see if I had a chance. Turns out I'm 2nd! And with a more focused effort (plus the allowed drop weeks), I think 1st is achievable. In any event, I'm well positioned to win a signed Cadillac racing helmet.

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1997 Talon TSi AWD
2008 EVO X MR

Wow, impressive Scott!

BTW is it just me or is there no brake lockup feedback with the Caddy? (I've had to push my brake bias way forward to keep from spinning this beast)

Stacy

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The fricton circle for my 911 Porsche resembles more of an oblong... I'm either trailbraking or accelerating while trying to get it to turn!

Not that impressive. I'm in the slowest division with people who are generally unskilled casual racers. Just the fact that I'm in 2nd after having missed half the races so far demonstrates how easy it'd be to take the win.

Still, I won't turn down a prize.

Yeah, the tires feel kinda numb on that car. No sound feedback either.

I just use the fixed setup. Don't think you can change any settings in the Cadillac Cup series.

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1997 Talon TSi AWD
2008 EVO X MR

Well, I'm now comfortably in the lead of my Cadillac Cup division with a surplus of 100+ championship points, so a win quite likely. However, I misread the prize announcement posted above.... The 1st, 2nd / 3rd, etc is not in reference to your position within a division, but rather which division you are in. To put it simply, only the winners of Divisions 1 through 3 will get a signed Cadillac racing helmet. The Division 10 winner (i.e likely me) gets a Cadillac T-shirt.

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1997 Talon TSi AWD
2008 EVO X MR

Today marks the end of Season 2, and the presentation of certificates! I'm pretty pleased. I managed to win eight divisional road championships and place in the top two of eight divisional time trial championships (just ignore the fact that it was the slowest division.. 10 ).

However, I've found running all those different series to be too time consuming and doesn't allow a person to fully develop their skills with a particular car. Plus is makes it hard to build up your iRating when your jumping into races with little practice.

So for Season 3 I plan to focus primarily on the Star Mazda series, and run in the Classic Teams Championship (Lotus 79) just for fun. I'm hoping this will allow me to really get good in the Star Mazda and hopefully one day take a stab at a top 5 overall in a season race championship.

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1997 Talon TSi AWD
2008 EVO X MR

Great job Scott!

I still don't understand the "season" and iRating stuff ...I never let my rating go below 3.00 but never quite got it up to 4.00 (I think my highest was 3.85) so will I still graduate up a class?

Stacy

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The fricton circle for my 911 Porsche resembles more of an oblong... I'm either trailbraking or accelerating while trying to get it to turn!

A common confusion with members is a distinction between iRating and Safety Rating. They are two entirely independent values. In the most basic terms, iRating measures skill whereas Safety Rating measures safety.

In my above post I was referencing iRating, but you're referring to Safety Rating. To answer your question, yes, if you maintain your Safety Rating above 3.0 throughout this (13th) week, then you will be promoted to a Class C Road License come next Tuesday (start of Season 3). Alternatively, if you ever manage to achieve a Safety Rating of 4.0, you will be instantly promoted to the next license class (called the fast-track system).

Check out section "3" in the following guide for a detailed explaining of the rating systems: http://membersmedia.iracing.com/pdfs/Be ... 100909.pdf

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1997 Talon TSi AWD
2008 EVO X MR

So should I stay away from competition this week so as not to mess it up?

Stacy

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The fricton circle for my 911 Porsche resembles more of an oblong... I'm either trailbraking or accelerating while trying to get it to turn!

Depends on you. Last Week 13, I got my SR up to an A 4.99. but I lost a lot of iRating by playing it super safe and being uncompetitive: viewtopic.php?f=42&t=11030&p=96881#p96881

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1997 Talon TSi AWD
2008 EVO X MR