That was good fun last night, thanks to all who attended the double header at Okayama Short.

A total of 8 entrants joined us last night. I will try to get some more drivers in this series. The SRF seems to be gaining in popularity since the NTMv5 and with a little advertizing in the forum we can pick up a few more people.

From my point of few R1 was pretty much uneventful as I followed MacKay and Weatherbee for ten laps. All three of us finished where we started with zero incidents. The only passing opportunities were if someone made a mistake so I waited and waited in vain. The three of us crossed the finish line within less than a second and our best laps were within 1/10 of a second. You can't get much closer than that!

Race 2 was a whole different kettle of fish, although the results looks similar. I couldn't understand why the car felt so different on the track. The understeer was excessive, the top speed was down and the lap times were 1.5 seconds slower than R1. WTF!! At the end of qualifying I double checked my setup for any anomalies and surprise, surprise, my front toe had changed from minus 2/32 to plus 2/32! This is not the first time I have seen this happen and I will report this to iRacing staff.
Anyway, I couldn't find a qual. time under 1:04 and that started me in 5th. At race start the car still doesn't feel right and the lap times are still down. Now I am suspecting sabotage from that nefarious McIntyre fellow. Perhaps he is playing 'weather god'? That would explain why I am seeing tree shadows on the track in R2 but there wasn't any in R1. And, if he increased the ambient temperature, that could explain the greasy tires that I'm driving on!
Lap 3 and McIntyre and Gay come together as one which puts me to 3rd place but I still have car control issues. Over the 19 lap race I reward myself with 3 off tracks and 1 loss of control but still manage a 3rd place finish and Weatherbee / McKay duo some 11 seconds ahead.
After some investigation, I discovered that my suspicions were correct. Not only had McIntyre heated up the second race, he also doubled the wind speed, changed it's direction and increased the relative humidity! If this is setting the stage for what is to come, we had all better keep a close watch on that sneaky McIntyre clan.
Yours in brotherhood,
Rick A. James
Clan Gunn

Yeah that was good fun. Might as well have put a tow straps between the first three cars during the first race because don't think the gap in front or behind was ever more than a second. If Brian W had gone off I'm sure we'd have followed.

The weather change caught me out as well, wasn't until someone mentioned the sun being brighter that clued into the change in conditions. Second race saw both Scott and Brian G pull alongside at times in the opening laps. While we were squabbling over 2nd Brian W pulled out a couple second lead. Tried to close the gap but he was matching pace. around mid race caught the inside edge of the curb near pit in and it bounced the car sideways. Surprised it didn't give me an "out of control" for that. Put in a couple fast laps after that put Brian W was too far up the road after the spin and he just seemed to be cruising to the end.

Yes, get the word out, these are fun cars to drive. Can slide them around a bit and get away with it. A big pack of them would only make it better.

Yes, it was great fun.

I set the sessions to "realistic weather", so we'll have no idea what the conditions will be until we hit the track each race. Certainly makes things more interesting!

Next week we visit Brands Hatch, which was a favorite last season. Both races will be on the same Indy configuration, but weather will be a variable.

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1997 Talon TSi AWD
2008 EVO X MR

Yes that was a fun run. Ken and Rick pushed me pretty hard in the first race. I was getting a good run off the last corner and down the front straight making it hard for Ken to pass. But he was on my bumper every where else. It would have been so easy to over drive and blow it, but was lucky enough to hang on. With this new build you can get away with things you never could before. A big step forward for Iracing IMO. In the second race the track was a little greasy and the car had way too much push. A click more of the rear bar from the base set and it was much better. As a result I think I had a little better set up than the rest of the field in the second race making it a little easier to keep Ken at bay. I was able to put some distance on the pack in the first few laps which I all most gave back in lap 13 with a little drive through the sand at the last corner. Ken made a pretty good push for a few laps but his spin was too much to over come, even with the off I had. As I discovered last season I have to get my wins in early as it will get harder and harder once eveyone gets the rust off. And thanks to Scott for doing this for another season.

I will attempt to race a few rounds. however friday nights are tough to have off. glad to hear it went well! i can assure you there are a few other drivers in the woodwork (such as myself)

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"The sport is more important than anything. More important than any of the people in it." - Gilles Villeneuve

We have 35 members in the ARMS league, so it would be easy to fill the grid if everyone showed up.

But to be honest, I though 8 was a pretty good turnout for the first race after a long summer hiatus. I'm sure we'll see the numbers grow.

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1997 Talon TSi AWD
2008 EVO X MR