iRacing Lionheart Series: Michigan Season Opener Recap.

Before I get started into the practice, qualifying and racing; I just wanted to say THANK YOU TO ALL THE ADMIN FOR PUTTING THIS SERIES TOGETHER!!! So after hundreds of practice laps, fuel mileage runs and spending most of yesterday at work going over the perfect pit strategy I was ready. I got in to the practice server with only 6 minutes after it opened to make sure there was no way I was not going to get a spot. I saw some of the normal names that I have been practicing with over the past week. John D, CCM, Dennis N, Jorge, Joe, Zach, however I saw a ton of names that I have never seen in a practice server. And quickly I realized they had no idea what the racing line was here at Michigan and with this setup. This was going to be interesting race to say the least LOL. So there was so many racers from the league that 2 qualifying servers had to be setup.

Now like I have said before, this is a new car in a new league. And with any new undertaking there is going to be little hiccups the first couple of races. And there where a couple of small ones that happened, however the Admins where all over it and came up with a solution very fast given the problem that so many people had wanted to race the series that 2 qualifying sessions had to be created. That lead to some people being able to get into the qualifying session and some not. And like some of the other practice races we had my Arch-nemesis John Downing took the pole from me on the last lap beating my time by .012!!! However due to the issues the Admin had to enforce the dual session reset. So we had to redo Qualifying all over again. So I would get my chance to try and find .02 seconds to take the pole. However like the last double header race with a Qualifying session before each race my second Qualifying session was slower than the first one. "Dang it" I yelled LOL. My second Q time was .04 slower than my first which put me starting in 6th. John "Arch-nemesis" Downing's time was almost the same time he ran in the first qualifying session. So the task of setting the grid fell on to Joe Hasserts shoulders. Which I didn't envy that at all for him. So in order to accommodate over 43 racers racing this first race of the season, 2 race session were put up.

Now I am not going to give a turn by turn account of what happen, but I will cover the race from my standpoint with my views and opinions as always, I will cover what I consider the highlights of the race to me. Now you will have to realize that this race got done around 2:00 am for me and I had to be up at 6ish so some parts are a blur still to me LOL. Starting 6th, got a real good start got to the bottom as soon as possible cause that is the racing line at Michigan in this car with this setup, however I could see that the 4 cars out of 5 cars in front of me didn't run any or many practice laps with us cause the were taking a high line on the back straightway not hugging the inside line the whole way around. The only person that was trying to get the low line going was John who had done as many if not more practice laps than me. Even if the draft was up high, you would still hold your place staying low. 3 laps in first caution. The person who caused it never before seen their name in a practice session. I am just going to go ahead and cover this. Almost every wreck that happened was from someone who I had never seen in a practice session. Now I could have just overlooked them but I feel comfortable saying that right now. Again this is with about 3 hours of sleep LOL. The first 2 cautions were within the first 7 laps. Just people racing too hard for this early in the race however I say it is lack of practice in our practice servers and races. Now in real iRacing, all the races have double file restarts with lapped cars in the back. Like I have covered before, this series have single file restarts with lapped cars where they are in the line. Now haven been a lapped car 1 lap down during a race, I have been all for this. However there was a hand full of racers that as soon as they saw this they started complaining which showed a couple of things: 1. they didn't do any practice races with us and didn't read all the rules of the series. After the second caution I had made it to 3rd and the first 2 cars came in to pit so I had the lead!! I was excited I knew I had a chance at winning going into the race. Now here is where an issue I have with myself in certain situations. I knew from my calculations that I would have 2 full fuel stops with a 6.5 gallon stop near the end, that was also if we went green the whole way which I knew wasn't going to happen. So I just knew if I could get to 12 laps or more into the race, I would pit which would cover the splash pit at the end early. 3rd caution comes out I am in the lead then the issue comes out. In my head all I thought about was the fuel strategy in my head. So here I am in the lead EARLY in the race and I pit. Hindsight is a BITCH!!  What a mistake. But that is racing and once you turn down for the pits you might as well go ahead and follow the plan. So new tires and topped off, it just became 1 more stop race for me. So back out in 10th ready to go. Now here is where I flip on the lead lap position. Being fast enough to lead and knowing that I can get back to the lead having a car start in front of us 4 laps down already hugging what is the racing line there and being involved in the first 2 wrecks, they should get out of the way of the pack 5th thru 11th racing to catch the lead pack. But no unfortunately this person didn't want to do that so after they slid up coming out of 4 there is the wreck that caught me up. So gutted in that. This also brings up a small over look in building the race servers so quickly. How could someone that was involved in 2 wrecks still be able to race at those speeds with only 1 fast reset. I found out afterward that the resets were set to unlimited. So again a small oversight that we learn from and move on. So that person wouldn't even have been racing if it was set to 1 fast reset but got to move on learn and get better. So that was about it for my race expect having a great race with Jorge Anzaldo for 14th and 15th position at the last 5 laps. Which he came out on top, DANG YOU JORGE! LOL.

So in conclusion to me, it was a very successful first race for a new series in a new not really completely finished car. The admin team did a great job handling the issues that came up as fast as they could. I really liked it how they kept us up to date with what was going on. You are always going to have people that are use to a certain type of settings in races ie single file vs double file restarts, that they  aren't going to like it cause they aren't use to it. If you would have done practice races with us, you would have know about the way it was setup. I think it was an amazing turn out.  Now we will see how many people show up for next weeks race. You will lose some people just from them not liking something about the series cause they can't adapt to things that they are not use to racing with or rules they aren't use to. So the ones that really believe in what the series is and the people showing up, helping out and really supporting the series will be there next week. And to that I say 'I LOOK FORWARD TO RACING WITH YOU NEXT WEEK!"

CONGRATULATIONS TO THE TOP THREE IN RACE 1 ROOM 1:
1. #31 Michael Chin
2. #22 Marc Melcher
3. #14 Sam Bonsett

CONGRATULATIONS TO THE TOP THREE IN RACE 1 ROOM 2 (MY ROOM):
1. #14 Danno Brookins
2. #18 Kouichi Kitamura
3. #19 Jeff York