Lionheart IndyCar Series: The Iowa "Corn Mash" 105 Race Recap

(This will be a post where I list things that I learned I need to work on in order to take advantage of my qualifying and many practice sessions)

Well what can I say. Fuel calculations you mean witch (to be PC!) I can not believe that this will be the 4th race in a row where fuel comes into play with my race. I am either having to splash and go with just a hand full of laps to go or I run out of fuel on the back straight and the car shuts off crossing the line like at Indy. And this time my mind is tell me one thing and the DashMeter Pro is telling me another.....and I listen to the stupid technology! Any way let get to what happened.

So another good qualifying session by me if I do say so myself. I qualified 3rd which I believe ties my best qualifying position so far this season. However it would be great if I could hold on to those spots. Being a very road race concentrated driver with about a season or 2 of Indy oval fixed under my belt, it makes one feel good when they out qualify people who have many more oval races under their belt. However what gives them the edge is the number of races under their belts. You can be the best qualifier in the history of any series but if you don't know how to handle traffic, draft, passing, clean driving and FUEL (HINT TO SELF!!) it doesn't mean anything. Got to first the race to have a chance at winning the race. So there I am sitting in 3rd thinking to myself. Alright given the fuel runs you have done, not in draft, you will run out of gas at 68 laps. So that is a one stop race. However the tires will last between 20 and 40 laps depending on how hard you drive and what line you take. From the practice rooms and listening to the other drivers, hugging the bottom burns up the tires quick. If you run a mid line around the track then they will last to about the 40th lap before you have to start lifting. Okay pace lap over, pace car in, leader goes and I floor it in 2nd!!! (I have to start practicing which gear is best for starting out based on which track we are at.) I hold my position with some luck but the front 2 get a jump on me probably starting in first. So again I will not give a lap by lap account of everything but the major points and what I took away from this race. Good clean racing till lap 26, the first caution of the race. Starting at about lap 20 maybe 21, Rick Music had caught up to me and we had a close battle for 4th I held him off up to lap 26 then the caution came out. However it must have come out the moment he passed me cause I got my position back. Okay Jeremy lets to math, 120 laps total minus the 26 we just ran leaves 94 laps left. I will run 67 laps then get gas. So that leaves me with 27 laps that I need fuel for after this stop. So a splash for about 7 gallons to be safe.

Alright so here is another part of work that I need to do, PIT STOPS!!  I come in sitting in 4th, fuel 4 tires I leave in 7th. And iRacing is good about simulations but all the "Pit Crews" are the same. So where am I losing time? Well after watching the replay that Tony Lurcock does for us every week on YouTube Lionheart Racing Series YouTube Channel (and sitting in 4th didn't hurt LOL) I can see that I come into the pit some what timid. I have the fear of overshooting the pit or sliding into the pit wall. Why do I have this fear.....cause I have done both multiple times. And why have I done both, cause I don't practice my pit stops as much as I should or even at all during practice sessions. And leaving the pits even with the pit limiter on I am nervous of spinning out and into said pit wall LOL. So losing .2 of a second could be 3 places easily. Also I am still getting use to the macro fuel settings you can do in the middle of a race. And after the race that I didn't take tires but didn't know that the tires were unchecked when I thought they were checked. So It is the lack of practice that causes me to lose these little seconds which add up. So out 7th....lets see what happens or I should say where my mind loses all of its smarts.

Up to full throttle again and we are going. Now all my fuel calculations this time are not taking the caution laps into consideration cause I look at those as laps in the bank. WRONG!!! Clean running, then caution 2 comes out. Okay lets run through the math again. Lap 49 plus 67 laps for a full tank run equals 116. Plus the caution laps should be enough to make it without stopping after this. I will just have to conserve my tires as best as possible to have some left near the end. I got this it is taking a chance but the math is sound (in my head). Again due to the same pit fears I come out in 11th. I lost 2 positions before the second caution. Okay starting 11th with a strategy that I feel like will give me a chance to win. Green flag waves and off we go again.. 22 laps later the 3rd and what will be the final caution comes out. Now this whole time I have been running the math for fuel in my head. This time for some unknown reason I look down at my DashMeter Pro, and it tells me that I have enough fuel to make it to the end. Lap 71 to lap 120 is 49 laps. I got this with the fuel I have left according to DashMeter Pro. So I stay out, back to 4th I know I can hold on to 4th so this is going to work. Green flag flies, heart is beating, could this be the first win for me in the series, could my fuel math finally work? HELL NO!!  I look down at my DashMeter Pro after getting up to speed and burning fuel. I look at fuel consumption and fuel remaining versus laps left = short 3 laps. But I look at fuel add (which is the fuel that DashMeter calculates I need to finish the laps remaining and it says 0). This is where the brain goes "Jeremy you have messed up 3 times with your fuel math so the DashMeter is right because it is taking caution laps into consideration.....AGAIN WRONG COME TO FIND OUT STUPID BRAIN!) And here I am for the next 45 laps watching the remaining fuel be 3 laps less than the remaining laps. Now I wonder if anyone caught the other mistake I made with the number of laps. In a race that has rolling starts according to DashMeter Pro, you complete 1 lap at the start of the race even though it is the pace laps before the green flag. So a 120 lap race is actually a 121 laps race according to DashMeter Pro. So I am thinking I am going to be 3 laps short actually I am going to be 4 laps short. So with 4 laps left I have to pit. I come into my pit stall with just .09 gallons left. Take 2 gallons and go back out. And where am I after coming back out.....2 laps down and in 14th place!!! I am so upset with myself. I watched the math on DashMeter Pro for over 40 laps and my brain explained what I was seeing was wrong and the add fuel to finish was right. I will have to try again in 2 weeks cause the next official points race will be on the iconic road course of Long Beach. FINALLY A ROAD COURSE.

Well even if I finished in 14th it did take me from 17th in the standings to 12th. I learn some lessons (I hope) and the biggest thing was I had fun (except at the end cause of my mistake). Please check out the video of the race at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nqkk57yUMnk. And look out for next weeks race recap of Long Beach, wire frames and all LOL

CONGRATUALTIONS TO THE TOP 3 IN THE TOP SPLIT RACE:
1: Richard Behr
2: Jeff York
3: Danno Brookins

CONGRATULATIONS TO THE TOP 3 IN THE BOTTOM SPLIT RACE:
1: Chris Lanini
2: Korey Connor
3: Vincent Bluthenthal

League of Legends: My Leap into the PVP Deep End and never looking back!

My original plan was to play on CO-OP vs AI till I reached level 20 then to jump into PVP so that I would only be 10 levels away from level 30 for Ranked. However the lure of PVP got me after I hit level 12. I realized that at level 12 I got all the summoner spells that were available so why not now. Plus after watching almost every single LCS NA and EU Summer Splits and talking with my friend GeneralFoamy08, that I realized the bots in CO-OP don't play like real people. Now a lot of you would already know this or think "no kidding".  But I am writing this for people like me who don't know or are just beginning to enjoy this most addictive game that is League of Legends.

So in watching the LCS for the past month or so, you start to see how the game is played by the best in the world. Go into lane, farm farm farm, harass the other champion in your lane, jungler sets up a gank then back to farming, buy and build, then teamfight, oh did I mention farm, then win or lose ROTFLMAO. Now when you play in CO-OP vs AI this is what happens, go into lane, other champion places himself between your minions and their minions, the try and kill you every time they get a chance, you trade shots at each other, you try to farm, no ganks from the bots, then you either snowball or get snowballed. So I knew from watching and talking that I had built my play-style to match what was going on in the LCS, that gave me the confidence to go ahead and make the plunge into PVP.

I can admit that I was nervous about going into PVP for the first time. I realize that I would be playing with people that I have never or will never meet in person. With the sheer number of people playing on League of Legends, I would probably never play with them ever again. But you still don't want to be the one to cause a loss, to get yelled at or raged on. Some people play just to have fun, while others play to get better and be as competitive as possible. I am the later but I want it to be fun. I replay every match that I play in to find out where I can be better and improve my game play. I watch a ton of videos that people have put up on YouTube in order to learn any little trick or tip that will improve my play. I read build guides from Mobafire, LOLpro and others as an example. I think about new champions that I can play later on as I level up. I can say that it lets me use my mind and think about a ton of strategies that I can come up with. 

Like the title says once you go into PVP, you won't ever want to go back and play CO-OP unless if you don't get your First Win of the Day bonus ROTFLMAO. I played my first couple of games and instantly knew that all the work that I have put in (which I know is not even a tenth of what other people have put in) has helped. My last hit skill was good not great yet, but was above average. I had to fine tune my build order and ability level up order which would take time. I got to experience my first team surrender that I voted against. I experienced my first champion in my lane feeding me and I experienced at least twice a horrible match up for me in lane. I saw what would happen if I was left unchecked and I snowballed. I saw what happens when the other team snowballs. I would always look at the champions on the other side that I went up against or that had snowballed and see what spells they had and why they did what they did. 

This game is such a great way for you to be able to think on the fly, to use strategy and build hand and eye coordination. I will say that I can't wait to people up a team of 5 that we can just play together and build our own strategy and tactics. Like with any of the eSport games right now, I feel like you can take a group of people and put them on a team (regardless of age) and they would be able to compete on an upper level with the right training and tactics. The whole idea that these type of athletes have a special type of skill or some genetic ability to me is not true. I am look to see if I can prove that with in the next year or so. They will have to be dedicated to wanting to excel at improving their game-play and compete at the highest level. 

Follow along with me as I set out to get to level 30 then move into ranked play. What would the LOL world come to if they saw a 40 yr old playing on the main stage at LCS???

League of Legends: it a heck of a drug!/LOLesports.com

I think this should just be the start of every post I do about League. Cause that is the only way I can describe the hold this games get over you if you are a competitive person and always strive to be in the top tier of everything you do. I have had some really good runs with both Ryze and Kayle. Now I have been concentrating more on Ryze just cause you see more Kayle bans than you do Ryze. However you are starting to see Ryze bans on the LOL pro level but hat is more for a certain player on the opposite team that plays Ryze and plays him well ie VoyBoy, Balls, and Pobelter. Also again after hours and hours of YouTube videos and watching competition play on LOLesports.com, I have been able to increase my play drastically. Now again as I have said many times before, Yes it is still CO-op vs AI. But it is up to you to play the game the way you want to do better. Most people play AI to either get their First Win of the Day bonus or to just go HAM and feel better about their play. I however have been playing it with the way that I plan on playing in PvP. Yes I know the bots don't ward and they will not play the way a human will, however they will react to your movement faster than any human and also it really is for me to tune movements. Plus and this has helped my hugely has been that since I stream my matches on Twitch.tv, I go back and look at how I did whether it was a win or lost and see mistakes that I made and take notes. One of the biggest mistake that I did was to click Attack click move instead of right click chasing a enemy champion toward their tower. As soon as I get past the minions then press Attack Click Move, I would spin around and attack the closest minion instead of continuing to run after the champion that always needed just one more hit to kill it. Plus I found many other things that I needed to work on, so before logging in and starting to game, I go over the 2 sided piece of paper where I wrote down everything that I needed to improve on so that it is in my head. Another thing that I saw a lot of the pros do is, hang around in the lane building up gold instead of running back every time you got enough to buy what you needed to start a recipe for an item. What I use to do is, if I was building lets say Guardian Angel, as soon as I got enough money to buy just 1 piece of the recipe I would run back without any regard to what was going on in my lane. Now I stay in till I push up to their first tower or kill the bot in lane or I die, then get what I need and more. Now this works best for early game, but mid to late game I will go back earlier time cause what you build later in the match the items that make up what you are trying to build has more of an impact on your strength in the match. There are a ton of other things that I did wrong that I am currently working on and I think I will post a blog as what I have learned so far and what I have done to help me with advancing my skill (but I am no way ready or the best at all)

So because of my hectic stressful last week getting ready for the Miami Homestead 150 race with Lionheart Indycar series and getting ready for the ATC 40k Tournament, I didn't get hardly any play in. However the last game I played I went 6/0/9 on bot. I had read or saw a video about how with this game being so muscle memory and tactical, that you should really try not to go more than a full day between playing. So I was a little worried that it had been days since I got on last, when I got on last night. In a video that I watch regarding CDR (cooldown reduction), I found out that you can only have a CDR of 40% and I wondered how much I was using. So we I go to the Rift with just my Masteries, I am at 5% CDR. So I added to my item set last night to bring in more CDR and added The Spirit of the Ancient Golem and Ionian Boots of Lucidity. So game 1, I get an invite from a friend of mine to get in a game. And the weirdest thing happens, I can see the Platform but no one else, no gold..nothing. So I tried everything I could think of till I finally had to exit game then reconnect. And it worked, however everyone was at least level 8, while I was level 1. So this was going to be fun. But I slowly and cautiously I fought my way up to level 13 before we got the Nexus. One thing that I had to work on what my Last Hit timing, and let me tell you by joining the game finally so many levels down compared to everyone else, you make sure you get every last hit you can so you can level up quickly. I think I finished 2/3/9 the first game and the 3 deaths came from just being at a 7 level deficit starting out. Then the second match I did to me real well. That is the match I went 8/0/6 mid against Annie. I stayed in lane, farmed like crazy, poked and harassed, waited to get multiple items instead of running all the time, constantly moved instead of just attacking standing in one place. I also did another item build order which included Spirit Visage and Spirit of the Ancient Golem as the new adds to my list. Now I know it is bots, but I was the first to level 18 had 13.5k gold (which is the highest I have ever gotten) finished with 179 minion kills and I was taking damage and the HP was barely if at all moving. So even if it was bots, I know that my play is getting better just by I increased all of these stats. 179 minions and the 13.5k Gold means my late hit has improved. The more Gold means building better items quicker which means dealing our damage and taking damage. After watching Scarra play Ryze, I paid very close attention to his ability order which I tried to copy. I just need to focus on knowing by feel when the cooldown is over.

PLEASE CHECK OUT AND FOLLOW MY TWITCH.TV/BCUTLER2003. Just stop in see what is going on. I will be setting up more about it here in the future including overlays,voice and graphics.

Thank you again for taking the time out of your day and reading this.

League of Legends: The most fun frustrating game ever/Learn the League

I don't even know where to start or even what to say. I have never wanted to be more invested and never have wanted to research so I can learn as much as I can before for a game till now. I also have never wanted to throw, shoot, destroy or burn my computer as much as I wanted to last night playing LOL for only the 3rd Co-op vs AI game in my life.

The starts out by giving you the oppurtunity to learn in the Basic Tutorial then the Battle Tutorial. In the Basic Tutorial, it teaches how to move and how to attack.....sort of. Left click attacks and right click moves to where the cursor is. Pretty simple right? BUT THAT IS ONLY THE SMALLEST PART OF ATTACK AND MOVEMENT!! Once you get into CO-op vs AI, left click doesn't really work well. Attack is really right click on someone but also move is right click on the ground. So if you miss clicking on the target, you will move to that spot. Also if you click on an Ability then click on the target, you will follow that target unless you click somewhere after you fire your Ability. Which means if you don't pay attention you will be behind all the minions and right in the middle of the enemy champions getting your butt handed to you. What they don't teach you is the different move functions that you can really do. Move toward your target firing everytime you are in range and stopping to fire when you do. You can stop and hold your champion while moving. Or you can click one movement toward or away from your target and shoot and run away at the same time with only one click or move forward and attack with one click instead of clicking away from what is chasing you then clicking on the target chasing you then clicking away. Even typing that out takes more time and doesn't make clear sense than just clicking one movement that allows you to walk and fire at the same time.

I made sure to do what I thought would be the best thing to learn and also not to hinder my human teammates when playing in CO-op. I did the Basic Tutorial, the Battle Tutorial then started the CO-op. NO!! I feel like now that I have read that there is all these other movement and attack controls that you have to stay in Battle Tutorial to try them out. Also I went from using Ryze to using Kayla. It takes time to learn a new champion. I did okay in my opinion with Ryze, but when I used Kayla in my 3rd game I got slaughtered! The learning curve on this is so high it make one want to flip over there computer desk.....which I almost did lol.

After a Google Search, I came across the website http://learntheleague.com. I read a some of the website and some of the comments about the e-book Learn the League 13th edition. So being someone that needs to have whatever I can find to help I purchased it and started reading it last night. I am going to read it all the way through first then go back and apply one thing at a time to help my gaming. So if you are starting out playing LOL or are an advance player, this e-book is very helpful to me. So thanks to Patrick O'Callahan (@ciderhelm) for taking the time out and making and updating this guide for lost players like me.

Check out my Twitch Channel www.Twitch.tv/bcutler2003 if you want a good laugh right now watching someone getting dominated in LOL....ie ME ROTFL.  Again thank you for reading this and look for many more to come.

Final part 3: COD GHOST at XGames/Why Evil Geniuses is still the team to beat.

The last part of the weekend was glued to my phone watching MLG.tv stream of the COD Ghost invitational at the XGames. I am not going to cover each team just the ones that stuck with me or struck a nerve with me.

It was great seeing Team Kailber make it to the final medal round. Like they said you don't see them much up at the very top.  They played well together and really celebrated as a team when there was a victory and when there was a defeat. It was the first time I have watched them play and I will be looking to watch them again to play again on MLG.tv.

Team Envy was very calm and collected and played some very good plays in the tournament.  It shows why they are always in the top tier of the major tournaments.  I will watch them as well when I see them on MLG.tv.

My boys of Evil Geniuses! Did they win, no. Did everyone think they would?  People thought they would be in the finals but here is where it gets crazy. Who people thought would win came down to just popularity not skill but more on that later. @EGCrimsix @EGDKarma @EGTeep @EGAchespp still are the destiny that they have created.  You don't win one tournament and you become the best.....oh wait you do if it is the COD Championship which Evil Geniuses did. They should not hang their heads in shame or defeat. They will still be the ones to beat at Anaheim. I think that when you are on the top for so long that it takes a little coming down to earth to get the fire going to take your game to an even higher level. I will still support EVIL GENIUSES!

And finally Team Optic, The Green wall or wall of unwarranted arrogance. Yeah they were predicted to win cause they are the favorite team cause they are always on MLG.tv playing some COD, Mine craft, Mario kart etc. They have figured out how to make the world of eSport into a popularity contest overlooking skill for likes. If it took you 4 yrs to win a tournament there is a reason.  Everyone will have a bad tournament,  if the planets align and you have your best tournament while everyone else had bad tournaments then you will leave. Now let's see if they back it up with another win this year. I am hoping and predict they won't. 

For me it is back to the grind. Drop Zone,  increasing my K/D ratio but playing for the objective. I still feel like if you take 4 people and come up with sound tactics that you practice and practice over and over you can compete competitively against the top teams. I am just looking for that group of people willing to take on the challenge.  Thinking of maybe incorporating some Blitz into my gaming. I think with the way I play Base Defense would be best. So I will be trying out different load outs while playing Blitz and only play cover for my base.

EGCrimsix shows why he is on the World Championship Team Evil Geniuses!

I will start this out by saying, This isn't about Kill Death Ratio, It is about respect for those that allow you to do what you have passion for and Yes I am old enough to be most of the Pro Gamers father. And yes I am just now practicing on getting better on Ghost and Black Ops 2. Why are 40 years old have I started to play these games?  Cause my kids that I get every other weekend love playing them and they love that I play with them and can talk about maps, and B-Dom, and Caps lol. So me being the competitive person that I am decided to pick a eSport team that they liked which was Optic Gaming. My oldest told me about a guy on the team that I should subscribe to his YouTube so I did.  I watched many of his videos and tweeted to him "your video really helps this old guy out". And got back a great response.....silence. Okay so he has a ton of followers maybe he missed it.  Started this blog.  Tagged him, his team and his team's owner in many of my post.  Have shout outs about him and his team.  Did this on Twitter, Facebook and Google +. And got......cricket's chripping in return. Do they not realize if it wasn't for us the fans.... The fans with money, he wouldn't be doing this?  I have had people 3 times as many followers as him in the Nascar world, movies, and real celebrities respond to my tweets. AND NO ONE WANTS TO WATCH YOU PLAY MINECRAFT! So I took a gamble before just writing off a Pro Team. Late last night, watched Ian Porter from about 12am to 4am.

Before I even started watching his Twitch feed, I tweeted could Evil Geniuses and EGCrimsix be my new eSport team? Right away a favorite on Twitter from Ian. I was SHOCKED. After months of trying to get responses from teams here is one that is right there.  So I watched it for 4 hours.  Was it his team playing? No it was him, a member of Denial, Faze,  Vexx and another playing together! What??? And playing Ghost. Never saw that before with that other team. At the end of watching,  I sent another Tweet just saying great stream hope you are interactive and if you are you have a new fan. Instantly a response of a Favorite and a thanks dude! Amazed is beyond words. Let me tell you if I was Ian's parents I would be proud of what a gentleman they raised. Evil Geniuses and Ian "EGCrimsix" Porter, Patrick "EGACHESpp" Price, Tyler "EGTeep" Polchow and Damon "EGDKarma" B, you have a new fan just from responding to some Tweets. How hard was that Wall of Envy Green. Such a shame!