Ironman post race

[forddude]

What a great event! Thanks to Ced, PORRSWERX, SimGear, Bob Earl Racing, Red Weasel Racing, SFIDirect, Full Metal Squirrel, Brent Curtis and everyone involved for the effort and sponsorships that went into the race.

Congrtulations to Dave Slee and Frosty St. Clair on their 1-2 finishes....and only about 20 seconds apart after 2 hours of racing. Excellent job you guys.

Tons of practice had me pretty confident going into the race and fortunately things worked out well for me and I managed a 3rd place finish. An early race battle with Paul was a lot of fun with us passing each other back and forth several times. He mentioned that he was on soft tires so I suspect he had to get a little conservative and I was able to get away by a little bit. Being a two hour race I was concerned about maintaining concentration.....and if my bladder was up to it. :-) Twice during the first run I got a little overexuberant exiting corners and put the rf lightly into the armco but it was no hinderance other than losing some time to Paul. To my surprise I got the double red flags after my second stop and the momentary lapse of concentration almost proved disasterous as I missed turn 2 and punched the fenceposts! Luckily the damage wasn't catastrophic and only seemed to effect my top speed. After that I just tried to keep it clean and quit thinking about how bad I had to pee. ;D It all worked out and I happily came home third.

It was a great event and I look forward to Ironman II.

[Ced Collins]

IRONMAN II

Dammit - That just might work...lol. As I look forward to the Bullrun each year. Thanks a lot Tom...lol.

Great Podium there. Dave, Frosty and Tom.

Guys, first off THANKS for participating and I hope you enjoyed it. And second I must apologize as I found out what was causing the issue with the server. It seems the place where I have it located has it set to do a virus scan at 1:00 PM Est....Go FIGURE.

Started off the race fine. Missed the mely at T1 and headed down the Mulsane. Sitting good and getting into my rythm. Well that's what happens when you get too comfy. Start making mistakes.

All in all a great race and I went way too conservative on the setup. Man some of you guys were wicked fast on the mulsane and the tow from some of the cars was way different. The FSR guys I could get some wicked speed from. Tom and Loren were next, but what kind of Anti Ced device did you have on your car Norm...lol. Man it was like hitting a brick wall trying to draft off your car.

GREAT RACE GUYS.

[BCurtis]

Thanks to Ced for putting on this event. I am not even gonna think about all the headaches cuz that would make my head hurt ;-) Thanks to all the sponsors as well.

Race got off to a good start and battled with Paul for P4 many laps. After my first pitstop on lap 10 things started to go wrong. I had a couple offs and then I had a few laps with 5 fps thru the chicanes at the end of the lap....tough that is. I also froze for about 4 seconds goin down Mulsanne...at least thats a straightaway ;-). I had quite a bit of damage goin into my second pit but decided not to do any repairs. I had a 25 sec or so lead over Loren P6 and figured if I got repairs the advantage would be gone. Turns out I should have gotten work done as he was able to catch me pretty easily after his late stop with 6 to go. I had a 10 second advantage over him but he caught up and passed me. My fps for the last couple laps was terrible, pretty much undriveable but I got thru it for P6.
Had fun.

[DaveS]

A big THANK YOU to Ced and the sponsors for putting on this race.

I think everyone had a clean start but after P2 lost it in T2 after the start I was up into 2nd. I didn't have a chance of catching Frosty, that guy was smoken fast all day and he was pulling away from my by at least a couple of seconds a lap so I just tried to settle into my own race and run constant laps. I had clean pit stops both stops and was able to come out ahead of Tom both times. I'm not sure what happened to Frosty but all of a sudden I was up into P1. I kept looking to see how much time was left in the race and had my fingers crossed that I had enough fuel to get me to the finish. I tried to run a clean fast lap on lap 25 but Frosty beat my tiime by a good second. With about 15 minutes left in the race I started to short shift and back off down the straight to try and save fuel. Frosty was able to make time on me while I was doing this but I managed to finish the race with about 1.1 gallons of fuel on board, boy that was close ;D

Congrat to Frosty and Tom on their podium finishes. I had a blast and hope we do this again soon.

DaveS

[blackcat77]

Qualified in the gap between the Aliens (31 and below) and the Humans (36 and above) at a 33-something, which was pretty good for me. Everybody got off to a clean start, which was saying something for these cars. As Tom said, we had a great contest for a while, but his skill and better setup finally kicked in and I slowly started losing ground. I wasn't really driving conservatively, at least by my standards, but I just never had the confidence to really fling the car around the way the quick guys could.

I had one spin on my own, at White House, and with about fifteen minutes to go, I was actually sitting there thinking about a nice frosty beverage and just forgot where I was. I was screaming up on that turn before White House and by the time I pulled my head out of my nether regions, I was way too lat to stop, but despite smiting the wall a mighty blow, there was no significant damage and it only cost me a second or two a lap, which is better than I deserved.

Congrats to Dave, Frosty and Tom for their podium finishes and a big thanks to all the sponsors and for everyone who participated. That was the longest race I'd ever been in and I was pretty achy by the finish but it was well worth it and I too hope we'll do this again at some mighty, legendary track. May I suggest the original Spa?

BTW, Tom, I was watching the replay of the first few laps -- do you have any idea how close you were to doing a blowover on that little hill on the Mulsanne? You were actually getting the nose well up just about the moment the rear of the car came back down. That had to be a very interesting ride...

[lnerell]

I guess I was one of the aliens ;D as I qualified 2nd with a time of 3:30.9, my best lap ever. I never expected to have such a fast time as until yesterday my best was a 3:34.x. James gave me a great tow down the mulsanne on my last lap which really helped my time, I gained about a second just from the tow so thanks James!

Race start, I was a bit confused at the start as I had left the room for a quick bathroom break and I came back to see Ced saying something about redoing qualifying? Suddenly I find myself on the grid and the race is starting. I get a good start but heading into turn one my computer had a glitch and everything stopped, next thing I know I'm in the barrier with a flat tire and broken suspension. I limp back to the pits for repairs and head out two minutes down and in last place.

The rest of my race was just playing catchup. Got up to 5th at the end, hardly seemed worth it after the disappointing start.

[Ced Collins]

Yeah, Tom sent me his setup to try. That thing scared the crap out of me. I was having CLK flashbacks of the car flipping on the mulsane ;D

[forddude]

Whew!! Didn't realize I was that close to disaster. Shoot, I thought I was just "getting a little air" off the top of the hill. During my practices I was a bit concerned about if it would cause damage because sometimes I'd see sparks. Did a run it out of gas test and kept it matted every lap without doing any damage so I quit worrying about it. Now it scares me! :-)

[stormin]

I saw a replay earlier and began letting off the gas just as I crested
the hill at the end of Mulsanne... whew.

What a race. I was a human, Q'ed at 41 I think it was. I didn't want to
be up front ( like I really could have been LOLOL ) and was satisfied
with where I was. The start was, er, well, I couldn't see the lights
so I went when everyone else went.
I was concentrating on racing the track, not the people . It worked, mostly,
as I successfully finished the race. I made the mistake of doing a three
stop strategy which really hurt me in the long run. I was happy with 9th,
which included a bathroom break during my second pitstop ( a pitstop within a pitstop lol). I figured as a bona fide Geezer I had the privledge of
taking a pee break.
My frame rate REALLY fell apart the last two laps, and I had only a gallon
left in the tank so, knowing I couldn't make another lap, I waited at the
pit entrance for the leader to cross the finish line, then I motored across
to finish myself. I certainly didn't mind losing the second lap that way, it didn't affect my finishing position.
Congrats to Dave, Frosty, and Tom on the podium finishes, you will
be getting trophies courtesy of SFIdirect, ( SFIdirect, for all your mortgage needs - cheap, crass commercial lol)
We don't know who the Hard Charger is yet but that gent ( or gal )
will receive a nice trophy, again, courtesy of SFIdirect.
Ced, thanks for your hard work and thanks for inviting MNRL to participate in your PORRS 10th anniversary race. Happy Birthday PORRS ! ;D

[lnerell]

stormin said:

We don't know who the Hard Charger is yet but that gent ( or gal ) will receive a nice trophy, again, courtesy of SFIdirect.

Can I offer my name for consideration? Although I qualified well, by the end of lap 1 I did fall back to last place a good two minutes down, over a minute to 16th place and managed to make it back up to 5th by the end of the race.

[Ced Collins]

Loren,

You no doubt would be the hard charger. But it is based on qual position. Now if you want the Hard Luck award....Ya, that is absolutely yours.

[turn1wonder]

Overall it sounds like you all had a great time at this event and it makes me happy to hear that ;D
About the frame rate problems some of you mention near the end of the race: I have found that when the drivers who have crossed the line to end their race start doing burnouts and body slams it affects the drivers frame rates that are still racing. Now me saying this is ironic as I am usually the one doing the biggest crowd-pleases at the end of races

Bob

[JABowders]

Red Weasel Racing Reports:

Congrats to Dave, Frosty, and Tom on the podium and a well deserving well done to all who finished.

The Red Weasel Racing Team was maybe a little slow but all in all had a great race in the long haul of it all. Lots of give and take even at the start, but I did think everyone would hold back until the long straight, I say this because I found myself Weaseling my way through what looked like a melee of cars.

The race went very well for the Weasels, Miss Susan had a few OTEs but was able to collect it back up each time and get pavement under tires each time. The Head Weasel had a near flawless first stint, pitting on time, in and out and back on track then bad things started to happen…I too had a few OTEs for no real reason other then goofing up. I decided to short pit so I could run hard to the end and take advantage of late race pitting, I was positive I would pick up a spot or two….This is again where the Head Weasel failed to compute lap to time correctly and ended up a mere four laps short at the end, and my plan worked well….except that instead of gaining those couple of spots I relinquished them, just to fight back to a tenth place finish. The Weasel Wrench Wench soldiered on and was very pleased with her P13 finish and is already talking about doing it again.

We linked up with Rob for a cold one after wards and we talked and rehashed our races over the frosty rewards.

So pull those belts tight and let’s get set to go racin’ see you next time

James
Head Weasel and main reason for Ced’s heavy drinking.

[lnerell]

admin said:

Now if you want the Hard Luck award....Ya, that is absolutely yours.

I'm not sure I deserve the hard luck award, after all I at least did finish while others did not.

[RobGuru]

Man... kinda disappointed here.

The server deciding to do a virus check really got me. I had run a qual lap in the 3:30.xxx range in practice and I was thinking that I was all set for a good competitive run.

Then the frames went down to 15 or so, and the distraction and resultant effect on the controller cost me a good 6 to 8 seconds per lap, depending on the session. I ended up with a P6 qually nonetheless.

The race started badly as the frames really went to heck in T1. I braked early knowing we would stack up particularly on cold brakes and tires, and then got hit from behind. By the time I got away from the wire mesh fence, I was P17. Got going again, although with obligatory damage.

Drove generally well the balance of the race and brought the car home in P7. I had a few offs as I just couldn't handle the low frames the whole time. I never saw a frame rate above 17 the whole race, and mostly I was around 15.

The cold bevvy with James and Susan helped with my resultant headache.

Congrats Dave and Fro on your top finishes... and to everyone else that made this event as fun as it was. Looking forward to some more events like these.

Rob