Robert Gray

I finally achieved a 3000 iRating. Here's some things I learned a long the way that enabled me to get there.

My first race for the Vortex team, racing in iRacing's Star Mazda series. This week visited Spa, in the Belgian forest. I was initially only going for 1 race but ended up doing 4.

iRacing has made some pretty drastic changes to the scheduled some of the most popular series in the game. It seems they taken the desires of the majority, and in doing so are weaking the strength of the field in the game itself and therefore reducing it's value and going against it's own original mission statement.

It's that time of the Star Mazda season. Race 5 and Iowa. Iowa is an oval track and it's usually a wreck-fest. Partly because most of us roadies can't drive ovals and partly because a bunch of oval guys usually join in and cause chaos. Most decent driver treats it as a drop week and stays well clear of Iowa. Myself included, along with my usually SM buddies.

Race a different series and give yourself a break. You'll also increase your skillset.

Week four was Zolder. It didn't go to plan. A busy week in the real world and an operating system upgrade to windows 8 meant I missed valuable track time and didn't get to race or qualify

"Arghh I've had a rubbish week. I keep getting taken out on track" This is a comment complaint every iRacer hears every now and then. Someone, it may even be you, is having a bad week or two or more. It seems every race they're in they are involved in some "idiot"'s crash. You know what I say? What's the common denominator? That driver! To be honest I started my iRacing career like this. I was getting into more incidents that I wasn't, when racing MX-5's It seemed almost every race I was getting hit by, or hitting someone, and it wasn't often the same person. Personally, I think it's because I came to the sport with an expectation I'd be as good against real people as I was against AI. Thing is, AI don't have emotions, but people do. And people don't want to lose, they don't want to get overtaken, and they'll shut the door. They also crash. They push hard, maybe too hard, and then they come off. I remember I would brake as late as possible as often as possible. I'd run on the ragged edge and I'd attempt a pass at the faintest wiff of an opportunity. I took this behaviour with me into the Skip Barber series too. Understaing respect, and learning racecraft early on will help you...

Laguna Seca: I did alright here last season. Had a race win and some other good results. What will a lack of practice bring? Mixed results, that's what - and a near win.

Week 2 of the Star Mazda is Leguna Seca, home of the infamous "cork-screw". Last season both Andy and I hit the track for a race and came together on the first corner. We ultimately finished 2nd and 3rd in that first race. I had a few more troubles, coming together with Steve Owen, getting reversed into off the grid by Paul Ezerski...

Round one of season four hit Road America this week. For me, it was to be my first every V8supercar event, after finishing 2nd in division four of the other main C class series, the Star Mazda. Fuel saving made it introduced a new dimension to the race, and I liked it.

The Star Mazda is a pretty easy car to drive. The light weight, the massive grip both mechanical and aero, the open wheel nature, all lend itself to a pretty easy car to drive from the get-go. The Ford V8SC is anything but easy. It's a twitching, bucking, yelling, screaming beast. The Star Mazda is a refined, well mannered, upper-middle class car. The V8SC is a beer swilling, loud, obnoxious beast. But that's what makes it interesting...

Mammoth Networks now sponsor my racing efforts. How so? They donated a VPS to run this blog. That and I work at Mammoth Media / Ausgamers. I like the colours too. Now if only they kick in some shiny 27" monitors...

I had the best race of the season at Road America. Battling with the big boys and making a huge iRating and SR gain. Love this track. I started off the week pretty calmly and using my standard race preparation: Run the track with my default setup (32 Front and 31 Rear wings), incidentally the same wing settings I've used all season so far. The tuesday session is meant to be an acclimitisation session to familiarise myself with the track...

Importantly for me, a B class driver, I was the first the B class drivers and ahead of real life V8 Supercar regular David Besnard. I even think there's plenty more to come there is plenty more to come, after setting an optimal time of 1:21.622 and missing 15 minutes of setup time in the session after an iRacing error denied me access to the Garage with a "Bad setup file" error. I'm also yet to refine setup work and will continue development of a qualifying setup through the week, before focussing on a race setup on Friday/Saturday.

iRacing's Season 3 for 2012 begins today, with the Star Mazdas taking to Brands Hatch in England for round one of the twelve round season. This season I've made up my own paint, with the my work, Charm Health, as primary sponsor. I've also got Microsoft on the engine cover, with my fuel sponsor BP on the nose. The paint scheme is Charm Healths

Decent enough speed but terrible mistakes on the opening lap of both races cost me.