This week kicked off the new season 3 of 2012 for iRacing. I'm again racing the Star Mazda series and after finishing 77th in the world on my first attempt I'm aiming to improve my position. Top 50 would be fanstastic. I also understand the way points work a little better. It wasn't until mid last season I understood that the top 50% of results count each round. EG If I do one race, then it counts 100%. If I do two races then only my best result counts. If I do three races then the average result of my best two races count (so if I got 100 and 80 points, I'd get 90 points). If I do four races then the average of the best two is still the result. Basically it's possible to improve on really bad results. Last season I didn't do this and if I had a bad result I'd just count that. BAD.
At the start of last season I was had an iRating over 2000 and was in Division 3. I was always in the top SOF race. This is good because the higher the SOF the more championship points you get. Of course, it's harder to get championship points. With that in mind, I kinda let my iRating freefall in week 13, getting down to 1450. That put me in Division 4 for the season. Unfortunately there's typically two splits per race and I'm in the slower, where the less consistent and racecrafty drivers race :(. What it does mean though is that I'm more likely to start up the front and should have a better chance of winning, as I haven't got any slower.
Round 1 and Brands Hatch was no different. My best time is a 1:21.7. I qualified with a 1:22.0, which was good enough for 3 poles from four races The lower SOF races were all poles. My fourth races as a 2150 SOF, which is probably the second strongest field I've been in. I qualified third for that and took 2nd place in a great round the outside move at turn 2, getting better traction off the turn and holding the inside line to turn 3. From there I held second place until the flag.
The other three races: Well, I was taken out in race 1 after a fast newcomer couldn't bide his time and pushed me off the track. The other two races I won comfortably, by 35 seconds and 59 seconds respectively. They were ok but boring as hell. I didn't have to do much of anything but focus on not getting bored and running off track.
I'm also pretty happy with my consistency. My race laps were within 0.5 of each other for 90% of the laps and all bar the first race, where I was hit multiple times, I only recorded 1 incident, for cutting the kurb to fine.
By the end of the Round I had recorded a 100 points (I wanted to record at least 100 points each round) and increased my iRating to 1750 and my SR to the high two's.
All in all a very good round.
