The video really tells the story, but the basics are that I had a nice stable setup, was about 0.3s slower in qualifying, but didn’t expect to be far off during race conditions. Judging by practice I also seemed more capable of running without spinning than just about everyone else on the race track: If I held my car to the third or fourth lane up, I knew I would never spin out.

The Ford Mustang FR500S pace car pulls onto pit road for the race start...

One of those 'various incidents' as Brian Simpson spins out ahead of me.

I started to focus on Ryan and try to use him to help me stay consistent and this backfired in a big way when a Daniel Olszewski spin ahead of him bypassed my attention until it was too late… I’m pretty sure nothing I did differently would have helped (as Ryan made contact with Daniel before I touched him) but I still think my reactions were a bit slow and when Daniel spun both Ryan and myself were collected… The chain reaction also caught out Cary Bettenhausen and Kevin Cress who both spun out in avoidance, Kevin getting the worst of it as he slammed into the wall.

Daniel's unlucky number 13 car waited until lap 34 to strike us down...

’16th Street’ isn’t really a regular league as it is run by someone within racing and has many racing stars actually racing. The fact that you can go wheel-to-wheel with Will Power, Justin Wilson or anybody whatsoever with a name like ‘Foyt’ is simply amazing as a race fan. The real-world drivers become so aware of the sim racing talent that when I was at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in May for iRacing.com’s ‘Indy 25′ with Justin, Mike Conway and Tomas Schekter it was sim racer Tim Holgate who provided the car setup all three of them used when racing.

I worked for about 30 minutes before joining the server on what I thought was a fantastic setup; much faster and more stable than the iRacing Advanced setup included with the simulation. Unfortunately after joining the practice I found myself as much as a second off the pace and knew I was in trouble… Much to my delight after expressing my bewilderment in the text chat, Tim “Mr Setup” Holgate came through for me this time and gave me a setup that allowed me to enjoy the race immensely.

I used Tim’s race setup – unmodified – for qualifying and this probably put me a little further down the starting order. I managed a 25.425 and while this was only 0.6s slower than pole I found myself way down in 23rd! This was a fast group!

The race gets under way and I'm waaaaaay back there...

By lap 14 Simon had begun to charge back through the field and I let him go low as soon as he got close enough to pass. The car of Bryan Heitkotter followed him through and I had now dropped back to 17th. A couple of laps later I also let Cary Bettenhausen by on the low side and I could start to feel my car pushing a lot more as I entered the turns, on lap 17 it caught me out and I ran very high, letting Gary Clark and Daniel by while I slipped to 20th.

There was a group of cautions between lap 20 – when I pitted – and lap 40. By lap 47 I was running 15th and starting to feel comfortable in a drafting pack with Todd and Sean Graham, but again got caught out by a sudden push in the turn and ran high, letting Robert Bohanek, Larry Foyt and Bryan drop me to 18th. Robert and I battled for position until lap 72 when Eric Palacio spun on the frontstretch and brought out a timely yellow flag… This yellow caught out most of the leaders who had recently pitted and allowed me to pit during the caution for the final time.

After the leaders got their wave around I found myself restarting in ninth on lap 78 ahead of a lot of fast cars, and after the car of Billy Wease spun on the restart quickly gained another spot for the next one. My lap 83 restart was absolutely abysmal and after restarting eighth I got freight trained on the low side by the former leaders and dropped all the way down to 17th. It wasn’t long before that huge group started to race each other and eventually there was a crash on the backstraight which brought out another caution and lifted me to 14th.

Hung out to dry...

For the final restart on lap 118 I got another bad one, but did manage to hold position from Daniel as we crossed the line to finish the race.

Very nice to be able to see the race leader cross the line, hopefully will finish a bit closer next time....

Of those things above, I think the biggest change to the Dallara Indy car from what I would normally race is the restarts… I think this will come with experience but I’m used to being able to make up for a bad restart and in these cars you just can’t do that.

I ran a single qualifying session and amusingly set exactly the same lap time (down to the thousandth) as someone I had been communicating with about the Brickyard 400 on Twitter. I felt I probably could have done a faster time, but my qualifying time felt comfortable and I really wanted to not drive over the limits of my skill or the setup during the race. My time of 43.690 was enough to put me fifth on the grid anyway.

Starting on the inside was a definite advantage and I saw that quickly when I managed to start fifth and be third before the end of lap one. I stayed third until lap ten when Dwight Plesh got a little sideways and then eventually pitted under the next caution, allowing me to take second.

Leading the field into turn one at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

I restarted 18th on lap 44 and by lap 62 had worked my way back into the top-five, leading lap 66 due to drivers ahead of me fighting too hard for position and all losing out. I decided to pit on lap 68 and this put me 17th for another restart and back on-sequence with the leaders. I decided to pit again on lap 76, figuring that my off-sequence pitting and quick pace going through the field on previous runs meant I could win the race that way if I stuck with it.

The lap 76 restart from 16th-place was good and I quickly moved my way back to the front, leading by lap 91. I led until lap 100 when drivers with fresher tires started to come up behind me, and just like I had in the entire race I let them by as soon as they were close enough to do so. I comfortably ran in the top-five again though and eventually pitted on lap 104.

Chuck Chambliss hits the wall after contact from Tomas Klopp.

For the restart on lap 148 I ran in sixth-place and this is where the impatience of some of the drivers in the event became annoying… We had three restarts between laps 148 and the finish because people wrecked in the first turn on each green flag. I managed to pass two cars around the outside on the lap 148 restart (yes, on the outside), but never got a chance to get up to speed for either of the other two restarts, so remained stuck in fourth.

It became a terribly disappointing finish. I really hoped the race would not end that way, especially ending under a yellow flag.

Still, I suppose that’s racing… You win some, you lose some, and I can’t really say I am upset Michael Kundakcioglu got the win… He seemed like a really decent guy and was really pleased.

I am pleased, of course, to have had no incidents. Yes, that is right, I battled through the entire field multiple times and I fought for the lead, yet I emerged with no incidents and a massive gain of 1.02 on my safety rating. My fastest lap, on lap 116, was a 53.914.

I had ran a qualifying session and set a 1:31.015. Even though I had managed a 1:29 in testing with low fuel I figured I would stay with my time as that’s closer to my what my race pace would be.

I joined the race server at the scheduled time and after running a little in warm-up I sat relaxing before the race start. I was really, really excited and knew I had a good chance to finish well: So excited that when the lights lit up, I completely forgot what I was doing and shifted into first gear. A jump start was really not what I needed!

I got a good start (after my jump start) and when I pulled into the pit lane to serve my black flag penalty was still holding eighth-place. When I came out of the pits to start lap two I was last, but crossed the line to end the lap in 22nd.

Passing Dave Jinks for 20th-place on lap six.

I moved into 15th-place on lap nine after Adam Edwards and Omri Galili ran off track, while William Kabela gave way to me.

A lap later I was struggling to cleanly pass Olivier Raunier, and while I did eventually pass him David Osborne ran off the circuit, gifting me 12th-place ending lap 11.

By lap 30 some others in the race started to pit. I was running in a comfortable eighth-place, having moved here due to the gradual demise of those ahead of me. I honestly believed the last half of the race would follow a similar pattern and thought I’d be in with a really good chance of a podium. After all, I had no intention of pitting!

On lap 42 while running in seventh-place William Kabela let me by as I came up to lap him. I always like to thank people by typing “ty” (which means “Thank You”) and ending the lap was doing just that when I ran straight off the track! I lost a bunch of time to eighth-place Lasse Ryhanen and suffered my only incident point of the race so far as I recovered… Shortly into lap 43 I let the faster Ryhanen by, but rued the time I’d lost myself with that mistake!

My only incident against my safety rating in the entire event!

If I roughly estimate the time I lost due to the jump start and the off track excursion I still think I would have finished eighth where I did anyway, maybe seventh if I was really lucky. I can’t say I’m upset in the slightest at the result, a gain of 0.63 in safety rating is nothing to be sniffed at! The race was terrific fun and I really like it when I’ve had the time to put in so I at least know how to keep the car on the race track. Nothing makes more of a difference to my performance than time on the track.

So not only does this race spell out the dangers of being over-excited, it also clearly shows the dangers of ‘text chatting’ and driving. It’s also pretty amusing that when I crossed the line to finish I had enough fuel for another 44 laps as I’d forgotten to check how much fuel I’d need and started full! So… 100 laps next time?

The event itself turned out to be pretty exciting, with Riku Roiha making the pass for the lead in the final turn on the last lap. Here’s a quick video of that fantastic finish:

I know VIR fairly well, I got my first ever road racing win here back in 2008. I got down to a reasonable pace fairly quickly during practice but had difficulty at first because although I had driven VIR in a few different cars, they had all been single seaters! Suddenly being on the left of the car felt odd, especially in Oak Tree turn where you try to get as close to the barrier with the right of the car as possible.

Going into qualifying I knew I had very good pace and if I got a perfect lap could probably manage a 2:07 lap time. My first lap in qualifying was a 2:08.399 and I actually decided I’d stick with that. The rest of the session I spent lapping with different fuel levels trying to work out how the car would handle differently. As things turned out, my first lap was good enough to take pole.

Clean start (with the exception of the car attached to my rear bumper!)

On lap two I was trying hard to pass Tom Bobbitt, and shortly after managing to pass him I spun, letting him back by. It wasn’t until lap four that I caught and eventually passed him.

By lap five, Mike Tosi had quit out of the race and I was pushing hard to catch Clive Whittaker ahead of me. I passed Clive on lap eight, setting my fastest lap of the race at the same time. I kept pushing and two laps later passed a spun James Ptak, moving into third-place.

With one lap remaining I had second-place Kevin Bobbitt in my sights and managed to make a pass. To my great surprise at the end of the lap I was also able to pass a spun Brandon Davies, he had been leading so I crossed the line to take the white flag in first-place – what a come back!

Good clean racing and individual battles.

As the race doesn’t count towards anything, I’m not terribly disappointed with the result. It was my first ever time driving the iRacing Ford Mustang FR500S and I’m delighted to have been on the pace with it. My fastest lap of the race, a 2:08.476, felt very comfortable so I’m sure there’s plenty more time there. This car is fun! Looking forward to trying to drive it more in 2010 Season 3.

I ran qualifying shortly before the race and completely screwed it up. I didn’t get any incidents but only got one clean lap after lightly scraping the wall and then running the damaged car for a really slow time of 32.626 – about a second off my own mediocre pace!

Surprisingly that qualifying time put me sixth on the grid in a field of 18 because most of them didn’t bother qualifying (sigh). I was carrying number four on my truck so knew most of the field held a lower iRating than me, so theoretically I should be finishing ahead of them…

NASCAR racing in iRacing with the Trucks at Chicagoland. Exciting side by side racing for the race start. Tim Wheatley's truck is far left.

Still, the start was good. It was a little crazy, but good. My sixth-place starting position wasn’t held though as I got freight trained on the inside by a group of trucks before Hugo Lindner scared me a bit by appearing a little too close in my window. I took an extremely wide line to avoid him and this let a bunch of others through.

On lap four there was a spin ahead, I ended the lap in 13th. After pitting along with everyone else I decided to stay at the back until about lap 50. I restarted 15th and dropped to 17th, the final running position by lap 11 when a car spun ahead of me (again). I pitted and came out last.

On lap 23 when a car spun ahead of me (again – yes, no joke) I stayed out when everyone else pitted and then pitted the lap before the green so I’d remain last for the restart on lap 28. Shortly after the restart a car hit the wall and I passed a few other damaged cars, moving up to 12th.

On lap 32 and on lap 36 there were more spinning cars ahead of me which did not bring out a caution.

Lap 39 saw another caution as someone spun (not ahead of me this time). I stayed out and took first-place. The restart came on lap 40 and I had trouble staying low out of turn four as a car was on my right side. I had to lift and this let him and another truck by on the high side. We ran three-wide towards turn one and I lifted out entering the turn, sacrificing my position to avoid the inevitable wreck everyone else seemed to want to be involved in. I fell back to seventh-place.

Another caution came out on lap 44. I pitted. The restart came on lap 46 and I didn’t put the power down very well but still managed to hold tenth-place. I passed Shawn Holbrook for ninth a few laps later but again we had our run broken when the yellow flag flew on lap 52.

The next restart came on lap 55. I got a good restart but got stuck behind the truck of Robert Sklenka. I felt I was a little faster but couldn’t get enough of a run on him. I just settled in behind him and ran in ninth until the next caution, lap 64. I made my final pit stop under this caution and restarted on lap 67 in ninth-place.

Lap 69, a spin ahead of me. I did not pit, neither did anybody else ahead of me. I restarted on lap 74 in seventh-place, spinning the tires as I did so. Then, to my great surprise, there was another spin ahead of me.

So we restarted for a one-lap shootout to end the race. I restarted in sixth and after contact was made ahead of me (sigh), I managed to bring the truck home for the finish in fifth-place after avoiding the incident.

All in all I am very pleased with a fifth-place for a race I just dropped into and ran with an iRacing setup. I felt like I could have done more but the sheer amount of cautions just did not let me get a clean run. Everybody pitted under every caution I did, there wasn’t even any strategy anybody could use to overcome the situation. It’s a real shame when races go like this, but as I said above I am glad I recognized early what I needed to do and dropped back out of danger until it really mattered. I’m especially pleased to have recorded no incident points.

Before the event I had run two practices and one qualifying, setting a best lap of 2:18.411. After the server hiccup forced the race to be postponed for an hour I found myself able to improve in a second qualifying, setting a 2:17.232. It seemed obvious that because I was still gaining such huge amounts, I was leaving a lot of time on the table. Richard Towler (probably one of the best sim racers of all-time) happened to be in the same second qualifying and set a 2:09! Still, not too disappointed to be that far behind someone like him on a track this long and with a car and setup that felt so tough to turn.

iRacing.com Road America 200 gets under way!

After lapping consistently for a few laps I ran wide in turn one. I suffered no damage but dropped down to sixth, a position I would shortly gain back when Brian Harford left the track, gifting me fifth-place once again.

Damaged the left-front after running wide in turn one.

By lap 16 I had settled in and dropped back to 13th-place. My cars handling was very difficult to predict and I decided to pit, dropping down to 16th.

Attrition of those ahead of me had allowed me to climb to tenth by lap 33 and really at this stage I was delighted to still be within sight of a top-ten. Entering turn eight I was inspecting my fuel usage and completely missed my braking point… I slid into the turn and slammed the barrier, damaging the right-front and getting stuck in the barrier. I had to get a tow back to the pit lane and lost a whole lap on the leader, eventually rejoining the track in 12th.

Damaging the right-front in turn eight balanced out the handling.

After a small mistake on lap 38 which cost me a bit of time, I noticed fifth-place Riku Roiha coming up to lap me. I pulled off-track to let him by but immediately noticed I was capable of lapping the same pace as him so basically used him to try to improve my consistency. Later that lap I gained tenth-place when Michael Yoda retired.

On lap 48 I still had Riku right ahead of me and although I had given him plenty of room he reacted in a big way to a spin ahead of him. This produced a scary moment for me where I had to avoid smashing into Riku under braking. The next lap Greg Dukowitz, who was trying to cope with a damaged car, ran off-track in the final turn, allowing me to pass him and move into ninth, which is where I would finish.

The race took me two hours and almost four minutes. I had a whopping 18 incidents, most of them while trying to lap with my ill-handling car. However, because it was such a long race I only lost a minuscule 0.02 safety rating. My fastest lap came on lap three and was a 2:16.973. Before this race, I had never enjoyed the stock cars on the road courses, when the late model goes to Lime Rock I instantly balk at the prospect of racing it… This has probably changed my mind as by the end of the race I felt pretty comfortable out there and felt competitive. But, as always, too little – too late. I should probably try doing some testing, lots of it, before the next race.

I ran a qualifying session prior to the race, setting a 1:22.786 which allowed me to start in seventh-place in a race where I carried the number nine on my car (meaning I was the ninth best driver in the race according to iRating).

I got a good start and held seventh-place from then until lap three, but those first laps were intense! There was a large field of 14 and honestly I expected to be hit in the back in turn one, but no, every car got through cleanly!

So, starting lap three I managed to lose a position to a faster car, giving up seventh-place. One lap later I managed to make a pass on Neil Scheibelhut into the final turn, I crossed the line in sixth but lost the position again in turn one.

On lap five I had closed in on Scheibelhut ahead of me. We ran fairly closely until turn three when Scheibelhut spun off, joining Dave St.Onge and R. Montalban who had already spun, allowing me to gain fourth-place by the end of the lap.

I lapped as cleanly and consistently as I could with cars lining up behind me. Many times I expected either Morten Smidt or Anthony Larson who battled hard behind me to make a mistake and take me out. Thankfully though, they were superbly clean!

I came close to losing fourth-place on lap eight after I ran wide, but luckily the cars behind were busy fighting amongst themselves. On lap ten this worked out to my favor and as a car behind almost spun I gained just enough space to feel comfortable.

On lap 12 I moved into third-place after the race leader crashed in turn three.

By lap 15 Smidt was right on my tail and seemed a little faster, especially braking into turn one. We hadn’t been more than a few car lengths apart since the start of the race, but he seemed to be finding speed which I could not.

Starting lap 16 I was pushing hard to stay ahead, I braked a tiny bit late for turn one and Smidt finally managed to get alongside, passing me into turn two. Unfortunately for him, he then ran wide, I managed to sneak back past as he ploughed through the sand trap.

Things went my way for the rest if the race. I think Morten Smidt was still faster but he always caught backmarkers in the worst places and this just gave me the space to hold third-place for the finish.

I had one incident from going wide in turn two on lap 20. My fastest lap was a 1:22.347 on lap 12.

I ran a quick qualifying session on Friday, setting a 2:12.646 laptime that I was fairly pleased with. I knew I was probably capable of 2:11, so was really looking forward to racing over the weekend.

As things turned out I didn’t have time during the weekend and had to race on Monday. After joining the session and saying hi to Steve Claeys I had the unfortunate incident mentioned above. I then joined the grid for the race in second-place. Steve was starting first and the person I had the warm-up issues with lined up in third.

I got a good start but third-place Matej Sagmeister got a better one and took second from me around the first turn. It took until lap four before I managed to take second-place back.

Matej drove very aggressively to defend his position and with what had happened in warm-up, coupled with the fact that I’d started to get annoyed with him driving defensively, I had basically wound myself up. So when I had finally passed on lap four I continued to think about his driving rather than concentrating… This backfired on lap six when I spun after running wide in the first turn – this dropped me to fifth-place.

Starting lap seven I gained a position as Thomas O’Dowd spun ahead of me. Meanwhile I was pushing hard to catch Andrew Cherry and Matej ahead of me.

By lap eight I was closing in on Andrew in third-place. He had run wide before the esses and by the time he recovered I was glued to his gearbox. We started lap nine and both braked very late for turn one: I had to turn really tight to avoid running into him and managed to avoid contact as I took third-place.

I now had to push really hard to catch Matej who was running comfortably in second-place. I set my fastest lap of the race, a 2:12.433 on lap ten and I lapped just as fast until lap 13 when I caught up with him.

I started to move around a lot in an attempt to make Matej make a mistake and luckily for me he ran off the road on lap 14, handing me second-place. At the time I was glad to have taken the place without having to fight past defensive driving.

So I am happy with a second place finish, but know I could have won.

In those early laps I was going three-seconds slower than my basic race pace because of Matej and at the time that really annoyed me. I’m glad that I didn’t say or do anything at the time though because I normally don’t have any problem with defensive driving of that sort, my mood was obviously tainted by the warm-up incident, which I think he learned from – judging by the apology. Now I look back on it, hours and hours later, it was actually a really challenging race and that’s why we do this, isn’t it? He made me drive totally differently to how I had intended to, he got into my head, he kept me behind him and forced me to make a mistake even after I passed him. Watching the replay in those early laps it’s actually really interesting to watch what I was doing because without even realizing it I kept moving around in his mirrors and trying to make it look like I was going to pass when I had no intention to, and on lap four that is exactly what forced him into an error at the esses and led me to eventually pass at the end of the lap. Good fun!

The iRacing Silver Crown. It looks cool, it sounds cool, it drives cool.

This season I’ve been running time trials in every oval-based championship on iRacing and in Week 1 at Phoenix managed to time trial 1st in my division and 20th overall. It’s now just over half way through Week 2 and at Homestead I am currently 1st in my division and 7th overall. In the points I currently lead my division by 64 and am ninth overall, trailing by just 58.

I just got home in time to run a qualifying session before the race: I put on a good show and managed to do my second lap around the track without lifting, setting a 29.793 laptime which would put me on pole for the race fifteen minutes later.

I decided to start the race in second gear, something I had never done in the past and managed to hold the inside into turn one. I lifted and David Beattie – who started second – managed to get into the lead on the backstretch.

I knew David would hold the inside so I decided that I didn’t need to lead the race until the last lap anyway. I stayed in second-place and we ran that way until lap 12 when two cars approached from behind. I let them both pass, figuring they’d battle for the lead with David and would probably all wear their tires so much that I’d be able to pass them easier when it mattered.

On lap 20 Broderick Roa, who was one of the two cars that passed me earlier, lost his connection and dropped from the server. This gave me third-place.

By lap 38 I had witnessed many laps of David on the inside and Edmund Hershber on the outside. It didn’t look like Edmund was going to be able to make the pass stick and it also looked like David was very adept at protecting the inside, so I decided to draft with Edmund on the outside and see if I could help him pass… I’m not sure if it was me pushing, the lap car ahead of him or whether he did it by himself but Edmund eventually managed to make it stick and take the lead on the outside.

David then carried too much speed into turn three after losing his lead and left the inside open enough for me to get underneath him. I managed to take the place and after blocking him in behind the lap car mentioned earlier, I managed to pull away from him in a comfortable second-place.

For the next ten laps or so I tried to stay as close to the back of Edmund as I could. We drafted away from David and made it a two car battle for the lead.

With ten laps to go I started to move around and see what I could do behind Edmund. I tried a few times to see if I could go flat through turns three and four, but seemed unable to hold the car low enough and I really didn’t like pushing towards the outside wall. I knew I would need a mistake from Edmund to win the race but unfortunately one never came. I crossed the line just two-tenths behind him for a second-place finish.

I was really disappointed with this result. I think I waited too long to try to take my move and I was also carrying way too much fuel. I was clearly the fastest car out there even with a full tank and using the iRacing Advanced setup…

Oh well, good points finish. Clean race with no incidents and no cautions. I set the fastest lap of the race on lap 53, a 29.758 (which was faster than my qualifying time – it is truly amazing that people don’t understand the draft in the Silver Crown after all this time and how much of an effect it can have), which was a really nice time considering I lifted in turns one and three.