Due to my having to go to England for the Autosport Show, I basically had to give up a top-3 in the Late Model Tour. It’s a shame because this has probably been my best season yet.
Milwaukee was a fun race. I had a fantastic close battle, made some contact and finished 5th. Not a great points haul but it was all I had time for, unfortunately. The edited race is above, or you can view the full race: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. Results page.
The Late model race at Phoenix was another race where I think I could have finished higher than 4th. It was a close battle and I held 2nd-place for over half of the race. Results page.
Martinsville was actually great fun. I knew I had no chance of really getting back in the top-3, but after this race I came oh so close! Just 2-points kept me out of 3rd in the division. Anyway, in this race I started on the outside and dropped to 8th from my 4th-place start. I battled my way back through and finished 3rd in actually quite an awesome race. I was helped out at the end by a warp from the guy in 3rd, but I don’t care. Results page.
I honestly can’t believe this was an official race… I joined with about two minutes to go and became the seventh entrant – making it official. For some reason two of those who had registered forfeited and went to do something else and that left five of us in the server – for an official race!
I hadn’t bothered to qualify (I actually wanted to run the SK Modified, but at this time in the morning everyone seems to be running the Skip Barber Race Series). I would start fourth.
I got a bit of a slow start and dropped behind a slower car. This lost me about three seconds over the first five or six laps until I passed him. Once I did I had to work really hard trying to close down the two cars that were now ahead and this actually was a lot of fun! Trying to get my lines right each lap, trying to eek away 0.1s per lap to close them down actually made the race interesting for me…
Anyway, I wound up finishing third. I was the fastest man on the track and set a best lap of 21.003. I’m slightly dissapointed about my poor start because I could have been right with those guys and made it an even more interesting race – but nevermind!
Late Models at Martinsville
I ran an absolutely clean race. I do remember brushing the wall once, but it didn’t result in a safety rating penalty.
I just had a pretty nice race at Martinsville in the Late Model that, for me, was marred by what someone had to say in the chat afterwards.
During the race, he had been lapping me and as we approached the corner, from my cockpit view, he turned straight into me. After the race, I was quick to rewind the replay and found that we had made no contact, but his car had reacted like we had… He then swung across the nose of my car while trying to control his. So, I knew the incident had been caused by a little bit of lag between my computer, the server and his computer.
I had typed into the chat that I was sorry and that I thought the cause was lag, but before I could hit enter and send the message winding it’s way around the world, the guy just had to assign blame… Yes, I had moved over, but physically I was well within my ‘lane’ and while he also had to point out that he had clearly gave me enough room – I beg to differ – it looks to me like he came over as much as I did!
If you watch the white line between both cars you can clearly see both cars move towards each other. Also, the initial ‘contact’ was not seen from my side of the replay, but you can clearly see his white car react like there had been contact and then slew across my car’s nose.
Could I have avoided the incident? Yes, I probably could. Could he? Yes, he probably could. I made a very small adjustment to my line, fully expecting him to not be close enough for it to cause a problem. He, obviously, made a similar assumption. If you look at the start of the replay above, you can see how far off the wall I race… I wasn’t even aware I had that much room on the right but was very well aware how much room he had on the left. It smacks of desperation – and let me point out, he lost no time due to me – in a race where he finished 2nd, 11 seconds behind the winner. It seems to me like losing 1/10th of a second by giving me as much room as he thinks he did, would not have ruined his race…
Anyway, there really is no excuse for putting someone down. Even if someone drives straight into me or rams me off the road, I think I am mature enough to realize it needs to go to the protest channels if it’s bad, otherwise, nothing really needs saying at all.
We all watch racing drivers do this in real life and what do they get out of it? Nothing.
Tim Wheatley is a British-born Legal Resident living in Tinley Park, Illinois with his American-born wife, Sheila. He currently works on contract for iRacing.com Motorsport Simulations.
Tim's interests include Photography, PC-based gaming, World History, World Travel, Politics, Auto Racing, Sim Racing and American Football.
Results page.