Covid

 Been a few weeks since I last posted.  One of the the reasons:

My entire family got Covid-19.

We have no idea where we got it from, but all four of us tested positive within a 3 day span.

My symptoms were mild.  The worst were a runny nose and splitting headaches.  I lost my taste for salt, but no other loss of taste.  I did feel swimmy-headed at times, with the occasional dizziness.  I also found myself with chills after eating dinner, which lasted anywhere from 2-3 hours.  It took about 7-8 days for the symptoms to disappear.

While at home, I didn't get to do a ton of things I wanted, mostly because I just didn't feel like it.  Luckily I was able to work from home, so I didn't miss any or much work time.

I was lucky that my symptoms were not worse, and I bounced back quickly.  I know others have not been as fortunate.  I pray that others do not get it, or if they do, their symptoms end fast.

iRacing dirt: HELP

 So I've discovered that I am just terrible at dirt racing on iRacing.

Like, awful terrible.

No matter what I try, I can't seem to get the hang of it.  I end up half a second or more slower than the faster cars.  I end up finishing well due to others crashing into each other, so my iRating keeps going back up even though I am doing terrible.

I've been mostly running the 305 sprint cars (D class), but even in the dirt street stocks I'm not that great.  I turned on the ideal racing line and that isn't helping much either.

Does anybody out there have any tips?  Thoughts?  Ideas?  Help!

A little sparse on the iRacing updates

 Yes, it's about 5 weeks into the iRacing 2021 season 1.  I've been a little lax on updates.  

I've been running a lot of the Cup series (Class A oval) and surprisingly, a lot of the Class D Ferrari GT3 road series.  The Ferrari is a lot of fun to drive.  I'm not a good road racer, but I've been turning a lot of laps in the Ferrari and have gotten very, very slightly better.  I've even raced against a few NASCAR drivers in that series.

The Cup cars have been fun on some of the tracks the series doesn't currently run.  Rockingham last week was an adventure.  Tonight I ran at the Legacy Texas.  This morning I snuck into a Xfinity series race at Chicagoland.

Surprisingly, I've been avoiding most wrecks in the oval series, and only a few here and there in the Ferrari series.  So my SR and iRating have been ok on ovals.  They're not as good on the road courses, but I haven't plummeted.

I haven't been doing a lot of dirt racing just due to lack of time and honestly lack of interest.  I'm not very good on dirt and just haven't had the time to practice a lot.

And while I've been enjoying racing them, I haven't been doing a lot of NASCAR Legends series or the Indycar series.  Again, just not enough hours in the week to spend racing.

So as of tonight:

Oval:

SR:  2.75
iRating: 1646

Road:

SR:  2.38
iRating:  875

Dirt Oval:
SR: 2.28
iRating: 1105

Dirt Road (still a rookie, haven't run much in this series)
SR: 2.74

 

 

First A class race!

This week started the iRacing 2021 seasons.  It also marked when I am allowed to enter A class races.  To start of the 2021 iRacing season 1, I jumped into a class A Cup series fixed race tonight at Atlanta.  I drew car #21 out of 28, so I was a little concerned about how I would run.

I qualified 11th and moved to 8th after a very early caution.  That turned out to be the only caution in the race.  

Ran between 10th and 13th most of the race.  Ended up 11th after somebody in front of me got wrecked on the last lap.  Definitely not my best run, but no incident points and survived.

SR:  3.31
iRating: 1475

After 126 races....I can finally call myself a iRacing oval winner!

 Finally.

 

8+ months..

 126 starts.

 I  finally did it.

 I finally won an iRacing oval race.

It wasn't pretty, and I most likely made some enemies.

Ran a Truck race at Nashville Fairgrounds speedway.  Qualified 10th and was able to avoid most of the carnage and was running top 5 when a caution came out with 6 to go.

Everyone in front of me pitted.  I stayed out.

On the ensuing restart, I was trying to defend my lead and door slammed the truck to my inside (definitely wasn't trying to) which set off a huge wreck.  It basically destroyed half the field and spurred a huge fight in the chat over how stupid the next guy was for being involved.

I stayed out as the leader again.  

On the next restart (one attempt at G/W/C) I made it to the backstretch as the leader when the yellow came out.

 So I won.

My SR took a beating as I ended with a 10x for it.

But I finally have a one under the win column.

SR dropped 0.18 to 3.06, but still have my A license.

iRating climbed to 1421.

 Now that I have my 1st, wins get easier now, right?

Oval: A

 So yeah, I've been laxing on my iRacing journey updates.  Just been busy with life and have been racing at night and going straight to bed after I'm done.  So my updates haven't been coming.

But today is a special day.

I've been running a lot of Indycar Class C oval events, a few truck and Xfinity, and even a few ARCA races, and was slowly progressing up the SR ladder.  I'd get as high as 3.6, then have a bad race or two and end up dropping back down to as low as 3.2.  I was getting frustrated because most of the time I was being taken out by somebody either not paying attention, or just being stupid.  I get it, it happens, but especially on restarts I'd get my ass kicked.

But finally over the last few days I decided to go for the A class license.

And it finally happened.

I've run several ARCA races over the last 2 days, mostly because there are no cautions so I can avoid most of the other cars.  I just wouldn't qualify and hang back behind the pack.  A couple of near misses and an occasional getting lapped didn't bother me.

This morning it finally happened.

I ran a clean ARCA race at Iowa, and jumped 0.56 in SR.  I ran in the back and finished 12th out of 14, but it was good enough to promote to A class.

So now I can run with the big dogs.  Well, maybe.

So after 9 months of being on iRacing, I've progressed up the ladder  from Rookie to A class.  Let's hope I can stay there for a while.

Oval:  Class A, SR 3.5, iRating 1330
Road: Class C, SR 2.52, iRating 1175
Dirt Oval:  Class B, SR 3.40, iRating 1156
Dirt Road:  Rookie, SR 2.74

Excited for the next chapter!

Been a little lax on iRacing updates

 Been doing some iRacing just haven't been updating the blog.

Ran a Class C Indycar race at Kansas last night.  Finished 4th.  It was a wreck fest but somehow I stayed out of trouble and was mid top 10 most of the race.  A couple of cars ran out of fuel in the closing laps so I gained a few spots.  Indycars were a lot of fun and I may be doing more of that in the future.

Decided to run a Class B Xfinity at Martinsville tonight.  Ended up racing with NASCAR Driver CJ McLaughlin.  Very nice guy.  He definitely is better than me.  Haha.  Started 6th and was running top 10 most of the race.  Messed up a few corners after a late race restart and dropped back to 12th.  Not complaining however, for my first race at Martinsville in iRacing.  Did end up with a 8x however, which sucks, but could've been a lot worse.

SR:  3.42
iRating: 1356

A little iRacing truck action

 Ran a Class C GoTS series race tonight at Kansas.  Last one before the change tomorrow night.

Started in the back and worked my way up to 9th before the first caution.  Came in and got tires figuring it was a good time to do so.  

Was running 6th on the white flag and the two in front of me decided to start banging fenders.  Not trying to get in their mess, I had to back out of the gas and ended up getting passed by 3 trucks before the S/F line.  Finished 9th but had a clean run and a lot of fun.

SR:  3.43 (+0.61!)
iRating: 1539 (+21)

iRacing ARCA at Kentucky

 Ran an ARCA race at Kentucky tonight.  Didn't qualify well and started 14th out of 18.  

Took it easy from the start since I heard Kentucky eats tires.  Worked my way up and finished 7th.  Good, clean run.

SR:  2.87
iRating: 1555

iRacing NASCAR Legends Redemption!

Another NASCAR Legends race on iRacing at Daytona.

This time I survived!

Avoided all the wrecks and came home 7th.  Good for SR and iRating.

SR:  2.71 (+0.13)
iRating: 1529 (+51)