iRacing Champcar 2022

Information about upcoming races, swap meets & shows

Moderators: MostMint, wxo, Fred32v, Basement Paul, ttamrettus

User avatar
MostMint
Posts: 2714
Joined: Thu Jul 21, 2005 12:11 pm
Location: planning a race

iRacing Champcar 2022

Post by MostMint »

Schedule is coming up soon, but not published just yet. Not expecting first race until February.

On this cold January night I'm thinking about goals for 2022 season. Based on the improvement of the field from last season I'm thinking improving overall is going to be difficult. I upgraded my pedals around race 9 so in theory I should be faster than last season in those races.

I'm thinking I'll go race to race and see if I can improve my finish in terms of % of field. I'm also going to attempt to improve on the P8 overall, but it will be up to the quality of the field as to whether I can make that goal. I should also endeavor to reduce the gap between me and the leaders in terms of qualifying speed. This one will be hard as it will require me to improve my driving skills.

For 2022 expect there will be three different cars in use - but the street stock will not likely be used. I can guess they will use the FR500S Mustang which has less HP, more weight, better brakes and suspension than the street stock.

I do have a possibility to improve this year:
* Only did 8 of the 16 races with my new pedals and they are better
* I had fuel mistakes - lost multiple positions at WGI due to not enough fuel and put in too much at VIR South

* Got to be ready for lap 1, and be a little less wobbly at the start
* Lots of little mistakes - offs, track cuts causing penalties
* Out of my control was being crashed in three different races - probably hard to avoid that though
[quote="Basement Paul"]Is that a mint rocketship on the hood?? :shock:
-BP[/quote]
User avatar
MostMint
Posts: 2714
Joined: Thu Jul 21, 2005 12:11 pm
Location: planning a race

Re: iRacing Champcar 2022

Post by MostMint »

For 2022, a few tracks are changing, upping the cars in use to four, and a few more two hour events

https://forum.champcar.org/topic/24083- ... -schedule/
[quote="Basement Paul"]Is that a mint rocketship on the hood?? :shock:
-BP[/quote]
User avatar
Fred32v
Posts: 1497
Joined: Thu Jul 21, 2005 10:31 am
Location: Munson, OH. retired

Re: iRacing ChampCar 2022 V01 Road Atlanta

Post by Fred32v »

iRace v01 Road Atlanta
This was the first race of the iRace Series for 2022. It was being held at the Michelin Raceway “Road Atlanta”
on Wednesday February 02 and I wanted to be there. I took my mask and I was off. Road Atlanta is in Braselton,
Georgia, about 750 miles from home and an 11-hour drive or that 1.5-hour flight to Atlanta where I had a rental car
scheduled for the 60-mile trip to the track. The weather was great, 69 degrees and partly cloudy.

Road Atlanta track is 2.52 miles long with 12 turns. The new MostMint Mustang qualified 19th in a field of 40.
It was really difficult finding a good location to take pictures. I took several but I think these eleven tell a little
of the story of #50’s part in the race.
New #50 Mustang
New #50 Mustang
Top 10 Qualifiers
Top 10 Qualifiers
11 to 20th qualifiers of 40
11 to 20th qualifiers of 40
Parade Lap
Parade Lap
Green Green Green!
Green Green Green!
4 min. left, Leader attempts to lap #50
4 min. left, Leader attempts to lap #50
Contact #10 touches #50
Contact #10 touches #50
14th to 20th
14th to 20th
Battle for the Lead, last turn
Battle for the Lead, last turn
Checkered Flag  19 wins, 1 second
Checkered Flag 19 wins, 1 second
Top 20 Official Results
Top 20 Official Results
After the race I went back to the garage to congratulate the team and especially the driver for running a quality race
with only the one incident very late in the race where the Mustang dropped from 14th to 20th.
#50 qualified 2.2 seconds slower than the top qualifier and there were 18 cars packed in between them. #50 ran as high as 10th,
finishing 20th out of 40 cars. Good job overall but some points were lost late. Now it’s time to head back to Atlanta and the flight home.

Might go to the next race in two weeks at VIR with the MostMint Miata.
Fred32v
GMC Canyon Crew Cab Short Box 4x4 V6!
User avatar
MostMint
Posts: 2714
Joined: Thu Jul 21, 2005 12:11 pm
Location: planning a race

Re: iRacing Champcar 2022

Post by MostMint »

Screenshot (3).png
Screenshot (9).png
Screenshot (11).png
Screenshot (12).png
Screenshot (15).png
With the start of the new season, and the retro Mustang I decided to do a Bullitt tribute paint scheme. After several hours of messing with it I created something looking a lot like the original Highland Green used on the car. The movie footage was not the best candidate, as it had aged and the color changed before it was all converted to digital. the original car sold at auction but it was pretty well faded, so I found pics of a top notch restoration to us as the base to match my color. I added the chrome trim on the rocker panels, changed the name to "Mostmint Bullitt" and left it a bit dark so as to not ruin the effect. Gotta run alternate paint scheme once in a while to help with the die cast sales lol.

Spent a bunch of time practicing for this. Really learned how to get around this track at the same speed with a lot less brake. First time in the Mustang really - and it is a lot more refined than the street stock. At 325 hp and 3600 lbs its more like my Impala SS than the Saturn or even the Vette.

I was unimpressed with P19 qualifying effort, even though I set my record lap time in qualifying. Nonetheless I knew this car/tire combo is a handful on cold tires, and Road Atlanta is not too forgiving of mistakes.

With 38 cars and a short track traffic was a factor. I dodged several spinning cars and saw a lot of banged up Mustangs. All of this along with lack of mistakes kept me in a good spot until lap 35. I could see it developing on the back straight of lap 34 - lots of slower cars to pass and the leaders were catching me. I decided the leaders would have to do ill advised pass attempt in the esses or wait til I cleared turn 5. Well on exit of 5 I was passing the last of the slower cars and he turned into space I was expecting to have, we made contact and I went into the wall. I nursed the thing back to the pits and put my fast repair to work in order to finish the race. I was P14 before the incident and ended up P20. I was sooo pissed - mostly because I trusted that guy to not come into my line. If the season goes to plan this will be a drop race.

This year I feel like more community is forming with some of the drivers - had several good instant message conversations after the race. I don't know if I can improve on last year, but I think the experience will be better.
[quote="Basement Paul"]Is that a mint rocketship on the hood?? :shock:
-BP[/quote]
User avatar
MostMint
Posts: 2714
Joined: Thu Jul 21, 2005 12:11 pm
Location: planning a race

Re: iRacing Champcar 2022

Post by MostMint »

VIR Grand West race report

Race 2 of 2022 was at VIR. The league management decided that since VIR south sold out last year we would race on VIR Grand West instead. I counted 37 turns in this layout that takes about 3 minutes to complete one lap. Fortunately there was only one short section I had not raced on before but my goodness that is a lot of turns to master for a race.

I decided up front I was not going to put as much time into this race as I had past races. I contemplated not participating to protest this super long layout. I’m calling it a mini-Nurburgring. I did a couple one hour practice sessions and the practice race last week. Qualified 15 of 24 cars and finished P6.

Then I did some work comparing my laps to one of the leaders (sharing data through the Virtual Racing School) and found a bunch of places where I could improve. I then did a couple one hour sessions in the days headed up to the race. In each of those I was able to trim about 1.5 seconds off my lap times and get down to 2:59.5, which qualified me P9 of 34 cars.

The race was busy. On lap 1 I gave up about 5 spots, but from there I was able to find my groove and get going. With such a long lap I really thought we would all get strung out but that was not the case for this race. I spent a lot of time in close quarters with cars. We did some passing due to mistakes and the draft, but everyone I raced with handled their cars well and we didn’t make any contact. I did make contact once in the race with a car that had stopped on track. He was being polite and letting the guy he spun out proceed ahead of him – but he was on the line. The front was damaged a bit but it didn’t seem to have any effect on speed. It cost me maybe four seconds as I slowed way down before making contact.
Pit cycle came shortly after mid race. I put in 2.1 gallons and left side tires (they can be put on as fuel goes in). I tied with the race leader for shortest pit stop. The crew said 12 seconds of optional repair so I figured the car was in good enough shape and didn’t spend the time to fix it.
Slowly I started moving up, as some of the cars ahead of me faltered. There were multiple reasons. One guy had something come up he had to leave the event, another guy had a problem with his internet connection, one guy I was racing with blew up his engine right in front of me downshifting too early going into turn 1. Coming into the last lap I was P7 and almost 2 seconds behind P6. I had chased him for about a lap and I was barely gaining. I kept at it though, closed up the gap by oak tree and used the draft on the back straight to make a pass. P4 and P5 were mixing it up and that gave me a chance to make a run on the front straight but I didn’t quite make it by the start finish

In the end my P6 finish improves my best overall by 1, and finished ahead of 82% of the field which is a new personal best.
As much as I hated this track, it gave me a great outcome. I think the more technically challenging and unforgiving a track, the more it favors my style of driving.

Overall I am 7th in points,and I am ahead of my 2021 results at this point with an average finish of 13th vs 18th last year. This is amazing considering the mediocre outcome of race #1.

Also, after all these hours in the sim, studying telemetry and film I am learning things and that shortens the prep time and improves the overall speed. There is still much to learn, but I felt really good about qualifying just one second behind P2 on a long lap like that. P1 well his iRating is so high he is raising the bar for the whole league, but P2 is more like what I have been benchmarking myself against since I joined this league.

Still much to learn.
[quote="Basement Paul"]Is that a mint rocketship on the hood?? :shock:
-BP[/quote]
User avatar
MostMint
Posts: 2714
Joined: Thu Jul 21, 2005 12:11 pm
Location: planning a race

Re: iRacing Champcar 2022

Post by MostMint »

I tried to take a week off after the last race but it didn’t work. Also, for this event I learned you could practice against the AI which greatly helped my door to door racing skills for this race.

With the unseasonably warm temps in WV for early March (the forecasted high for the next 10 days runs from 46-66 degrees F - can we please fix our weather to be closer to reality?) I was unable to et new personal bests, but still came within .6 of P1 for qualifying - and ended up qualifying P8.

Got hit from behind early going into T5 and had a little off track excursion on the inside of T5, but after practicing lap 1 so many times I was able to do a little better – maintaining my starting position and not be too much of a rolling chicane the first lap.

On lap 2 Justin missed turn 3 and ended up sideways in front of me. I hesitated a minute to assess where the car was going and while he did save it and get back on track it killed his momentum and I got by him to P7.

For several laps I was able to hold him off but eventually he got past again and I started the drafting process. The cars behind were close and side by side racing in the corners costs many tenths so I decided to just hang with him and get some help from his draft. There were some tense moments as I saw in my rear view mirror someone overtake P9 and really rough up the guy in T1, and I didn’t want to deal with that guy dive bombing me in T1. After a while we opened up a decent gap on P9 but by then I was fairly well convinced that Justin was faster so I just hung on in the draft. Tried some bump drafting there – but still a ways to go to be comfortable with that. Eventually around mid race I pushed a little too hard exiting 6 and had to lift as I put two off and lost the draft.

Shortly after that I went for my pit stop. I thought I did pretty well but after the sequence I had lost two more seconds on him. Good news was I had over 5 seconds on P9. My night driving was not so great – should have practiced that a bit more – but I was able to expand the gap on P9 and finish 26 seconds behind the leader – improving my personal best by about 14 seconds.
[quote="Basement Paul"]Is that a mint rocketship on the hood?? :shock:
-BP[/quote]
User avatar
MostMint
Posts: 2714
Joined: Thu Jul 21, 2005 12:11 pm
Location: planning a race

Re: iRacing Champcar 2022

Post by MostMint »

Pics from Summit Point event earlier this week:

Aftermath of lap 1 punt
Screenshot (30).png
Deciding where the sliding car is headed
Screenshot (31).png
Taking the checkers
Screenshot (33).png
[quote="Basement Paul"]Is that a mint rocketship on the hood?? :shock:
-BP[/quote]
User avatar
MostMint
Posts: 2714
Joined: Thu Jul 21, 2005 12:11 pm
Location: planning a race

Re: iRacing Champcar 2022

Post by MostMint »

Put in way too much time prepping for this race. I have greatly expanded my preparation methods. This cars tires are really slick when they are cold, which requires a different line and approach to the corners. Also did a lot of work on pit strategy and fuel mileage calcs.

The weather was much nicer than our last race – with temps in 60s for most of the event.

Had a decent qualifying effort to start P8 – about .7 faster than practice race. Avoided any issues or mistakes in the opening laps. Before too long got settled in at P10 with a pack of four cars ahead of me. These guys were racing each other quite a bit swapping spots. I really wanted nothing to do with that so I decided to just hang in their draft, save fuel and enjoy the show. This saved me about two laps of fuel and I used all of it coming in the pits with .1 gallon left. I decided to add less fuel at this stop and fill it full the second stop. This had me coming out way further ahead of the pack I was drafting. On pit exit I saw what I think was P4 coming by and I lost track of my spot in the lane and accelerated too early. Only made it to 59 mph and lifted but still got tagged for speeding. I was so mad! I had little choice though but to come in and serve the penalty and stick to my strategy.

Coming out of the pits I was well into the 20’s position wise. I quickly caught a group of three cars and went to make a pass in turn 3. I got by two of them but the leader of this pack (Patrick) took a bad line in and while he didn’t go off the pavement on exit I misjudged his exit speed and I had to lift and correct to the right to not hit Patrick. This worked fine except one of the guys I passed was working on a crossover and we made contact. After this the steering wheel was a bit crooked so but the lap times were still pretty close so I kept moving until planned final stop.

After all the melee I came out P25 and in the middle of the top 5 drivers on track. Alex was steadily catching me and when he got in range I let him go. My race was wrecked and with no position at stake this was not the time to get racy. Due to wide range of pit strategies I was able to gain back some spots. Eventually Nick Love caught me and I was ready to provide him the same courtesy but I noticed he was backing off once he got close. As memory serves I had seen him saving fuel in prior races so I pretty quickly figured out that was the strategy. He has been catching me slowly so I could be a viable drafting partner, particularly since he had a decent gap to P4. This continued for quite a while, and at some point he made his fuel number and rather than go by he chose to do some bump drafting.

At the end I finished P18. I’ve never been a Ford guy. It’s funny the digital car does not have a working 3rd brake light, which I blame directly on it being a Ford lol. Anyway after what happened at Road Atlanta and tonight Ford is doing nothing to endear itself to me. I hope this is not a long term jinx.
[quote="Basement Paul"]Is that a mint rocketship on the hood?? :shock:
-BP[/quote]
User avatar
MostMint
Posts: 2714
Joined: Thu Jul 21, 2005 12:11 pm
Location: planning a race

Re: iRacing Champcar 2022

Post by MostMint »

a tiny bit of speeding wrecks the result
Screenshot (36).png
the crew chief wasin my ear telling me this car was coming and I lost focus
Screenshot (37).png
Capturing the bump draft. This was a lot of fun in what was an otherwise forgettable event
Screenshot (38).png
Tried my best to cross the finish line at the same time as Nick
Screenshot (39).png
[quote="Basement Paul"]Is that a mint rocketship on the hood?? :shock:
-BP[/quote]
User avatar
MostMint
Posts: 2714
Joined: Thu Jul 21, 2005 12:11 pm
Location: planning a race

Lime Rock - Event 5

Post by MostMint »

I put a lot of time into preparing for this race. Having two bad results out of four due to bad decisions on my part, I was hoping all the prep would yield a good result. The night before I had a hard time getting to sleep – very similar to real life ChampCar races.

Lakeville CT high temp on 4/20 IRL was in the low 50’s but iRacing auto weather decided it was 77 and track temps started at 110. Beware global warming in the metaverse lol. I had practiced in high temps but had to refine my approach to several corners due to event specific conditions, and eventually cracked a high 1:03 in qualifying for a P5 starting position. It was near my best qualifying effort, and much better than the P12 qualifying I managed in 2021. There were many cars in the 1:04.0x range behind me so I figured holding my top 5 would not be easy particularly on lap 1

With the inside line and a decent run into 1-2 along with Mark making contact with Simon in turn 3 I was in P3 before turn 5. This is rarified air for me. I was able to hang in the draft of Mark and Alex for about 10 laps but once I lost that, plus probably not making the best adjustments to the hot tires, I lost a spot to Ian. Eventually John Wilder caught me too and I had hoped to hold him up a bit but a small mistake in 5-5A gave him an easy pass. From there I really settled into P5 and kept trying to make decent laps and get through traffic. There was one incident with lapped traffic going into 5 I was closing on Jared but didn’t think I had enough of a run to make a pass so I stayed behind him. Well Patrick behind me couldn’t get stopped in time and he pushed me into Jared a bit sending Jared up the alternate section of the track. Luckily no big damage for any of us.

All the leaders pitted before me and I had enough fuel to lead a lap and pit at the back end of my pit window. I had a decent enough gap on P6 I was figuring I could avoid the undercut – and if not oh well I wanted to lead a lap for the first time.

Coming out of the pits P6 had closed the gap considerably, but it seems he didn’t have enough fuel so just when the gap was getting close he had to back off. After that it was just about executing laps and maintaining the gap to P6.

So I ended where I started in P5. This was my best result yet and 25 seconds behind P1 was also a new personal best.

I got a lot of camera time running with the leaders early in the race, and the official photographer caught a couple shots of the mighty Mostmint Solstice
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/ ... 0x1080.png
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/ ... 0x1080.png
[quote="Basement Paul"]Is that a mint rocketship on the hood?? :shock:
-BP[/quote]
User avatar
Fred32v
Posts: 1497
Joined: Thu Jul 21, 2005 10:31 am
Location: Munson, OH. retired

Re: iRacing Champcar 2022

Post by Fred32v »

Watched the replay. Great race! Several comments from the announcer on the MostMint graphics on #50. That car looks great.
Fred32v
GMC Canyon Crew Cab Short Box 4x4 V6!
User avatar
MostMint
Posts: 2714
Joined: Thu Jul 21, 2005 12:11 pm
Location: planning a race

Event 6 - Sonoma

Post by MostMint »

After catching up somewhat on practice since last week, I laid down a hot qualifying lap – improving my best and within .2 of my optimal lap – which netted a P7 start. It was pole qualifying for a while.

At the race start the left line got a good jump and before turn 2 I was P5. Kudos to Mark for the aggressive start which got us spread out and avoid two wide and the ensuing carnage. I made a couple small mistakes and a couple cars got back by me in the opening few laps. Unfortunately, Justin who was behind, braked too late and hit and spun me in turn 11. It was a solid hit but speeds were relatively low and the car was not damaged. Fortunately, no one behind hit me and there was a decent gap so I could turn around and resume albeit 5 spots further back. I’m confident this was not intentional but I don’t see how its fair that someone can advance their position through avoidable contact with no consequence, so I have put this to our league admin for a ruling.

From 12th it was not too long until I caught P11 and P10. Scott was in P11 and it took a while to get by him. This track is not easy to get a good run and it took a few attempts to complete the pass. Once I totally missed my braking point entering turn 7 but he saw it and let me slide through so he could cross under. After clearing Scott was Patrick. After a lap or two he ran wide into T4 and I was able to get by on the inside.

After that there was a lot of clean track, so I just kept going. I had thought about undercutting but the next car was like 14 seconds ahead so I decided the gap was too large so I would just keep making good laps until the gas ran out – as it turned out this had me in P1 for a couple laps. About a lap short of running out of fuel Alex had caught me and I decided to pit in.

Exiting the pits I was about 5 seconds behind P9, so I figured my fresh tires might help me close the gap. About halfway through lap 28 I realized I was about ½ lap short on fuel. I had a solid 12 second gap to P11 so I abandoned my quest to improve and started saving fuel and protecting what I had. It probably cost a second or two per lap but I was able to finish P10 49 seconds behind the leader with .1 gallons left. I guess I have a bit of work to do on mileage calculation. Last season I would have been ecstatic being just 49 seconds back but this time I was a bit disappointed.

See the incident with Justin here: https://youtu.be/D76wskxcWJA?t=1395

Entire broadcast video: https://youtu.be/D76wskxcWJA?t=413
[quote="Basement Paul"]Is that a mint rocketship on the hood?? :shock:
-BP[/quote]
User avatar
MostMint
Posts: 2714
Joined: Thu Jul 21, 2005 12:11 pm
Location: planning a race

Event 7 - Watkins Glen

Post by MostMint »

Spent a fair amount of time prepping for this one so I had high expectations. Made a quick lap early in qualifying which got me P1, though it slide back to P6 by end of qualifying. In the race I went a bit too easy in turn 1 lap 1 and more or less got freight trained by about 4 cars before the bus stop. On lap 2 the same thing happened – at that point I decided I wanted to deploy the clean air strategy so I pitted early and topped the car off. While I went to last place, this had the desired effect and I had a good chunk of time with no cars in sight. Some time around lap 25 Shane Cameron came out of the pits and he was a little ways behind. On fresh tires he hauled me in fairly quick and made a clean pass, though I was able to hang on in the draft. I almost lost the draft but he had a close encounter with the wall on exit of turn 9 and that kept me in range. I stuck with him til I had <1 lap of fuel and pitted at the end of lap 31.

Being in the back so early made the whole two hours a steady climb up the standings. Some time around lap 40 Orlando came out of the pits and he was like 9 seconds back. At this time I was P10 and really wanted to hang in the top 10, so I really had to up my game. My mechanics for braking and cornering were definitely not my best – this is hard to fix mid race – but necessity was the mother of invention and I started executing better to try and hold the gap. He reduced the gap quite a bit at first with the fresher tires but then it leveled off. Going into the last few laps the gap was solid 3.8 second I figured I was good. During this effort to stay ahead of him, I actually closed the gap on John and Ian by a second or so. On lap 52 Ian was trying to pass Lance (P22) at the bus stop and he went off, recovering but his 5 second advantage on me was gone. By now I was P9 and P8 was in range. Mostly I wanted to keep what I had as Orlando was not ceding any ground. Lap 53 I was in Ian’s draft and chose to follow into bus stop rather than pass – I figured he would just return the favor on the last lap. So on last lap I was unable to navigate the pass as Ian had caught back up to Lance just before bus stop and I just didn’t want to try and stuff it in there. Orlando was able to close up the gap but not enough to threaten for a pass so I ended up P9.

I finished 1:19 behind P1. In 2021 I would have been happy to be that close to the leader after 1 hour, but here I’m a bit disappointed as I know I’ve done better with the car and the track. Another 5 seconds somewhere could have put me in P6.
[quote="Basement Paul"]Is that a mint rocketship on the hood?? :shock:
-BP[/quote]
User avatar
TireSmoker
Site Admin
Posts: 2432
Joined: Sun Jul 17, 2005 1:45 pm
Location: roaming the Matrix
Contact:

Re: iRacing Champcar 2022

Post by TireSmoker »

MostMint wrote: My mechanics for braking and cornering were definitely not my best – this is hard to fix mid race – but necessity was the mother of invention and I started executing better to try and hold the gap. He reduced the gap quite a bit at first with the fresher tires but then it leveled off.
It's such a delicate balance of trying to figure out how to go faster, without making any time-costing mistake in the process, trying to keep the focus to do it lap after lap.. then traffic interrupts your rhythm, or a yellow flag... top 10 is still solid, good work.

-Dave
User avatar
MostMint
Posts: 2714
Joined: Thu Jul 21, 2005 12:11 pm
Location: planning a race

Re: iRacing Champcar 2022

Post by MostMint »

TireSmoker wrote: Fri May 27, 2022 11:19 pm It's such a delicate balance of trying to figure out how to go faster, without making any time-costing mistake in the process, trying to keep the focus to do it lap after lap.. then traffic interrupts your rhythm, or a yellow flag... top 10 is still solid, good work.

-Dave
I have the clean lap figured out the night before, then on race day I lose my timing or whatever and can't repeat it. To me it feels like a pitcher who is normally good but then has an off night and struggles to find the strike zone. Luckily its not my livelihood !
[quote="Basement Paul"]Is that a mint rocketship on the hood?? :shock:
-BP[/quote]
Post Reply