00:31 The green 5 car gets squeezed between me on the inside and the 3 on the outside. Although there was a bit of track still available to my right here, I don’t feel like I did anything wrong. I think the green 5 should have backed off because the position was untenable. But I get a 4 point ding on my safety rating for this (anytime two cars make contact, both of them get 4 points, regardless of who is at fault).
00:37 You can see a ton of cars using the runoff area in turn 1. I’m not sure if this is fallout from the incident that the 3, 4, and 5 cars just had (I’m the 4), or if it’s just people running wide because they got too bunched up or missed their turn 1 braking points. Technically that whole apron is part of the track, so they can be out there without penalty.
00:49 You’ll hear me shift to 5th gear here at the top of the hill. Sometimes I shift early near the bottom of the hill because the engine sound triggers my instinct to shift. But the car can’t accelerate up this hill in 5th gear, so you have to be patient and stick with 4th.
01:18 I’m in and out of the throttle here more than I will be later in the race, once the tires heat up. On the first lap, you have to be careful not to spin on cold tires.
01:20 And speaking of being careful not to spin, ha ha. I hit the brake hard momentarily to avoid hitting the car in front; I wasn’t sure what that car was going to do, and it caught me by surprise slowing down (it wasn’t a bad thing for that car to do, I just hadn’t made up my mind yet what to do myself when that car suddenly slowed).
02:43 I’ve never noticed myself on the pylon scoreboard before. As we begin lap 2, you can see my number 4 on the scoreboard in third place (the top 4 cars are 13, 11, 4, and 9).
02:46 The 9 car, who I’m going to battle through the entire race, passes me on the inside going through turn 1. I knew the 9 was there, and I run very wide through the turn to leave room.
03:01 We’re catching the leader, so this is a 3-way fight for the lead (I never did lead in this race though).
03:18 I back off a little to stay behind the 11, because I’m not ready to go into the “bus stop” chicane side-by-side.
03:54 This 180-degree turn that makes up the “toe” of the “boot” at the Glen is somewhat challenging to get right in the Skip Barber car. It’s not a hard corner to make, so it’s not challenging in the sense of being dangerous; the issue is keeping your speed up. The problem is, second gear is too low for the corner, you’ll slow down too much, but in third gear if you lose just 2mph or so, the engine slows down enough that it can’t accelerate you up the hill that starts in the middle of the turn. Hitting your line so you can keep the engine fast is important if you’re in a fight and need every bit of speed.
04:14 I learned in practice that this is my favorite corner in which to try to pass someone. I give a look here, but this is the race leader and it’s still early in the race, I don’t want to force the issue.
04:35 This turn you should be able to take flat-out with the throttle at 100% all the way through, but I’ve never been able to do it. For a long time I was turning in too early. Now I’ve got the turn-in point about right. But if you get a wheel even a tiny bit off the curb on the right at the turn’s exit, you’ll spin and crash. So I always lift a little going through here.
04:55 I back off on purpose to let the 9 car go past me. It’s early in the race and my sense is that the 9 is faster, and this early in the race I’m still feeling risk-averse and not racey.
05:39 The 9 tried for the lead by going for the left-side line into the bus stop, but it didn’t work and the 9 slowed, so now I’ve caught up.
06:25 This is my favorite corner to pass, and I overtake the 9 car going through this turn. I like it because you slow down enough for the apex of this turn anyway that you can pass (at least in races of my skill level) without being at a risky speed. You make the other car go around the outside line, and you slow enough to hold the inside curb through the turn and you always win that race.
06:52 You can see a bit of smoke from someone who just spun, and a few seconds later we go flying by whoever it was.
07:21 The 9 has a run on me coming off turn 1, and we’ll go side-by-side through the esses for the next 20 seconds.
07:45 I back off and let the 9 go first into the bus stop.
09:38 This is about to show what a difference it makes to come off turn 1 with a tiny bit more speed than the other car, and it’s also about to show the effects of the draft you can get off a car in front of you for this extremely long flat-out part of the track -- over the next 20 seconds, I’ll make up all the distance on the 9 and I’ll end up having to back off to avoid going side-by-side into the bus stop.
10:11 Nice view of the scoring pylon, with the 9 and 4 (me) in 3rd and 4th place. (The 7 at the top means there are 7 laps to go, including the one we are currently on.)
10:22 You might notice this is a difficult turn for me, I’m unsure of the braking point, but what really throws me off is that I’ve never figured out how to reliably downshift into 3rd gear here, which you need to do. The gearbox won’t seem to shift under slight braking like it usually does, and I’m also worried about spinning on the downshift.
11:14 You can hear the 9’s engine in front of me here, when I shift into 4th gear you can tell the 9 is still in 3rd.
11:34 As we start lap 6 (of 11), the 6 car is joining me and the 9 to make a 3-way race for 3rd place. The 6 has been catching us for awhile, and it’s not clear at this point whether the 6 is really faster or the 9 and I are just losing time as we fight one another.
11:50 I’m gonna get a run on the 9 by drafting.
12:08 I’m past the 9, but as I was drafting the 9, the 6 was drafting me, and now the three of us are in a fight. We go through the bus stop me (4) first, then the 9, then the 6, all very close.
13:53 The 9 outbrakes me following me into turn 1, and gets a lot closer. He’ll clearly go by in the next 20 seconds as we’re coming into the long drafting section of the track.
14:18 The 9 tries to pass on my left, but since there’s the 6 right behind us, I don’t feel like I can back off without causing a crash.
14:28 We enter the bus stop side by side, but the 9 is going to have the inside line through the main part of it.
14:33 Since I had to slow to run the wrong line through the bus stop, the 6 gets alongside as we exit the chicane.
14:38 But I have the inside line going through the long right hander, so I stay ahead of the 6.
15:16 I pull out to make my favorite pass, once again.
15:22 The 6 follows me through the inside line, trying to pass the 9.
15:30 The 6 makes the pass on the 9 going around the outside! This is super cool, I don’t think I could have done this.
16:23 At this point, I knew what was likely going to happen in the next 20 seconds -- we were likely going to be entering the bus stop all together.
16:48 The 6 hits me a bit from behind, but no damage to either of us.
17:07 This side-by-side race is really neat, but it’s going to be decided by that 180-degree turn coming up. The 6 is on the outside here, but will have the inside going into that turn.
17:33 This is my favorite passing place, but I can’t get close enough to the 6 to try.
18:47 Now I’m getting racey -- I’m going to make us go side-by-side into the bus stop again.
18:58 But I miss the line and slow down too much through the middle of it.
19:33 Here I’ve missed my line a little, and I’ve let the engine slow down too much to power out of this turn up the hill. Fortunately the 9 also missed the line, but the 6 is going to get away from us a bit now.
20:28 It’s surprising here that the 9 goes for the outside line to approach turn 1.
20:58 The 9 obviously has the draft and can go right by me.
21:02 But instead of going right by, the 9 wrecks us both! I don’t know why that happened. I was all the way to the left, almost on the grass, giving the 9 almost the entire track down a long straight where the 9 should be able to go right by with no problem and lead into the bus stop. Instead the 9 comes left and we wreck.
21:17 Here’s where it’s a game and not real life. I’ve hit the “reset” button, which you can do in lower-level races. I get dropped into the pits, but have to wait for a simulated “towing” time. However, the damage in this low-level Class D race will get fixed immediately once we wait through the 2-minute or so tow. Also, although the towing takes a long time, for scoring purposes you are towed forward around the track, so I end up on lap 11, the final lap, and it will turn out I complete the race on the lead lap.
21:21 Another car drives right through me! In the “working lane” of pit lane, cars can go through one another without incident. This is one place where iRacing gives up on realism in favor of keeping everything running smoothly.
21:28 An instant replay of the crash from a couple different cameras.
22:01 Why does the 9 drift to the left here??? I’ve gone as far left as I can go to leave the whole track open.
22:17 Back to sitting in the pits waiting on the pretend tow truck.
24:05 Back underway at last! On the final lap.
24:09 If you look closely at the TV view, you’ll see another car beginning to come out of the pits in the distance. It’s the 9, who also got towed and fixed up! I have a good lead on the 9 by distance, but now I’m on cold tires for the final lap and I just want to finish, so I’m going to take it easy. The 9 will nearly catch me by the end.
24:14 Notice the mud on the nose of my car.
26:05 I get a little bit loose in turn 10, the next-to-last turn, and have to slow down and counter-steer a bit to catch it. The 9 is almost going to get me because of this.
26:22 I don’t know why the 9 didn’t try drafting me a bit here. I’ll win the battle by just a little bit.