Weekly Activity Archive

2022 Season 1

2022 Season 1, Week 12

Monday February 28 @ 7pm - Monday March 7 @ 7pm.

• Formula Renault 2.0 at Monza: I'm not competitive at Monza, and had no time during the week to get much better. I ran the race once, and spent most of the 28 or so minutes in the middle of the field and annoyed at being stuck behind someone that I was faster than, but could never get by. (That driver was not doing anything wrong, he doesn't have to let me by, it's up to me to figure out a way to make the pass.) There's so much drafting at Monza that you need to be able to pretty quickly pull out at least a half-second gap on anyone that you pass, or they'll just draft right back by you. I was never able to do that, and on the last lap I wanted so much to set up a chance to make the pass that I lost the back end as I got the power down too quickly exiting a chicane. I finished near last.

  1. • ARCA at Phoenix: I finished out the season with a return to ARCA just for fun. I started 4th and finished 5th in a field of 20, with my tires still in good enough shape at the end to compete with the cars near me.

2022 Season 1, Week 11

Monday February 21 @ 7pm - Monday February 28 @ 7pm.

• Formula Renault 2.0 at Sebring: This is my first time racing this track, it's fun to drive, but it's a long two-minute lap and the race felt really long. I'm about in my usual place on a new track, which is behind the lead group of fast people, and at the front of the group of mid-field people. In this race, since this is a very easy track to spin on, and it brought out a lot of people who I don't often see early in the week in the Formula Renault 2.0, I decided to let anyone who got near me go on by, figuring that probably a few of them would crash, and the ones who were left I could probably pass for position later if they were not truly faster than me. Little did I know that ALL of them would crash! By lap 4, I was running by myself in fourth place with no one in sight, and it was a dull 10 laps from there to finish out the race. [Video]

2022 Season 1, Week 10

Monday February 14 @ 7pm - Monday February 21 @ 7pm.

• Formula Renault 2.0 at the Charlotte Roval: I ran the first race of the week on Monday evening in the Eastern U.S., and it was an embarrassing race in which I finished 2nd. It was a weak field overall, and in the end only 3 out of 16 drivers finished on the lead lap. Charlotte is one of the free tracks that everyone who joins iRacing has access to (most other tracks you have to purchase for about $15 each), and anyone who has graduated from Rookie Road Racing can join our Class D series, so Charlotte brings out a large crowd of people with little or no experience in our car who just want to try it out. The race was embarrassing because the leader was 10 seconds ahead of me for most of the race, and the car behind me was 20 seconds behind for most of the race, and it felt like none of us was even trying to go fast anymore. We should be able to do laps in the mid-1:12s easily, and I ran a lot of laps in the 1;14s or worse. [Video]

2022 Season 1, Week 9

Monday February 7 @ 7pm - Monday February 14 @ 7pm.

• Formula Renault 2.0 at the Nürburgring Grand Prix: For the first time, I won a top-split Formula Renault 2.0 race! I started second on the grid, and got ahead of the pole sitter because I had the inside line going into the sharp turn 1. [Videos: Full Race, Shortened Version]

2022 Season 1, Week 8

Monday January 31 @ 7pm - Monday February 7 @ 7pm.

• Formula Renault 2.0 at Zolder: I was looking forward to racing here, I think this is a fun track to drive, but for some reason I just could not control my car on the inside lane at the start, and in 3 of the 4 races I ran here, I spun by myself at low speed in turn 1 on the first lap.

2022 Season 1, Week 7

Monday January 24 @ 7pm - Monday January 31 @ 7pm.

• Formula Renault 2.0 at Road America: The first race of the week was loaded with drivers who are Road America enthusiasts, so that the usual field of Formula Renault 2.0 drivers had a lot of competition at the front. I did OK in this race, with one interesting incident where I hit another car from behind at the end of lap 7 (details on this in the text on YouTube describing the video). [Video]

2022 Season 1, Week 6

Monday January 17 @ 7pm - Monday January 24 @ 7pm.

• Formula Renault 2.0 at Mosport (Canadian Tire Motorsports Park): This is a fun track to practice on, but I do not like racing here. I struggle a lot with tire wear after about 7 laps, it is difficult to keep the car on the track. I ran the race 3 times, spinning out by myself from near the front in my first two tries, and then finally completing a race on my third try, finishing second and starting second on the grid. [Video]

  1. • Porsche Cup at Mid-Ohio: Mid-Ohio is one of my favorite tracks, so I ran this for fun. I was driving around alone for most of the race, in my usual place -- way behind the 4 or 5 really fast people, but ahead of the bulk of the pack. [Abridged Video]

2022 Season 1, Week 5

Monday January 10 @ 7pm - Monday January 17 @ 7pm.

• Formula Renault 2.0 at the Hungaroring: I did really well at the start of this race, starting 5th and coming out of turn 1 in 3rd, where I stayed for most of the rest of the race. (I was second a few times when the really fast car 5 ahead of me went off track, but he was much faster than me and I just let him go by each time he caught back up to me.) [Video]

2022 Season 1, Week 4

Monday January 3 @ 7pm - Monday January 10 @ 7pm.

• Formula Renault 2.0 at Snetterton: I ran a great race here late in the week, keeping pace with some pretty fast drivers, having no incidents myself, and finishing 4th with some luck from the misfortunes of others. At the beginning of the week, in the Monday night race that I usually run, I spun near the end of the first lap, and was a bit sloppy for the whole first half of the race. [Video: Race 1, Race 2; Race 2 is the better one.]

2022 Season 1, Week 3

Monday December 27 @ 7pm - Monday January 3 @ 7pm.

• Formula Renault 2.0 at Red Bull Ring (Spielberg, Austria): I once again ran the first two races of the week on Monday evening. In the first one, I tried two aggressive passes on a couple of competitors, showing questionable judgment, and both of them resulted in collisions where I was lucky and came through unhurt and the other car went off track. In the second, after a big pile-up on the first lap going into Turn 3 caused by a car right behind me coming into the turn too hot, I ran cleanly in 3rd place for the rest of the race and finished 3rd. [Video: Race 1, Race 2]

2022 Season 1, Week 2

Monday December 20 @ 7pm - Monday December 27 @ 7pm.

• Formula Renault 2.0 at Okayama: I ran the first two races of the week on Monday evening, and made a fatal mistake in each one. In the first one, while running 4th with 3 laps to go, I got impatient to get by a lapped car who had been holding me up for several laps, and I decided to go around him to the outside through a hairpin turn. Just as expected, what happened was that the other driver got excited about holding me behind him (for no good reason, since we were not racing for position) and completely missed his brake point, so that when I turned in for the turn, he went straight, and we wrecked. In the second race, I spun by myself on the first lap when I braked a bit late trying to maintain speed on the outside line of the track, and then came back through the field to finish 5th. [Video: Race 1, Race 2]

  1. • 1. • Update: I ran a couple of late-week races on Sunday and did much better, no incidents, good finishes in strong top-split fields. There's nothing interesting about the races, so I'm not planning to put them on video.

2022 Season 1, Week 1

Monday December 13 @ 7pm - Monday December 20 @ 7pm.

• Formula Renault 2.0 at Barcelona: In the first race of the week, on Monday evening, I started 3rd and after a hairy start got up to 2nd place by the end of the first lap, and that's where I finished, staying about 1.6-2.1 seconds behind the leader for the entire race. (My brother Tim started 5th and finished 3rd.) In a later race on Saturday, I was in an intense close fight with another car for the entire race, where I was faster through the sweeping turn 3 where I could hold the inside line really well, and the other driver was faster through the oddball turn 7-8 complex. [Video: Race 1, Race 2]

• ARCA at Michigan: I did pretty well finishing mid-pack in a strong field. In fact I got my highest point score ever in this race, finishing 8th for 111 points. This was a fun race, especially for the second half where I had a long battle with the 6 car. [Video]