A New Season, a New Direction

Last month, the ITSR league — my exclusive home for oval iRacing competition over the past three years — shut its doors. Ultimately, it was the victim of struggling attendance amid a sea of similar competition and a summer season when participation always tends to sag a bit.

I’ve written previously about my memorable championship battles in ITSR, and since January of this year, I had been running in their series — including the Sunday night Power Series — three nights per week. Some weeks, those races were the only reason I even turned on my desktop computer, so to have that league suddenly disappear was not only a disappointment, but also a shock to my system.

Admittedly, it was nice to have a break for a few weeks. As fun as iRacing can be, just like any activity done often enough, it’s easy to get burnt out; I was certainly feeling those effects. However, the combination of some time away and a new software build, which included my all-time favorite circuit in Le Mans, motivated me to get back to racing once again.

With no ITSR league to return to, though, I was left searching for something — or, more accurately, somewhere — new to race. After poring over schedules, testing some different cars, and thinking about my own performance in recent months, I decided on a new direction for the new season that begins next week.

A New Twist on Turning Left

On the oval side, I want to remain active to keep my skills sharp, but my options are limited. I could join another league, but most are nearing the end of their seasons. Or I could run in the official iRacing oval series, but in my experience, those races aren’t as clean nor the drivers as respectful as in a league environment.

However, I think I have found an option that gives me the best of both worlds. The sprint car is notoriously tricky to drive — at least as much as you’d expect from an open-wheeled car with half the weight of a stock car but 100 more horsepower.

That means only a handful of drivers dare to tackle that car, so it has a small but apparently friendly community that organizes races two nights per week, which gives the feel of a league.

I tried the sprint car in one of iRacing’s season-ending fun series this week, and despite spinning in two out of my three races, I won my other start and became hooked on driving that car.

Although it won’t be easy to be a rookie in the sprint car series — even veteran drivers struggle to keep the car pointed straight from time to time — I’m looking forward to a new oval challenge. Plus, I imagine that getting more familiar with a low-grip and high-horsepower car will better prepare me for when dirt racing comes to iRacing in the next six months or so.

A Road Racing Refresher

Driving so much on the oval side this year meant I hadn’t run as many road races, and it showed. When I competed in an endurance event in July with my teammate Dean, I had good pace and consistency when I was running by myself, but as soon as I caught another car, I’d lock up the brakes, spin off course, or otherwise make mistakes.

I attribute that rusty racecraft to the lack of recent experience with running around other cars on road courses. To get more comfortable in those situations, I have also decided to run full-time in an official road series this season.

There are certainly plenty to choose from. iRacing offers no fewer than 20 road series ranging from the slowest of souped-up street cars to the world’s fastest open-wheelers. I’ve always been a GT driver at heart, which narrowed my options, but still gave me several to sort through.

In this case, the schedule was the biggest deciding factor. The Blancpain Sprint Series, which features GT3-spec cars, runs at all of my favorite tracks this season, from Bathurst to Le Mans to Montreal to… well, you get the point.

A schedule that enticing is hard to pass up, and while the series can have its share of aggressive drivers at times, unlike the sprint car, it’s hugely popular so finding a well-populated race with a competitive field shouldn’t be a problem.

My Bread and Butter

The fall and winter have become iRacing’s endurance season, with multiple leagues hosting their own team-based series featuring longer races and driver swaps. These events have quickly become some of my favorites, so I’m excited to get back behind the wheel this season. Like my other series choices, though, I’m going in a slightly different direction this time around.

For the past two years, my teammate Karl and I have competed in the GT classes of the NEO Endurance Series. In that league, we’ve had mixed results; our first season ended with a strong second-place finish in the season finale, but last season was largely a struggle.

This season, we’re heading to NEO’s sister league: the Gathering of Tweakers Endurance Series, or GES. That series is offering one of our favorite cars, the Ruf C-Spec. It’s the same car that Karl and I won with at this year’s 24 Hours of the Nurburgring, so we’re hoping that past success translates to a solid campaign in this series.

We will also be competing with the C-Spec in the Petit Le Mans later this month. That race plus October’s 24 Hours of Le Mans round out the 2016 iRacing World Tour endurance schedule that has already exceeded my wildest expectations.

After winning the 24 Hours of Daytona with the iRacing Today Motorsports team, Karl and I won the 12 Hours of Sebring and 24 Hours of the Nurburgring, then finished third in the 6 Hours of the Glen and second in the 24 Hours of Spa along with our teammates Andy and Bryan.

Those races include some of the toughest stints of driving I have ever done, from pushing hard to take the lead late in the Daytona race to fighting fatigue around the Nordschleife. If I can handle that, I hope I can handle whatever the new season has to offer, be it a horsepower-happy sprint car, the crowded and competitive GT3 fields, or the demands of the enduros to come.