I’ve spent the better part of the past two summers seeking to right some past wrongs in cars such as the Skip Barber, the Lotus 79, and the V8 Supercar, not once but twice.

Those multiple attempts to tame a single car at a single track highlight the compelling thing about redemption: how elusive it often is. After all, if it was easy enough to do something in the first place, you wouldn’t need more than one chance to get it right.

In fact, the most satisfying flavor of redemption, I’d venture, comes from conquering the greatest challenges.

With that in mind, the redemption I sought entering last weekend was particularly elusive both because of how long I had waited for it and how much that eventual triumph over a lofty challenge would mean.

Getting it right would literally mean climbing a mountain.

Back to Bathurst

The two great endurance races in Australian motorsports weren’t ones I grew up watching. Bathurst in New South Wales is half a world away from Daytona and Le Mans, so I spent years ignorant to the gem of a race track tucked away in the land down under.

When I first learned about the Mount Panorama Circuit, I was intrigued. When I drove it for the first time on iRacing, I was hooked. As an endurance-minded driver, I felt like I had found my home.

Mistakes and miscalculations are punished swiftly and irrevocably by the ever-present walls surrounding the twisting tarmac on the mountain. It requires the sort of 90%-on-the-limit driving style that I was praised for in one of my first sim racing broadcast appearances. (I’m still waiting for those women.)

Despite running plenty of sprint races at the track — including a dozen in a single week that saw my iRating climb higher than ever before — my opportunities for endurance racing on the mountain have been limited.

While iRacing has held its own running of the Bathurst 1000 each fall and began to hold a Bathurst 12 Hour race each winter beginning last year, those races always seem to fall on a NEO Endurance Series weekend.

My only past enduro at the track came just months after iRacing’s team racing feature was released. In early 2015, the now-defunct Masters of Endurance Series held its six-hour season finale at Bathurst.

While my KRT Motorsport team was out of contention for a high finish in the standings or any other notoriety, I was still particularly excited about that race as it would be my first endurance test on the mountain.

It turned into a much greater test than I could have imagined. My teammate Karl planned to join me early in the race, but the iRacing Daytona 500 being held at the same time meant slow and unresponsive servers, which kept him from joining the session.

I wound up driving the first three hours solo but quite successfully, moving from 36th on the grid to the verge of the top ten.

However, when Karl took over, a small mistake on the mountain ended with our car in the wall and ultimately 20 laps down. We finished as an also-ran, which was perhaps a fitting end for our team in that ultra-competitive series.

That failure left us both wanting to taste success at Bathurst, so we decided to tackle this year’s 12-hour race and seek a bit of redemption nearly four years after our first try.

An Unexpected Outcome

This year’s race again fell on a NEO weekend, so to avoid the same feeling of unpreparedness as my attempt at double duty in December, I started practicing early for both races. However, I was clearly more excited about one race than the other, which certainly had an effect on my motivation and mindset.

After Karl and I wound up near the top of the timesheets during a midweek practice at Bathurst, I felt comfortable, confident, and happy driving my favorite combination on iRacing, all the while daydreaming about how sweet it would feel to finish well.

Meanwhile, I entered the NEO weekend frustrated as I often have in the past, let down by my own pace compared to my teammates and the drivers around me.

The prospect of driving for six-or-so hours on Saturday at Bathurst felt like a vacation on the beach, while the NEO Spa race on Sunday felt more like a trip to the dentist.

When you’re one of the slowest drivers in the slowest class on track, a successful race is usually one in which nothing noteworthy happens. Crashes are like cavities and the ire of your opponents is like the dentist’s nagging demand to floss more.

My vacation was first, though, and on Saturday morning, I was up early to practice for that day’s big race. While I usually leave the starts to Karl, we figured that for the truest shot at redemption on the mountain, I should qualify and start like I did in the Masters of Endurance race so many years ago.

The dark track didn’t worry me — I could see just fine in the practice I’d done — nor did having other cars around me after starting in 12th. If I could make a clean start in a typical GT3 sprint race at Bathurst, surely an enduro would be no problem.

When the green flag flew, the field settled into a single-file line by the first time up the mountain, and I was content to ride and not to push too hard.

On the final mountain turn — the steep downhill Forrest’s Elbow — I went for the same apex I had hit routinely in practice without a problem. But this time was different.

Maybe I turned in too early. Maybe the car rotated more than I expected. Maybe my nerves got the best of me. In any case, I brushed the inside wall and caved in the left front of the car. The hood was damaged and, more pressingly, the steering wheel was about 20 degrees off-center.

I limped back to the pits and thankfully didn’t collect any other cars. The repairs didn’t fix the problem, so less than two minutes into a 12-hour race, we were done.

I was frustrated. Embarrassed. Humbled.

Karl called it uncharacteristic of me. He could have called it a lot worse than that, but he understood; he’d been in that position the last time we raced here, although after showing more endurance than I had in my first-lap blunder. Regardless of when our crashes happened, it’s an unforgiving track, and mistakes can happen to anyone.

Redemption would have to wait a few more months, I told him. Maybe we can make a run at this fall’s Bathurst 1000.

The weekend, however, felt like a total loss. There’s no redeeming that sort of letdown, right?

Consolation Round

Unlike Bathurst, a track where I’ve always felt at home, the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps has never felt quite comfortable to me, and it often hasn’t been too accommodating in long races either.

It was the site of my greatest endurance racing failure: crashing out of the lead deep into a 24-hour race with Karl a few years ago. In other races, I’ve often seemed to lag behind my teammates on pace and struggled to find the finesse required for classic corners such as Les Combes, Pouhon, and Fagnes.

Prior to last year’s NEO race at the track, I finally felt reasonably quick, but intermittent Internet issues on race day kept me out of the car.

Despite my early start to practice, I still felt underprepared and off-pace — usually at least a half-second off of my teammates. In a class with top GT talent, I likened myself to a gentleman driver.

My goals were fairly straightforward: keep the car off of any walls, off of any other cars, on the racing circuit as there would be penalties for excessive off-tracks, and running some semblance of a respectable pace.

When I got in the car for my mid-race double stint, we were in fifteenth place and within five seconds of the two cars ahead. Although I imagined they might drive off into the distance, to my surprise, I started catching them.

Within a few laps, I was on the rear bumper of the car in front and engaged in a fierce battle for position. My pulse was racing. My adrenaline was rushing. I was entering the red mist — he’s not giving me any room, I complained after a door-to-door fight through Les Combes.

And I was having a blast.

A few laps later, I drafted past him and set my sights on the next car. We were nearly equal on pace, but his eventual spin in Pouhon gave me that position and cleared the track ahead.

My next challenge began at the pit stop. In order to avoid losing time changing tires, I would need to double-stint them — something I had attempted in practice with mixed results — and try not to sacrifice too much time per lap or incur too many off-track incidents on the worn old rubber.

I was fairly successful on both counts. Good tire management during my first stint paid off, and my falloff on old tires was small enough to make double-stinting the correct call. And despite a few lazy off-tracks late in my second stint, I finished my two stints with 12 total — just shy of the 13 we’d allocated for each two-hour block of the race.

Problems for two of the other cars ahead meant I ended my stint with a net gain of four positions, in eleventh place. Two hours later, that’s where we finished.

It might not have fully exonerated me of my previous problems at the track, but a position-gaining, crash-free drive in which I actually got behind the wheel was an improvement over a few past races at Spa.

Although my search for success at Bathurst is ongoing, my weekend with a crushing start did finish with a decent result, a bit of respect gained, and a few new memories to show for it. That made for a taste of redemption in an unexpected place.

When I first joined iRacing, there was just one GT car in the service: the GT1 Corvette C6R.  It took several years for the Ford GT2 to be released, and a few more years until GT3s slowly started to find their way into the sim en masse.

You could blame it on the fast-moving landscape of global sports car racing and regulations.  Or the cost and time to license, scan, and develop cars and their increasingly complex technologies in a virtual environment.  Or even the potential reluctance of manufacturers to hand over the details about their multi-million dollar investments to game companies.

In any case, many of the sports cars in iRacing and other sims have become outdated, and several multi-class iRacing series feature lineups that either raced together more than five years ago or never competed on-track with one another in the real world.

A Ferrari GTE and Mercedes GT3 — one combo that can be found on track together in the real world.

One series affected by this problem has been the officially sanctioned IMSA Sportscar Championship.  Its prototype has hardly ever matched the most current version, the GT Le Mans class has either been represented by its Ford GT ancestor or nothing at all, and a mix of GT3s and the Ruf C-Spec or Porsche 911 GT3 Cup cars have represented some amalgam of the past and present GT Daytona class.

Earlier this summer, though, one of those problems was solved.  In a somewhat unanticipated move given the usual rate of development, iRacing released both the modern Ferrari 488 and Ford GT cars, which compete globally in the GTE class and in IMSA’s GT Le Mans class.

With both of IMSA’s GT classes represented by current cars and the Daytona Prototype just one year out of date, the series has suddenly become one of the most up-to-date on iRacing’s road racing ladder.

The Shakedown

When the new cars were released, I wasn’t sure what to expect from them.  My only reference for how a GTE car handled was from their predecessor, the GT2 Ford GT.  I hated the way it drove: often plowing like a bulldozer, bouncing over bumps and kerbs, and generally tough to set up and drive.  Surely the new cars wouldn’t be that bad, right?

Indeed they were not.  In fact, it’s as if they took those weaknesses and made them strengths.  In my first test drive, I noticed how responsive both cars were.  They handled well, almost unlike GT cars at all.  In fact, the only giveaway that they weren’t prototypes was the weight I felt in the steering wheel.

Like the old Ford GT, these cars have no anti-lock brakes.  However, they do have traction control, which makes it easier to control their fast acceleration on corner exit.

So far, I have found the Ferrari a bit easier and more intuitive to drive because it tends to behave more like a typical GT car.  It does have plenty of the downforce that defines modern GTEs, but it punishes overdriving like any other GT.

Leading a pack of Ferraris through the chicane.

The Ford, on the other hand, has dodged comparisons — or accusations, perhaps — of being a prototype in GT clothing, and after driving the virtual version of it, I can see why.  The lower seating position gives it a prototype feel, and it seems to excel with faster corners and maintaining momentum.

The differences are also noticeable in the garage.  When you’re changing ride heights, you’ll adjust the traditional spring perch offset on the Ferrari while the Ford uses torsion bars — something quite different for a GT car but not uncommon on a prototype or open-wheeler.

Those differences aside, both cars seemed to respond well to my setup adjustments, and for cars like this, you’ll definitely want to know your way around a setup if you’re planning to race them.  As good as professionally made setups are, differences in driving styles and personal preferences require some tweaks.

The changing weather and track conditions from race to race also make it important to correctly adjust the setup, and these cars carry consequences for getting it wrong — more on that a bit later.

Ford chases Ferrari through the Dunlop Kehre.

GTE Cup?

Prior to this season, IMSA was relatively popular for a B-class series, with multiple official timeslots per day and participation distributed well among all three classes.

The two new GTE cars have sparked huge interest in the series, with nearly every road racer worth his salt coming in to try them out.  Almost every time slot so far this season has gone official, so at least until the newness wears off, finding a race shouldn’t be a problem.

If you’re looking for a good multi-class race, though, this series may not be the place to find it.  The popularity of the new cars has created a noticeable imbalance in participation.  Races tend to be dominated by GTEs, often with just a handful of prototypes or GT3s in the top split and few to none of those classes in lower splits.

In addition, most weeks use 45-minute race lengths, which isn’t enough time to see many of the other class of cars given their limited pace differences —  in my races at the Nurburgring last week, the three class polesitters were never separated by more than 8 seconds.

Those speed similarities can create some uncomfortable overlap between the slow drivers of one class and the fast ones of another.  Slow Daytona Prototype drivers seem particularly vulnerable to this, and in a couple of my races, the GTE field caught those DPs, who generally yielded the position without much of a fight.

There is plenty of speed disparity among the GTE drivers as well, which tells me that these cars are easy to drive — at least compared to the likes of the V8 Supercar — but tough to drive fast.  Indeed, turning laps in these cars is relatively effortless, but finding tenths and seconds is a much greater challenge.

A lone prototype leads a field of GTEs through turn 1.

Forza Ferrari

I began the week in the Ferrari, largely because it was the car I was the most comfortable driving and the one I knew best after running a couple stints in the 24 Hours of Le Mans last month, albeit at a safe and somewhat slow pace.

In my first race of the week on Tuesday evening, I narrowly won the pole but didn’t even hold the lead through turn 1 on the first lap.  The second-place starter passed me at the start, and although I stayed close to him for the first eight laps or so, after that, he pulled away as if he found a turbo boost button in the car.

Losing the lead in the first corner of my first race.

Frustratingly, I was running consistent lap times just two tenths off my best lap of the race.  That simply meant that my opponent was equally as consistent but a tick quicker than me.

By the middle of the race, I was in no-man’s land, with growing gaps to the leader ahead and the rest of the GTE field behind.  From there, I brought the car home incident-free for the first time all season.  While I lost a few seconds in the closing laps waiting patiently behind a pair of battling GT3s, I was still solidly in second place at the finish.

IMSA Sportscar Championship - Race 1

Later that night, I did another race that got off to a similar start.  After winning the pole, I dropped two spots before the first turn.  This time, though, I managed to hang with the leaders — one Ford and one Ferrari — and found myself in the middle of an exciting three-car race.

With five laps to go, I was still in the hunt.  Although the leader pulled away during the pit stops, I suspected he hadn’t taken enough fuel.  And I was reeling in the second-place car, with whom I’d had some contact earlier in the race after he chopped across my nose entering the tight first turn.

Unfortunately, I never got to see how that potential battle for the win might end.  My electricity flickered off for the first time ever while racing, dooming me to a DNF.  Ironically, I’ve raced in ice storms and thunderstorms without a problem, but I was done in by an apparently random flicker on a clear night in July.

IMSA Sportscar Championship - Race 2

One More Try

Although I had planned to run just two races in the Ferrari before moving on to the Ford, I couldn’t stop after such an unsatisfying ending.  So the following night, I hopped in the Ferrari again and found a strong field, including the runaway winner from my first race.

This time, I qualified in 3rd and managed to hold that position early on.  Otherwise, the early laps had a similar feel; the leaders slowly pulled away while I ran consistent lap times a few tenths off of my best lap.

I couldn’t cruise home without a fight, though.  The driver that qualified just behind me on the grid was shuffled back at the start but managed to reclaim those lost positions and catch me by the pit stops.

Battling for third place after the pit stops.

Exiting the pits, I overdrove turn 1 and let him get alongside me.  Three turns later, he was ahead and pulling away.  Given his pace, I expected he would catch me eventually, but I hoped I could hold him off for a bit longer.

However, warmer weather in this race meant that for the first time all week, I was noticing the effects of tire wear.  I’m not sure whether my opponent had less wear or was just quicker, but either way, there was no keeping up once get got past me.

I wound up in fourth place with a slightly lower points haul than in my first race but modest iRating and safety rating gains to show for my efforts.

IMSA Sportscar Championship - Race 3

Spin City

In its short tenure on iRacing, the new Ford may have gained something of a bad reputation, perhaps as a subconscious homage to its widely maligned predecessor.

Other drivers noticed that the new Ford is apparently more easily damaged from kerb strikes and contact, even despite recent patches from iRacing to lessen that likelihood.  Its lack of top-end speed compared to the Ferrari also made it the less-popular choice for its debut race in the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

Since then, for drivers like me who drove the Ferrari at Le Mans, it’s been easier to stick with that car instead of switching to a different one.  But in the interest of a fair comparison, I couldn’t end my week without stepping into the UFO-like cockpit of the Ford GT for a race.

Part of the GTE field heads through the Ford Kurve on lap 1.

If I was going to find success in that car, I’d have to do it in the strongest field I saw all week.  The talent level showed, as I qualified just seventh on the grid.  Worse still for a Ford driver, the race weather was cool and overcast, which gave the track extra grip that I expected would help the Ferraris close the speed gap in high-speed corners.

I figured that the grippy weather would give the cars a bit of extra oversteer, so I removed some rake in an attempt to account for the track conditions.  Early in the race, it was apparent that other drivers didn’t make that adjustment — or didn’t make enough of one.

In the opening laps, several cars around me spun or ran off-track.  The quick left-right Ford Kurve complex seemed to be calamity corner, and on lap 6, it even caught me off-guard.  While watching the Ferrari behind me fill my mirrors, my car suddenly slid sideways through that corner.

Spinning in the Ford Kurve while the Ferrari behind avoids me.

Thankfully, the cars behind avoided me and I got onto the grass and going again without a problem.  However, it highlighted the tricky nature of a grippy track.  In the laps that followed, I felt the car nearly get out from under me again several times, and a few cars ahead of me had incidents of their own.

After dropping as low as 11th place, I began to climb back through the Ferrari-dominated field.  That clued me into one disadvantage of the Ford: Its comparative lack of top speed makes passing difficult, and largely confined to braking zones and corners.

I did make a few solid passes in these areas, but I gained more positions simply due to the mistakes around me.  I also survived a close call when two Ferraris ahead of me made contact and one nearly spun into the side of my car.

After the pit stops, I found myself in sixth place and on the bumper of a Ferrari ahead of me that had been held up while lapping a GT3 car.  In the closing laps, his pace was slightly quicker and he held me off to earn a top-five while I finished in sixth.

Passing a Ferrari exiting turn 1 while another Ferrari is spun to the inside.

IMSA Sportscar Championship - Race 4

Take Your Pick

So how do the Ferrari and Ford compare?

Overall, the balance of performance between the cars seems quite good around an intermediate — i.e., not Le Mans — circuit.  From my initial testing laps through this week’s practices and races, my pace in both cars was similar, and I found myself competitive with drivers around my iRating who were running the opposite car.

Putting aside any lingering issues with the Ford being more easily damaged, I’d say the decision can and should come down to personal preference.

As a traditional GT driver, the Ferrari suites my driving style better and reacts the way I would expect.  In the Ford, I struggled a bit to get comfortable, particularly with braking for corners and accelerating off of them.

That’s not the case for everyone, though.  I suspect that other drivers, particularly those accustomed to driving open-wheelers and prototypes, will feel more at home in the Ford.

A group of GTEs approaches GT3 traffic in the chicane.

Differences between the cars aside, their addition is an obvious win for sports car racers and the IMSA series.  Although it’s largely a GTE Cup at the moment, over time, participation will surely fall back into balance.

After all, GT3s are popular and have withstood the test of time, so they don’t seem to be in danger of the participation dropoff that sometimes accompanies the slowest car class.  And while the DP is outdated, if and when it is replaced by a modern prototype, that class will be rejuvenated.

Even if that happens, though, they may not match the rabid popularity that the GTEs are seeing at the moment.  They’re accessible to many drivers, extremely fun to race, and a compelling virtual version of an historical real-world manufacturer rivalry.

That makes them poised to remain the anchor class in IMSA, at least until the real-world series and car makers inevitably decide to change things up once again.

Some might say it’s crazy to drive a different car each week.  So do I.

Others might say jumping from one car to another is dangerous to my competitors and detrimental to my own iRating and safety rating.  And that could be true, although I’ll try to prepare as best as possible with every car I drive.

If nothing else, though, this trip is sure to be exhausting.

In the past, even when I’ve run the same car over a full iRacing season, I’ve felt overworked and lacking in motivation by the end of the season.  iRacing burnout is a real thing, and I’m not talking about the skidmarks left on the road while celebrating.

I think that speaks to the realism of the simulation.  Aside from physically traveling from venue to venue and fulfilling obligations to teams and sponsors, the week-in, week-out grind of practicing, preparing setups, and racing isn’t far from the commitment that drivers face in the real world.

And just as those drivers often spend their offseasons far from the rigors of racing, it would make sense for me to spend the weeks leading up to the road trip away from sim racing, right?

Well, not exactly.

The field navigates Laguna Seca’s first turn in the Porsche.

Back in the Saddle

In fact, I spent the past two weeks behind the wheel getting ready for the season.  It has been months since I’ve had any close on-track competition, so I’ve been worried about being rusty with my racecraft.

For my first warm-up act, I took to the Porsche 911 GT3 Cup car around Laguna Seca in the final week of its season 2 schedule.  That series and its short races would let me practice in several areas, including standing starts, door-to-door battling, and facing the pressure of chasing — or being chased by — another driver.

In my first race of the week, spins by the top three drivers in the first few corners eliminated most of the competition I expected, so the rest of the race became an exercise in hot-lapping — not exactly what I hoped for to help prepare for the upcoming road trip.

The field spreads out through the Corkscrew.

However, my next few races featured plenty of the stressful situations I expected, and things didn’t exactly go to plan.

In one, I found myself three-wide entering turn one and pinballed off two other cars.  In the next race, I made it a few laps before spinning at the tricky Corkscrew corner and being hit from behind.  And in another, I spun out of a close battle for position, succumbing to the pressure around me.

While I was happy with my qualifying efforts, I couldn’t hold it all together in the races — the exact sort of rustiness I needed to shed.

I did salvage some semblance of sensible driving by the end of the week.  First, in a highly competitive race, I started and finished ninth but made no major mistakes along the way.  And in my final race, it wasn’t me but the cars around me who made contact early on, letting me sneak through to take third place.

I sneak past the sliding car ahead of me in the Andretti Hairpin.

With that, I felt like I had sufficiently warmed up for the season ahead and I’d be content to take a week off, just turning a few test laps in iRacing’s newly released GTE Ford and Ferrari to remain relatively fresh for the first week of the road trip.

But that wasn’t in the cards, either.

The Replacement

Last weekend, iRacing held its 24 Hours of Le Mans race, and several of my SRN Motorsports teammates organized an entry in the Ferrari and put in hours of diligent practice and setup work in the days leading up to the race.

My own schedule didn’t allow for much practice time and I wasn’t even going to be around for the first part of the race, so I planned on skipping it and following the rest of the team’s efforts through their live stream.

On Saturday night, I was listening in as one team member had an emergency come up that would make him miss his double stint coming up in just a few hours.  While the other drivers could shuffle their schedules to cover it, they would also miss out on rest time that’s hard to come by in these long races.

Traffic on the Mulsanne straightaway.

So I jumped on the computer, told my team I was available, fired up iRacing, and put in as much practice as I could — about 8 laps’ worth around the long Le Mans circuit.

That last-minute cram session certainly couldn’t get me on par with the level of practice my teammates had put in throughout the week, but since our car already had a half-lap lead, I didn’t necessarily need to ace this test.  I just needed to keep the car on track and off the walls while running decent lap times and avoiding the slowdown penalties that are so common at Le Mans.

In my first few laps, I took it easy.  On full fuel, the Ferrari wasn’t the most maneuverable, and the track conditions were transitioning from greasy and slick to rubbered-in and grippy.

Negotiating the rubbered-in esses at Le Mans.

As the fuel burned off and I became more comfortable, my pace improved, but was still about two seconds off the team’s fastest drivers.  Fortunately, the driver in the second-place car was running similar times, so our lead remained largely intact.

During my second stint, while I still ran adequate lap times and kept the car running straight, that team chasing us had a problem and lost several laps.  That gave us a lead of nearly a full lap, so my final laps were spent saving a bit of fuel before handing off to the next driver.

From there, the rest of the team brought the car home without a scratch on it to take the class win.  My role in it all was admittedly not very large, but given the circumstances of this race and the efforts my teammates had put in, it thankfully didn’t need to be.  It was simply another chance to drive before the new season begins.

Our car crosses the finish line in first place.

Room for Improvement

Although driving off-pace, mostly alone, and with little pressure from behind may not do much to help prepare me for the road trip, in these two warm-up weeks, I did learn something useful about my own driving, specifically one area where it falls short.

While following some of the top drivers in the Porsche, I noticed that they pulled away in the middle of the corners.  And my slow pace in the Ferrari also seemed due to my lack of mid-corner speed; at times, I was running 5 mph or more slower than my teammates through the Mulsanne chicanes.

The Summer Road Trip Porsche, ready for action this season.

As I prepare for races especially in high-downforce cars, this overslowing — and not rusty racecraft or dealing with burnout —  is likely to be my main area for improvement.

Much of this comes down to trusting in the extra grip provided by higher downforce.  As I covered in part of my recent Driving Styles series, driving with downforce has never been my strong suit, but it’s unavoidable in my upcoming road trip.

The off-season rest is over, the warm-up has wrapped up, and the journey begins soon!