There’s Daytona 500 rookie sensation Trevor Bayne, contrasting with Dale Earnhardt and his 20 years of trying.

The pack of four-time Indy 500 winners – Foyt, Unser, Mears, and Castroneves – have enjoyed a wealth of riches in the Greatest Spectacle in Racing, while the Andretti family is a collective 1-for-78 behind the wheel.

And Formula 1 world champions such as Nigel Mansell, Jim Clark, and Nelson Piquet never celebrated on the top step of the podium in Monaco, even as underdogs Jean-Pierre Beltoise, Olivier Panis, and Jarno Trulli earned their only career wins in the marquee event.

I have experienced a bit of each in my sim racing career. I won the Indy 500 and 24 Hours of the Nürburgring in my first attempts, and earned victories in the early years of the 24 Hours of Daytona and 12 Hours of Sebring.

But one endurance race has proven much more elusive than the rest, not just to find victory, but any semblance of success. And it’s at my favorite track in the world.

Our Bathurst Background

The Bathurst 12 Hours is contested over the undulating straightaways and menacingly quick roads carved into Australia’s Mount Panorama. It’s a brilliant circuit, and one on which I’ve done well in other events, getting my road iRating above 5,000 in official races and taking an unexpected podium in the Bathurst 1000 with my longtime teammate, Karl Modig.

However, our past efforts in the 12-hour race have been a struggle.

Our first try in 2019 ended on the first lap when I clipped the wall at Forrest’s Elbow and badly damaged our Mercedes. 

Last year, we lasted less than two hours before tangling with a fellow Lamborghini team, still trying to recover from my poor qualifying effort – another characteristic of my disappointing history in the event.

Our only time reaching the finish was in 2022, but in that event, we finished five laps down after being caught up in another early crash deep in the field. The rest of the race was just a matter of running laps, staying out of the way of faster cars, and scavenging positions as teams fell out.

Karl and I were yet to finish without any unscheduled pit stops or prolonged repairs, so we set a modest target for this year’s race: a top ten with a clean car would feel like an accomplishment.

We practiced for almost a month leading up to the race, testing each car before settling on the Ferrari 296 GT3 for its overall stability even in the hottest conditions that could make the mountain much more treacherous on a simulated sun-soaked summer afternoon down under.

We both logged hundreds of practice laps, studied the telemetry to identify areas for improvement, and made minor setup tweaks since even small changes that made the car faster or more consistent would add up over 12 hours.

A Rocky Start

When race day arrived on Saturday, we were better prepared than ever before, and armed with a plan to reverse our early-race misfortunes. This time, Karl would qualify the car, with hopes of giving us a better starting position than I had previously earned.

That part worked – he lined up 26th on the grid, compared to my starts of 34th and 35th in the previous two years – but accidents in front of us dropped us back to that familiar position, and just ten laps into the race, contact while racing side-by-side with a BMW sent our car into the wall and out of the race.

We both remembered the helpless feeling after our early exit last year, knowing we’d have to wait a full year for a shot at redemption. But in this case, our next opportunity was only a few hours away, during the final timeslot of the day.

We took out one click of wing to help the power-starved Ferrari better keep up on the straightaways, and just hoped to survive any chaos at the start and wait for the hotter weather that we expected would favor our car, our setup, and our preparations.

But when the registration for this less-popular timeslot ended, we realized that we might be in for more than we bargained for. We had barely made it into the top split with the fastest teams, among which the racing is often ruthless in a full field of closely matched GT3 cars.

In this situation, all of our past concerns – poor qualifying results, first-hour incidents, and moving up through the field – would be magnified. Frankly, I couldn’t help but feel like another early exit was in the cards, as we would face a literal uphill battle on the mountain.

His confidence shaken by the previous race, Karl nominated me to qualify and start again. This time, our starting position wasn’t much better than I was used to – 33rd – so I hoped for mere survival in my opening stint.

Moving On Up

The start was clean, but almost frustratingly so, with little attrition in the first hour and only three positions gained by the time I made our first pit stop.

As Karl settled into a double stint, he was met by unflinching lapped traffic ahead that cost us almost ten seconds to the next pack of competitors farther up the road.

He eventually found clearer track and better pace, moving up to the 24th position, but by then almost a full lap down to the race leaders. While we had no sights on winning this race, the big gaps ahead of us just three hours in were already daunting, and the track had been slow to warm up until that point.

That all changed during my double stint that followed, which was both one of the most surreal and the most fun I’ve ever driven. By myself on track and able to log laps with metronomic consistency, I listened to Karl’s commentary over our team radio as if it was a battlefield news report.

Oh my, the number 21 car has major damage and they’re in for repairs.

The team in ninth place has crashed now and they’ve fallen out of the race.

Watch out for this Ferrari going slowly; he’s been in the wall and is limping back to the pits.

Over that two hours of driving, we climbed up to 12th place, benefitting from the crashes around us and also gaining ground on other teams as they cycled slower drivers into their cars.

Not quite at the halfway point, and the hottest part of the day, it seemed like a top ten finish was not only possible, but probable if we could keep our car on track as other teams continued to run into trouble.

The Battle Begins

By lap 163 – just past the 1000-kilometer mark over which we’d previously found success in the V8 Supercars – Karl put us into the top ten for the first time with an on-track pass of the #11 SimVision Ferrari.

I took over the car in the same position, and with that same team breathing down my neck with a new and faster driver in their car. While he eventually got past me, we picked up a position over a slower Ferrari during that stint, which was one of the best I’ve ever driven in an endurance race.

With track temperatures at their warmest, I was running laps in the 2:05s – times I’d struggled to hit in testing on worn tires – and never put a wheel wrong on a slick track, all while facing pressure from a faster car around us.

Everything I’d practiced, studied, and refined in recent weeks – braking points, speed optimization in the downhill slalom through Skyline, tire management – was being tested, and it felt like I was passing that test, even if I wasn’t the best in the class. 

As Karl and I continued alternating single stints, we traded positions with the #11 car and kept tabs on the even faster #211 Ferrari, which started 14th and had been steadily closing in from behind while recovering from a second-hour collision.

When I got back in the car for a race-ending double stint, I was 12 seconds behind the #11 and 12 seconds ahead of the #211. Catching one, or holding off the other, would be a huge challenge, but I couldn’t help but try.

Pushing as hard as I ever have in this race or on this track, I again managed remarkably consistent lap times, and even cut into the gap ahead. The only blemish was a scrape of the wall at Forrest’s Elbow that caused minor left-side damage but didn’t seem to hurt our car’s performance.

Unfortunately, the pace of the car behind was just too much, and by the end of the stint, they were only 2 seconds back.

Despite physical and mental fatigue more than 16 hours after our first race effort began that morning, I prepared myself to dig in and defend our tenth-place position over the final hour.

But that battle was never to be.

A Dark Cloud, and Silver Linings

After making our final pit stop with what we thought would be a shorter fuel fill than our opponents, they cycled out 3 seconds ahead of us – a five-second swing that we could only assume was from a combination of fuel saving in their previous stint, a faster in lap while I struggled to get my tires up to temperature on my own out lap, and their overall speed advantage.

Back to eleventh place, our only hope was for one car ahead to have an issue in the final hour.

“I hate to wish bad luck on anyone this far into the race,” I told Karl, “but I’m wishing for it.”

Despite all the attrition earlier in the race, the top teams were too fast and too resilient, and none dropped out over the final five hours. As our closest competitors pulled away in front of us, I held together my fractured focus and aching fingers to bring our car across the finish line in eleventh.

For Karl and I, it was a bittersweet result. In a perhaps undeserved second chance at this year’s race, we had finally reached the finish with no crashes and no unscheduled pit service or repairs, but came up one spot shy of our goal.

Each driving to our limits, we had a solid pace – and, as one of our opponents reminded us about after the race, an impressive 22 positions gained – but couldn’t quite match the fastest top-split talent.

Our all-time mark at the Bathurst 12 Hours now pushes to 0-for-5 without a top ten finish, and this year’s races are a microcosm of our history in the event: one with an early crash, and another with a nice improvement from a deep starting position that came up just short.

We can take some solace from this race, of course.

We finished just one lap down to the winners, who were driving the BMW that got the better of the pre-race Balance of Performance adjustments.

We both reminded ourselves that survival, especially early on, is possible, and often the only option when mired in the midfield.

And as teams dropped out all around us while we kept motoring on, we saw that good things come to those who wait.

We can only hope the same is true as our wait for success in Bathurst’s longest race stretches on another year.

After racing online and offline with games like Papyrus’ NASCAR Racing 3 all throughout high school, a busier schedule and cramped dorm rooms in college forced me to take a break.

But after graduating, I felt the desire to race again, and my interest was piqued after seeing a new game – er, simulation – advertised on Marcos Ambrose’s racecar in the August 2009 race at Pocono.

Less than a week later, I was an iRacing member and, it turns out, an early adopter of the platform just one year into its own existence.

In my first days on the service, I passed up chances to spend time with friends after work so I could log more laps on track by myself. Later, I worked up the courage and consistency to compete in official sessions against other drivers.

While my driving wasn’t very polished, I still look back on those early days with fondness, remembering how nervous I’d get about every off-track or how excited making a pass even against the slowest backmarker would make me.

That nostalgia was reignited during iRacing’s recent 15th anniversary celebration, which included a special four-week series featuring some of its original cars running on its oldest tracks.

With an opportunity to rediscover some of my sim racing roots, plus a small chance at winning a $1,000-credit grand prize for competing in all four weeks, I strapped in for a ride down memory lane.

A Roadster Remembered

The Pontiac Solstice was the rookie-level car when I first joined iRacing, and while its lack of power is obvious compared to the GT cars I race now, at the time, it was a good car for a beginner to learn braking points and racecraft without punishing the inevitable mistakes too severely.

Back then, the rookie series alternated between just two tracks – Lime Rock and Laguna Seca – and during my first week driving the Solstice, Laguna Seca was up as the host.

My first race was solid if unspectacular, finishing in third place, ten seconds away from the next closest car. After that, I had the typical incident-riddled rookie-level race that left me eleventh out of twelve competitors and a little unsure about this whole iRacing thing.

I followed that up with a string of podiums, all while shaving tenths off my fastest lap times, and during a Saturday afternoon race on August 29 – just three weeks after joining iRacing – I earned my first official victory.

I remember little to nothing about the race itself, but the results show I won from the pole with a final margin of 12 seconds and only a single off-track incident in the 11-lap race.

Fourteen years later, I knew my return to Laguna Seca in the Solstice wouldn’t be that easy. But after joining a Tuesday night race session, I thought the same result was possible. In this race, I was the #1 car, and as I learned all those years ago, that carries an expectation to win as the highest-rated driver in the field.

Suddenly, I felt the same nerves as in those early races with the Solstice, and those only increased after qualifying, where I took the pole by three tenths of a second.

At the start, it was clear that the draft was strong enough and the driver behind was quick enough to stay with me, so I’d need to dig into my bag of tricks if I wanted to get away.

The first of those came into play on the second lap. In slower cars, I have often found a shallow entry and hard, late braking into the Andretti Hairpin is an effective way to keep the car on a tight inside line – the shortest distance around the corner – and rotating to set up a fast exit.

The driver behind me took a wider entry but still tried to cut back for the second apex like I did – and he was going too fast and ran wide. That bought me a buffer of about a second, but he was still within draft range.

The following lap, I took a wide exit out of turn 3, kicking up gravel beyond the kerb. The driver behind again tried to follow in my tire tracks, but he ran even wider, sliding through the gravel and back onto the circuit.

As he entered a battle of his own with third-place driver, I was finally in the clear out front. But just as I’m sure I did in my first ever races here, I held my breath every lap through the Corkscrew and exhaled whenever I came out the other side with all four tires on the road.

After a short but well-executed seven laps of driving, I returned to victory lane in the same car/track combination where it all started for me fourteen years ago. It was a rewarding result, but I couldn’t rest just yet with three more weeks of throwback racing ahead.

(Re)living Legends

Despite coming from an oval racing background with the NASCAR games I grew up playing, I was slow to try the oval side of iRacing. In fact, it took more than nine months after I joined the service before I ran my first official oval races.

Those came in the Legends car, which like the Solstice was underpowered but ideal for learning the dynamics of side-by-side short track racing.

My earliest races at South Boston – a track I knew from NASCAR Racing 3 – were again a mixture of progress and pandemonium, but my biggest hurdle was putting a complete race together and not fading or slipping up in the closing laps.

A Wednesday evening race in May 2010 seemed to be going the same way, as I led laps early but fell back to second place by mid-race. But this time, the car ahead slipped up and I retook the lead in the closing laps.

However, another car had followed me through, and he was all over my rear bumper and not making any mistakes. As we took the white flag, I made one of my own, pushing too hard on old tires and opening up the bottom lane for him in turn 2.

We ran side by side down the backstretch, all with a lapped car just ahead. I held my higher line through the final corners and we nearly crossed the finish line three-wide, splitting the lapped car. But my momentum around the top paid off, and I won by just a tenth of a second.

A photo finish like that was a dramatic way to take my first oval win, and I still credit that as the moment I became truly hooked on iRacing and convinced it was unparalleled for online sim racing competition.

Getting back into the Legends car after all these years, the buzzing hornet sound was the same but I could immediately feel improvements to the handling thanks to many iterations of tire model development. The car is now much more predictable when driving close to the limit, and instead of immediately spinning, slides can be anticipated and saved.

Of course, I hoped I would never have to deal with those in my race, which was early on a Thursday morning. I was again the highest-iRated driver in the field, but with many rookie drivers in the 12-car field, it seemed like survival rather than speed could be the key.

I qualified on the pole and got a good start while chaos unfolded behind me. The third-place car got loose exiting turn 2 and collected nearly half the field behind him. While that could have thinned out the field, it could have also meant many off-pace or damaged cars returning to the track during the 30-lap race.

As I stretched out a gap over second place, I started taking it easy when lapped cars filled my windshield, giving a little extra room when passing them.

I was also careful to manage my tires, because even in a 30-lap run in practice, I noticed that pushing early on resulted in some severe falloff by the final few laps, which turned the normally nimble Legends car into a dump truck. Whether I was in a close battle or negotiating lapped traffic, I couldn’t afford that loss of handling in a late-race situation.

This time around, though, I was comfortably alone out front, aside from a few courteous slower cars around me in the closing laps. The best battle on track was for second place, nearly nine seconds behind me.

While my return to the Legends car lacked the drama of a photo finish, it still brought the success of a victory, bolstered by consistent driving and years of experience with tire and traffic management.

Skipping Back in Time

After competing in the Solstice, my next step up the road racing ladder kept me on the tin top side of the service, running cars like the Volkswagen Jetta and Ford Mustang.

But on the open-wheel side, the Skip Barber Formula 2000 car stood out as one of the most popular cars on iRacing, and one that probably should have caught my interest sooner.

After all, in June 2007 – a year before iRacing launched – my dad and I took to the track at Virginia International Raceway in similar Formula 2000 cars as part of the Bertil Roos Racing School.

Looking back, I can only imagine that having iRacing then would have dramatically sped up my learning curve – and my lap times – in that racing school.

Alas, my starts in the Skip Barber have been few and far between, including some as part of my Summer Road Trip at Silverstone in 2017 when I infamously bump-drafted my teammate Karl straight into a crash.

To get another taste of the Skippy and my own real-world racing experience, I took to the track at VIR, running the same south course layout my dad and I drove together 16 years ago.

In my first test laps, I certainly felt a sense of familiarity – although the comfort of my office was a much different atmosphere than the sizzling 95-degree weather on the day of the racing school.

Mainly, I remembered how tricky of a track VIR’s south course is. While it’s just 1.65 miles long, it packs plenty of challenging corners, including the appropriately named Bitch – a tight hairpin at the end of the frontstretch
– followed by a blind entry to the downhill esses, and concluding with Oak Tree. All these years later, the namesake tree itself is gone, but it remains a difficult corner to get right.

However, I could tell that my experience on iRacing – plus a little from real life – helped me get up to speed. I was able to pick out the fastest lines through the corners, sense the grip level in the tires, and do what I have always done best on the sim: string together consistent, clean laps.

Those skills would all come in handy during my Thursday night race session, where it was clear my biggest opponent might be myself. I was again the highest-rated driver in the field and nearly two seconds quicker than the field in qualifying, so as long as I could stay on track, the win seemed easily in reach.

As at South Boston, I got a helping hand early in this race, as the cars behind me piled up in the first turn while I drove away.

After the first lap, I had a six-second lead and was gapping the field with every corner. Those races can be some of the most challenging as a driver, since your mind wanders and you tempt yourself to hotlap, running close to the limit to extract more pace.

But I remembered back to the racing school, when they warned us even dropping a tire in the grass would warrant a pit stop, and convinced myself not to go too crazy searching for speed.

After a few cautious encounters with lapped traffic, I completed the 10-lap race with a 30-second margin behind me. That left me three-for-three in the 15th anniversary series with one week to go.

Better Late

While my first year or two on iRacing were spent primarily doing road racing, my early oval experience was enough to draw me back there from time to time, and one of the most popular oval cars to drop in and race was always the Late Model.

That car was even featured in one of iRacing’s first big events. In September 2011, they hosted a two-night tournament at Iowa featuring heat races, semifinals, and a 30-driver main event.

I took part and did much better than expected, qualifying in 30th out of 434 drivers and making it all the way to the finals. Along the way, I competed head-to-head against the likes of former ARCA and NASCAR driver Stuart Kirby, and gridded up for the feature alongside a who’s who of future eNASCAR stars including 2013 series champion and tourney winner Tyler Hudson.

While an early crash around me ruined any hopes of a strong finish, even making the finals over more than 400 other drivers was a proud achievement.

Returning to the Late Model in this final week of the anniversary series, there was a twist: the car itself was different, with the old Monte Carlo replaced earlier this year by a CARS tour Late Model Stock.

It is a car, though, in which I’ve got some recent experience. Together with my friend Bradley – one of those work friends whose company I eschewed to race fourteen years ago – we have been racing against AI opponents while simulating the mid-90s stock car scene.

We began our mock career mode with the Slim Jim All-Pro Series, a southern late model tour for which we used the new Late Model Stock.

During our race at Concord Speedway, a now-defunct triangular half-mile preserved digitally on iRacing, Bradley and I battled side-by-side for the lead, but contact with the simulated Shane Hall slowed me down and I had to settle for second place.

That left me wanting another chance with that combination, and with Concord on the Late Model’s 15th-anniversary series schedule, I knew I had to race – and win – there to finish up this trip down memory lane.

There were only six drivers in my race session, but it may have offered the best competition of any event in my anniversary series experience. One driver ran faster than me in practice, and another had a high-enough oval iRating that I expected he could be quick in the race.

I qualified on the pole and jumped out to a half-second lead, but the fast driver from practice backed up that speed in the race, and he didn’t let me pull away early on.

Eventually, a lapped car limping around the traffic slowed him down and let me open a two-second lead over the pair of quick drivers battling behind me.

With ten laps to go, the higher-iRating driver got the position and was sometimes running a tenth or more faster than me. His speed was undeniable, but with the gap I had built and the laps winding down, my lead was safe until the finish.

While wins haven’t always come easily in my iRacing career – and this was my first official victory in either generation of Late Model – my execution in this race was classic Corey. I didn’t always have the fastest car on track, but clean and consistent driving paved the way to a good result.

Fourteen years ago, I could have never imagined that iRacing would become such a mainstay in my life for such a long time, even knowing my long history of sim racing before then.

In that time, I have assembled a solid and well-rounded résumé of achievements, from oval league championships to an Indianapolis 500 victory to endurance race wins at tracks including Daytona, Sebring, and the Nürburgring.

Each of those were special moments to be sure, but some of my favorite memories are still my very first races, when I’d get anxious and antsy as the session loaded and my emotions would rise and fall with my safety rating.

Reliving some of those combinations over the past four weeks has made me appreciate the adventure so far and excited to see what the next fifteen years – and hopefully many more – will bring for iRacing and my own sim racing ride.

It’s true for race fans, who often long for the way things once were while ignoring the fact that across the world of motorsports, the racing is closer and more competitive now than it has ever been.

To a lesser extent, it can even be true for sim racers. While the constant advancements in technology, graphics, and content mean racing games keep getting better, there can also be a sense of wonder with remembering the old days, like your first race, your first win, and your best strategy moves from years past.

This weekend was a perfect storm of nostalgia on iRacing as they hosted the Road America 500: an endurance race with the IMSA sports cars from the late 1980s. It’s one of those bygone generations that racing fans remember fondly, between the power-packed GTP prototypes and the diverse GTO class, with cars like the Audi 90 – an all-wheel drive crossover from the rally world that dominated sports car racing on debut in 1989.

Both cars are difficult to drive, no doubt. I discovered that during my Summer Road Trip in 2018, when a week driving the Audi featured missed shifts, off-track excursions, and collisions with out-of-control prototypes.

Because of that challenge, this event wasn’t met with the same popular acclaim as iRacing’s other featured events. Rather than the thousands of teams that the Daytona 24 and Sebring 12 Hour races attract, just a few hundred brave souls – many running solo – tried to tame these classic cars during the weekend.

Among them were me and my longtime teammate Karl Modig, with whom I’ve enjoyed a number of successes in our endurance racing history together. When we first teamed up eight years ago, iRacing was still a somewhat niche sim, and a long way from its post-pandemic boom.

In those days, it wasn’t uncommon for us to end up in the top split of big events, competing alongside the fastest drivers on the service. While we’ve since been relegated, often in the fourth or fifth split against drivers very much our own speed, a chance to return to the top split would be a throwback of its own, and a chance to see how far we’ve come over all these years.

And so it was. With a lower turnout for this event, even in the most popular Saturday morning timeslot, our car took to the virtual racetrack against the top-split talent. We had to wonder: would we be totally outmatched, or would our years of experience in endurance racing – despite our combined lack of experience in the Audi 90 GTO – offer the secrets to success?

A Weary Warm-Up

In the week before the race, Karl and I had put in some practice together, but as I learned the hard way in my last time driving this old and unforgiving car, there’s no substitute for actual race experience.

During those moments when a close battle heats up, or prototypes pass on all sides, or fatigue sets in, it’s easy to lose focus and make mistakes. So it was better, I thought, to get those mistakes out of the way in a one-off sprint race than wait until the 500-mile, nearly four-hour enduro, when the pressure would surely be even greater, top split or not.

On Wednesday night, I joined a well-populated Kamel GT race session, filled with both that series’ small group of passionate regulars along with moonlighters like myself who wanted some extra reps before the main event over the weekend.

The first step was qualifying, where I’ve had tough luck lately. In the Bathurst 12 Hour races over the past two years, mistakes on my qualifying laps left our team starting deep in the field. Last year, it put us in the path of a mountaintop track blockage, although we soldiered home many laps down. This year, an erratic mid-pack Lamborghini forced me off the road and out of the race in the second hour.

That qualifying carelessness carried over into this race as well. A missed shift at the end of my first lap ruined both laps and put me tenth out of 16 cars, and right in the middle of the pack, where any mistakes – by me or others – would be magnified.

Fortunately, this race had a clean start among the Audi field, and I settled into ninth, at the back of a five-way battle for position. Occasional missed shifts kept me from making much forward progress, but I was able to save fuel while riding behind other cars, which I hoped would save me time in the pits later on.

By the midway point of the one-hour race, the cars in my pack began to make their pit stops, and eventually, it was just me with clear track ahead and only occasional prototype traffic zipping by from behind.

In those less stressful conditions, the mistakes seemed to vanish, and after I made my stop, I was two seconds ahead of the cars that led my group earlier. But the race wasn’t over yet – no, not by any means.

As those quick cars closed in on me, the mistakes returned, threatening to throw away my advantage earned in the pits. The costliest was a missed shift with two laps to go that let another Audi get alongside into the turn 5 braking zone.

But instead of folding, I focused. I held strong around the outside over the next two corners and got back in front by the turn-7 kink. After a side-by-side battle for position, all while Nissan traffic filled my mirrors, I had come out ahead with a top-five finish to show for it.

As if a switch had flipped, I had proven to myself that I could handle the pressure of those hectic situations. If this spur-of-the-moment race was a pop quiz, it had given me a cheat sheet to use for the weekend’s final exam.

A Promising Start

When race day arrived, I felt a sense of calm and confidence, even after we discovered our top-split fate. While we certainly didn’t expect to win, a top five felt within reach if everything went our way.

And if that sounds like overconfidence, then it may be because we also had a secret strategy in mind. While it was a 500-mile or 124-lap race, only the Nissan prototypes would cover that distance. I calculated that the top Audis would likely do no more than 108 laps, which could be evenly divided into four 27-lap stints.

As I learned during my midweek warm-up race, 27 laps was possible, but only with some disciplined fuel saving throughout a run. However, Karl and I were committed to saving fuel and cutting out a late-race pit stop, and we hoped for a repeat of our last big endurance race success in the 2021 Petit Le Mans, when our GT competitors seemed to miss the obvious strategy and gave us the upper hand en route to a second-place finish.

Of course, before we ever had to worry about executing our race strategy, we had to qualify, and I was eager to put my Bathurst blunders and misshift missteps behind me. An off-track at the Kink on my first lap felt like history repeating itself, but my second lap was within a tenth of my fastest practice lap of the week, and it was good enough for 12th on the grid of 24 Audis.

Thanks to some contact in front of me on the first two laps of the race, I found myself inside the top ten, and from there, I settled into a rhythm in my first stint, not overly concerned about my pace as long as I could hit our fuel number.

As our competitors made their first pit stops a lap or two before us, Karl and I remained quietly confident, while also confused at how so many teams had miscalculated – or, perhaps, not calculated – the quickest way to the finish.

No matter, I continued through my second stint climbing up to sixth place and riding just behind a couple of cars that we knew would have to make an extra stop at the end.

But as the race neared the halfway point, I was rudely met by a throwback I had hoped would stay in the past: a Nissan gone wild.

Entering the final corner on lap 48, I hugged the inside of the track, hoping to discourage the prototype behind me from passing there, or at least forcing him to take the long way around.

However, he seemingly expected me to fade to the outside and forced his car into a gap that didn’t exist, spinning us both into the gravel trap. (His status as a prominent league steward who typically hands down punishments for avoidable contact was an irony not lost on the race’s broadcasters.)

Our car was damaged and slightly down on top speed, but the handling was still okay, so I completed the final few laps of my stint before pitting for some quick repairs and handing off to Karl.

Fighting From Behind

In his first ever racing experience with this car, he got off to a hesitant start, prompted in part by me telling him about all the slippery corners on the hot track.

But after ten laps or so, he was consistently running lap times in the 2:07s, just as I had in my previous stint, and on par with the cars around us.

Although we had lost time during my spin, we were still running a solid seventh and thinking a top five was in reach as long as our strategy played out as expected. Later in Karl’s stint, an Audi ahead of us crashed out – also at the hands of a wayward Nissan – which only boosted our once-shaken confidence about our potential result.

During our final pit stop, I got back in the car and settled into one of the most unusual battles a racer can experience.

I wasn’t bumper-to-bumper with anybody. In fact, the next closest cars were more than 20 seconds ahead of me. But knowing they would have to pit one more time, it was a fight for positioning that we hoped would play out in our favor.

Even though I couldn’t see them on track, I still felt the pressure, and as Karl shared the gaps between us – growing by a second every few laps with faster drivers behind the wheels of our opponents’ cars – I began driving even closer to my own limits, pushing the car deeper into the braking zones and getting back to the throttle sooner to pick up the pace.

It’s the sort of situation that would have almost certainly forced a mistake out of me earlier in the week, but this time, I stayed cool and consistent.

That approach was rewarded when the first car ahead of us made their final stop and emerged more than five seconds behind. Our top five was in hand, but could we do even better than that?

Karl and I both figured it was unlikely, as the fourth-place car had built a nearly 30-second gap that seemed safe given the scant splash of fuel they’d need. But when they pitted with three laps to go, Karl narrated their slow trek down the pit lane… all the way until we passed them.

They also came back on track several seconds behind us, and in this race, I didn’t have to worry about those faster cars bridging the gap to my back bumper in the closing laps.

Our strategy and clean driving – that one mid-race incident aside – had elevated us to an impressive fourth-place result. Karl and I estimated we missed maybe three shifts each all race, which was a huge improvement from where we started earlier in the week, unpracticed and rough around the edges.

While it wasn’t our best ever result together, I told Karl on the cooldown lap that it was one of my favorite races we’ve done, right up there with our surprise podium in the Bathurst 1000 and our lone GoT Endurance Series victory in which we also used a sneaky strategy play to get up front.

The nice thing about nostalgia is that as time goes by, we tend to forget the negatives and preserve the positives of those memorable moments. A few years from now, we might not even remember our spin in this Road America 500, and instead celebrate our strategy and speed in a return to top-split endurance racing.

Who knows if and when we’ll be on such a big stage again, but for now, I’m happy to keep a rosy remembrance of this week and this race when old cars became new again and, at least for a while, my own mistakes became a thing of the past.

More recently, the Hypercar class felt more like Overhyped, with only five entries in this year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans, including a grandfathered-in LMP1 from Alpine.

That’s about to change with the introduction of the LMDh specification, which a half dozen different makes have committed to, including the likes of Porsche, Cadillac, and Lamborghini. Critically, these cars will be able to compete head-to-head against the Hypercars, which should make endurance racing’s top class look less like a private track day.

It’s a big enough shift in the racing landscape that even iRacing — notorious for multi-year delays in updating its prototype content — has already announced its plan to build the BMW LMDh car, likely the first of several giving their existing relationships with other LMDh makes.

That will also mean the end of an era for the LMP1 class on iRacing, removed from all official series in favor of the fresher LMDh machinery. That announcement set the clock ticking on a bucket list item of mine: to try to tame the LMP1s in racing competition.

I’ve been on track with them plenty of times, most notably in the NEO Endurance Series, where they typically showed up as a blur while blasting by on the straightaways.

They also created some inopportune moments, such as when my teammate Karl was spun by an over-eager LMP1 car in the esses at Circuit of the Americas – not exactly a prime passing zone – in the early laps of a six-hour race.

Those on-track experiences, along with their unfamiliar hybrid systems that might as well come from a spaceship and my own preference for driving GT cars, had generally left a sour taste in my mouth concerning the LMP1s, so I never planned to compete in them myself.

And yet they had a tempting allure, as something so different from what I was used to driving, and as the top class in endurance racing, my favorite genre of motorsports. I also remembered my fun one-offs driving the old HPD prototype and the hybrid McLaren Formula 1 car, so I couldn’t help but crave a sample, just to see what surprises they might hold.

A (Red) Bull in a China Shop

Last week, the European Sprint Series – definitely not a direct copy of the World Endurance Championship, wink wink – headed to the Red Bull Ring. Its long straightaways and tight corners seemed like an ideal venue to try the LMP1s and their energy harvesting and deployment systems.

My initial practice laps were mainly spent learning how to use that hybrid technology. iRacing offers two deployment modes – automatic and manual – that don’t seem to have much detailed documentation available. Ultimately, the lack of any “beginners’ guide” was one challenge to trying these cars for the first time, and as I’d soon see, I had a lot more to learn about them.

The limited information I could find suggested that the Audi R18 tended to be quicker than the Porsche 919. That made my car choice even easier, since I have always been amazed by how quiet – and still how fast – Audi’s prototypes are.

After about an hour of practice, I entered the first official race of the week. With only 18 entries across all three classes, it seemed like a good way to get my feet wet in the LMP1 without diving head-first into a competitive race full of LMP2 and GTE traffic.

In qualifying, I surprised myself by earning the pole position in a field of five LMP1s. As I gridded up and prepared to lead the field to the start, I was imagining how I might settle into a rhythm up front, pace myself through traffic, and perhaps score an easy victory in my first race.

Not so fast. Literally.

My first lesson about driving the LMP1 in action was that you can boost before crossing the start-finish line and deploy stored energy from the pace lap. That realization hit me as three other cars passed me on either side, leaving me in fourth before we even reached turn 1.

The next lap started even more disastrously, as I half-spun in the first corner and was T-boned by the car behind. That was a rough reminder about the danger of cold tires on otherwise nimble prototypes.

Somehow, the car was largely undamaged and still drivable, so I continued and even caught one of the slower cars in the class. I discovered just how slow he was through the infield turn 7, where I caught him from three car lengths back under braking and bumped him straight off the track.

With blood on my hands, I was now the sort of LMP1 driver I despised. What happened next, then, felt like justice, even if it came at my own expense.

Exiting turn 4, I clipped the gravel beyond the kerb, which sent my car straight across the track and into the wall. Damaged, embarrassed, and disabled on the edge of the track, I quit after just five and a half laps of racing.

A Turn for the Worst

Although that first race was a clear failure, I tried to learn from my mistakes and practice a bit more before trying again a few nights later.

My second attempt came in a more populated session, with 28 cars including 10 LMP1s. This time, qualifying wasn’t such a success. Off-tracks on both timed laps doomed me to start at the back of the class, and from that failed qualifying session, I learned another lesson: despite their downforce, LMP1s can’t stop on a dime, and it’s still possible to overdrive corners and ruin a good lap.

This time, I at least knew the secret of the start, so I boosted coming to the green flag and gained a position. A spin for one of the leaders at turn 3 was worth another spot, and I made sure to take care of my tires to avoid making a similar mistake myself.

One more spin in the early laps opened up the track in front of me, so I set about running laps and trying to close in on the top five while working through traffic.

Just past the halfway point, I was preparing for the mandatory fuel stop and finishing another round of lapping GT traffic. But their class leader literally stopped me in my tracks after an apparent miscommunication.

Exiting turn 1, he was about a second ahead of me, and as the boost deployed, I made up that deficit in a hurry. I headed toward the right side of the track, just as I’d done for every car I had passed out of that corner. But the GT driver was also moving from left to right, and as I got alongside him, he clipped me in the left rear and sent me flying into the fence.

He cued the mic and questioned why I tried passing on the right when there was more room to his left. I noted that I was already on the right side when he was still in the middle of the road.

From my view, it was a similar incident as Mike Rockenfeller suffered, ironically in his own Audi R18, at Le Mans in 2011, when the Ferrari driven by Rob Kauffman faded across the track through a right-hand kink.

Given my GT experience, I also tried to see the incident from my competitor’s perspective. While I still think he made an ill-advised move, I can at least sympathize that the closing rate for LMP1 cars is high at that part of the track, and even a GT driver’s best efforts to signal his intentions may be too slow for a boosting prototype to sufficiently react to.

No matter the blame, I entered the weekend with two DNFs, 214 iRating lost, and not much confidence in my ability to complete a race in an LMP1.

Third Time’s the Charm?

After a few days of reflection, but not much additional practice, I got ready for another race attempt on Sunday afternoon, with one of the most competitive grids of the week in a rare multi-split session for this series.

I qualified in third, a second off the pole and just ahead of a group of cars with similar pace. It seemed like I’d have a good race on my hands if I could just survive.

After a clean start, I settled into third place and a battle that was brewing around me. I even moved up to second – for all of about 100 feet. The car ahead of me ran wide exiting turn 4 and I briefly overtook him before following him straight off the road and into the gravel. After getting back on track, I was still in third but with a new car ahead to chase as we maneuvered through traffic.

It was in close fights like that one where I realized just how important traffic management is in an LMP1 car. Catching a GT car mid-corner can easily cost a second or more, between their slower apex speed and delay in getting back to the throttle.

As such, our battle ebbed and flowed, with my opponent’s lead stretching out to more than two seconds and tightening up to a bumper-to-bumper slalom between GT cars.

I even overtook him around the race’s midway point, which put me literally in the driver’s seat to navigate through traffic and attempt to stretch out an advantage before the pit stops.

As that moment approached, I realized I had never made a stop in this car, thanks to my first two races ending early. When that moment came, I slowed down exiting the penultimate corner, made a hard right turn for the pit entry – and apparently crossed a line, at least in the eyes of iRacing’s officials.

The Red Bull Ring requires drivers to have all four tires inside of the white line separating the pit entry lane from the track. I had cut across it, which was worth a harsh 40-second stop-and-hold penalty after my pit stop.

That dropped me from a battle for the podium into an also-ran fifth place. It might as well have been purgatory, with no cars near me and little hope of making up any positions. The final minutes of that hour-long race therefore became about just making it to the end and keeping my car on the road.

Even that proved difficult, as I occasionally tried to boost past GT cars to clear them before a braking zone, then failed to compensate for my extra speed and drove straight off the track in the following corner.

For the first time all week, I had reached the finish, but it was a result marred by mistakes that I couldn’t let be my lasting memory of the LMP1s.

So I got ready for one more attempt: a final opportunity to put all of my experience to the test and right the wrongs from three rough races. It would be my last, best chance to prove I could handle these cars before they’re phased out in favor of the shiny new things.

Putting it All Together

This session got off to a rocky start reminiscent of race 2: an off-track in qualifying invalidated my best lap and left me starting at the back of the eight-car LMP1 field.

The pace lap boost again paid off, and I exited turn 1 in third place. The top two had already opened a gap, but one of them soon fell into my clutches.

On cold tires, he overdrove a few corners and climbed the kerbs, which let me get to his rear wing. A few laps later, he clipped the gravel exiting turn 4 and spun across the track. This time, I avoided following him off and dodged his sliding car to take second place.

In the laps that followed, I noticed he continued losing time and positions in a mistake-filled start of his own. Been there, done that, I thought.

The early trips through traffic, including a thick field of 15 GTE cars, again proved crucial to the evolution of this race. While the leader stretched out a nearly ten-second gap, I was caught and passed by a Porsche 919 after catching traffic in all the worst spots.

We spent the next half-hour until the pit stops in a yo-yoing battle together, just as I’d done in the previous race. At times, that meant making some risky maneuvers to limit our time losses, including taking to the kerb to get past one of the GT leaders, which rightfully earned me a headlight flash of frustration – one I’ve given plenty of prototypes in the past.

In this race, I was prepared for the pit entry, and I even had a pit strategy ace up my sleeve. In all of my years of GT driving, I’ve gotten used to checking the traffic coming from behind, and sometimes ducking onto pit road a lap or two early to avoid being swallowed up and slowed down by an impatient pack of prototypes.

I did the same thing this race, but by looking out my windshield instead of in my rear-view mirror. As the Porsche ahead of me caught the back of a group of slower cars, I ducked into the pits – legally, this time – and took my splash of fuel before emerging onto a mostly clear track.

After my Porsche opponent finally pitted a few laps later, he was more than four seconds behind. He complimented me on my successful undercut, but both of us knew the race was far from finished.

With ten laps left, I would have to drive smart and safe, but also be speedy to stay ahead. That meant putting in my fastest race laps of the week, consistently in the 1:12s. I had some luck with traffic as well, catching most GT cars on the straightaways, where the LMP1’s boost makes quick work of multi-class passing.

By the end, not only had I kept my closest competition more than four seconds behind me. I had also held the gap to the leader steady at just under 10 seconds, and come within a tenth of matching his fastest lap of the race.

It was all thanks to an error-free – and incident-free – hour of driving, a bit of keen pit strategy, and a better understanding of the LMP1s, informed by my failures in the three races beforehand.

A Powerful Prototype

I certainly can’t say that one week or even one race makes me an expert with these cars. I still never figured out the nuances of the manual deployment mode, for instance, and I never tuned on the setup aside from adjusting the qualifying fuel load.

But as the LMP1 class takes its final laps on the iRacing service, I can at least claim a bit of proficiency behind the wheel with a solid result, and the praise from an evenly matched opponent, to show for it.

This experience also doesn’t change my own preference for GT cars, although it does give me a greater appreciation for the skill needed to drive a top-level prototype. That may have been my most pleasant surprise about the LMP1s: they’re not just spaceships glued to the road with infinite hybrid power at their disposal, as it often seems from the cockpit of a slower car.

They’re high-performance race cars for sure, but it takes a refined multi-tasking ability to drive them quickly without overdriving, manage traffic, and make sure boost levels are sustainably regenerated and deployed at the right moments for the right duration – for instance, boosting past a slower car before a braking zone without carrying too much speed through the corner.

All week long, through my mistakes and my eventual success, I was reminded of an old saying: with great power comes great responsibility.

I can think of no more apt description of an LMP1 car than that.

Initially, it seemed like too much power for this lowly GT driver to control. I was even on the verge of giving up, cutting my iRating losses, and forgetting about these complicated cars after the first race.

But I’m glad I kept at it, because even after the LMP1s are retired from competition, I’ll be able to say I earned a step on the podium and tamed the top prototypes from this epic generation of endurance racing.

That hit me after turning 35 earlier this year. Only five years from forty, with the first streaks of gray appearing in my hair, I realized that I’ve been an adult for almost half of my life now.

It seems like I took those big steps to adulthood just yesterday: starting my first grown-up job, figuring out my career path, and taking on responsibilities like (gulp) talking on the phone with other adults.

One experience perfectly captured all of those moments. After my freshman year of college at NC State, I came back to my hometown to work for the local school system over the summer, mainly fixing and installing computers as part of their IT team.

As I finished work one June afternoon, I got a call – on my first cell phone, no less. It was from the sports editor of the local newspaper, the Kernersville News, for which I’d previously done some freelance writing. This time, he had a new assignment for me.

There’s this father and son that race at Bowman Gray Stadium, and they live here in Forsyth County. I want you to write an article about them. Call ‘em up and talk to them. Get something to me in a week.

For the next few days after work, I wrote and rewrote interview questions, researched their racing history, and dreaded making that phone call.

Talking to strangers doesn’t come easy to me as it is, and it made me even more nervous to think about interrupting the evening of two racers – battle-hardened by the track so tough, it’s called the Madhouse – who’d surely rather be turning wrenches than having a Q&A with some junior journalist.

But I couldn’t lose pace with the race of life. It was time to make the call.

After a few minutes of introductions and small talk, I realized my preconceptions couldn’t have been more wrong.

The Packs were both friendly, down-to-earth gentlemen who were easy to talk to and even easier to listen to as they shared stories of their racing background.

The father, Gene, told me about his nearly three decades of on-track experience, but his pride in consecutive track championships was exceeded by his pride in his son, who took to racing as a teenager despite his mother’s hesitations.

Likewise, Brian — a race winner in his rookie season — could only be sidelined for one reason, it seemed: taking care of a family of his own, including a wife and three kids, who eventually entered the go-kart ranks themselves to follow in their father’s and grandfather’s footsteps.

While Gene and Brian admitted they were as competitive against each other as any drivers on the track, it was clear that racing wasn’t a device to divide them. Rather, that time spent at the shop, in the pits, and on the track brought them together.

As my article summarized, “blood, at least in the Pack family, is thicker than oil.”

Lines like that one came easily as I was writing. In fact, the article’s opening sentence — that in the Pack family, racing must be part of their DNA — stemmed from a statement Brian made, punctuated by laughter, just after we started talking.

The toughest part was fitting the rich details of our half-hour conversation into less than 1,000 words. Instead of including a sampling of everything, I stuck to a theme, and it was easy to find one from this father-and-son racing duo. Family was a part of — and a reason for — everything they did.

I put the finishing touches on that article inside a stuffy school library just before Independence Day in 2006 and emailed it to my editor, making sure to meet the deadline so it could be published the following weekend.

Sure enough, on Saturday, July 8, I picked up the paper and found my story on the front page of the sports section.

While it was always an accomplishment to see my name and my work in print, I was particularly proud of this article – both because of the story it told, and because of the efforts I’d gone to in assembling it.

It even had the sort of ending that brings a grin to the face of the writer and readers alike. Father and son say they’ll continue to compete, so “it looks like the rest of the field will have to deal with the Pack family for a while longer.”

Sometimes, the race of life ends short of its anticipated distance, no matter how well it seems to be going.

Just over two years after I wrote my profile of the racing Pack family, they were met with unthinkable tragedy.

Brian Pack died on July 25, 2008, at age 34.

It wasn’t from racing, like his mother once feared. Nor was it a consequence of being caught up with the wrong crowd, like some might expect given the fists-flying, cops-called, racer-retaliating reputation of the Madhouse.

Instead, it was from a motorcycle crash while driving home. He wasn’t speeding, nor had he been drinking.

An expert at navigating Bowman Gray’s flat turns on four wheels, Brian apparently made a mistake while riding back roads on two.

“It looks like he didn’t negotiate that curve properly,” State Trooper TD Shaw told the Winston-Salem Journal, as reported by Speed51.com. “It’s just one of those accidents.”

In the days and weeks that followed, Bowman Gray and the modified racing paddock overflowed with support for the Packs. That was no surprise; as Brian himself told me of the racing community, “everybody’s there for you.”

He paused.

“And a lot of people don’t realize that.”

It has now been sixteen years since I interviewed the Packs and fourteen since Brian’s death. In that time, Gene retired from driving after the 2010 season, and Brian’s son Austin spent a few years behind the wheel, earning the NASCAR Whelen Southern Modified Tour’s rookie of the year award in 2011 before stepping away from racing in 2015.

As for me, the love of writing rekindled after talking to the Packs has continued, both as a hobby and as part of my current job.

Despite the gray hairs, at age 35, I’d like to think I’ve got at least half of my life still ahead of me, but who can ever anticipate those red flags that suddenly stop a race in its tracks?

Most people dread the passage of time. It’s a reminder that they’re getting older. That their days are numbered. That their greatest goals or loftiest ambitions may never be achieved.

But not racers. They view time as a challenge: just as much of an opponent as any competitor. They literally cut corners to maximize — or minimize, as it were — their time on the track.

At a place like Bowman Gray, where passing chances are limited and the laps go by in a hurry, time is all about seizing the opportunities you have.

As I reread my profile of the Packs – printed below in its entirety – and suppress smiles from the memories it brings back while looking past some awkward stylistic elements and word choices I made in my younger days, I can’t help but think that what’s really important in life is making the most of the time you have.

The race is on, so you better not let it leave you behind.

Competitive Packs Keep Family Tradition, Racing Spirit Alive

From the Kernersville News Weekend Edition: July 8 & 9, 2006

For Walkertown’s Pack family, the passion for racing may be genetic.

“They say it’s in your blood and I believe in that,” said Brian Pack, a second-generation racer who followed in his father, Gene’s, footsteps.

The Pack’s history in auto racing begins with Gene, who first suited up 28 years ago at Bowman Gray Stadium. After a stint in the street division, Pack switched to late models and left the confines of Bowman Gray for other area tracks, including Ace Speedway, Lonesome Pine Raceway, and New River Valley Speedway. However, Gene returned to Bowman Gray for the same reason he began there – the publicity.

“You kind of get lost in the mix when you leave here,” said the elder Pack, who noted Bowman Gray’s rich history as another draw to the quarter-mile oval.

After returning to the stadium, Pack found great success, winning races and championships, including back-to-back titles in the mid 90s. According to Gene, he always seeks championships over wins, and his consecutive titles are undoubtedly the highlight of his career.

Around the time Gene was enjoying the spotlight of victory lane, his son Brian began to get involved in the sport. Beginning in go-karts at age 13, Brian’s racing career began to take off, although his parents shared different views of their son’s new-found interest.

“His mom wasn’t too happy about it because of the inherent dangers,” said Gene, who thought racing on the weekends to be a better activity for his son than the sometimes-shady interests of many of his high school peers.

Despite his mother’s chagrin, Brian moved to the highly competitive late model series at age 16 before eventually heading to the Sportsman division and found the winner’s circle as early as his rookie year.

But racing soon took a backseat in Brian Pack’s life to something more important — family. With three kids who weren’t yet ready to don a helmet and racing gloves, Brian felt a brief time spent away from the track would be for the best.

Blood, at least in the Pack family, is thicker than oil.

However, Brian soon returned to the track, this time in the Modified division, where he managed to find victory lane once. Then, it was not long before a third generation of Pack family racers, three sons, now ages 13, 12, and 9, respectively, would take to the track in go-karts. The Packs agree that racing truly is a family sport, and whether the vehicle of choice is karts or cars, the time spent together at the track on Fridays and Saturdays makes everyone closer.

“Everybody’s there for you, and a lot of people don’t realize that,” said Brian.

This summer, the Packs are competing at Bowman Gray Stadium on Saturday nights. Gene drives Jimmy Wall’s #1 Ford in the Sportsman division, where he sits fourth in points, and owns fellow Sportsman competitor Spider Kimel’s #31 car. Brian is currently thirteenth in the Modified standings driving the #52 car for Grady Jeffreys, though his position is not indicative of recent performances.

“We started out rough,” said Brian, who had several mechanical woes early in the season, but has since recorded three straight top-ten finishes, including a third place finish on June 17.

On weekends when they’re not in action at Bowman Gray, the Packs are frequently competing in the NASCAR Whelen Southern Modified Tour, a regional series for its namesake cars which competes at tracks such as Caraway Speedway, Hickory Motor Speedway, and even Bowman Gray. Brian Pack currently sits fourth in points with dad breathing down his neck, just 19 points behind in sixth place.

So who’s helping who the most? According to Brian, it’s father helping son more right now, but five years ago, he said, it was a different story. And don’t think that sharing a little friendly advice means there isn’t a friendly rivalry on the track.

“If anyone’s competitive on the track, it’s us,” said Gene, “whether we’re racing for fifth or fifteenth.”

Don’t expect their competition to end any time soon, either. Brian says he’s happy right where he’s at in his racing career, and Gene says he plans to keep racing as long as it’s enjoyable and he has moderate success. And with the way their seasons are shaping up, it looks like the rest of the field will have to deal with the Pack family for a while longer.

No, I’m not the first person to piece together a fantasy racetrack from existing elements. Formula 1 drivers including Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo have endeavored this exercise, collectively combining many of the same components, including Eau Rouge at Spa, the Esses at Suzuka, and the uphill first turn in Austin.

There are even a few real-world circuits that took inspiration from – or directly copied – corners from other tracks. Pocono Raceway designed its three turns after Trenton, Indianapolis, and Milwaukee. Circuit of the Americas has sections modeled after Silverstone, Interlagos, Hockenheim, and Istanbul. And the never-raced Hanoi street circuit drew inspiration from the Nürburgring, Monaco, Sepang and Suzuka.

My own design takes pieces from some of these famous F1 venues, but also pulls from classic North American road courses and global endurance circuits. And ultimately, if someone ever constructed this track either in the real world or the sim world, I’d imagine that sports car and endurance racing — not high-level open-wheeled competition — would be its calling.

The Circuit Stats

This circuit combines 14 sections from different tracks, ranging from straightaways to corners to the elevation changes that make them unique.

The total length adds up to 5.05 miles or 8.13 kilometers. That makes it 16% longer than Spa, the longest current F1 track, and on par with Thunderhill Raceway Park in California, where the nearly 5-mile combined circuit hosts a 25-hour endurance race each December.

From the highest point in turn 8 to the lowest point entering turn 17, the circuit features 124 feet or 38 meters of elevation change. But elevation isn’t all it offers.

Despite its patchwork nature, each of the three sectors includes some similar elements. The first is mostly flat, with corners progressively getting tighter and slower through the stadium-style turn 5. The second sector features most of the undulation, initially climbing and then falling through separate sets of high-speed esses. And the final sector is all about speed, with five separate straightaways that each terminate in a passing zone.

That variability would demand a compromise in car setup and would challenge drivers through the full range of their skill sets, along with their physical conditioning.

It’s a mental test as well, since unlike modern circuits, you won’t find acres of paved runoff surrounding this track. Instead, errant cars may grind to a halt in gravel traps, or be punished even worse by the barriers that border many corners. 

That makes aggression a risk while patience and consistency are rewarded. And given my own measured driving style and strength in endurance events, I don’t think my dream circuit could have it any other way.

Start/Finish to Turn 1 – from Road America

Section Length: 0.38 miles/0.60 kilometers
Net Elevation Change: -2 feet

A lap starts on my favorite frontstretch in motorsports. While we don’t make the gravity-defying uphill climb to the start/finish line at Road America, we begin at the crest of the hill and make a nearly 2,000-foot run down to the first corner.

Its trickiness stems from its simplicity. There are no kinks in the road, bumps in the braking zone, or Tilke-esque widening of the track to enable divebombs up the inside. Instead, it’s a straight shot into a bottleneck corner, and you can see it coming from nearly half a mile away.

That acts to build anticipation, whether you’re on a hot lap preparing for the first make-or-break corner, or in a side-by-side battle waiting to see who brakes later.

My own experience at Road America includes draft battles and breakaways in the Spec Racer Ford. The high speeds down the frontstretch at my circuit would promote a similar sort of tactical racing, culminating with the flat but fast entry to turn 1.

Turn 1 Apex to Exit – from Montreal turn 7

Section Length: 0.28 miles/0.45 kilometers
Net Elevation Change: +11 feet

While turn 1 at Road America opens up a bit on exit, at my track, it keeps getting tighter. To enable that, I have stamped it with the exit of the second chicane at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.

It’s a deceivingly long, winding corner, and for over-eager drivers who track out too early, they’ll find an unpleasant surprise awaiting them just past the exit kerbing, as described by former F1 driver and current Sky Sports commentator Anthony Davidson:

“But a driver must still be careful here because there’s a wall on the outside of Seven and we’ve seen in the past how running wide… can have the knock-on effect of putting a car either close to or into the wall.”

For dueling drivers, this turn creates an obvious pressure point and potentially for excitement. Holding the outside line puts you closer to the wall on exit but could help carry more speed down the following waterfront short chute.

Meanwhile, going fast enough up the inside could help you complete a pass by mid-corner, but if you’re not fully in front, you’ll have to check your speed and watch for wheelspin as a side-by-side fight continues into the next section.

Turns 2 and 3 – from Sebring turns 12 and 13 (Tower)

Section Length: 0.36 miles/0.57 kilometers
Net Elevation Change: -5 feet

Moving out of the claustrophobic armco-lined straight, the track now opens up in my favorite sequence of corners from one of my favorite endurance racing circuits, the Sebring International Raceway.

We begin with the wide, fast turn-12 kink. Given the lack of braking required here, it barely qualifies as a corner, and yet in some situations, it can be even more important than the turn that follows.

When defending a position, holding a middle to inside line can cut off any passing opportunities for the driver behind by forcing them on the longer, marble-littered outside line.

When attempting a pass, making an early move up the inside of Sebring’s turn 12 can set up a braking-zone dive into turn 13.

And when faster-class traffic approaches through this section, the same car positioning rules apply to averting or facilitating a pass.

Turn 13, or Tower corner, has the sort of uninspiring blueprint you’d expect of a 90-degree turn plucked from a flat airport circuit, but in practice, it’s a great challenge behind the wheel.

The raised inside kerbing limits how much you can cut the corner. Its profile and the straight that follows demand a later apex, which means driving in deep and turning in late. And the flat outside exit kerbs are flanked by grass and dirt, which gives limited room for running wide.

Turn 4 – from old Silverstone turn 13 (Bridge)

Section Length: 0.19 miles/0.31 kilometers
Net Elevation Change: +5 feet

Consider this corner an act of altruism, righting a wrong in the recent history of race track renovation. When Silverstone was reconfigured in 2010, the technical new infield layout bypassed one of the circuit’s most iconic sections at Bridge corner.

At this airfield circuit, it was a rare corner with elevation, as the track exited the Abbey chicane, then dove downhill under the namesake roadway bridge before climbing on exit.

For bold drivers, it presented a passing opportunity, as I found during a three-hour Blancpain Endurance Series race in 2015. On the final lap, I made a move through Bridge to get by a fuel-starved BMW and steal a twelfth-place finish in our highly competitive split.

Perhaps that sort of move was a fulfillment of Martin Brundle’s prophesy about the corner when it was added to the circuit in 1991:

“It looks like an enormously quick corner, slightly banked as well; that’s where I’m going to buy a ticket for when I come and watch! There’ll be a few brave souls trying to overtake on the way in, which will be interesting, and if you get it right on the way out you should be able to overtake into the next left-hander.”

While Bridge’s place on the Silverstone grand prix layout lasted only two decades, it will live on at my circuit. And Brundle would be proud, as my Bridge replica exits into a grandstand-lined section where fans can watch those overtakes happen.

Turn 5 – from Hockenheim turn 12 (Sachs-Kurve)

Section Length: 0.15 miles/0.24 kilometers
Net Elevation Change: +3 feet

The Hockenheimring has seen its own changes over the years, notably neutering the long straightways that ran through the forests and replacing them with much slower chicanes and hairpins.

But one element of the old circuit remains: the stadium section near the end of the lap that wraps around the unique turn 12.

Even driving old F1 video games as a kid, it was a corner in which I felt at home. As a slightly banked left-hander, it could have been taken from the short tracks at Martinsville or Hickory, rather than resting in the Rhineland thousands of miles away.

When Hockenheim landed on iRacing last year, I found equal comfort in this corner. Searching for my first official-series victory in more than two years, I used a last-lap pass through turn 12 to take the lead and the win in a Porsche Cup race.

In that case, it was a corner of opportunity, but it can also be a corner of misfortune. It’s tempting to overdrive the entry and take advantage of the banking support, but pushing too hard can still send your car wide, as Sebastian Vettel found while leading the 2018 German Grand Prix.

Add in the expectant gazes from thousands of fans seated around the hairpin, and it’s simply a must-have on my own dream circuit.

Turns 6 and 7 – from the Nürburgring turns 9 and 10 (Michael-Schumacher-S)

Section Length: 0.26 miles/0.42 kilometers
Net Elevation Change: +91 feet

As the first sector ends and the second begins, we start our uphill climb with a copy of the Nürburgring’s Schumacher S.

The quick left-right sequence may be trivially flat-out for modern Formula 1 machinery, but in a GT car, it’s still a daring thrill that requires minimal braking, precise turning, and a bit of bravery even in a sim to carry speed over the kerbs as the track crests 91 feet higher than where this section began.

Along with the excitement of these climbing corners, I include this section because I’ve always been pretty good at it. When my teammate Karl and I were preparing for a league endurance race in the temperamental Ruf C-Spec a few years ago, I was a half-tenth or more faster in this section, even if I lost time elsewhere in the lap.

In that case, I was braking earlier but getting back to the throttle sooner and carrying up to 4.4 km/hr more speed off the corner and down the short straightaway that followed.

It’s an approach that required confidence in throttle application and a steady wheel, since accelerating too soon could send the back wheels sliding or the car careening off the road entirely.

But for a complex named after the legendary Michael Schumacher, would you expect it should require anything but precision?

Turn 8 – from VIR turn 10 (South Bend)

Section Length: 0.16 miles/0.26 kilometers
Net Elevation Change: -7 feet

This is the lone corner on my dream circuit that I’ve actually driven in real life, and I can confirm that it does drive like a dream.

The final turn of the Climbing Esses sequence, the road rises to a crest – and my circuit’s highest point – mid-corner before falling away on exit. Driving in too deep or tracking out too wide is almost always punished with a trip through the grass.

My first encounter with this corner came at the Bertil Roos Racing School, which my dad and I attended in June 2007. Our instructors had advised making a moderate lift on entry here, and while watching early groups of drivers on track, I saw several run wide, which gave me a healthy respect for this challenging corner.

After taking to the track myself, I quickly got the hang of it, and by our second session of the day, I was attacking it full-throttle almost every lap. While that’s probably no great feat in those underpowered cars, for my first time driving any car on a real racing circuit, it felt like a nice accomplishment to muster the courage to keep my foot to the floorboard through that fairly blind corner.

My dad and I returned to VIR nine years later, this time for charity laps in my Honda S2000. As I previously wrote, that paced session felt more like an open track for hot-lapping, and my sports car felt especially at home through the Climbing Esses.

I’ll take those experiences as a sign of confidence and a stamp of approval. South Bend, welcome to my fantasy circuit.

Turn 9 – from the Nordschleife (Aremberg)

Section Length: 0.27 miles/0.44 kilometers
Net Elevation Change: -51 feet

We’re back to Germany for the next corner, and this time, it’s taken from the longest circuit of them all: the Green Hell, or the Nürburgring Nordschleife.

Simply learning that track and its 154 corners took me several weeks, and while initially orienting myself, Aremberg corner – at the northwestern edge of the circuit – served as a useful reference point.

It was also one of the first corners through which I felt comfortable driving. Like Hockenheim’s stadium hairpin, perhaps the camber to the road suited my oval-racing background, even if Aremberg is turning right instead of left.

It’s a tricky turn for sure, with the road falling away throughout the corner, and any excess speed not easily scrubbed off without running into the gravel trap or the outside wall.

My approach has always been to take a wider entry, then fade to the inside while letting the banking support the car and guide it through to the downhill exit.

With a Nürburgring 24 Hour class win to my name, it seems I’ve done something right at Aremberg, and this fun corner deserves a spot on my circuit.

Turns 10 and 11 – from Road Atlanta turns 4 and 5 (The Esses)

Section Length: 0.42 miles/0.68 kilometers
Net Elevation Change: +9 feet

Exiting my Aremberg copy, the descent continues through Road Atlanta’s Esses. The overall Road Atlanta circuit may just surpass Sebring as my favorite for multi-class racing, and one big reason is this section, where well-timed passes are possible, but patience is often a virtue for faster cars.

This is a roller coaster-like set of corners that I’d love to try in real life sometime. Each turn is tighter than the one before it, beginning with a gentle left-hander, followed by a plunging reversal to the right, then a subtle left-right slither as the road begins to rise up again.

Negotiating this sequence so far is generally possible full-throttle, assuming you adhere to the optimal line and don’t get guided astray by an over-optimistic prototype or – as I found during the closing hours of last year’s Petit Le Mans – a lack of illumination that sent me a few feet off line.

But the hardest part of this section awaits at the very end: a sudden, uphill jog to the left that demands carrying as much speed as possible to connect the esses with the straightaway that follows. The ample exit kerbing is tempting to use, but it can easily cause a car to bottom out and go sliding into the outside wall, or back across the track in front of traffic.

Because of that risk, successfully getting through this corner hundreds of times in an endurance race often requires a bit of caution, or pushing to only 90 or 95% of the limit. But qualifying here means leaving nothing on the table, and that makes this section especially exciting.

In fact, my self-described best drive ever was during a qualifying session for the NEO Endurance Series’ season-one finale. During my final run, with a bit of extra downforce onboard to better negotiate these snaking corners, I gained time through The Esses and carried it through the rest of the lap to land in fifth place on the starting grid.

It’s the only time I can remember trembling after getting out of a virtual car, having pushed as hard as I could to log a fast lap. Including this section from Road Atlanta on my own circuit will make sure that lap, and that feeling, will never be forgotten.

Turn 12 – from Belle Isle turn 3

Section Length: 0.35 miles/0.57 kilometers
Net Elevation Change: 0 feet

Having completed the undulating second sector, hopefully with the car still in one piece, we now begin the track’s long, fast final sector. It starts with a street circuit feeling, taken from Detroit’s Belle Isle course.

The bumpy, wall-lined exit of Belle Isle’s turn 2 has caught plenty of drivers – even in pace cars – by surprise over the years. Forgivingly, my circuit will join just past that trouble spot on the straightaway down to turn 3. But the bumps aren’t finished yet.

They pick up again on the approach to turn 3, and picking the right braking point using the markerboards on the fence can be challenging while your car is bouncing over the bumps.

In addition, the ideal entry to this corner requires keeping your car as far left as possible, often millimeters away from brushing the concrete wall.

Getting through the turn means taking a generous amount of the inside kerbing and using the narrow exit kerbs without running too wide into the grass – or the wall.

The long straightaway leading up to it also makes this turn a passing opportunity, but spotting your braking point while racing side-by-side with another car adds to the challenge.

My iRacing career includes two visits to this venue: first in the Formula Renault 2.0, then in the Porsche Cup series, which included a pass around the outside of turn 3. Both of those experiences left me wanting more from Belle Isle, so I’ll take a piece of it – bumps, walls, and all – for my dream circuit.

Turn 13 – from Le Mans (Arnage)

Section Length: 0.58 miles/0.93 kilometers
Net Elevation Change: -10 feet

The Circuit de la Sarthe in Le Mans, France, is famous for its long straightaways and fast, sweeping corners. But for my circuit, I chose one of Le Mans’ slowest turns, which is also one of the most important, both on the original circuit and on mine.

The section including Indianapolis and Arnage contains three corners, each slower than the one before it. First, there’s the high-speed kink leading into a braking zone. Then comes the banked Indianapolis corner. Finally is the tight right-hander called Arnage.

It’s one of the oldest corners at Le Mans, dating back to the 1921 layout with few changes since then. One big reason for its historical stability is the presence of a house just outside the corner that has limited any modifications, such as adding runoff areas.

That changed slightly in 2012, when a gravel trap was added and the outside wall was pushed back by a few feet, but Arnage still leaves little room for error. Take it from five-time Le Mans class winner Oliver Gavin:

“Arnage is the most frustrating corner on the circuit. It’s very slippery, very slow, and you feel that the car has almost come to a stop because you’ve been going so fast on the rest of the track. You can lose a lot of time in Arnage, and drivers frequently go off there. Unless you maintain 100 percent concentration, it’s very easy to make a big mistake in Arnage at some point in the race.”

Adding to the demands of Arnage is the long straightaway that follows, taking public roads all the way to the Porsche Curves. My circuit will detour before that point, but getting a good run off this slow, slippery turn will still be imperative.

Turns 14 to 16 – from Bathurst turn 20 to 22 (The Chase)

Section Length: 0.53 miles/0.85 kilometers
Net Elevation Change: -64 feet

My perfect circuit wouldn’t be complete without taking a piece of my favorite real-world track, the Mount Panorama Circuit in Bathurst, Australia. It’s probably no surprise that my own design shares several similarities with Bathurst, including its straightaways connected by slow corners, wall-lined sections with little runoff, and hilltop esses.

Frankly, I could have included almost any of Bathurst’s turns and had them fit with my circuit’s character, but I eventually settled on the section called The Chase, largely to serve a similar purpose on my own track: to break up a long straightaway with something more exciting than a basic chicane.

Funny enough, The Chase was viewed as exactly that when it was first added in 1987: “As for the chicane – if you want to call it that,” said Formula 1 champion Denny Hulme, “I wished it was never there.”

In the 35 years since then, it has proven its worth as a test of skill, as a passing opportunity, and even as a launching ramp for some incredible crashes.

While carnage on the mountain is often unavoidable when racing at Bathurst, I’ve always prided myself in being consistent and clean through The Chase, whether that was grinding to 5,000 road iRating using passes around the outside, pushing the limits in an eighth-place qualifying run for the 2019 Bathurst 1000, or clawing back lost positions in this year’s Bathurst 12 Hour.

And it’s one corner that neither Karl nor I can brag about being faster than the other. During our extended final practice session for this year’s 12-hour race, our average fast laps were exactly tied through The Chase section, down to the thousandth of a second.

That’s surely a sign of a couple of well-practiced and well-acquainted drivers with Australia’s fastest chicane.

Turn 17 – from Watkins Glen turn 10

Section Length: 0.23 miles/0.37 kilometers
Net Elevation Change: +10 feet

I often describe Watkins Glen as my first favorite road course, since in the early NASCAR Racing games, it’s the first one I took the time to learn and love.

While tracks like Montreal, Road Atlanta, and Bathurst later supplanted it atop my list, Watkins Glen is still a special circuit to me.

In part, that’s because of my own sim racing success there, including five wins in six POWER Series events. During those league races over the years, Watkins Glen became the only track where I was disappointed by anything less than a win.

In addition, it’s a fast track with a great flow, even for downforce-limited stock cars and sports cars. Patrick Long notes that in a GT3 Porsche, you need to keep some throttle application throughout the entire corner.

The penultimate corner on my own circuit is also the next-to-last in a lap around Watkins Glen. The fast left-hander at turn 10 includes a bit of camber mid-corner that flattens out on exit.

While the modern Watkins Glen circuit has generous paved runoff beyond the kerbing, a tidy exit here is important for the short straightway – and the final corner – that follows.

Turn 18 – from Monza’s turn 11 (Parabolica)

Section Length: 0.90 miles/1.45 kilometers
Net Elevation Change: +10 feet

Closing out my fast final sector is a clone of Monza’s Parabolica – a seemingly never-ending right-hander that unwinds onto my track’s longest straightaway.

As with many of my selections, one reason for choosing this corner was my own success here. In a Jetta draft battle against a faster opponent, it was the one corner where I had an advantage, helping me set up a late pass for the win and defend my position on the final lap.

It’s also a great way to end a lap: with a final legitimate passing opportunity that turns into a chance for a crossover on corner exit. It’s no coincidence that the closest finish in Formula 1 history happened at Monza. That 1971 result was facilitated by Peter Gethin’s pass into – and defense out of – Parabolica.

On my circuit, Parabolica is only the start of this final section. It continues down most of the Monza frontstretch, followed by the second half of Road America’s main straightaway. All together, that’s nearly a mile of flat-out driving from the final corner all the way to turn 1.

When locked in a battle, that would present plenty of time to draft, pass, and potentially defend against a re-pass attempt by an opponent. And for multi-class racing, it would give a Daytona-like run of on-throttle time to let faster cars pass en masse.

One thing is for sure, though: you better get Parabolica right, or you’ll have a long time to think about your mistake, probably while watching other cars speed past you down the frontstretch.

A Lap Around

A simulated onboard lap shows each of these 14 sections in their native habitats, but with a bit of editing magic, you can see how they might flow together, from the flat first sector through the rolling hills that follow to the high-speed ending.

A typical lap in a GT3 car would time in at around 2 minutes 50 seconds, with an average speed of about 107 miles per hour or 172 kilometers per hour.  That’s somewhere in between the chicane-punctuated lap around Montreal and a speedier circuit of Road America – a fitting balance given the nature of my circuit, and the inspiration behind its design.

I’m sure I’ll never have the money or resources to literally move a mountain and build this track in the real world, and barring the release of a user-friendly track editor for iRacing, I doubt I’ll ever try it in the virtual world either.

But with many laps of experience through each of its sections, and plenty of great memories associated with them, I can imagine what it might be like to drive my perfect circuit — if only in my dreams.

An offhand remark that hurts a friend’s feelings. A secret revealed that breaks someone’s trust. Or in the sim racing world, a slight miscalculation that shatters your own confidence.

For my teammate Karl and me, we’ve each dealt with the latter, and at the same track, no less. Mount Panorama in Bathurst, Australia, is known around the world as one of the most difficult circuits due to its extreme elevation changes and blind corners, all surrounded by unforgiving walls that punish even minor mistakes.

If hotlapping around the mountain is madness, then running an endurance race there must border on insanity. And on multiple occasions, we’ve been crazy enough to try – and human enough to fail.

My big mistake happened three years ago during our first attempt at the Bathurst 12 Hours. After a top-twelve qualifying run, I threw away a promising start on the first lap, clipping the inside wall at Forrest’s Elbow on the way down the mountain. That 12-hour attempt lasted barely one minute.

Karl’s Bathurst bobble dates back even further, to the Masters of Endurance Series’ six-hour finale in 2015. After taking over the car halfway through the race, a moment of oversteer exiting the tricky turn 9 sent him sliding sideways and into the inside wall, ending our best run of the season with a crumpled car.

We’ve also found success together at Bathurst, finishing on the podium in the 2019 Bathurst 1000. However, success – and survival – in a GT3 car during a longer endurance race remained elusive. Entering last weekend’s Bathurst 12 Hours, we set out to change that and soften the sting of past mistakes.

In our previous endurance race, we earned a surprising second place in October’s Petit Le Mans with limited practice and setup work ahead of time. But such a casual approach wouldn’t work well at Bathurst, which requires inch-perfect precision committed to muscle memory and an acute awareness of the likely trouble spots.

It’s why we failed in our previous endurance attempts, getting overconfident and overaggressive on the savage slopes. And it’s why we succeeded in the V8 Supercar, treating that unfamiliar equipment with extra care around the punishing Mount Panorama circuit.

In the lead-up to this year’s race, we focused on finding both speed and stability, decreeing that we were racing the track rather than any particular team.

We identified the corners most likely to cause problems, including the high-speed turns 9 and 10 atop the mountain, where the outside kerbs can easily send a car spinning; the downhill descent through Skyline, where getting behind on braking is almost a guaranteed crash; and the wall-lined Forrest’s Elbow, where cutting too much or tracking out too wide can be a race ender. I should know.

I promised Karl I wouldn’t hit that inside wall again. But despite all of our preparations, I couldn’t promise much else entering the race.

This time, qualifying was a struggle, and I managed only 34th in the pre-dawn session. That would put me in a precarious position at the start, as any accidents ahead would likely lead to an unavoidable pile-up.

With a shot at redemption driving a starting stint at Bathurst again, I had a low bar to clear. Just completing the first lap would be better than I managed last time. Even that was a challenge, as multiple spins and crashes ahead partially blocked the track on the narrow road over the mountain.

At times, I had to slow to a stop and wait for a lane to open. In the process, I dropped back ten positions to 44th. By completing the first lap with no damage, though, our calculated caution was already paying off.

Between dodging other spins and methodically passing cars ahead, I had already recovered to my original starting spot within the first half-hour. The rest of the first stint brought more gains, and after the first pit stop, I found a comfortable position to run in and log laps as darkness gave way to morning.

Unfortunately, then came an obstacle for which we had no plan. Midway through my second stint, a car just ahead of me spun at the Dipper and blocked the road.

As I arrived on the scene, even slamming on the brakes wasn’t enough to mitigate my momentum. I center-punched a fellow Lamborghini in the door, which flattened our front bumper and ripped off our hood.

The extent of the damage was slow to reveal itself thanks to the draft that initially buoyed my lap times. However, after being passed and facing clear track ahead with a snow-plow front end, our top speed disadvantage became clear.

Karl and I resigned ourselves to making repairs, but hoped a new hood would at least curb any aerodynamic disadvantages. After falling two laps down during our next pit stop, Karl rejoined the track, only to find the car was still off pace.

With any hopes of a high finish gone, we resolved to take the full 5 minutes of remaining repairs and try to claw back positions from attrition alone as some of our competitors inevitably crashed short of the finish.

Four laps down and in 29th, the thought of driving nine more hours out of contention made climbing the mountain feel like a truly Sisyphean task. But while success would again elude us on this day, we could still manage survival and exorcise those bygone Bathurst blunders.

Through the hottest part of the race, our slow advance continued. A Porsche in the wall at Skyline? That’s a position. A BMW with suspension damage? That’s a position. A Ferrari face-planting at the final corner? After a few clean laps to claw back lost time while they made repairs, that too was a position.

By the six-hour mark, we were up to 23rd. With less than four hours to go, we entered the top 20. We picked up our final position with an hour and a half left, when a collision on the mountain sent a highly placed Ferrari into the wall and back to the garage.

As darkness again fell over the mountain in the final hour, we had no sneaky strategy plays to gain another spot, nor any fears about being caught in the closing laps. We just kept driving and eventually came home in seventeenth – five laps adrift of the leader, more than a lap behind the next finisher, and four laps in front of the car behind.

In total, 25 teams, or exactly half of the starting field, finished the race. On this day, being part of that group would be our only achievement, but it’s one we had waited years to finally realize.

While we each had a couple of brushes with the barriers, we had no additional repair time after the first two hours. Our cautious approach had paid off to the point that neither of us worried about the other person crashing at those potential trouble spots we identified before the race.

It wasn’t our best result – far from it, actually – but we could still be proud of completing 336 laps in 12 hours around Bathurst with no self-inflicted damage, and not giving up even after our early setback.

Of course, that also left us wondering what if that loopy Lambo hadn’t blocked our path in the second hour. Perhaps we would have continued our climb all the way into the top ten. Or maybe the pressure of close competition would have gotten the better of us, tempting us to eschew our more measured mindset in favor of a faster but riskier one.

We can only hope to have that opportunity next year. As for this time, despite a less-than-stellar result, I kept my pre-race promise. I never touched the Elbow wall all race, and in the process, I made that years-old mistake a distant memory.

A crash at the hands of a wayward prototype ended our Sebring 12 Hours attempt in March within the first hour, while my own crash in the Daytona 24 Hours this January meant we were dead by daylight.

Add in an early crash in last summer’s Spa 24 Hours to make it three strikes, and it truly felt like we were out of touch with the survival skills that once made us such a dependable duo in endurance events.

With both of us taking a summer break from iRacing and the short Road Atlanta circuit promising to test — or taunt — our rusty racecraft, the Petit Le Mans event threatened to extend our streak of failure unless we changed something drastic.

So that’s exactly what we did. It didn’t necessarily happen on purpose, but as the week played out, we realized that we were taking a wildly different approach for this race than in those others that ended much too early.

Our preparations were informal, brief, and untechnical. And oddly, that didn’t seem like a bad thing. Taking a page from the Seinfeld sitcom scripts, “if every instinct you have is wrong, then the opposite would have to be right.”

A Race Week Reversal

It started with practice — or a lack thereof. Unlike this year’s Daytona race, for which we started testing more than a month in advance, we ran our first Road Atlanta practice exactly six days before the race.

Since each of our work schedules made it tough to find time during the week, our joint practice was limited to a couple of hours each on Sunday, Monday, and Friday afternoons, and whatever warm-up we could manage on Saturday morning.

Of course, that left little time for setup tweaks, so we initially downloaded a race setup from Virtual Racing School and left it untouched all week. That’s also a sharp contrast from our typical approach, repeatedly tweaking the most minor setup components in search of any extra speed.

All that fine-tuning tends to inspire confidence, and entering the recent Spa and Daytona races, we truly expected to contend for the victory, or at least a strong result, only to be disappointed when we started deeper in the field and lacked the pace to match the top teams.

With time not exactly on our sides, we also took the complete opposite approach to setting expectations for Petit Le Mans. This time, we figured that just finishing would be a success.

Our recent races also left us frustrated by an inability to craft the correct strategy. Whenever we assumed tire wear would be too harsh to double-stint, half the field would use that strategy and force us to either adapt or absorb a time loss to take fresh tires every other pit stop.

Those failed strategies and early exits were particularly embarrassing because of the hard work I put into crafting detailed spreadsheets for each race outlining a planned driving schedule with the projected pace and fuel usage throughout the race.

So for this race, we kept it simple. With a bit of fuel saving, we could stretch our stints to about an hour each, and we’d run five double stints to cover the ten-hour length. Our most exotic adjustment was doing a driver swap after Karl’s opening stint, just so we’d each have the same amount of driving time.

With that plan, there was no need, nor want, for some advanced spreadsheet, which had begun to carry a curse for our races. Earlier this year as our struggles were still growing, Karl and I had joked that creating a new spreadsheet was the first true sign of doom for an endurance race.

I even avoided creating a custom paint scheme for us, mostly due to time limits but also because crashing a sharp-looking car race after race made me wonder if the hours spent designing a livery would have been better used by squeezing in some additional practice.

And a final decision that truly exemplified the “do the complete opposite” approach was perhaps the most important any team makes for a race like this: what to drive. Among the GT3 class, the BMW and Porsche clearly seemed like the top choices, leaving the little-loved Lamborghini Huracán mostly on the sidelines.

But after my season-opening IMSA win at Homestead and with Karl’s own affinity for the Lambo, we decided to go with the least-popular option for the fun factor alone and accept whatever competitive disadvantage it carried, sticking with our casual approach to this race.

The qualifying session offered the first signs that despite our choice of car and lack of preparations, we were better off than we expected. Karl’s clutch second lap landed us ninth — dead center in the seventeen-car GT3 field in our split, the fifth of 20 for our timeslot. With the race’s other Lambo starting just behind us, it seemed that our expectations for being off-pace could have been incorrect.

All According to Plan

As the race began, it also seemed to take the opposite progression from our usual fate.

The opening stint promised to be our first hurdle, as it’s when our most recent Spa and Sebring races ended before I ever even had the opportunity to get behind the wheel. But my trust in Karl’s abilities in heavy traffic, at least more than my own, has never wavered, and he guided us through the first hour while protecting our position, and more importantly, our car.

Sticking with our strategy, I took over at the pit stop, inheriting his slightly used tires and our undamaged car. At this point in a race, we often find ourselves scrapping for positions and slowly crawling up the running order. But this time, a combination of our double-stinting strategy and attrition throughout the field seemed to suddenly vault us inside the top five during the second hour.

In fact, in my opening stint, I only passed one car on track — a BMW that was a bit too hard on its tires — but we were still up to third place by the end, unexpectedly in podium contention with a car and a pace that we assumed would be confined to the rear of the field.

As the race played out, we were also shocked not only that our strategy was working, but that other teams hadn’t used the same simple approach. Some changed tires at every pit stop, losing nearly 30 seconds while we double-stinted. Others cut their stints short, forcing them to add an extra pit stop later in the race.

Regardless of strategies, at some point in every race, I inevitably end up locked in battle with another team or driver of similar pace. In last year’s Sebring race, for instance, I seemed to have a magnetic attraction to another Mercedes team, and we spent the better part of six hours chasing each other and fighting for position.

This time, though, the gaps opened all around us, and we rarely saw another GT3 car for the rest of the race. The two early leaders had exceptional pace and pulled away, while Karl and I found unexpected consistency and rediscovered our time-tested skills in managing traffic to slowly drive away from the cars behind us.

Many of our races have at least one dramatic moment, like a brush with destruction that leaves us damaged or displeased. But this race was mostly drama-free. During my first double stint, a prototype drove me off the road entering the esses, and Karl had a later spin after bouncing off a kerb at turn five, but neither incident was particularly damaging or time-consuming.

As a result of our steady driving, along with a slower driver on the erstwhile second-place team who also accrued at least two drive-through penalties for exceeding track limits, we found ourselves in second place by the midway point.

The challenges that we usually expect around us never came, as we held a 40+ second gap to our next-closest competitor through the final hours. A rendezvous with the tire wall, à la Daytona, never happened as nighttime fell on the track. And we saw the checkered flag in an endurance race for the first time in 18 months, securing a solid second-place finish in our return to the podium.

Karl and I agreed that it was our best endurance result in at least two years, since an unexpected third-place result in the Bathurst 1000 back in September 2019. We also entered that race with lowered expectations amid a field of drivers more familiar with the car than us, so perhaps the pressure we apply to ourselves is the ultimate jinx in an endurance event.

Both races had something else in common as well, though. In terms of pace, our team had no weak link or clearly slower driver in either race. And in that respect, yesterday’s Petit Le Mans affirms a change in how I perceive my own driving, which may be my biggest takeaway from the weekend.

The Search for Speed

For many years, I naturally compared myself against Karl, and our light-hearted observation that he was always a half-second quicker than me began to feel less like an overcomeable deficit and more like my inescapable destiny. Continually unable to match my teammate, I felt like a drag on our team’s performance, even if Karl would never admit as much.

Throughout our practice for this race, Karl may have still had an advantage, but it was much smaller, measured in hundredths or even thousandths of a second. We were close enough to be considered even, although I still had something to prove under race conditions.

While the changing time of day, track temperature, and traffic can make it tough to compare drivers’ pace in a long race like this, the iRacing results simplify it into one statistic: the fastest (clean) lap.

In Karl’s second stint on fresh tires and low fuel, he managed a quick lap of a 1:19.461 that stood as our team’s fastest time for most of the race.

As night fell over the virtual track and I was the last driver in the car, I knew I’d have a chance to eclipse that lap time, but it wouldn’t be easy.

First, I’d have to burn through most of the fuel weight so I wasn’t losing time down the long backstretch. And over a limited stretch of laps late in that run, I’d need the cars around me to cooperate, along with my own driving to be aggressive enough to be fast but not careless enough to ruin our race in the closing hours.

Eventually, I had an opportunity. Two prototypes passed me at the beginning of the straightaway, and with their draft, I was on a flying lap. But an over-eager entry to the final chicane yielded a plume of dust into the air, an off-track incident, and invalidated that otherwise fast lap of a 1:19.291 from being our team best.

With the stint winding down, I conceded defeat to Karl in our good-natured fast lap rivalry, but I’d soon be given a second chance. The GT3 class leader exited the pits just in front of me, albeit a lap ahead in the standings. While their overall pace was much stronger than mine, on low fuel, I could barely keep up with them.

With just five laps remaining in my first stint, I nailed the start of the lap and lined up in the leader’s slipstream down the backstretch. This time, I took a slightly more conservative approach to the chicane but still finished with a 1:19.305, which was good enough to set a personal and team lap record for the race.

I’m certainly not prideful enough to suggest that one lap means I’m now the faster driver on our team. Quite the opposite, I’m always learning speed secrets from Karl’s driving lines and telemetry whenever we prepare for a race, even as haphazardly as this one.

Data crunched by Torque Freak Racing shows that by all major metrics — median lap time, best 20 lap times, and top 50% lap times — Karl still had a slight edge in this race. But that gap was close, at no more than four hundredths of a second for any statistic. And we were both among the top half of the GT3 field in our split for all categories.

In races like this, I no longer feel like a liability to our team, and that makes our pairing even stronger — effectively a one-two punch that punishes the weaknesses among our competitors with relentless consistency, no matter which one of us is driving.

Perhaps that’s one of the biggest reasons why this race was so anticlimactic en route to a straightforward second-place finish. Despite our recent frustrations and time away from sim racing, Karl and I are still experienced enough to know how to drive and manage an endurance race.

When I add in a bit of confidence — but not overconfidence — in my driving, remove the pressure to achieve a specific result, and stop micromanaging strategies while executing a simple race plan, it’s easy to see why the opposite approach may be the optimal approach.

With our string of bad luck now behind us and a newfound way to get ready for endurance races tested and approved, the dependable duo may be even stronger in all aspects.

And we don’t need some spreadsheet to tell us that.

My sabbatical was borne mostly out of real-life relief, with Covid restrictions lifted and a long-awaited return to quasi-normalcy after a year of lockdown. This spring and summer, I attended in-person hockey games, vacationed with family at the beach, and generally enjoyed time away from my three monitors that double (triple?) as a windshield.

But I’d be lying if I said my iRacing break also wasn’t partially fueled by frustration. In my most recent endurance races, I crashed out of the Daytona 24h race all by myself, had a shorter IMSA race at Daytona end after one-too-many incidents at the hands of LMP2 drivers, and never even got in our car at the Sebring 12h since that time, my teammate Karl absorbed the KO from an over-eager LMP2 in the race’s first hour.

Those experiences had made me question my own abilities, and those of other drivers on the service. But a long enough time away brought a craving to drive once again, and after testing the latest round of updates that improved the handling and responsiveness of the GT cars, it was time to get back behind the wheel.

The series was an inauspicious one: IMSA, complete with those LMP2 torpedoes, not to mention the potential for off-pace GTE drivers who blend in with the GT3 field about as well as water and motor oil.

The track was an unusual one: the Homestead-Miami Speedway roval, combining the straightaways and north turn of the oval with a start-stop infield road course, not too dissimilar to Daytona.

And my car of choice was an unexpected one: the Lamborghini Huracán GT3 EVO, built on the same chassis as the Audi R8, for which I’ve never been able to get a grip. But the Lambo has its own character, and the recent updates made it feel like a brand new car.

In the sundown qualifying session, my second-place starting spot came as a relief, both for being that far up the field and for not being first and forced to pace our GT3 class to the green flag, unpracticed as I am at race starts and on a new track, no less.

The first lap brought the sort of calamity I expected from this series, with spun-out Porsches littering the sides of the track through the infield section as if they were searching for curbside parking spots in nearby Miami Beach.

As GT3 leaders, we carved through the carnage as best as we could, and I managed to stay within drafting range of the polesitting BMW, who seemed to have the pace to pull away if not for the traffic we continued to hit.

On lap 7, though, that traffic hit me. A GTE who was one of the first-lap castaways was moving back through the field, and in the final infield corner, he braked inexplicably late, skidded sideways from a second behind me, and clobbered the back of my car with his Big Boi BMW passenger-side door.

After waiting for a half-dozen cars to drive past our accident scene, I managed to get going again, and to my surprise, the car felt mostly undamaged — something a passing LMP2 confirmed for me a few laps later.

But in fifth place and a dozen seconds behind the leader, my shot at the win was surely over. Instead, I focused on clawing back as many spots as possible, which was made easier when a few GT3s spun off course at the tricky turn two, and seemingly capped off by a pass on the banking to take second place on lap 18.

The leader remained about 12 seconds ahead before the pit stop, so while I could match his pace, I wasn’t catching up. Just finishing the race cleanly would feel like a success, I thought, and I’d have to settle for dreams of battling for the win and what could have been.

After the pit stops were completed, though, I got an unexpected call from my robo-spotter: You are the leader! I didn’t think much of it since I was among the last GT3s to pit, so I assumed the lineup just hadn’t cycled through yet.

Besides, I had a battle on my hands, and it wasn’t the sort I’d hoped for entering the race. A GTE backmarker who was running GT3 lap times was right behind me, and frustratingly, he was trying every sort of ill-advised move to get around me.

There were divebombs under braking, for which I simply drove a wider line to stay ahead.

There was a scary side-by-side run into the high-speed first turn — a left-hand flick off the oval that’s hardly a passing zone — with an LMP2 darting between us.

And there was his final attempt: a late-braking, too-deep lunge into the same hairpin where I was clobbered earlier in the race. This time, though, I gave him room up the inside, watched him predictably spin at the apex, and gave a sarcastic “nice move!” on the radio as I drove past.

At that point, I finally had time to process the reality of the race. I truly was first in class, and the polesitter and erstwhile leader was now nine seconds behind. After the race, he told me that a black flag for an unsafe pit exit forced him to pit a second time, and that one mistake proved much costlier than my torments in traffic.

The final laps were thankfully cleaner for me, with only occasional passing LMP2s around me. In my mirrors, I could see a battle between off-pace GTEs who were now mixing in with the second- and third-place GT3s. I feel your pain, I thought, but after my own experiences earlier in the race, my sympathies ended there.

After 45 minutes, 36 laps, two GTEs spinning in my vicinity at the same corner, and one unfortunate penalty for my closest opponent, my race for redemption was completed with a victory.

It’s not a result I would have expected in my first race since returning, and certainly not one I could repeat in a stronger field. But as my first — and best — race since March, I can only hope that this comeback performance is a sign of things to come.

I nearly lost my first Power Series championship by not making a slide job on the final restart at Bristol, which could have been worth a few valuable points in a season decided by a tiebreaker, fortunately in my favor. And I blame my lack of wins at restrictor plate tracks to an inability — or ineptitude, perhaps — of making big moves in the closing laps.

More recently, any hope of winning at all on iRacing was beginning to fade. While I’m not a regular in official races, the ones I’ve competed in always seem to have enough fast drivers to deny me any chance. That only escalated over the past year in the pandemic-aided surge in participation.

Even with a fast teammate and a historical strength driving GT cars, success had been hard to find. For Karl and I, our last three endurance race attempts all ended in early crashes, and in my last solo official race in the BMW M4 GT3 at Daytona, I was chopped, dived, dumped, and ultimately DNFed at Daytona.

Forget about winning. Lately, just finishing a race would be a nice result. And I couldn’t help but think that getting more experience in sprint race situations — the heat of battles, the rhythm of a race, and the relief of the checkered flag — would at least help me survive in an enduro.

This week’s iRacing schedule provided just that opportunity. Week 13 features fewer official series but with more frequent races, so it’s easy to run back to back to back in short but competitive events.

In addition, the new build brought a new track in the Hockenheimring. An old favorite of mine dating back to the F1 Challenge: ‘99-‘02 game, I was excited to try it on iRacing, and with my much-loved Porsche Cup car visiting the track in its official series, it was an ideal time to grind some sprint races, even if it would probably mean extending my winless streak at the hands of speedier, sharper competition.

A False Start

Whether it was due to rustiness, nerves, or over-eager driving, my first few races ended in embarrassment, frustration, or disappointment. In line for a podium in my first start, I spun exiting the final corner and dropped fourteen spots at the finish.

In another race, I got my spin out of the way on the first lap and was left to claw back positions the rest of the way. And in the race after that, I was spun by another driver in the first corner and added injury to that insult with a mid-race spin on my own.

Four races in, I had only finished one with no incidents. While I was slowly picking up my pace, I was far from fighting for wins, and a fellow persistent Porsche Cup participant named Bruno was asserting his own dominance with a 10-second margin of victory in our latest race.

But after that, I caught a break. Bruno wasn’t entered in the next race, and after a pole-winning qualifying lap, a win suddenly seemed not just possible, but likely as long as I could avoid the same costly mistakes as I’d made earlier in the evening.

Nervous energy on the starting grid wound up breeding a new error. My left foot released a little too much pressure on the brake pedal, causing the car to inch forward and handing me a penalty for jumping the start. Before I had even tasted the lead, my chances had been dashed.

At that point, I considered quitting for the night, but the hope that maybe all the fast drivers had gone to bed convinced me to try another race. And when I saw the entries for that one, boy, was I wrong.

At 6,300+ iRating, Bruno was back. So was Hugo, the recipient of my starting-line gift and victory in the previous race. There was also Ricardo, a runner-up behind Bruno earlier; Jim, new to the Porsche that night but a driver I recognized as one of the quickest in the Mustang; top streamer Matt Malone; and a cast of others who all seemed capable of denying me a shot at the win, as if I wouldn’t do that job myself.

Just staying among the leaders would be a solid result, and the sort of experience I badly needed amid my recent slump. Frankly, making it through the first lap would have been a triumph in its own right.

The Battle Begins

Before the race, I turned one of my fastest qualifying laps of the night: a 1:41.5, just a tenth behind Bruno. This time, I managed a clean start and settled into second place among the train of Porsches at the front.

While we’d all compress together in the draft on the curving backstretch and in the braking zone for the hairpin that followed, I held my position and notably didn’t attempt a pass on Bruno, even when I had the speed to get alongside him. It’s an old trick I learned during my Jetta-driving days of not playing my cars too early in the race.

Granted, in a race that lasted only 15 minutes, too early is all relative. However, my patience paid off, and with two laps to go, I seized my opportunity.

With a run on Bruno down the backstretch and a small gap to the pair behind us, I made my move. Instead of tucking in behind him like I’d done all race, I darted to his inside.

Getting the downforce-starved, ABS-lacking Porsche to slow down for and turn through the hairpin was the next challenge, and I managed it without locking up but effectively parked on the apex. That thwarted Bruno’s attempted undercut, and he was nearly spun in the logjam that developed behind me.

I suddenly had a modest lead with just a lap and a half to go. Barring any mistakes, the race was mine to lose.

Of course, if you’ve been reading up to this point, you’ll know the main reason I was running these races was because of my tendency to screw up during pressure-packed race situations. The pressure was only amplified in this case, and on the wild lap ahead, it would be dialed up another notch.

The Jaws of Defeat

Starting the final lap, Bruno had gotten clear of the snarling pack chasing him, but he was more than half a second behind, and not close enough to slipstream past me down the backstretch.

After I drove a little too deep into the hairpin, he was closing in. However, I knew that in the tight sections that followed, it would be tough for him to make a pass, if he could even get to me in the first place.

Naturally, I gave him exactly that chance in the very next corner. A small lockup forced me a bit wide of the apex at turn eight, and he was fully alongside in the short chute that followed.

At this point, only one thing flashed through my mind: win at all costs. It simply seemed like a race I couldn’t give away. Not without a fight.

So I pinched Bruno to the inside as we entered the stadium section, and I approached the slightly banked turn 12 — the same corner where Sebastian Vettel beached his car to give away a German Grand Prix win in 2018 — right on his bumper.

Attempting a pass here would require channeling skills I’ve either long repressed or never possessed to begin with: a late-braking divebomb that could just as easily take out Bruno as it could put me ahead of him.

The end result was… neither. We exited the corner door to door, but I had the preferred inside line for the chicane that followed. Bruno’s route to the apex was covered, so he ran wide over the kerb, clipping the grass and spinning off the track.

With my adrenaline rushing, I avoided a last-corner spin like I’d started the night with and crossed the finish line to take the victory. It took one of my most memorable last laps ever, and a few aggressive moves I might regret had they not paid off, but my drought was finally over.

I knew it had been a while since I had won an official race, but after checking the stats, I was shocked to see just how long it had taken to do it again.

My previous win was in a GT1 race at Bathurst on February 27, 2019 — just over two years and 81 races ago. As I recall, that one was a bit of a fluke since the fastest driver purposefully started at the back and crashed on the first lap.

In this case, I know I earned the win fighting directly against a number of fast drivers. No, it wasn’t the mistake-free race I might have wanted, but perhaps this is what I truly needed: confidence to stay focused through frustration, to channel the lessons I’ve learned over my many years of sim racing, and even to dig deep into my bag of tricks, whatever the cost.

Whether I go another two races or two years between wins, or even if I never win again, this is absolutely one I won’t forget.