Tuesday, November 25, 2014

Magical Full Career Stats Post

I've called this "magical" because the post below was fired through to blogger directly from my iRacing Stats application. I just clicked a button and the post was created as a draft and the graph images uploaded and correctly linked to with in the post.

Prior to this addition to my program I was exporting to a html file and then manually copy and pasting the source of that file into blogger, manually uploading all the graph images and manually editing them into the post.

This will save me a whole stack of effort at the end of every week. I'm pretty chuffed.

As an aside, I figured it was a decent time to post a full career stats update because I noticed that I just clicked over 4,000 laps driven.

SeriesRacesBest FinPoints
Mazda Cup1301st75
Star Mazda Championship711st63
Advanced Mazda MX-5 Cup Series351st80
iRacing Spec Racer Ford Challenge321st59
Skip Barber Race Series108th37
13th Week Mazda Cup61st82
iRacing Global Challenge610th52
GT3 Challenge Series44th73
iRacing Grand Touring Cup MC34th67
World Sports Car Series MC210th51
iRacing Global Challenge - Open112th21

License:B
Safety Rating:3.42
Corners Per Incident:43.66
iRating:1637
ttRating:1514
Total Driving Time:142 hrs 0 mins
Race Starts:300
Race Finishes:244
Disqualified:11
Disconnections:45
Qualify Sessions:81
Time Trials:24
Wins:23
Podium Finishes:72
Top 5 Finishes:105
Average Finish Postion:7.7
Total Laps:4000
Incidents:2318

Wednesday, November 19, 2014

Other Games

I recently succumbed to a couple of Humble Bundle deals which included the following driving games:

  • Real World Racing
  • DiRT Showdown
  • DiRT 3
  • GRID
  • GRID 2
  • Euro Truck Simulator 2

    I still have GRID: Autosport which I fire up from time to time to enjoy some racing where I can crash into people's cars with out feeling like a terrible human. So the two GRID games don't really hold much interest for me. I was interested in giving DiRT 3 a bash, but I quickly found that the unskippable intros and horrible menu system was too much pain for me to deal with when I just wanted a quick rally session. I bought Richard Burns Rally a couple of months back and that will remain my go to when I feel like getting a car side ways on gravel.

    Euro Truck Simulator 2 has interested me a bit. I've put in a few hours and have found it strangely zen like; speeding around a fake Europe in a big rig.

    The truckin and the rally games got me reminiscing about RalliSport Challenge. I only ever played it on XBox using a controller but by damn I thoroughly enjoyed running the Racing Truck up Pikes Peak. I don't know of any other game which has featured rally trucks. I'm actually tempted to fork over $10 and buy this 10 year old game just to give it a shot with my new force feedback wheel.

  • 2014 S4 Week 3

    I kicked off the week with an Rookie MX-5 Cup win where I comfortably led from start to finish. Lime rock continues to be my happy hunting ground, I've won 7 of the 24 races I've had there in my career.

    I followed this up with two races in the Advanced MX-5 Cup around Bathurst. The first didn't go so well; I was cruising along in 6th but messed up over the top of the mountain and spent 8 minutes in the pits. Next time out was much better. That is an understatement actually; I started from 15th and finished in 3rd. I had to battle past a couple of drivers who really did their best to keep me behind them and by the end of the intense race I was rewarded with my first ever 100+ point haul. Easily in the top 5 races I've had.

    A fair amount of time was spent practicing for the single GT3 race which I found the time to complete. I thoroughly enjoyed testing all four of the GT3 cars and tweaking setups before deciding to go with the BMW Z4 again. The 75 minute race around Road Atlanta was good fun and I was happy with my 8th position finish. I had hoped to complete another race, as I found another second with more testing and setup tweaking, but I never found the time.

    I squeezed in a Star Mazda race around Spa, but with out any practice, setup tweaking, qualifying I found myself circulating by myself at the back of the pack. Enjoyable, but not exactly a great race.

    The rest of my iRacing was spent jumping into a few cars which I hadn't really given a lot of time to; the Mustang, Ruf C-Spec and the Skippy. I managed a good race in the Mustang around Bathurst and a half hearted race in the Skippy at Donington was enjoyable enough to make me consider spending some more time in the Skippy next season.

    SeriesRacesBest FinPoints
    Mazda Cup21st86
    Advanced Mazda MX-5 Cup Series23rd105
    Skip Barber Race Series110th37
    Star Mazda Championship19th43
    iRacing Grand Touring Cup MC14th67
    GT3 Challenge Series18th73

    License:B
    Safety Rating:3.42
    Corners Per Incident:43.66
    iRating:1637
    ttRating:1514
    Total Driving Time:5 hrs 46 mins
    Race Starts:8
    Race Finishes:8
    Disqualified:0
    Disconnections:0
    Qualify Sessions:9
    Time Trials:1
    Wins:1
    Podium Finishes:2
    Top 5 Finishes:3
    Average Finish Postion:6.9
    Total Laps:152
    Incidents:33

    Wednesday, November 12, 2014

    2014 S4 Week 2

    I only found time to squeeze in 7 races last week. The opening race in the Advanced MX5 series at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve didn't start things off well; I was patiently following 2nd and 3rd when 2nd spun. 3rd got by him and I got collected. 7 minutes of repairs. Thankfully my next attempt resulted in a win, where I lead comfortably from start to finish.

    Similarly I had a poor 1st race in the MX5 Cup, but followed it up with a win where I lead the entire way.

    I also snuck in single race in each of the Star Mazda, GT3 and World Sport Car series. The Star Mazda race was good fun and I managed to stay out of trouble in the GT3 series, lapping way down the order. Having my first race around Barber in the Ford GT, with its poor visibility and hatred of curbs, was tough. By the end of the 45 minute race I had the hang of it, so next time out at Barber I'm sure I'll do better.

    Down the bottom of the stats below you may notice the two new pie charts I've added to my iRacing Stats app this week. One shows the cars used in the period and the other shows the tracks. I've also worked out a way to pull the Corners Per Incident data from the iRacing website, since this is the "real" data which Safety Rating is based on I decided to switch from tracking SR to CPI. As well as all this, I've tweaked the style of the line graphs.

    SeriesRacesBest FinPoints
    Advanced Mazda MX-5 Cup Series31st77
    Mazda Cup21st90
    Star Mazda Championship16th60
    World Sports Car Series MC110th16
    GT3 Challenge Series116th41

    License:B
    Safety Rating:2.65
    Corners Per Incident:35.24
    iRating:1499
    Total Driving Time:4 hrs 17 mins
    Race Starts:8
    Race Finishes:7
    Disqualified:0
    Disconnections:1
    Qualify Sessions:2
    Time Trials:0
    Wins:2
    Podium Finishes:2
    Top 5 Finishes:2
    Average Finish Postion:7.8
    Total Laps:123
    Incidents:35

    Wednesday, November 5, 2014

    2014 S4 Week 1

    I had said that I probably wouldn't be focusing on the MX5 Cup this season, I got suckered into running 9 races in week 1 of the series. The initial reason was that I just love driving the MX5 around Summit Point; it was the car and track which welcomed me to iRacing 4 months ago and it makes me realize how far I've come. The problem was, I got taken out in all 4 of my first races. Once while attempting to lap a moronic back marker when leading by 12 seconds....

    After those shockers I actually had some excellent races, taking a win and two 2nd places (one of which I threw away the lead in).

    I completed two races in the GT3 series, the first was a poor initial experience; I got taken out by a very impatient idiot. The 2nd race was better, I managed a 4th and could have been better but I spun early on. These two races also influenced my running more MX5 Cup races, as I decided that I won't do any more GT3 races until I'm able to raise my iRating enough to get me out of the bottom split. The SOF of the bottom split is ~1100 and some drivers had ~600's. Those numbers really highlight the skill level I witnessed. I figure once I get up around 1600 - 1700 I'll be in the middle splits and I hope the racing will be better.

    I ran one official race in the MX5 Advanced and managed a well earned 4th place. The top three were aliens and gapped me and the 5th place finisher by about 15 seconds. 5th was around 1 second behind me all race and I really felt the pressure but managed to keep it clean and secure 4th.

    I also ran the Ford GT in the World Sports Car Series. I was the only car in my class so it was an easy win. I thoroughly enjoyed staying out of the way of the faster HPD's and Prototypes. I'll definitely be doing more of these races.

    Finally I attempted a Star Mazda race but got spun around at Turn 2 of lap 1, causing too much damage for me to continue. Sigh.

    SeriesRacesBest FinPoints
    Mazda Cup91 st79
    GT3 Challenge Series24 th65
    Star Mazda Championship116 th0
    World Sports Car Series MC113 th51
    Advanced Mazda MX-5 Cup Series14 th89

    License:B
    Safety Rating:1.51
    iRating:1455
    ttRating:1500
    Total Driving Time:5 hrs 50 mins
    Starts:22
    Finishes:18
    Disqualified:0
    Disconnections:4
    Total Points:611
    Wins:1
    Podium Finishes:3
    Top 5 Finishes:6
    Average Finish Postion:5.5
    Total Laps:223
    Incidents:100