I had grand plans of really focusing on the Pro Mazda for iRacing 2018 Season 3, and did a decent job for the first half of the season..... then... not so much. Due to a number of factors I wasn't finding the time required to put in enough practice to give me the confidence to jump into races.
One thing which took my out of my usual practice schedule was the Le Mans 24 Hour event, which my team entered two cars in. I took the leading role in preparing our HPD entry and spent the two weeks leading up to the race putting in 16 hours and 370 laps of practice, building the setup for the team.
I ran the opening 4 stints of our team, having an excellent 3 hours of fun. I worked my way from our starting position of 7th up to 4th in class before making a stupid mistake and disabling the pit limiter as I left the pit box at the start of my final stint. I had to return to pit lane and serve the 15 second penalty for speeding. This dropped us back to 10th in class. I hustled our HPD back up to 7th before handing over to the rest of the team.
Alas about midway through the race an LMP1 car ran us over and we needed a tow and 15 minutes of repairs. This lost us 4 laps and any hope of fighting for a podium. Still, the team had a blast and it was great to finish the race, even if it was down in 13th.
For me personally it really highlighted how much I enjoy these endurance events. Not just the actual race session, but the focused preparation and practice involved too. The Petit Le Mans event is up next on October 7th, I think I'll be running in the Ferrari 488 GTE.
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