2021 Season 2 Archive

2021 Season 2, Week 12

Monday May 31 @ 8pm - Monday June 7 @ 8pm.

• NTT Indy Cars at Michigan International Speedway: I ran this race twice, finishing mid-pack both times. Both races began with four caution periods in a row, running nearly a third of the race under the yellow flag. In the second race, I went into a spin coming off turn 2, which caught me completely by surprise, and then I noticed other drivers were spinning there as well. I recovered the spin without hitting any walls (thanks to the expansive paved apron on the back straight at Michigan) and was able to finish strong, where most other drivers that I saw spin there crashed and had their race cut short.

2021 Season 2, Week 11

Monday May 24 @ 8pm - Monday May 31 @ 8pm.

• NTT Indy Cars at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway: After getting a little more comfortable in these cars last week, I tried out the "main event" in this series each season, the race at Indy. I mainly wanted to stay safe, which I did in my second race after getting wrecked in the first. I started 19th (in last place) and finished 10th without ever making a competitive pass in the whole race (in other words, 9 other drivers crashed).

2021 Season 2, Week 10

Monday May 17 @ 8pm - Monday May 24 @ 8pm.

• NTT Indy Cars at the Twin Ring Motegi: I've been wanting to try to get into Indy Car racing on ovals, but when I watch or get into a practice session with other drivers, I find the lightning speed at which situations develop and unfold intimidating. The Twin Ring Motegi looked like a good track to use as an introduction to this kind of racing. I entered the race 3 times and did pretty well in all of them. My best finish was 5th in a race where I started from 4th on the grid.

2021 Season 2, Week 9

Monday May 10 @ 8pm - Monday May 17 @ 8pm.

• Formula Renault 2.0 at Spa: I did OK at Spa this time, starting 2nd and finishing 3rd after going off track while closely racing in the group of the front 3 cars on lap 1.

2021 Season 2, Week 8

Monday May 3 @ 8pm - Monday May 10 @ 8pm.

• Formula Renault 2.0 at Suzuka: I finally won a road race, for the first time ever! The win came on my second attempt at this race. I was out of sorts for the first 3 laps of the race, but got it together for the remaining 12 of 15 laps, and many of the cars ahead of me ran into trouble. (Full Race Video) (Race Highlights Video)

• ARCA at Las Vegas: I started 7th and finished 6th in this race that was the top of 2 splits early Tuesday morning. I focused on saving tires this race, and at the end I was catching the cars ahead of me. (Full Race Video -- the last 3 laps of the race are the highlight, starting at about 19:20 in the video.)

2021 Season 2, Week 7

Monday April 26 @ 8pm - Monday May 3 @ 8pm.

I did not enter any races this week.

2021 Season 2, Week 6

Monday April 19 @ 8pm - Monday April 26 @ 8pm.

• Formula Renault 2.0 at Phillip Island: I ran this race one time, but stalled at the start on the grid and got hit by the car behind me. Fortunately that driver did not suffer significant damage, but I was effectively out of the race at the start.

• ARCA at Gateway: I practiced this a bunch to get to a competitive lap time in the mid-34s, and then started 2nd and finished 5th in a race on Saturday afternoon.

2021 Season 2, Week 5

Monday April 12 @ 8pm - Monday April 19 @ 8pm.

I did not enter any races this week. I never practiced enough to enter the Formula Renault 2.0 race at Oulton Park, I practiced a lot but never got good enough to enter the Indy Pro race at the Hockenheimring, and I didn't want to run the gauntlet of wrecks on the ARCA short track at Five Flags.

2021 Season 2, Week 4

• Formula Renault 2.0 at Interlagos: I started 6th and finished 7th in this clean race without incident. This is a track I knew from Indy Pro and Skip Barber races in past seasons. The racing was closer than usual for an FR 2.0 race, the gaps in the field weren't as big here at the end as they are on most tracks.

• Indy Pro at the Nürburgring Nordschleife: This is a 14-mile twisty track where one lap takes nearly 7 minutes. The race was 5 laps. In real life, no fast open wheel cars race on this track, because it is far too dangerous. I started on the pole and led the field through the first few turns before the two fast drivers behind me went by and ran away from me. I finished 3rd, with an average lap time of 6:49, which is not very good, but at least below the "7 minute barrier".

• ARCA at Pocono Raceway: I ran one terrible race here. It was a clean race, but I really struggled on old tires toward the end, and got passed by just about everyone. I might have been dead last among the cars who didn't wreck.

• NASCAR Trucks at Chicagoland Speedway: I ran several practice sessions with other drivers here, and that was a lot of fun. I was able to hold fast people off lap after lap by running the high line around the track and keeping side by side with them. In the one race I entered, someone wrecked me at the start of lap 2. He must have thought he saw an opening to pass some people, and he darted all the way across the track from the flat apron on the inside to the outside wall in about a quarter second, but I was right there on the outside and he smacked hard into me, and my race was over.

2021 Season 2, Week 3

• Formula Renault 2.0 at the Nürburgring: I started and finished 9th in a race with a difficult start where I had to go way outside in the first turn to avoid other cars. I also spun out once, on Lap 4 in Turn 11, but it probably only cost me about one position in the race.

• Indy Pro at Iowa: This was my first Indy Pro oval race. I did pretty well, partly because of luck in avoiding a lot of incidents. I had a great restart at the end of some caution laps near the end of the race and held off the two cars right behind me, and finished 6th.

• Porsche 911 GT3 Cup: This was my first ever race in a sports car (not an open wheel car). I started at the very back of the field in 25th place (on purpose, since I was a newcomer and just wanted to get familiar with the car and what races in it are like). I never passed a single car in competition, and I finished 11th. (In other words, 14 cars ahead of me all wrecked.) I almost had to race someone at one point, but as I was starting to put a little pressure on from behind, they crashed, and I went on by.

2021 Season 2, Week 2

• Formula Renault 2.0 at Laguna Seca: This has long been one of my favorite tracks as an Indy Car fan, and from the 1995 racing sim Indy Car Racing II from Papyrus (the main person at Papyrus later went on to start iRacing), but it is more difficult to drive fast than I expect. I had a mediocre race here in which I spun the car at one point, but many drivers had a bad race, and I ended up finishing 6th (out of 17) and scoring a lot of points for the season. I was in 5th when I got lapped by the leader about halfway through the race, and he got on the radio and said, "People must be having a rough day, I already lapped P5. What's going on?"

• ARCA at the Milwaukee Mile: I wanted to do better here, but I still can't reliably use the throttle to steer the ARCA car out of the turns fast without spinning. Maybe someday I'll get it. I ran two clean races here, finishing mid-pack both times, though I was one of the highest ranked drivers in both of the races.

2021 Season 2, Week 1

• Formula Renault 2.0 at Road America: This is the one track where I've become superstitious about my bad experiences with it. I've crashed in every race I've run here, many of them not my fault. In my first race this week, I crashed in turn 1 at the start and it was (for once) my fault, and I took out one other car. I braked too hard when a car in front of me slowed sooner than I expected, and I locked the rear wheels and spun across the track. In my second race, for the first time ever, I started from the pits (you can do this by not going to the starting grid and missing the race start), and ran around at the back of the field passing only cars that crashed, and I ended up finishing 13th out of 23 cars and scoring a decent number of points toward the season standings.

• ARCA at Homestead Miami Speedway: I enjoy these long fast oval tracks in the ARCA car. The challenge is that while the driving looks nice and smooth when you watch, it's difficult to avoid losing the back end and spinning into the inside wall as you come out of the turns and get back in the throttle. In my best (of 3) races, I started 4th and finished 2nd, and I went from 4th to 2nd at the end. In fact I took 2nd place by passing the 3rd place car as we came out of turn 4 to the finish line on the final lap.