2022 ChampCar iRacing Series: Round 10, VIR Full - 7/20/2022, 7/27/2022

[Rapido]

Our annual mirroring of the real-world ChampCar 24hrs of VIR, with the CCiS 2hrs of VIR. Using our faithful Miata NC, this should be a challenging race. The track is not the most open or wide, so please exercise caution and drive with a long-term view. 

 

Fuel has been adjusted to ensure that two stops will be needed to get to the end of the race, and the time multiplier has also been updated to provide a true day-night-day transition experience during the race itself. This will also impact qualifying due to the vagaries of the iRacing session scheduler, which means that the end of qualifying will see full darkness. That said, it's often cooler at night, so there might be quick laptimes out there for those who are brave.

 

Session Details

 

• Practice Round: Wednesday, 20-July-2022
• Championship Round: Wednesday, 27-July-2022
• Practice Start: 6:30pm ET
• Qualifying Start: 7:30pm ET
• Race Start: 8:30pm ET
• Car: Mazda Miata NC Cup
• Track: Virginia International Raceway - Full Course
• In-Sim Practice Session Date: Saturday, 13-August-2022
• In-Sim Practice Session Start Time: 7:00am
• In-Sim Qualifying Session Date: Saturday, 13-August-2022
• In-Sim Qualifying Session Start Time: 3pm
• In-Sim Race Session Date: Saturday, 13-August-2022
• In-Sim Race Session Start Time: 5pm
• In-Sim Time Multiplier: 8x
• Weather: Auto-Generated
• Setup: iRacing Baseline Setup with 6.4g Fuel, Fuel Capacity limit at 73%
• Fast Repairs: 1
• License Requirements: Practice Rounds (None), Championship Round (>D2.0)

 

Useful Links
 

ChampCar iRacing Series - League Application

ChampCar iRacing Series - Discord Server

2022 ChampCar iRacing Series Schedule

2022 ChampCar iRacing Series Broadcast Information Form

2022 ChampCar iRacing Series Protest Form

 

Guide to iRacing and Hardware

How to create your own iRacing paints

iRacing Tips and Resources

[David Haines]

 

[Rapido]

Thank you to all who raced last night - was a nice big grid and I saw a lot of clean and considerate racing throughout. The few incidents that I did witness were racing deals but if I missed anything please raise via the protest form in the usual manner. 

 

Congratulations to Mark for a dominant victory that was noticeable for a fuel saving strategy. For full transparency, when setting up these 2 hour races this season, I try and ensure that two stops are required to complete the race distance using the Excel template below. The inputs are a combination of the fixed parameters for the car in question (fuel tank size and fixed setup initial fuel) and my own testing results (fuel consumption and average lap time). To these I apply a 4 lap safety margin (to try try and prevent any fuel-saving strategies) and 2 lap total adjustment (to account for saving under pace lap) in order to give the net tank capacity adjustment that should ensure 2 stops. This is to try and strike a balance between making a one stop impossible and giving the maximum pit window available for all drivers to encourage creative strategies and also prevent anyone being forced out of the race if they suffer two consecutive incidents early in the race. For Daytona and WGI this worked correctly, for VIR it did not as Mark was able to save more than 4 laps total fuel under racing conditions for the full 2 hours. 

 

The solution for this going forward will be to increase the safety margin from 4 to 6 laps. This would have reduced the tank capacity of the Miata from 73% to 68% and would hopefully have negated the extreme fuel-saving tactic that Mark used to win. Although the margin of victory was greater than the time lost on pit road, and so the end result would likely not have changed, it is important to address this and ensure that we continue to balance the ruleset and ensure parity for all drivers. 

 

My personal apologies for this mishap.

 

[CoachMK21]

With around 10 minutes to go, I noticed Mark was on my relative (to lap me again) and that he must have only pitted once.  That's some serious fuel savings, while still running really fast laps.  I listened in to the interview on the YT broadcast to see if his fuel savings came up and it did, but oh so very briefly.

 

I'm slow and inconsistent (both especially last night), but I seem to use way more fuel than my local friends.  Last night I averaged .310 gallons per lap (via VRS data), and I notice your number used is .33.  I don't have their consumption to compare, but I'm surprised your number is higher than mine.  Maybe that was part of the issue?  If you assumed .33 and Mark M was maybe .29, that's a savings of 2.12 gallons over the 53 lap race.

I guess where I'm going with this, is I think your initial safety margin of 4 is probably fine, but your fuel consumption might be the issue @Rapido

[Rapido]

27 minutes ago, CoachMK21 said:

I guess where I'm going with this, is I think your initial safety margin of 4 is probably fine, but your fuel consumption might be the issue

 

This is definitely a possibility. Maybe going forward I will ask participants in the practice round for their fuel numbers and take an average of the consumption, apply it to the model and see if the championship round settings need to be updated. 

[mostmint]

On 7/28/2022 at 1:38 PM, Rapido said:

My personal apologies for this mishap.

 

By my estimates you are at least 74-1 on getting the fuel right, and it's hard to bat 1.000

[mostmint]

For the record my P2 qualifying effort was on auto clutch and no draft.

 

After dropping back a bit at the start I worked my way up to P4 and was in a nice draft with Justin and Jordan.  All was on schedule until about 75 minutes when I downshifted too early going into 1 and lost something close to 40 seconds nursing the car in at 68 mph.  Battled quite a bit with Shane there at the end for P11 til I dropped the LR off at oak tree and nosed it into the barrier, and he apparently did the same and ran into the back of me.

 

Through race 10 attendance is down about 5% compared to last year.  We have 21 drivers in the hunt for the $1500 race credit drawing at the end of the season, though 5 of them will need to complete more than half the laps through all remaining races to qualify.

Edited August 1, 2022 by mostmint

[johnwilding]

On 7/30/2022 at 12:09 PM, mostmint said:

For the record my P2 qualifying effort was on auto clutch and no draft.

 

After dropping back a bit at the start I worked my way up to P4 and was in a nice draft with Justin and Jordan.  All was on schedule until about 75 minutes when I downshifted too early going into 1 and lost something close to 40 seconds nursing the car in at 68 mph.  Battled quite a bit with Shane there at the end for P11 til I dropped the LR off at oak tree and nosed it into the barrier, and he apparently did the same and ran into the back of me.

 

Through race 10 attendance is down about 5% compared to last year.  We have 21 drivers in the hunt for the $1500 race credit drawing at the end of the season, though 5 of them will need to complete more than half the laps through all remaining races to qualify.

You qualified on auto clutch and raced in manual mode or can you still blow up the engine in auto clutch?

 

I finally gave in and bought a shifter so I need to learn how to right foot brake on the sim ('ve always been a left foot braker), I turned a few laps to test it out and I'm an ambidextrous mess when braking and shifting, my brain doesn't know which foot it wants to use. LOL! Add learning COTA to the mix and I should be a right not mess for the practice race. Hopefully I can get it all figured out by the real race in a few weeks time. 

Edited August 1, 2022 by johnwilding

[mostmint]

@johnwilding I did damage the engine on an auto clutch downshift.  AFAIK all the function does is push in and release the clutch for you at a slightly slower rate than drivers can typically manage.

 

edit:  I think I have the speed, once I get my consistency better I will consider using the third pedal.  

Edited August 1, 2022 by mostmint