It was always going to be an interesting debut in this brand new championship, but it was certainly a lot more challenging than anyone had expected. This was a three hour race at the Blackwood Reverse circuit, with Eduardo de Souza and Craig Taylor at the wheel of our XRR. We qualified 20th of 28th; and were hoping for a top 15 by the end of the race.

The race began before the green flag was shown; some horrendous driving on the pace car lap saw one car on its side before the startline and already showed us why the league is called the 'GT Amateur League'. After this chaos, our Brazillian, de Souza, tried his best to avoid the ensuing mayhem and was running well until a disconnection on lap 11. This cost our team at least a lap, and had us on the back foot for the rest of the race. De Souza struggled with cooling tyres late-on in his stint, and had a collision with a lapping car that got too close.



As de Souza turned into the pitlane, it was time for Craig Taylor to show his mettle. Craig would drive the last hour and a half and did a remarkable job. He had just one scary moment in which his car nearly flipped over. The XRR is a very top heavy car and therefore is a bit of a handful when going over the tall kerbs of Blackwood. Because of the disconnection and lack of a tracker, it was nearly impossible to work out where we were in the actual positions, so when every car on the track was showing us a blue flag, we had no choice but to let them past for fear of blocking a leader. In the end, several DNFs and DQs later, the race finished with the Karma team taking victory. We would finish in an overall 16th position after the results were calculated manually by an admin, after tracker problems.

This has definitely been a learning experience for the team, and we are still looking forward to the next race at Westhill, where we feel the XRR can perform to its best.

Here is a selection of de Souza's and Taylor's comments:
'16th position, that'll do. I wish I could've done a little better... the race could've been a whole lot worse. At least we finished the race, scored some points, kept out of trouble and gained some experience.' - Craig Taylor
'The car is undrivable with cold tyres, so the end of my stint was a genuine example of how NOT to drive... But that's the point, right? Now we know' - Eduardo de Souza.

SRS was founded in July 2008 by Tim Beaudet, Eduardo de Souza and Michael Passingham,
Visit www.simracingsociety.com for more SRS-related news and events.

Nice Race review Passo,

Just waiting for your Easter NDR enduro Race report to be published

Quote from Dru :

Nice Race review Passo,

Just waiting for your Easter NDR enduro Race report to be published

You're kidding, right? That would only bring the status of SRS down!

Passo made a good start, then managed to flip. Was running last, closing in on the guy in front at 45 seconds a lap, before he forgot where the wall changes at FE4, and had an embarrassing crash.

Quote from CSF :

Passo made a good start, then managed to flip. Was running last, closing in on the guy in front at 45 seconds a lap, before he forgot where the wall changes at FE4, and had an embarrassing crash.

Thanks Chris! Now get back to the pub.

By the way, we can't update the OP (unless Tim miraculously finds Internet) for seven months. Ignore it!

You fail too

The last few weeks has been very eventful for the Sim Racing Society team. With the induction of new drivers and the entering of new leagues; it's very hard to keep up with all the goings on. So, let's round 'em up!
This week saw two podium finishes for two SRS drivers in two separate events, but at the same track! First of all, let's take a look at Eduardo de Souza's race on Sunday April 12th in the IMA TBO Challenge Round 2; also broadcasted on 'the46' Mogulus channel. De Souza was able to take a podium finish during his races; the following is a written account by Eduardo.

The track was Kyoto National, a very effective tyre burner. I can't really compete regarding laptimes against Blauwhoff (ChristijaNL), Ranseier (VoiD), Marques (Angel_ghost), Santos (g-force pt) and a few other fast FXOs, so I set up for having a decent race pace and longer tyre life. Races are short anyway, but they just can't push that hard without suffering from the temperatures.
I qualified 9th, with 2:00.96 (pb is 2:00.90). Blauwhoff (ChristijaNL) got pole as usual with 1:59.6.
So, at the sprint race (8 laps) I passed Laprevotte( GreyBull [CHA],FXO) at the start. The first laps were madness but I managed to stay within the top 8. I caught Santos (XRT) at the s/f line and passed him on the outside of the first oval corner. 1s ahead, Ward(jwardy, XRT) and Ranseier (FXO) were battling hard.

Sedgwick's (JackDaMaster) tyres were really giving up on his FXO. On the 7th lap, we were all together. Starting the last lap Ward passed Sedgwick and I passed Ranseier, who quickly got the position back and started putting some pressure on Jack. Three corners from the finish, they both took the inside line, so I took the outside. Jack backed off, and I took the corner side-by-side with Ranseier. He had a better exit, so I stayed behind for the next one. He went wide and got back right on my backside in the last corner. Luckily I had a good exit and pulled away. Phew! 5th place with best lap being 2:01.32.
For the main race (15 laps) I started 4th. Passed Ranseier at the start as he uses a FXO. My idea was to push hard on the first laps as all the good guys would have to climb the field, which would give us some time. But I got stuck behind Martelle (Toddshooter, XRT) and Marques was putting a lot of pressure on me. Then Ranseier came and passed us both. I passed Todd. Marques passed me.
4th lap and Blauwhoff was already behind me. I couldn't do anything...

From lap 5, which I started in 5th, Ward was behind me but not attacking. I was trying to keep up with the guys in front of me, while not destroying the tyres. This would prove useful later.

A couple of laps later, the guys ahead of me caught Santos, who was leading comfortably since the start. At lap 10, Marques was having major tyre issues and both Blauwhoff and I passed him. With 5 laps to go and more than 3s from the leader, I was pushing hard.
1 lap later, Santos was making it really hard for Ranseier and Blauwhoff, and they were swapping positions all the time.
With two laps to go, Ranseier lead with Blauwhoff catching him. I was trying like a madman to get Santos.
One lap to go, and Blauwhoff cought VoiD and they start fighting like crazy. Santos and I closed up. On the last lap, Santos was right behind Ranseier, and I was right behind Santos. At the same corner as the sprint race, Ranseier went wide and I went to the inside to overtake Santos, but went wide myself, along with him. Now 3rd with 2 corners left I was trying my best to have good corner exits but it was just enough to draft Ranseier when there was no time left. I Finished 3rd, 0.12s behind him and my best lap was 2:01.43 (made twice).
This round was pretty good, I'm happy with my performance. Next round is Westhill, which is another tyre burner. I won the GTTC race there once, so I'm hoping for another good result.



Next up, it was our new driver, James Barrington (count.bazley) who was racing in the NDR LFSCART 2009 series. This was Round 1, at Kyoto National Reverse. Here is his account of ther second race of the day; after he finished 11th in Race 1 after being caught up in sombody else's crash.
I started Saturday morning deciding whether I could even drive the car well enough to race. I got involved in an accident at Turn 1 and this dropped me to 20th. With so many slower cars infront of me and some minor damage I decided to take my mandatory pitstop at the end of Lap 3 of 31. With a stroke of luck the safety car was deployed for an accident whilst I was taking my stop and so I had managed to pull the perfect strategy. Thanks to this I managed to work my way up to 2nd, with Ondrej Maska chasing me down in the final laps. Dead heat on the line, the timing put me 2nd even though it looks like I probably came 3rd. Not sure how they will draw the result on that one but either way - a podium is so much more than I expected.
So, it has been a very constructive week for SRS. In addition to the above, we have also been preparing hard for the next GTAL race, due to begin on May 9th. It will be at Westhill; and should prove to be a very exciting event!

SRS was founded in July 2008 by Tim Beaudet, Eduardo de Souza and Michael Passingham,
Visit www.simracingsociety.com for more SRS-related news and events.

Wauw, nice overview

Your avatars are done .

Very nice post, good luck SRS

Nice reports as always, all of that look very proffessional.

i dont know maybye anyone hgave said that later but in your site is bug you can see it in atached image. Its with opera

It looks like only an Opera based problem. Our site is made using Pivot, so we don't actually code the side bar (I believe). Thanks for the info, though.

I've seen that Daniel Zanetti has put SRS' tag on his racername. An announcement soon?

Quote from GreyBull [CHA] :

I've seen that Daniel Zanetti had put SRS' tag on his racername. An announcement soon?

Early grats to sign

Quote from eliteati :

early grats to sign :d

+1 :d

Quote from oldnavy :

i dont know maybye anyone hgave said that later but in your site is bug you can see it in atached image. Its with opera

Yeah I use Opera myself and have been battling with that broken table since forever. Can't really find a way to fix it, and since I didn't see any problem with other browsers, it will stay that way for now.

Thanks for pointing it out though.

Quote from GreyBull [CHA] :

I've seen that Daniel Zanetti had put SRS' tag on his racername. An announcement soon?

You ruined the surprise.
Grats and good luck.

Looks fine on Opera/Vista here.

Yeah, grats again to the undercover driver.

Grats! xD

Quote from de Souza :

Yeah I use Opera myself and have been battling with that broken table since forever. Can't really find a way to fix it, and since I didn't see any problem with other browsers, it will stay that way for now.

Thanks for pointing it out though.

Actualy this thing apeared when you put another player to driver status

Quote from oldnavy :

Actualy this thing apeared when you put another player to driver status

Let's remove all drivers then!

On a more serious note, I should try to rewrite that part in a different way to see if it helps. We'll see.