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Post by Tony Mino on Dec 28, 2014 23:47:35 GMT
I only ask because with my limited experience (8 weeks now in total) I have seen a marked increase in driver aggression during the official races. Now I understand there can be a number of contributing factors such as these first two weeks have been tracks that are inherently difficult to pass on, which does tend to promote over aggression. The sprint format does the exact same thing to driver aggression; it's a mad dash to gobble up as many positions as possible before the field starts to separate. That being said I didn't notice the same level of aggression last season. As a matter of fact last season I was blown away by how courteous my fellow iRacer was on track. There seemed to be this unspoken understanding between drivers that position didn't matter as much as good, hard, and fair racing because official races were hard to find. This courtesy, thus far, seems to be lost in the races that I have been in. I'm certainly not trying to come to a quick conclusion this early in the season, rather I'm trying to articulate the contrast I've seen between last season and these first two weeks of this season.
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Post by jasonb on Jan 2, 2015 6:18:36 GMT
Tonight was one to forget for me. Couldn't get my head in the race. OTOH, one of these days Tony M and I are going to have a good race. We always seem to end up around each other in races, and usually have similar speed. When I'm on my game anyway.
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Post by Tony Mino on Jan 2, 2015 18:17:52 GMT
Tonight was one to forget for me. Couldn't get my head in the race. OTOH, one of these days Tony M and I are going to have a good race. We always seem to end up around each other in races, and usually have similar speed. When I'm on my game anyway. I really wished that I didn't get hit last night because I had fought my way up to you guys but it was so disheartening to watch you walk away on the straights. I kept saying to myself that if I did get them in the corners they are just going to walk away in the straights. Perhaps we'll find our battle tonight. *I learned a hard lesson last night. Qualify! I have been avoiding qualifying because before I haven't really felt comfortable racing the V8SC, but this season I'm starting to feel a lot more competitive and I need to get away from the back of the pack.
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Post by Greg on Jan 2, 2015 18:58:34 GMT
Qualifying and good starts are very underrated in this series I think.
My thoughts are if you qualify say, 5th and you get a good start and keep it clean you might be able to pick up 1 or 2 spots due to someone making a mistake. If you don't qualify but you have 5th place speed, you have to pass the guys that are slower, plus fight the quick guys that didn't qualify. This puts in an aggressive mode right off the start and you might try things you normally wouldn't do or you might get caught up in someones mistake. If you qualify you know who is fast, and who is slow, so you can take a more relaxed start and just stay ahead of the guys that you know you can beat. If you pick off one of the quicker guys then its a win win. I used this strategy when I ran the V8 Americas and I almost always finished where I started or gained a spot or two. I did loose some as well but those were mostly because of my own doing.
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Post by Tony Mino on Jan 2, 2015 19:07:35 GMT
Very true. My main apprehension toward qualifying was mostly a result of always getting into the top split on Thursday nights last season. Even if I managed a good qualify time I was nowhere near consistent enough to be competitive, so I opted for group safety by being a back of the pack racer. I'd pick up spots as guys wrecked or went off track. However, this season since I'm feeling a lot more comfortable--and with an influx of newer drivers to the series--I need to make sure to put myself as close to the front as I can manage.
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Post by jasonb on Jan 3, 2015 3:40:53 GMT
Lately my qualifying has put me mid pack. Haven't had very many races without L1 incidences. Tonight I started 13th in 2nd split, and managed to finish 9th. Considering my V8 career so far, that's damn near as good as a win in the Friday races. Again had an incident on the run into T5. Guy behind me locked up and pited me. Ended up collecting Tony too, not sure what happened to him or Tim after that. On to next week...
Here's the stream for tonight's top split.
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Post by Tony Mino on Jan 3, 2015 4:13:39 GMT
I had damage that required repair (2:30 mins worth) and once I got back on track I was racing for nothing so Tim and I opted to quit in time to hit up the Global Challenge race at 7:30. Last season the Thursday and Friday night races were known for their quality and so far this season it seems that these nights have been punctuated by over aggression, bad decision making, and sub par driving skill. I will more than likely run on Sunday but I'm more than a little disenchanted with the series after the last two races.
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Post by tony kloosterman on Jan 3, 2015 4:14:01 GMT
Top split was tough, started 19th and it was elbows up for a bunch of laps, found myself 3 wide a couple of times the V8 broadcast should be very good. ended up 15th of 14 and still on the lead lap. really really just tried not to get myself into anything too stupid and be careful enough to make decent laps www.youtube.com/channel/UCM6hpzaXiYP48MaUbAcvQkw
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Post by Glenn Sidman on Jan 3, 2015 6:23:14 GMT
Top split was tough, started 19th and it was elbows up for a bunch of laps, found myself 3 wide a couple of times the V8 broadcast should be very good. ended up 15th of 14 and still on the lead lap. really really just tried not to get myself into anything too stupid and be careful enough to make decent laps www.youtube.com/channel/UCM6hpzaXiYP48MaUbAcvQkwNice run Tony, and congrats to Marty on 4th.
And congrats to Jason and Tony M. on their runs
Hey, they mentioned a premier series for V8 on the broadcast? Not finding any info on that, maybe I am blind, or lazy?
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Post by Troy Eddy, aka Jarhead on Jan 3, 2015 12:44:22 GMT
I don't know if it has always been this way, but this should not be called the V8 Supercars Americas. It might be at a good timeslot for America, but the Aussies must have figured out it's a great place to farm some iRating.
Last night in the top split of 24, there were 20 drivers from Australia/NZ and 4 from North America. The best finishing driver from North America was Tony Kloosterman in 15th. Congrats Tony, you are the #1 V8SC Americas driver this week that is actually from the Americas.
In the second split of 24, there were 13 drivers from Australia/NZ, 10 from North America and 1 from Hispanoamerica. The best finishing North American driver was Rory Windrum in 4th.
The 3rd split looks like it was at least run on an American server. It had 23 drivers, 9 drivers from Australia/NZ, 13 from North America, and 1 from UK&I. The best finishing North American driver was Joseph Cervone from New York in 2nd. So if you wanted to run a V8SC Americas race, this was the split to be in. Just make sure your iRating is below 1000 if you want to make sure you are in this split.
So out of 71 drivers, there were 42 from Australia/NZ, 27 from North America, and 2 from other places. Not very American.
Usually on Friday there is a race at 7:15 EST which I tried to run, but there weren't enough drivers last night. If I would have entered the main race, I would have been at the back of the top split running solo laps and only picked up spots when others crashed.
I think I will just stick to our Tuesday races, at least there I can usually be mid pack and run on an American server.
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Post by tony kloosterman on Jan 3, 2015 14:14:55 GMT
Troy the Americas series was really only Americans about a year ago, thursday and friday might have seen 20 cars tops and rarely split. We also ran tuesdays then in our league and i used this league to get good enough to race in the official series ( i was quite bad initially) All our races were broadcast by JD Smith and Kraft Kane. They started broadcasting the Friday night races and the entries grew considerably. (Everyone likes being in the show ) The Aussies started to come and then V8 Supercars asked Kraft and JD to broadcast under their banner (great opportunity for them as i think one or both want to make a career in broadcasting) From there its taken off and last night we had 3 full splits, which i think is Awesome. Why do I think its awesome? Well, I have some stupid genetic thing that makes me ultra competitive, as such i want to race against the best and i want to improve my skills. The tougher the competition the better i like it. Do I like starting 19th? NO. But that drives me to practice, to experiment with setups, and to improve my racecraft. My success will be marked by how i do compared to the best in the field, I could care less if the driver is from the USA, Canada, Brazil, the UK, Australia or anyone other country. In every series i have run in the 2 years i have been on iracing i have made friends all around the world and i think its a wonderful community. The group we have here is particularly good and i think there is a good chemistry amongst our members. The Americas time slots are scored separately by Jim Davey and at the end of the day its just a separate scoring championship. a little glory but nothing else. I would prefer larger grids based on pitstalls instead of all the splits but those are the rules. Lets remember the Aussie base really drives the V8 and we are at a bit of their mercy when it comes to how they provide input to iracing on schedules etc. BTW the servers are chosen based on the entries, the only way to get the first split on an american server is to get more of our guys there ( looks like an IR of 2500 minimum) So get at it because i would love to race against more of our guys.
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Post by jasonb on Jan 3, 2015 15:23:59 GMT
The whole American/Aussie thing doesn't really bother me. However, the racing has changed a bit this season in the lower splits. Don't get me wrong, I still enjoy the Thu/Fri races, but there is quite a bit more aggression, especially in the Friday races. Maybe aggressive isn't the right word.... Reckless? People making aggressive moves while not being familiar enough with the car to pull off said move. I suspect it is partly due to more participation with drivers new to the car. At times it is very frustrating. Last night I may have been racing for 5th or 6th, but being pitted in the braking zone for T5 on lap 1 ended up costing me positions as I got turned around, and sent Tony M to the pits for repairs. I hope that more time will ease these incidences as people will get better at taming the V8 monster, or get frustrated and move onto another series.
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Post by Greg on Jan 3, 2015 15:31:18 GMT
One side note, there was a time, that the V8 Americas split and it was all the the Aussies on one server and everyone else on the US server. Not sure how that happened but I did see it happen . Looking at the upcoming tracks whoever set the next three races should be shot!
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Post by jasonb on Jan 3, 2015 16:08:13 GMT
Yeah, the rest of the season for me is going to be staying out of trouble. Of the 9 tracks in the rest of the season, I've raced the V8 on 3 (Bathurst, Phillip, Road Atlanta), never raced Suzuka in iRacing, and never even seen the rest of the tracks other than watching V8 Supercars on TV.
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Post by Tony Mino on Jan 3, 2015 17:24:03 GMT
Last season when I started racing the V8SC there was this innate courtesy with the series and that seems to be lost now.
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