As many of you know, I spend a great deal of time in the off season racing in online racing simulators. This weekend I will be taking part in a worldwide competition for the championship, being one of only ten drivers representing Club NY in the first annual iRacing World Cup, and yes, there are actual trophies at stake for this. Team NY just finished dispatching Team New England last week in the first annual club runoffs, and are one of the seven remaining clubs (out of 35) that will be participating in this event. (The others are DE-AT-CH aka Germany-Austria-Switzerland, Ohio, Mid-South USA, Great Plains USA, California, and England).

There will be two separate races whose points will be combined to determine the championship. The 3:00PM oval race will consist of the NASCAR Sprint Cup car at Michigan International Speedway. The 6:00PM road race will be in the Dallara Indy car at Road America. I will be racing only in the road race. We are the overwhelming favorites in the oval race, but will have a tough go against ze Germans in the road race.

These races will be broadcast live (a first), and should be pretty fun to watch. Details below.



Details about the World Cup broadcast:
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The World Cup of iRacing Finals will be broadcast on the Internet this Saturday, February 6. Here is all you need to know in order to view these historic events:

Technical Details:

· The broadcast streams will be directly viewable at www.psrtv.com.

· Both Silverlight player and an external Windows Media Player stream will be offered.

· Viewers must have Silverlight 2 or above or Windows Media Player 11 or above (10 with codec) installed, and have javascript enabled (there are automatic prompts where necessary). Silverlight can be downloaded here. WMP can be downloaded here.

· A troubleshooting guide is available.

Event Details:

· A moderated chat session begins at 2:30 p.m. EST (19:30 GMT) and runs until the completion of the road race (in other words, for the duration of both the oval and road races).

· The oval race broadcast begins at 2:45 p.m. (19:45 GMT) and runs through the completion of the race and the post-race driver interviews. The race itself begins at 3:00 p.m. (20:00 GMT).

· The road race broadcast begins at 5:45 p.m. EST (22:45 GMT) and runs through the completion of the race, the post-race driver interviews and final tallying of the World Cup standings. The race itself begins at 6:00 p.m. (23:00 GMT).

So, do we ever get to hear what happened?????

I figured from the lack of replies that nobody was interested, lol.

Well, for starters, four of our five top oval racers were taken out in the Michigan race. We had four guys in the top 10 at one point in the race in a 32 car field, but some over-aggressive driving ended their chances of scoring any points. Our only remaining driver (our 5th-stringer, no less) did manage to get into the top 5, but it was not enough. I had us projected to score around 75 points in the oval race, but we only scored 22. Not a good way to start.

I went into the Road America race with the goal of just running clean and trying to finish in the points. As usual, there was a huge wreck on the first lap, but I was one of only 10 cars that made it through 100% unscathed. I started 21st on the grid, but I was in 12th at the end of that 1st lap. So far, so good. I ran as high as 10th before a couple of early mistakes ended up putting me back down to 15th. I stayed there until my scheduled pit stop. No damage, and still in the points.

Then it all went pear-shaped...

Unfortunately, after that pit stop I caught up to a backmarker that was 10 seconds a lap off the pace. This guy should not have even been in the race, but he was from a region where they clearly focus on oval racing only, so he probably was their only choice for a 5th driver. Anyway, I had to back off to avoid hitting him and got the car loose in T13a and smacked the wall hard. I got towed to the pits, and after a couple of minutes delay, continued on with a repaired car (most series don't do this, once you crash, it's race over, but in this one they'd allow you one repair). The frustration of what happened had me driving angry, so I ended up crashing out and retiring on lap 22 of 30. Ze Germans went on to finish 1-2-3, and the English finished 4-5-6. NY's top finisher ended up 8th, and I think he was the only one of us in the points in that race. We were also a driver short thanks to some confusion on who was supposed to be participating. It really wouldn't have mattered though, as we were already in too big of a hole from the oval race.