R.I.R. Camping World Trucks @ Michigan Speedway

(race of 8/25/12)

Pitstop strategy runs the world - the more races with them you attend, the more you understand that. And, to be honest, it's not that it really changes something when you make a pitstop - but more of how well-planned pitstop against those not well-planned can affect your final position real bad.
Only that? It would be possible to say yes, if we ignore the fact that there's no race if there's no battles!

Sharon Densmith and FFred Koolhoven (1st and 3rd positions on the grid) pulled ahead of the pack after the very start from her 1st position, while Grosmanteau DeCuir, who started from the outer side of the grid, got involved into the mess that's always formed after the start, and, after being in a few incidents, dropped to the last position. Thus, we've got 2 major challenges at the start: Densmith defending the 1st position from Koolhoven and DeCuir against the whole pack on his way back to the front.
Other drivers, of course, weren't going steadily - positions differed with each lap, getting more and more stable through the beginning of the race. Densmith and Koolhoven were still battling, behind them ZZ was holding the 3rd position, the rest were trading positions constantly. And let's not forget DeCuir who managed to come back and challenge Sharon for the lead on the 18th lap (before the 1st pitstop!). Koolhoven didn't manage to remain 3rd for long - ZZ caught up pretty quickly with him and got the 3rd position almost without a battle.

And then - pitstop time! Position changes mostly were depending on the length of the pistop - and DeCuir, who had the faster than Sharon's one, increased the gap between them to 2 seconds. Meanwhile, ZZ lost 4 positions due to two big accidents on the 27-28th laps and got into the battle with Eagle Clawtooth for the 6th place.

While DeCuir was dealing with traffic, Densmith caught up with him, but then got lost in traffic herself. Gaps were growing - so positions remained. Koolhoven was 3rd, Garth Moonites - 4th and Clawtooth jumped onto the 5th position when Clifford Market (who was 5th) made his 2nd pitstop.

Were the pitstops crucial for others? Yes! While DeCuir and Densmith only expanded their lead from others, the rest, who were still going close to each other, got even closer - and there was a battle for the 3rd place between Koolhoven, Clawtooth and Moonites - eventually won by Koolhoven, with Clawtooth sparing 4th position when wild traffic has reached them - but even then, Clawtooth caught up letting Koolhoven know they haven't finished yet. He took the 3rd place from Koolhoven and kept it... but not till the finish. On the very last lap, Koolhoven got it back!

Battles, pitstops and accidents - these are the principal sources of changes at races. They never happen the same way and never cause the same result. Doesn't matter how hard you compete, it's never predictable - and that's what makes it great. Compete hard, and see you at the tracks!

The grid:
Pole Position. Sharon Densmith  12.667
P 2. Grosmanteau DeCuir,  12.723, -0.056
P 3. FFred Koolhoven,  12.837, -0.170
P 4. ⓢ ⓦ ⓔ ⓔ ⓣ (SweetTooth Firehawk),  12.941, -0.274
P 5. 'ZZ Bottom' (foneco Zuzu),  13.000, -0.333
P 6. Eagle Clawtooth,  13.006, -0.339
P 7. MidnightRambler Frostbite,  13.141, -0.474
P 8. Garth Moonites,  13.254, -0.587
P 9. Snuffy Smith (Snufman),  13.439, -0.772
P 10. Clifford Market,  13.750, -1.083


Final Results:
1st. Grosmanteau DeCuir, 70 laps. Total Time : 982.880
2nd. Sharon Densmith, -12.221 seconds.
3rd. FFred Koolhoven, -2 laps.
4th. Eagle Clawtooth, -2 laps.
5th. Garth Moonites, -2 laps.
6th. 'ZZ Bottom' (foneco Zuzu), -4 laps.
7th. MidnightRambler Frostbite, -5 laps.
8th. Clifford Market, -6 laps.
9th. Snuffy Smith (Snufman), -6 laps.
10th. ⓢ ⓦ ⓔ ⓔ ⓣ (SweetTooth Firehawk), -9 laps.

Fastest race lap: Grosmanteau DeCuir, 11.794

Racers Island - Stock Car Series - Round 1 @ Sunset Oval Track

Racers Island Raceway blog

Racers Island Pro-Stock Car Series Results

Racers Island in-world (+TPer to all tracks)

(race of 8/26/12)

GhostGuest writer: Grosmanteau DeCuir

Sunday the 26^th marked the first race of the fall season at Racers Island. The stock cars series took the road at the sunset oval for this long-awaited season opener!

The Upshaw couple, Mystic and Kert,  were the stars of the qualifications taking respectively 1^st and 2^nd in front of David Wetherby. Newcomer Iasos did fairly well with a 9^th place in qualifications. The first 6 qualifiers gained a direct entry to the A race, while the reminder of the 7 other racers would battle it out in the B race for a chance to finish in the top 2 spots to move up to the A race.

The B race started out with Shaft Laval starting on pole, followed by Eddie Mathieson and Iasos. Here’s the complete grid of the B race:

P 7. Shaft Laval,  8.167, -0.070

P 8. Eddie Mathieson,  8.173, -0.076

P 9. iasos,  8.213, -0.116

P 10. miller Tomcat,  8.227, -0.130

P 11. Nella Boccara,  8.281, -0.184

P 12. hippie (hippie51 OHare),  8.337, -0.240

P 13. Harleybeth28 Amoufhaz,  8.362, -0.265

On the first lap, Mathieson managed to take the lead from Laval who was closely followed by Iasos. These two battled for two laps, where Iasos overtook Laval who was then overtook by Miller Tomcat on the following lap. Iasos continued on his run and managed to pass Mathieson on the 8^th lap to take control of the race. 
For most of the race, Iasos kept a small healthy lead in front of the veteran Mathieson, surprising many racers on the track and in the stands with his ability behind the wheel. Mathieson, aware that a second place was all that was required to move up to the A race, didn't take any risk on the track and steadily followed Iasos's fast pace. Miller Tomcat, who moved up to third place following Laval's bad start, remained in third place for the whole race but never had any chance to catch up to the two leaders. As the racers came to the checkered flag, Iasos and Mathieson gained their entry to the A race.

Grosmanteau played with
environment presets a little...

The main race promised to be interesting with the prospect of having a couple on the front line. Would they battle each other? Would they stay clear of each other? Would other racers break the one-two punch of the Upshaws?

First, let’s see the grid:

Pole Position. Mystic Audion  8.097

P 2. Kert (Upshaw34),  8.135, -0.038

P 3. David Wetherby,  8.138, -0.040

P 4. Tessa Massenberg,  8.146, -0.049

P 5. Miku Hatsune (Doll Kabuki),  8.151, -0.054

P 6. Yuriko Nishi,  8.164, -0.066

Race B P 1. iasos,  8.213, -0.116

Race B P 2. Eddie Mathieson,  8.173, -0.076

The start of the race was a clean one which saw the Upshaws keep their position in front of Wetherby. 
Doll Kabuki, Tessa Massenberg, Yuriko Nishi, Mathieson and Iasos battled behind the trio very close to each other and traded positions numerous times. On lap 8, due to technical difficulties, Massenberg had to quit the race and as such this became a battle of 7 racers. On the same lap Wetherby passed Kert to take second place and chase after Mystic. Iasos and Nishi fought hard with each other and fell behind the trio of Kert, Mathieson and Kabuki who were fighting hard for third place. Kert managed to hold on while Mathieson and Kabuki got into an incident with each other, falling away from Kert. 
At this point, the race had two battle: One for the lead, between Mystic and Wetherby, and one for the fourth position, between Kabuki and Mathieson. Kert, in third place, was too far behind the leaders to catch up, while being too far ahead of the battling Kabuki and Mathieson to be catched up, which allowed him to drive without too much pressure. These two battles proved to be very exciting, with racers passing each other back and forth. The first battle to conclude was the one for the lead, where Wetherby managed to get in front of Mystic and build a small lead from her. The battle for fourth, however, was one that lasted until the checkered flag, with Kabuki having the best on Mathieson. Iasos, in his first race, made a good appearance and finished in front of Nishi.

That is all for the first stock race of the season! The drift season will start on Thursday at 19:00 SLT, so make sure to make it in time if you wish to race! Bye everyone!

(K.T.: the complete stats of the race are available on Racers Island Pro-Stock Car Series Results - you'll like them. And thank you very much Grosmanteau for the great article, very comprehensive and nicely written - you rock!)

Need moar pictures?
Race B:

Race A:

R.I.R. Challenge Cars @ Michigan Speedway

R.I.R. website
Michigan Speedway in-world

(race of 8/24/12)

Moving back to ovals and their close results!
Michigan Speedway, a D-shaped oval track, gives you an ability to choose between 2 possible ways of setting up your car: either you go faster and make your car less mobile, or you choose the manoeuvrability and sacrifice the speed. Both will be good, but in a different way. You choose!

Certainly, it works for non-pro races also - if there are racers who can't compete with those who are higher level, it doesn't mean that they cannot compete with each other! Qualifying times were very close, so it was showing that a hot challenge was to be expected.

Too hot, indeed... The race has been restarted 3 times. First time, one of the racers clicked the wrong button in the gate dialog box by accident, for the other two - well-known critical accidents caused by usual piling up after the start. Still doubt those guys and girls don't have the rush the professionals do have? Let's move to the race itself!

Kev Kiranov and SweetTooth Firehawk were the ones who successfully went through the traffic and got into a battle for the 1st position, but after a couple of laps MidnightRambler Frostbite took Firehawk's place, so it turned into a battle between Kiranov and Frostbite - and what a battle indeed! However, it ended when Kiranov crashed himself at the 10th lap and got lost in the traffic. The difference between the 1st and the 2nd positions was 5 seconds, so Frostbite became an obvious leader of the race. What was going on behind him?

Behind him, there was a mess. 5 (!) drivers were eager to fill up the 2nd position, and the most successful one in that was still Kiranov, who furiously defended it making others (including himself) lose seconds constantly. Firehawk seemed to be decided to fight till the end and kept up with Kiranov perfectly. JP Paneer was going a bit behind them waiting for the moment to slip through, and Garth Moonites with Clifford Market were catching up with them. Market fell behind by the 20th lap, but others kept on going close.

The leader of the pack has been revealed too - JP Paneer made it to the 2nd position and promptly expanded the lead, thanks to the dynamic battle behind him still going on. As the battle for the positions raged, the racers were falling more and more behind Paneer and, of course, Frostbite. Moonites and Kiranov kept on fighting for the 3rd position - there was no wild traffic, but that didn't prevent them from trading positions at turns. Kiranov, however, after a few failed laps dropped behind, giving it up to Moonites.

When the wild traffic appeared, any other changes seemed to be impossible. However... Paneer lost a few seconds on the 39th lap, which allowed Moonites to catch up and challenge him for the 2nd place! He took this chance, and it paid off - the traffic got Paneer at the 42nd lap, giving Moonites an opportunity to pull ahead. The difference between them was only growing up, as the traffic between them only increased - so, that was the order they have finished in!

After what I've seen at that race, especially in the middle, I can only say that those who skip non-pro races in favor of pro races... well, maybe they don't make a big mistake, but really, while you never know what kind of competition you will witness at the upcoming event, you always know that it's going to be spectacular. I myself had a lot of fun watching all those intensive battles that occurred yesterday - so I wish everyone to compete as hard as those drivers did!


The grid:

Pole Position. JP Paneer  14.559
P 2. Garth Moonites,  14.647, -0.088
P 3. Aangel Cortes,  14.938, -0.379
P 4. ⓢ ⓦ ⓔ ⓔ ⓣ (SweetTooth Firehawk),  15.051, -0.492
P 5. Kev Kiranov,  15.052, -0.493
P 6. BanningBairde,  15.114, -0.555
P 7. MidnightRambler Frostbite,  15.138, -0.579
P 8. Clifford Market,  15.292, -0.733
P 9. Soubi Corith,  15.518, -0.959
P 10. unknown Kanya,  16.189, -1.629


Final Results:
1st. MidnightRambler Frostbite, 50 laps. Total Time : 770.650
2nd. Garth Moonites, -12.776 seconds.
3rd. JP Paneer, -1 laps.
4th. ⓢ ⓦ ⓔ ⓔ ⓣ (SweetTooth Firehawk), -1 laps.
5th. Soubi Corith, -1 laps.
6th. Aangel Cortes, -1 laps.
7th. BanningBairde, -1 laps.
8th. Clifford Market, -2 laps.
9th. Kev Kiranov, -2 laps.
10th. unknown Kanya, -4 laps.

Fastest race lap: Garth Moonites, 14.359

R.I.R. Nationwide @ Watkins Glen

R.I.R. website
Watkins Glen in-world


(race of 8/18/12)

Wow, such a delay! I'm terribly sorry, racers and readers, but looks like they're going to be pretty frequent. New semester in University is just about to begin, also I'm setting both my lives in accordance with the current circumstances - so, this might occur from time to time.
OK, you're warned - back to the story!

Hard to say if the qualifying round actually influenced the beginning of the race much, because the race was restarted 2 times: first time - someone overslept the start, and next time - a huge accident at the start involved almost the whole pack. And the 3rd, the last attempt to start the race was only a little more successful - at the 1st turn, several racers, who got very good positions on the grid, piled up when they crashed against the outer wall all together. However, there were no restart attempt left, so the competition began.
JP Paneer, despite his grid position, made it to the top thanks to the accident mentioned above - where he started the battle with Eagle Clawtooth for the total lead. Behind them, the pack had spread out, where MidnightRambler Frostbite successfully occupied 3rd position - and lost it to Miku Hatsune (Doll Kabuki) at the 3rd lap. 2 laps after, Paneer got into an accident and dropped behind Clawtooth (but still was ahead of Hatsune).

This order remained till the 1st pitstop where Hatsune got her first in this season black flag and had to make a stop-and-go, which cost her 3rd position - the Top 3 had their pitstops at the same time. Her place was taken by Garth Moonites.
A few laps after, thanks to the accurate driving among accidents happening here and there, Hatsune caught up with Moonites - and there the battle began. Moonites perfectly held his position, but Hatsune kept on - also, the traffic emerged between them, which certainly didn't make it an easy battle, especially for Hatsune.
Even the 2nd pitstop didn't change the situation - Moonites made it earlier than Hatsune, so it moved Hatsune to the 3rd position, but after her pitstop, she got back at the track right behind Moonites. This time, the battle was more productive for her – Hatsune managed to pass Moonites and build a gap in front of him, not without the little help from Paneer, who was still in second place being two laps in front of her - who ended up being the traffic on this occasion. Thus, Hatsune was guaranteed to finish 3rd, due to the fact there wasn't much time to catch up - the 3rd pitstop might have changed that, but it went off without a single black flag for the Top 3, so it didn't change a thing.

With the excessive competitive spirit some racers got, I'm not sure whether this race would be messy or not. Despite that, I must say that it became obvious early on who was going to win (Eagle), especially following Hatsune's black flag. Her battle with Moonites, I have to admit, made me forget the other racers for a while – it's always exciting to watch close battles for the top 3. One last note: Second Life is sometimes not easy on the racers and this race proved to be the case: Many racers complained about lag which gave an additional challenge to the racers. Eagle, during the race, claimed on numerous occasions that he could hardly see the other cars on the track. Despite that, he managed to do quite well to avoid others and run away with the victory. That's all folks! Compete fair, but hard, racers, and see you at the grid!

(erm... Second Life Grid, though, certainly, I mean the starting grid as well)



The grid:

Pole Position. Eagle Clawtooth  16.049
P 2. Miku Hatsune (Doll Kabuki),  16.254, -0.205
P 3. 'ZZ Bottom' (foneco Zuzu),  16.314, -0.264
P 4. Saphyre Cyberstar,  16.329, -0.280
P 5. MidnightRambler Frostbite,  16.409, -0.360
P 6. FFred Koolhoven,  16.505, -0.455
P 7. JP Paneer,  16.633, -0.584
P 8. Snuffy Smith (Snufman),  17.050, -1.000
P 9. Garth Moonites,  17.164, -1.115
P 10. ⓢ ⓦ ⓔ ⓔ ⓣ (SweetTooth Firehawk),  17.314, -1.264
P 11. Broly Blackheart Sr. (Broly Yakubu),  18.030, -1.981
P 12. Яoɑđz (ROADBUSTER),  31.630, -15.581

Final Results:
1st. Eagle Clawtooth, 80 laps. Total Time : 1408.788
2nd. JP Paneer, -1 laps.
3rd. Miku Hatsune (Doll Kabuki), -3 laps.
4th. Garth Moonites, -4 laps.
5th. 'ZZ Bottom' (foneco Zuzu), -5 laps.
6th. FFred Koolhoven, -5 laps.
7th. Saphyre Cyberstar, -6 laps.
8th. Snuffy Smith (Snufman), -10 laps.
9th. ⓢ ⓦ ⓔ ⓔ ⓣ (SweetTooth Firehawk), -11 laps.
10th. Яoɑđz (ROADBUSTER), -32 laps.
11th. Broly Blackheart Sr. (Broly Yakubu), -49 laps. (retired)
12th. MidnightRambler Frostbite, -59 laps. (retired)

Fastest race lap: Miku Hatsune (Doll Kabuki), 15.688

Racers Island - FALL 2012 SERIES LEAGUE SEASON

It's time to remind you all, racers, that even though Summer 2012 is almost over, the competition never stops!
The best of the best have been awarded this Sunday, and that was not Top 3 only! Who are other ones? Take a look yourself! 

Also, it's time to remind you that Fall 2012 series (both drift and stock car) begin soon, so it's a great change for you all to compete from the very beginning of the series. Start practicing!

Round 1 Stock Car Series - August 26th @ Sunset Oval

Round 1 Drift Series - August 30th @ Nitro Track

And that's not all! 6 new tracks have been opened for public use and competition at Racers Island in August, I've already wrote about those for Battle Cars, and there are new tracks for stock cars and drift as well - come check 'em out!

See you there, competitors ;)

R.I.R. Build Your Own @ Watkins Glen

R.I.R. website
Watkins Glen in-world

(Race of 8/17/12)


Even when the gate says that the racers positions are stable - don't let it fool you. There might be a mess at the track itself due to the traffic that comes and goes spontaneously, making it harder for racers to maintain their positions. Such races are hard to write about, but always very spectacular - you barely watch the positions because you can cam on anybody - and just watch them battling, even without wondering is this a battle for position or for not getting lapped.

Like you probably have noticed, Watkins Glen is actually a road course. And this explains the vast difference between qualifying times - this is not an oval, you have to be skilled enough to be able to pass different types of turns with a minimal loss of time. The six first positions (ref. to the grid) managed to do that, while the rest had problems. Nevertheless, the grid was formed and the competition... didn't begin: badguy Boozehould had to restart the race, and then again, due to the total mess after the start. Before the 3rd start, though, he warned all the racers that this one is the last one, so it had to be successful.

Leaders of the beginning of the race were revealed immediately - Grosmanteau DeCuir maintained the lead doing very accurate laps (thanks to the clear road ahead), behind him Saphyre Cyberstar was protecting 2nd position from Clifford Market and Eagle Clawtooth - but lapped Unknown Kanya crashed her, so Market, Clawtooth and JP Paneer, who caught up with them, began the fight for the 2nd place - DeCuir had a gap big enough not to let them get closer.
Soon enough (lap 5) DeCuir got crashed by one of the almost-lapped opponents and Clawtooth took advantage of the situation to catch up with him and challenge him for the 1st position. Luck was on his side - at the 8th lap, three challengers for the 8th place crashed DeCuir to overpass him, so Clawtooth expanded the lead. But the battle for the 8th position was so intensive that DeCuir overpassed them in return a few laps after. The 1 second gap between him and Clawtooth remained, but he began to catch up making his way through the clear track.
At the 19th lap, DeCuir finally got into a battle with Clawtooth; they were trading places at almost each turn - it was totally uncertain who was winning the battle. So, traffic was the one to arbitrate them - and, at the 29th lap, DeCuir had been crashed again with a 2 seconds loss. Clawtooth got the halfway lead bonus points.
But then, traffic began to slow them both down - not all at once, like it happened to DeCuir first time, but taking a few tenths of a second constantly, letting Clawtooth save his position though. DeCuir was pushed farther and farther away with each lap, at the lap 38 the gap between him and Clawtooth was 4 seconds already.
If that happened at an oval track, it would be possible to say DeCuir hardly stands a chance to regain the lead. But at the road course, everything is less predictable - especially with such a wild traffic...Clawtooth got into a huge accident at the 41st lap, and DeCuir got closer to him - the gap has decreased to 1 second, even with traffic between them.
At the 47th lap, DeCuir caught up with Clawtooth and, after a very short battle, took the lead. Clawtooth, of course, was intented to take it back, and at a certain moment, when DeCuir got crashed by the traffic, he passed him by... only to get crashed too, by another car. So their positions remained, and due to the fact that Clawtooth was losing time while dealing with the traffic until the very end of the race, that was the order they've finished in.

DeCuir and Clawtooth were on top, that's for sure, but without traffic appearing here and there, this would be obvious who wins - this time, both had an equal chance to win. What I want to say is traffic was more crusial than I've ever seen.
This is always a question - to let leaders pass yourself or not let them? Different associations set different rules (or no rules at all), but whatever they are, that never kills the competitive spirit. See you around, racers!




The grid:

Pole Position. Grosmanteau DeCuir  16.275
P 2. Saphyre Cyberstar,  16.473, -0.198
P 3. MidnightRambler Frostbite,  16.584, -0.309
P 4. JP Paneer,  16.635, -0.360
P 5. Eagle Clawtooth,  16.700, -0.425
P 6. 'ZZ Bottom' (foneco Zuzu),  16.823, -0.548
P 7. Garth Moonites,  17.403, -1.128
P 8. Aangel Cortes,  17.472, -1.197
P 9. Clifford Market,  17.781, -1.506
P 10. ⓢ ⓦ ⓔ ⓔ ⓣ (SweetTooth Firehawk),  18.144, -1.868
P 11. unknown Kanya,  19.092, -2.816


Final Results:
1st. Grosmanteau DeCuir, 60 laps. Total Time : 1016.476
2nd. Eagle Clawtooth, -4.156 seconds.
3rd. JP Paneer, -1 laps.
4th. 'ZZ Bottom' (foneco Zuzu), -1 laps.
5th. Saphyre Cyberstar, -2 laps.
6th. MidnightRambler Frostbite, -2 laps.
7th. Clifford Market, -3 laps.
8th. Aangel Cortes, -4 laps.
9th. Garth Moonites, -4 laps.
10th. ⓢ ⓦ ⓔ ⓔ ⓣ (SweetTooth Firehawk), -5 laps.
11th. unknown Kanya, -42 laps.

Fastest race lap: Grosmanteau DeCuir, 16.099