easytrucks sim racing update #3

Welcome back to easytrucks sim racing updates. I've been iRacing dirt speedway for just over a month now and I've just expanded the fleet to include Sprintcars.

iRacing has four versions of Sprintcars

Winged 360 cubic inch V8 Sprintcars

Winged 410 cubic inch V8 Sprintcars

Non-winged 360 cubic inch V8 Sprintcars

Non-winged 410 cubic inch V8 Sprintcars

We're talking 900hp V8 monsters with huge wings that weigh only around 600kg. Insane!

They each drive quite differently and require different setups for changing track conditions.

Some may notice in the image above that I'm here virtually racing at the hallowed grounds of Knoxville, the spiritual home of Sprintcar racing. The Knoxville Nationals is one of the biggest Sprintcar events on the speedway racing calendar every year, with huge prize money at stake.

As a passionate speedway fan, to get to virtually race at Knoxville and at many other famous speedway tracks online, against very strong competition from around the world, is something I could previously only really dream about.

iRacing allows these dreams to become almost reality. The racing is very very real.

I'm now finding a range of racing leagues that run their own series for dirt midget cars and/or sprintcars, so it's all about to get very real. The new season starts this week.

Some of the racing gets streamed live online, I'll try to keep you posted where and when.

New Zealand Sim Racing has a Midget Development Series running each week on Tuesday night around 8pm NZ time.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/NzSimRacing

School of Sim Racing and their National Auto Racing Club league has both Midget and Winged 360 Sprintcar series starting this week

https://www.facebook.com/groups/schoolofsimracing

Bangin Boards Race Series just started a Winged 360 Sprintcar series this week on Sundays at 6pm US Pacific Standard Time. 1pm Mondays NZ time.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/3442000632488110

Today (Monday 8th June) was the first meeting with the Bangin Boards Race Series for Winged 360 Sprintcars at the iRacing virtual Lanier Raceplex in Braselton Georgia USA.

I qualified okay and placed 3rd in my Heat race. This put me on Grid 7 of about 20 cars for the 40 lap feature race. I quickly got up to 6th place, but a couple of laps later the car behind bashed his way past which spun me out. I restarted in P16.

The track was super slick (dry and slippery) and it was really tough trying to find any traction and to hang on to the car, it was wild!. I managed to work my way back up to P4 or P5 briefly, but got caught up in another incident on the final lap, ending up in P6.

Not bad for a first timer. The event was live streamed on facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/3442000632488110

It should be live streamed each Monday afternoon NZ time around 1pm.

Event starts 6pm Sunday US Pacific Standard Time.

We even tried to do a 4 wide salute like they do in real life

Can't see much from inside a Winged Sprintcar #eyesforward

I'm proudly flying the New Zealand flag. Most of the drivers I'm racing against are either from the USA with some from Australia and NZ. Time zone differences can make for some interesting race event times. Much of the racing is scheduled to suit US Eastern or Pacific evening times, so it can be a challenge to make the grid sometimes. Australian based league racing can often not start until 9pm NZ time and run on to the wee hours.

Starting this week I'll be running the easytrucks midget car in the National Auto Racing Club midget series and the easytrucks Winged 360 Sprintcar in the National Auto Racing Club Winged 360 Sprintcar series. The midget series has a midget speedweek coming up next month (July) which runs every night at a different track for a week.

The sprintcar series has their own version of the famous 'Kings Royal' event at Eldora Speedway, and also their own version of the 'Knoxville Nationals' which are both coming up next month, which is super exciting. There's prize money and live streaming for each so I'm told. I'll try to keep you posted where and when.