Thursday, June 30, 2005
WR Racing @ Silverstone
Okay, so, there's this GTP league I'm in. Maybe you've heard of it... WOSEC. I forget what it stands for, but it's monthly endurance racing. We're talking 6 hours, 8 hours, 12 hours at Sebring (coming up in June), or even the season ending 24 hours of Le Mans. With driver changes and all. (Bit of a hack job there, as the current driver pits, crashes his game, and the driver taking over connects using the same player name and car file... but it works good enough.)
Anyway, we had 8 hours at Silverstone last Saturday. It's a European based league, so the races start at like 7:30 am eastern US time. But I can swing that once a month, and I usually don't drive the first stint anyway, since our team (WR Racing) has guys all over the place. We're probably the most spread out of the teams, with guys from UK, USA, Finland, Germany, India, and Australia. That sounds like a lot of people, but it's really only like 8. When everyone can make it, we run three cars. We are definitely not any kind of powerhouse team, running almost exclusively in the bottom half of the field, which consists of around 20 cars at this point.
The races really - and I hesitate to say this as it sounds like some kind of PR nonsense - "come alive" with NRTV and voice chat. You can imagine how the voice chat sounds, with all the above countries I listed, and everyone being shoehorned into speaking the same language (English, of course). And NRTV allows you to watch the race from a top down view - like TrackPass on NASCAR.com. So when you're not racing, you're watching intently to see how your car is doing, and telling the current drivers who's around them. "That's the leader behind you." Or talking pit strategy. Or just sort of talking about whatever with the other guys who aren't driving for a few minutes, until you remember (or are reminded) that the ones who ARE driving have to listen to all of this.
So, Silverstone, Tim - nevermind introductions and descriptions - Tim is driving WR17 (our #1 car) for the first stint, after qualifying 15th out of 19th. His stop is coming up, so I get myself ready, closing NRTV, firing up GTP with the correct player, and making sure I've got the right IP in the multiplayer screen. Tim comes over voice chat: "Okay, I'm in the pits... changing tires... dicsoing... I'm out." I furiously click connect and close out the error box telling me the race is full until the server recognizes that he's gone, and it lets me connect. "I'm in," I say. The track is loading. Now the race director won't let me on the track until some other stuff loads, or something. Whatever, the "Drive" button is still grey.
After literally forever, it's turned green (okay, actually it's just dark grey in the GTP mod). I click it, and there I am, in my pit stall. I accelerate. "Limit's 70, keep it under 70," says my crew cheif with the accent. As I approach the end of the pitlane, I get a final message from one of my teammates over voice chat: "Good luck."
Then I'm clear of the pits and gassing it, quickly reminded of how careful I'll need to be for the next two hours when I almost spin out on the pit exit road. The chilly weather in England at this time of year (45 deg F) isn't helping things, either. Then I'm onto the track, right behind the Chilean Racing Team. After a lap, I pass them, although passes are rarely for position at this stage of the race, with some teams having done more of the required driver changes than others. I drive hard and work traffic, make a routine fuel and tires stop, and go back out for more. It's one of my best stints ever - I almost always spin at least once, but this run only saw me take to the grass once, with almost no time lost.
I got in the car in 13th place, and we're 7th as I come in for a driver change. Most of those positions were gained thru driver changes and people going off and whatnot, although I did manage to make one on track pass for position at the end of the Hangar straight. Now I'm the one crashing N2003, and saying "I'm out." Tim is in, and he's off and running. I watch a few laps, then announce to the rest of my team that I'm getting something to eat. I fail to share that it's a bowl of Capt'n Crunch. I come back, and we're still 7th - we haven't lost anything in the driver change. Excellent. Soon, there's a retirement, and we're 6th! Easily the team's best performance ever.
Now it's 15 laps until this run is over for Tim, and I get back in. I'm watching on NRTV, and Tim is really doing a good job - keeping in on the track, nice and smooth, good lap times. 5 laps until it's my turn. Everything's still going good. With one more retirement, we'll get a top 5! About time to close out NRTV and get ready.
"It's just quit running," comes over the voice chat. I thought it was one of the other cars - WR18 or 19. I certainly hoped it was. But it wasn't. It was Tim. "The car just quit running, I don't understand it. The guages were fine... I don't understand it." Everyone shared disappointed sighing noises as Tim got a tow. Maybe the crew could do something, and we could still get a decent finish. But they couldn't. We had to retire, because of "ignition" failure. That's what the game said. I know I didn't do anything to the ignition. We all agreed random failures the driver has no control over suck ass.
WR19 would crash out when a faster car came by to lap it, and WR18 soldiered on for a 9th place finish after more teams retired, some of them undoubteldy for something as arbitrary as "ignition". WR17 had been running 6th when it quit, with a two lap cushion over 7th place. If it had stayed in the race it could've gained two more spots with retirements. But, shit happens. That's racing. That's all part of it. All of those things that have become cliches because you hear all the time, but you hear them all the time because they're ultimately true.
What's more than the disappointment of not finishing is sharing that disappointment with a bunch of people I've never even seen before. Tim and I drove WR17, but everyone on the team felt it when that car broke. I mean, it was borderline devastating. And it's just from a game. It's really kind of great, in a way... that we can be that pissed off over a game... and not because we didn't get to have our top 5, but because WE didn't get to have OUR top 5. It wasn't just about being competitive, it was about getting a good finish for everyone on the team. I've run leagues before, and won races before, but winning on my own doesn't even come close to running 6th and blowing up and sharing that with a bunch of guys with funny accents.
Anyway, we had 8 hours at Silverstone last Saturday. It's a European based league, so the races start at like 7:30 am eastern US time. But I can swing that once a month, and I usually don't drive the first stint anyway, since our team (WR Racing) has guys all over the place. We're probably the most spread out of the teams, with guys from UK, USA, Finland, Germany, India, and Australia. That sounds like a lot of people, but it's really only like 8. When everyone can make it, we run three cars. We are definitely not any kind of powerhouse team, running almost exclusively in the bottom half of the field, which consists of around 20 cars at this point.
The races really - and I hesitate to say this as it sounds like some kind of PR nonsense - "come alive" with NRTV and voice chat. You can imagine how the voice chat sounds, with all the above countries I listed, and everyone being shoehorned into speaking the same language (English, of course). And NRTV allows you to watch the race from a top down view - like TrackPass on NASCAR.com. So when you're not racing, you're watching intently to see how your car is doing, and telling the current drivers who's around them. "That's the leader behind you." Or talking pit strategy. Or just sort of talking about whatever with the other guys who aren't driving for a few minutes, until you remember (or are reminded) that the ones who ARE driving have to listen to all of this.
So, Silverstone, Tim - nevermind introductions and descriptions - Tim is driving WR17 (our #1 car) for the first stint, after qualifying 15th out of 19th. His stop is coming up, so I get myself ready, closing NRTV, firing up GTP with the correct player, and making sure I've got the right IP in the multiplayer screen. Tim comes over voice chat: "Okay, I'm in the pits... changing tires... dicsoing... I'm out." I furiously click connect and close out the error box telling me the race is full until the server recognizes that he's gone, and it lets me connect. "I'm in," I say. The track is loading. Now the race director won't let me on the track until some other stuff loads, or something. Whatever, the "Drive" button is still grey.
After literally forever, it's turned green (okay, actually it's just dark grey in the GTP mod). I click it, and there I am, in my pit stall. I accelerate. "Limit's 70, keep it under 70," says my crew cheif with the accent. As I approach the end of the pitlane, I get a final message from one of my teammates over voice chat: "Good luck."
Then I'm clear of the pits and gassing it, quickly reminded of how careful I'll need to be for the next two hours when I almost spin out on the pit exit road. The chilly weather in England at this time of year (45 deg F) isn't helping things, either. Then I'm onto the track, right behind the Chilean Racing Team. After a lap, I pass them, although passes are rarely for position at this stage of the race, with some teams having done more of the required driver changes than others. I drive hard and work traffic, make a routine fuel and tires stop, and go back out for more. It's one of my best stints ever - I almost always spin at least once, but this run only saw me take to the grass once, with almost no time lost.
I got in the car in 13th place, and we're 7th as I come in for a driver change. Most of those positions were gained thru driver changes and people going off and whatnot, although I did manage to make one on track pass for position at the end of the Hangar straight. Now I'm the one crashing N2003, and saying "I'm out." Tim is in, and he's off and running. I watch a few laps, then announce to the rest of my team that I'm getting something to eat. I fail to share that it's a bowl of Capt'n Crunch. I come back, and we're still 7th - we haven't lost anything in the driver change. Excellent. Soon, there's a retirement, and we're 6th! Easily the team's best performance ever.
Now it's 15 laps until this run is over for Tim, and I get back in. I'm watching on NRTV, and Tim is really doing a good job - keeping in on the track, nice and smooth, good lap times. 5 laps until it's my turn. Everything's still going good. With one more retirement, we'll get a top 5! About time to close out NRTV and get ready.
"It's just quit running," comes over the voice chat. I thought it was one of the other cars - WR18 or 19. I certainly hoped it was. But it wasn't. It was Tim. "The car just quit running, I don't understand it. The guages were fine... I don't understand it." Everyone shared disappointed sighing noises as Tim got a tow. Maybe the crew could do something, and we could still get a decent finish. But they couldn't. We had to retire, because of "ignition" failure. That's what the game said. I know I didn't do anything to the ignition. We all agreed random failures the driver has no control over suck ass.
WR19 would crash out when a faster car came by to lap it, and WR18 soldiered on for a 9th place finish after more teams retired, some of them undoubteldy for something as arbitrary as "ignition". WR17 had been running 6th when it quit, with a two lap cushion over 7th place. If it had stayed in the race it could've gained two more spots with retirements. But, shit happens. That's racing. That's all part of it. All of those things that have become cliches because you hear all the time, but you hear them all the time because they're ultimately true.
What's more than the disappointment of not finishing is sharing that disappointment with a bunch of people I've never even seen before. Tim and I drove WR17, but everyone on the team felt it when that car broke. I mean, it was borderline devastating. And it's just from a game. It's really kind of great, in a way... that we can be that pissed off over a game... and not because we didn't get to have our top 5, but because WE didn't get to have OUR top 5. It wasn't just about being competitive, it was about getting a good finish for everyone on the team. I've run leagues before, and won races before, but winning on my own doesn't even come close to running 6th and blowing up and sharing that with a bunch of guys with funny accents.
# posted by class of 89 : 3:52 PM
