F1 Outdoors leaguge and summer action :)

So what other way of cooling down in summer months then racing
on the F1 Outdoor track in the summer leaguge :)

The track is truely beautifull:

The races are usually every other week Fridays after work, so that
means I spend 1.5 hrs in rush hour getting to the track, and we
get 3 races + 1 practice session.

The track hosts a wide array of track configurations, and there is
plenty of room for passing... here is a recent video from Round #1
(I still am trying to figure out how i got the penalty on this
video though...let me know if you figure it out)



The racing is very real, but not everybody obeys the rules..especially
round #2 i have been used for brakes many times, while the flag stations
where chatting about their nail polishes.. I literally raised my hand
waved at them, etc.. but nothing could get their attention :)

I am still learning the tracks and should get higher in the points
in the upcoming events, but there is some serious talent in the top #3!
Some of these guys are old timers who have done the same leaguge last
summer.. and just following their lines i see great improvements...

More mario karts flavoured videos to come, next race 1st week of July...

BSCC Autocross - 5/21

Had a great time @ the BSCC autocross event in Devens Airfield.

The track was set yet again to be a high speed with a lot of slaloms.
This time i tried to play around with the front tire pressures to
help with the dreadfull understeer I get with the stock 175 front tires.

I think i had the narrowest front tires in the whole event...!

But changing my driving style, and lowering -2 psi on the fronts def
gave me a nice bit on the turn ins,, which allowed me to get first place
in the experience street tire class! :)

Here is the video from my fastest run of the day(with a passenger)



I think there was a potential of shaving off 1 more second from the
time, but for that i need to get smoother...and smoother.. getting there
slowly but surely! :)

24 Hours of Lemons New Hampshire Speedway

Wow..what a crazy weekend it was... I was in TX for work
last thursday, flew back to Boston @ midnight, and headed
to NHMS Friday morning for a race weekend with Team FarFrumWinnin
again.

Friday practice was great, a perfect sunny day, and I had the oppurtunity
to take the car for a good ~20 minutes and a get feel for the track and
compare the track to the iracing version... I have to say hats
off to Iracing again.. i felt at home from lap #1...

I also had the pleasure to meet fellow iracer Andre Gomes
who joined the team for only this race.. Andre is a true talent and
a finalist in the PS3 GT Academy, he will be heading to a week
of final qualifying in Silverstone @ the end of this month...
and if he makes it (which I am sure he will) he will get a real seat
to race in high profile races around the world.

It was Andre's first time on the track, I mean "any" track...and
he was already 1 second faster then my fastest laptime...
He showed great car control in wet, dry and in traffic...
I have a feeling if the racing gods are on his side, and he
gets the seat after Silverstone he will have to consider
changing his career :)

Speaking of "wet" my Saturday stint during the race had a nice
down pour of rain,, the car was exteremely tricky to drive and
unpredictiably scary as soon as the puddles started to form...

Little to my suprise going into the last S before the final straight
2 wide in a downpour was not the smartest choice and when I got cut off
right when I was about to apex i had to lift, and round and round I went..
My first track spin, and it was quite scary.. I also had the honor
of get the first black flag for the team :/

However, Sunday the sun was on our side,, and i did a really solid
stint and had a great time, here is some video footage from that day
mostly focused on traffic fun stuff:



When my stint had ended we were first in class C, and had a ~30 lap
lead to the second car...and we where upto 12 place overall (out of 75 cars)
Nothing could stop us from winning in our class...until the engine died
during Andre's stint which was right after me :/

It was a very low point of the weekend as we had to pack and leave...
But I guess that summarized a perfect racing weekend, rain or shine
we try our best, and sometimes shit happens...

Looking forward to the next race in mid June in Summit Point..!!!

24 Hours of New Jersey

Just got back from our first lemons race for the season and it
was a absolute blast, not only did we come 2nd in our
class (Class C "ugly") and 13th overall(out of 70 cars)
we even won a Grassroots Motorsports magazines "Most from the Least" award:)

Although we got that award, our team and our performance was nothing like "least".
We had a great team!! A quick snapshot after the race :)

Most of us arrived Friday morning.. after hours of driving
to be greeted by a awful cold & rainy grey NJ day. Which
helped me realize very quickly that maybe i should have brought
better shoes as I walked around the track with wet shoes and cold feet...
while looking at scary rusted junk cars getting ready to race...thinking
if my shots where up to date :)

But saturday was a whole diffrent NJ...nice and sunny, actually a bit
too nice...now i have a red nose and forehead to show :)

After nervously waiting for my stint saturday morning (which was stint
#2 after Tom) I was having a blast... ~70 cars, ~2 mile course, plenty
of room and a great fast paced track (compared to the Stafford race
from last year)

The experience can be best described as multi-class racing with a
bunch of loonies and piece of shit, and awful smelling cars...
But its freakin fun! :)

I have to say, my multi-class sim-racing league experiences from
ISRA (iracing private multi-class league) defintely came into play
as i knew how to keep my eyes in front, sides and back at all times...

As running a lower class car just like in the ISRA sim league, the
strategies to deal with traffic and keep your self away from trouble
is similar...

I will have more videos hopefully, but here is 1 lap of NJMP lightning
course with camera staring at my face :P



After the race, we found out from the judges that our cars roll
cage is no longer welcome, and we need to get a better one. So
if everything works out, our next race will be next month in
New Hampshire Motor Speedway road course... I'll have more updates in the upcoming weeks :)

Now back to reality....

The FOX is Getting a Make Over

Our captain(Tom) and NY based team members have done
quite impressive work on the car in the last couple of weeks...

Not only did they paint the car with a awesome 80's Audio Quattro S1
theme but they have also fixed a number of things on the car..

I am really getting excited as only 1 week left until we hit the
track with this baby...

In the mean time check out some of the new pictures:

Also we just had a new team member join for the LOUDON ANNOYING race, a fellow Iracer "Andre Gomes" :)

I know Andre from a couple Iracing session which we had
some awesome battles with, very solid talent,,, its great to
see that I will not be the only sim racer(cough nerddd) on the team :P

The snow melts...and I am back...!

So i've been on the road, on the go..or whatever you like to call
it latelty. Lets just say this winter was one to remember...

Luckly, it is now coming to a slow end..the snow is melting and I
already have huge(or atleast huge to me) plans for this season :)

Well before I get to my plans and finally setting the record straight
on why i called my blog "junkracing", i'll briefly talk about some of the
things I did since my last post... lets play a bit of catchup.

A lot of Iracing :)...and lots of it... I actually stopped
running general Iracing series, and have been running on a hosted
series called ISRA(International Sim Racing Association)

Its basically a intense 9 week multi-class series with a
average grid of 35-40 talented and serious sim racers.
Races are only done on Monday nights, and 1 race per week...
Awesome way to fine tune working traffic (thanks to multi-class)
and some very intense close racing, just the way I like it...

I am working on a video to celebrate the close racing I had
in the series, but that will have to wait a bit more...

During the season, i've have broken pretty much most of
my racing gear...G25 Logitech wheel busted, replaced with
a Thrustmaster T500RS, especially after watching the
inside simracing episode

My Lightning SST shifter also broke mid-race, soon to be replaced
with a TSW H-shifter..So far the only gear that seems to be hold
up to my driving style is the CST pedals...

Proabbly the highligh of my winter was the Lotus Racing School
in Spring Mountain Motorsports Ranch.
I was fortunate enought to be on the 3.4 mile track, which was
perfect for learning more about how to be smooth and focus on
the line. I actually had to re-learn some of the things I had
thought I had learned before, which is exactly why I had gone their
in the first place.

I could/should have placed the camera in dash but because the
Elise is so tiny, me combined with a instructer we had no room
for the GoPro camera in-dash, so not my first choice for camera
angle but atleast gives you a idea on how long/technical the 3.4 mile course is:



Although not as fast I would like it to be (but smooth to say the
least), remembering each turn-in for such a long course in 1 day
definetly was a challenge. It would have helped greatly if the
track was actually scanned by Iracing... :)

Anyways so lets get back to why I called my blog that nobody
reads "Junkracing" :)...well it is because of all the lemons
junk racing I plan to do this season and hopefully in the future
as-well :)

For the ones who have no idea what 24 hour of lemons is,
check out this.

I already had done a race last year with Team FarFrumWinnin in Stafford, MA in a
1993 VW FOX which used to be our team captain's Tom daily
driver back in the day.

Well it was a blast and this year we plan to do 4 events this year:
(given the car can hold it together)

NJMP Apr 9-10
Loudon May 7-8
Summit Point June 18-19
Stafford July 23-24

Currently the team which is mostly based in NY (as I type this far,
far , far away somewhere in TX) is doing a lot of work on the car, including paint etc..

The car is looking more sexy by the minute.
Don't get me wrong its still a $500 worth car...but this time
we hope it does not look a like a slow moving poop on the track
i hope :P

I'll be having more info, and hopefully videos from the races
in the upcoming months stay tuned! First race is APRIL 9th! :)

Weekend Coding -- Iracing Driver Class Statistics

So this weekend, I wanted to spend some time on gathering some
statistical data from the Iracing interface via automated scrapping.

Here is the initial report, lets cut the suspense for the ones
who are reading :)



So the ones that are not familiar with Iracing license model it can
be explained as simple as:

When you join Iracing, you start with a rookie license, you can
get promoted to the next level license only if you complete
certain # of races, and meet a safety rating 3/4 or more.

As of right now, nobody had gathered and shared this statistic
of what % of users are in which license level as far as I know
and thats why i wanted to take on the challenge just to keep my coding/scrapping skills fresh as a small weekend hackathon :)

So How did I do it?

Well, when I started on the idea Friday night, i was quick enough
to find out, that you cant scrape using conventional scripting methods with python (mechanize and beautifullSoup). And yes I do enjoy scripting these types of things in Python :)

This is because mechanize does not support javascript, and without javascript support I can't even login. After a couple hours of researching it turned out the best way is to use a package called "Selenium RC" and invoke it via its python API.Selenium RC is just a simple remote control interface for firefox(it also supports other browsers for runtime but not debugging)... I can say ,after my short experience, Selenium is really good for these types of web UI automation&testing tasks.

I used to use a similar tool back in the day called OpenKapow. But it had a
very extensive ETL like browser IDE.I personally feel I have more control over with Python compared to using a bulky IDE...exception handling is also easier this way.

+1 for Selenium folks! :)