Arunam Racing Bathurst 1000k

Nice pics Steve!
Well done Kieron adn Steve, and Andy for 3rd.

Qualy was fantastic. First time I've ever had a 2:07 in these things.
First stint also went well, Kieron and I were sort of close, but I knew he had better overall race pace. So when he took the lead on lap 13 I decided to just follow. We were never more than a few seconds apart. At first pit stop I had to go to the bathroom (!!!!), so that blew that. But very happy with second! Well done all for some great driving.

I think I've had enuff of Bathurst for now. If I never see this track again it'll be too soon. :)

Congrats to podium (especially two from Phoenix!)

and well done to all who finished.

Nice battle with John/Bob

Andy please try to keep you race report under 5 pages:)

That was fun to try solo...

i made a mistake somewhere around lap 60 or something that that put me in the kitty litter...i went from being up 90 seconds on the bad voices guys (jan Mike and Ken) to being down 90 sec....I almost blew the engine trying to get out...had to sit and let engine cool at times..ugg...

then about 3 laps later did it again but not as bad...so now im down 2:00 to them...worked my way all the way back to within a second but just never could get passed,,not sure if fatigue had anyting to do with it thoes guys were just faster at the end...

then had a screen freeze with 5 laps to go...only my 6th dnf in about 78 starts or whatever..so i cant complain to much....it was just a thrill and a personal challenge to see if I could do it..

grats winners and all

-Malik

Grats to Kieron & Steve @ 05 Motorsport on the win !
Grats to Boyd and Andy on 2n & 3rd [solo's !!]

Man that was grueling !!I knew my pace was off but thought just finishing would be a victory for me .. The pace of the leaders was awesome , looked like 1 n 2 never seperated at all first stint according to the possition bar ..

Happy with 9th after some mistakes and lack of pace , first half had a good battle with Luis who was a bit faster than me, I somehow got in front of him and was fighting to keep the spot , Down the hill he had a good run on me, heading down the hi speed flat we bumped in the turn and ended up in the sand .. Luis un selflishly waited as i pumped the clutch out of the sand (thx Luis) .. After that I dident see him again untill he was facing the wrong way parked from a spin just past start finish, (sry Luis) .. By now I was in survival moad growing weary as the twists and turns just kept comming and comming over and over ~~~~ lol I managed to keep the car in one piece, dispite some close calls and a few repairs so verry Happy with the finish !!

Grats to all who made it n kudos to all who tryed !!

Got a matchmaker-error on my V8-install and just couldn't get rid of it. Tried to install the mod in my regular R2P-install ... same thing. No idea what caused that and very sad I had to miss this because of that.

Grats to Kieron and Steve and all who finished this monster.

It was fun while it lasted. Grats to everyone who finished. Shame I couldn't be one of them. The Force Feedback stuffed up on my wheel after 3 hours which made it feel like I was driving a Jellyfish. Also had a problem with drinking lucozade... needed the loo every time I pitted leaving my car at a stand-still for way too long.

with regards to removing the red flags, nice thought, but it did put quite a few people off racing, ending up with only 13 cars on track. I think it would be best to keep the breaks next time. I know its done to encourage people to race as a team, but if this was a team-only race, there would have been even less starters. You need the Solo drivers to make up the field. Its an epic event, so surely you'd want epic numbers of people entering.

Removing the breaks not only put people off, it also played havok with my bladder!

Looking forward to the next one!

Qualifying was a bit of a nightmare. I went to the toilet and got back with 8 minutes left. First flying lap, I came across Santino Cannistraci in the Chase, and promptly followed him off into that gravel! Took ages to get out (had to wait for him), with the engine overheating. First "flying lap" was a 2m52!!! Hit traffic on my next run, so it was down to the last lap, played it super conservative and managed to get P3 with a safe mid 2m10s.

Race strategy. I could run 2m09's, mixed in with 2m10's. But it was clear that Kieran/Steve partnership and Boyd were going to be untouchable. So I decided to settle for 3rd as my target from the off, and to that end went into super constant rhythm mode! Laps mainly in the 11's some in the 10's, coming across lapped cars I'd be super conservative, bide my time, lose time, but keep it clean. And the plan worked out perfectly.

Initially Bryce Aston started pushing me more than I wanted to be pushed, so he kept me very honest and I was forced into driving quicker than I wanted to early on. The gap opened up nicely to around 8 seconds from memory, but on lap 17 I came across John Onofrey with his car sideways across the track at Forrests Elbow. I'd seen the yellow, so slowed down, but still had nowhere to go. Contact speed was around 35 mph (replay) which gave the right side of the bumper a dint, but we both got under way - lost around 5 seconds there.

But the rest of the race went pretty much perfectly. 159 laps in the end and I can only remember one mistake - in the last 20 laps, where I changed down to 2nd too early in the Esses and the front turned in clipping the wall lightly. Other than that, it went completely to plan.

Driving at reduced speed meant my fuel economy was less than 5 litres per lap. 6 stop strategy, I had to achieve less than 5.2 per lap. So in two of the stops I put in 110 litres instead of a full 120 litres. And still finised on a 6 stopper - I noticed the lead two cars pitted earlier than my last stop, so knew they would have to pit for a 7th time, which clawed back some time.

I struggled with concentration in the second and third stop period. Each stop I was removing my headphones (to cool my head down) and guzzling water, but 2 hours into the race I started to get the urge to go to the toilet. I hadn't realised Boyd had done his duties at his 2nd stop, so I thought to myself - if he's not stopping for a toilet break, neither am I!!!

Kept Boyd behind for a couple of laps before my 3rd stop (around laps 69/70), trying to hold him up for any future chance I may have, but in the end his initial stints were just too quick for me anyway.

Brake foot was hurting for the last hour, accelerator foot was pulsing at the same time. But those latter stints, the car seeemd to come to me again and I was able to attack the track more than earlier (where to me it felt a bit slippery). Shadows on max in game and it was great to see the lighting transitions from the 10.30am start to the sun getting low in the sky creating BIG shadows on track. Made it all the more enjoyable to drive:)

Got to say a big thumbs up to those lapping me or being lapped by me. Lot's of respect going on, and this is a perfect example of how to drive an enduro - give and take goes a long way:)

Lap 144, exiting T1 up Mountain Straight, rF minimised to desktop! Still had sounds, so kept my wheel straight and applied the brake, clicked on the rF icon, and at first it slowly returned as a black screen but with XD info - then I was back in car, setting off again - lost around 12 seconds in that incident. Was aghast at almost losing out on all the hard work, so I know what Malik must have felt like when his PC froze near race end.

Well done to everyone for giving this a go. Next time, if it goes full distance again, I think it will be with a driver swap. 6 hours in front of the PC, trying to avoid concrete walls at high speed, was a lot of very hard work!! Alone on Mountain straight I would look up at the wall just to give my eyes a break from the PC screen (not to be recommended in traffic, LOL)!

So, P3 in the end. As the leader had lapped me twice, it put me a lap behind Boyd (lapped once by the leader), when in reality I was only 1 minute behind Boyd in those last laps. Very pleased with that. Lot of hard training went into it, so happy to see some rewards from that.

I took part in the 2008 Bathurst 1000km (last time it was run as a 1000km event), when my best lap was a 2m18.4 and the race winner did a 2m11 dead. How times change, and how I've improved over 3 years!!!

Great race guys, one I won't forget in a long time. Again, grats to all, particularly Kieran and Steve on their very fast pace to 1st...and Boyd on coming home 2nd whilst having a toilet break.... something I had only after race end:)

Really glad I could be part of the race and had been looking forward to it the whole week before. Teaming up with Steve meant I had to make sure I got in plenty of practice so to not let him down or for him to waste all teh practice he did.

Qual was just about getting a lap in. We only had 10 mins and with a track like this that wasn't much. First lap was a very catious one and on teh second I pushed a little more but gave the walls plenty of repesct. Happy with 2nd and I knew I had a bit more pace in reserves. So the race plan was to sit on Boyds tail and see if he would let me by knowing he had 5+ hours ahead of him, or weather he would put up a fight.

Race got under way and Boyd was really shifting, I had to push prety hard to stay with him let alone stay on his bumper. Once I settled down and got used to following him I was able to stay with him, but I wasn't going to make a lunge for the lead.

Passing is damn hard here despite Conrod Straight, and I figured the best place to make a move would be into Turn 2. Did back out of a couple of runs up into 2, but on lap 13 I got a great run out of T1 and was able to draw along side Boyd going into 2. Again I wasn't going to risk a do or die move so I broke where I normally would which put us side by side through T2. Boyd still along side at the exit I managed to get on the power a little bit earlier than Boyd which saw me edge half a car lenth ahead going into 3. He was still there so I made sure I gave us both room, but Boyd decided to back off and slot in behind as we entered 3.

Then the plan was to push a little to see if Boyd would chase or if he would run at his own pace. He says he backed off but I wasn't exactly pulling away, but slowly and surely the lead grew. And after his toilet break on his 2nd stop the lead shot up.

So after that I started pushing to keep me focused and I also wanted to get a good gap incase we ran into troubles with the driver swap. All in all my 4 stints went like clock work, only brushed the wall once. Had a couple of scares with spun cars and had a pretty close call at the top of the Mountain with a recovering car, but I spotted the yellows and managed to slow down just enough to avoid him :).

So 3 and a half hours in or so it was time to hand the car over to Steve. It's always a nervous time doing driver swaps in Rfactor, but thankfully this one went perfect and I was releaved to see Steve gain control of the car. Woke up this morning to find he brought her home in 1st, great job Steve :D.

Grats to BOyd and Andy on teh podium spots. Hats off to all you single drivers, that's some going. And having only 2 DNF's shows just how experianced the drivers in this race are, great job guys. Also a big thanks to the guys who let me through, you all did a great job :). And thanks to Steve for pairing up with me so we could run this and come away with the win for what will probably be my last drive for 05M here at Race2play. Great way to round of my time with the team I think :D.

Cya on track soon.

Gratz Winners and all finish race!

Had a great time yesterday trying to stay with Andy and maintain my gap on Dennis. Green flag till 1st pitstop saw me chasing Andy. Andy slowly built a gap of 8 seconds on me up to the 1st pit cycle. I had built a similar gap on Dennis. After that stop I made contact a few times with the walls but no damage that slowed me down until....My wonderful 4 year old son came down to the sim racing dungeon under the stairs to check on me and ended up stepping on the keyboard. The obscenities that flew out of my mouth i'm not to proud of. In the process of stepping on the keyboard he switched my view into another car. In those few short seconds the car lost a front splitter and added a few more yellow spots around the car. I lost 30 seconds in the mayham and Dennis was on my tail. Now Andy was 50 seconds up. Next pit saw me switch the car over to Rich Y with a new nose on the car and Rich gave chase.
I'd like to thank Rich and Ray for a great drive and a Big congrats goes out to the podium.