The RSR Newsletter - October 2017 (1 Viewer)

Gxbbs

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Welcome RSR Members to the fifth edition of the RSR newsletter!


Donations

Another fantastic month of donations from members both old and new. Our thanks, this month, to the following members:
To help ensure the long-term continuation of RSR and its associated outlets, please consider donating to help support its operation and enable us to continue to provide the best service and experience we can.



Revolution Cup - Season 3 - Race 1 & 2 from the Commentary Box
There was a big cloud of uncertainty at the RedBull Ring for Round 1 of the Revolution Cup. Not withstanding a new car, new circuits and new handling model to deal with; the absence of season 2 front runners Puffpirat and ProjectPD meant it could have been anyone's race. In an astonishingly close qualifying session, it was stolnikas who took the pole by a gigantic 0.038 seconds. It was quite possibly the most competitive qualifying session ever in RSR history, with the top 20 covered by 1 second.


The Lithuanian driver lead from the start and performed a near faultless drive to the flag. A charging Diluvian was on track to challenge for the lead after his mandatory pitstop but fell out of contention after spinning and damaging his car. Early challenger t0daY also had his own issues early on, making the race leader's life a bit easier. It wasn't all smooth sailing though. Contact with a spinning car in the closing stages of the race resulted in radiator damage - if the race was a few minutes longer we could well have seen an engine failure deny @stolnikas of his 2nd RSR win. He crossed the line with a rapidly deteriorating engine, followed by a stalking @Alex Salmon in 2nd, and a very impressive 3rd place went to Am driver @jamesl91. Meanwhile, in split 2, the thunder from down under @SillySausage took the win, heading home split 2 bridesmaid steveg200 with newcomer grobi0815 joining them on the podium.


Round 2 took place at Imola, with all 4 drivers from the top 2 teams in the championship not able to take part. This race would provide a massive opportunity for the other teams to build a stronghold on their own campaigns. RSR juggernaut Puffpirat returned to the championship in typical fashion, by taking pole by a whopping 0.575 seconds over second-placed Vernux. After a first lap incident in the mid-pack the front row starters were joined by t0daY and Nighttiger and formed a breakaway pack at the front of the race.

As the fog began to roll in, many drivers struggled to adjust to the rapidly cooling track. Puffpirat and Vernux coped better than the others and stretched their lead over 3rd and 4th. Disaster struck both drivers, as Puffpirat made contact with a spinning car, and Vernux lost a lot of time in avoidance. Both cars would pit early, with Puffpirat losing more time from essential repairs. This left t0daY and Nighttiger to fight it out at the front in a close battle of wits. In the end, the RSR boss man took the win and fastest lap by a narrow margin. Vernux took 3rd, while a determined Puffpirat made an impressive fightback to P6, passing many cars in his battered and bruised car. Over in split 2, grobi0815 took an impressive first win with RSR, with fellow newbie dominiczeth and veteran Ashnoom rounding out the podium.

So as we reach the first break of the season, we have t0daY leading the drivers' standings for split 1, with Col_McCoy & Nighttiger's McTigers leading the teams' championship. RSR rookie grobi0815 leads the 2nd split's drivers table, and also leads the teams' championship with fellow rookie Eugene Flerko under the RoadRunner Racing banner. Join us on the 6th of November for Round 3 of the Revolution Cup, live from Fuji Speedway!



rFactor 2 - Race 1 VEC & VLMS at Indy
First off, the full GT3 pack was released for rFactor 2 and with it a new build, introducing better visual damage (for this pack only at the moment) and much-improved rain visuals.

Our VEC team's first race of the season after their split placement race, 1000 Miles of Indianapolis, was a huge downer. An LMP1 car made a very unsafe track rejoin, during the opening lap, causing a huge crash resulting in terminal engine damage for our car. Instead of rueing 'what could have been', we shifted our focus forward to the next race, the 6h of Fuji on 4th November and to do our best to achieve a good result there.

Also, our VLMS team participated in their first race of the season, the 4h of Indianapolis. The race was full of Code 80s (manually enforced virtual safety car) and sadly, mid-race, Battenbergs VR crashed setting the team back about 30min. They still finished in a solid 14th place though thanks to good, consistent driving.

Here some thoughts from the drivers:

After qualifying near the back, I had a promising start to the race. We made it to the top ten by the end of the first hour by keeping out of all of the mayhem around us. At our first pitstop, I made an error in forgetting to set @Darksi to take over the controls so I had to do another stint. This wasn't a major issue, one of us would have had to double stint anyway.

Not long after the pitstop stop, I had a catastrophic VR failure entering the banking at the end of the lap. 99% of the display went grey, with the edge pixels still rendering the game. I hit the outside wall hard and managed to get it stopped off of the racing line - thankfully nobody else got caught up in my crash. We then lost about thirty minutes in my efforts to get it working again (and failing), rejoining with VR disabled, doing a single lap in a badly damaged car and then waiting for repairs as Darksi took over.

I was absolutely gutted with that but my teammates Darksi and @The Wayfaerer put in rock-solid stints afterward to keep us running, out of trouble and on pace with those in the top ten. VR failure aside, we would have been well in the points for our VLMS debut - bring on Fuji!

Well that was interesting, to say the least... after qualifying near the back, I watched on as Battenberg pushed through the field avoiding most of the chaos that was occurring around him. After an hour, my turn came up. I sat hoping that I wouldn't undo all of Battenberg hard work. OK, not to worry, a slight mishap with the pit menu, luckily noticed before the end of stop and off Battenberg goes for a second stint. I sit back and relax for another hour until we get reports from Battenberg that his VR has crashed and he can't see anything (really unfortunate, but no worries as we still have two and a half hours of racing left). Unfortunately, in that failure, we took a bit of damage so the pit stop was a long one but I'm in ready to go this time. Nothing major happened in my stint, it was a case of head down and try not to lose any more time which was very difficult in the parade of blue flags that I was getting. I had a couple of minor spins with no damage to us or anyone else and before I knew my time was done. I handed the car off to The Wayfaerer and went to grab some food. The Wayfaerer put some solid laps down and brought us home in one piece.

A fair start to what looks to be an interesting season. I wish my guys all the best luck for Fuji as I will miss round two but will give my support leading up to it. See you all in Round 3.

I only joined about an hour after race start because of real life commitments so I can't say a lot about the race start, but I was told that it was total mayhem and some people seemed like they have been driving with their brains switched off.

Battenberg 's VR crash was really unfortunate as we had a really good race after that. Darksi put in a solid stint but having to let other cars by all the time because of blue flags made it impossible to make up some time.

I was able to do a solid stint without any issues and through mistakes from other teams we were able to gain a few positions. I am looking really forward to the next race, although I don't really like Fuji.
Their next race is at 28th of October, the 4h of Fuji, which we will cover in the newsletter of November.



iRacing - RSR supports Geodasic in Petit Le Mans & Bathurst 1000
As most of you will know, for the last two seasons in iRacing we here at RSR have enjoyed a fruitful collaboration with Geodesic Racing. This partnership was formed to help both teams test and gather data for building setups in IMSA and Blancpain GT3. This collaboration has resulted in many of our top guys, from both teams, finishing inside the top 5 in both series. With many of the usual RSR line-up unable to run both endurance events, Geodesic Racing graciously accommodated both falcon2081 and ramiboo into their lineups.



Petite Le Mans
Our sole RSR entry for Petite LeMans was the usual team duo of Bassetts and Corbs in RSR Car #66. Over on the Geodesic side, we had falcon2081 and Bryan Sutton in the Geodesic Racing White Ferrari GTE. ramiboo helped in the Geodesic Racing Black Ferrari GT3 car, during the second running of the Petite LeMans race. falcon2081 also ran in the GT3 car doing the last stint for the team.

RSR #66, with Bassetts and Corbs at the helm, started off in the 4th split and were running well. An unfortunate contact, early in the race, put them back into the pits for repairs. Although whilst down on overall speed, the team was still able to continue. They were able to run clean laps for most of the race until about 3 hours to go when they, unfortunately, had some disconnect issues resulting in their car being returned to the pits and losing valuable time and laps to the GTE leaders. This brought them down from 7th place to 9th place overall. It was a great run by our sole RSR entry and had they not had those issues they could have easily finished in the top 5 overall in class. Congratulations to the both of them for putting on a good show and representing RSR.

Over on the Geodesic front, falcon2081 and Bryan Sutton started in the 2nd split in the Geo White Ferrari just outside the top 10 in 11th place. Drawing from his experience, it was decided that falcon2081 would start the race, a decision that saw falcon2081 able to stick with the top 10 runners, whilst also making passes. Unfortunately, the car was hit on the back straight, resulting in an unscheduled pit-stop costing 2 laps and 5 places, down to 13th. With a tough task ahead, both drivers put some sizzling laps in, clawing their way back up to 3rd place. Unbeknownst to them, their early pit stop ended up working in their favor as they had to take considerably less fuel than the 4th place team in class overall. After some fuel saving laps, the pair brought the Geodesic Racing White home in third place in class and 12th place overall. Congratulations to both drivers for an excellent race, demonstrating a masterclass in blazing fast consistency and excellent strategic skills to get on the podium.

In this split we also had Geodesic Racing Black GT3 and they did a great job to finish 5th place in class. Thankfully, they mostly enjoyed a trouble-free race! For the second running of the Petite LeMans race, Geo Black GT3 was run again, with ramiboo and falcon2081 taking over, near the end, to finish out the race. Geo Black enjoyed an easier race as well, aside from a couple of minor contacts with other cars that resulted in a very slight offset to the steering wheel. This did not affect the car, however, and allowed the team to push right up to the very end and attain another third place podium. Overall Geodesic Racing enjoyed two third place podiums and a top 5. Congrats to both RSR and Geodesic for a great performance in Petite LeMans.


Bathurst 1000
Moving onto our last endurance race of the year, we headed Down Under for the Bathurst 1000, in the V8 SuperCars. This was a very hard race as the V8 Holden SuperCar is not easy to drive at all and requires a different mentality to drive fast when compared to say a GT3 car. RSR and Geodesic would team up again with RSR's veteran driver falcon2081 and Geodesic's Marino Reyes tackling the challenge of driving this monstrosity around Mount Panorama Bathurst.

The team managed to qualify in 9th place and were also in the top split, against some very good drivers. Both drivers knew that all they had to do to reach the end of the race was survive and not push too hard. With falcon2081 starting the race yet again, he would carefully start picking his way up the field until they were finally inside the Top 5. They would then battle with 5th place for the entirety of the race and it was with an only careful pit strategy that they were able to come out on top and grab 4th place in the top split. It was a great run overall and showcasing the talents of both drivers, in not only conquering Bathurst but also taming the formidable V8 SuperCar with only a week's worth of practice.

With these last two endurance events over we now close the 2017 season! It was a great season, bringing with it both highs and lows and hopefully, next year, we can do even better and improve upon what we have accomplished so far.



Member of the Month
[parsehtml]<p><img class="right" src="/our_members/stolnikas/stolnikas - page - 222x222.jpg">[/parsehtml]
"stolnikas has been a member of RSR for quite some time now, being our prized, sole member from Lithuania. Always up for a clean, fair battle, he has improved his pace dramatically of late, putting himself in reach of the RSR aliens."

[parsehtml]<hr><br>[/parsehtml]
Username: stolnikas
Real Name: Tomas Šeirys
Country of Residence: Lithuania
Date of Birth: 24 February 1987
Occupation: IT Engineer
Daily Drive: 2001 BMW 520i

Read more here!



Video of the Month
The ratings are in, the verdict unanimous. The rhythm of racing’s heartbeat belongs to Project CARS 2. Competition is fun. Winning is better.




Promotions
We have a good crop of drivers moving from Applicant to Probation status and from Probation to Full Member status. The promoted drivers are:


October was a blast, time for November fireworks!
 

Cluck

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Another excellent read, especially the round up from the various races people have been doing :)
 

Cornworld

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Good newsletter l, can't wait to be part of these kinds of events. Big congrats to all the promoted newbies and full members.
 

Jamesl91

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great read, so much going on in October! congrats to @stolnikas for member of the month!!
 

Diluvian

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Cool, a summary! :) Really a nice feature here ;)

And thank you for the
promotion :cool:
 

Eugene Flerko

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Thank you for promotion! :)

 

daniel v

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What a great read! It alwasy awesome to see the summary of the month you guys are doing great! Congrats to the new promotions and to @stolnikas on member of the month.
 

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