Doodleco Motorsports has initiated talks today which may lead to the expansion of the team. After creating a close connection with TORA team CRA over the past week, it is hoped that Doodleco Motorsports will be able to link with CRA to create, CRA Doodleco Motorsports.
The team made the decision to pursue this move to try and bring in the experience, ability and general knowledge that CRA currently holds.
Thursday, 20 September 2012
Monday, 17 September 2012
Post Race Report - TORA Britcar 24hrs
This weekend was the first time a driver from Doodleco Motorsport has competed in a professional online race. Normally a new driver would be start off in the little leagues with short sprint races in club class cars but Tango Wh1skey (Gamer Tag) was given the chance to jump straight in with Team CRA Shell V-Power as they raced for 24hrs at Silverstone, the annual TORA Britcar 24hrs.
Q. How did the race go overall?
A. Generally it went pretty well. We sent our fastest driver out first who had a good scrap with the LMR Porsche but it became clear later on that we wouldn't be in the running for a win. As chance would have it a couple of cars dropped out, including the LMR Porsche which promoted us up the field a bit more but I would say our strength came from the fact that we had issues at all, allowing us to keep racking up the miles.
Q. Tell us about your stints in the car.
A. I was in the car twice during the race, the first stint being from 6pm to 10pm and the second from 10am to 12noon on the Sunday. As soon as I went out on track I found out how good the other drivers were, putting a considerable distance between them and me. After the first 10mins I found a rhythm that suited me and apart from when I encountered traffic from the clubman class I generally kept it steady. As night settled in I found a few difficulties which are common to endurance racing. At around 9.15pm I made a mistake at Stow which probably cost me around 15 or 20 seconds. Coming into the corner I lost focus and completely missed the braking point sending me straight on. A little later on the similar problem at Maggots when I simply forgot to brake, probably not a good idea when you look back at it! Apart from that the race of my race went well, slow but smooth.
Q. What are your thoughts about the result?
A. We finished 7th overall, probably could’ve had 6th but we were taken with a couple of hours to go, unfortunately during my final stint. I haven’t yet had a proper chat with the team but I’m pretty pleased by our performance.
Q. What about the other CRA cars?
A. We were running three cars this weekend, one in each class. I was driving the CRA Shell V-Power Jaguar XKR-GT in the TGT class. The PGT car was the CRA Koyo team, running in the Porsche Cayman. The Cayman managed to scramble 6th in class after a problem in the early stages forced them to lose the best part of 1hr 40mins. Our third car was the Ford Sierra, running in the Clubman class. Perhaps our best performance over the weekend with no issues and plenty of pace, the CRA Red Bull guys finished on the class podium in 3rd.
Q. Anything else?
A. That’s probably about it, I thoroughly enjoyed the race and pass on my congratulations to the overall winners at F4H as well as all those involved. Also a big thanks to those who made the event possible; TORA Staff, lobby hosts, commentators and of course CRA for giving me this opportunity.
Q. With the race over, what happens next?
A. Well the race finished around 20hrs ago, my arms are recovering so I guess it’s time to focus on the next race. Doodleco Motorsports will be looking at preparing an entry for the Nurburgring 8hrs in December so we better get to work!
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| Team CRA Shell V-Power (left) lapping the CRA Red Bull car (right). |
A. Generally it went pretty well. We sent our fastest driver out first who had a good scrap with the LMR Porsche but it became clear later on that we wouldn't be in the running for a win. As chance would have it a couple of cars dropped out, including the LMR Porsche which promoted us up the field a bit more but I would say our strength came from the fact that we had issues at all, allowing us to keep racking up the miles.
Q. Tell us about your stints in the car.
A. I was in the car twice during the race, the first stint being from 6pm to 10pm and the second from 10am to 12noon on the Sunday. As soon as I went out on track I found out how good the other drivers were, putting a considerable distance between them and me. After the first 10mins I found a rhythm that suited me and apart from when I encountered traffic from the clubman class I generally kept it steady. As night settled in I found a few difficulties which are common to endurance racing. At around 9.15pm I made a mistake at Stow which probably cost me around 15 or 20 seconds. Coming into the corner I lost focus and completely missed the braking point sending me straight on. A little later on the similar problem at Maggots when I simply forgot to brake, probably not a good idea when you look back at it! Apart from that the race of my race went well, slow but smooth.
Q. What are your thoughts about the result?
A. We finished 7th overall, probably could’ve had 6th but we were taken with a couple of hours to go, unfortunately during my final stint. I haven’t yet had a proper chat with the team but I’m pretty pleased by our performance.
Q. What about the other CRA cars?
A. We were running three cars this weekend, one in each class. I was driving the CRA Shell V-Power Jaguar XKR-GT in the TGT class. The PGT car was the CRA Koyo team, running in the Porsche Cayman. The Cayman managed to scramble 6th in class after a problem in the early stages forced them to lose the best part of 1hr 40mins. Our third car was the Ford Sierra, running in the Clubman class. Perhaps our best performance over the weekend with no issues and plenty of pace, the CRA Red Bull guys finished on the class podium in 3rd.
Q. Anything else?
A. That’s probably about it, I thoroughly enjoyed the race and pass on my congratulations to the overall winners at F4H as well as all those involved. Also a big thanks to those who made the event possible; TORA Staff, lobby hosts, commentators and of course CRA for giving me this opportunity.
Q. With the race over, what happens next?
A. Well the race finished around 20hrs ago, my arms are recovering so I guess it’s time to focus on the next race. Doodleco Motorsports will be looking at preparing an entry for the Nurburgring 8hrs in December so we better get to work!
Thursday, 13 September 2012
TORA
Whilst further driver training has put Le Mans on hold, Doodleco Motorsports has become an official member of The Online Racing Association (TORA).
Although the team is yet to enter a race, it is exporling options to prepare for the TORA Endurance championship in 2013.
While the team starts working on a car, one of our drivers will be given the chance to join another team this weekend for the Britcar 24hrs at Silverstone. CRA Shell V-Power, who will be competing in a Jaguar XKR-GT, has put forward the offer of a seat after a problem occured causing one of their drivers to drop out for this race.
Doodleco Motorsports is very excited about this turn of events as it will help build up future contacts as well as provide a great deal of experience which will go a long way to putting together a plan for the 2013 season.
The TORA Britcar 24hrs will start at 1400 on Saturday 15th of September.
Friday, 24 August 2012
Break Time is Over
Well, summer is drawing to a close and so it's time to get back to work. Over the holiday the team has been looking at a few possible directions to go down in the future.
Potentially, the most interesting event that Doodleco has investigated is the annual 24hrs of Le Mans held on a Local Area Network (LAN) in Denmark. This race has seen a lot of interest as it simulates the full race and all of it's thrills including multi class online racing, live timing, race control, safety cars and a trophy at the end. Ultimatly, this is a key goal for the team and the single player version that we are currently working on is a taster of such action.
At the same time, Doodleco is looking to expand into other racing series and we believe that this will be made possible on Forza 4 with the help of The Online Racing Association (TORA). TORA is an organising body for a number of online championships and special events such as MSA GT Championship, Touring Cars, Le Mans (featuring the 24hrs of Le Mans and the 12hrs of Sebring) and coming soon is the Britcar 24hrs at Silverstone.
Both of these options will be a huge challenge as we are aware of the time and effort many current drivers have already put in. With this in mind, the team will start planning for such competition and is due to make a formal entry into one of these TORA events over the course of next year.
Monday, 23 July 2012
New Equipment and a Downgraded Car
After multiple team meetings there have been a number of interesting developments.
Firstly, the team will be using a brand new PC which should have the graphics power and memory to cope with 24hrs of racing. This also gives us the ability to use a larger TV screen which can be positioned directly in front of the driver.
Another decision, and one which may puzzle a lot of people. After putting in laps of 3min 30sec, the team has elected to try and reduce the performance of the car. This decision has been made following a practise session in which the Doodleco LMP2 Lola was beating LMP1 cars and with some setup work we wouldn't be far off from finishing on the overall podium.
For a real team, this would be a dream come true however it was discovered that the car being used by Doodleco is in fact set to LMP1 specification. This supports our decision to scrap the current data and start fresh by decreasing the performance of the car. The goal is to achieve a fastest lap no faster than 3:35, a time which is still too quick for an LMP2 but much better than potentially lapping 3:25 and winning the race.
Discussions on this topic bounced back and forth with a variety of ideas. The first was to leave the car alone and upgrade the team to LMP1, allowing us to go for the overall win. Another idea was to reformat the race completely and run LMP1 and 2 as a single LMP class. Finally though, it was decided that we wanted to keep things realistic by driving in LMP2 and our focus is to win the class before looking at a future in LMP1.
After all this, it's time to go back to the drawing board and test track.
Firstly, the team will be using a brand new PC which should have the graphics power and memory to cope with 24hrs of racing. This also gives us the ability to use a larger TV screen which can be positioned directly in front of the driver.
Another decision, and one which may puzzle a lot of people. After putting in laps of 3min 30sec, the team has elected to try and reduce the performance of the car. This decision has been made following a practise session in which the Doodleco LMP2 Lola was beating LMP1 cars and with some setup work we wouldn't be far off from finishing on the overall podium.
For a real team, this would be a dream come true however it was discovered that the car being used by Doodleco is in fact set to LMP1 specification. This supports our decision to scrap the current data and start fresh by decreasing the performance of the car. The goal is to achieve a fastest lap no faster than 3:35, a time which is still too quick for an LMP2 but much better than potentially lapping 3:25 and winning the race.
Discussions on this topic bounced back and forth with a variety of ideas. The first was to leave the car alone and upgrade the team to LMP1, allowing us to go for the overall win. Another idea was to reformat the race completely and run LMP1 and 2 as a single LMP class. Finally though, it was decided that we wanted to keep things realistic by driving in LMP2 and our focus is to win the class before looking at a future in LMP1.
After all this, it's time to go back to the drawing board and test track.
Monday, 16 July 2012
Post Test Statement
Two weeks ago, the team's leading driver took part in two 3 hour long practise sessions.
We started the first session at 1400 and generally it was pretty smooth. Lap times were consistently around the 3:30 area and there was only a slight mistake caused by trying to run the tyres a little longer than was planned, all things which will ironed out ready for the race.
After the session we looked at the condition of the driver and conclude that he could easily complete a fourth hour.
To simulate the conditions of Le Mans, we waited 6 hours before starting the second session at 2100. Like before, we wanted to see how the driver performed during his second driver shift. The darkness was not really an issue and for the first half of the session everything was as smooth as before. After an hour and a half the driver started to report some level of fatigue, mainly mental. Concentration slipped slightly approaching two hours and a mistake was made at the Forza Chicane after the driver missed his braking point forcing him to quickly divert through the gaps in the tyre walls covering the main road.
After the 2 hour mark, the driver was starting to feel pain in his arms and general tiredness was setting in. Another error at Mulsanne damage the front of the car and repairs were required. Finally the session was completed and it was clear that our strategy of having a 4 hour stint through the middle of the night would be out of the question, at least for now.
The plan is now to correct some of the errors that were made, improve general fitness and practise three hour shifts until they become easy. Then, perhaps we may come back to the idea of having one driver in the car from midnight to 4am.
We started the first session at 1400 and generally it was pretty smooth. Lap times were consistently around the 3:30 area and there was only a slight mistake caused by trying to run the tyres a little longer than was planned, all things which will ironed out ready for the race.
After the session we looked at the condition of the driver and conclude that he could easily complete a fourth hour.
To simulate the conditions of Le Mans, we waited 6 hours before starting the second session at 2100. Like before, we wanted to see how the driver performed during his second driver shift. The darkness was not really an issue and for the first half of the session everything was as smooth as before. After an hour and a half the driver started to report some level of fatigue, mainly mental. Concentration slipped slightly approaching two hours and a mistake was made at the Forza Chicane after the driver missed his braking point forcing him to quickly divert through the gaps in the tyre walls covering the main road.
After the 2 hour mark, the driver was starting to feel pain in his arms and general tiredness was setting in. Another error at Mulsanne damage the front of the car and repairs were required. Finally the session was completed and it was clear that our strategy of having a 4 hour stint through the middle of the night would be out of the question, at least for now.
The plan is now to correct some of the errors that were made, improve general fitness and practise three hour shifts until they become easy. Then, perhaps we may come back to the idea of having one driver in the car from midnight to 4am.
Friday, 6 July 2012
Pit Strategy Practice
This weekend is going to be busy. The team has started discussing strategy and the big question marks lie over tyre wear and driver fatigue. Testing shows that there is the chance to triple stint a set of tyres however there are problems with the rear set so more work will need to be done.
None of the drivers have ever raced for longer than 3hrs and only one has raced in the dark for a considerable amount of time. Initial thoughts are to try and keep two of the drivers in as much daylight as possible. One driver will be in the car leading up to midnight, from there the plan is to use the most experienced driver for 4 stints.
Because this is unknown territory, a non-stop test session will be run on Saturday for 3hrs. From there the team can look at the option for a 4th hour with a single driver. This test will prove useful at gathering data for different pit strategies and hopefully give us a better insight to how long a driver can stay out on track without making a mistake.
None of the drivers have ever raced for longer than 3hrs and only one has raced in the dark for a considerable amount of time. Initial thoughts are to try and keep two of the drivers in as much daylight as possible. One driver will be in the car leading up to midnight, from there the plan is to use the most experienced driver for 4 stints.
Because this is unknown territory, a non-stop test session will be run on Saturday for 3hrs. From there the team can look at the option for a 4th hour with a single driver. This test will prove useful at gathering data for different pit strategies and hopefully give us a better insight to how long a driver can stay out on track without making a mistake.
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