SSZ: iRacing IMSA Open Series Championship Update #1

Hello, and welcome back to another edition of Steve’s Simracing Zone! Today will be the first update of my season campaign in iRacing’s IMSA Open Series Championship. Before we dive in, I just wanted to give another thank you to the Simcast crew over on Radio Le Mans for graciously hosting me for another episode. You can listen to it here or wherever you get your podcasts!

As a bit of context; I am ultimately planning to get up into the GTP class with the Porsche 963. I already own the car and am eligible to drive it, however I wanted to get my fundamentals down first, so I’m not in over my head.

When I built my new rig over Christmas and started getting back into iRacing in January, I had this goal in mind, so I started in LMP3. I did about a season of part-time driving that, then another season of part-time driving the LMP2. Season 3 of 2024 was the first time I decided to go for a full season dedicated to a single car and series. I finished T55 in all divisions and P19 in division 2 (my iRating group) out of 4300 and 1200 drivers respectively.

This season (S4) will hopefully be my last full season of LMP2 before I move over to GTP for 2025 S1. So far, it’s been going very well.

First week was Indianapolis road course, as the iRacing 6hr of Indy is held the same week, so it was great prep for that (see my recap post for how that went). First race was very scrappy – I qualified on Pole in my split but unfortunately had some rotten luck with netcode and some other drivers making contact with me. I ended up 7th with the fastest lap after having to serve a drive-thru.

Second race was much, much better – qualified 2nd and finished P1 with fastest lap. I passed the pole sitter half way thru the first lap, and led every lap after. This was 137 championship points in the bag and a great start to the season.

I did a 3rd race, this time made top split but qualified 6th and finished 6th. I didn’t get more points than my middle split win, so that second race will be the one that counts towards my season standings.

This past week was Fuji in the wet. I am generally phenomenal in the rain relative to my iRating would suggest, so I felt really good for this week.

My first race went about as good as it possibly could have been. I qualified P2 in top split (1s off the lead) so thought a podium would be a great result before the green flag dropped.

I grabbed the lead immediately after the pole sitter sailed off into the run-off at the first corner. I knew there were a few drivers behind me that were quicker on pace than me, but I still chose to do some semi-aggressive fuel saving to try to make the race without needing to stop. I didn’t quite make it, but had to pit 3 or 4 laps from the end with a splash and dash. I finished P1 with the second fastest lap (on which I was fuel saving). Another 137pts in the bag for the championship. This was also my very first IMSA open series top split victory!

I did another race later in the week, but it didn’t go as well. I qualified P6 on a moist track condition (was drier than the previous race, but still wet tire conditions). I mistakenly tried to fuel save again, not realizing until after the race that it wasn’t remotely possible to make it on pace without stopping. I had a clean race but I lost too much time trying to fuel-save and should have focused on optimizing my lap times, and so even though I only took a slightly larger splash and dash, I ended up 6th.

My first race will still be the one that counts, but it was as good lesson for me to learn about when to fuel save and when not to.

Next week is my home track of Mosport. Rumour is that it is going to be rainy again, but we’ll see how that ends up. I also have a special livery in the works for this week, so I hope it goes well with that livery!

Here are my full season stats below (As of Sep/22/2024 9pm EST (end of Week 2 of 13):

• Total Races: 5
• Poles: 1
• Wins: 2
• Top 5’s: 2
• Podiums: 2
• Championship Points: 274
• Championship Position Overall: 26
• Championship Position Division 2: 3

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