SSZ: iRacing IMSA Open Series Update No.9

Hello, and welcome back to another edition of Steve’s SimRacing Zone! Today I’ll be updating my progress once again for the 2024 Season 4 IMSA Open Series Championship in the LMP2 class.

This week we headed to Suzuka, a track I really enjoy (especially the first F1 sector), and turns out, surprisingly good at in an LMP2.

I grabbed a setup off of g61 and tried my handmade setup from S2, but the g61 setup seemed faster although I had to made changes to the balance to get it into my window. With that I was ready to do my first race.

It started really really well; I got pole with a PB, second place I think was .3 or .4s off me, so I was feeling really good. I got off well at the start to keep the lead and kept it for a long time. However, as we caught GT traffic the first time, I passed a GT car coming out of the flat 130R corner. I hugged the inside white line and you could have fit two more cars between us, going into the braking zone for the final chicane.

The GT car suddenly lost control of their car completely on their own with the exit curbs and slammed into me really hard. Unfortunately it was terminal damage to me and I DNF’d. A disappointing result seeing as if I won, it would have been 169 points which would have been exactly what I needed to keep the championship lead. I thought, I might get another chance to get this amount of points, so off to another race.

My 2nd race went better. Although I qualified P2 in damp conditions and finished P2, I had the faster lap in the race and was stuck behind the leader for the beginning 1/3 of the race and didn’t have the best of luck in traffic so I lost ground to them by race’s end. 131 points which is an improvement but not a large one.

3rd race on Sunday at noon after completing the Fuji 8hr the day prior, and I was in an extremely high SoF (4100!) top split. Qualifying was damp, but not damp enough for wet tires, so I went out and tried my best. I was very surprised to have qualified P2 but 1s off pole. I knew it was gonna be hard to keep a podium, but even if I scored 4th or 5th I figured it would still be a good points result.

Unfortunately, I got spun by the guy who ended up in 3rd before we even got to GT traffic for the first time. He tried to pass me on the outside of turn 1 and turned in too early for turn 2 and resulted in him tagging my rear and sending me spinning off into the grass. Thankfully I didn’t hit the wall and carried on. Unfortunately that put me so far back I couldn’t make up any more positions so ended up 8th with 80 points. Had I finished 5th it would have been 140 points, which would have been decently good.

The final race was a disaster all around. I just made the top split (which was an even higher SoF than the previous race at 4700!). I messed up qualifying and started 11th of 13 (might have been good enough for 7th or 8th though). Unfortunately, I was stuck behind a slow guy who was just terrible in the 1st sector, where passing is impossible. I tried a move on the outside going into Degner 1 and they pushed me off track. I caught back up in a lap or two and decided to try to undercut during the pit cycle.

Unfortunately, a GTP car rammed me off the road into Degner 1 and caused enough damage to the rear of my car that it ruined the balance and I would have needed to pit a second time, so I just retired.

It was not a good week on the whole, considering my pace. To say I was frustrated with my luck this week is an understatement. As I suspected, I ended up losing the division 2 lead, I am now 26 points behind them going into the final 3 weeks of the season. Hopefully my luck is better and I can take back the championship lead.

This coming week in the iRacing IMSA series is at Road America. I haven’t raced around here yet in the LMP2, I don’t think. So we’ll have to see how I get on. I only have 3 weeks left to try to claw back the points lead. Hopefully next week I get back all the bad luck I had this past weekend.

Here are my full season stats below (As of Nov/17/2024 8pm EST (end of Week 10 of 13):

Races Completed:	29
Pole Positions:	4
Class Wins:	5
Class Podiums:	12
Top 5 Finishes:	16
Championship Points:	1321
Championship Position (All Divisions):	8th
Championship Position (Division #2):	2nd

Here is the tracker for my counted results from each week (Pos / Points), strikethru indicates drop score (doesn’t count):

Week # (Track)	Split / Position Finished:	Points Awarded:
1 (Indianapolis)	Split 2 / P1	137
2 (Fuji – No Chicane)	Split 1 / P1	137
3 (Mosport)	Split 1 / P2	159
4 (Spa)	Split 1 / P4	144
5 (Zolder – Alt)	Split 1 / P2	142
6 (Road Atlanta)	Split 2 / P1	194
7 (Silverstone)	Split 1 / P3	137
8 (Interlagos)	Split 1 / P2	140
9 (Sebring)	Split 2 / P4	123
10 (Suzuka)	Split 1 / P2	131
11 (Road America)
12 (Monza)
13 (Daytona)

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