SSZ: iRacing IMSA Open Series Update No.10

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 Road America. This is a track where I haven’t really competed on a whole lot apart from in the Super Formula Lights series, so I wasn’t sure what to expect going into it.

While practicing, it took me a couple of days to get settled in the car. It’s been one of those weeks like last week, where it’s a technical track and it’s been hard to put a complete lap together. I got some tips from an old teammate who’s now on the Moradness M-Squad, and I finally felt comfortable enough for my first race.

It didn’t get off to a great start to the event, qualifying 4th with a 1:50.9. My theoretical best is a 1:50.0 and I’ve done that lap time almost in practice with high fuel, so there was plenty of time on the table. Nonetheless, it was a decently high SoF (~3400) and a full grid, so lots of points on the table.

The race started not too bad, I got into 3rd quickly based on a mistake ahead, and then started making a gap to 4th place. I initially stayed within 2s of the leader but had a couple of messy corners and lost the draft. The race at the point was a hot lapping session. I ended up 3rd with the 2nd fastest lap (0.3s off the leader), and brought in 160 points towards the championship! That would put me back into the division 2 lead, so it was exactly what I needed.

It was a good learning experience for the next race. This track is interesting on car setup because the short gear stack is quicker over a lap but you clip 6th gear at the braking zone for turn 1 and Canada corner. I put in the standard gear set thinking I might need it for battles. The guy who won did so with the short gear set and 2nd place was on the standard gear set. So I’m thinking I’ll keep the short gear set for the next race.

That next race I did on Saturday was good in qualifying; I qualified with a 1:50.2, but it pushed my TB down to a 1:49.7. It was a very high SoF (4500) and I qualified 9th of 14. I had a better lap on my 2nd lap, but just kissed the grass on exit of turn 3, but kept it in the lap. I did a dirty 1:50.0, which would have put me 6th.

The race however, was not good. Somebody in front of me tapped a car coming to the green flag, which set off a high crash and I couldn’t avoid. I sat in the pits for 13mins, and completed the rest of the race, but finished 10th, 7 laps down. Other than that, it was a clean race.

I needed to physically take a break, so I didn’t complete any further races this weekend, and I am taking a bit of a mental reset for next week.

Unfortunately, the guy I’m chasing for the division 2 lead had a great race at some point during the week; scoring a 170+ pt round. This unfortunately meant his points total increased as well, and more than mine. The gap now sits at 60 points with two races left. That would mean I have to score 167+ points in those two races.

This coming week in the iRacing IMSA series is at Monza, which is another track I’m not super familiar with in the LMP2, but hopefully I can get some good results!

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

Races Completed:	32
Pole Positions:	4
Class Wins:	5
Class Podiums:	13
Top 5 Finishes:	17
Championship Points:	1350
Championship Position (All Divisions):	14th
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)	Split 1 / P3	160
12 (Monza)
13 (Daytona)

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