ACC Endurance Series Round 8 @ Spa - Mon 20th March 2023

Honestly I struggle to take 1 decent screenshot in ACC, those are pretty awesome shots Oliver

The qualifier couldn’t have gone better, the setup I used for it was mega twitchy so it was a risk considering low fuel on my race setup was around 3 tenths in it. Although I couldn’t nail the qualifying to get the time I knew I could, probably like most I suspect.

For the race I just wanted to be first to the top of Raidillon and try hold it from there. I knew I couldn’t make a mistake with Chris right behind me but I just kept running as fast as I could

The pit was a worry, as probably Oliver seen I just kept hitting the pit entry wall in practice. I decided to use the 3 seconds I gained from Chris to take the pit stop slower on entry (still fearing the wall). I was glad to come out with still a bit of time though!

I spectated the battle between Chris and Andrew in the closing laps, lot of side by side action, it looked awesome

RicardoJorge92 said:

I believe those are the final results. We are tied for points.
Given he has a win and I don't, I think I belong behind him in the standings.
Looks like a case of good guy Will trying to remain impartial, like Andrew said.

I'm happy either way. Stoked with such a strong result on my first go at this!

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Yea final points, I just let my spreadsheet churn the results out. It’s probably an idea to add a secondary filter so that it takes in to account the Wins column as well. But to be honest I only just added that column in last week hehe

Points are points though!

Grats to Chris for the series win and cheers for setting this up for us it was awesome. Amazing how fast 8 weeks goes in!

Congratulations Chris on the championship win! And Andrew and Ricardo for top three finish !
Will drove a blinding race! I saw his pace during practice and knew he would do extremely well in the race, tbh looking at the qualifying times for the race… the first half a dozen rows were so close, you guys here are so consistent.

So firstly I want to thank the entire drivers list for the welcome into the series (my first for RD) as a newcomer it can be daunting but wow I don’t think a better group of drivers exist, enjoyed every moment racing with you all, thank you for your patience with the Red Plates as we gain our experience, to be on track with you guys is inspiring and encourages me to push that bit more.

Special thanks to Chris for the amazing series and opportunity to race here (you’ve earned a good rest fellah!)
Will and Johann for the admin work, Chris and Will and Oliver for the practice session pace setting exercises, and Oliver thank you so much for the help and guidance with the Aston set up help! A massive help. Amazing screenshots too Oliver, definitely keeping all the shots as a reminder of the series.

I will miss the races, my usual week was Tuesday off and no cars lol, then Wednesday back at it and get to work getting the car ready for the following Monday’s race. But I will be practicing hard on the tracks that we raced in the series to better my times.

My Race… happier with my Quali, by that I mean my performance on the actual lap not my time, previously I over tried and it showed, while I was practicing with Will I managed to get into the high .23’s, so I focused on this style and mindset and managed my grid time within three laps.
Race started well, safe and sound through Eau Rouge and was pleased to see everyone through ok too, I dropped a place on the first lap, but was on the same pace as the 25 Porsche and 1 BMW for a while, was focused on keeping the gap short as poss, gained a space I believe as the Porsche had a mistake and then found myself pacing near on the same as the 1 BMW and sometimes even on his bumper, it was great to have a target car to chase for a while, unfortunately a mistake from me allowed the Porsche past and after a few laps I couldn’t recover the gap they had made, so I focused on finishing and my pit stop which was my smoothest yet. I also got my fastest lap on Spa as I got into the low .23’s. So all in all it was another successful race regarding experience and strategy.

I will miss seeing you all and look forward to the next time we are all on the grid together!

ps: on Friday before the race I received a nice letter from Essex Police stating that I had been snapped doing 36mph in a 30mph zone ? So erm you see guys I really am trying to get faster! Hahahahaha I’m hoping for a drive through penalty from them? Here’s hoping.

See you all soon ! Peace

Not as long a side by side as Andrew and Chris, but close enough to share!
Made my mistakes that brought André close to me not so painful.

Awesome racing @Nascentes!

RicardoJorge92 said:

Not as long a side by side as Andrew and Chris, but close enough to share!
Made my mistakes that brought André close to me not so painful.

Awesome racing @Nascentes!

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That looked excellent

akephoe said:

View attachment 648965 View attachment 648966

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You just became the official photographer

Thinking ahead to the spa 2.4 then, should we do it on a Friday or Saturday evening with a slightly earlier kick off? Running it on a Monday at the usual time won't really work. Maybe a Saturday afternoon or something? Obviously it's hard to get a time that works for all.

Yea, any day at the weekend. Just need notice and its easy for me to sort it out at my end

SwannyUK said:

Thinking ahead to the spa 2.4 then, should we do it on a Friday or Saturday evening with a slightly earlier kick off? Running it on a Monday at the usual time won't really work. Maybe a Saturday afternoon or something? Obviously it's hard to get a time that works for all.

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My free days are Sunday and Monday, Saturday evenings would work after 7pm, if the race is scheduled out of these times I will do my best to enter.

Jay Clarke 66 said:

My free days are Sunday and Monday, Saturday evenings would work after 7pm, if the race is scheduled out of these times I will do my best to enter.

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Maybe a Saturday evening with race start at 7:45pm so should finish not later than 10:15pm

I really enjoyed this season at RD, even if I started it late. I used to race here with the Raceroom community, which was great too. I left because they started to race very early which is not possible for me. This community strats qualy at 8.30pm, its not perfect but I managed to convince my wife to do dinner early on mondays, but I don't know how long it will last. You know how women are don't you? So if you could start qualify at 8.45pm and race at 9pm would be nice for me and I believe for all the other southern european members. So think about it. I know it should be a compromise between all european countries, but have a think about it anyway.

Racing wise I really loved it, fast drivers here but most important clean racing.

Congratulations to the podium, all drivers, and organizers.

To @akephoe don't worry about it, I really liked the fight on last laps.

Race report !

It was a "good" quali for me. Got the 10th place with 2:19:867 ( first time for me under 2:20 on SPA ) so I really couldn't do better !

@SwannyUK just before the start you mentionned us to be careful to not start the race with used tyres, which I did I saw your message on the chat just when the countdown was over so I started the race with my practice tyres (I did 6 or 7 "strong" laps with them so they were not in a good health) Lost one position before the end of first lap but I was doing pretty well in the traffic and didn't touch anybody. Then I gained positions until lap 6 , where I was 7th (2 or 3 racers crashed and I overtook one) and I decided to pit because used tyres already started to feel bad of course

After my pitstop (which was pretty clean) I was 14th, but had a really good pace as new tyres are better than practice-used tyres and when everybody pitted (lap 13-14) I went up to 7th At the moment I was happy with my race as it was the first one where I didn't make any mistake (except for the tyres but it went pretty well even with this) but then, in lap 17, I spun because of too much throttle in a turn exit No damage but @CarlosB who was on my bumper (and gaining time on me) since his pit exit 4 laps ago overtook me, and @akephoe who wasn't far too.

Then I stayed 9th until the end, racing all by myself during 8 laps

Pretty happy with my race tho, but a bit disapointed by my spin... even tho I sincerly think that Carlos and Oliver would have overtook me anyway during the 8 last laps as they were going faster than me

To conclude : Thank you everyone for this Series Thank you @SwannyUK for making all of this possible, thank you @Trox for the drivers standings ( and for helping me several times with racing lines and other thing on tracks that I didn't know, much apreciated dude ) , thank you @bobbyD_ for the liveries work, and thank you everyone else for driving fair and being really cool It was my first experience online in SimRacing in a little "Championship" like this and it was awesome ! Can't wait to attend another one like this and to race again with all of you guys

CHEERS !

For a 2.4 hours event the weekend is better i think.
I can manage every day as far as i know it early. (don't take the last saturday in april please, i will try to be in spa for the WEC event)
If its friday maybe you can talk to the RF2 event manager Ole that the event don't clash with the friday rf2 race.
Otherwise a start on sunday around 7-8PM CET would be nice.

SwannyUK said:

Maybe a Saturday evening with race start at 7:45pm so should finish not later than 10:15pm

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For me evening times are fine, but of course arrange the race around the majority. Really hope there can be a time everyone can make, as the Spa race was fantastic.

SwannyUK said:

Thinking ahead to the spa 2.4 then, should we do it on a Friday or Saturday evening with a slightly earlier kick off? Running it on a Monday at the usual time won't really work. Maybe a Saturday afternoon or something? Obviously it's hard to get a time that works for all.

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What are the details of this kind of event ? I'm not aware of it

McFlunch said:

What are the details of this kind of event ? I'm not aware of it

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Solo event at Spa lasting 2 hours 24 minutes.

sebastalona said:

Solo event at Spa lasting 2 hours 24 minutes.

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Say no more I'm in

When would it be ?

SwannyUK said:

Thinking ahead to the spa 2.4 then, should we do it on a Friday or Saturday evening with a slightly earlier kick off? Running it on a Monday at the usual time won't really work. Maybe a Saturday afternoon or something? Obviously it's hard to get a time that works for all.

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For me Mo-Fr would be a better but I will try to drive on Saturday too. It depends on priorization and its most likely not deadly if no wife is involved.

Ok, I'll have a look at some dates and times. I'll also see if we can actually set 2hrs 24 in game.