Blast Off at The Island

by Patrick Atherton on May 10th, 2011

There was a real buzz of anticipation for the opening salvo of the iRacing V8 Supercar Series’ Season Two at the spiritual home of the V8′s, Phillip Island.

Series champ Mitchell McLeod, Madison Down and Michael McCabe slugged out the closing of Season One with some major heavy hitting. There were cameo appearances from Shay Griffith, Darrin Vouch, George Fullerton, and real-world V8 racers Scott McLaughlin, Shane Van Gisbergen and Scott Andrews among others. The racing became more intense, the series more popular, the skins more professional, and the spectator “corporate box” more packed with enthused punters every time.

As if the promise of Season Two was not tantalising enough, Peter Read joined the fray. Read is well known to many sim racers through his exploits in iRacing and other sims. His experience and setup data has been invaluable to many a sim racer, being one of the youngest ever champions on iRacing. His decision to join the main game had the corporate box drooling.

Qualifying was “insanely close” in Madison Down’s apt words, most of the front runners being in the same session right before the 8.45pm main race. Down, McLeod and Read traded fastest laps in the low 1 min 31′s. Scott Andrews (joining Season One Champ McLeod in Nfinity Esports) and Guy Leach also managed to get into the 31′s. In fact, you had to go all the way down to 17th grid in a packed field of 22 to find anyone struggling to get into the 32′s. Insanely close and insanely fast.

“We’ve waited years for this level of sim-racing…” – George Fullerton

In the end, Down pipped pole with a 31.246 from Read, McLeod, Andrews and Leach. Relative newcomer to split one was Vail Riches in sixth from Darrin Vouch, Troy Cox, Reg Burke and George Fullerton staking his claim to a consistent top-ten running. The talent didn’t end at the top ten, however, with Simon Black in 11th from Jason Spencer, making a welcome return to the V8′s top division in 12th.

Next was Andrew Wauchope, Matt Yeomans, Dylan Guslon, Barry Kennedy, Bigpond’s Vern Norrgard admitting to a little trepidation pre-race, then John Merritt and Nicholas Pratt.

Before the race, series godfather George Fullerton stated, rather prophetically, “We’ve waited years for this level of sim-racing. Competitively speaking these races are awesome, world class stuff…”

At the green light the top three of Down-Read-McLeod took off in formation. Leach managed to jump a blinking Andrews, but Andrews re-took the spot with the mother of all outbraking moves into Honda for the first time. Next came Vail Riches from Trans Tasman’s Troy Cox, who had Fullerton all over him, who in turn was receiving the same attention from Spencer in the sponsor-less white Falcon. Darrin Vouch had a small break from Burke and Black, while Harris in the Seeka Kiwifruit entry was commencing what was to be a race-long duel with Simon Madden. Gulson, Norrgard and Gelli made up the rear as, sadly, many of the tail enders hadn’t made the start.

The field streams through Siberia

Burke had closed in on Vouch, and on Lap Three thrust the InRacing News Falcon up the inside on Lap Three to squeeze into the top ten. Honda hairpin would be the scene of much of the action tonight. He then closed in on Spencer, out-dragging him down the Gardener Straight to claim ninth after Spencer had a huge slide in the final sweeper.

Down and Read had pulled a small gap on series Champ McLeod, who was in turn ahead of teammate Andrews by a margin. In this race, half a second may as well have been a country mile.

On Lap Four the volcano erupted. Down tested the limit of adhesion into Honda, and with the smallest of rear lock-ups, Read was through. “I then just focused on tyre conservation…which I failed at, red mist descended.” said Down. The spectator gallery were glad, the battle was superlative (which is my code for “I’m running out of superlatives”). It was an absolute thriller.

Meanwhile, Burke’s charge had drawn him to the back of Fullerton and he duly dispensed with George at, surprise surprise, Honda hairpin on Lap Nine. His hard charging work came undone as, one lap later in the same place, he scrambled off road under brakes and let Fullerton and Vouch back through.

"When at Turn One, do as the guy in front does..." Burke and Fullerton slide their way through a duel for eighth

Harris and Madden were swapping positions with regularity, on Lap 16 Harris thought he’d finally sealed it into Honda, but it wasn’t to be the last time.

At around the same point in the race, Read had pulled out a “mammoth” lead on Down….of 0.4 seconds. That was as big as it got. By Lap 18 the battle for the lead was revisited, then it simmered, then it sizzled, then it exploded. By lap 20, Read was defending vigourously. “My tyres were mush by Lap Ten…”. Covering the inside into Honda, holding out Down on the run to Siberia, side-by-side through the hayshed, defending furiously with the car on it’s nose into MG, this was the routine lap after lap. It kept the corporate box, and the occasional lapped traffic, on their toes.

Unlike the action just ahead of them, Nfinity Esports' McLeod and Andrews could do little more than enjoy the picturesque view.

A little further back Harris and Madden were still hard at it, closing to the back of Burke. There was action aplenty. Riches was being shadowed by Leach in the “forgotten positions” of fifth and sixth. Even the rear of field was awash as Norrgard and Black battled over the final placings.

“The Red Mist descended…” – Madison Down

Read’s squishy rears notwithstanding, he was positioning the car just right. Down had a lunge into the miniscule gap left by Read into Honda on Lap 21, and thought he had it, only to lose out in the drag race to Siberia.

Finally, that same lap Down took the lead through Lukey Heights, of all places. A big slide from the Target “100% Happy” Falcon left the door wide open, leaving Down 100% happy himself. While all this was going on, McLeod closed the gap slightly but “I killed my tyres trying to catch up…”. Read did not say die, turning a spirited pursuit of Down into an entertaining display of drifting through Turn One, knowing that one slip from Down and he was back in front when it mattered most. But it was not to be.

Down-Read-McLeod were covered by less than five seconds in the end, with Andrews a little way back in fourth. Guy Leach suffered the disaster of running out of fuel on the last lap, so one can hardly accuse him of not running an aggressive enough strategy. This put Riches into that much-coveted “best of the rest” fifth place. Next was Vouch, Fullerton Cox, Burke, Harris, Madden, Spencer, Gelli, Yeomans, Pratt, Leach, Kennedy, Gulson, Norrgard and Black. Merritt and Wauchope were one lap and two laps down respectively, but satisfied to be in this talent-heavy top split.

If this is to be the flavour of Season Two, hold on to your lunch, people.