Battle in the Pacific

by Patrick Atherton on June 28th, 2011

Okayama International in Japan was the host venue for Round Eight of the iRacing V8 Supercar Series. Things have been getting a little keen in this immensely popular Aussie series, with no shortage of biff at Zandvoort the previous week.

Okayama was formerly named Aida, and hosted the “Pacific Grand Prix” in the early 1990′s. The ’94 event was noteworthy for being the penultimate Grand Prix for the late Ayrton Senna, before his tragic death at Imola. The Brazilian great didn’t make it past the first corner thanks to Mika Hakkinen.

In any case, the track has probably never seen as much action, in the virtual world at least, since it was added to iRacing’s expanding supply of world-class laser scanned tracks, in Season One.

“My strategy was just to drive at my limit and no harder” – Madison Down

Lonely and victorious- Down on his winning way

Madison Down continued his dominance in qualifying by snaring pole from his regular shadow of late, the Netherlands’ Rens Broekman. Round Eight also saw the return of XSG’s Michael McCabe, who secured third grid spot. Relative newbies to Split One were Paul Larkin and Mick Claridge, both only a few tenths down on the polesitter in fourth and fifth respectively.

The usual suspects of Dylan Gulson, Simon Black, Simone Gelli, George Fullerton and Craig Woodhouse filled out the top ten.Once again it was a packed field of 24.

Up front it was green-light business as usual with Down taking the lead after a clean start from Broekman and McCabe. Down didn’t look back. “My strategy was just to drive at my limit and no harder, this seemed to be the same speed that Rens was going so I was praying that his tyres would go off.” Eventually this paid off.

Larkin and Claridge argued over fourth for a few corners, Claridge  eventually prevailing as Larkin struggled with too much wheelspin off the line.

Ten pin bowling- iRacing style!

Further back, all hell broke loose. From the rear of grid, Mitchell Boulton had missed his braking point into Turn One and went diving into a wedge-shaped gap between Andrew Wauchope and the grass. This speared Wauchope into an unsuspecting Vern Norrgard. A few metres ahead, Stuart Wood had locked up after running into the back of Darrin Vouch, and Wood’s half-spin was turned into a full one by Boulton’s out-of-control Falcon. Wood then backed into Christopher Larmour, who had tried everything to stay out of the way.

Wood and Larmour extricated themselves from gravel while the rest continued, with various bits of virtual damage.

Despite the sponsor's claim, Booth wasn't so nonchalant about this incident. Off screen, Gelli is buried deep in the sandpit.

Moments later into the downhill Atwood Curve, Sebastian Hutchinson tagged Gelli into a spin, the ensuing carnage sending Hutchinson’s MEH Racing teammate Michael Booth backwards mid-corner, where he had the pleasure of watching the tail end of the field bear down on him.

Up front it was Down, Broekman, McCabe, Claridge, Latkin, BLack, Gulson, Woodhouse, Fullerton, Harris and Vouch.

The top three spread slightly, although Claridge did not let McCabe out of his sight. At the end of Lap Two, Vouch tried a pass on Harris around the outside of the fast penultimate corner, but wasn’t clear, and the contact sent them both sand-trap bound and out of top ten contention. “Not my finest hour” said Vouch later.”I really should’ve given him a bit more room”. Gulson shadowed Black intensely for sixth place, until on Lap 13 he outbraked Black into the hairpin at the end of the back straight.

By that time, Down was leading serenely, but Broekman had McCabe aplying the blowtorch, having closed the gap while lapping Michael Booth. Meanwhile, Guy Leach was putting on a storming drive from 19th grid, up to tenth by lap 15. Avoiding the first lap frivolities had certainly helped.

Black, Fullerton and Woodhouse spar- up for seventh, eighth and ninth.

In the closing laps, Black-Fullerton-Woodhouse were nose to tail for seventh-eighth-ninth but, as with McCabe on Broekman for second place, none could make the pass. Woodhouse was doing a good job in his first season in the “main game”, keeping the tyres fresh to mount a late-race challenge: “I did a few setup changes overnight which went in the right direction.” Likewise Fullerton enjoyed the challenge. “I could see a bit of sideways happening on worn out tyres.. but my own were pretty much all used up as well…”

McCabe didn’t let the laps wind down without some excitement, having a lunge at Broekman into Turn Eight on the last lap, the resulting contact causing them some synchronised spinning. It was “no harm no foul”, both continuing as before. McCabe owned up, calling it a “brain fart”, either a typo or the invention of an interesting new term.

And so it ended, Down winning from a bit of daylight, then Broekman, McCabe, Claridge, Larkin, Gulson, Black, Fullerton, Woodhouse and Guy Leach. Outside the top ten were Hutchinson, Norrgard, Lock, Harris, Gelli, Larmour and Matthew Probert on the lead lap. Over a lap down were Wauchope, Booth, Wood, Sobolewski and Vouch who had suffered another inglorious braking episode on lap 12.

The troops roll on to Road Atlanta for Week Nine, all a little battle-wearied. With the exception of Madison, Down, who has an extra spring in his step.