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Hello to all fellow simracers and readers. Almost a year ago I wrote a blog in my native language (Czech) about my experience and I thought that here is the best place to share that with you all. So if you have some spare time, sit back and enjoy the reading. Here is my story.
Chapter 1
As I hated the czech lessons and basicly every essay I suffered a lot and I believe my teachers were suffering during reading aswell, it is obvious for me to start writting a blog. But recently I have experienced something that is worth sharing with simmilar minded people.
As a boy, I always played with cars and I always bought some car models back then and obviously with PC boom and games, I started to play games such as the first Prince of Persia and Pac-Man but mostly racing games. The very first game I got my little fingers on was "The Cycles" a MotoGP game on my dad's company black/white screen laptop with breathtaking resolution of potato. I still remember that intro music and it is playing in my head now. Skipping few years I played through many Need for Speed titles (not today's arcady sh1t, I think my last was NFS Carbon and even than was awful). The best for me was Underground 2 with that hot brunette on main screen. At that time I bought myself my first wheel with unherad feature..... Force Feedback. It was Saitek R440.
With the wheel, I could start some proper racing, so rFactor, GTR, F1 Challenge 99-02 etc. During this time I learned the most iconic world track and also how the cars behave, what is oversteer/understeer etc. But I can't remember if I ever found that hard to understand and it felt natural to me to know, what the car will do if it is FWD, RWD or AWD. But still, my dream game was Grand Turismo on PS1 which my neighbour had back then and we played sh1t out of that game. But my mom said that when I earn my own money, I can buy PS. She is not gonna buy me one. And so I did! My first proper wage after 1 month of summer job came and I ordered PS2 and GT4 with smug face and controller in my hands playing on 55cm TV, lying on my bed like 2 meters away amazed by the realistic graphic on CRT TV LoL
During university, my laptop wasn't any good for any proper racing game, so I bought Xbox360, Forza Motorsport 3, F1 2010 and also later the MS Xbox wheel. And then I got myself some free month of Xbox live gold, so I tried some online races in F1 2010. I beat them all. So I though maybe there are some leagues out there with people that can race properly. And I found FisiFan91's youtube videos and I was hooked up. So my competitive online racing career started and it was april 2011 I believe. It got downhill after that. I bought myself a proper PC after university which I still play on today and I build it myself so I think I did a good build. Also upgraded to Logitech G25, then exchanged it for T300rs, put triple screens on and this is what I have now. I did many seasons in F1 games (2010 till 2015 I believe) then moved to Project Cars 1 and 2, starting Assetto Corsa league with Noztra at AOR, and then bam, my son was born. So I quit my racing for a year and then Noz contacted me than he is doing DTM league here at RSR. little boy was already sleeping in his bedroom so I could play in the evenings so I joined RSR and this is basicly a brief story.
But the main part starts now. I always had a bug in my head asking me "Man, if you can drive in racing games quite good, could you actually drive race car and be quite good? Will you be able to go fast, go to the limit of the car and if you go over, can you catch a slide, sort out the understeed and this kind of stuff? Or are you just a prick who thinks he is preety good driver?".
Well, I thought I will never answer that question and I will stay at that point "I'm just a preety good driver and if something happens on the road, I have good simracing experience so no problem there"
But one time I started looking on the internet if there is some opportunities to actually try to drive a race car. And I actually found a racing team (RadicalTeam based in Prague) who races in amateur Makpak Endurance championship here in Czech republic that sell their driver spots for complete beginners. You can buy some few laps as a passenger, or as a driver in training session at Brno track or Autodromo Most (the 2nd racetrack in Czech). Few laps or 30mins, or 1h. Or, if you want to you have balls to do that, you can buy 1h (or more)in a endurance race with instructor sitting next to you. So, guess what I did? Yes. I bought 1 hour in amateur endurance race at Autodromo Most track that I don't even know. The car I will drive is BMW E36 325i, with race tyres, race suspension, LSD at the back, stripped out cockpit, so it has around 220BHP and weights around 1000kg. And you don't need any racing licence. It is amaterur cup. The team also have E92 325i aswell for beginners, then BMW 130i but without instructor, and then 3 radicals. And you can race them aswell, if you have the money. Now, you may ask, how does it cost? Well, it is a surprise but not that much considering what you get. 800€ which seems much spending it in 1 hour, but it is actually cheap in my opinion.
So I will finish the first post here, looking forward to your feedback and comments and soon I will create next chapter. See you
---------------------------------------------------------
Chapter 2
When I got place in a race at Most, I wanted to learn the track somehow as I haven!t been to Most and the track is not present in any game which is no surprice. But some bloke made a mod into Assetto Corsa so I loaded it up with E30 M3 and did some practise to be fammiliar with the track.
It is wednesday, going to work with my thoughts elswere. I'm counting down hour after hour untill lunch and funally by noon I'm leaving work and going home. Here it is. The silence before storm feeling. The feeling you usually get before exams, graduations, wedding or birth of your child.
At home everything is ready so only to put all things into the back of the car and start our way to Most some 250km away from my home. The nervosity is gradually increasing and it is also given by the fact that I decided to film a vlog about it all.
We finally got into the hotel and as I will be driving for the first time, I need to be present at begnners meeting at the team!s garage at the circuit at 7PM. So I am leaving the hotel, driving to the track, passing the main gate, driving throught the tunnel which goes under the track and then arriving at the paddock. After some sightseeing and photoes I decided to film first bit of the vlog. Nervous as hell to speak into the mobile. God, why I did that
I go tot he garage number 11 and 12 where the Radicel Team is located for the race weekend. I meet the team boss Martin who is a professional racing driver bud had to stop because of some physical injury. I also met 3 brothers who will be our instructors. The other begginer participants arrive aswell and the team mechanics are working on other cars. Also, other teams are presented at the track so there is a lot to look at. Finally the last beginner arrived so we can start our information breefing.
Instructors are giving us tips on how to drive, what to do, what NOT to do and what never ever ever definitely NOT to do. Also explaining all the flag signalizations, how to behave on the track and that in the car it is very noisy so it can be problematic to understand the info from the instructor so we have to really shout. THen we all aks different questions. I got under the impression that any cheats, like "restart, rewind, save/load,magespeed, griphack, nodamage, back to track" somehow will not work tomorrow
One interesting piece of information was that if you are going into the corner and you are too fast and will go to the gravel trap, straighten your wheels and drive across. If you leave some wheel lock on and then hit the gravel, the front wheels could potentionally dig into the gravel and flip your car over the roof. "And you don't want that". Also they informed us when each driver will drive in the race. It is 6H race and we have 7 drivers (2 of them bought only 40mins, the rest 1h). I will drive in 2nd stint and in my inlap after my stint, I would need to drive to the fuel station to refuell the car for other 2 hours of racing. That is cool. I wanted to go as one of the firsts, but not for the start, so 2nd is realyl the best option.
We also need to try our helmets and "race suits", well, overalls, and also how to sit inside the car, how to get out of it (it is preety difficult because of the roll cage and race seat as it is realyl tight), how to strap your belts and find some good driving positions. The mirrors will be set for the instructor so I will see nothing what is behind me. Only the big mirror in the car on the windshield is realyl big so I can see at least something. One importatn thing when stepping out of the car and letting another driver is is to place the seat all the way to the back so it is less difficult to get in the car. Especialyl if you are tall and you get in after some short guy. It can sometimes hurt and also you can get cramp when trying to hurry yourself in. During this testing of driver swaps, we also needed to sign some papers and agreements.
All this came throught quite quickly and after and hour, boss Martin says we are done for today and we should be at garage tomorrow at 8AM because at 8:30AM is official drivers meeting. So off we go, in other garages I can see some nice racecars. For example Porsche GT3 RSR, X-bow GT4, some older Porsches, Skoda Felicia, well, plenty of different racecars in different classes. I do quick vlog and drive back to hotel. I want to go to sleep, but I can't. All those thoughts in my head, damn. But finally I fell asleep. Morning alram at 6:30.
It is Raceday!
Chapter 3 - Race Day
Yes, I have it. The morning sickness . I didn't sleep much but I hope the nervosity will be a bit better once I will get to the circuit. We are going for a breakfast at hotel and I see other drivers in their suits already or with team t-shirts so that adds up the nervosity. I am not hungry at all but I get something to eat anyway. Back to the room to pack my stuff, so the race overall (borrowed), my shoes (normal shoes for indoor sports) , gloves (from aliexpress), balaclava (from gokart rental place) . We arrive at the race track and at the Radical team garage. Girls are serving breakfast and coffee and I am looking around. Nervosity is getting higher and higher. The anticipation. Need to go to the toilet. At 8:30AM I go for the mandatory drivers breefing where the race directors talk about the race and this kind of stuff. The important is the start. It will be rolling start but the cars will do 2 formation laps so that after the 1st lap the timing sensors on each car are checked and confirmed. After the breefing, I need to go to the toilet.
At 9:20 the cars are free to leave the pits and form on the gird. The sound is amazing, so loud and even from the cars you actually see on the roads as then have no catalytic converters and similar Polar bear friendly features. I go to look on the grid aswell and I join the one instructor that will sit next to me so we talked. I told him that I do some online racing and that I "know" the track a bit. I wonder what was he thinking lol "Yea yea whatever..." I take a picture with girls and we are asked to leave the track as the start is close now. We get last info from our team boss Martin. The cars are rolling on the track, 2 formation laps and the race is underway. Somehow the noise is twice as big. I like that Need to go to the toilet.
Ok, so I should be ready in case something happens to the Driver 1 who is in the car right now. Also, the car is a manual so I also want to try the heel@toe downshifting. At home, no problem, in a race car, we will see. I did a bit of a practice in my E46 but that is SMG gearbox so no clutch, but the pedal displacement is a bit simmilar as in this E36 so I just practiced of my foot will fit there. It did fit ok so lets see.
The car is now doing laptime around 2:13 depending on the race situation and his fastest lap is now 2:11. But the team manager gives me an info that in 5 minutes he will bring the car to the pits and I hop into it. Oh god, it is here.
The car arrives into the pit box, the driver hops out and I am trying to get in. Well, he left the seat as it was and he is shorter than me, well, thanks., but I'm squeezing in and moving the seat where I want. I am strapped in, so now I can't even move. I can only reach the steering wheels, shifter and pedals I'm checking mirrors but I can see sh1t out of it. Also we are checking the intercom and we hear each other so that is good. "Ok, we can go now" 1st gear, and off I go. 40kph limit in pits but I can't see the speed because of the thick wheel rim. Exiting pits and taking it easy. Up to 3rd gear and letting other cars in front before joining the track. Ok, here it is, first downshift from 3rd to 2nd now without heel&toe into the first chicane. Full throttle on the exit riding the kerb, from 2nd to 4th arriving into the technical bit of the track.Brakes, down to 3rd and my first heel@toe went ok. staying in 3rd, following the race line and arriving to the hairpun. down to 2nd, nice, then full throttle and using the kerb on the outside. Now the high speed corner comes. You stay in 4th and trying to be as fast as you can as the next bit is uphill. Nice feeling when you turn the car, hit the apex an ride the outside kerb. Then"Matador section which is the most techical. You brake, then turn right and try to stay right to open up the tighter lefthander, again trying to stay left as the fast right king follows so you want that to take in full throttle. Then a bit of a straight and only 2 righthander corners left which are both medium speed and arriving at the main straight. And this over and over again. I have no idea about the speed on the main straight but I am in 5th and the tight chicane is closing. So I braked at 200m and slotting the gears down to 3rd and in the middle of chicane to 2nd. Turned out you can brake much much later. I'm getting into the rhythm, I also try to watch the other cars around me and it is proper hell when you can't see and you only hear something in intercom. Sometimes the instructor has to grab the wheel and steer out of an oncoming car and it is really frustrating. You can't even see that Radical in your mirrors as it is so low.
I also do a mistake where I am too fast, I lock the fronts while trying to steer, but it is evident I'm going into the gravel. So I straight up the wheel and drive accross. Gravel is hitting the car and it really hurts. Well, ok, back to racing. But then the safety car is on the track so there is some time to rest and think. Some 3 laps later the SC is away and we can race. I had some quick cars behind me but now they are gone, maybe they fell asleep so I don't have to worry about them into the 1st chicane. In front there is grey Fiesta and he is slower so I go for my first on-track overtake and he is mine. This laptime was 2:13:xxx.Going down the main strait, hitting the brakes, downshifting and suddenly the revs dropped, the clutch pedal is on the floor and not coming back as it should. I am staying out of the racing line and the car just won't engage the clutch.
Oh god, what have I done? I broke it! But how? The instructor says he didn't see me doing anything wrong. I am trying to stay in 3rd and the car is slowly creeping around the curcuit. I managed to bring the car into the pits, it lasted like like 8 minutes and my wife was really scared not seeing me after 2 mins on the same part of the track. Bad feeling I can imagine. I'm stopping, the mechanics are asking what is wrong and the car goes up on jacks. They are trying to fix that but the engine is shut down and there is nothing they can do. The clutch gave way. The looks of other guys who were suppose to drive after me. Oh my. But the team boss Martin calls ours together and informing that sadly we are retiring from the race. All drivers who didn't get the race will have their money back or will have place in another race or test day. I put my hand up and say sorry, but Martin says that I should not feel sorry that this happens and we are all beginners. I was in the car around 30 minutes and only 10 minutes of that was my last lap + 4 laps behind. So even got either 30minutes in race, test day or I can buy another 30 and have 1 hour. It depends. At the end, I got 40mins due to the clutch failure so that is preety nice. For example team boss also told us that in the last race somebody overreved (if that is even a word) the engine completely so we have new engine in the car.
So that is it. My few laps in a proper race car in proper race and I can say that without simracing I would have not been capable of doing that. My fastest lap was my 3rd lap I believe and it was 2:13:xxx and the fastest lap of the driver 1 was 2:11:xxx. so that is not too bad considering he was already in the car before and has some experience. It is complete different experience if you take your car to some track. In this, you have the racing equipment, rollcage, bucket seat, race suspension, race brakes, the noise, the loudness, the proper vibrations and g-forces. But on the other hand, I wasn't that nervous when beeing in the car. it felt natural and I could feel what the car is doing. I tried to do some oversteer on exit but he car is set up very safely and the LSD worked nicely. so I had only understeer under braking. And the instructor said that i was preety good. Thanks
So here is my vlog, it is in my czech language and I am actually blabbing so you can skip that and just watch the other bits and my onboard.
But I am not finished, I still have 40mins left and I will tell you all about that later.
Chapter 1
As I hated the czech lessons and basicly every essay I suffered a lot and I believe my teachers were suffering during reading aswell, it is obvious for me to start writting a blog. But recently I have experienced something that is worth sharing with simmilar minded people.
As a boy, I always played with cars and I always bought some car models back then and obviously with PC boom and games, I started to play games such as the first Prince of Persia and Pac-Man but mostly racing games. The very first game I got my little fingers on was "The Cycles" a MotoGP game on my dad's company black/white screen laptop with breathtaking resolution of potato. I still remember that intro music and it is playing in my head now. Skipping few years I played through many Need for Speed titles (not today's arcady sh1t, I think my last was NFS Carbon and even than was awful). The best for me was Underground 2 with that hot brunette on main screen. At that time I bought myself my first wheel with unherad feature..... Force Feedback. It was Saitek R440.
With the wheel, I could start some proper racing, so rFactor, GTR, F1 Challenge 99-02 etc. During this time I learned the most iconic world track and also how the cars behave, what is oversteer/understeer etc. But I can't remember if I ever found that hard to understand and it felt natural to me to know, what the car will do if it is FWD, RWD or AWD. But still, my dream game was Grand Turismo on PS1 which my neighbour had back then and we played sh1t out of that game. But my mom said that when I earn my own money, I can buy PS. She is not gonna buy me one. And so I did! My first proper wage after 1 month of summer job came and I ordered PS2 and GT4 with smug face and controller in my hands playing on 55cm TV, lying on my bed like 2 meters away amazed by the realistic graphic on CRT TV LoL
During university, my laptop wasn't any good for any proper racing game, so I bought Xbox360, Forza Motorsport 3, F1 2010 and also later the MS Xbox wheel. And then I got myself some free month of Xbox live gold, so I tried some online races in F1 2010. I beat them all. So I though maybe there are some leagues out there with people that can race properly. And I found FisiFan91's youtube videos and I was hooked up. So my competitive online racing career started and it was april 2011 I believe. It got downhill after that. I bought myself a proper PC after university which I still play on today and I build it myself so I think I did a good build. Also upgraded to Logitech G25, then exchanged it for T300rs, put triple screens on and this is what I have now. I did many seasons in F1 games (2010 till 2015 I believe) then moved to Project Cars 1 and 2, starting Assetto Corsa league with Noztra at AOR, and then bam, my son was born. So I quit my racing for a year and then Noz contacted me than he is doing DTM league here at RSR. little boy was already sleeping in his bedroom so I could play in the evenings so I joined RSR and this is basicly a brief story.
But the main part starts now. I always had a bug in my head asking me "Man, if you can drive in racing games quite good, could you actually drive race car and be quite good? Will you be able to go fast, go to the limit of the car and if you go over, can you catch a slide, sort out the understeed and this kind of stuff? Or are you just a prick who thinks he is preety good driver?".
Well, I thought I will never answer that question and I will stay at that point "I'm just a preety good driver and if something happens on the road, I have good simracing experience so no problem there"
But one time I started looking on the internet if there is some opportunities to actually try to drive a race car. And I actually found a racing team (RadicalTeam based in Prague) who races in amateur Makpak Endurance championship here in Czech republic that sell their driver spots for complete beginners. You can buy some few laps as a passenger, or as a driver in training session at Brno track or Autodromo Most (the 2nd racetrack in Czech). Few laps or 30mins, or 1h. Or, if you want to you have balls to do that, you can buy 1h (or more)in a endurance race with instructor sitting next to you. So, guess what I did? Yes. I bought 1 hour in amateur endurance race at Autodromo Most track that I don't even know. The car I will drive is BMW E36 325i, with race tyres, race suspension, LSD at the back, stripped out cockpit, so it has around 220BHP and weights around 1000kg. And you don't need any racing licence. It is amaterur cup. The team also have E92 325i aswell for beginners, then BMW 130i but without instructor, and then 3 radicals. And you can race them aswell, if you have the money. Now, you may ask, how does it cost? Well, it is a surprise but not that much considering what you get. 800€ which seems much spending it in 1 hour, but it is actually cheap in my opinion.
So I will finish the first post here, looking forward to your feedback and comments and soon I will create next chapter. See you
---------------------------------------------------------
Chapter 2
When I got place in a race at Most, I wanted to learn the track somehow as I haven!t been to Most and the track is not present in any game which is no surprice. But some bloke made a mod into Assetto Corsa so I loaded it up with E30 M3 and did some practise to be fammiliar with the track.
It is wednesday, going to work with my thoughts elswere. I'm counting down hour after hour untill lunch and funally by noon I'm leaving work and going home. Here it is. The silence before storm feeling. The feeling you usually get before exams, graduations, wedding or birth of your child.
At home everything is ready so only to put all things into the back of the car and start our way to Most some 250km away from my home. The nervosity is gradually increasing and it is also given by the fact that I decided to film a vlog about it all.
We finally got into the hotel and as I will be driving for the first time, I need to be present at begnners meeting at the team!s garage at the circuit at 7PM. So I am leaving the hotel, driving to the track, passing the main gate, driving throught the tunnel which goes under the track and then arriving at the paddock. After some sightseeing and photoes I decided to film first bit of the vlog. Nervous as hell to speak into the mobile. God, why I did that
I go tot he garage number 11 and 12 where the Radicel Team is located for the race weekend. I meet the team boss Martin who is a professional racing driver bud had to stop because of some physical injury. I also met 3 brothers who will be our instructors. The other begginer participants arrive aswell and the team mechanics are working on other cars. Also, other teams are presented at the track so there is a lot to look at. Finally the last beginner arrived so we can start our information breefing.
Instructors are giving us tips on how to drive, what to do, what NOT to do and what never ever ever definitely NOT to do. Also explaining all the flag signalizations, how to behave on the track and that in the car it is very noisy so it can be problematic to understand the info from the instructor so we have to really shout. THen we all aks different questions. I got under the impression that any cheats, like "restart, rewind, save/load,magespeed, griphack, nodamage, back to track" somehow will not work tomorrow
One interesting piece of information was that if you are going into the corner and you are too fast and will go to the gravel trap, straighten your wheels and drive across. If you leave some wheel lock on and then hit the gravel, the front wheels could potentionally dig into the gravel and flip your car over the roof. "And you don't want that". Also they informed us when each driver will drive in the race. It is 6H race and we have 7 drivers (2 of them bought only 40mins, the rest 1h). I will drive in 2nd stint and in my inlap after my stint, I would need to drive to the fuel station to refuell the car for other 2 hours of racing. That is cool. I wanted to go as one of the firsts, but not for the start, so 2nd is realyl the best option.
We also need to try our helmets and "race suits", well, overalls, and also how to sit inside the car, how to get out of it (it is preety difficult because of the roll cage and race seat as it is realyl tight), how to strap your belts and find some good driving positions. The mirrors will be set for the instructor so I will see nothing what is behind me. Only the big mirror in the car on the windshield is realyl big so I can see at least something. One importatn thing when stepping out of the car and letting another driver is is to place the seat all the way to the back so it is less difficult to get in the car. Especialyl if you are tall and you get in after some short guy. It can sometimes hurt and also you can get cramp when trying to hurry yourself in. During this testing of driver swaps, we also needed to sign some papers and agreements.
All this came throught quite quickly and after and hour, boss Martin says we are done for today and we should be at garage tomorrow at 8AM because at 8:30AM is official drivers meeting. So off we go, in other garages I can see some nice racecars. For example Porsche GT3 RSR, X-bow GT4, some older Porsches, Skoda Felicia, well, plenty of different racecars in different classes. I do quick vlog and drive back to hotel. I want to go to sleep, but I can't. All those thoughts in my head, damn. But finally I fell asleep. Morning alram at 6:30.
It is Raceday!
Chapter 3 - Race Day
Yes, I have it. The morning sickness . I didn't sleep much but I hope the nervosity will be a bit better once I will get to the circuit. We are going for a breakfast at hotel and I see other drivers in their suits already or with team t-shirts so that adds up the nervosity. I am not hungry at all but I get something to eat anyway. Back to the room to pack my stuff, so the race overall (borrowed), my shoes (normal shoes for indoor sports) , gloves (from aliexpress), balaclava (from gokart rental place) . We arrive at the race track and at the Radical team garage. Girls are serving breakfast and coffee and I am looking around. Nervosity is getting higher and higher. The anticipation. Need to go to the toilet. At 8:30AM I go for the mandatory drivers breefing where the race directors talk about the race and this kind of stuff. The important is the start. It will be rolling start but the cars will do 2 formation laps so that after the 1st lap the timing sensors on each car are checked and confirmed. After the breefing, I need to go to the toilet.
At 9:20 the cars are free to leave the pits and form on the gird. The sound is amazing, so loud and even from the cars you actually see on the roads as then have no catalytic converters and similar Polar bear friendly features. I go to look on the grid aswell and I join the one instructor that will sit next to me so we talked. I told him that I do some online racing and that I "know" the track a bit. I wonder what was he thinking lol "Yea yea whatever..." I take a picture with girls and we are asked to leave the track as the start is close now. We get last info from our team boss Martin. The cars are rolling on the track, 2 formation laps and the race is underway. Somehow the noise is twice as big. I like that Need to go to the toilet.
Ok, so I should be ready in case something happens to the Driver 1 who is in the car right now. Also, the car is a manual so I also want to try the heel@toe downshifting. At home, no problem, in a race car, we will see. I did a bit of a practice in my E46 but that is SMG gearbox so no clutch, but the pedal displacement is a bit simmilar as in this E36 so I just practiced of my foot will fit there. It did fit ok so lets see.
The car is now doing laptime around 2:13 depending on the race situation and his fastest lap is now 2:11. But the team manager gives me an info that in 5 minutes he will bring the car to the pits and I hop into it. Oh god, it is here.
The car arrives into the pit box, the driver hops out and I am trying to get in. Well, he left the seat as it was and he is shorter than me, well, thanks., but I'm squeezing in and moving the seat where I want. I am strapped in, so now I can't even move. I can only reach the steering wheels, shifter and pedals I'm checking mirrors but I can see sh1t out of it. Also we are checking the intercom and we hear each other so that is good. "Ok, we can go now" 1st gear, and off I go. 40kph limit in pits but I can't see the speed because of the thick wheel rim. Exiting pits and taking it easy. Up to 3rd gear and letting other cars in front before joining the track. Ok, here it is, first downshift from 3rd to 2nd now without heel&toe into the first chicane. Full throttle on the exit riding the kerb, from 2nd to 4th arriving into the technical bit of the track.Brakes, down to 3rd and my first heel@toe went ok. staying in 3rd, following the race line and arriving to the hairpun. down to 2nd, nice, then full throttle and using the kerb on the outside. Now the high speed corner comes. You stay in 4th and trying to be as fast as you can as the next bit is uphill. Nice feeling when you turn the car, hit the apex an ride the outside kerb. Then"Matador section which is the most techical. You brake, then turn right and try to stay right to open up the tighter lefthander, again trying to stay left as the fast right king follows so you want that to take in full throttle. Then a bit of a straight and only 2 righthander corners left which are both medium speed and arriving at the main straight. And this over and over again. I have no idea about the speed on the main straight but I am in 5th and the tight chicane is closing. So I braked at 200m and slotting the gears down to 3rd and in the middle of chicane to 2nd. Turned out you can brake much much later. I'm getting into the rhythm, I also try to watch the other cars around me and it is proper hell when you can't see and you only hear something in intercom. Sometimes the instructor has to grab the wheel and steer out of an oncoming car and it is really frustrating. You can't even see that Radical in your mirrors as it is so low.
I also do a mistake where I am too fast, I lock the fronts while trying to steer, but it is evident I'm going into the gravel. So I straight up the wheel and drive accross. Gravel is hitting the car and it really hurts. Well, ok, back to racing. But then the safety car is on the track so there is some time to rest and think. Some 3 laps later the SC is away and we can race. I had some quick cars behind me but now they are gone, maybe they fell asleep so I don't have to worry about them into the 1st chicane. In front there is grey Fiesta and he is slower so I go for my first on-track overtake and he is mine. This laptime was 2:13:xxx.Going down the main strait, hitting the brakes, downshifting and suddenly the revs dropped, the clutch pedal is on the floor and not coming back as it should. I am staying out of the racing line and the car just won't engage the clutch.
Oh god, what have I done? I broke it! But how? The instructor says he didn't see me doing anything wrong. I am trying to stay in 3rd and the car is slowly creeping around the curcuit. I managed to bring the car into the pits, it lasted like like 8 minutes and my wife was really scared not seeing me after 2 mins on the same part of the track. Bad feeling I can imagine. I'm stopping, the mechanics are asking what is wrong and the car goes up on jacks. They are trying to fix that but the engine is shut down and there is nothing they can do. The clutch gave way. The looks of other guys who were suppose to drive after me. Oh my. But the team boss Martin calls ours together and informing that sadly we are retiring from the race. All drivers who didn't get the race will have their money back or will have place in another race or test day. I put my hand up and say sorry, but Martin says that I should not feel sorry that this happens and we are all beginners. I was in the car around 30 minutes and only 10 minutes of that was my last lap + 4 laps behind. So even got either 30minutes in race, test day or I can buy another 30 and have 1 hour. It depends. At the end, I got 40mins due to the clutch failure so that is preety nice. For example team boss also told us that in the last race somebody overreved (if that is even a word) the engine completely so we have new engine in the car.
So that is it. My few laps in a proper race car in proper race and I can say that without simracing I would have not been capable of doing that. My fastest lap was my 3rd lap I believe and it was 2:13:xxx and the fastest lap of the driver 1 was 2:11:xxx. so that is not too bad considering he was already in the car before and has some experience. It is complete different experience if you take your car to some track. In this, you have the racing equipment, rollcage, bucket seat, race suspension, race brakes, the noise, the loudness, the proper vibrations and g-forces. But on the other hand, I wasn't that nervous when beeing in the car. it felt natural and I could feel what the car is doing. I tried to do some oversteer on exit but he car is set up very safely and the LSD worked nicely. so I had only understeer under braking. And the instructor said that i was preety good. Thanks
So here is my vlog, it is in my czech language and I am actually blabbing so you can skip that and just watch the other bits and my onboard.
But I am not finished, I still have 40mins left and I will tell you all about that later.
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