Heat 1
i missed driver's briefing. oops. nobody freakn told me to go :P couldnt have been that important anyway rite...
yeeeeeeeee it was race time. no matter how glum things looked, this was my 1st race and it was gonna rock. i just wanted to have a cool dice with sum1, dance around the track, etc etc. been waiting for this my whole life ya know...
my noob teammies were nervous as hell. werent talking much, and were sitting there twiddling their thumbs staring into the distance. hmmmm. i just shrugged and got into the car to get lined up on the dummy grid. damn it was real hot at this point, sitting on the dummy grid waiting for the current race to finish, i was cooking in the car. i was trying to visualise what i'd do on the start line....i really didnt feel like crashing in the 1st corner, but i didnt wanna cruise too much as i'd get hit from behind....i'd never practised a pull-off before, but didnt think it would be too hard. it was just the braking point for the 1st corner HMMMM....tricky one. before i got time to get my mind set for the race itself, the marshall's whistle blew, green flag was waved and we were out on track....i thought we were gonna go out and grid up immediately, but we had a warmup lap....yay. i tried to get heat into my brakes as much as possible, the whole cold-brakes thing worried me...the warmup lap was medium paced...guys zig-zagging to warm up their tyres, getting heat under brakes etc etc....i just wanted to get to the grid and get going...
got to the right grid slot, i was well chuffed about that :P sitting there, i changed to 1st gear, held clutch in and maintained revs at around 3500rpm (advice from other drivers)...still wasnt nervous, was just concentrating on the lights. hadnt even thought what i was gonna do at the 1st corner yet....red lights on for an eternity....and then out. a huge roar as every1 pulled away...i got a good pulloff, not much wheelspin. i wasnt losing ground to anyone, but i was stuck on the outside...cruised into the braking zone, and it turned out that most around me did the same. got thru ok, and was just gonna concentrate on making it thru the 1st lap on cold tyres....dont crash just yet, zaahir.
end of lap1, and i was a few car lengths behind the guy in front of me....whatever position he was in. u dont know anything in a race, u just see cars around u and u just push :P i started pushing a bit, but was missing crucial gears....started dropping back, and everytime i recovered a bit, i missed another gear. james leach, veteran driver, overtook me in lap2 i think....i tried to hang on, attempted a pass into 1st corner....but missed 2nd gear. joke. i got repassed and then missed more gears. WTF?? this was a disaster, i kept going backwards....nobody around me, and i kept making errors with the downshifts...common noob error was to pull the lever from 3rd gear into 4th, instead of 3rd into 2nd...because u cant really feel where the lever is exactly, there is so much play....and i was doing this noob mistake almost every lap.
i didnt know how many laps there were in the race. i just knew i was losing ground all the time, and i was nowhere. it felt like a lapping session gone all wrong. before i knew it the race was over.
yup, over.
my arms were so damn sore, knees and elbows were bruised and purple from the usual bashings i get with all the chicanes and esses on the track.....eish. what a 1st race. nothing had happnd. was uneventful, frustrating, and over so damn soon that i thought it was red flagged. felt like 6laps of hell.
the race turned out to be 12laps....when i came back to the pits ppl were smiling, congratulating me....wtf for, that was almost the most anti-climatic shit in my life. i wanted to at least have a battle with sum1, feel pressured, get into some hairy situations.....but hey, i gotta take what comes. its my 1st race and thats the story. a boring one. but at least i finished. guys were saying i did really well for sum1 who has never raced before, which was true i guess. i wasnt expecting the world, but i knew i couldve done better. few guys dropped out, i ended up finishing p13. points positions up to p12....i was so glad i didnt get a point, that was hardly a worthy drive for a championship point. wat was disappointing is that my car balance felt good. camber settings were nice, it was just a matter of clutch and gears....so i screwed it up all by myself.
courtney ended up getting tangled with sum1, he DNF'ed, and his wheel was screwed for the next heat. the upright for the swing arm was bent badly, the sideshafts were probably also fubar'ed but there was no time to fix it between heats. he was gonna hafta run with a funky wheel, just meant he was gonna have sum fun under braking :P little dean was raving abt his race, he seemed to have fun, battling with guys....dammit. looking at the timesheets, i drove Fastest Lap of 1m19.1....FL of the race was 15.9....little dean still going quicker, he managed 17.1....i was going backwards, i prayed for some fun in heat2.
Heat 2
God answered my prayers. this was by far the coolest fucking moment of my entire life. everything clicked, and i've never had so much fun EVER.
between the heats the heavens opened up and it really rained hard....shame for those porsche guys (i think it was) who were racing at the time. i was looking forward to a wet race, thinking back to last week's wet experience, but the track eventually dried out after other race classes ran on the track. oh well. wasnt this a worthless paragraph LMAO
sitting on the dummy grid i was nervous for the 1st time. 2nd race grid is determined from finishing positions of race1....so i was sitting p13, with faster guys behind me. thats wat made me nervous. again, whistle blown and green flag out before i could gather my thoughts. i distinctly remember sighing very deeply before pulling away. this was the last time i was gonna be at this track for a while, and everything had not quite lived up to the expectation i had of what was to be. it was time to change things, and i do remember letting go of absolutely everything. crashing the car, fucking up the gears. it was all gone. after this moment i cant quite remember my mindset, i think i was possessed or really focused :P it is seriously hazy.
i think i got a decent start, cant rem what i was doing on the start line. i was on the inside line so that was cool. wat was NOT cool was me missing 2nd gear on the FIRST CORNER OF THE RACE. everyone behind me cruised past. holy - fucking - shit.
i got angry.
thats when i started pushing like mad. hitting apexes everywhere, flying into the scary corners....ehhh i knew my car felt good from race1, and was really great to slide this thing. felt like i knew wat i was doing. and i was pissed off. but i channeled the anger. anthony commented to me after the race that he saw i was looking different on track, like i had the red mist or something, coz i was always tucking down in the car and looking very "grrr". must have been lol.
i was really concentrating on the gears and downshifts, and was getting them right. sort of right. got it a bit rough sometimes when i let the clutch out too quick and stuff...but it was ok. i was catching guys back up...bradley martin was having a bad misfire, so he had no engine grunt...james leach was behind him, and i caught the both of them at the oval...going round there i pushed hard so i could have some chance at slipstream down the straight....and woah it got interesting. a tiny bit of mika/zonta/michael thing happnd here lol....but not really. james pulled out of bradley on the inside, and i had a great run out the oval and was going to the outside....but there was concrete wall and a closing gap of bradley's car....i had to brake and wait for that split sec to see if brad had actually seen me. he left room so i got back on it again and crawled along the wall passed him....immediately into james' slipstream. had a nice battle with him...between the switchback hairpins, i always shut the door slowly on him nxt to me....i knew that he knew i was a noob, and could be unpredictable so he backed off. might as well use this card while im still new. missed couple gears so hadta defend him a few times, was cool. i was getting the braking sorta good now, not vibrating a lot and just about where the others are braking. james always gained on me in those zones tho, but i pulled away in the midfield....
this was the case with other drivers that i caught too....12laps was nothing, and i hadta get passed them fast...i braked well beyond wat i thought was could be done (which was probably the normal braking point lol), but managed to make it stick when i hooked the gears. driving in the slipstream was hot. i could feel the heat from the radiators thru the sidepods, got so unbearable at times that i had to tuck my arms and legs in, away from the heat....i had a nice battle with a lot of guys. had some close action with courtney, great wheel-to-wheel stuff....at the end i pushed to try catch a couple guys still in view...i had just caught them, but the race was over...needed another lap or 2 :( ended up p12!!! the difference between my heats was night and day, but on the results it was one position :P eeiisshh but that was the most awesome experience ever, to be battling out with guys for position, strategising and pushing ye ass off, its just something i never felt before to this degree.....i was SO HAPPY. but i worked real hard...my arms were numb, and body was right royally banged up :/
looking at the timesheets it turned out i did 1m17.4 that race. WAT THE HELL. thats 1.5sec faster than i've been doing all weekend....and i still can gain more under braking...it just shows. mindset is what matters, screw everything else. i learned so much from this experience. SO MUCH. there is time to gain just about everywhere in the trickiest of places. the same principles of simracing are there....the racing lines, etc....but all those hundreds of small details i've discussed just make simracing insignificant in a way. there are too many variables, the consequences, the responsibility u have. the FUN. the adrenalin and rush of it all. i've never done sumin so incredible in my life, and im so glad i pushed so hard to fulfill my dream. all the work i've done towards it and time sacrificed and stress was ALL WORTH IT. the money. WORTH EVERY CENT. its certainly not a lot when u compare the money and politics involved in the higher forms of motorsport. im in little league compared to that stuff, but i wanted to know what it feels like. and it feels freakn AWESOME.
turns out this damn thing gonna be shown on tv on supersport :/ dammit, i knew i shouldve got a haircut b4 this race :P
next race is kyalami, march24 methinks....yeee baby :D but chatting to guys after this race, they told me with a straight face that wesbank is for little boys, and kyalami is for real men. and nobody laughed, just nodded. so, im in for sumin really fucked up on march 24th i am sure. cant wait.
yeeeeeeeee it was race time. no matter how glum things looked, this was my 1st race and it was gonna rock. i just wanted to have a cool dice with sum1, dance around the track, etc etc. been waiting for this my whole life ya know...
my noob teammies were nervous as hell. werent talking much, and were sitting there twiddling their thumbs staring into the distance. hmmmm. i just shrugged and got into the car to get lined up on the dummy grid. damn it was real hot at this point, sitting on the dummy grid waiting for the current race to finish, i was cooking in the car. i was trying to visualise what i'd do on the start line....i really didnt feel like crashing in the 1st corner, but i didnt wanna cruise too much as i'd get hit from behind....i'd never practised a pull-off before, but didnt think it would be too hard. it was just the braking point for the 1st corner HMMMM....tricky one. before i got time to get my mind set for the race itself, the marshall's whistle blew, green flag was waved and we were out on track....i thought we were gonna go out and grid up immediately, but we had a warmup lap....yay. i tried to get heat into my brakes as much as possible, the whole cold-brakes thing worried me...the warmup lap was medium paced...guys zig-zagging to warm up their tyres, getting heat under brakes etc etc....i just wanted to get to the grid and get going...got to the right grid slot, i was well chuffed about that :P sitting there, i changed to 1st gear, held clutch in and maintained revs at around 3500rpm (advice from other drivers)...still wasnt nervous, was just concentrating on the lights. hadnt even thought what i was gonna do at the 1st corner yet....red lights on for an eternity....and then out. a huge roar as every1 pulled away...i got a good pulloff, not much wheelspin. i wasnt losing ground to anyone, but i was stuck on the outside...cruised into the braking zone, and it turned out that most around me did the same. got thru ok, and was just gonna concentrate on making it thru the 1st lap on cold tyres....dont crash just yet, zaahir.
end of lap1, and i was a few car lengths behind the guy in front of me....whatever position he was in. u dont know anything in a race, u just see cars around u and u just push :P i started pushing a bit, but was missing crucial gears....started dropping back, and everytime i recovered a bit, i missed another gear. james leach, veteran driver, overtook me in lap2 i think....i tried to hang on, attempted a pass into 1st corner....but missed 2nd gear. joke. i got repassed and then missed more gears. WTF?? this was a disaster, i kept going backwards....nobody around me, and i kept making errors with the downshifts...common noob error was to pull the lever from 3rd gear into 4th, instead of 3rd into 2nd...because u cant really feel where the lever is exactly, there is so much play....and i was doing this noob mistake almost every lap.
i didnt know how many laps there were in the race. i just knew i was losing ground all the time, and i was nowhere. it felt like a lapping session gone all wrong. before i knew it the race was over.yup, over.
my arms were so damn sore, knees and elbows were bruised and purple from the usual bashings i get with all the chicanes and esses on the track.....eish. what a 1st race. nothing had happnd. was uneventful, frustrating, and over so damn soon that i thought it was red flagged. felt like 6laps of hell.
the race turned out to be 12laps....when i came back to the pits ppl were smiling, congratulating me....wtf for, that was almost the most anti-climatic shit in my life. i wanted to at least have a battle with sum1, feel pressured, get into some hairy situations.....but hey, i gotta take what comes. its my 1st race and thats the story. a boring one. but at least i finished. guys were saying i did really well for sum1 who has never raced before, which was true i guess. i wasnt expecting the world, but i knew i couldve done better. few guys dropped out, i ended up finishing p13. points positions up to p12....i was so glad i didnt get a point, that was hardly a worthy drive for a championship point. wat was disappointing is that my car balance felt good. camber settings were nice, it was just a matter of clutch and gears....so i screwed it up all by myself.
courtney ended up getting tangled with sum1, he DNF'ed, and his wheel was screwed for the next heat. the upright for the swing arm was bent badly, the sideshafts were probably also fubar'ed but there was no time to fix it between heats. he was gonna hafta run with a funky wheel, just meant he was gonna have sum fun under braking :P little dean was raving abt his race, he seemed to have fun, battling with guys....dammit. looking at the timesheets, i drove Fastest Lap of 1m19.1....FL of the race was 15.9....little dean still going quicker, he managed 17.1....i was going backwards, i prayed for some fun in heat2.
Heat 2
God answered my prayers. this was by far the coolest fucking moment of my entire life. everything clicked, and i've never had so much fun EVER.
between the heats the heavens opened up and it really rained hard....shame for those porsche guys (i think it was) who were racing at the time. i was looking forward to a wet race, thinking back to last week's wet experience, but the track eventually dried out after other race classes ran on the track. oh well. wasnt this a worthless paragraph LMAO
sitting on the dummy grid i was nervous for the 1st time. 2nd race grid is determined from finishing positions of race1....so i was sitting p13, with faster guys behind me. thats wat made me nervous. again, whistle blown and green flag out before i could gather my thoughts. i distinctly remember sighing very deeply before pulling away. this was the last time i was gonna be at this track for a while, and everything had not quite lived up to the expectation i had of what was to be. it was time to change things, and i do remember letting go of absolutely everything. crashing the car, fucking up the gears. it was all gone. after this moment i cant quite remember my mindset, i think i was possessed or really focused :P it is seriously hazy.i think i got a decent start, cant rem what i was doing on the start line. i was on the inside line so that was cool. wat was NOT cool was me missing 2nd gear on the FIRST CORNER OF THE RACE. everyone behind me cruised past. holy - fucking - shit.
i got angry.
thats when i started pushing like mad. hitting apexes everywhere, flying into the scary corners....ehhh i knew my car felt good from race1, and was really great to slide this thing. felt like i knew wat i was doing. and i was pissed off. but i channeled the anger. anthony commented to me after the race that he saw i was looking different on track, like i had the red mist or something, coz i was always tucking down in the car and looking very "grrr". must have been lol.i was really concentrating on the gears and downshifts, and was getting them right. sort of right. got it a bit rough sometimes when i let the clutch out too quick and stuff...but it was ok. i was catching guys back up...bradley martin was having a bad misfire, so he had no engine grunt...james leach was behind him, and i caught the both of them at the oval...going round there i pushed hard so i could have some chance at slipstream down the straight....and woah it got interesting. a tiny bit of mika/zonta/michael thing happnd here lol....but not really. james pulled out of bradley on the inside, and i had a great run out the oval and was going to the outside....but there was concrete wall and a closing gap of bradley's car....i had to brake and wait for that split sec to see if brad had actually seen me. he left room so i got back on it again and crawled along the wall passed him....immediately into james' slipstream. had a nice battle with him...between the switchback hairpins, i always shut the door slowly on him nxt to me....i knew that he knew i was a noob, and could be unpredictable so he backed off. might as well use this card while im still new. missed couple gears so hadta defend him a few times, was cool. i was getting the braking sorta good now, not vibrating a lot and just about where the others are braking. james always gained on me in those zones tho, but i pulled away in the midfield....
this was the case with other drivers that i caught too....12laps was nothing, and i hadta get passed them fast...i braked well beyond wat i thought was could be done (which was probably the normal braking point lol), but managed to make it stick when i hooked the gears. driving in the slipstream was hot. i could feel the heat from the radiators thru the sidepods, got so unbearable at times that i had to tuck my arms and legs in, away from the heat....i had a nice battle with a lot of guys. had some close action with courtney, great wheel-to-wheel stuff....at the end i pushed to try catch a couple guys still in view...i had just caught them, but the race was over...needed another lap or 2 :( ended up p12!!! the difference between my heats was night and day, but on the results it was one position :P eeiisshh but that was the most awesome experience ever, to be battling out with guys for position, strategising and pushing ye ass off, its just something i never felt before to this degree.....i was SO HAPPY. but i worked real hard...my arms were numb, and body was right royally banged up :/looking at the timesheets it turned out i did 1m17.4 that race. WAT THE HELL. thats 1.5sec faster than i've been doing all weekend....and i still can gain more under braking...it just shows. mindset is what matters, screw everything else. i learned so much from this experience. SO MUCH. there is time to gain just about everywhere in the trickiest of places. the same principles of simracing are there....the racing lines, etc....but all those hundreds of small details i've discussed just make simracing insignificant in a way. there are too many variables, the consequences, the responsibility u have. the FUN. the adrenalin and rush of it all. i've never done sumin so incredible in my life, and im so glad i pushed so hard to fulfill my dream. all the work i've done towards it and time sacrificed and stress was ALL WORTH IT. the money. WORTH EVERY CENT. its certainly not a lot when u compare the money and politics involved in the higher forms of motorsport. im in little league compared to that stuff, but i wanted to know what it feels like. and it feels freakn AWESOME.
turns out this damn thing gonna be shown on tv on supersport :/ dammit, i knew i shouldve got a haircut b4 this race :Pnext race is kyalami, march24 methinks....yeee baby :D but chatting to guys after this race, they told me with a straight face that wesbank is for little boys, and kyalami is for real men. and nobody laughed, just nodded. so, im in for sumin really fucked up on march 24th i am sure. cant wait.
6 comments:
Congrats Zaahir! Getting through the first race weekend is great. Now there's no more need for nerves. :) Too bad it is such a long wait till the next race. Meanwhile, time for you to make the Formula Vee mod for rFactor.
hahaha yeh, and practise with it on the kyalami track :P wouldnt that be a laugh
bleh...
i needed to log in :/
wow dude that sounds awesome! well done on first race. curious how did u manage to start up ure own team? o and watched top gear weekend, Jeremy was comparing ps2 console game to real life, in the game he hit a 1.4something in real life did it closer to 2mins. quite a difference but he was impressed at some of the accuracy. anyways dude good luck for next race!
yeh if u wanna start up, u hafta just attend a race and meet ppl. see if its for u, see wats involved. then u gotta get MONEY. i bought my car 2nd hand, and i've managed to know the right ppl to be drafted into the Lotto development team. this means sum1 helps me out prepping the car, storage, etc. usually u'd hafta organise ye own pitcrew, ppl who know wat they're doing
Hey hey Zee, nice blog. Great to see you got into the real stuff.
Put a SARL sticker on your car somewhere ;)
Marc
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