"I've just done a practice session in the Radical, it's definitely a challenge I can tell you that! My initial advice is to be gentle, it is probably worth initially setting the car up to understeer slightly so that you can get comfortable with the handling." - James

"Turn 1 is certainly the most important of the track, being full throttle for so long afterwards." - Tim

... Meanwhile, after some more practice laps, and time trial entries ...

"We've also got a 1-2 in the time-trial standings so far Tim!" - James

It looks like Sim Racing Society is back in action, and ready to lead the pack.  Coming soon, full race descriptions of the first Radical Challenge races.

It's been looking fairly quiet on the website of SRS lately, but on the inside, we're still doing plenty of racing!

In the last year or so iRacing has surely become the Sim-Racing market leader, and this is represented by the increasing enthusiasm and event participation from a number of SRS members. James, Taylor, Passo and Mackie have all been racing in iRacing, with plenty of success along the way. 

James (count.bazley) Barrington has been competing in the iRacing Hosted events from sharkracing.co.uk and took his first victory at Summit Point Raceway a couple of weeks ago, with Passo finishing 7th there. At the same time, he held the lead briefly in the iRacing Solstice championship, with Passo and Taylor remaining consistently in the top 30 throughout the series as it heads into its final week. James also competed in the iRacing Road America 200, qualifying in the top split, but falling victim to an opening lap scuffle.

In terms of Live For Speed, the team has competed in a few events in the last few months, including a couple more GTAL races, the 16h race, and the XRG 3h endurance race. We hope to enter the 16h race again this year! Tim has been completing in the SR HotLap League, showing off his single lap pace.

 So that about wraps up a brief summary of SRS at the moment. We're still here, and still racing hard!

As the sun rose on July 25th 2009, nobody knew that it would be SRS's most successful day of racing in their 362 days. Contrary to our name, Sim Racing Society, it was actually in real-life racing where we triumphed. Real-life is, arguably, more important than Sim Racing. But don't tell anyone!

Scott MacDonald, James Barrington and Michael Passingham were there to represent SRS at the meet, held at G-Force Karting, South Wales. There would be ten teams, each made up of three drivers, parcitipating in two races; a 1 hour mini-enduro and a 3 hour full-enduro. In the mini-enduro, Passo started the race and was able to reach a high-point of 2nd in the standings, having started 8th. Mackie drove second, and kept us on the podium in a consistent drive. CountBazley was to drive the final stint, and to the shock of everyone at the meet, brought the kart home in 3rd position, netting SRS their first ever endurance podium position.

 In the full-enduro, Passo once again started the race. This time, he started from 3rd on the grid and managed to take the lead in a dramatic first stint; the most notable part of which involved a multi-car pile-up at the top of the circuit, which ended in a violent collision, breaking 2nd place driver's, Becky Rose, left-front wheel. Escaping the drama, Passo was able to pull out a lap lead over the field after his first stint and ended the stint with his number plate in his hands, waving it dramatically at the timekeepers. The race began to settle for the next hour, with a final surprise greeting the drivers in the final three stints; we had a different kart to drive! While we cannot admit that the kart we originally drove was much better than all the other karts, we will freely admit that our new kart was a "pile o' crap". Despite this drama, SRS managed to bring home the bacon in 2nd position; another SRS record smashed!

After the drama and physical strain of racing, it was time to head back to the host's (jasonmatthews) house and "recover" from the tiring day's racing. Obviously, the use of alcohol for this task was required.

 On a serious note, on behalf of SRS, I would like to thank all of the organisers of this event and everyone who turned up for a fantastic day's racing!

If you're interested, you can watch a video of the weekend, made by Passo.

 On Saturday July 18th, Sim Racing Society held an invite-only, multi-class, 1 hour event at Aston Club Reversed to celebrate their first birthday; which officially falls on July 28th. The classes involved were the LRFs (FZ5, LX6, RAC), the TBOs (FXO, XRT, RB4) and the STDs (XFG, XRG). Eight teams took part, with each team having one car in each of the classes. A mad concept, it was shown to be a viable and exciting way of running a race in Live for Speed.

The teams who took part in the event included Sim Racing Society (running special birthday skins), CoRe Racing, two Concept Racing teams, iCON Racing (with guest driver [SR]Pete, after Sonicrealms got their timezones mixed up), StarLite Racing (with guest driver wilko868), and the Race Sim Radicals (the only team to run the LX6 in the LRF class).

 Each class was given 7 minutes of the qualifying session in which to post their times. CoRe Racing's R.Osza took the pole position in the LRF class. The TBO class was headed by Concept Racing #1's Twinflow. STD's pole-sitter was CoRe Racing's Rick de Jong. As the lights went green for the 1 hour race, the race was expected by many people to be somewhat chaotic. They were all happily proven wrong. CoRe Racing's R. Osza and Concept #1's Troy battled it out for the lead in the LRF class, with a number of exciting momens when lapping the slower classes. In a twist of fate in the dying moments of the race, R. Osza was held up by his team-mate and STD class leader, Rick de Jong. This took place at the quick chicane; extremely unlucky for both drivers. As a result, Troy was able to make a huge amount of progress up to the rear of Osza's car and the lead was not decided until the final corners of the final lap. In an unbelievable piece of driving, Ozsa had to take to the grass at over 100mph when trying to overtake Troy and pass STD's 3rd and 4th drivers, Joe Keaveney for iCON and Passo for SRS. In the end, it was Troy who took the victory in class by less than a second, much to the annoyance of Ozsa, who had lead the majority of the race. The only retirement of the race was SRS's de Souza, whose power was cut with less than 20 minutes to go, effectively taking away 1/3 of SRS's potential points haul, sitting in 4th position. The incredible passing maneuvre performed by Ozsa can be found on youtube.

In the TBO class, the FXOs (with 3% restriction) naturally made poor starts and Concept Racing's  Twinflow was left in the dust by CoRe Racing's Tommy Østgaard.Twinflow eventually caught and passed Tommy and lead for most of the race, taking victory in dominant fashion.

In the STD class, CoRe's Rick de Jong was able to use the XRG's power to get away well from the line, and kept the lead up until the chequered flag. The most notable battle of the class was between iCON's Keaveney and SRS's Passo. They were battling for third position for a large proportion of the race (interrupted every lap by the faster classes) and ended up crossing the finishing line less than 1/10th of a second away from one another. Keaveney managed to take the final podium slot behind Concept #2's Eisbaer.

The overall winners of the event were Concept Racing#1 whose drivers won two of the three classes. Full results can be found here. Replays of the event can be found here.

With no race-ending shunts, and no controversial incidents, SRS are extremely happy to have called this their birthday event; summing up their attitude to racing, teamwork and friendship. See you next year!

 Here at SRS, we're no strangers to the unusual: we pioneered the Head-to-Head Racing series, as well as the popular Dash 4 Cash system. This isn't your average racing. SRS's official birthday is 28th July 2008, so we are running an (initially invitation only) event with three different car classes on track at once 10 days prior: July 18th.

Details (http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?p=1198101#post1198101)

 - 1 hour race at Aston Club Rev to be held on July 18th, at "SRS:Race Server"
- each team will have to drive one STD car, one TBO car and one LRF car;
- wanted: 10 teams with 3 cars each = 30 drivers on track;
- points will be distributed as 10, 8, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 for each class;
- the team with most points summing all classes will win an official "congratulations" from us.

Schedule (estimated times):

18:00 UTC - 25 min qualify
18:30 UTC - 1 hour race

Traffic guidelines...

- Cars being lapped must stay on racing line! It is the faster cars' responsibility to do a clean pass maneuver.
- If a car that is lapping you makes an passing attempt, do not defend.
- Use common sense!

Some other points...

- The FXO will have 3% intake restriction. Any other car should be used without any restrictions. If someone proves that a car must have some handicap to be balanced, we'll be happy to force it.
- Wasn't invited but want to race? Post here.
- Wanna join but don't have a team or your team doesn't want to join? You can create a fantasy team to drive this event, but as I said, there aren't many spots for non-invited teams.
- If there's more interest than free spots, we might pick at random.
- We reserve the right to not allow specific drivers to race, just because.

On May 9th 2009, Michael Passingham and James Barrington took to the track of Westhill for the 3 hours race, run by the GTAL.

This article contains thoughts from both the drivers; James Barrington (count.bazley, SRS:CountBazley) and Michael Passingham (Mp3 Astra, SRS:Passo)

The team had qualified in 16th position, thanks to Sonicrealms' Michael Booth helping us out when we ran out of fuel. James Barrington was at the wheel and stopped just short of his pit box, and had an empty fuel tank and needed someone to push him. Luckily, Booth was there to help!

The following is Michael's personal thoughts on the race:

'Our race was interesting and enjoyable. It was decided that James would take the first and last stints. At the initial start, James had a good chance of getting into the top 10. But because of the failure of the Master Server, the race was restarted. Unfortunately he spun on lap 1 and dropped to 24th place. Not to worry, we had plenty of time. As he got to the first pitstop, he was in the top 10, but around 14th on on the track (I can't remember). Anyway, he pitted and I took over. I was driving slower than usual because I was so nervous. I was passed once, but was pretty happy. I was catching Timo at a fast rate but on the lap I would have passed him, I spun and caused big damage to my car. This was where the race started to go a little bit wrong.

Because of the damage, I needed to pit. But to make sure that james could make it to the end, I drove a couple more laps on the broken car. Unfortunately, we forgot about the 75% rule, assuming that we had already met the target. You're not allowed to drive for more than 2:15 in this league, which is 75% distance. I had driven for around 41 minutes which meant that when James finished, he would have driven 3 or 4 too many minutes and we would have been disqualified. We decided that James should pit with 7 mins to go, just to be sure. In the laps leading up to the pit stop, he was blocked by a back marker and we lost around 5 seconds over several laps. Once the stop was made and I was back in the car, the craziest last laps of my LFS career took place. I was passed by a few people as I exited the pits and was 17th place. As I came through turn 2, a car which was a lap down decided that this would be a good point to pass me. Only after he had passed me did I realise that he was a lap down. At the same time, I was being lapped and going through turn 4, the car lapping me made contact and pushed me into the gravel. This was frustrating mainly because this allowed the other XRR to pass us and meant one of my targets would be lost. However, there were some happy moments to come. With 2 laps to go, I was fighting with an FZR and swapping positions with him. On the final lap of the race, it looks like he realised he didn't have enough fuel, and started to slow. I initially hit him up the rear because he was travelling so slowly. It was after I passed him that James noticed that Laprevotte was very slow ahead of me, and that I had made 10 seconds on him in a single lap. Coming into the final corner, he was very wide and I stuck my car into the gap, getting totally sideways on tyres that wouldn't last another lap because they were freezing cold. Amazingly, I got alongside and used the XRR's grunt to beat him by half a second. This was an amazing end to the race! It turns out that Laprevotte had had a puncture and was struggling. He was very unlucky to be caught by us where he did, because he was having a hard time turning left and that final corner is a very tricky left-hander.

So, we got 15th place. BUT, 3rd place was disqualifed and 1st place was the guest car of #low so we ended up 13th. This is a 5 place improvement on our previous race. Coming into Fern Bay, we are extremely confident of another top 15 finish. And, who knows, maybe even better.....'

Michael created this video to show the final lap of the race and its thrilling conclusion.

Here are James Barrington's thoughts on the race: 

'Top 10 was definitely possible, before the race was stopped I was within 20 seconds of the leaders after 20 minutes. Unfortunately as you know, I had a very unfortunate slide on the cold tyres and lost 9 places on the first lap. I pushed on and knew that many people would fall off the track. By the time the first stops began I was up to 13th I think, and then inside the top 10 by the time a few others had stopped and I had to hand over to Michael. Had a long stop to repair the damage from my spin, it wasn't too heavy but I didn't want Michael to have to try drive an hour with a car the wasn't driving straight. Michael did a good solid stint and was poised to overtake Hynninen when he went off at the chicane. I took over with about 70 minutes to go and began to push on to recover the lost ground from having to repair the car once again. All was going well, managed to pass a few cars and set about giving us as big a gap as I could once we found out we needed to put Michael back in the car. Unfortunately the #25 would not let us through under blue flags and completely broke my rhythm, after which point the tyres were cold and I could no longer push fully. I handed over to Michael, seems the front right also got changed in the stop which cost us a few seconds. A few corners later Michael got bounced off the track but luckily didn't lose too much time. I gave him the one lap to go signal and basically let him know we had nothing to lose as the car behind us was behind the leaders and would finish a lap behind us. The rest is history and one of the greatest final laps I've had the pleasure of viewing in endurance racing. Congrats Michael, I know I said it about 20 times as you crossed the line but that really was an exceptional performance to jump in the car with stone cold tyres and five minutes to go.'

 And the final word goes to Craig Taylor (TAYLOR-MANIA, SRS:Taylor), who analysed our performance:

'Seems like it was an interesting race right up to the end. What a drive that must've been from James after the spin on the restart ?! We've gotta be happy with such an improvement, so well done.

If only we can rid ourselves of those small gremlins that we seem to encounter... we can surely build on this improvement if we can avoid those mistakes. But of course, that's easier said that done. However, without spinning or crashing or getting held up by back markers in some way, even this round it seems that a top 10 placement was within grasp.'

The last few weeks has been very eventful for the Sim Racing Society team. With the induction of new drivers and the entering of new leagues; it's very hard to keep up with all the goings on. So, let's round 'em up!

The track was Kyoto National, a very effective tyre burner. I can't really compete regarding laptimes against Blauwhoff (ChristijaNL), Ranseier (VoiD), Marques (Angel_ghost), Santos (g-force pt) and a few other fast FXOs, so I set up for having a decent race pace and longer tyre life. Races are short anyway, but they just can't push that hard without suffering from the temperatures.

I qualified 9th, with 2:00.96 (pb is 2:00.90). Blauwhoff (ChristijaNL) got pole as usual with 1:59.6.

So, at the sprint race (8 laps) I passed Laprevotte( GreyBull [CHA],FXO) at the start. The first laps were madness but I managed to stay within the top 8. I caught Santos (XRT) at the s/f line and passed him on the outside of the first oval corner. 1s ahead, Ward(jwardy, XRT) and Ranseier (FXO) were battling hard.

Sedgwick's (JackDaMaster) tyres were really giving up on his FXO. On the 7th lap, we were all together. Starting the last lap Ward passed Sedgwick and I passed Ranseier, who quickly got the position back and started putting some pressure on Jack. Three corners from the finish, they both took the inside line, so I took the outside. Jack backed off, and I took the corner side-by-side with Ranseier. He had a better exit, so I stayed behind for the next one. He went wide and got back right on my backside in the last corner. Luckily I had a good exit and pulled away. Phew! 5th place with best lap being 2:01.32.

For the main race (15 laps) I started 4th. Passed Ranseier at the start as he uses a FXO. My idea was to push hard on the first laps as all the good guys would have to climb the field, which would give us some time. But I got stuck behind Martelle (Toddshooter, XRT) and Marques was putting a lot of pressure on me. Then Ranseier came and passed us both. I passed Todd. Marques passed me.
4th lap and Blauwhoff was already behind me. I couldn't do anything...

From lap 5, which I started in 5th, Ward was behind me but not attacking. I was trying to keep up with the guys in front of me, while not destroying the tyres. This would prove useful later.

A couple of laps later, the guys ahead of me caught Santos, who was leading comfortably since the start. At lap 10, Marques was having major tyre issues and both Blauwhoff and I passed him. With 5 laps to go and more than 3s from the leader, I was pushing hard.
1 lap later, Santos was making it really hard for Ranseier and Blauwhoff, and they were swapping positions all the time.
With two laps to go, Ranseier lead with Blauwhoff catching him. I was trying like a madman to get Santos.
One lap to go, and Blauwhoff cought VoiD and they start fighting like crazy. Santos and I closed up. On the last lap, Santos was right behind Ranseier, and I was right behind Santos. At the same corner as the sprint race, Ranseier went wide and I went to the inside to overtake Santos, but went wide myself, along with him. Now 3rd with 2 corners left I was trying my best to have good corner exits but it was just enough to draft Ranseier when there was no time left. I Finished 3rd, 0.12s behind him and my best lap was 2:01.43 (made twice).

This round was pretty good, I'm happy with my performance. Next round is Westhill, which is another tyre burner. I won the GTTC race there once, so I'm hoping for another good result.

Next up, it was our new driver, James Barrington (count.bazley) who was racing in the NDR LFSCART 2009 series. This was Round 1, at Kyoto National Reverse. Here is his account of ther second race of the day; after he finished 11th in Race 1 after being caught up in sombody else's crash.

I started Saturday morning deciding whether I could even drive the car well enough to race. I got involved in an accident at Turn 1 and this dropped me to 20th. With so many slower cars infront of me and some minor damage I decided to take my mandatory pitstop at the end of Lap 3 of 31. With a stroke of luck the safety car was deployed for an accident whilst I was taking my stop and so I had managed to pull the perfect strategy. Thanks to this I managed to work my way up to 2nd, with Ondrej Maska chasing me down in the final laps. Dead heat on the line, the timing put me 2nd even though it looks like I probably came 3rd. Not sure how they will draw the result on that one but either way - a podium is so much more than I expected.

So, it has been a very constructive week for SRS. In addition to the above, we have also been preparing hard for the next GTAL race, due to begin on May 9th. It will be at Westhill; and should prove to be a very exciting event!

It was always going to be an interesting debut in this brand new championship, but it was certainly a lot more challenging than anyone had expected. This was a three hour race at the Blackwood Reverse circuit, with Eduardo de Souza and Craig Taylor at the wheel of our XRR. We qualified 20th of 28th; and were hoping for a top 15 by the end of the race.

The race began before the green flag was shown; some horrendous driving on the pace car lap saw one car on its side before the startline and already showed us why the league is called the 'GT Amateur League'. After this chaos, our Brazillian, de Souza, tried his best to avoid the ensuing mayhem and was running well until a disconnection on lap 11. This cost our team at least a lap, and had us on the back foot for the rest of the race. De Souza struggled with cooling tyres late-on in his stint, and had a collision with a lapping car that got too close.

As de Souza turned into the pitlane, it was time for Craig Taylor to show his mettle. Craig would drive the last hour and a half and did a remarkable job. He had just one scary moment in which his car nearly flipped over. The XRR is a very top heavy car and therefore is a bit of a handful when going over the tall kerbs of Blackwood. Because of the disconnection and lack of a tracker, it was nearly impossible to work out where we were in the actual positions, so when every car on the track was showing us a blue flag, we had no choice but to let them past for fear of blocking a leader. In the end, several DNFs and DQs later, the race finished with the Karma team taking victory. We would finish in an overall 16th position after the results were calculated manually by an admin, after tracker problems.

 This has definitely been a learning experience for the team, and we are still looking forward to the next race at Westhill, where we feel the XRR can perform to its best.

Here is a selection of de Souza's and Taylor's comments:

'16th position, that'll do. I wish I could've done a little better... the race could've been a whole lot worse. At least we finished the race, scored some points, kept out of trouble and gained some experience.' - Craig Taylor

 'The car is undrivable with cold tyres, so the end of my stint was a genuine example of how NOT to drive... But that's the point, right? Now we know' - Eduardo de Souza.

With our third piece of big news in one day, SRS is very happy to announce we have signed a sixth driver to our team:

SRS:CountBazley (count.bazley, James Barrington) is 21 and from Yorkshire, North East England. James has a large amount of experience in, but not limited to, Single Seater. James used to race against SRS in the Gentlefoot Formula challenge in the Formula XR. We were always impressed with him back then, and we finally managed to track him down and invite him along to our growing driver lineup. He will be racing in the GTAL, as our fifth driver. James commented about himself: 'I'm afraid I have that same sarcastic sense of humour that makes Michael so loveable to the masses!' We have no idea what he's talking about.

Sim Racing Society is pleased to announce that we now have a brand new server up and running. Named SRS:Race Server, it will be running combinations for upcoming leagues, or just rotating through cars and tracks that we like. Previously, we were using servers loaned from Sonicrealms Racing, and we will forever be indebted to them for their kind help and support.

SRS:Race Server is powered by Airio and Storm Servers.