Darryn Lobb's blog

Due to the long break between round 5 and round 6 of the championship, I figured I?d look into something else to keep me entertained.

So I stumbled upon iRacing… A motor racing sim, actually used by the likes of Marcus Ambrose and Dale Earnhardt Jr. I started this past weekend, slowly moving my way through the rookie ranks, and slowly, notching up a win or 2.

The realism suprises me, the adrenaline is right up there, and all in all a good experience. An experience worth mentioning would be the oval track races that I have managed to do so far. 4 of them, 1 win, 2 top 5?s and a 6th. Now I get the buzz about oval racing, even though I get it from a computer simulator.

Anwayz, on the real life front, we are off to East London in 2 weeks time for round 6 of the SA National championship. I need to take 9 points more than my closest rival to win my 2nd South African championship, and equal my fathers record

Hopefully we?ll get some testing in next week… and when we do, I?ll be sure to post something bout it.

Till then, keep it in the fast lane!

Darryn #99

This past weekend was the 5th round of the Pro – Tour SA Nationals held at Zwartkops Raceway.

It was the 2nd time back at the track this season. Due to work commitments, we werent able to test at all in the 5 weeks since te last race. Never the less, things started well from first session friday.

Our first session was tough with air temp at 5 degrees celsius. I lapped fastest in all 3 practice sessions by between 0.5 and 0.7s which set us well for the rest of the weekend!

All drivers elected to run another set of new tyres for qualifying and races (we are limited to 6 sets for the season).

Qualifying was incredibly close. The top 4 covered by 0.3s. Pole time was a 1m2.65 compared to 1m3.7 earlier in the year proving the continuous forward developement of the series. I managed to snatch pole by a mere 0.05s

This race also saw a rule change which now made it compulsary to run onboard video cameras. I spent alot of time studying my qualifying session and elected to make changes to my car for saturday.

We increased rear downforce for higher apex speed thru the 2 fast sweeps. In addition, a small change to the front ARB for a little bit more grip through the slow hairpin (leading to the longest straight).

The race was going to be won by the driver who managed to get heat into their tyres quicker than everyone else! We were battling for about 6 laps before the tyres started to come on. We were not used to such cold weather in South Africa!

I got a great start to heat 1 which turned into a fairly boring affair with a lights to flag victory by 0.8s. with an additional point for fastest lap. This meant I started heat 2 in 8th position, as we run a reverse top 8 grid based on fastest laps in heat 1.

It was a brilliant race and one of the best all season. I evenutally finished up in 2nd place 2.2s behind the winner, who was my team mate. He had started the race in pole position. There was some great overtaking and repassing between myself and last years champion (see pic attached)

I have now extended my lead to 78 points in the championship with 3 rounds remaining. This means that I could theoretically win the championship at the next round should I take 9 points more than my closest rival.

The next round sees the tour move down to East London Grand Prix circuit for the first time this year. I have not raced these cars at the track for 2.5 years, but i look forward to getting up to speed and attempting to seal a memorable 2009 championship!

Till then, see you on track!