We found problems with the Thermalito circuit whilst testing in longer endurance racing tests. We found that the AI cars were struggling with overtaking at the first and second tunnels which meant that a lot of the LMP1, LMP2 and Prototype cars were crashing out early in the race. A great shame as we really loved this circuit to race on but we want to race a good, long and fair race so we have had to abandon Thermalito.

Our new track? Birmingham, Alabama!

I've never raced on this track but Mr.Dave has extensive knowledge of the circuit so we decided to give it a go. I did a practice run on Thursday and although I prefer Thermalito overall, I still enjoyed the ride and some of the highly technical corners of Birmingham will provide an extra challenge in our 24 hour race next week.

Armed with the new circuit, I prepped the car - again, maximum downforce, maximum acceleration setup and I set a practice race for 25 hours condensed into one golden hour. This would mean that I would experience pit stops, night racing, tyre degredation etc and traffic all in the space of a 1 hour race. I faired pretty badly at first, totally fluffing my initial starting fuel load but I did manage to claw some places back to finish 40th out of 54 as well as put up the fastest lap in the GT1 class. A good sign. It served it's purpose of highlighting some issues that we will need to bear in mind for the big race.

Firstly, the Birmingham circuit is able to handle 60+ drivers on a starting grid. This is fine, but when it comes to pitting, the cars get pretty stacked up and a couple of times I ended up waiting behind an LMP car to get out of my pit box! My only other issue was I need to remember - MAKE SURE I SET THE FUEL LOAD BEFORE THE RACE! hehe Pitting after 4 laps of starting was no fun at all, because it put me a lap behind and right in the way of the much faster LMPs!

Anyway, here is a couple of videos of my hot lap during the race:

On the 28th January, we will be participating in a live gaming event. A 24 hour race around Thermalito, California in an Aston Martin DB9R FIA GT1 spec car. The game of choice is rFactor with mods and every moment of it will be streamed live to the internet for your enjoyment. Here is the TV Channel:

We had a bit of a change with the mods in preparation for the big race. It turns out that the controller that we will be using (A Fanatec racing wheel) has issues with the EnduRacer mod that we were using for the race. The handling on the Aston Martin was atrocious with the wheel. It was quite a handful with my cheap Thrustmaster wheel too, but I managed to tame it somewhat with a lot of practice. To cut a long story short, we have switched mods to the GT_All mod. It is a very well polished mod like the EnduRacer mod is but the problems with the wheel are none existent and the car handles a lot more predictable with the Fanatec wheel. Our new car is (still an Aston of course) the 2010 FIA GT1 Class Aston Martin DB9R Hexis AMR. It's handling is so much more predictable and after a few changes to the setup and around 20 laps of practice, lap 22 of my test session gave me my fastest time yet. 2 Minutes, 2.794 seconds. Very pleased with the performance now!

Here is the new Aston:

Here is my hotlap:

Here is an onboard view of the same lap:

Now that we have the track, the mod and the right car, it is time to try it out to see what it can do. I wanted an authentic experience so I forced myself to begin using a sequential shifter on my racing wheel instead of paddle changes underneath the steering wheel. This is no easy thing to get used to as I am very accustomed to changing gear with my fingers whilst keeping both hands on the wheel. Leaving the wheel in one hand to change gear at 150mph is pretty tricky, especially when gearing down to slow down for a corner. I did it though, and I am getting used to it every lap. I set the AI to 53 cars (the maximum the circuit can handle) at 110% AI strength and went about my business trying to master the controller, the car and the track.

It was a tough job. At first I kept spinning on corner exits, changing gear at the wrong times and generally being slow but as time went on, lap after lap, I got better and better until I could keep a good few laps going without hitting anything! Still a fair way to go really as I need to be able to control the car for 2 hour stints with no mistakes. All in good time.

I was averaging about 2 mins 8, 2 mins 10 secs but my fastest lap which was in no means the fastest I can go was 2 mins 4 seconds. Here is my hot lap. As you can see straight from the first corner, there is lots of room for improvement.

Got the game?

If you have the game installed, the mod and the track, you should be able to run this replay from the Replay Fridge in-game.

Thermalito Hot Lap - Replay Fridge File