The very first night of a new iRacing season may be a bit early to declare superlatives, but after six months away from any competitive sim racing, my comeback drive of the season came right on time in my return to action.
My sabbatical was borne mostly out of real-life relief, with Covid restrictions lifted and a long-awaited return to quasi-normalcy after a year of lockdown. This spring and summer, I attended in-person hockey games, vacationed with family at the beach, and generally enjoyed time away from my three monitors that double (triple?) as a windshield.
But I’d be lying if I said my iRacing break also wasn’t partially fueled by frustration. In my most recent endurance races, I crashed out of the Daytona 24h race all by myself, had a shorter IMSA race at Daytona end after one-too-many incidents at the hands of LMP2 drivers, and never even got in our car at the Sebring 12h since that time, my teammate Karl absorbed the KO from an over-eager LMP2 in the race’s first hour.
Those experiences had made me question my own abilities, and those of other drivers on the service. But a long enough time away brought a craving to drive once again, and after testing the latest round of updates that improved the handling and responsiveness of the GT cars, it was time to get back behind the wheel.
The series was an inauspicious one: IMSA, complete with those LMP2 torpedoes, not to mention the potential for off-pace GTE drivers who blend in with the GT3 field about as well as water and motor oil.
The track was an unusual one: the Homestead-Miami Speedway roval, combining the straightaways and north turn of the oval with a start-stop infield road course, not too dissimilar to Daytona.
And my car of choice was an unexpected one: the Lamborghini Huracán GT3 EVO, built on the same chassis as the Audi R8, for which I’ve never been able to get a grip. But the Lambo has its own character, and the recent updates made it feel like a brand new car.
In the sundown qualifying session, my second-place starting spot came as a relief, both for being that far up the field and for not being first and forced to pace our GT3 class to the green flag, unpracticed as I am at race starts and on a new track, no less.
The first lap brought the sort of calamity I expected from this series, with spun-out Porsches littering the sides of the track through the infield section as if they were searching for curbside parking spots in nearby Miami Beach.
As GT3 leaders, we carved through the carnage as best as we could, and I managed to stay within drafting range of the polesitting BMW, who seemed to have the pace to pull away if not for the traffic we continued to hit.
On lap 7, though, that traffic hit me. A GTE who was one of the first-lap castaways was moving back through the field, and in the final infield corner, he braked inexplicably late, skidded sideways from a second behind me, and clobbered the back of my car with his Big Boi BMW passenger-side door.
After waiting for a half-dozen cars to drive past our accident scene, I managed to get going again, and to my surprise, the car felt mostly undamaged — something a passing LMP2 confirmed for me a few laps later.
But in fifth place and a dozen seconds behind the leader, my shot at the win was surely over. Instead, I focused on clawing back as many spots as possible, which was made easier when a few GT3s spun off course at the tricky turn two, and seemingly capped off by a pass on the banking to take second place on lap 18.
The leader remained about 12 seconds ahead before the pit stop, so while I could match his pace, I wasn’t catching up. Just finishing the race cleanly would feel like a success, I thought, and I’d have to settle for dreams of battling for the win and what could have been.
After the pit stops were completed, though, I got an unexpected call from my robo-spotter: You are the leader! I didn’t think much of it since I was among the last GT3s to pit, so I assumed the lineup just hadn’t cycled through yet.
Besides, I had a battle on my hands, and it wasn’t the sort I’d hoped for entering the race. A GTE backmarker who was running GT3 lap times was right behind me, and frustratingly, he was trying every sort of ill-advised move to get around me.
There were divebombs under braking, for which I simply drove a wider line to stay ahead.
There was a scary side-by-side run into the high-speed first turn — a left-hand flick off the oval that’s hardly a passing zone — with an LMP2 darting between us.
And there was his final attempt: a late-braking, too-deep lunge into the same hairpin where I was clobbered earlier in the race. This time, though, I gave him room up the inside, watched him predictably spin at the apex, and gave a sarcastic “nice move!” on the radio as I drove past.
At that point, I finally had time to process the reality of the race. I truly was first in class, and the polesitter and erstwhile leader was now nine seconds behind. After the race, he told me that a black flag for an unsafe pit exit forced him to pit a second time, and that one mistake proved much costlier than my torments in traffic.
The final laps were thankfully cleaner for me, with only occasional passing LMP2s around me. In my mirrors, I could see a battle between off-pace GTEs who were now mixing in with the second- and third-place GT3s. I feel your pain, I thought, but after my own experiences earlier in the race, my sympathies ended there.
After 45 minutes, 36 laps, two GTEs spinning in my vicinity at the same corner, and one unfortunate penalty for my closest opponent, my race for redemption was completed with a victory.
It’s not a result I would have expected in my first race since returning, and certainly not one I could repeat in a stronger field. But as my first — and best — race since March, I can only hope that this comeback performance is a sign of things to come.