Australia is known for its many creatures that bite, sting, or stab, and during my stint in the V8 Supercars last summer, I think I found their automotive equivalents in one of my worst ever sim racing showings.

As the last of my six weeks driving GT machinery rolled around this year, I was set for another rendezvous with one of my most favorite yet most pain-inducing cars, the Ford Falcon FG V8.

By a coincidence of the schedule, this week the V8 series was at Imola — the only track where I’ve ever raced them. Two years ago, the NEO series hosted a one-off endurance race in which I seemed to lose all ability to drive whenever I encountered another car. And last year, my road trip woes in the V8 also played out around the Italian circuit.

While I’d love to someday conquer the V8 Supercar around other circuits such as Bathurst and Phillip Island — some of its native stomping grounds — I also couldn’t complain about the chance to finally get it right at Imola. In my mind, it only added to the desire for revenge.

I was determined to make the most of this opportunity, so much so that I subscribed to Virtual Racing School’s V8 data pack for this one week and eschewed the chance to race in the 24 Hours of Spa with my teammates so I could fully devote my practice time to one car and one series.

Unlike other stops on my Summer Road Trip, my goal this week wasn’t to learn anything particularly profound about a car, a series, or a community. This week, I was solely set on redemption. As 1930s Australian farmers perhaps muttered to the emus eating their crops, this means war.

Ready for Anything

Like I found last year, the V8 Supercars Series isn’t one of the most popular on iRacing, especially outside of Australia and New Zealand. However, two races per week — on Thursday and Friday nights at 10:15 pm EDT — are held at American-friendly time slots and even have their season-long points tallied like a league.

I marked those two races on my schedule and logged on early Thursday evening to begin practicing against some of my eventual competitors that night. My race pace was a few tenths off of the top two drivers in practice, but as I discovered last year, having a decent pace is only one aspect of taming the V8s.

Especially considering that this year’s races would be 11 laps longer with a second pit stop required, I focused my preparations on mastering those other components, such as getting consistent, confident, and comfortable both on the track and in the pits.

When race time arrived, there were only eight drivers in the session — the fewest so far this season on a Thursday night. But what the field lacked in size, it made up for in strength. Three drivers including myself had iRatings above 4,000, and I suspected that several Aussies with iRatings battle-toughened by regular competition in the V8s would also be a threat.

Although I hadn’t spent too much of my practice time on qualifying runs, I put together one of my best qualifying performances ever. After a decent first lap, I nailed the second one. It was so good that my legs were shaking toward the end of the lap in anticipation of the lap time — a 1:43.652.

That gave me the pole by a tenth and a half, which surprised everyone including myself. But perhaps I shouldn’t have been too shocked. After all, my experience with this car says that I tend to have no problem running quick laps by myself, but I struggle when driving around others.

That challenge was next, and the frustrations of my history in this car all came rushing back as I took to the grid. From there, the first lap of the race was less like driving down memory lane and more like a boulevard of broken dreams.

Wheels Up

First, there was the standing start. Last year, I applied way too much throttle and spun the tires all the way to the first turn, dropping halfway down the field. This year, I still had some wheelspin but managed only two positions lost. In most cars, I would consider it a terrible getaway, but compared to my previous experiences in the V8, this one wasn’t so bad.

After losing all those spots off the start last year, I was hit by another car in turn 1 and tipped over onto my side. This time, I still managed to get up on two wheels by clipping the inside kerbing, but I held my position through that tricky series of corners.

Later in the lap, I was reminded of how my disastrous second race unfolded last year, pushing too hard in a side-by-side fight into the Variante Alta chicane and cutting the track, which gave me a slowdown penalty that turned into a stop-and-hold when I didn’t serve it in time. This year, I stayed single-file through the rest of the first lap and crossed the line in third place.

I couldn’t put the past behind me quite so soon, though. At the start of the second lap, the fourth-place car moved to my inside entering turn 1, and even though he left me plenty of room, I was spooked. I completely botched my braking and missed the corner, driving through the gravel before rejoining the track. That cost me a slowdown but thankfully not a position or any further penalty.

In the laps that followed, that driver kept applying the pressure, and it got to me. Every lap, I seemed to overdrive at least one corner while pushing to stay ahead of him.

On lap 7, he had another good run entering turn 1 so I let him pass before I made another big mistake. I hoped he could set a decent pace in front of me, but as the laps clicked off, I found that I was nearly a second per lap slower behind him.

It was likely due to a combination of braking earlier, having a bit of draft down the straightaways, and better tire management. In any case, I felt like I couldn’t exactly press the issue given that I had purposefully given him the position only a few laps earlier.

Last year, I found that V8 drivers tended to be quite aggressive in defending, even if the cars behind them were clearly quicker. Maybe it was a product of the smaller fields or the longer races, but I found this year’s drivers were extremely understanding and forgiving. On lap 11, just before the first round of pit stops began, the driver ahead of me returned the favor and gave me the position back.

Before the race, I decided on a pit stop schedule that would have me run a full tank — 13 laps — in the first two stints and a shorter, eight-lap stint at the end. Even though the other three lead cars made their first pit stops earlier to even out their stints, I stuck to my schedule. That cost me third place to my opponent in our flip-flopping battle during the first half of the race, but I quickly caught him on fresher tires and he again let me pass.

After that, I made no mistakes for the lap or two that he was in my mirror, and by the second round of pit stops, I was six seconds ahead of him.

With a light fuel load for the final stint, I had one of the quickest cars on the track and managed to claw back a second or two on the leaders. However, their early advantage was too much for me to overcome and I was left to finish in third place.

Last year, I salvaged a second-place finish in my error-filled first race of the week, mainly due to an overall weaker field. This year, I finished one position worse but against stronger opponents. While I’m sure it was forward progress, that nervous first stint still felt a bit like going backwards.

Head to Head to Head

The Friday night race is marketed as the Americas main event, and last year, it also included a number of the top Aussie and Kiwi V8 drivers. This year, there were fewer Americans — only 3 out of 13 drivers in the field were from outside of Australia and New Zealand — and also fewer big names. However, the competition at the front of the field was still incredibly close.

I again pulled out an unexpectedly quick qualifying lap and took the pole, but the second- and third-place starters qualified less than a tenth of a second slower. I knew I’d have my hands full with them behind me during the race — that is, if I could even beat them off the starting line.

In this race, I got my best start ever in the V8 Supercar, although admittedly that was a low bar to clear. I won the drag race to turn 1 but was outbraked by the second-place car, so we went side-by-side through the first chicane. On cold tires, I had to hold a tight line and do a bit of defensive driving, but I escaped with the lead.

It was clear during the opening laps that I wasn’t going to pull away from the two cars behind me, so this race would be yet another test of my ability to not make mistakes with other cars filling my mirrors.

Although I’m generally not a fan of aggressive defending since it slows the pace and encourages more mistakes, I did take a defensive line a few times into turn 1 to hold the lead. The second-place driver was ready to pounce at other spots as well, and on lap 7, he got to my inside through the fast Piratella turn and we drove side-by-side through the next few corners.

If I take nothing else from this week, it was that battle, which represents my improvement in the V8 while driving around others. We ran two-wide for four consecutive corners, just like in the real-world Supercar battles where the drivers are skilled and trustful enough to drive door-to-door in these power-packed, grip-starved beasts. Even better, I was able to come out of that battle with the lead still in tact.

I couldn’t hold him off forever, though, and two laps later, he passed me into turn 1 despite my defending. Once I lost the top spot, I figured that the new leader would just drive away. However, in the final laps of our first stint, worn tires began to take their toll on him.

Stop and Go (to the Lead)

Near the end of lap 10, the leader got sideways under braking for the Variante Alta chicane and drifted over the first set of kerbs. I checked up to avoid hitting him, which let the third-place car get a run off the second part of the corner and pass me.

The next lap, the leader ran wide through the penultimate corner and lost the position. With the two cars ahead of me battling and the fuel window fully open, I was the first to duck into the pits for fresh tires and fuel.

A fast outlap in clean air put me back in first place, but the two cars behind me showed the same sort of pace as earlier in the race, so they quickly got back to my rear bumper. That meant another stint of pressure from behind, and while I may have overdriven a few corners — it’s hard not to in these tricky cars — I didn’t run off track, take slowdown penalties, or otherwise make the sort of mistakes that litter my history in this car.

With 12 laps to go, I hit pit road to make my final stop, and the third-place car followed me in. However, he completed his stop a few seconds faster than me and left pit road easily in front. While I had added a few liters of extra fuel as a buffer, that wouldn’t fully explain how his stop was so much quicker. Perhaps he short-filled to jump me in the pits?

The next lap, the previous leader pitted and also came out ahead of me, leaving me in third place several seconds behind. The new leader who had such a fast pit stop was clearly losing time at the end of the straightaways, which only reinforced my thought that he was saving fuel.

Eventually, he lost the lead although I still wasn’t catching him very quickly. My only hope for avoiding another race in third place was a mistake from one of the drivers in front of me, and with five laps to go, that’s exactly what happened.

Coming up the hill from the Acque Minerali corner, the second-place car spun sideways. It’s a tricky spot in these cars due to the elevation change and slight kink in the road. As he recovered after nosing into the wall, I moved up to second place and made it through the final few laps without copying his error and without worrying about any fuel mileage trickery for me or my opponents.

Baby Steps

For the first time driving the V8 Supercar, I left this race satisfied with my performance. Although I wished my race pace had been better or my fuel calculations sharper, I had no problems with my execution, from the standing start to the side-by-side racing to the final laps on worn tires.

A solid and fairly clean race also helped give some padding to my iRating and safety rating, which I’m sure I’ll need in the coming weeks as I venture into some uncharted prototype and open-wheel territory.

Compared to last year, I’ve definitely made progress in the V8s. My single-lap speed is better than I could hope for, my standing starts are somewhat competent, and I’m doing much better while driving around other cars, even if I sometimes still push too hard.

But I know I still have a lot to work on as well, mainly with the mechanics of the car and my driving. When comparing my laps against a professional driver’s on Virtual Racing School, I found that he was carrying far more speed out of the corners than I could even imagine. And in some braking zones, such as the one before Acque Minerali, I know I could still gain more time.

In both races, I seemed to lack early and mid-run speed. Was that due to a setup issue like not running enough camber? Was I driving too aggressively? Was I not driving aggressively enough? Or was it all of the above?

I’m sure I’d learn more about this car and get more comfortable if I drove it every week, and eventually, maybe I could even become competitive against the top Australian drivers who compete in the weekly strength-of-field races in the wee hours of Monday in the US.

To get there, it would take a dedicated effort, some late nights and early mornings behind the wheel, and maybe a few more frustrations along the way. But in a way, that all seems worth it if I can finally tame an Aussie creature so fierce that it bites back if not handled with caution.