Watch the Team race to victory at the 24 Hours of L2R this weekend.

The race is scheduled to start this Saturday, October 24th at 1 PM GMT.

Broadcast TV channel:
http://www.l2rteam.com/L2RTV1/TV/tabid/224/Default.aspx



Team Name: SimHQ Motorsports
Team Manager: Doug Atkinson
Car: Sports 5000 - Ferrari #9
Driver #1: Ahmad El-Nemr (Australia)
Driver #2: Ben Holt (Denmark)
Driver #3: Dan Blake (USA)
Driver #4: Dan Bailey (UK)



Team Name: SimHQ Motorsports 2
Team Manager: Doug Atkinson
Car: Sports 3000 - Ford GT40 #18
Driver #1: Doug Atkinson (USA)

I will be watching :-) for sure and Doug I really hope you can get some co-drivers for the GT-40.



Good Luck (to a certain extent) and I will see you on track this weekend.

David K - Team ADC
http://forums.speedgeezers.net/index.php?showtopic=30422

yea, my only concern is brain fading into the wall, lol

I'll try to watch. Good luck to all.

True + you cannot fall asleep even a little bit with these cars


There is a nice red GT40 with your name on the door waiting for you

Good luck guys.

Good Luck guys.

Man, I'll definately be checking in on this. Wish I could have jumped in with the drivers for the second car, just not to be this weekend.

Great luck ya'all!

Best of luck gentlemen.

I'll second that. But the time for preparation is too short, as I learnt of this yesterday.

I'll try to watch the race...gl guys:D

Thanks for the notice - I'll try to watch some of it tomorrow.
Best of luck to you guys!

Good luck lads If you need any help or feel you need a break just take some pro plus.

Getting ready for the start which will be a flying single file start. Dan "DBR9" Bailey starts in #9 Ferrari. Car #18 is DNS. There are 22 cars on the grid with over 100 drivers from all over the world.

Edit: OK, the in game rank is not the actual placing. Only on the Live Timing page is, which is on viewable to L2R members. SimHQ currently running P6 on the same lap as the leaders (L24), at race time 1:35.

At the end of the first hour, Dan Bailey is running 6th place overall / 6th in class.

Driver swap at lap 35, and Ben "LazyC" Holt is driving. A bad crash after the Dunlop Bridge and Ben is hobbling car #9 around the track on 3 wheels and heading for the pits for repairs.

At the end of hour 2, the bad crash and the ensuing pit stop have taken it's toll. Car #9 is now in 20th spot. The good news is, there are several cars immediately ahead so moving up several places should be possible. It's still early in the race and time to make-up the 4 lap distance with the leaders.

LC is up to 15th already

I can't remember my user name and you have to login to watch

I'm logged in but keep getting access denied.

4th hour. Afternoon has turned into dusk and that has brought the lights on. Ben has done a superb job of moving back up in the field. Car #9 now sits in 14th spot overall. Dan "Chipwich" Blake is expected to take the wheel in the next few minutes at the next fuel/tire stop.

Server crash. L2R is regrouping and we'll resume shortly.

Server back up after the burp. Good quick recovery for L2R. Because of the plug-in the discos don't affect the outcome. Anyone who suffered in an endurance race disco in rFactor will appreciate that.

11th place for LC, after a solid drive by Chip and Ahmad

Don't know how solid my drive was, but Ahmad was peeling the paint off of the competitors as he ripped by. Outstanding drive Ahmad. Ben has just picked up another spot to P10. Inching our way back up the ladder.

At 8.5 hours, Ben is holding onto a solid 10th place. Night time now and the race is 1/3 done.

Just over 9 hours, and Ben has taken over 9th place overall. Some huge crashes no doubt because people are beginning to get tired and they are having problems driving in the dark.

Good job so far lads, i'll check in again in the morning, keep it up the good work.

Incredible! Great to hear the progress and trying to get access to the video now...

Keep up the good work. If I could send you some 'internet' stimulants, I would!

Same here, access denied message.

Log in to the web site ok, just can't view any video. If anyone has a link to the stats or video that's different, please share!

They might have locked the live timing to drivers only, due to some modifications of the mods that are being used at the request of the modding teams. A shame really.

Just got through driving my second stint, and am exhausted. Ahmad gave me the car in 9th, he and Ben having brought it back from as low as 19th. I gained a place to 8th, but couldn't hold it, so back to Ben in 9th. Perhaps he can do better. The car is in pretty good shape, although with some body damage. Top speed is 206mph/333kph. Ahmad handed it over flawlessly, but I got knocked off by a car, then spun later after a big pause. Anytime I am near the blue car without a top, I get massive pauses. Anyway, having some fun all the same. At least I don't have to sleep in a motorhome

Great drive Dan and it looks like Ben is holding 9th, great stuff!

Well, I just finished after my second stint, which went reasonably well at first, until I decided to try to take a second gear corner in first, THAT IS NOT POSSIBLE , as I found out. Resulting in a spin and a damaged front. After that it went without further mishaps, that is, until the the brakes on the front decided they had had enough, resulting in a couple of crashes ´till I found out what the problem was. Luckily Ahmad was ready to take over, so now we know it´ll all be well

Back to digging out of a hole. A disco, a bad scoring error ("we didn't hit esc, honest") and two back-to-back crashes due to failing brakes have pushed the car from 8th to 13th. Ahmad is trying to catch the two cars in front of him on the same lap and that will put car #9 back in it's highest position since early in the race. Car #9 currently sits in 9th.

Position #7. Now to hold that position. Farther up is doubtful. It's +3 laps to the next car. P7 would be a good day considering the challenges and bad luck.

Keep going team! Watching the live feed of the pits and seeing people call in and leave is taking me right back to actually being there in the summer. Serious goose bumps!

Position 6. Ben is carefully maintaining the pace. We don't need to race anyone, just hold the position and keep the car healthy. 5 hours to go.

5?? less than 3 by my count, plugin also said less than 4 when i handed it to Ben so we're almost there!!

goon, you need to get back into this. Not too bad when you can reconnect if there is a disco!

Car #9 is now in 9th position after a disco in the LC > Ahmad handoff. Then Ahmad had a disco coming back in. Scoring added 4 laps - one for each disco and esc in the pits. We think it is because of high pings all the Kiwis and Aussies are getting in the race. So Ahmad will be bringing it home to the finish line and see how many of the 3 lost positions he can gain back.

Position 7. Doubtful we'll get 6th place back because the Porsche 917 covering it is up by 3 laps. Cross your fingers.

Updates please!




Did we hold??????

Great job so far to all!

Qualified 6th, finished 7th, well done to LC, Chip, Ahmad, great drives and a special mention for Doug for staying up mostly all night.

Fini. 7 out of 22 starters. And there were some big sim racing names driving in the event.

IIRC correctly in 24 hours car #9 went from 5th > 21st > 10th > 19th > 8th > 13th > 9th > 6th and finally, 7th place. What a roller coaster that was.

Big thanks to Ahmad, Ben, Dan Blake, Dan Bailey and Joe Keefe who did a wonderful job on the drivers schedule.

I have tons of images and the vcr file (in 3 parts). The replay file is 288 MB. I'll do a video sometime in the next few days. But for now, I'm going to bed.

Here's my race as much as I remember it, it's a bit of a blur now with the headache it gave me

First I praise & thank God that we made it!

My first run, I joined almost 7 hours in and took over from Chipwich while we were in ~13th position, rFactor froze on the swapover so we had a ~2 lap penalty and I rejoined in 21st. I had a brand new car so I tried to capitalise on it as much as possible while not making any mistakes. I met my target laptime of around ~3:36 and managed to bring us back up to ~10th spot. Two consistent stints without a mistake so I was pretty happy about, and surprised.

The second run I had was a small one only about 30 minutes before handing it over to Chipwich.

On my third run I took over from LazyC, and again rF froze on the swapover, something with my overseas latency. We were in a good position but again we dropped down to about ~14th because of the penalty. It was now night racing and I found myself lapping faster than my first double stint by about a second or 2. We decided that I should do a triple stint instead of 2 doubles so that I didn't have to receive the car again. So I drove a triple stint in the dark which was very fun and quite taxing. It took me about one and a half stints to go from 13th to 12th because I was 2 laps down. After I got 12th I managed to pass a few more and hand it over to Ben in I believe 8th position.

I wasn't expecting to run anymore but Ben needed to hand over and Chipwich's stint wasn't scheduled to start yet, so I had to takeover from Ben for my final double stint. He had got us up into 6th position but again rF froze and then I got disconnected once I had rejoined. So we got a double penalty and we were back down in 9th. I drove even quicker as I had spent so much time on the track already and managed to get us back into 7th position. Position 6 was 3 laps ahead of us and I managed to claw that back to 1 lap. With 3 laps to go I made my first major error at the kink at the mulsanne straight and had to pit for repairs, but it was no problem as we had built enough of a buffer over 8th position and we were never going to catch 6th place with only 2 laps to go. Although P6 was now 2 laps ahead of us, I managed to pass him on the final corner of the final lap to bring it back down to 1 lap.

So we started 6th, were in 21st position at one stage and then finished 7th. A great drive by everyone. A great start by Dan and great runs from LazyC and Chipwich, thanks Joe for the schedule it was pretty accurate, and thanks to Doug for staying online through the entire race and keeping the drivers informed on laptimes and other drivers. Also a big thanks to LazyC for the great setup which without, consistent and fast laptimes would not have been possible.

Incredible racing you guys!! Double WOOT for the SimHQ enduro team!

Great drive all!


I thought I remembered reading at L2R that hot swaps, but only IN the pitlane, were allowed--but then later on you guys said you were using the pit menu swap option. I wonder if the disconnects would have happened if the hot swap option was used.

In any case, CONGRATULATIONS! Well done.

I can't wait for the vid, Doug.

Congrats guys, what an eventful race for all of you. We were keeping track of your car over from the ADC garage also as we saw you drop and then climb back up the rankings all race long. I hope it was not our Matra that was causing you the issues mentioned earlier. We had an eventful race over at Team ADC also, with a fiery crash early, rFactor crashing on my stint but except for Team Kiwi in the Ferrari 312P Jon Clinton's work on our setup gave us a great ride against rest of the P3000 class. We ended up P9 overall and P2 in the P3000 class after running as high as 7th overall and as low as 19th early on after the fireball incident.

If you look at who finished ahead of you, 2 fellow Ferrari 512's (one of which won), 3 Porsche 917 monsters and those Kiwis who were on fire in the P3000 Ferrari 312 (5th overall, wow) and throw in the issues you encountered I would say that a top 3 would have been a real possibilty without the penalties at the end of the day, Grats again Team SimHQ!

David K, Team ADC
Team ADC 24 L2R thread: http://forums.speedgeezers.net/index.php?showtopic=30422&st=60

PS: Doug I wish you could have gotten the SimHQ GT40 on track as the other GT40 was really in the mix for a while in class and I am also looking forward to the race video.

Good show old chaps, i know how hard it is even in a 12 hour event so 24 must be hell, i feel the urge for another enduro myself now.

Congrats guys! Great driving with lots of drama!

Well done David, that's a great finishing position!

I believe we were given 3 extra penalties which were unwarranted on my swapover, they gave one for 'esc' and one for 'disco' but there was only a 'freeze/disco' and therefore the 'esc' came from the then spectator. So I reckon we should have 3 more laps added to our count.

We were watching you guys throughout the battle too David! Congrats to your P3000 team. That Matra does make a distinctive sound, doesn't it!?



I guess it's always a case of after you cheer and celebrate your finishing at all let alone the finishing position, you think of what might-have-been. Chipwich believes and I'd have to concur that even with all the adversity, IF those last two discos didn't happen, even if ONE didn't happen, Ahmad would have locked 6th place and very possibly challenged for 5th. But as always it's "we'll get 'em next time."



I wanted to run so bad that I asked if I could solo, because even though I know that track well, I didn't know the GT40. But when I found out I couldn't run solo, some drivers wanted me to join their car. No, you don't want that people. There's always a next time. Besides, grandpa had a nice time "pestering" the drivers of car #9.



I was lucky enough to record the entire race. I asked Patrick if it was okay for me to do the camera car kind of thing and he said just to sign in as spectator, so I did... for 24 hours. Used the wireless netbook for the live updates and some comms.

Uh oh Steve!

Thanks for doing that Doug. It was an especially long 24 for you. I'm curious, just how much sleep does a team owner get?

3 hour nap then 6 hours after it was over. I'm so nosy I didn't want to miss anything.

Well done everyone, must have been very satisfying to get to the end of the 24 hours. I spent a lot of time watching the live feed. Can't wait to see the article Doug!



I was all over this but just couldn't get to grips with the car. I hope there will be another event with a different vehicle.

I am so in for the next one of these.

Congratulations Team SimHQ!

Wow, just catching up on this. Great job SimHQ Team and can't wait for the video and pics.

No wonder guod is always tired. He doesn't sleep!

Congratulations guys for a great run. In spite of all your problems you did superbly.

What an adventure that was - I thoroughly enjoyed it but wow, all the emotions were present as the race unfolded. And a definite sense of exhaustion once it was all over - but at the same time a real feeling of achievement.

Well done to all those involved in the SimHQ team - can't wait to see the vid

Jon

That must have been very tough and demanding - congratulations to all participants.

Congrats Guys

Great Driving. That's what endurance racing is all about. You guys never gave up despite all the typical rf freezes/discos. And L2RES gave you a chance to climb back up through the field for a great finish.

Well Done Team SimHQ.

Way to Go.

It's sinking in.. very happy to be part of this 24 hour race, amazing experience for a sim racer.

Very well done guys! It's so great that you can now rejoin after a disco!!! So many close calls where we would have finished easily in the top 5 at least before only to go "poof!" sometime near the end and that's all she wrote.

Good fun!

Woohoo Ahmad! Nice work!!!

Very cool Ahmad!

Just barely managed to get the video under YouTube publishing criteria of 10 minutes / 100 MB.

Plan to have the article and screenshow tomorrow sometime.

http://www.youtube.com/user/SimHQcom#p/u/0/vO8B_JzY9ZA

Fabulous work Doug!!!

Congrads to Sim Hq team...

It's actually 2GB now

How so Ahmad? I decided to combine the planned 4 segments into one. The final digital source file is over 2 GB. Unless you have an upgraded YouTube channel, you can only upload a 100MB / 10 minute long file. So after I chopped the quality down to 1/20th of the original I decided to keep the source file archived because it looks so much better.

Racing Around the Clock

http://www.simhq.com/_motorsports4/motorsports_134a.html

Good write-up Doug! Posted it on another forum to try and widen the field for the next one.


Are you sure about that? I have a normal channel and it says 2GB/10 minutes is the limit. They introduced this to accommodate the new HD quality they offer, or else no one would be able to upload in HD anything over a few seconds..