Hellracers takes the title - iRacing Endurance Series
That’s right, over four 12 hour races, we came out on top in the GTE class! A great final showing, where five of our drivers shared the BMW M8 GTE car and drove it over the finish line in second place, securing the overall title with a wide margin to second place in the table.
Just one week after the thrilling 12 hour race in the IVRA Endurance series, we found ourselves gridding up for yet another 12 hour race, the last race in the iRacing Endurance Series taking place at Circuit of the Americas. We came into the race with a good lead over the next team in points, so there was no need to push ourselves to the limit, but rather making sure to bring the car home in one piece. To be fair, that’s a valid tactic for all endurance races.
After a not so impressive qualifying session, we started in P6 but over 12 hours, the starting position is usually not a deciding factor. A few hours in, the GTE field was still only spread out over roughly 40 seconds, keeping the excitement alive. We got some unwelcome hits from behind due to a lot of traffic, but the BMW GTE is a sturdy build which can take a few hits and our pit crew straightened out our body panels during our stops in the pit.
The track went from a cold 17 degrees C when we started and warmed up when morning became mid day, but being an October race the track didn’t reach any extreme temperature, even though it resides in Texas. That meant that tires weren’t a big issue and we could keep our rather simple pit stop tactics and focus on collecting the laps instead.
As always, over 12 hours some teams drop out due to issues or collisions and in many races the field spreads out, but as it would turn out we got second place with only one second to spare to P3. P1 were too fast today and had a healthy 30 second lead over the line, but we cared more about the overall title than the race title this time.
Our stats for this series became 1 win, 1 second place and one third place, with the first race in the series being the outlier with a less impressive result (even though we started from pole). It shows again that consistency is key and that it’s better to not take every fight but to survive. Although, it doesn’t hurt to have the pace as well!