Random Rambles And An Optimistic October!

Hello! Welcome back! It's been a while...almost a month in fact!

Cast your minds back to 21st January, it's crazy to think about how much has changed this year...

Back in January:

- I was a university student and was confident and certain about my future

- Was still just about getting used to the new house

- We had a Queen - I had three Drives (C, D and E) - I hadn't yet got a podium (obviously, it was the start of the year!)

- I still had my mum's 2012 Kia Venga. (hand-me-down)

- I had yet to attempt a single iRacing (Endurance) Special Event

As mentioned before, It's been almost an entire month since I've blogged (WHERE HAS THE TIME GONE???), my last blog finishing on the 20th September.

On this day, it would be a day after the Queen's funeral and a week (to the day) since my PC had stopped working on the first day of the new iRacing season.

~

I'll admit, I'm easily excited - something as simple as watching water or fire (or both!), gaining iRating or having a good race. The same goes for Christmas, if it was a decade until Christmas, I'd still be counting down!

If I weren't to be disowned, I'd start counting down to Christmas the second after midnight following my birthday. Like it or not, It's approaching - and fast.

Yes, it's still a good 2 months away, but I've found my own way to count down the days.

Back in 2020, I did a MASSIVE Google-Maps Road-Trip spanning...well, the world. Starting on the 31st October and "driving" through Africa, Europe, America...

The blogs were a bit cringe, but I had started them, so I didn't want to give up.

This year (after a year of...well, moving), the "Christmas Countdown" is back - and TECHNICALLY started in Mid-June.

Unbeknownst to me, I'd attend my very last day of University on the 24th May, 2022.

Late May to early June saw my last days as a KIA Venga owner/the last days of driving/owning my mum's hand-me-down Kia.

During the second week of June (also unbeknownst to me), the days ticked down and eventually there was 195 days to Christmas - matching the number of countries on Earth (give or take).

The following week, it was the Summer Solstice - the 22nd June marking the fact that we were closer to 2023, than 2021.

At the end of June, only 179 days remained until Christmas, which only meant one thing:

Up until October - I was flat-out with craziness happening all around me - and had no time for "festive thoughts". Anyways:

Come mid-August, and the very first racing series had its final round: Formula E, which finished up in Seoul on the 13th August with Stoffel Vandoorne being crowned Champion. The first race of the next season is on the 14th January, 2023.

Half a hectic month later, At the end of August (during which, I wouldn't be surprised if the apocalypse started) - The 31st August saw the final day of the year in which the month didn't end in "BER". Weird tidbit of information.

On the 3rd - 4th September, 2022, the summer "iRacing Global Endurance Series" came to an end - the series being the only way iRacing can hold any sort of "virtual rendition" of the Le Mans 24 Hours at the moment.

The week following this was Week 13, before Season 4, 2022 (last season of the year) kicked off on the 13th September - the same day my E: Drive drew it's last breath and "passed away."

The 7th September saw the full day in 70 years that the United Kingdom would have a Queen - and the final day of her reign.

That very Sunday, on the 11th was the very last full day I could consider myself as a "student", my status then being changed to "unemployed" as the University told me I'd have to re-take the year, and myself choosing a different career path

Two days later (13th) the very last season of the year kicked off.

On the same day as the new season kicked off, my computer would stop taking 10 hours to launch, and instead fail to launch entirely. With the Queen passing the previous week, this was very much a dark time for me - losing access to a massive part of my life/hobby (iRacing), losing my future (uni), and having to deal with the loss of her Majesty.

On the weekend of the 17th - 18th September, 2022, there were officially less than 100 days (3 months) until Christmas.

On this weekend, there was quite possibly the last ever iRacing Bathurst 1000km including the "Gen 2" Supercars (The Holden Commodore and Ford Mustang).

I was unfortunately elsewhere at the time and missed this "milestone" event.

Since it's debut on the iRacing service (S4, 2013) Bathurst has been in every season of the iRacing Supercar Series - so I still have one (or hopefully more) last chance/s to race a Holden at Bathurst (Officially).

Saying that, Bathurst miraculously didn't make it in:

- Season 2, 2021

- Season 3, 2021

- Season 1, 2022

- Season 3, 2022

So hopefully I get to drive a V8 Supercar at Bathurst...before it's gone.

The last real-life Bathurst 1000km pitching Holden against Ford was held 3 weeks later on the 6th October - on the same weekend as the final round of the BTCC.

In the following Weeks:

6 - 9th October: Final Holden VS Ford Bathurst 1000km & Final BTCC (Real Life)

15th - 16th October: Nurburgring Endurance Championship Finale (iRacing)

22nd - 23rd October: Creventic Endurance Series Finale (Summer Series) (iR'cing)

(Skip One Week)

5th November: 50 Days Until Christmas (Less than 2 mo)

11th November: Final Road Special Event Of 2022 (iRacing)

17th - 20th November: Final Week Of Going To The Mainland On Consecutive Weeks (5 in a row).

My last blog covered the 20th September - so lets resume from there!

21st September, 2022

On the day after my visit to the Job Centre, I had a pretty uneventful day, before heading over to the mainland on the 22nd September.

Somehow, and rather undyspraxic-ally, I managed to stay overnight at one friend's house from the 22nd - 23rd September, before then staying over another friend's house from the 23rd - 24th.

I don't remember overly much other than going on one dog-walk on the 22nd, and another on the 23rd. During that weekend, Sam Smith released "Unholy" - very much a different type of song (from him), but one that's now stuck in my head...and certainly for the foreseeable future.

25th September

Saw same friend as I did on the 22nd Sept, another enjoyable day. (can't remember all too much)

26th September

On the 26th September (Monday) I went for a commitment meeting to sort of narrow down what sort of work/job I was looking for - and to finish writing in my details in the Universal Credit database.

Following this, I went to Curry's to see what could be done about my computer which had been out of action for a rather depressing two weeks.

The good news was that my PC hadn't blown up, it was just one hard-drive, and that prevented the computer from turning on.

The bad news was that all of the information on the E: drive was essentially "scratched off" by the broken part - meaning all the files that WERE on the E drive had been lost - THANKFULLY, whilst my steam games were on E, my data was backed up on my account (not the hard-drive/device), so after a day installing games, I was back up and running - minus a drive full of files.

The 26th also marked the start of the new RFactor Season - I was hoping for an announcement or a new series or something - but no announcement was made and I had to look on RFactor itself for the competition system schedule.

On the subject of RFactor and it's competition System, I was hoping that maybe the participation would improve...but come 24th October...the story doesn't look pretty.

Every Week (Sunday to Sunday) RFactor has 322 sessions.

On writing this, (24th October) it's the 4th week of the season.

322x3 = 1288 (in the first 3 weeks, there have been 1288 sessions)

In those 3 weeks - in the most popular series, (an hourly open-wheel series) 290 entries have been recorded over the 1288 sessions.

That means that less than a quarter (25%) of the 1288 sessions got a single entry.

(For context, if there was 1288 entries, that means there would be exactly one driver in every session, 644 would mean half the sessions would be full, and so on)

The series I had my eye on weren't doing so great either - the hourly Caterham series got 239, the GTE series just 49 (entries over 3 weeks).

28th September

Two days later, it was Wednesday and my first race day of the season (missing the first two weeks at Okayama and Daytona due to my PC...well...dying.

It was at Barcelona and it was okay - P9 after starting P13th. Not a bad start at all, especially after the previous season.

On the subject of the previous season, it did end rather....oddly

With the exception of Week 3 at Fuji (didn't have circuit), it was a pretty normal - but disappointing season - Montreal being particularly painful after being spun out of a potential podium.

As July progressed, I knew that the CHAOTIC month of August was approaching, so after a diabolical race at Hungary, (W8), I decided to do a GT4 race after it at Road America and finished 6th (From 9th). It was a bitter-sweet one - the driver ahead of me wiping out a number of cars (had I qualified any higher I would have been taken out), before I had a half-spin later on in the lap (giving another driver room)

Up to this race, the only time I had tried out GT4 machinery was at the ROAR before the 24 - and I finished 4th then!

For Week 9, as it was my last week available for a few weeks, I did only GT4 (that week) and had a photo finish for 10th at Brands Hatch.

3/10/2022

September ended unusually quietly - fizzling out to a few uneventful days before October took over. And I hadn't the foggiest clue what October had to offer.

The first Week of October was rather...calm compared to the bombshell that was the previous month.

October started with a bit of a bang with the Singapore Grand Prix and the 3rd Anniversary of Teardown being announced.

On the same weekend, in 2020, I'd come home and have one of the most peculiar races in my iRacing Career - A V8 Supercar at Le Mans with not another soul showing up. Truly memorable - it was also my first - okay, second - experience of Formula 3 - I'd dedicate the following season (S1, 2021) to racing in the Formula 3 Championship and score 3 podiums.

It's very weird - because back in 2020, the period between finishing up racing (for Uni) and returning to iRacing on the October Weekend certainly felt a lot longer than it did during 2022.

Even ODDER was the fact that me finishing up Uni in 2020 and racing in the Le Mans Race Alone and the period my PC was out of action was exactly the same length. Coincidence?

Early October saw:

- I received my medal for the London To Brighton Off-Road

- Had phone-call with Universal Credit (first phone call - previous two were in-person)

- Did some Excel/Kabort Analytics

4/10/2022

Bought tickets to see Tom Grennan in March 2023.

5/10/2022

It was race day and ironically enough, GT4 Challenge was at Road Atlanta and I finished 6th - in just my second week of the series, I had beaten over half of my results the previous season (only finishing 5th & 6th in Week 5 & 2 respectably)

What I will say is that I had an absolute BALL!

#17 would win this battle, finishing 5th, I'd finish 6th, and #2 and #4 would finish in 7th and 8th respectably.

Gaps:

4th --> 5th: 10 sec.

5th --> 6th (me): 0.978 (1 sec)

6th (me) --> 7th: 01.320

7th --> 8th: 0.013

8th --> 9th: 0.189

It was very fun to have such a fun battle and have cars constantly swapping position.

7/10/2022

The 7th was an absolute nightmare - the initial plan was to take the first ferry of the day to the mainland and then head down to Kent for the day. But after waking up, I then fell back asleep, a parent woke me up a few hours later - and it was then that I realised I had completely fucked the day.

It takes 2hrs 30 - 3hrs to get to my friends house, and then another 2 (maybe 3) hours to get to Kent - and by that time, I'd have to head back to my friend's house (to drop them off), to make it back in time for my ferry.

This wasn't helped by the fact that the NEW booking (at 10am) was from the mainland to the Island, NOT from the Island to the mainland, and the next available sailing (to the mainland) from my local port was at about 7pm. Not good considering the final sailing from the mainland to the Island was at 8pm (you have to get there half an hour before)

Eventually, I left from a different port and we still had an enjoyable time out, grabbing a few bits and bobs for the upcoming festive celebrations, before I returned home to the island at about 6pm that evening.

Just 24 Hours later was the iRacing Petite Le Mans - which I'll include in the next blog as it was an absolute HOWLER.

On the 8th - 9th October, it was the final weekend of the 2022 British Touring Car Championship.

Have a good week!