THE 2023 IRACING ROAR BEFORE THE 24 - The Comeback Kid Strikes Again!

14th January, 2022

It's 9:57pm on a cold winter's night in Mid-January, the stars are out and a young lad has decided that 2022 will be the year he has his ROAR Before The 24 Debut.

With a grand total of 0 laps under his belt - the young lad, Robin has about 14 hours until his time-slot is due to get underway.

Midnight strikes, and the Brit still hasn't found "his" car - nothing seems to be working.

Just after midnight, he has his Bazinga moment - he tries out the McLaren 570S GT4 and something just clicks - he's consistent and can do a solid stint.

Exactly 12 hours later, Truswell starts his ROAR Before the 24 from 5th to finish an outstanding 4th position - even despite a cone getting stuck under his car.

As a result of this race, his iRating would increase to 1060 - and he'd stay above 1060 iRating ever since.

13th January, 2023

An entire year (har. har.) after last touching iRacing, on the 13th January I make my return after a very chaotic start to the year.

Whilst I started practicing an hour before 2022 (this year, I started at 11:17pm), it took me a lot quicker to get in the groove of the car.

Upon starting the race less than 12 hours later - I knew I wasn't in for the same sort of "sweeping success" that I did back in 2022.

Sure, I MAY have had a shot at the podium (had I not needed to pit for cone-related reasons) - but I had less than 1000 iRating - and the eventual SOF (Strength Of Field) was 818 - meaning the average driver in the field had about 800 odd iRating - far from iRacing's "Creme De La Creme".

Coming into ROAR Before The 24 in 2022, I had 987 iRating, which decided the split I was in.

Come 2023, I was coming into the ROAR Before The 24 with 1431 iRating an increase of +444 iRating, which in terms of splits (and during 2023 there were many) means a fair ole jump.

Judging by this year's race - I've jumped from bottom Split (Split #25 to Split #21), in bottom split, 40th place finishing 3rd - I've missed...a lot.

The Race

At midday on 14th January 2023, the 2023 ROAR Before The 24 kicked off.

I wasn't expecting an easy race - especially as I had a very sharp increase in iRating the month prior - so I was aiming to make the most out of every position I made.

What made matters worse, was I was car #43 out of a 48 car field - so I had the 5th lowest iRating out of the entire field - so I very much was the underdog.

In qualifying, I qualified 34th out of 36 whom completed clean laps.

Even before the green flag had fallen, there was carnage - people were in the wrong positions on the formation lap (drivers didn't drive side by side during formation lap/rolling start) - and I started two positions higher than I should have (overtook two cars in the left lane before the green) - but lost two positions during the opening lap - so sort of made up for it.

Uneven gaps lead to a rocky start...

Starting the second lap - I was in a VERY strong position - 27th with a very fiesty 5-car battle ahead of me - and two cars going off at turn one. Lovely.

Even more lovely was the driver that I was MEANT to start behind slipped past at turn 2, so I'm glad he had a chance to properly start ahead of me (on the second lap).

On the 3rd lap, I managed to get to 24th...

Before getting too comfortable with the BMW ahead and spinning myself out. It was a slightly weird accident - but in the space of one corner, I lost 17 positions. Yikes. I had a lot of work to do.

The stinger of it was that I was the 4th highest-placed Aston - and I said it last year, and I'll say it again...Had it not happened, I wonder where I'd be...

The fact was, I was now 41st/47th and had a hell of a lot of work to do, so I put my head down and started to catch the field.

Due to pit-stops and mistakes by others, lap by lap I was able to inch my way up through the field and the order from 41st to an absolutely phenomenal 19th on my in-lap (first pitstop)...but Lady Luck wasn't going to make it easy on me.

The first stint had been so eventful that myself and my spotter completely forgot where my pit-man was - this was only worsened by my spotter not actually being able to see my pit-man (it doesn't show up on his screen).

It turns out, he was pretty early on in the pit-lane and I completely missed him - so I had to do a lap entirely on my own excriment, sh***ing myself wondering when the car was going to cut out.

It may have been a lap at half - if not quarter racing speed - but had I gone any quicker, I guarantee the car would have completely conked out.

After SOMEHOW using every last nanolitre of fuel to get me around just one more lap, I pit from 26th. Had I pitted (properly) I would have been about 28th.

Sh*t-Stop complete, I emerge in 29th - to only lose 3 positions in that entire fiasco is an absolute miracle - and with a new suit, seat and pair of underwear - I could fully focus on catching up to P28 who was about a minute up the road.

On Lap 29, I had a little spin - letting a few cars past (not battling with) - however these eventually became my friends as as cars emerged from the pits on the following laps (30 & 31) - they began to create a little train and I was treated to a little "show" of 4 -5 cars all jostling for track position - this eventually turned out to be a rather large battle with 8th involving: 8th, 9th, 10th and 11th (a little further back) with 30th sandwiched in between, enjoying the show like I was.

I (bottom right) enjoyed the monumental battle for 8th - which became 6th

Somehow, through sorcery, pit-stops and mistakes - just like the stint before the positions slowly came to me. P28. P27 (for 8 laps few laps), P20 Lapped me - and then out of the blue on Lap 32 - P24. P23.

I was gaining rapidly - taking 23rd - I hadn't been a position this high all race - top further top it all off, I also returned to being 4th of the Astons!

6th, who was leading this battle, then monumentally lost it under pressure - losing three positions in one corner - and losing the slip-stream train that came along with it

I had a front-row seat behind some quality racing

All good things must come to an end - and as the fuel tanks dried up, one by one, the battle was called into the pit-lane - as my tank still had a little bit in it - I continued on and picked up the pieces - picking up 6 positions before my Aston too needed The Holy Fluid.

I emerged from the pits in 20th with 21st very much on my gearbox - It was absolutely going to be a fight to the end.

P21 Had his sights set on the car ahead...

For the next few laps, we changed positions on a lap-by-lap basis - on the first lap, he had my slipstream and I butchered the final chicane, on the next, I had his and returned the favour at the same part of the track - but kept the position the following lap as he needed to pit (splash and dash).

Due to some late stoppers, I was now (SOMEHOW) in 19th. My priority now was to just get this puppy home.

On my way there - I broke Robin's Law Of Slowness and got into the 1:53's (specifically a 1:53.970) - my one and only time in the 53's - and after that I returned back to my normal pace - but gained a late - and very welcome 18th, which quickly became 17th and 3rd highest Aston.

After collecting 17th on Lap 62 (with about 11 laps to go) - I stayed there until the penultimate lap when P16 makes a HUGE mess of the chicane (and indeed his Porsche) and gifts me the position with less than two laps to go.

2 Hours and 20 Minutes in and separated by absolutely nothing

From here, it was about not repeating the Porsche's woes and safely bringing my little Aston to the checkered flag in one piece.

This race should not have happened - to go from 41st (in Car #43) to 16th - in addition to the fuel fiasco - I have no idea how I did it - and I'm actually proud of 16th as a result.

Judging by my average lap-time, I was right on pace with 16th - those in front of me doing faster average lap-times, those behind going slower.

Sure, had I not been eager early on - who knows, maybe a Top 10 would have been possible - but I went out there and achieved my goals - have a BLAST in the Aston GT4, beat the VOLT liveried Aston (highlighter Rivals) and even gained a little bit of iRating out of it - boosting me up to a 1469. Nice. A new personal best and it's not even mid-January!

Thanks for reading, it's been a pleasure to write!

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