When Things Don't Work Out

As with all things - sometimes - even in the virtual world - things don't go as intended - and weather that's due to human error or technical problems or a mixture of both it can really dampen the mood no matter what.

The bane of our issues are caused by iRacing's Race Registration program. Currently, iRacing has two (or three if you include letting anyone on iRacing with the eligible class register) ways of registering drivers for a team event. 1. "Only Team Members Can Register" Kabort has been using this option thus far - and overall it is easier to enroll this way, however it is easier to make a mistake. To register drivers for a team in an endurance race using this method, all the driver needs is to be a part of the iRacing team (in the "teams" section on the website) BEFORE the car is registered to race.

For example, Bob Smith contacts me on iRacing to say he wants to join my team, he joins the Discord Server, yet iRacing only acknowledges in the team after 1) He's accepted an invite to the "Kabort Motorsport" team on the iRacing website.

With 5+ Teams (The Several Affinities, Global etc.) and the teams dynamically changing as driver's availability changes - if I were to add Bob to just one car/team (e.g: Global) and there'd only be a faster and slower Affinity running (which Bob hadn't been invited to on the website, therefore not being a part of the iRacing Team, and not being able to enter this would be problematic. In Kabort Motorsport as a team however, Bob would be able to switch to the slower of the Affinity cars running - just not in iRacing. 2. "Those With Password Can Register"

This option does exactly as it says - whoever has the password can register to that car - make the password too easy (e.g: kabort whilst registering a team called Kabort) and drivers not from the team MAY attempt to race with the team, make it too hard and it can add confusion and potential frustration.

For the most part, since Kabort started the "members only" system worked a treat - but ever since Kabort started to grow and expand problems have started to occur. On 12th of April Tijmen (Berends) asked why we didn't use passwords for registration - we hadn't used passwords before and at the time I didn't see the point....But Tijmen was foreshadowing problems to come.

iRacing Endurance Series - R1: Suzuka The inaugural race in the 12 hour long iRacing Endurance Series was Suzuka, and unfortunately for Kabort it didn't get off to the best of starts. Clashing with the Endurance Le Mans Series race at Road America there was already limited attention (since the drivers already had points on the board in ELMS) for IRES, and due to this Affinity WEBVANS pulled out of the IRES race...or so Evans thought... As Evans was finishing up at Road America, Weber was ready to join the Cayman at Suzuka, however would turn up just a little too late - after the car was registered without him in it. This left just five drivers in the two teams: Porsche 911 RSR GTE Lars Bachmann (MLP) Peer Brennscheidt (MLP) Porsche Cayman GT4 Sam Thurtell Martyn Pearson Chris Shaw (Sam Thurtell) As the start of the race drew closer, Peer was nowhere to be seen - and with Weber not able to get into the session either Lars was left alone. For a 12 Hour race...He'd sensibly pull out knowing that 12 Hours alone at Suzuka was simply suicidal. On the other side of the garage, they'd also be problems. Martyn Pearson would fall foul of the slightly comlicated registration process - not being able to register for the team since the car was already registered before he was. The race didn't go much better for the remaining Cayman, Sam Thurtell being spat out by the tricky little GT4, meaning not a single stint could be completed by Chris. With no word from Chris, and him dissapearing from the server/weeks later It's safe to say that this was definitely a contributing factor. A serious discussion about passwords followed shortly after, but with little idea about the mess that had been made of IRES I shrugged it off.

The #19 Garage was very silent...

The 24th April came - and Andy wanted to better explore the "register with password option" but with The Nurburgring 24 Hours the very next day, priorities were elsewhere.

Not spoiling anything for the Nurburgring blog, but we ran fewer cars than expected, and unfortunately I registered the cars in a little bit of a hurry so that the drivers could maximise their time practicing beforehand - this unfortunately meant that Arron Brown (who joined the team for the Nurburgring 24 Hours) would devastatingly miss out on his first Nurburgring 24 Hours with the team. I have to admit, even after that I was still tempted to use the regular registration method but after the 3rd round of the Nurburgring Endurance Championship, I was 100% sold on the password idea.

Nurburgring Endurance Series - Round 3 The third round of highly popular Nurburgring Endurance Series took place on the 5th of March and was quite frankly - a race to forget.

We had two and a half entries - the half being Martyn Pearson who raced with another team (EvoSR #810) Dante Reynoso didn't manage to accept the invite for the team of himself and Arron Brown - meaning that for the second Nurburgring race in a row Arron wasn't able to race....what an introduction to the team.... This left just one car left. The Kabort Motorsport Affinity Mercedes. Originally it was just going to be myself and Sam Thurtell - but having computer issues in the morning I pleaded for James Peace to join us - so our car was exactly as it was in the second round - we should do reasonably well. We didn't.

Sam would qualify before James would take over the first double-stint - It was a race of time for me to get my computer issues fixed - there was a problem with the "Updater - Software And Data" which prevented me from downloading the updates needed to run iRacing. I solved the issue by moving a "downloads" folder. James went as far as he possibly could before having other priorities he had to attend to - there was at least two hours left in the session. When I got in it was sheer hell. The amount of lag I was suffering was undrivable - let alone at Nurburgring Nordschliefe.

I tried changing and lowering my settings but to no avail. It got to the point where we were so far behind I didn't even enjoy driving, so we packed up the truck and retired.

It's Silverstone ELMS next - and I hope with the password this can solve quite a few of our problems.