NASRS Season 16 Race 1 (Suzuka)

Last night season 16 of the North American Sim Racing Series (NASRS) kicked off with a 65 minute race at Suzuka. Like previous seasons we pre-qualified with our best average of 5 consecutive clean laps a couple weeks before the start of the season. This qualifying set not only the grid for the first race, but also the classes (pro or AM) for the season. I qualified in P3 so I’m in the pro class again. However, I’m driving a different car this season, the Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo2, which was released in April. I’m also racing in the Wednesday night split instead of the Tuesday night split, so there are a few different drivers for me since most folks seem to stick to the same night between seasons.

New ride for season 16 – Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo2

I got a really good start when the lights went green and was able to jump up into P2. I got settled in and stayed there for a couple laps, but at the end of lap 3 I got dive-bombed and if I hadn’t been paying attention and backed out of the turn, we would have collided and it might have been race over for both of us. That was kind of a bummer, but I did my best to settle down and drive my race.

The temps were on the warm side and I was pushing pretty hard to stay in contact with the drivers ahead so my rear tires were getting pretty worn out by the end of the first stint (about halfway through the race). I made two big mistakes during the race: the first was I boxed one lap too late. The guy behind me went in a lap before I did and as soon as I heard Crew Chief say that I knew I was probably gonna lose P3 due to the power of the undercut. I went into the pits the next lap and made the second big mistake of the night: I totally overshot my pit box, which probably cost me 2 seconds. So I wasn’t surprised to see P3 flying by as I was exiting the pits and rejoining the track.

The guy in P3 is a very fast, consistent driver (he won the Wednesday split last season) so I knew it’d be nearly impossible to make up the 2+ seconds needed to catch him. I stayed in P4 the rest of the race and did my best to make the pass, but ultimately finished the race in P4 about .5 seconds behind.

I think it’s going to be a really tough season as the competition is really fast and there are some tricky tracks for me on the schedule. But, like always, it should be a lot of fun so I’m looking forward to the challenge.

Week 1 final results (Suzuka)

• Qualifying: P3/30
• Race: P4/22

Here are a few highlights from the race