The 2009 iTCC Touring Car Championship season rolls on this weekend, moving to the venerable Blackwood Circuit for Round 3 of the Championship, on Sunday 15th March 2009. The meeting is again scheduled for 3 x 25 minute races with a reversed grid for the third race - with a circuit so familiar to all the drivers, the field is expected to be tightly packed together which should make for explosive action.
The event will again be covered in the iTCC broadcast starting from 1800 GMT (UTC), with the commentating team led by the ever-excitable Jonathan Palmer from the New Dimension Racing team. Joining Jonathan is Mike Booth with technical analysis, and Michael Passingham will be in the commentary booth also to lend his knowledge and experience to the dialogue. You can catch the broadcast at
http://www.iconracing.co.uk/itcctv.htm or at http://www.mogulus.com/itcc from 1800 GMT (UTC).
After the mayhem that was Round 2 at Fern Bay, the iTCC drivers and their teams move on to the Blackwood Circuit. Several drivers new to the series for Round 2 made a big impression at Fern Bay, qualifying strongly and taking a significant haul of points. CoRe Racing's Phil Diaz and SonicRealms Racing's K.A. Gjerde both put in a fantastic display of racing/traffic negotiation to come away from Fern Bay with enough points to elevate themselves into the top 15 in the Driver's Championship. This gives them 'locked-in' status which means they qualify straight into the main event rather than having to qualify through the reserve Shootouts.
Meanwhile, at the top of the table, CoRe's Fredrik Enersen has closed the gap between himself and the title-contending pair of Rudy Van Buren and Nolan Scott - he is now just 9 points adrift of van Buren, and on the evidence of Round 2, looks in strong form to close the gap further and turn up the pressure on van Buren and Scott. Indeed, such is the pace of the field, that Scott and van Buren can expect a strong challenge with no quarter given no matter where in the field they find themselves. To win the championship title will require hard battling and a desire to win tempered by the need to score points.
Practice has been increasing in intensity throughout the week leading up to Sunday's programme as drivers struggle to find the right compromise between outright pace and conserving tyres long enough to last the 19 laps of each race of the triple-header round.
Talk in the pits is yet again about tyres. The FXR, although generating large amounts of grip, is a difficult car to set up to conserve tyre life. The compromise is grip and lap-times at the cost of reduced tyre life. Some drivers are struggling to make their tyres last. The tighter corners around Blackwood are asking a lot of the driver, on the one hand he needs to make the corner as quickly as possible, on the other hand it is all too easy to cook the front-tyres and develop more and more understeer. Yet again, Sundays' programme will make for fascinating viewing as the best drivers battle it out at the Blackwood.
Only the top 15 point-scoring drivers in the championship are ‘locked-in’ for Round 3 of the iTCC - so the pressure is on those drivers who did not score at Round 2 to not only qualify themselves through to the main event from the Reserve Shootout, but also to score points in Round 3 to make sure of their place at Round 4. Any driver outside of the top 15 in the Driver’s Championship after Round 3 will have to qualify through the Round 4 Reserve Shootout to secure their place in Round 4 of the iTCC. Scoring points is what it's all about in this Championship. Pace is one thing, but finishing in the points is just as important.
The championship is a 'Touring-Car' race series using only the FXR, which is restricted at the air-intake by 32% to give around 320 BHP.
The intention of this series is to give the racer an enjoyable and competitive race series that is run to similar rules as the BTCC and WTCC touring-car championships - and to give the viewer an unmissable spectacle to watch live on their PCs.
Features of the iTCC championship familiar to fans will include reversed grids and 'success' ballast. These measures are intended to 'level' the field to maintain a healthy competition throughout the season.
The series will run for 6 'triple-header' rounds. That is to say, there is 3 points-scoring races at each round - all of equal length; about 25 minutes each.
The races themselves are available to watch via LFS Remote and ICON TV, which broadcasts commentated live in-game coverage.
Additionally there are replay files made available soon after the race, as well as whole race coverage video, and detailed race statistics also made available.
iTCC 2009 Touring Car Championship Round 3
15th March 2009 18:00 UTC(GMT)
at Blackwood Circuit (BL1)
Looking forward to seeing you on the track! And if you're not racing then please feel free to watch the ICON TV broadcasts.
Thanks,
Joe Keaveney - iTCC Admin
The event will again be covered in the iTCC broadcast starting from 1800 GMT (UTC), with the commentating team led by the ever-excitable Jonathan Palmer from the New Dimension Racing team. Joining Jonathan is Mike Booth with technical analysis, and Michael Passingham will be in the commentary booth also to lend his knowledge and experience to the dialogue. You can catch the broadcast at
http://www.iconracing.co.uk/itcctv.htm or at http://www.mogulus.com/itcc from 1800 GMT (UTC).
After the mayhem that was Round 2 at Fern Bay, the iTCC drivers and their teams move on to the Blackwood Circuit. Several drivers new to the series for Round 2 made a big impression at Fern Bay, qualifying strongly and taking a significant haul of points. CoRe Racing's Phil Diaz and SonicRealms Racing's K.A. Gjerde both put in a fantastic display of racing/traffic negotiation to come away from Fern Bay with enough points to elevate themselves into the top 15 in the Driver's Championship. This gives them 'locked-in' status which means they qualify straight into the main event rather than having to qualify through the reserve Shootouts.
Meanwhile, at the top of the table, CoRe's Fredrik Enersen has closed the gap between himself and the title-contending pair of Rudy Van Buren and Nolan Scott - he is now just 9 points adrift of van Buren, and on the evidence of Round 2, looks in strong form to close the gap further and turn up the pressure on van Buren and Scott. Indeed, such is the pace of the field, that Scott and van Buren can expect a strong challenge with no quarter given no matter where in the field they find themselves. To win the championship title will require hard battling and a desire to win tempered by the need to score points.
Practice has been increasing in intensity throughout the week leading up to Sunday's programme as drivers struggle to find the right compromise between outright pace and conserving tyres long enough to last the 19 laps of each race of the triple-header round.
Talk in the pits is yet again about tyres. The FXR, although generating large amounts of grip, is a difficult car to set up to conserve tyre life. The compromise is grip and lap-times at the cost of reduced tyre life. Some drivers are struggling to make their tyres last. The tighter corners around Blackwood are asking a lot of the driver, on the one hand he needs to make the corner as quickly as possible, on the other hand it is all too easy to cook the front-tyres and develop more and more understeer. Yet again, Sundays' programme will make for fascinating viewing as the best drivers battle it out at the Blackwood.
Only the top 15 point-scoring drivers in the championship are ‘locked-in’ for Round 3 of the iTCC - so the pressure is on those drivers who did not score at Round 2 to not only qualify themselves through to the main event from the Reserve Shootout, but also to score points in Round 3 to make sure of their place at Round 4. Any driver outside of the top 15 in the Driver’s Championship after Round 3 will have to qualify through the Round 4 Reserve Shootout to secure their place in Round 4 of the iTCC. Scoring points is what it's all about in this Championship. Pace is one thing, but finishing in the points is just as important.
The championship is a 'Touring-Car' race series using only the FXR, which is restricted at the air-intake by 32% to give around 320 BHP.
The intention of this series is to give the racer an enjoyable and competitive race series that is run to similar rules as the BTCC and WTCC touring-car championships - and to give the viewer an unmissable spectacle to watch live on their PCs.
Features of the iTCC championship familiar to fans will include reversed grids and 'success' ballast. These measures are intended to 'level' the field to maintain a healthy competition throughout the season.
The series will run for 6 'triple-header' rounds. That is to say, there is 3 points-scoring races at each round - all of equal length; about 25 minutes each.
The races themselves are available to watch via LFS Remote and ICON TV, which broadcasts commentated live in-game coverage.
Additionally there are replay files made available soon after the race, as well as whole race coverage video, and detailed race statistics also made available.
iTCC 2009 Touring Car Championship Round 3
15th March 2009 18:00 UTC(GMT)
at Blackwood Circuit (BL1)
Looking forward to seeing you on the track! And if you're not racing then please feel free to watch the ICON TV broadcasts.
Thanks,
Joe Keaveney - iTCC Admin