Community Question | Have You Ever Run An Endurance Race?

[Ole Marius Myrvold]

Yes. Way too many. I think it's been 3 or 4 seasons of RDLMS. Some one off races, like 1980's Gr.A Bathurst in rF1. Also a couple of ACC endurance-races with @Daniel Monteiro and whoever else he forces to drive the awful cars I want to race. My idea of simracing is that the grid looks best with as many different cars as possible, so I always want to drive the least popular car...

Done a couple of real life endurance-races as well. Somehow I tend to be more "tired" after a simrace than the real life ones.

 

[Ole Marius Myrvold]

Those are the best and worst of simracing experience: prepare a setup and a strategy with a mate, react to the unexpected, learn to play the long game, awesome stuff; and then a game bug sometimes ruins all of that in a second.

 

[davehenrie]

I did a full 24hr Le Mans completely solo...... This was using the game 'Le Mans' on the PS1, you could save when you went into the pits, so I did an hour here and an hour there, it took me about a month in real time.

Did the same at Spa with GTR2. There was a damage bug that eventually slowed the AI so everytime I loaded a saved game, I think I got a brand new car and the 2nd half of the race was rather easy.

 

[stenovitz]

Online endurance racing is limited to over 10 years ago in rFactor in just a couple of events (Nordschleife VLN decimated to 4 hours and a 4 hour Spa event). I think it was back in 2008 I participated in a series with 2 hour races, which most called 'endurance'. I would say 2 hours is just a tad longer GP race distance.

Speaking offline, surely!

Especially right when GTR2 came out, there was no way back. Starting with small 1 hour 24 hour events with mixed weather, but quickly increasing to 3 hours and then by the use of the GTR2 'save' button and more free mod content coming to especially nogripracing but also just googling for endurance mods and doing a self made GTR2 mix for all kind of different endurance.
So not exactly 24 hours straight solo, but 24 hours of the same event devided into more days. Yes, I know someone will call the 'save' button for cheating, but still an endurance feeling on the long run with pit strategies and suddenly have to thinking of other strategies while driving into the night and heaven suddenly starting to pour down.

Of newer sims it's been very rarely. Mostly in AC at Sebring, 67 version of Le Mans and modern Spa. But its been very limited.
Mostly due to the lack of same endurance possibilities like in GTR2 with day/night run over 24 hours and changing weather immediately. For instance I think modern sims like rF2, AC, ACC, AMS2, iRacing, R3E should have the time-scaling opportunity of 24 hour events, just like in GTR2 with delivers the possibility to get around the clock in e.g. just 4 hours and in all kind of weather circumstances.

Edit: Maybe I should add, that all my endurance effort is as a solo driver.

 

[Alex Harkett]

I have no friends to do one with

 

[erniedaoage]

I did once an official Talladega 500 in Iracing which lasted for nearly 4,5 hours. Made a quick toilette stop during a caution around 3 hours in the race. When i remember right it was something like 188 laps in total with around 90 laps under caution. At the end of the race i teamed up with someone and we were bump drafting each other till the end looking at a place of the podium, till i spun out in the last turn right before the chequered flag sliding and spinning over the finish line in 6th position. That was an awesome achievement for myself.

 

[Ben Lee]

I did a few longer races in the GTR2 days but I think they were 2 hours max. I don’t really have time now to dedicate to gaming as I once did, so doing a 3 hour race would be tough, plus what happens if you need the toilet? I finished a few of those 2 hour races with a painful run to the toilet.

 

[robt100]

I did a full 24hr Le Mans completely solo...... This was using the game 'Le Mans' on the PS1, you could save when you went into the pits, so I did an hour here and an hour there, it took me about a month in real time.

My friend did the same...apart from he didnt realise you could save in the pistops! He was rather tired the rest of the week

 

[Wolf_XII]

Two times, mainly due to time constraints.
the VSR 6h of Le Mans (2019) and 12h of Le Mans (12 Hours). (it's a small german league I used to race in, mostly Pcars 2 but the Endurance Races were in AC.

Results wise not so great, both were a struggle but in the end I had fun and Endurance suits my driving style, I'm not the fastest but usually pretty safe (if I have a well set up car to work with) and I can take good care of the fuel and tires. So my job is usually to reduce the ammount of stops.

The first one the six hour race was a bit of a bummer, because I joined someone driving the GT4 Cayman...which I didn't like too much and that guy never showed up to the race, so I raced it alone for about 4 hours in total. After an enforced break after AC kicked me out for not giving back laptime after one of the first laps....I had to give up some space for overtakers and go off track near the Ford Chicanes.

In the end a bit sad, because I and the car didn't gel well and I was horribly off pace, especially as we had rather low temps due to a fault in the server setup and all of us GT4 runners couldn't get the hard tires (our only compound) up to temp.

Somehow got the Car to go 276 due to my setup on the straights......which made it impossible for the other GT4 to overtake and the overtakes by the GTEs really hairy. As the only way they could really overtake me in that car was to divebomb me into the corners or pass in them.
Well while it was what we germans call a Boden-Boden Rakete (surface-to-surface missile) on the straights, it was bad in the curves, especially the Porsche Curves.
Finished second or third in Class IIRC (of 4 running cars) due to me running the longer stint of us two solo runners.
We didn't run GT4s again as there was just too much of a speed differential in the corners and not enough on the straights.

Was a study in frustration that race, especially as I found out afterwards in trainng that my pace in the GTEs would have thrown me smack dab in the midfight field for a great battle.

Second one I had a great team in LMP1....but we had setup troubles and never got the kinks quite worked out before the race so we had a pretty unstable setup that cost us in the race.
And well our first driver got punted and damage on the formation lap, he elected to stay out and repair at the first pit stop, but that cost us a lot of time, putting us out of contention from the get go.

After that it was damage limitation, we did not finish as the last LMP1 running, mainly by dint of us keeping the car alive and safe for that first stop mostly out of the pits, despite a few spins and other problems.
Final overall position was P9, before the second to last LMP1 at P10, the last LMP1 was in P30 due to crashes of both kinds and repairs.
We did coordinate well, with one driving and the other spotting and the third resting, was the one driving the last stint and we were all happy to have finished.
It was an achievement, to have made it, as LMP1 lost 3 cars to DNF, GTE three as well and GTE am 2.

Tipp, prepare for it, because even if it's just simracing, you will feel the strain after a few hours if you aren't properly trained.


Drinking and having to visit the loo wasn't an issue for us, as it was during the hot sommer, so we had something like 30+ Degrees C outside and our rooms resembled race cars in their temps.

So drinking wasn't an issue, however we all stank to the high heavens afterwards.

And were absolutely shattered.

 

[Kurt Gross]

I love endurance racing! But does our community?

By endurance racing, I mean an event over 4 hours in racing time - either as a solo driver, or part of a larger driving team. Personally I think 4 hours is a sprint, but hey, we have to put a limit on the article somewhere, don't we?

The question of the day today is... have you ever raced in an endurance event online before, and what did you make of the experience?

(again, in this case we are calling anything over 4 hours 'Endurance').

Goooooooooooooooo.....

View attachment 413818

I am fortunate enough to have 2 overall wins in the 24 Hours of Daytona in iRacing. Granted, I was not in the top split but the difficulty and team effort is the same.

 

[Koen Verlinde]

I basically don't run sprint races anymore, endurance races with driver swaps are the juice for my simracing needs. Anything from 3 to 24h preferably.

 

[G-Slev]

I have a love/hate relationship with 24 hour races in the real world. I love them to bits, but they are an endurance for me as a spectator, because I want to be out taking photographs at all hours of the day.

 

[Ben Lee]

I went to the Silverstone 24H about 5 years ago with the idea of taking some decent pics with my camera, however what I didn’t fully appreciate was that unlike some circuits, the Silverstone night time lighting is very minimal, so after about 8pm it was almost impossible to get any decent shots.

 

[Sharjeel]

Did 24 hrs of Nurb-Nords back in 2016. My back is f****d now. As much as I would love to do more endurance events, I can hardly afford to sit for more than 30 minutes in my sim rig..

 

[tr1v1um]

Online endurance racing is limited to over 10 years ago in rFactor in just a couple of events (Nordschleife VLN decimated to 4 hours and a 4 hour Spa event). I think it was back in 2008 I participated in a series with 2 hour races, which most called 'endurance'. I would say 2 hours is just a tad longer GP race distance.

Speaking offline, surely!

Especially right when GTR2 came out, there was no way back. Starting with small 1 hour 24 hour events with mixed weather, but quickly increasing to 3 hours and then by the use of the GTR2 'save' button and more free mod content coming to especially nogripracing but also just googling for endurance mods and doing a self made GTR2 mix for all kind of different endurance.
So not exactly 24 hours straight solo, but 24 hours of the same event devided into more days. Yes, I know someone will call the 'save' button for cheating, but still an endurance feeling on the long run with pit strategies and suddenly have to thinking of other strategies while driving into the night and heaven suddenly starting to pour down.

Of newer sims it's been very rarely. Mostly in AC at Sebring, 67 version of Le Mans and modern Spa. But its been very limited.
Mostly due to the lack of same endurance possibilities like in GTR2 with day/night run over 24 hours and changing weather immediately. For instance I think modern sims like rF2, AC, ACC, AMS2, iRacing, R3E should have the time-scaling opportunity of 24 hour events, just like in GTR2 with delivers the possibility to get around the clock in e.g. just 4 hours and in all kind of weather circumstances.

Edit: Maybe I should add, that all my endurance effort is as a solo driver.

You are aware of that rF2, ACC and AMS2 offer time scaled races and weather? Not done an endurance race in AMS2 or ACC yet, but rF2 has what you are looking for. Even the option to leave the game and resume from replay. I never did an online endurance race but plenty of offline endurance races.

 

[Lucio Distilleri]

2x 24 ore lemam
1x 24h nordschleife

 

[Jan Larsen]

Yes, 4x24 hours earlier in life. Many 6-12 hour races aswell including a 12 hour alone without break or driver change.

 

[LukeT222]

Only ever done endurance stuff offline but I absolutely love it. Not really good enough to race online though if I'm honest, especially as part of a team for an enduro

 

[ERNos]

I have to go to the bathroom often, so an endurance race for me is 30 minutes.

full bladder motivates to top performance!!!

 

[Frank]

TBF, with that kind of rejoin you deserve being send to another dimension :-P.