Time for another of iRacing’s special events, these are endurance races spread out over the year where the normal iRacing safety rating and irating are in effect and are basically treated as a normal iRacing race when it comes to splits, rules, etc. Splits is iRacing’s way to make sure that everyone races someone on their skill level, where your irating is used to divide all the registered teams into splits, where each split drives their own race, independent of the other races that are ongoing at the same time. A special event of this type typically draws a couple of thousand racers and since all cannot compete in the same race, they are divided so that each race has 50-60 racersteams. This year of 12h Sebring had around 1500 teams participating, and 27 splits in total.

As many others, this endurance race is a multi-class event, and we were racing in the class with the most fierce competition - the GTE class. The two other classes were the Daytona Prototype class and the GT3 class. Since no one in Hellracers has a really high irating (we are working on it!), this meant that we ended up in - the fairly low - split 6 and 7 with our three cars. However, due to the split system described above, you usually end up with competition around your own skill level.

With that background out of the way - how did it go? Well, our only car in split 7, a Porsche 911 RSR driven by Stellan Lindeberg and Niklas Hjelm, won their split with a good margin down to second place. Well done!

For our two cars in split 6, the second Porsche 911 RSR driven by Magnus Vallström and Philip Johansson had a good pace but did a mistake on one of their fuel stops costing them too much time to be able to compete for the win and they ended up in a not-too-shabby P4. This split also had a Ford GT GTE driven by Andreas Olsson, Marcus Simonsson and Hampus Baaz which had a tough day at the office and were involved in a few too many things to be hopeful for a podium finish. However, they pulled through and managed a P7 in the end, which was great work considering the incidents along the way.

We are all working on our irating in order to be able to compete in the higher splits, where at least we think we belong. But until then, we will continue fighting in whatever split we end up in and try to win it. We are very happy with being able to start three competitive cars in this event, and not only that but also finishing all three cars in high positions.

We have come to appreciate the tight racing that this series brings, the mix of good racing within the Porsche 911 Cup class and the heavy traffic with the MX-5s and the TCRs makes for exciting races where everything can - and will - happen. It was time for Andreas Olsson to drive his first stint in this series, and he had Hampus Baaz as his partner in crime.

The race tempo of our car was high, but a few too many mistakes were made along the way to be able to compete for the podium. The sweeping corners of Phillip Island are easy to overshoot when trying to push, especially combined with a lot of cars on the track. But since the pace was good, each mistake was followed by some quick laps and an overtake or two, and the distance to the podium cars didn’t escalate too much.

In the end, our car passed the finish line in fifth place, around 30 seconds after the winner. A decent result, but with fewer mistakes a better result was definitely within reach.

This made us the new class leader with only one race to go - the 4 hours at Interlagos in April. Could it be our first title as Hellracers?! Time to start practicing…

No less than four Hellracers cars were on the starting line for this event, with a price pool of around $4000 and a chance to compete with the big boys. This series, sponsored by BMW, runs the BMW M8 GTE car in a really tight “short endurance” race where two drivers per car compete over two hours for the grand prize. Our cars in the first split had about the toughest competition found on the iRacing service and found themselves at 31st and 35th position in the end, while our cars in second split managed a better result, finishing in 2nd and 4th position.

This was our first endurance event with such a strong competition, and we will learn from this experience and come even better prepared for the next one, taking place at Nürburgring in May.

A majority of the team already know Philip from battles in the Swedish iRacing League and now he finally joins our ranks. He’s a really quick GT driver who will strengthen our team in upcoming competitions.

What, Catalunya again?! Yes, unfortunately all series and leagues ended up at Catalunya over the span of just a couple of weeks but the Clubsport series should be the last start on that track for some time. So it was just to buckle up and focus on the mission - to bring Hellracers our second win in the Clubsport series. Since this was a 4 hour race, more points were on the line than the 2.4 hour races, so of course a win is even more valuable for the championship.

We put Hampus Baaz and Jonas Bodin on this important mission and they started out really well - Jonas put the car on pole and took off, leaving the competition behind. Given that the teams are on slightly different pit strategies, it’s not always easy to know which car is actually in the lead, but the Hellracers Porsche was mostly in P1 and the strategy seemed to work as intended.

Halfway through, Hampus took over the wheel and continued in the lead. It wasn’t until the race had about 30 minutes left it became really exciting when the Racekraft Esports entry caught up to Hampus and they started to fight for the race lead. All pit stops were done, so it was game on! Racekraft had just overtook Hampus when they got information from race control - Stop&Go penalty for an incident with another car. The Hellracers car once again took over the lead, and now with a comfortable cushion down to second place. With 15 minutes to go, it was just a matter of bringing the car home. The tires were worn, giving Hampus a bit of a challenge to do just that, but he kept his nerves and drove over the finish line with 15 seconds down to second place.

Mission accomplished - second victory in the Clubsport series keeping us in a good spot for the championship. Thanks to Racekraft Esports for the fight!

The championship final standings are now official and the two Hellracers entries finished in second place overall in both classes. After the fuel mishap, the LMP1 car was never really close to fighting about the championship in the final race while the GTE car finished with the same amount of points as the winner, but with fewer victories. We are really happy and proud of the results, as it is our first league as a team and we didn’t think we would fight for the win. Thanks to DGFX for putting together a fun and professional league!

Niklas has been a member from the start of iRacing and has a wide experience of both GT cars and prototypes. He joins Hellracers from Nomad Simracing and will make his first appearance in a Hellracers car when he tackles the Bathurst 12 hours this weekend.

Final race in the DGFX endurance series! For both cars, the championship title was within reach so it would all come down to the last 10 hour race of the series. The LMP1 car started off well, starting from pole and increasing the lead to a comfortable 30 second gap to second place. A few hours into the race, things started to go south after a miscalculation in the fuel strategy and the car ended up two laps behind the leader. Even though the team, this time consisting of all three LMP1 drivers Hampus Baaz, Andreas Olsson and Magnus Vallström, put in great laps, such a gap is hard to close and the car ended up in fifth place in the end. The championship results are yet to be confirmed.

The GTE car did quite the opposite journey. Although it started in second place, it fell down to last place after a driver mistake just two laps into the race. During the same incident, the car collected damage leading to reduced speed and what before the race felt like a certain top position did now feel far away. But after some great driving and solid pit strategies, the GTE car led the race with just 15 minutes to go. Since the main competitor, Heusinkveld, had issues and were in 11th place, things started looking good for the championship. Then, things fell apart quickly; the car in second place with its fresh tires overtook our car, the damage still being a factor for our car with the reduced top speed. Just minutes later, the GTE cars in fourth and fifth place collided leaving one of them in the pits with severe damage. Therefore, the Heusinkveld could overtake that car still standing in the pits, and our championship title slipped out of our hands (yet to be confirmed, though). Given the early incident, the second place that the car finished in felt like a decent result but the driver team, Jonas Bodin, Stellan Lindeberg and Wilhelm Wiberg, felt that they could do better.

24 hours of racing is a long time! The way of thinking when it comes to strategy and attitude towards the race and overtaking becomes something completely different. Especially at a track like Daytona, where the long straights gives a massive opportunity for drafting and fuel saving.

This was our first 24 hour race as a team, and while several team members had raced long races before in other teams, all of us looked forward to taking on this massive task as Hellracers. Our car choice this time was the Corvette C7 Daytona Prototype, the only car competing in the fastest class in this race (the other two classes being GT3 and GTE). Why choose this car? Well, though none of us had actually driven it seriously, and some of us had to buy it for the first time in order to prepare for this race, we discovered that it is a really fun car to drive and for all of us it was something different from the GT3s and GTEs that we normally drive.

Except for the qualification, where a rookie mistake led to the car being damaged during the qualification laps and us starting in 10th position, the start of the race felt really good. We quickly climbed in positions and after a few hours, even though we chased the leader with around 20 seconds between us, we were on a fuel strategy that would in the end close that gap or even let us overtake them just by strategy alone. When the sun went down at Daytona and our night drivers took over, we were in a steady second place with margins both up and down, but still with an advantage in fuel strategy over the leaders.

We had car contacts a few times, an unfortunate GTE car turned us around spinning in turn 1, barely missing the walls, but we still were in a position where we fought for the win. 15 hours in, another car contact when a lapped DP missed their braking point, spinning us into the path of a GT3 car and … car was too damaged to continue and had to be repaired. After repairs, the result was that this accident put us down 5 laps from the leader, and all chances of a good position in the race were basically over.

However, it didn’t feel right to just park the car, so the morning drivers took over and drove the car until the finish line where we ended in P8, still a respectable position given the competition but very unsatisfactory given our pace and strategy.

The drivers who put in their best this time and will come back for revenge were Jonas Bodin, Stellan Lindeberg, Marcus Simonsson, Magnus Vallström and Wilhelm Wiberg. Thanks to you all for a great effort, thanks to the rest of the team for great support, thanks to Tershine for broadcasting our race and thanks to you for reading this! :-)

We should also mention the winners in our split, one of the Kinetic Racing cars who did the 24 hour race with just two drivers, racing 12 hours each! Well done to you both, great performance!

Time for the third race of the Clubsport series and to take on the challenging curves of the Canadian Tire Motorsports Park with the added difficulty of managing the intense traffic. Marcus Simonsson and Hampus Baaz took on the challenge to pilot the 911 GT3 Cup with Hellracers’ colors on it, to take revenge on the last race where the car said hello to the barriers surrounding the Brands Hatch circuit.

It started off with some technical difficulties in the qualification session, leading to Marcus starting 11th - far from where he wanted to be. Once the green flag flew, he started to climb in positions though, and once it was time for Hampus the car was up in a podium position. A lot of cars had problems with the traffic and it was an intense fight for positions while managing the slower classes. Our car flew through traffic without too many scratches, and even though we couldn’t challenge the NAB Racing car for the victory in the end, the car crossed the finish line in second place with a comfortable cushion down to Meraki Racing in third place.