MichiganCircleTrack.com is the online home of the MARC Times Racing News & Michigan Racing Scene and MARCTimesTV.

It was back to Madison International Speedway in Wisconsin for the MCT-SRL drivers on October 15th, for the seventh race of the Fall 2009 Season. Kalamazoo racer Todd Foote was on hand for his first race in the series. After the veteran driver received some initial Sim-Race coaching from his son, KC, Todd was at the top of the leader board for quite a while during practice. He was eventually bumped by Lansing’s John Hernly and the 2009 M.C.R. Dwarf Cars Champion, Craig Curtis. Hernly put his No.64 TV Land Chevy on the poll, turning a 16.957 second (106.150 MPH) lap at the half mile track. KC Foote, running a BMW badge on his No.51 for fun, started on the outside front row with a 16.965 second (106.100 MPH) lap.

After Hernly led the ten car field to the green flag, the drivers ran 41 of the 105 laps, before the first caution. The yellow was a result of a “warp” condition while I was battling Todd Foote for the fifth place spot. You can think of warp as the on-line version of “mechanical problems”. Warp occurs when the server is unable to calculate where a car is on the track. The race server keeps track of a driver’s network speed and attempts to predict where their car will be on the track in the next millisecond. Because all the drivers in Sim-Racing are connected over the internet from their homes, at different network speeds, the same occasional network hiccups that occur when you are trying to view a web page or download a file, will also impact a Sim-Race. From the driver’s perspective, this may appear as a car on the track being jittery, disappearing for a split second, or as the case of Foote and I, an unexplained event. One second we were side by side, the next he was heading for the wall from a collision that never occurred. Unfortunately for the elder Foote, that “mechanical problem” ended his night. Everyone used the opportunity to grab fresh tires.

The next caution came out on lap 98 when Curtis in the No.74, on the lead lap, was trying to get under the No.51 of KC Foote. Foote and I, both a lap down, were battling for position. A tap from Curtis’s car sent the No.51 around, setting up a 1 lap shoot-out for the end. Hernly in the No.64 held on to the lead and went on to take then win, with Curtis in second and Josh Walker in the No. 83 in the third spot.

MCT-SRL Madison Race Results

MCT-SRL Standings after 7 of 14 races