Ahead of next weekend’s V8 SCOPS Premier Series and on the back of yesterday’s announcement, ILiveries has worked their magic to incorporate Virtual Racing School into our liveries.
We can’t wait to get out there next weekend at Mosport which will be another exciting round of racing.
The eRacr Carnomoly 500 took place today amongst a stacked field at Daytona International Speedway. As can be the case it was a very tense affair for our three drivers Seth DeMerchant, Markus Ruckman & Michael Cosey Jr.
Unfortunately Markus was ruled out early, with computer troubles at the start putting him several laps down. Merch did an awesome job from his front row start and was managing the race well, opting to save fuel late in the race to set up a fast finish.
Cosey was moving up the field and did an awesome job of avoidance driving as the wrecks starting kicking off, however got tied up in one 30 laps from the end causing moderate damage on both sides, causing a pivotal caution that would move Merch on his strategy to the top few positions.
With just 10 laps to go, Merch was atop the leaderboard and looking comfortable however multiple cautions left a decision to pit or not to pit for fresh tyres. It looked as though Merch had made the perfect call to pit late, being in P8 at the restart on fresh tyres however right at the restart a massive crash collected most of the field, taking Merch out of the race.
For Cosey, he’d not pitted for tyres and with his damaged car was sitting in P2 for the final GWC restart. He held it as close as he could with Mullins but ultimately couldn’t get enough out of his damaged Chevy, and would finished P2. An awesome result despite the troubles, and definitely one to be proud of!
We are excited to announce a major technical partnership with leading sim racing service Virtual Racing School in a new multi-year deal.
“I’m extremely excited to welcome Virtual Racing School to the Altus Esports family. VRS has been great supporters of some of the best teams in the world across a wide array of disciplines in Sim Racing for a very long time,” said Simon Feigl, Team Manager, Altus Esports.
“We felt a strong alignment of goals and ambitions across all of Sim Racing, and a willingness to support us in our Esports initiatives. This provides us a strong foundation to grow to the next stage of professionalism in conjunction with our other wonderful partners. We cannot thank Peter and the entire team at Virtual Racing School enough for their long-term commitment to us.”
This new partnership will see Altus Esports drivers utilising the new VRS DirectForce Pro range of hardware including the newly released Direct Drive Wheel Base and the upcoming Pro Pedals.
The link with VRS is not entirely new as within the team we have been major users of the VRS Team capability available with the Competitive VRS subscription for data analysis & development. Altus drivers Tim Ryan & Julian Dunne have also been long time VRS coaches creating data packs for dirt and open wheeler cars respectively. We will be enabling coaching services through VRS in the future as part of this partnership, so stay tuned for that and much more!
“We are thrilled to partner with Altus Esports! They are a rare professionally run sim racing organization with top talent in multiple sim racing disciplines and across multiple sim racing titles,” said Peter Dimov, Director, Virtual Racing School. “We look forward to exposing the VRS products and services to a new audience through this collaboration.”
The team will reveal their new VRS updated cars for the first time in tomorrow’s Carnomoly 500 race in what is a massive weekend of racing including the start of the eNASCAR Road to Pro series, V8 SCOPS Premier Series, Sports Car Open & the BMW SIM GT CUP.
It is going to be a big year, and we are very excited to be working alongside Virtual Racing School.
Key Links:
Virtual Racing School Website: https://virtualracingschool.com/
Virtual Racing School Subscription Plans: https://virtualracingschool.com/pricing/
DirectForce Pro Hardware: https://virtualracingschool.com/dfp/
We’re very excited to announce that Horizon Racing Team has joined Altus Esports to become our new Oval Racing squad. This acquisition sees Altus now compete in the top echelons of iRacing across all four license categories having competed in iRacing World Championships across Road, Dirt Road and Dirt Oval since our inception.
Our new Oval squad features 7 drivers all within the Top 200 in Oval iRating in the world, including Seth DeMerchant, Jordy Lopez, Braden Boulos, Markus Ruckman, Christian Pedersen and Michael Cosey from the United States, with the Top Australian in iRating Matt Danson also forming part of the team.
This really is very exciting for the team, and in the couple of weeks since we integrated together the benefits to everyone have been all there to see.
On the path from Road to Pro!
The iRacing Official Bathurst 1000 special event was run on the weekend, with both the AU and US timeslots. For Sam Blacklock and Brady Meyers, the decided to not only do one, but to do both timeslots. The earlier AU timeslot they ran a solid race, other than some early braking problems with Brady, but were able to finish a solid 2nd place.
In the later US timeslot, the race would kick off at just before midnight for Sam & Brady, however they were up for the challenge. As it turned out, the SOF was stronger in this timeslot, and qualifying got off to a great start with Brady doing an incredibly quick 2:03:306, beating his own qualifying record by over 2 tenths. This would be enough to take pole by a comfortable margin of 1.4s to the next car.
Sam would start the car with a double stint and began pulling out a gap to the cars behind before handing the car over to Brady with a whopping 50 second margin over P2. Brady continued to pull margin on the cars behind, completing a triple stint before handing back over to Sam with a 2.5 minute lead and thus with more than a 1 lap lead over the following car. Sam would go on to finish the race, coming home with a margin of over 3 minutes to the next car, and become iRacing Bathurst 1000 Champions!
Altus driver Beau Albert will represent Andretti Autosport in their first foray into the Esports world, contesting the iRacing Rallycross World Championship.
Altus Esports and our loyal partners Logitech G, ASTRO Gaming, Racetech USA and Cube Controls are joining us in this entry which is due to kick off this weekend with Round 1 from Hell Lånkebanen.
Driving the Gainbridge VW Beetle, Beau Albert said “To represent Andretti Autosport in the iRX World Championship is a tremendous privilege for me. It was clear to me very quickly that the Andretti team is backing this effort in the Sim racing World very heavily, which is a big confidence booster for myself heading into the new season. I think together there are some fantastic results ahead of us, and I cannot wait for the season to get underway this Saturday.”
Chairman & CEO Michael Andretti stated “I’m really excited to field Beau and Vicente under the Andretti Autosport banner in the upcoming iRacing Rallycross World Championship. This will be the team’s first outing into eSports as an official championship entry and I’m looking forward to the new opportunities it may bring.”
Altus Team Manager Simon Feigl added “Heading into the World Championship and understanding how we could be integrating with other real world teams, immediately Andretti Autosport stood out to us as a team we’d like to collaborate with on this. We’re privileged to have worked with the Walkinshaw Andretti United team for Esports activities in Australia, so furthering that now with Andretti Autosport made a lot of sense, and is a real honour for Beau, Altus Esports and all of our partners.”
We’ll be streaming the races LIVE from our Facebook page each and every week, as well Andretti Autosport. Be sure to watch out for the #27 Gainbridge Andretti Autosport Beetle, as Beau Albert takes on the world!
The BMW SIM 120 Cup was contested at Road Atlanta, a two hour race with a heavy focus on fuel management, and efficient speed. Amongst a star studded field of drivers from iRacing World Championships and other major Endurance Series, as well as F1 superstar Max Verstappen, Cooper Webster and new arrival Jordan Caruso put together an excellent performance to come through the field from 17th on the grid, to finish the race in a fantastic 4th place in the ASTRO Gaming BMW.
They were able to navigate through an opening lap baulk that held up our sister Logitech G car, and were able to settle into a solid rhythm in the draft train, able to save fuel well before accelerating the charge towards the end of the opening stint, with Cooper pulling off well timed and executed moves.
Jordan Caruso who only joined the team earlier this week, put together a fantastic stint amongst others he had only previously watched on other WCS broadcasts, but he looked like a veteran who had been there before. He put together an excellent stint, keeping out of trouble and ultimately bringing the car home in P4.
It was a tough day at the office however for the Logitech G entry, with the experienced Simone Maria Marcenò and Simon Feigl suffering with what they described as a poor performance by their standards. The brought the car home in 21st place but were left scratching their heads with how the race ended up going for them.
Nevertheless, it was celebrations all round in the Team Discord post-race, and the team bond through such a fantastic result as Cooper and Jordan’s motivates us all to keep pushing, and know that what we are doing does deliver results.
GG Cooper & Jordan – this is just the start! Awesome job fellas! #PROUD
Yesterday was Bathurst Day which in ANZ iRacing is our biggest single race of the year. We entered the race with a four entries, headlined by the ASTRO entry of Scott/Webster, and the Logitech G entry of Meyers/Blacklock. The TrueForce entry of Hanlin/Feigl were also competing, along with the wildcard Racetech entry of Marcenò/Albert.
After qualifying we had three cars in the top 10, however with a stall off the line and a misjudgement from Feigl, we had two cars at the top and two cars in 26th and 39th respectively with a long day ahead. Disaster struck immediately after the first stint for our ASTRO entry, where running in 2nd place they were thwarted by an engine problem which would end their race. Heartbreak for our lead car, and for James Scott and Cooper Webster who were extremely strong.
Meyers and Blacklock would take over the mantle and perform very well indeed, maxing out their strategic options throughout the race. Simone Maria Marcenò went on an absolute tear throughout the field with tremendous pace often being one of the fastest few cars on track in only his third ever race in the Premier series, moving the Racetech car into contention.
Opting for an early stop to gain clear air after the Lap 1 error, Feigl and Hanlin were bringing TrueForce back through the field, and avoiding several incidents in the dangerous midfield that could have been race ending. They were now well into the Top 15 with it all to play for.
With everyone’s strategic cards played throughout the day, a late safety car would prepare a final 10 lap dash as has often occurred in the great race. Meyers in 3rd, Feigl in 10th and Marcenò in 11th, the stage was set!
Former teammate Dayne Warren was leading the race and was the only driver in the Top 6 on fresh tyres, he was able to clear out into the lead and was not able to be challenged so the real battle was for the minor places. Meyers had a clear pace advantage over El-Nabi and whilst he did get into P2, race control deemed the move to be at fault so required a redress which was done safely.
However with a few laps to go, another daring move from Meyers at the chase would place him side by side going into the final bend only for Jake Burton to bump El-Nabi out of control and into Meyers, pushing them both into the gravel trap and out of the running. He would later be penalised and will ultimately be disqualified due to failing to meet the minimum drive time for teammate Ferraris, but the damage was done for El-Nabi and for us. A charging finish through the melee for the Racetech and TrueForce cars, the two cars would come across the recovering Logitech G car that rejoined just in front of the pair bringing home a solid run home with a 5th, 6th and 7th place in formation.
It most certainly is not the result we wanted as we knew that 1 or 2 cars were definitely capable of being on the podium if not the overall victory, however it was a great team effort to finish with 3 cars in the Top 7 of the great race.
We’re very proud and excited to announce a new partnership with a true New Zealand success story, with renowned Motorsport brand Racetech.
Racetech have been synonymous in Motorsport being the racing seat of choice in the Virgin Australia Supercars Championship, with their composite and carbon fibre race seats fitting to thousands of race cars, touring cars, rally cars, drift, drag and speedway cars all over the world. They have no partnered with Altus Esports in a new adventure into the world of Esports.
Racetech have developed a fantastic new Simulator which has no flex, is rigid and highly adjustable! The New Zealand made racing simulator chassis and accessories are designed and manufactured with precision to provide you with the highest standard of equipment that is going to last.
We have made the chassis and accessories easy to assemble and compatible with the very popular Logitech G29, G920 and Thrustmaster T300 steering wheel and pedal sets. You can pair your simulator with one of our professional race seats to give you the most authentic racing experience. Also available are direct driver wheel mounts for the simulator, so you can take your racing to the highest levels of force with Racetech.
Altus Esports’ New Zealand driver Matthew McEwen has tested the simulator and will be racing it from this week, and was quoted as saying “I recently got to use Racetech’s simulator chassis and it was amazing. Adjustable, rock solid (you could stand on any part and it didn’t even flex) and with a decent racing seat to cap it off. I think it is a great option for anyone looking to get started on simulator racing with a rig they’ll never need to replace.”
At Altus we are extremely honoured to represent this fantastic brand that is renowned for producing industry leading products, and with the time that we spend in the seat it is great to know we are in safe hands with Racetech.
As a celebration of the launch, a special wildcard entry will be racing in this weekend’s V8 SCOPS Bathurst 1000 on iRacing, with Rallycross ace Beau Albert joining Italian Simone Maria Marcenò in the Racetech Holden Commodore.
For more information on the Racetech’s Simulator or their available range of motorsport products, please visit https://racetechseats.com/
Whilst it all looked without doubt a short time ago, with the season now officially over we are over the moon to announce that Beau Albert SimRacing has officially qualified for the 2020 iRacing Rallycross World Championship!
The World Championship will get underway in a short time, with the series set to start in Late September, and being the sole Australian in the field we wish him our utmost support and will be pushing his campaign in earnest.
Let’s go Bobo!