The iRX World Championship Qualifying Series made its way to Atlanta, and after a disappointing Round 1 for both Luis and Beau, they were looking to make amends. In both camps there was a change of equipment, with Luis moving to a Logitech G923 TRUEFORCE wheel and Beau racing with VRS DirectForce Pro Pedals for the first time as well.

As fate would have it, their performances would yield a very strong result, with Beau Albert claiming victory from the second row of the grid in the Feature in a massive 6.8K SOF field, the second highest in Dirt Road history. Luis also had a strong race, running 2nd for much of the race before dropping back to 5th after some very hard racing in what was an unlucky finish.

Nevertheless this result vaults Beau from 30th in the standings to 6th place, while Luis moves from 14th to 10th after 2 rounds. The series now moves to Brands Hatch next week where absolutely anything can happen!

The Sim Room is coming together nicely!

Stay tuned for our overview and experiences with these beasts!

Round 3 of the Sports Car Open Masters was held at the glorious Circuit Zolder, and having missed Round 2 due to real world racing commitments we were looking forward to sinking our teeth into this one.

Cooper Webster did a phenomenal job in the opening qualifying session, taking Pole Position by 0.18sec in the end. The race got off to a good start, with Jordan Caruso converting the race start to a solid margin ahead of the Coanda Simsport duo of Mitchell Dejong & Josh Rogers at the pitstop, before handing the car over to Cooper to bring it home. On a slightly different strategy, it was about maintaining the 2 second gap back on slightly older tyres and Cooper did a masterful job to take our first victory of the series, and also as the only BMW in the Top 15 points paying positions.

Whilst Race 1 went pretty well perfect, Race 2 got off to a rocky start right away, being nudged off at Turn 1 and dropping well back, then taking avoiding action down in the pack from an incident at the middle chicane. The race went from bad to worse getting collected in other people’s accidents and they’d bring the damaged M4 home in 18th place and out of the points.

Nevertheless it was a momentous result for the team and for Jordan and Cooper. We can take this momentum forward to the second half of the season when it returns in August.

Round 1 of the iRX World Championship Qualifying Series was a tough one in Top Split. Beau Albert & Luis Núñez had bulk pace and strong heat results including a win, but nothing is a guarantee in the feature. A tough opening lap dropped them both right back and facing an uphill climb. With little time to respond, it was a less than ideal result.

Bring on Round 2!

Q – Beau 2nd // Luis 3rd
Heat 1 // Luis 2nd
Heat 2 // Beau 1st
Feature – Luis P5 // Beau P7

Jordan & Cooper had the Altus BMW M4 flying, and the strategies throughout the field made for some really exciting races. Race 1 was tricky with a few sloppy issues, however Race 2 was a great bounceback to narrowly miss a podium finish.

RESULTS
Race 1: 28th*
Race 2: 4th*

Round 2 kicks off next week at Barcelona and we’re looking forward to it already.

BROADCAST REPLAY: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wB-KrmJgzEo

*Provisional Results

DRIVER ANNOUNCEMENT!

We’re very excited to announce the arrival of the incredibly talented Fabio Besuch to the Team’s GT Lineup! Fabio has made a strong name for himself competing in the Nurburgring Endurance Championship, as well as the IMSA iRacing Series in the GT3 class where he is quickly approaching 7k iRating.

Fabio will make his debut on Home Turf in the Altus Colours in tonight’s NEC 4 Hour Endurance Race.

Welcome Fabio!

After being involved in one of the first cautions, Michael Cosey Jr. took his Chevy Lumina back through the field to WIN the 2021 Blue-Emu #Firecracker400!

An absolutely HUGE victory, and one of the biggest in our 3 year history! windVOW8820 you are a legend!

After a stellar season for our New Zealand Gran Turismo star, Matthew McEwen has qualified for the World Series in the Nations Cup for the first time. He’s also managed to qualify with Mercedes-Benz for the very first time as well in the Manufacturer’s Series too, all from his Racetech NZ sim rig!

Congratulations Matthew!

Last night’s round at Watkins Glen International was a promising one but as is often the case around this track, it can be brutal. That was unfortunately the case for our trio of James Scott, Jordan Caruso and Cooper Webster last night.

Things got off to a good start, with Cooper narrowly winning out Pole Position extending our streak to 7 Pole Positions in a row. However signs began to show that it just may not be our night, as Jordan’s internet dropped during qualifying, and later having an engine blow entering the bus stop on Lap 9 curtailing his running.

James then had a tough first pit cycle from P2, but then made an uncharacteristic error tagging the back of Ellis at turn 1, before being the meat in a three wide sandwich at turn 2 causing major damage and essentially ending any chance of a good result.

It was left to Cooper Webster who did a fantastic job for the bulk of the race, making the right strategic call to come out with the effective lead and a solid 2 second gap after the final stop only for it to be erased by a safety car a few laps later.

It was a fantastic battle with the Trans Tasman Racing cars and United’s Jarrad Filsell, culminating with a very tight battle for the lead laps from the finish. The racer in Cooper went for the win at the bus stop, but it didn’t work out and the Altus charge had ended for this round.

Congratulations to Ethan Warren on picking up his first V8 SCOPS victory, and a deserved one at that.

Onto Oulton Park we go to ready the bounceback, but next is GT3 racing in the Virtual Racing School Sports Car Open Masters this weekend!