Sim to Real Racing, Finally...

[Mark Reynolds]

Finally after many years of envy watching others race I took the plunge.....

Ran this weekend at Snetterton in my first qualifying and races and had the most epic time ever, if you can find a way to do it, do it.....don't be like me and find excuses to put it off, I arrived 20yrs too late on the scene already !!

We ran the car in the Classic Touring Car Thunder Series - talk about dropping in the deep end, this is against 700bhp Scooby's, ex V8 Supercar Falcon, 450bhp Sierra Cosworth and other such machinery, we had an awesome weekend and finished second in class in both our races and mid pack overall on road tyres against a field of cars on mostly slicks, as you can imagine I was slightly happy with our first outing, returned home with a huge smile on my face and an undamaged car.

You can follow our progress here if your interested, you might even want to give our team page a like to support us. We will be contesting the whole of next season with a better prepared car & driver

https://www.facebook.com/ReyconsBMW

 

[Tsfc]

Well done man! All the very best with your racing!

 

[Matheus Machado]

Awesome! Definitely one of my goals for the future!

 

[Mark Reynolds]

Get it done, don't keep putting it off like I did !!

 

[Dan Allen]

You know I've passed my ARDS if you're ever stuck for a second driver wink wink...

 

[Mark Reynolds]

Someone shared this with me from the weekend, think we spent most of the weekend like this tbh

 

[Mark Reynolds]

From incar on another competitor (goto 7mins 15secs)......as you will see in the vid my car had massive oversteer problems, as it was still essentially setup as a drift car having had no chance to do any setup work before the qualifying or first race. We have it so easy in the simulators being able to turn hundreds of laps and tinker away endlessly with the setup, in reality I had at this stage of the weekend got 7 laps experience in the car total (had never driven it in the dry before), and 7 laps experience of Snetterton total, the whole weekend over qualifying and 2 races I did a total of around 20 laps, kind of puts things in perspective right ?

 

[Dan Allen]

Just seen you on Motors TV... Just sayin'

 

[Mark Reynolds]

lol yer, weird being the other side of the glass for a change

 

[Mark Reynolds]

Pretty awesome season ahead of us this year.

During the off season spent some money developing the car, should be able to perform a whole lot more competitively this year with any luck.

Major changes to the car come in the form of Slicks, a proper Limited Slip Diff, fibreglass doors, bonnet, boot, fenders, a major diet enabling us to push out nearly 330bhp/ton by the time we reach the grid in early April, plus a whole host of other small things which should improve the car a lot.

We have a pretty amazing calendar this year as well, racing at.....

Apr 9/10 Rockingham

May 14/15 Cadwell Park

Jun 19 Donington

Jul 2/3 Thruxton

Jul 30/31 Brands Hatch

Sep 10/11 Snetterton

Oct 8/9 Silverstone (Int.)

Picked up my first international sponsor this past week in the form of Rota Wheels, which is pretty cool as I am running Rota Grid "Drift" wheels on the car anyway.

Bought a really nice little Go-Pro Hero Session to run onboard in the car this year, so should have some nice action from onboard through the year. Motors TV have indicated that they are showing at least a couple of races this year, so good stuff for the sponsors etc.

Drop us a like on the the team page please fella's, we are going to need all the luck we can get this year !!

https://www.facebook.com/ReyconsBMW

 

[xnorb]

Way late to the party, but ya - it's a real surprise real race drivers are so fast if you think of all the advantages we have.

4 seconds setup tweaking, we don't wreck our car forcing us into abandoning the whole rest of the season, we don't have to fear death, can turn thousands of laps at any weather condition whilst in real life you get to run 8 laps before parking your car on the grid

 

[Mark Reynolds]

I think that was probably the biggest shock, the lack of actual track and seat time on the day, everything becomes a blur between sessions just taking care of mundane things, I guess it gets easier once you establish a routine and understand what makes the car and yourself work properly. Everything is a steep learning curve right now, but taking on the challenge head on, it is quite an amazing feeling running up the straight in formation amongst so many cool living breathing race cars for real, something I can't quite put into words really.

The only thing I would say is this tho, all these years of sim racing helped out massively when it came to race craft, for me personally it was more about making sure I didn't make any bone head moves and keep myself out of danger at the start, even so when reviewing the vids I saw a couple of places I made some lame race craft mistakes, I put this down to being over cautious and some nerves on the first outing on the track tbh.

I am planning on doing some vids through the season comparing sim racing to the real deal, in a language other sim racers can appreciate really, especially now my car is fitted with real slicks this year, a cause for debate for many years, I ran semi slick last year, will be interesting to compare and translate my experiences to people really.

 

[xnorb]

With every line you write one can really feel your excitement and how glad you are having taken that step. I wish you all the best mate.

 

[Mark Reynolds]

I honestly wish every fellow petrol head and sim racer could experience it just once, appreciate the kind words mate.

 

[R.J. O'Connell]

Fantastic! Way to go!

 

[Sam Smith]

Great read! It will be very interesting to follow your team. All the best!

 

[Mark Reynolds]

Thanks Sam

 

[xnorb]

Screw it.
My g/f is subscribed to fashion and other sites on FB, guess i can follow a racing team

 

[Andrew Harper]

Great article and well done.

Good luck for 2016 Mark and hope you get some great results. Professional looking outfit and glad you managed to bag a sponsor. Nice calendar too.

Want to try and get moving on my ARDS test this year, I love living on Guernsey but when it costs nearly half a months wages to keep going back and forth each time it makes for a frightening amount of spending! Determined though this year

 

[Mark Reynolds]

Good luck Andrew, get it done mate, I wish I had done mine 20yrs ago !!

Thx