A Sim Racing Season Swing

SIM RACING

If you’ve known or been a part of the MAD Sim Racing Team or broader Into The Apex Community for any part of a year, you know that the 24 Hours of Daytona and January in full is sacred here. It’s really been this way from the start—a debut 24 hour race at virtual Le Mans in June, 2020, that was by all accounts a horror film, but by the subjective experience of each driver unforgettable. The buildup into a more proper effort, and debut, of the 2021 iRacing Daytona 24HR was set in motion, and the energy has carried on and grown in its own ways to present day. Of course, by the end of January, everyone purposefully looks away from Daytona Road after many hours of mental and physical investment—yet the emotion and sense of home provides echoes throughout the year.

There are plenty of ways to approach the event, with varying levels of sentimentality, and I would imagine ours trends toward at times absurd levels of it (like…now); it’s by no means time to look Daytona dead in the eyes, but with the turn of seasons somewhat in sight, and with what’s on the iRacing docket sooner than we think, we might allow the visions of a darkening Daytona sky in our minds for a few minutes soon. First: we’re down to our last IMSA oriented special event, with the annual Petit Le Mans on September 25-27 weekend. Then, before we get to what will be a packed event, the sneaky Global Endurance Tour takes us on an endurance whiplash. August 22: 24 Hours at Daytona. September 5: 24 Hours at Le Mans. There are of course other events packed into September, including Suzuka and 24 Hours at Silverstone, but these three team endurance events really stand out. If Daytona 24 testing in November is too early, welcome to the too-too early stage. Here is an opportunity for teams and drivers to decide to test their prospective car/class on this end of the calendar, without the emotional connection to what is the most meaningful 24 hours in sim racing, in racing mode, on a close together tour of Daytona, Le Mans, and Road Atlanta. Take October to gather your thoughts, and launch the true, dedicated event preparation in more volume in November into December, with a continuity born in late August on those very high-banks.

I think one of the greatest things about “Daytona Season” is that it brings the separate teams-within-teams together, alongside all of the other Daytona Diehards, for so long and with a build-up of excitement. But a bustling January begins somewhere months before, and if new teams or driver pairings are to form, time can be a friend to develop. Among a broad category of articles and writing to come in this space starting now, we will focus on the road to Daytona this year in our MAD Sim Racing world. The virtual halls of MAD Sim Racing have hummed on their own in recent years, but with the opportunities to put teams on track in these near future events, this stands as an open invitation to drivers to our community and endurance racing team to join that exciting road to January. Because January is for Daytona.

More to come…