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A JACKZER Story
0.082 seconds
from losing it all.
Eight weeks of Formula Vee on iRacing. A scholarship for a real race weekend on the line. A last race at Sebring where I went off on lap one, dropped to P20 plus, and worked my way back through the field without knowing what was at stake. By the time I crossed the line, the margin to losing the drive was less than a tenth of a second. This is what happened.
10 min readStoryPersonal
Hosted by
RTA Virtual Motorsport
The crew who put the whole scholarship on. If you fancy racing one of their series, the door is open. Have a look and come say hello in their Discord.
The setup
The scholarship, in plain English.
RTA Virtual Motorsport put on an eight-week iRacing league, broadcast on Gantry TV. Partners and supporters including BWOAH Motorsport, Formula Vee Ireland and the lads at Trophi who came in clutch with subs. Stewards, admins, judges, the whole production. A serious amount of love behind the scenes that you can't fake and you don't see.
The prize was the part that didn't feel real until it was. A real race weekend in a real Formula Vee at Mondello Park. Johnny Hollywood's race car, no less. Absolute legend for putting it forward and trusting the system the lads built to produce three drivers worth handing the keys to.
Eligibility was simple. If you'd raced properly before, you were out. Beginners and near-beginners only, to keep it fair. I'd never raced an RTA series. I walked in expecting to be the slow one.
The format
- 01
Open qualifying
Fifteen minutes. Whoever made the most of it started best. Some weeks I made the most of it. Some weeks I didn't.
- 02
Feature race
Ten minute scrap. Tight, dirty, dramatic. The Formula Vee draft means nobody got away.
- 03
Reverse grid sprint
Top eight from race two flipped. P8 became pole. The pole car was suddenly defending against the field it had just beaten.
- 04
Judge panel
Multiple judges with their own scoring patterns. Results matter, attitude matters, craft matters, incident points matter. Bias of any one judge cancelled out.
Going in
I quietly thought I had no chance.
Not modesty. Genuinely. RTA has a reputation for the best sim racers in Ireland, plus real life racers who use it to keep sharp. And I do not race the Formula Vee. If anyone asked me, before this league, I'd have told you I hated it.
Liftoff oversteer that twists you on the gears. No wing, no margin, all draft, all elbows. I'd much rather be in a Formula Renault or a Skip Barber. Anything with a bit of downforce.
Then I went out for the first practice and realised, hold on. I'm not the fastest, but I'm not slow. The car was a drafting game, drafting is chess, and chess is something I can sit at for hours.
The goal for the eight weeks was simple. Extract every bit of performance I had so that at the end I could say, hand on heart, “Jack, there's nothing left in the tank you didn't spend.” Some races would be messy. Some would be clinical. By the last weekend I knew which was which, and which ones I could honestly stand over.
No should-haves, no could-haves. That was the goal. And I got there.
Side note - the interview
Before the season we sat a judge interview. Found out later mine scored well. The thing I remember saying clearest, because it surprised me coming out of my mouth, was “lads, you will not hear me say this much in the Discord during the actual racing, but I really, really want this.” Kept it together on track. Meant every word off it.
The eight weeks
A bell curve, not a straight line.
In hindsight my season was shaped like a hump. Nervous at the start, properly comfortable through the middle, a little tight in the head near the end. Eight beats from the inside.
Week
01Walking in nervous
First RTA series I'd ever raced in. Heard all the stories. Quietly convinced I'd be the slow one. Got out in practice and realised I was not the slow one.
Week
02Reading the room
Started clocking who raced how. Who'd send it, who'd back out, who'd switchback. Started filing the answers away for later.
Week
03Settling in
Qualifying still roulette. Race pace coming together. Learning the Formula Vee is a drafting game more than a pace game.
Peak
04The middle of the bell curve
Probably my strongest stretch. Spreads were wide, P18 then P10 then P5, but the average was good and the wheel-to-wheel was clean.
Peak
05Frenemies on track
By now the front-runners knew I'd carry it side by side. They knew I'd defend. They also knew I was worth working with, because two of us could pierce the pack faster than one.
Peak
06Wet at Hockenheim
No wet tyres. Pure chaos. Locked up behind Gian and Peter mid-track. One I could have avoided. Filed under lesson, moved on.
Dip
07Watching the leaderboard too much
Honest with myself here. I started keeping a little too close an eye on where my championship rivals were. It shouldn't have changed how I drove. It did, a touch.
Final
08Sebring. The last lap.
Crashed out of P10 on lap one. Dropped to P20 plus. Worked back up. Crossed the line three wide. 0.082 seconds to the car that would have ended it.
Sebring, lap one
When it all slipped away.
Qualifying wasn't great. Race one wasn't great. Race two I got into P10 for the start of the last race. Honestly, that weekend I don't remember well, which tells you most of what you need to know about how it was going.
I went up the inside heading into turn two. A queue of cars was politely lining up around the outside, so I thought, here's the gap, let's capitalise.
The car at the front of the train slowed. The car ahead of me jammed. The car directly in front of me jammed. By the time I'd processed the concertina I was already into the back of him. Racing incident more than anything. The kind of checkup that catches whoever's next in line, and that night it was me.
P20 plus. Twenty minute race. Alone, no draft train, everyone ahead bunched up and pulling away.
I genuinely thought, am I done? Peter pitted. I wondered if I should too. Hands on the wheel, head pretty heavy, all the feelings going at once.
Then I didn't give up. Took maybe a lap or two to swallow it. Put the head down. Sean caught me, we figured each other out, and we started working together. Trading the draft, taking turns punching holes in the next group ahead. The only way back was through.
Little did I know I needed four places. Four. If I didn't overtake three or four cars, I wasn't driving that real life race car. I had absolutely no idea at the time.
The finish line
Three wide. 0.082 seconds.
Last lap. Drafting a pack I hadn't raced before, so I had no read on what any of them were going to do. I just kept going.
I crossed the line in the middle of three cars, with the gap to the third car being 0.082 seconds. Less than a tenth. 82 thousandths of a second.
I didn't know it at the time, but if both of those cars had passed me on that last lap, I would not be driving the Formula Vee at Mondello. One misshift, one micro-lock, one bobble out of the last corner, and a different driver wins the seat. By the automatic scoring, not by anyone's call. That was how close it was.
One of the judges told me afterwards. He said if both cars get past, the points fall the other way and that's that. I had to sit with that for a minute. The chance was at the front of the car the whole time and I had no idea.
We sealed the arrow. Stalled them just enough. Sometimes the last 0.082 of a second is everything.
The bit nobody saw
I didn't know any of this was riding on the last lap.
I just didn't give up.
- Considered pitting on lap one. Stayed out.
- Took a lap to swallow the emotion. Then went to work.
- Worked with Sean. Trading the draft was the only path back to the front.
- Crossed the line three wide. 82 milliseconds the right side of disaster.
The takeaway
Never give up. Especially when you don't know why you're not giving up.
I had no idea anything was on the line in that last lap. I thought I'd blown it back at turn two. The thing that won me the scholarship wasn't a hero move at the end. It was the decision to keep pushing when there was no obvious reason to.
That's the bit I keep coming back to. Some of the most important moments of your life are happening while you think you're wasting your time. You only find out later. Sometimes much later. Sometimes not at all.
I'm not going to pretend sim racing teaches you this on its own. It doesn't. But it is an unusually compressed environment for noticing it. You can watch yourself want to quit, in real time, on lap one of a twenty minute race, with the data of every lap to back it up. And then you can watch yourself decide not to.
Whatever you're grinding away at right now, keep going. You probably don't know what's being decided in the last 0.082 of it.
What's next
Mondello Park. 5th of July.
A real race weekend. A real Formula Vee car. The same car I've spent eight weeks of evenings learning how to bully on iRacing, except now it has tyres that wear and a body that bruises and no reset button.
I'll be posting whatever I can in the lead up. The 5th of July is the day.
Huge thank you to RTA Virtual Motorsport, to Gantry TV, to BWOAH Motorsport, to Formula Vee Ireland, to Trophi, to Mondello Park for opening the gates and the circuit to us, to Johnny Hollywood for trusting strangers with his race car, to the judges, to every driver in the league. Stories like this don't exist without people willing to make them.
Race day
05
July
Mondello Park, Co. Kildare.
One Irish sim racer, one real Formula Vee car.
A note on Simracing Psychology
This isn't a psychology piece. But the mental side ran the whole thing.
Watching championship rivals on track instead of focusing on my own lap. Pressure of a real seat sitting on top of qualifying. Wanting to throw the towel in after lap one at Sebring. None of that is car or setup. All of it is head.
If you want the long version of any of this, the Simracing Psychology series is the home for it.
Sim racing reveals who you are. And then it gives you ten thousand laps to become someone better.
The chance was sitting on the front of the car the whole time, and I had no idea.
Keep going
Related reading, gear and the video version.
Everything below is something I've made, used or written. Affiliate links are marked the same way they are everywhere else on the site.
Related reading
The Lie Every Sim Racer Believes
The arrival fallacy, iRating, and why the satisfaction you're waiting for never quite arrives.
ReadSimracing Psychology
The flagship page. Manifesto, videos, articles. Where the long version of the mental side lives.
ReadWhat's the right force feedback for you?
My honest FFB guide. No spec wars, no marketing copy, just what actually decides the right setting.
Read
Gear behind the season
SIMAGIC
The full SIMAGIC bundle deal. Direct-drive base, wheel and pedals at the lowest price of the year.
Sim-Lab
From the GT1 EVO to motion-ready P1-X frames, Sim-Lab kit handles whatever a direct-drive base throws at it.
Sim Consultants
Based out of Drift Games HQ in Ireland. Consultation, planning, building and setup of advanced simracing rigs for private and commercial clients.
Watch the reflections video
All videos on YouTubeMy reflections on winning the RTA Formula Vee Scholarship
The video this story was built from. Picks up from the 0.082 seconds chapter.
Join our Irish Pub Community Discord with over 3.4K members.
The Irish Pub would love to have you, we've league races on Thursdays and the craic is mighty. Can't wait to see you there.
