Kabort's New Direction: League Racing (Pt. 1)

Originally written: Nov. 13th, 2020

Edited & Re-published: Apr. 16th, 2023

Whilst Kabort's "Official" race debut came on the 15th June, 2019 - it would take another four months for Kabort to make their "hosted" debut.

But what is a hosted race? I hear you ask.

A hosted race is a race "hosted" by fellow iRacing members - as opposed to an "Official" race held/run/officiated by iRacing.

With this "unofficiality" comes a few changes.

- iRating/Safety rating isn't affected

- There are no splits (every entry is in the same race, the race isn't split into competitive grids)

- Members can schedule races - and turn their "hosted races" into leagues - points accumulating over a championship (i.e: a race every Thursday night).

Whilst Kabort members participated (individually) in hosted races and leagues as they pleased (sometimes with the Kabort livery), Kabort only officially made their hosted race debut in October 2020 at the inaugural annual "Race For Mental Health" back in 2019.

Kabort's Hosted Debut - The Race For Mental Health

Kabort's very first unofficial/hosted endurance race came in October 2019, in the form of Jimmy Broadbent's 24 hour Race For Mental Health Charity event held at Zolder.

It would absolutely be a race to forget - our highest position all race being our qualifying spot of 29th overall and 13th in class.

I took the start and took us from 29th to 44th - us pretty much hugging last place ever since - only slightly rising to 33rd overall - and 6th-to-last.

It was very much a case of Murphy's Law: Whatever could go wrong - did go wrong It - with the race needing to be restarted 16 minutes in after driver-swaps were not enabled.

This was further compounded by me only managing 10 clean laps in the final 10 laps of my opening stint. Yikes.

This would eventually end tragedy as Jaehan (Jay An)'s wheel would break mid race, smashing steering straight into a wall.

Despite the bleak outlook, we kept striving on through all the difficulty.

No, it didn't go to plan, but it was still a blast to practice with and and then race with Will - and considering it was our VERY FIRST hosted race - having a mechanical problem causing our "death" was a much better way to go out than crashing.

It was also the first time we ever hot-seated (shared the same rig).

A massive thank you must go out to Will, Jaehan and Gas for all putting up with me and my driving standards for 24 Hours for our first hosted adventure.

Kabort's Winter Blues - The Winter Nurburgring 24 Hours

A little over two months after Jimmy's charity event, Kabort tried their luck at another 24 Hour race.

Since it was the off-season for iRacing (no endurance special events), Kabort saw interest in the Winter Nurburgring 24 Hours hosted by FBP and decided to enter two cars: Kabort Korea (All Korean Squad)

Chang Mun Ryu U Seong Yoon

Yoonho Jung

Jaehan An (Jay An)

Jae Heon Bang

Jang Han Choi

Kabort Motorsport

Robin Truswell (GBR)

Marcelo Valente (ITA)

Mete Taha Kose (Turkish)

The race would...not go so well... It'd end up in a retirement from our side, and a disqualification from the Koreans....it's fair to say that the journey back to the UK was a deadly silent one.

At least we looked the part....

2020 - Zero To Hero

2020 would start incredibly poorly with some absolutely diabolical driving from me in two solo-hosted races.

Despite both going poorly - I was able to hire two drivers out of the latter of two races, so it wasn't all bad...I don't think.

In March, the UK went into lockdown - to combat The Lockdown Blues - and boredom, Joe Bradley - a commentator and good friend of my dad's, hosted a Skip Barber race session - which was so popular it quickly turned into a league - I was lucky enough to race against some household names in the endurance commentary world.

The MOFO Series lasted two 12-race seasons before dying down a bit as the real-world situation neutralised.

Every race, I'd do a blog - but by the end of the second, I did a very nice summary blog summarising my performance in both series

https://www.kabortmotorsport.com/post/mofo-season-2-kabort-s-kurse-unlucky-or-just-accident-prone-part-1-the-past-concord-blog https://www.kabortmotorsport.com/post/mofo-season-2-kabort-s-kurse-unlucky-or-accident-prone-part-2

Despite everything - it was a great laugh and I made some great friends along the way.

This series (Skippies & MOFO) would end on the 4th August, 2020.

Late 2020: Kabort's League Debut

In September 2020 - Andy, one of Kabort's drivers, would inform the server about the the ISRC League (Intercontinental Sim Racing Challenge). This intrigued much discussion and interest - especially as it went from

September 2020 - April 2021.

Kabort would end up fielding 2 entries

Kabort would participate in:

R1 - Spa (26/09/2020)

K1 (LMP2): 16th --> 14th (Class)

K2 (GTE): 20th --> DNF (Class)

R2 - Nurburgring GP (17/10/2020)

K1 (LMP2): 10th --> 6th (Class)

K2 (GTE): 11th --> 7th (Class)

R3 - Monza (14/11/2020)

K2 (GTE): 24th --> DNF (Class)

R4 - Sebring (05/12/2020)

K1: (LMP2): 8th --> 8th (Class)

K2: (GTE): 13th --> DNF

Following Sebring, we'd withdraw from the ISRC due to some disagreements.

A massive congratulations and thank you must go out to our ISRC drivers:

LMP2 Adam Pearce

Andy Jones Lars Bachman

Max Thorne Thomas Jensen

Joost Bouwmeester

GTE

Daniel Weber Tim Perry

Following one more season of ISRC - on the 4th December, 2021 - ISRC had it's final race and shut down due to personal circumstances of the organisers changing.

I honestly have no idea how the championship points work (or are figured out), but I could only find the LMP2's - ending up 8th in the Championship - despite only doing half the rounds.

Aside from the league racing, Kabort would also participate in the 2020 Dot.EXE Zolder 24 Hours - fielding two entries - a Porsche 911 Cup (991) and a BMW M4 GT4 - a team-name I proudly came up with: Kabort M24hr - combining the 24hr element with the car's name...ingenious.

Kabort M24hr (BMW M4 GT4)

Dante Reynoso (MEX)

Robin Truswell (GBR)

Dominik Gahlow (GER)

Berkley Cox (USA)

Kabort Porker (Porsche 911 Cup)

Lars Bachmann (GER)

Daniel Weber (GER)

Tim Perry (GBR) Andy Jones (GBR)

Whilst the Kabort M24hr's race went as well as Kabort's previous hosted races (badly, and in a DNF) - there were huge celebrations on the other side of the garage as the 911 Cup managed to somehow cross the line in second place in the 6-strong 911 Cup Class.

This was my last 24 Hour race since starting university - and despite the poor result, I still had a massive blast with Dante, Dominik and Berkley - which I won't be forgetting in a long time - or only until the next time we hit the track as a team.

With me heading off to university (and promoting Andy Jones to Team Principal), everything quietened down - the big endurance races were done for the year, we had competed in

To finish the year, Kabort participated in two hosted endurance races back to back.

24 Hours Of Limes (Laguna Seca) (12th December, 2020)

Long story short - we were all prepared to have a single entry (Volkswagen Jetta), however, because I had nobody with me at the start, I decided to take the executive decision to withdraw from the race before it had even started.

Being Jetta's VS Mazdas VS Mustang FR500's it looked absolutely amazing and like quite the laugh.

RSRWS Macmillan 12hrs Hours Daytona (19th December 2020)

The latter of the two was a GT1/HPD Multiclass Race - 12 Hours of Daytona.

The ruling was that you could only enter one team/car...so we got a little bit creative instead a:

- "Just Roll With It" Aston Martin GT1

- "BOTRAK" HPD (Yes, Kartob. I know.)

The Aston Martin DBR9 GT1 would retire (at my hands) and the totally unrelated HPD would finish 13th (in class/overall)

It's worth mentioning Will would also compete in this race and finish 14th in GT1 Class.

28th November 2020

Jimmy Broadbent's 23hrs Of Zolder (Was in Discord Server, however within an hour all of the spots were registered)

(Jetta, TCR & BMW M4)

5th December 2020

Opening round of VEC (24 Hours of Le Mans)

On the same day it was the final ISRC Race Kabort would competed in at Sebring.

Other than a small safety car test (small group of guys, not league) - that finished me up for the year.