4X Racing is a Sim Racing team established in 2014 by Marc Figueras and Andy Morgan. They both raced on the USA based iRacing service and with the advent of team racing introduced by iRacing, they formed 4X Racing to be able to race together. Since then 4X Racing has become the online home of a number of avid sim racing enthusiasts, who race together and singly in a number of online race events and league championships. This is their story...
Thursday, 1 December 2016
Andy Morgan had a good race along with team mate David Sustello in Wednesday
night's Over 60's league race at Laguna Seca. Andys suffering all race
long with his rheumatoid arthritis so much that the last couple of laps he
was almost seeing double. He was never so glad to see a chequered flag...!
Race coverage starts at 11:30
Tuesday, 29 November 2016
4X Racing are pleased to announce that they are supporting Texan driver Jeffery Ford from Frederica, Delaware in the 2016/2017 RSR Icebreaker Winter Series running the Xfinity Ford Mustang with 4X Racing support.
Jeffery has been an iRacing competitor since early 2010 and grew up 5 minutes from the Dover International Speedway, formerly Dover Downs Speedway and well known for the 46ft concrete mascot at the track entrance, "Miles the Monster".
For the 2016/2017 season Jeffery is running the RSR Icebreaker Series, a 12 round series on Monday nights from 20:30 EST. The series is broadcast live by LSRTV and iRacingTV.com.
Jeffery has been an iRacing competitor since early 2010 and grew up 5 minutes from the Dover International Speedway, formerly Dover Downs Speedway and well known for the 46ft concrete mascot at the track entrance, "Miles the Monster".
For the 2016/2017 season Jeffery is running the RSR Icebreaker Series, a 12 round series on Monday nights from 20:30 EST. The series is broadcast live by LSRTV and iRacingTV.com.
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| Daytona Temporary skin |
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| New skin for rest of season |
Monday, 28 November 2016
Sunday 27th November... The return of Marc Figueras After 3 weeks of moving house, Marc Figueras was finally back on track this Sunday to compete in the Absolute Beginners League (ABL) in Spa Francochamps with the Skippy. Below is how he experienced the night. 18:45 while having dinner, Andy messaged me to join the race, I had 1 hour till qualifying started, my PC was still in a box, my internet cable not connected to the patch cabinet yet, and dinner was too good to leave. 19:30 Having munched down dinner, fighting with the network cable in the patch cabinet and hooking up all my PC bits, I didn't have internet (or a working mouse). 15 minutes till qualifying so I hunkered down, and started fixing the problems. 19:45 Internet rerouted thought another room, my PC was now the only one in the house online!! The rest still have WiFi only, I stole the mouse off my kid and got on Discord to tell Andy I was coming. OF COURSE my sound didn't work and neither did my mic.... meanwhile I was trying to get iRacing to load which was being a slowpoke again. 19:55 FINALLY my sound worked, I got into the session, and when it loaded I had 3 min to check my steering and pedals (which I hadn't been able to test yet). Everything looked ok, so I ran upstairs to get a drink, some more pie, a cable for my Phone for irPitCrew and rush to the bathroom before the start. With a cool 43 seconds before gridding stopped, I got back and we were good to go. With 0 practice and 2 weeks of not driving, this was bound to be good. I started 33rd, but with some aggressive passing and pretending to be Max Verstappen I was quickly up to 17th. Although I could already see the incidents where going to be a problem (as per usual on SPA). I managed to stretch the 1st fuel run to over half the race, so wasn't to worried about fuel, and later in the race even got to 8th position due to all the people dropping off. I was still getting far too many off tracks, and started communicating to my team that I was scared I wouldn't make it. The last part of the race I got closer to Rodrigo Capeleto again, who had passed me earlier. and the previous lap on Kemmel Straight I got past him, but got re-passed on the same straight in the last lap. Then, with a good run out of turn 15 towards Blanchimont, I pretended to be Max again, by choosing the outside line, and with only 2 incidents left from a DQ. I did not want to crash. We go into the corner 2 wide.... CONTACT... I see a 0x appearing on my text chat and think to myself, "Thank god it wasn't a 4x and we are both still going"... and as I watch in my mirror, I see Rodrigo losing control of his car, and the contact being upgraded from 0x to 4x... ending my race with a DQ... 1 chicane short of finally finishing a Spa race in the ABL... guess I'll have to try again next year...! The race itself was fun, action packed and moving through the field from 33rd to 7th at one point really was a good experience, I just gotta watch them offtracks @ SPA! 
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Sunday, 20 November 2016
Saturday, 19 November 2016
Tuesday, 15 November 2016
Preparations
The 2nd race in the GES series,
and after a decent 9th place at Road America, 4X Racing was hungry
for more top 10 finishes and points in the GES.
During the preparations for the Imola
event, it was quickly clear that Jiri Mojak could not make it this race, and
Jack Turner was unable to leave the country to fly to Italy (something about a
no-fly list, I do not know the details) that left Marc Figueras and Andy
Morgan, the teams managers to defend our honor and bring back the car in one
piece. With Andy battling the disease of Old Age (Rheumatoid Arthritis to be exact - AM), and Marc renovating a house
during the preparations and the race, this was bound to be a challenge in
itself.
During the hosted practice sessions, it was
clear we would not be the fastest car on track, and instead we opted for a safe
and stable setup that would take us to the end without much incidents.
Qualifying
Andy managed to almost not qualify last, when
in his last lap, in Acque Minerali the car started pointing slightly off as you
can see and he lost it. So last place it is! The only way is up from here, so no
worrys, we expected to drive a steady pace and keep up with the back end of the
field.
The
start
By good timing and awareness, Andy managed
to get 1 spot right at the start from WR Racing GoT and soon there was a major
incident involving over 5 GT3 cars in T1, So instead of 14th we
managed to slide up some spots into 9th! Knowing that there where
some faster cars behind us, we quickly set our goals to finish in the top10
again.
Traffic
As always, the gentleman driver, Andy
Morgan gives as much room as possible for the faster classes, just look at the
spacing and awareness, as he completely go’s outside track limits, to let the
leaders of the Prototype class by the first time they arrived. Even sacrificing
a position in the process. Marc gently reminded him that its actually OK to
keep the car on the track when racing. (Errrm... I actually missed my braking point because I was looking in my mirror - AM)
Truthfully though, this was Andy’s biggest
mistake, and after this he drove an excellent 1-hour stint, keeping Martin
Green from WR Racing behind him almost till the end, when his sickness of old
age kicked in and slowed down the last 5 laps and he had to let Martin Green go
a bit.
Hour 2
Marc took over the wheel, for a 2 stint run
to the finish. After putting in 10 hour days in home renovations for 2 weeks
and while shaking due to lack of sleep, he took over the wheel from Andy, who
had handed over the car from a cool 10th position and completed 33
laps without problem.
Looking out for WR racing, who managed to
do 3 extra laps on the 1st stint, we met up, and re-passed them in
lap 38 as they came out of the pits, we had a real race on our hands it looked
like. Unfortunately for WR racing, they
had 1 bad out lap, followed by another pit stop. Perhaps their pit crew forgot
the tires? Or put on old ones? We can only gues, but this was the last we saw
of them.
Andy left to tend to other things, (FETCHING HER INDOORS TO BE EXACT - AM) leaving
Marc without a spotter thanks to the spotter bug in iRacing… (seriously, that
is annoying as hell).
Graphite Racing had to serve a stop and go,
and exited the pits right as we blew by, giving us another spot and we were
into 8th now! A personal best in GES history! Pumped and excited
about this, Marc continued putting down solid lap times and expanding the lead
we had on Graphite while closing in on NAB racing #209 in 7th 40
seconds up the road!
3rd hour
Marc had closed the gap to NAB Racing #209
down to 16 seconds when exiting the pits, and was determined to get 7th
position with an hour left in the race. 11 laps later, in lap 80, Marc was
behind Alwin Kloosterman, ready to make a move. And THEN!
Alwin was forced into a mistake in Tosa,
Marc narrowly escaped a crash and took the position.
Alwin lost 30 seconds trying to get the car
pointed in the correct direction again, and with that lead, Marc was SURE we
had 7th place locked down. To increase the lead marc kept pushing
out constant lap times, with the team’s fastest lap being at lap 87.
With 20 minutes to go, it looked like
nothing could go wrong, a strong lead, a driver that had time to slow down a
bit and relax, and just make it to the finish without screwing up would
guaranty 7th place.
With 15 minutes to go though, Marc met as
we say in the Netherlands “de man met de hamer”. Fatigue set in, and it set in
bigtime. Unable to focus, Marc started making stupid istakes on almost every
lap
A big moment at Variante
Alta in lap 95 ended with the car pointing towards the wall!
But Marc held
it. With the lead the team had assured, a 10 second loss was manageable. Still
20 seconds ahead of the next car so no problem.
2 laps later at
Piratella…
Another mistake,
this time with a crash into the wall, and over 30 seconds lost Marc was unable
to maintain 7th position… Instead, the goal had shifted to limping
the car home without losing 8th.
After 101 laps
of racing, that is what he managed to do.
8th
position, a GES best for the team, but still felt like a disappointment because
of the last couple of laps.
We will be ready
and roaring for 7th at Motegi. We hope to see you all there again
and have another eventful race!
Tuesday, 8 November 2016
Monday, 7 November 2016
Friday, 4 November 2016
Thursday, 3 November 2016
Wednesday evening saw the first round of the new 60 Plus Openwheel Series aimed at the more senior drivers on the service 60 years old and older. Don't be misled by the title of the series, this is no series full of old coffin dodgers out for a Sunday afternoon drive. But a series full of talented and very rapid guys still with the drive and experience and a burning will to win. The series, consisting of 2 ovals and 8 road courses, runs the Star Mazda and Formula Renault 2.0 with fixed setups which are carefully balanced to match the two cars evenly on track.
The first round of the series at Road America saw 16 drivers take the start of the 14 lap race, with 4X Racing's Andy Morgan in 5th spot and David Sustello lining up behind him in 7th. After the rolling start behind the pace car Andy moved up a position to 4th spot going into T1 but then outbraked himself into T2 and went wide allowing a couple of cars to pass him and dropping him back to 6th. During all of this David capitalised on this and moved from his 7th spot on the grid into 3rd.
Andy slowly regained his composure and began his fight back, slowly picking off the drivers in front until on lap 5 he passed David going into Canada Corner to take 3rd place. A short while afterwards David lost control on the last corner when the back stepped out and touched the grass and fired David into the wall ending his good run.
The next lap saw Andy move up to 2nd place behind a flying John Unsbee when Jos van der Ven lost control on the exit of T1 and also fired himself into the inside wall. The damage requiring him to limp around to the pits for repairs before continuing. Andy didn't find it all plain sailing from there as he was being hunted down by Florida driver John Morgan, who Andy had passed to take 4th place from a few laps earlier. Their battle was to see the two of them swopping positions in some very close wheel to wheel racing, with each driver giving the other racing room where needed. It ended with a drag race between the two drivers to the line out of the final corner with John benefiting from the draft off Andy's Renault, but Andy held John off by the smallest of margins possible, just 0.002 seconds or around 4" in actual distance as the pictures show.
The next round on Wednesday 9th November is from Phoenix Oval which will see the series make it's first visit to an oval track. As usual the series is being broadcast by MaxspeedTV.
The first round of the series at Road America saw 16 drivers take the start of the 14 lap race, with 4X Racing's Andy Morgan in 5th spot and David Sustello lining up behind him in 7th. After the rolling start behind the pace car Andy moved up a position to 4th spot going into T1 but then outbraked himself into T2 and went wide allowing a couple of cars to pass him and dropping him back to 6th. During all of this David capitalised on this and moved from his 7th spot on the grid into 3rd.
Andy slowly regained his composure and began his fight back, slowly picking off the drivers in front until on lap 5 he passed David going into Canada Corner to take 3rd place. A short while afterwards David lost control on the last corner when the back stepped out and touched the grass and fired David into the wall ending his good run.
The next lap saw Andy move up to 2nd place behind a flying John Unsbee when Jos van der Ven lost control on the exit of T1 and also fired himself into the inside wall. The damage requiring him to limp around to the pits for repairs before continuing. Andy didn't find it all plain sailing from there as he was being hunted down by Florida driver John Morgan, who Andy had passed to take 4th place from a few laps earlier. Their battle was to see the two of them swopping positions in some very close wheel to wheel racing, with each driver giving the other racing room where needed. It ended with a drag race between the two drivers to the line out of the final corner with John benefiting from the draft off Andy's Renault, but Andy held John off by the smallest of margins possible, just 0.002 seconds or around 4" in actual distance as the pictures show.
The next round on Wednesday 9th November is from Phoenix Oval which will see the series make it's first visit to an oval track. As usual the series is being broadcast by MaxspeedTV.
Sunday, 30 October 2016
Anyone wanting something a little outlandish and eyecatching to drive might want to try this Aston Martin DBR9...
https://www.tradingpaints.com/showroom/view/76281/DC-Comics-vs-Marvel-Comics-DBR9-GT1
https://www.tradingpaints.com/showroom/view/76281/DC-Comics-vs-Marvel-Comics-DBR9-GT1
Sunday, 23 October 2016
Kia Club Series- Interlagos
A mixed meeting for the 4X Racing Kia Optima. Didn't get on with the Interlagos circuit and only qualified 31st. Got caught up in an incident on lap one which saw my car soar up in the air and over the circuit railing. Took a tow and ended up finishing in 33rd place.
Race two saw me start 31st after penalties were applied. Was a massive crash again lap one which I got caught in but this time was able to bring car back to the pits, the safety car was deployed so took the fast repair and came out 18th. Caught a couple of cars in front of me napping during the restart and got up to 16th, where I battled hard to keep 16th just finishing ahead of Tristan Boddice. Second race was by far best part of the night, got a decent result when I probably didn't deserve it as the pace just wasn't there. Next week the Kia Club series visits Bathurst, that should be fun!
Dan Blake
Race two saw me start 31st after penalties were applied. Was a massive crash again lap one which I got caught in but this time was able to bring car back to the pits, the safety car was deployed so took the fast repair and came out 18th. Caught a couple of cars in front of me napping during the restart and got up to 16th, where I battled hard to keep 16th just finishing ahead of Tristan Boddice. Second race was by far best part of the night, got a decent result when I probably didn't deserve it as the pace just wasn't there. Next week the Kia Club series visits Bathurst, that should be fun!
Dan Blake
Dan Blake Kia Club Series
Dan Blake is back in action tonight in the Kia Club Series, following on from his creditable performances at Motegi last week. This week's two 20 minute encounters are at Interlagos.
Thursday, 20 October 2016
Monday, 17 October 2016
I ran the Classic Indycar Series race at Mount Panorama last night. The CIS run full length race distances using the older Dallara Indycar circa. 2011, so I had a full 47 laps of the daunting Mount Panorama track to look forward to.
Wasn't feeling at my best before the start, my muscles and joints were ready to call it a day, but I decided to take the start anyway. The chances were I'd be out early on as the Indycar over the mountain is not for the feint hearted...!
Decided to play a waiting game, so didn't go hard in qualifying, just setting a time. That saw me start 10th out of 10 starters. Two crashed over the mountain on the opening lap, plus I passed three others, so at the end of the opening lap I was in 5th. By lap 11 I was up to 2nd overall and quite bemused at this as these guys are fast... really fast...!
I just drove my own race, keeping my nose clean, staying out of trouble and brought it home 3rd overall with 0x too. Well chuffed with that.
Wasn't feeling at my best before the start, my muscles and joints were ready to call it a day, but I decided to take the start anyway. The chances were I'd be out early on as the Indycar over the mountain is not for the feint hearted...!
Decided to play a waiting game, so didn't go hard in qualifying, just setting a time. That saw me start 10th out of 10 starters. Two crashed over the mountain on the opening lap, plus I passed three others, so at the end of the opening lap I was in 5th. By lap 11 I was up to 2nd overall and quite bemused at this as these guys are fast... really fast...!
I just drove my own race, keeping my nose clean, staying out of trouble and brought it home 3rd overall with 0x too. Well chuffed with that.
Sunday, 16 October 2016
We have a new member of 4X Racing. German driver Erik Leukel has now joined the ranks of 4X Racing drivers. Erik, aged 20, from Bochum in Germany has been a member of iRacing since December 2014.
Erik regularly runs the Lotus 79 in the 4X Racing Lotus 79 Trophy Series, where he finished as runner up in the 2016 Season 2 Championship.
Erik enjoys endurance racing and is currently looking for a seat in the Le Mans 24 Hour race. We look forward to racing with you Erik... enjoy your stay in the madhouse...!
Erik regularly runs the Lotus 79 in the 4X Racing Lotus 79 Trophy Series, where he finished as runner up in the 2016 Season 2 Championship.
Erik enjoys endurance racing and is currently looking for a seat in the Le Mans 24 Hour race. We look forward to racing with you Erik... enjoy your stay in the madhouse...!
Friday, 14 October 2016
Wednesday, 12 October 2016
A few webstats for the 4X Racing website...
Month
Month
| Unique visitors | Number of visits | Pages | Hits | Bandwidth | |
| Jan 2016 | 165 | 263 | 2,776 | 8,227 | 175.43 MB |
| Feb 2016 | 203 | 322 | 1,918 | 5,997 | 130.03 MB |
| Mar 2016 | 289 | 402 | 2,566 | 10,925 | 261.79 MB |
| Apr 2016 | 434 | 754 | 5,761 | 14,067 | 341.77 MB |
| May 2016 | 614 | 1,183 | 7,289 | 15,432 | 351.67 MB |
| Jun 2016 | 754 | 1,568 | 10,988 | 19,676 | 457.98 MB |
| Jul 2016 | 644 | 1,468 | 11,501 | 17,326 | 451.44 MB |
| Aug 2016 | 511 | 1,187 | 14,214 | 18,759 | 517.41 MB |
| Sep 2016 | 715 | 1,348 | 15,662 | 19,791 | 569.71 MB |
| Oct 2016 | 504 | 811 | 7,148 | 12,150 | 502.51 MB |
| Nov 2016 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Dec 2016 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Total | 4,833 | 9,306 | 79,823 | 142,350 | 3.67 GB |
A new league running the Star Mazda and Formula Renault 2.0 for the over 60's drivers has just published it's schedule for it's inaugural season. The league not surprisingly called the Over 60's League will run the following races.
Nov 2 - Road America
Nov 9 - Phoenix Oval
Nov 16 - Watkins Glen (Classic Boot)
Nov 23 - Mosport (Canadian Tire Motorsports)
Nov 30 - Laguna Seca (Mazda Raceway)
Week 13 - (No Race on Dec 7--Practice for Monza)
Dec 14 - Monza (GP)
Dec 21 - Lime Rock (Full Course)
Merry Christmas!!!!
Dec 28 - Milwaukee Mile Oval
Happy New Year!!!!
Jan 4 - Brands Hatch (GP)
Jan 11 - SPA (Classic Pits)
Both David Sustello and Andy Morgan will be representing 4X Racing in this series running the Renault 2.0
All of the races will be livestreamed AND recorded on YouTube by Rudy Cummings at Maxspeedtv http://www.maxspeedtv.com/
Nov 2 - Road America
Nov 9 - Phoenix Oval
Nov 16 - Watkins Glen (Classic Boot)
Nov 23 - Mosport (Canadian Tire Motorsports)
Nov 30 - Laguna Seca (Mazda Raceway)
Week 13 - (No Race on Dec 7--Practice for Monza)
Dec 14 - Monza (GP)
Dec 21 - Lime Rock (Full Course)
Merry Christmas!!!!
Dec 28 - Milwaukee Mile Oval
Happy New Year!!!!
Jan 4 - Brands Hatch (GP)
Jan 11 - SPA (Classic Pits)
Both David Sustello and Andy Morgan will be representing 4X Racing in this series running the Renault 2.0
All of the races will be livestreamed AND recorded on YouTube by Rudy Cummings at Maxspeedtv http://www.maxspeedtv.com/
Saturday sees the first round of the NEO Support Series, the GES 4 Hours of Road America. 4X Racing will be fielding two Mercedes AMG GT3 teams for the five event endurance series.
In the red team we have Marc Figueras, Jiri Mojak, Jack Turner and Andy Morgan and in the blue team we have Dan Blake, Joe Janowski, Matthew Dorrington and Justin Davis.
The two teams are being managed by Marc Figueras and Danial Farmer respectively.
The race runs on Saturday 15th October from 17.30 - 21.30 GMT and features three classes of car, PROTO - Corvette Daytona Prototype, GT3 - Mercedes AMG and GTC - RUF RT12C C-Spec
With up to 52 cars taking the grid, patience will be required to get to the finish of this 4 hour race unscathed.
The race will be broadcast live by Racespot TV and can be found here... http://www.got-racing.eu/wp/?page_id=2494
In the red team we have Marc Figueras, Jiri Mojak, Jack Turner and Andy Morgan and in the blue team we have Dan Blake, Joe Janowski, Matthew Dorrington and Justin Davis.
The two teams are being managed by Marc Figueras and Danial Farmer respectively.
The race runs on Saturday 15th October from 17.30 - 21.30 GMT and features three classes of car, PROTO - Corvette Daytona Prototype, GT3 - Mercedes AMG and GTC - RUF RT12C C-Spec
With up to 52 cars taking the grid, patience will be required to get to the finish of this 4 hour race unscathed.
The race will be broadcast live by Racespot TV and can be found here... http://www.got-racing.eu/wp/?page_id=2494
Right, the new blogging page is live and ready for all your blogging. Please everyone, have fun and make full use of it. Keep everyone informed about what you're racing, with whom and where. If you also get the chance of a screenshot or two from the race, or even a video, then post it here.
Two driver profiles have just been completed. Dan Blake and Liam Quinn. Please check them out when you get a chance.
Happy blogging everyone
Oh, and if you're unsure how to do it, talk to Ben Saunders... he's a whizz on it...!
Two driver profiles have just been completed. Dan Blake and Liam Quinn. Please check them out when you get a chance.
Happy blogging everyone
Oh, and if you're unsure how to do it, talk to Ben Saunders... he's a whizz on it...!
Tuesday, 11 October 2016
Here's a little video I found of us in this car on the 2007 Bulldog National Rally in Dyfnant Forest in Mid Wales... my driver was well on it that day. If I remember correctly we finished in the top three overall.
David Howells/Andy Morgan drifting the Scooby...
And here is a complete stage from the Red Dragon Rally in which we also finished 3rd overall and won Group N, the showroom class.
David Howells/Andy Morgan - 2008 Red Dragon Rally
If you want to see what the weather is doing here in deepest darkest Wales... check this one out...
Saundersfoot Weather Station
Saundersfoot Weather Station
http://driver61.com/
This site is worth checking out.
Good tutorial videos and everything is race driver related.
This site is worth checking out.
Good tutorial videos and everything is race driver related.
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