Here are the results, replays, and photos from the first round of The 4th annual Oppositelock 2.4 Hours Of Daytona. In addition, a post race analysis is in this post, as well as a few notes for the Oppo racing series.
THE RACE
If you missed the race, check out the streaming list. All of the replays can be found there. Special thanks to everyone who streamed. This was one of the closest races we’ve ever had across all classes. Plenty of action on the track throughout the race.
RESULTS
Here are the results, as well as a picture of the car used by each driver.
PHOTOS
Here are some more photos from the race. If you have any pictures from the race that you want to share, post them in the comments. Credit to SFM Varus for some of these photos.
THE TROPHIES
As per the usual with our longer endurance races, the winners in each class shall receive desirable, expertly crafted trophies.
For his 1st place finish in P and the overall race standings, the trophy for 1st place is awarded to LSEM Yuuko!
For his 1st place finish in GTLM, the trophy for 1st place in GTLM is awarded to Zai8567!
And for his 1st place finish in the GTD class, the trophy for 1st place in GTD is presented to M0STW4NT3D 46!
Seeing as I cannot find any public contact info for the winning manufactures and that I will be at Daytona this weekend, I shall hand deliver the trophies to make sure the manufactures are aware of there momentous wins. Stay tuned.
In addition, here is the link to last year’s post race.
THOUGHTS AND COMMENTS
This was a very hotly anticipated race, just like every Daytona 2.4 before it. This was the best attended race on Oppo since Le Mans last year, and the first one with an entry limit of 24. Though no one ended up needing to sit out, I’m still not sure how I feel about that to be quite honest. I do think that splitting the lobbies is still a no go, since lobbies of like 12 or 14 people aren’t great, especially with three classes. But I can’t help feel like people didn’t show because they were afraid they wouldn’t get in, or felt someone else should have their spot. Kind of a damned if you do, damned if you don’t scenario. So I think I’ll stick with it going forward because its the best solution. Of course I will make exceptions for huge driver counts...
The race itself was very reminiscent of the real 2017 Daytona 24. Lots of green flag running, lots of close battles, only for a late caution to shake up the race and make it a mad dash and heated battle. In that sense, I am pretty happy with how the race went down. Was very heated while still being fun. BoP I think was a huge talking point for this race. A massive thanks to Alpha, Rock, Snow, Law, Brad, and Zai for making that possible. This had to have been some of the closest BoP we’ve ever had for an event like this, especially in GTLM. The cars had many different advantages and that led to some good back and forth racing. The new caution rules seemed to work well too. They still limited how much they were called, but were much more realistic than waiting for a three car wreck. Though I’ll have to add a note to include stranded cars. It’s a shame there were so many DCs though, much like a lot of Oppo races I run. I’m wondering if it is something on my end but I don’t know what it could be. May just be on the Forza servers.
Now to address the elephant in the room. There were some incidents in voice chat at the beginning of and soon after the race. I can’t believe I have to reiterate this, but some of you need to chill the fuck out. I know spinning and/or crashing is frustrating, but that doesn’t mean you can just go off on each other. This is just for fun. If you’re getting that upset over a fucking game we’re just here to play for fun, then maybe it’s best to take a break and/or have a rethink of your attitude. It’s doubly upsetting if people are racing for the first time and think this is a common occurrence, which it certainly isn’t. And that’s why I’m saying all this now, so we can keep it a rare or non existent occurrence. On a somewhat related but less serious note, there was a lot of confusion regarding an early caution, so I want to reiterate that if you think something is a caution, call it, even if you’re unsure.
Now, onto a much brighter topic, the hotly anticipated Oppositelock Endurance Championship IV: CrevOppo! For those of you unfamiliar, it will follow the schedule and format of the real Creventic 24H Series. Current and ever changing build rules are publicly available on the Discord. The series will start at the end of February or early March, pending the running of the first RIGTC race which will be starting shortly before OEC IV does. I can say that there will be no date voting, but all rounds will be scheduled on Saturday nights come hell or high water. Three hour races don’t really work in any other time slot, so I feel that is the best option. There has also been some discussion about what cars would be allowed as the rules are fairly open. After some thought, I think I’m going to keep it to national or international endurance series. This list is a good point of reference for things I’d allow, plus some other things like Belcar or similar.
I think this was one for the history books, and I have a good feeling the next races will also be. Thank you all for racing, and I hope to see you all in CrevOppo.