The New Zealand Esports Racing Series (NZERS) was back for it’s second season and I couldn’t wait to dive in. Being an NZ Gran Turismo 7 sim racing series it’s right up my ally. After last years efforts where I finished 3rd I was looking forward to another LAN final in Wellington, hopeful that I could do enough to qualify despite missing two rounds travelling.
This year the prize was even bigger, an official Toyota Gazoo Racing test day in the Toyota 86 race series car. That’s incredible. But also winning is out of my skill range as Matthew McEwen is the hot favourite on GT7 any day of the week and there are another couple kiwis who could top me if they really wanted to put the practice in. Further prizes were teased but not announced ahead of time. No matter I was really just keen to make another LAN final and get to race everyone in person.
Qualifying/grading was extremely competitive. A time trial on circuit experience it didn’t take long for the kiwis to set world beating times. And not just a few kiwis either.
Very cool to see 8 kiwis in the world wide top 10 leaderboard! This is after qualifying for the NZ Esports Racing Series which took place in the circuit experience of Laguna Seca
Qualifying in the top 14 put me in the top division, on track for one of those top 10 finals spots.
Of course McEwen was at the top again. Exiting to see a new face at the top of NZ GT7 in the form of Caleb Birtles, he’d recently shown up in game and been competing with the top in the region so I was excited to see if he could take the fight to McEwen. And great to have Simon back. I was disappointed he couldn’t attend the finals last year so hopefully I’d be able to see my old friend this time around.
The NZ Esports Racing Championship top division is confirmed. These are the best GT7 drivers in NZ all ready for the season opener on Friday Pretty happy how my graphic turned out. Also had a go writing a piece about the quali stage. Lots of quick times: buttondown.com/Hectic/archive…
This season qualifying for division 1 wasn’t going to be enough to stay there however. A new promotion/relegation rule meant that the top drivers in points would drive in the top division each week, and with the win in division 2 worth more points than losing in division 1 it was crucial to do well every week. I wasn’t too worried about my pace except those rounds I was missing would put the pressure on.
In the end this format worked wonders. Division 2 drivers were rewarded for doing well by getting promoted to the top division and when a division 1 driver was away we were able to pull in the next driver in line to still get a full grid for that weeks race.
Along with racing I was also enjoying making the results graphics. That one with the drivers above I’m proud to say I made that 🙂
Inspired by the Toyota Series graphics I put together a few different ones over the season, you’ll see more as you read down this page.
I also wrote about the qualified drivers for my newsletter Hectic Motorsport News. It’s been fun pretending to be a little sim racing journalist and I like the way this one turned out. I’d love to cover more NZ sim racing.
https://buttondown.com/Hectic/archive/2024-nzers-qualifying
The online season was a lot of fun. Credit to the organisers who put together some great race combos. We used the Toyota 86 Gr4 car across the 8 race (6 round) season with varying tracks and tyre wear/fuel consumption multipliers that brought strategy into it and made for some great racing.
For race 1 of the season I was happy to kick things off with a 4th. I qualified P2(!) somehow after they bamboozled us by having rain in qualy and not the race.
The online season continued well. I knew I needed good results before I headed off on my trip so kept pushing every race. After 4 races I was looking good fighting for 4th overall. But then I had to miss the following two races and when I got back it was tight.
Down in 13th I was only just inside the top 14 division 1 cut off. Thank goodness for that because I was going to need some big div 1 points in the final round in order to jump back up into the top 10 finals spots.
The pressure was on so I was full focus mode to do the best I could. At the same time I was trying not to take it too serious and have fun with it. But only 6 points away I was doing all the calculations of who I needed to beat by how much to make it through.
And make it through I did.
Amped to have qualified for the @NZ_Esports_ Racing Series finals in Welly again this year. With missing two races (away on holiday) I knew it’d be a battle to make top 10, very pleased to pull it off.
Finishing the online season in 9th I had cleared the hurdle to make it into the finals. Having an 11 point gap to 11th in the end. The top 6 qualifiers all got points towards the final championship standings so unfortunate that I couldn’t be up where my pace deserved this year but I knew that would be the case from the start. There were far more championship points on offer in the final anyway.
You can watch back the online season broadcasts on NZ Sim Racing TV: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDnraojLJKY&list=PLeYJNhx5sFtG9sUvE-BSHSaiawPz4yhRQ
2 weeks before the LAN finals and we get an announcement. NZERS won’t be paying for the finalists travel/accomodation this year. Hugely disappointing. I had believed it would be paid but the series communication was so bad they hadn’t officially said anything about it and I’d just assumed it would be the same as last time.
I had a look at paying my own way but the shine of LAN finals had worn off. When it’s a paid trip it feels like a celebration of everyone theres success but if you’re all paying your own way it’s not the same. Booking flights 2 weeks out is expensive and when it became clear Simon, Caleb, and Campbell, the drivers I was most looking to hang out with, weren’t going to make it I made the call not to attend.
A huge shame.
Watching from home was a weird experience. As expected McEwen dominated without his closest rivals. It awesome to see young guns Greenless and Groves step up and show they’re real contenders after having come through division 2.
But the event wasn’t without issues. Technical issues with the stream crashing, drivers using different equipment, microphones being too quiet, and graphics showing the wrong info. But what was strange for me, while watching the event I had wanted to race in for so long and had put so much effort into, I was finding myself wishing I could be there on the broadcast side of things to help produce the show.
So maybe I won’t be racing next year. Or maybe I’ll double down to get myself back on the podium. We’ll see.
Due to the stream issues there are 3 seperate parts to the finals broadcast recording:
– Part 1: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2302926029
– Part 2: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2302947924
– Part 3: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2302968821