Epic Racing

**Epic Racing**

Full name	Epic Racing
Owner/s	Lee Davidson
Base	Banbury, England
Competitions
Superleague Team	None
Début	-
Supercup Team	None
Début	-
Formula Challenge Team	Epic Racing
Début	2013 Australian Grand Prix
World Sport Series Team	Epic Racing Team
Début	N/A
International Touring Cup Team	None
Début	-

Epic Racing is an English GPVWC constructor who are currently racing in the 2015 Formula Challenge Series following a year's sabbatical.

History

The Live for Speed Years 2009-2010

Epic Racing was first created in 2009 on the racing simulator Live for Speed with core members featuring Lee Davidson, Matt Webb, Scotty Moore, James Charman and Jack Mace. Competing mainly in open wheel series including the Sonicrealms FOX Racing Series, the team would never find an acceptable level of success, despite attracting notable drivers such as David Jundt and Louis Wedekind. For 2010, the team focused more on the touring car scene, with a number of entries in the iTCC with both Jundt and Moore frequently competing in the main rounds, there was also entries in the Kyoto 500 for Moore and Steven Martin.

At the end of the year Epic disbanded, with the results not there and activity dropping off, the team faded into non-existence.

Comeback

In 2012, Davidson would begin to get the wheel moving for Epic, with the team's entry into the World Sport Series with drivers Richard Bayes and Simon Sheasby under the team name Epic Motorsport. However once again it would be a poor outing for the team, with Davidson unable to put as much effort into the team as he'd have liked, eventually folding once again in order to regroup resources for a full scale effort in 2013.

2013

Formula Challenge

Davidson submitted the team's entry for the 2013 Formula Challenge season in December 2012, promising to revolutionise the Sim Racing Team into a public-friendly and interactive squad. The application was successful and Epic Racing was granted a slot on the grid that included another 18 teams. With the new rules and regulations coming into play, including a brand new mod, Davidson would look to the safe hands of Matt Webb to steer the team's attack. Davidson also hired rookie newcomer Andy Smith in an effort to bring in fresh blood to the GPVWC fold. Testing started off positively and with the addition of the experienced Louis Wedekind joining on testing duties, confidence within the team was at an all time high.

This culminated in a eye-opening performance in the pre-season test at Jerez where Wedekind and Webb finished 3rd and 4th respectively. However unfortunately the team could not replicate this form in the opening round held at Albert Park, Melbourne. Under unique server conditions (40+ connections), both Matt and Andy would suffer various connection issues during the event, with Smith losing connection during qualifying, only getting back in time to do his out lap and Webb losing connection during the formation lap of the first race after qualifying just outside the Top Ten. Andy would not see the chequered flag in race one, making it a debut race to forget for the squad, however things would take a more positive turn in race 2. With both cars starting near the rear of the field, a first lap pile up would allow both drivers the opportunity at points finishes, with Matt fulfilling his race pace potential and taking home 13th from his 37th place grid position. Andy would also register his first finish of the season, battling valiantly and gathering all-important experience en-route to 22nd.

The next race took place at a sodden Sepang Circuit for the Malaysian round of the series with Andy Smith taking a step back to the reserve role with Wedekind due to step in. However issues with his computer meant he was unavailable and so at the 11th hour team owner Lee Davidson stepped in to make his racing return, his first since the World GT race at Fuji last year. Challenging conditions meant every driver had to be on their toes and sensing an opportunity for a good result, Webb fancied hsi chances. However he would only be able to have one clean lap en route to 22nd on the grid. Davidson was purely happy to be able to start at the rear of the grid after his connection dropped out. Both races saw dramatic pile ups off the start line with both drivers getting involved in the melee, this meant Webb could not replicate his points finish from Melbourne whilst Davidson merely made up the numbers before connection issues ended his second race prematurely.

Round 3 took place at the Red Bull Ring in Austria with the team this time fielding Webb and Wedekind as was due to happen the previous round. The very cold conditions meant neither driver could get a full handle on their cars and qualifying became a farce as the grid of nearly 50 cars tried to fit into the small lap of the circuit. Clean laps were rare meaning neither driver could get into the top 20. The now expected start line pile up once again took place at the start of both race causing damage to both Webb and Wedekind meaning their race weekends were mainly pointless.

World GT

Following on from the successful 2012 Winter GT Series, series admins announced a full scale championship using GT3 machinery for 2013, confirmed as the World GT Series. Once again Davidson submitted an entry for Epic which was successful. It's been confirmed that the team will race in a pair of Ferrari 458s with Louis Wedekind and Ed Williams filling the seats.

The first round of the season took place at Monza where Wedekind drove a superb race after a mistake at qualifying meant he had to begin from the final grid slot. Driving a mature and calm race, he managed to bring the Ferrari home in tenth place, scoring himself and the team six points. It was to be a meet for Williams to forget however as connection issues plagued his meet causing him to not start. He did show pace similar to Louis and so remains optimistic for the rest of the series.

World Sport Series

Epic Racing secured an entry into the Porsche-based World Sport Series for the second year in succession following on from 2012's part schedule. With it's easier approach and less emphasis on set up, Lee Davidson has taken the opportunity to take FC Reserve Driver Andy Smith under his wing and run alongside him for the entire season, hoping to be able to bring the newcomer up to speed enough for a return to racing duties in the single seaters.

2015

Formula Challenge

Epic Racing's 2015 FC Machine

Epic Racing was confirmed a slot on the 2015 Formula Challenge grid in November 2014, which will be their first full-time competition since 2013. On 10th of December 2014, the team confirmed Mike Schroten and Wopke Hoekstra will be their race drivers, driving the number 38 and 49 entries. On the 16th of January, Rob Mason was announced as a reserve driver for the team. The opening race of the season took place at Melbourne, Wopke Hoesktra made it a return for Epic to remember with two points finishes and pace good enough for a potential podium in the reverse grid race until an uncharacteristic mistake dropped him from fourth to eighth. Mike suffered a poor qualifying which made his race meet a challenging one, a highlight was his fight through the field to finish just short of the points in the second race. The second round in Bahrain saw Wopke repeat his results from Melbourne but in reverse order, finishing eighth and then fifth, including a stint leading the second race which was a first for Epic Racing in GPVWC. Mike continued his struggles, off the pace and not managing to break into the top 20 in either race. Spain saw Schroten make a stark improvement from his struggles previous but it still wasn't quite enough to get the points he craves, Hoesktra however maintained his top-10 finishes in every race with a seventh and eighth place finishes, leaving him sixth in the standings.

The next round at Portugal saw a breakthrough for Mike as he registered his first points of the season, finishing twelfth and thirteenth in the two races. Wopke joined him in the points once more but couldn't match his top ten results from the previous rounds, taking home a pair of eleventh place finishes. Round five at Turkey provided the team with it's strongest outing of the season so far with both drivers having pace good enough for top ten finishes, both duly delivered in race one, with Wopke in the fight for the race win down to the very last corner, he would eventually finish second, two tenths behind the winner, Mike would finish tenth, his best finish of the year to this point. Race two saw an extremely messy first lap claim Mike and cause him his first DNF of the season, whilst Wopke recovered from a jump start penalty to take home sixth, signing off the event with fastest lap, the first of the season.

World Sport Series

Epic Racing's 2015 WSS Machine

Epic Racing was awarded a slot on the 2015 World Sport Series grid in March 2015. It will be the third time the team has competed in the series. The team managed a major coup with the signing of experienced sim-racer Tom Parker for the entire WSS Season, he will be partnered by Epic's Formula Challenge reserve driver, Rob Mason. After a tough opening round in Spain, which saw a number of incidents and suspect driving, the team came away with a single points finish from Parker in race two, Round Two in Portugal saw a noted improvement with Parker managing to complete an extremely competitive race meet qualifying fourth and finishing third and ninth in the two races, his third place was Epic Racing's first ever GPVWC podium finish, Mason meanwhile showed improvement but has still yet to get off the mark. Round three saw Parker return to the podium in race two, taking home a superb second place whilst driving with an illness, Rob managed his best finish so far in race one but was still unable to score points.

Reserve driver Geoffrey Fournier made his first start for Epic in the series in the next round at Monaco, replacing Mason who was unavailable for the event. The first race on the famous street circuit saw Tom's point scoring streak come to a halt after a bruising race left him in twentieth place, with Fournier a couple of positions ahead in eighteenth. However race two saw another superb drive from Parker, coming through the field to finish just outside the podium in fourth whilst Fournier was running as high as sixth before issues with his PC caused him to fall to thirteenth, none the less he scored his first points of the year in what was ultimately a competitive outing.

International Touring Cup

Epic Racing's 2015 ITC Machine

Epic Racing was confirmed an entry to the 2015 International Touring Cup in April 2015, being given race numbers 32 and 33. It is Epic's first entry into the series where Geoffrey Fournier and Chris Shepherd will drive a pair of Chevrolet Cruzes. In an interesting development, Christian Zorner will also be co-managing the squad alongside Lee Davidson, gathering experience of managing a sim-racing team in the process.

Round 1 took place in Portugal and was Chris Shepherd's GPVWC race début, however it was unfortunately one to forget as he was unable to break into the points scoring positions. Geoffrey Fournier fared even worse and a disconnection before the third race confirmed the season opener to be a long forgotten affair! Round 2 saw a vast improvement with Fournier taking home three valuable points finishes after a competitive showing, Shepherd showed fantastic pace during the entire meet, qualifying seventh. However the Englishman couldn't quite recover from the grid penalties he was given after Round 1, finishing just outside the points in races 1 and 3 whilst an incident in race 2 put him out of the race on lap four.