Still here as well but I've well and truly given up the sim racing.

Just too many other things keeping me busy in life.

Great to see all the old racers here. Those were the days!

Firstly, thanks to Jason (and family) for going miles above and beyond the call of duty and giving us a great weekend for the second year running.

In the car on the way back we were discussing the quality of the drivers and in particular in comparison with the previous year - much improved overall we felt.

Quote from cargame.nl :

Those helmet cams need to be placed on the kart itself, the next time.

At £8 a pop next year we might as well all chip in a few quid each and stick several around the track - on the apex's and walls etc...

Oh, cargame were you the chap wandering around in a black leather jacket taking pics most of the weekend?

You may find you have a picture of me sticking a figure up at you - it's not personal - just an in joke whenever there is someone with a camera - that only NickA would appreciate.

Quote from Drift King CZ :

And that telemetry won't be probably much accurate by what I saw how google tracked the way you go lol (completely different every lap seems like).

Blimey! You should have seen mine - more like a spider's web - by comparison's Nick's was brilliant!

You're right though, the GPS resolution on these isn't quite cutting it yet the average speeds and max speed look about right though and show the slow kart in action - a full 5mph slower on average!


Special mention to the pool table frolicking - I hope you're happy you screwed up my game of pool (with dollarek I think) with only an easy black left for me to win.


And a mention to Bob Smith for snuggling up to me on the sofa and saying "hello darling" and then attempting to squeeze another man's nipple - top bloke!


P.S. I should probably confess at this point (given the technical bods will work it out anyway) that it was I that was "tit1" "tit2" and "tit3" posting in the chat room on friday night - apologies if I offended anyone but it was great fun!

My favourite moment was posting that I wondered what action was going on behind the camera to which danthebangerboy shouted "There's a wall behind the camera you ****" Brilliant!

I did do a good deed by returning his jumper left at the kart track so hopefully I'm forgiven.

See you all at the next one!

Nice work!

See ya all tomorrow.

Nice eyebrows Jase!

Quote from jasonmatthews :

Yes, it is in the OP. Definite times can't be set, but as more of us are racing, we will try to get more tracktime.

Basically it will be practice, half endurance and full endurance.

Cheers.

Knew I'd seen it somewhere

And do you know if much has changed on the track/karts since last year?

Weather forecast for sat is now cloudy - a little bit of rain here and there would be nice.

Have we decided on a format for the day's racing yet?

Quote from Andreas B :

I'll make it quick so You won't feel anything :spin:

I must admit on first view I thought I'd bumped into brothel's anonymous reading some of the posts on this thread. I hope it's clean on the night with all this male testosterone flying about!


On a positive note very much looking forward to the weekend - it was superb last year and I suspect it'll be even better this time.

yep, definitely count me in again!

Quote from Gentlefoot :

Nice response guys - great to see so many of you are still about.

I think there's enough interest here to start getting something organised. I'll also PM all the gentlefoot.com forum members and see if anyone else is up for it.

Will update when I have more info.

GF

Brilliant.

Glad to hear your business is doing better now as well

That would be awesome!

As with others I haven't touched LFS for months and it's only by chance I thought I'd check out the forum today.

It would take a while to get up to speed but I do miss those GFC races - soo much fun.

Quote from count.bazley :

It's probably a good thing the podium got cut short, "Team Bristol" (#9) completely covered us with the champagne. Then again, I guess it's the first time they've ever won anything!

OI...Bazley.....NO.......

In all honesty though that's the first karting prize I have won.

Nick is used to winning though.

Quote from Mackie The Staggie :

I'm going through mine just now, and they are all crap :weeping::weeping:

Took about 250+ and I'm only happy with about 20-40 photos. Will try and tidy up the others that I feel I could safe, but most likely be tomorrow before I upload some.

Might just be me but why not upload the lot - one man's crap is often another's treasure (don't read too much into that quote ;-)

What's the latest on pics/videos chaps?

The only ones I've seen so far are pswillies excellent ones:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/lfs/

and the others posted directly to the forum.

We probably need a definitive list somewhere.

Thanks for a cracking weekend all.

Jason - you are real superstar - great facilities ;-), organisation and work on your behalf.

Confirmed!

can't wait.

Yep, I'll be there in the FOX.

Sounds great - WE Reverse gets my vote.

Glad you reminded me of this one!

In classic partridge language "God, That's good!"

Quote from Nick A :

As you say it's clear that some of the good points of LFS have been carried into iRacing, and I expect the opposite to happen over time too. An LFS SR system would be great.

Absolutely.

LFS can really grow from having iRacing knocking on its door and taking custom away.

Competition is extremely healthy in what up to now was probably an LFS monopoly for realistic online Driving Sim gaming.

Quote from tristancliffe :

Another thing that narked me, completely unrelated to the driving, was the fact that it AUTOMATICALLY CHARGED ME FOR A SECOND MONTH!!!!!

I didn't want a second month. It didn't ask me. If I want auto-billing I'll damn well turn it on, rather than have it assumed I want it on in the first place.

Ha, yes I agree.


Not just an iRacing thing though.

Going OT a bit but this happens quite often with insurance as well - you pay once on your cars and the cheeky beggars assume you want to renew automatically - I bet most people don't even realise.

Quote from tristancliffe :

That's my opinion. I'm not attacking anyone for liking it because I'm sure it's very likeable. But not if your me, and prefer driving real racing cars. I assure you it's a lot more satisfying.

Surely, this isn't about driving real cars on a real track though it's about getting as close as you can to that whilst sitting in comfort in your own home.

Currently IMHO, iRacing is the best you can get for racing feel.

Quote from xaotik :

When you guys mention physics - what exactly do you mean? The way the car reacts to the track? The FFB implementation (more lively? more vibrations? smoother? jaggier?) ? Something else?

For me it was the whole feel of driving the car round the track - everything about it!

I found the oval racing quite incredible - very harsh FFB and just felt "right" or as close to real driving as could be possible sitting in front of a computer screen in your own home.

Bumps, the way the car moves via suspension, road surface, excellent FFB (more like driving a real car) - basically more realistic in every way.

As I said streets ahead of LFS.

All that said there are plenty of pitfalls elsewhere - I'm just highlighting the racing feel which is probably most important for me.

Quote from jasonmatthews :

1. Wreckers - Safety Rating - Fixed, doesn't happen after you have raced a few races as you will never have the displeasure of meeting these muppets online again....EVER

2. Physics - The best thing about LFS is the physics are better than any other sim out there.....until now! Iracing feels a whole different ball game to LFS IMHO in the right direction. The FFB is out of this world and the whole experience feels "right".

6. Real Tracks & Cars - How many of you have asked a million times how good it would be to have real tracks and cars? People have even offered to give the DEVS laser scanned tracks for free, but have been turned down. I personally think this is THE biggest difference in iracing. The tracks are simply out of this world. Why? Because they were designed by the best track designers in the world and tested again and again by real life drivers and had a HUGE budget and plenty of time to make them. Even if Eric was the best track designer on the whole planet are you telling me he makes better tracks than the professional track designers who get paid millions can do? Laguna Sec is an experience I have never got close to in LFS. Then I was wondering where I was losing time, so I watched a REAL race to pick up lines, braking points from the best out there. LFS simply cannot offer that atm. If the devs allowed us to submit tracks (for approval or whatever) we could have this, but atm this isn't an option. We are stuck with tracks from 5 years ago. Maybe S3 will offer this, great, I will buy S3 anyway, so will play iracing until then....

I had a first real look and play with iracing at he weekend on a mate's machine and I have to say I fell in love with it.

The points you've highlighted are indeed the biggies.

The safety rating system is so simple yet genius and means you'll get much more careful driving at all times.

The physics are streets ahead of LFS - no more to be said really.

Real Tracks & Cars - I think the LFS cars are great so for me it would just be having the real tracks that would make all the difference - this is something the LFS devs could do relatively painlessly as well.

The serious downside however for some users will be the cost. However for anyone earning a good wage it's pretty cheap still.

I won't be subscribing just yet as I'm not expecting to have much spare time over the next couple of years but when I am ready to get back into sims in a big way as it stands currently I'd be signing up to Iracing. I hope LFS improves in the meantime.

Quote from Scawen :

Yes, it would be nice if you knew, and I'd like to know the future as well... but it's not possible!

I've explained a few times, that anything we mention that is planned, or a possibility, or something we might like to do at some time, soon becomes, in the eyes of many readers, a promise that we have made, and is later held against us when the feature is not done in the time scale imagined by the reader. So, why give people the stick to hit us with? This we have learned from some not very nice experiences. You should try to learn from your experiences!

I've stated those things that keep the ALPHA tag in LFS and our aim is to get past that stage, with various improvements and updates, probably various things that are not on this list. Big or small, I do not know, plans change.

In order to do things after that point, first we must get to that point.

I hope that helps. No matter how many requests are made, for me to reveal future plans, it's not going to change anything, I'm not gong to say, OK, now I've been asked 1000 times, I'll just say everything I'd like to do at some time in the future.

It's quite simple really, we want to keep updating the sim for some time to come. And we hope you enjoy the improvements.

I agree there are downsides to showing your hand (so to speak) but I also feel there are some upsides which are quite important for the community.
The want to discuss and chatter about the likely development - this keeps the interest in LFS strong.

FWIW, I think you've got the balance about right as you give away the occasional hints but never promise although I think people would welcome more of these posts from time to time when you are ready and have definite ideas in your minds.

Under promising and over delivering is always an effective business method. Long may it continue and keep up the good work.

Quote from Nick A :

I can't wait for the improved collisions and break-off wings. That is really going to change the way we race online. To me the FBM seems almost indestructable at times at the moment. But I'll try and be patient...

Absolutely. It will also remove a lot of the bad driving and you will see hugely improved driving among those who know currently they can get away with some pretty major taps.

I expect the online driving side of LFS will be hugely bettered for it.

Can't wait!

Thanks Scawen. That's great.