Quote from DeadWolfBones :

In the late 80s and early 90s this stuff was all over ESPN. I used to watch it all the time.

Yup I used to watch it. TNN used to have dirt racing every Thursday night too. If only we had some kind of "speed channel" that showed various forms of motorsport all day...

Quote from tristancliffe :

Ought to add this to the list

[harrier]

I've seen one of those in person before, very impressive. It came to a stop and hovered over the grass, but they wouldn't let it land because they said it would melt the runway haha.

A lot of good ones already, I'll add:

Last edited by UncleBenny, Fri, 29 Jan 2010 14:08.

Just a website update, supposed to be around 25 minutes if you didn't see the note before it went down.

It's Friday, about to peace out of work a little early, going to the hockey game tonight. $1 beers!

“We will put it back in the hands of the drivers and we will say, ‘Boys, have at it, and have a good time,’” NASCAR Vice President of Competition Robin Pemberton said.

http://www.scenedaily.com/news ... at_Daytona_Talladega.html

Wow, its like in a couple week span Nascar is doing everything I wish they would have done for the past couple years haha. Looking forward to this season more and more.

Sucks, I don't know what else to suggest unfortunately, feels great to me.

iRacing has great details in the graphics, I think the color/saturation ruins the look right now though. They said they're working on it, I'm looking forward to see what it looks like after they tweak some things in that area. I think with a couple minor changes it would look amazing.

Quote from MAGGOT :

Finally got iRacing account all set up with the Radical promo code I obtained some months ago. I was having an issue initially with my G25 vibrating wildly for a couple seconds at a time, but that seems to have stopped now. I'm finding major problems in the force-feedback, though.. Steering feels slow, and I'm getting no feeling in the wheel - just the bumps, nothing else. iRacing has no FFB settings in-game, so I don't know what to do?

In the profiler, Effects are at 100% And everything else is off (0%) as per the FAQ on the iR website. What next?

I had the same problem at first. In the profiler try setting effects a little higher(try like 105%) and in-game turn the FFB down a little in the options(I run mine at 8 I believe). When I did this everything felt much better to me. There was an explanation on the forum at some point explaining why this worked, but I doubt I'd be able to find it.

Last edited by UncleBenny, Wed, 20 Jan 2010 21:10.

I can see why iRacing doesn't want to host the skins though, copyrights and stuff. I'm hoping someone comes up with some kind of auto-download system at some point.

Quote from StableX :

I decided I wasn't going to bother. Seems a waste of time really, just like nkp and others. If nobody is going to be able to see it, what's the point!

Agree, I think it should be limited to hosted racing only, I could see it being useful for leagues where you can download the whole set of skins at once. I see no point for it in the normal series, I'm not going to go searching for people's skins to download, just in case I happen to race them.

Missed this part the first time through:

Quote :

Some items that are not on this list that I had discussed in the forums are aero and tire changes for the three premier oval cars and a better transmission model.

We were not happy with how testing has gone with both of these updates and have decided to hold them off from this deployment. The truck, nationwide and COT aero and tire changes should hopefully be rolled out next week. The transmission model may take longer than that to be in a state we feel is ready for public use.

So hopefully they fixed some oval stuff finally.

New build release notes are out.

Quote :

Release Notes for 2010.01.18.01 - 2010 Season 1

Web Site

- Added World Cup statistics pages for the RACC Runoffs, RACC Finals and World Cup Finals. These are all accessible from the “Stats” top level navigation bar item.

- Added restart configuration option to hosted sessions so you can select single file, double file with lapped cars on the inside or double file with lapped cars at the back.

- The Update Manager now shows file size in units (k, M, G) appropriate to the size.

- The Download/Installation progress indicator in the upper left corner of the site should now carry through to completion, barring any error condition or user abort.

General

- All tracks and configurations are now always available in hosted sessions.

- The Strength of Field (SOF) calculation has changed, which will slightly alter championship points paid out in races. The new calculation more correctly weights the various iRatings in the field.

- The prefix "INCIDENT:" is removed from incident report messages in-sim.

- Drivers reconnecting to a server will now see previously shared group setups.

- remindbf.wav is added to TJ&L spotter pack.

- The sim can now recognize windows accelerator keys (volume up/down etc) as inputs in the sim. All keys are supported except Cut/Copy/Paste. This should stop the bug where volume keys would cycle the cameras.

- The right shift key is now recognized by the sim.

- Pressing a shift key now works in conjunction with keys on the num pad when num lock turned on without having to turn off num lock.

Custom Paint Jobs

- Custom car/helmet/suit paint jobs are now supported.

The filename for a paintjob is just the customer ID with a .tga extension. The sim will also accept it with leading 0’s to form a 6 digits number (which sorts better alphabetically). You can find your customer ID by going to the My Account section of the iRacing website.

For instance, for a driver who has a customer ID of 12345, their custom texture in any of the below directories would be

“12345.tga” or “012345.tga”

The custom texture files need to be placed into the documents\iRacing folder, like this:

Helmets: docs\iRacing\paint\helmets\
Suits: docs\iRacing\paint\suits\

Cars (using the same structure as car setups):
RT2000: docs\iRacing\paint\cars\rt2000\
Rookie Legends: docs\iRacing\paint\cars\legends ford34c rookie\

The cars have to be 1024x1024 pixels in size. The suits and helmets must be 512x512. If they are the wrong size they are ignored.

If the sim can't find a custom texture, it will use the driver's defined colors and pattern from the website as usual.

A custom texture will be loaded and used even when loading older replays that were made before the custom texture was added or changed.

Custom textures are not automatically uploaded, downloaded, transferred, mailed, delivered, etc, in any way. Customers will have to put them up somewhere themselves, and others will have to download them themselves.

Cameras

- Added support for copy/paste of groups of cameras even across files. Pasting a group makes a new copy of all cameras in the group.

- All camera tool sliders now have edit boxes.

- Added a quick set button to adjust camera microphone gain based on current car position. Just click and hold while watching a replay and it will set all cameras you view to the same relative volume.

- Camera groups can now be reordered.

- The scenic camera no longer interferes with the default cameras when the focus car disappears from the view.

- Fixed mouse aim mode when in scenic mode.

- Does not save active camera group transitions to ini file when in scenic mode.

- Fixed bug that could reset active group if exiting sim while driving.

- Fixed chase views when focusing on pace car so that the camera no longer wiggles.

- No longer defaults to invalid camera group at load time.

- Group copy/paste properly grayed out when selecting a static group (on car cameras).

- Camtool only resets camera state when needed, volume etc should not cause camera to flash.

- Camtool updates more frequently when in slow motion.

- Statically aimed cameras as blimp, chopper, or chase cameras will now follow the motion of the camera and not just point north.

Replay

- The replay now back patches skid marks and smoke and dust to move them under the wheels.

Race Control

- Added a new type of double file restart where the lap down cars get pushed to the back of the field. Double file restarts will now be possible on road courses if set.

- Restart type is now selectable for Hosted races.

- During cautions the transition to double file should now occur at 2-to-go, except for road courses and ovals of 2 miles or longer which continue to transition at 1-to-go.
- For the new double file starting mode, lapped cars get sent to the back at 2 To Go while staying single file, then at 1 To Go the pace field will switch to double file. Unless the track is an oval over 2 miles long or a road course, where the lapped cars will get sent to the back at the same time as the field switches to double file at 1 To Go.

- Don't apply jump start rule if a driver entered then exited the grid and then missed the start and is put into their pit stall.

- Cars that end a tow while a caution is in progress are now properly added to the pace field when leaving pit lane.

Controls

- You can now unassign non-driving controls by pressing Enter when the control assignment pop-up window says "unassigned" while waiting for you to give it a control. The 'Esc' key is still good for exiting the control assignment pop-up window without changing the current assignment.

- Each car can now have it's own set of controls assigned. There is a checkbox in the bottom left of the "Controls and Other Options" windows to tell the sim to use a custom controls.cfg for the car (the file is stored in the car setup dir), or to use the default global controls.cfg.

Cars / Physics

- Some improvements and fixes have been made to the collision system. In particular, the player car's chassis should interact far more correctly with the ground surface. Also of note is that curbs seem to be more drivable.

- The anti-stall automatic clutch aid has been improved. (Although all our motors still can't actually stall)

- Drafting now actually reduces your car's downforce, not just drag.

- Atmospheric conditions used by the physics are now responsive to altitude, instead of being sea level all the time. At higher altitude tracks there will be properly reduced engine power and aerodynamics effects.

- Engine power has been recalibrated to match dyno reference conditions, which results in a couple of percent more power when near sea level.

- Engine throttle response is reworked to more correctly match how real motors respond. There is now much more response at initial throttle and less response at full throttle, varying with engine RPM, versus the old mapping which had very little initial throttle response and a lot of response near full throttle and did not change with RPM.

- Engines will now create smoke when damaged.

Dallara

- A default Indianapolis setup is supplied.

- The issue where legitimate setups would fail tech inspection at sim load time is fixed.

- Off-throttle engine braking reduced (per feedback from Real-World drivers of the Dallara).

- Downforce and drag has been tweaked.

- Tire grip levels tweaked to alter car balance (less understeery).

- Bump stop adjustments have been removed. Bump stops are now fixed in place at the end of full travel.

- The aero calculator ride heights updated.

- A small tweak to the updated tire model on this car has been made that gives more grip loss when sliding at high speed.

Riley DP

- Chassis inertia in all 3 axes (roll, pitch, yaw) has been adjusted to match the numbers supplied by the Manufacturer. Very small changes were made to the wheel inertias, again due to additional data from the manufacturer. Engine inertia and the driveline inertias have been modified to more closely match real world behavior.

Corvette C6R

- Chassis inertia in all 3 axes (roll, pitch, yaw) has been adjusted slightly. Rear wheel inertia and engine, clutch and driveline inertias are subtly massaged based on new data.

- Aero forces from body roll are improved.

- Brake bias in car adjustment is now limited to +/- 3%

- A small tweak to the updated tire model on this car has been made that gives more grip loss when sliding at high speed.

Lotus 79

- Bump stop adjustments have been removed. Bump stops are now fixed in place at the end of full travel.

Latemodel

- There is now more grip falloff with wear, and increased fuel use.

Star Mazda

- Chassis inertia in all 3 axes (roll, pitch, yaw) has been adjusted. Engine inertia adjusted to reflect new driveline engineering data.

- A small tweak to the updated tire model on this car has been made that gives more grip loss when sliding at high speed.

Radical SR8

- Chassis inertia in all 3 axes (roll, pitch, yaw) has been adjusted per real-world driver feedback.

Pontiac Solstice

- Clutch engagement travel changed to make clutch response correlate better with real world behavior.

...and once again I'm left with the feeling of "why doesn't iRacing seem to accomplish anything from build to build". I'm getting tired of seeing release notes filled with camera updates. Please work on physics, or at least features more people care about.

Yup even if it races the same, at least it looks better now.

Am I wrong or would getting rid of the front splitter have a much bigger impact on racing than the spoiler change? Seems like they're getting all their front grip from that thing, and when they get up behind someone and the air is gone, you can't really do anything with the car any more. The front end of these cars needs to be less aero dependent.

Quote from lizardfolk :

Are they going to make changes to the CoT already? Didn't see anything about that.

Was a rumor for about the past week or so but the news today pretty much seals it.

http://www.nascar.com/2010/new ... poiler.adapted/index.html

Quote from lizardfolk :

However, I think the biggest news right now is that Nelson Piquet jr will be in NASCAR trucks with Red Horse Racing.

The thing is...RHR finished 8 and 9 in the final standings with 1 win. Piquet is going to a good (albeit) poor team so there will be a LOT of pressure on him. It's a do or die deal right now. I'm not 100% sure how I feel about his involvement in NASCAR considering he's such a fail in F1.

Here's the article: http://www.entertainmentandsho ... join-nascar-2010011530849

Same thing with Danica in Nationwide. She's going to a decent team that is capable of winning races, if she doesn't perform, I think the only person you can blame is the driver.

I think Montoya came to the sport under better circumstances to get experience. While Ganassi isn't exactly a single car team, they weren't out there winning races either if I remember correctly. So there weren't huge expectations for Montoya to start winning right off the bat. Now as he got a couple seasons under his belt, the team has also improved, through mergers and stuff, and now you have to consider him as a guy with at least an outside shot at a championship. I'd say he'll definitely make the chase at least.

Quote from Mattesa :

Now... Given there are so few people qualified to drive it, just how accurately can they simulate the car? How much data do they have access to? With so much of the car's characteristics dictated by aero, and so much CFD power used to produce it, are we really going to get a reasonable representation?

Could be the least realistic car. Same goes for the BF1 in LFS.

They pulled it off for the Indy car which has quite a few wings on it, is it really that huge of a step up to F1? I'm sure their agreement with Williams includes all the data they'll need to simulate it properly.

Quote from 5haz :

Its Friday.

That's what I was coming in here to say. Only 6 hours left.

So with a little less than a month to go before the season, what are everyone's predictions for this year? I'm not sure if Johnson is going to be able to pull it off again this year, his wife is expecting a baby over the summer and that could be a distraction for him when it gets down to chase time. Even without that, 5 in a row is ridiculous, if anyone can do it though its probably him. Someone has to step up to the plate this year, I'm going to go with my man Tony Stewart. He did great last year as a first year team(even though he was in Hendrick cars) and I think this year him and Newman should be even stronger.

No more wings on the COT? That would be awesome. I always hated that wing from the minute I saw it and would love to see them go back to the blade spoiler. Not sure how this will effect racing though, taking away some rear downforce should loosen the cars up right? I was always under the impression the drivers thought the car was too tight and hard to turn, so it could be a good thing.

And finally, they're getting rid of yellow line/bumping rules at the superspeedways. Another thing I'm looking forward to. First couple races will probably be a mess with people making stupid moves, but I think eventually the drivers will start policing themselves, and that's how it should be. Let them race.

Interlagos would be awesome, one of my favorite race tracks.

Wow, that's pretty amazing. Never thought an F1 team would jump onboard with iRacing so soon. Forgive me for not following F1 as closely as I should, but the FW31 is last years model right? So it at least has the new aero package.

Quote from StableX :

yeah, doesn't seem right to have the Falcon and no Holden. However, isn't sebring owned by Panos, that's owned by GM who owns Holden?

A slim relationship already within iRacing

Haha slim? I think you're forgetting the 4 Chevy models directly tied to GM that are already in there. Impala, Silverado, Monte Carlo, and Corvette. The entire oval side of things is GM outside of the SK and Legend. Bring on the Holden.

I also hope that with the Falcon and Mustang establishing a relationship between Ford and iRacing, we'll get Ford oval cars at some point. Not that I'd drive them, but more variety on the track is always better.

Last edited by UncleBenny, Wed, 13 Jan 2010 18:59.

Quote from Crommi :

Also, picture of Ford V8 posted by John Hughes

The Ford Falcon makes me really want the Holden Commodore in the game too.

Looks like a pretty sweet track.

Ah yeah I see now, thought he was just referring to the license. Also, thanks, I'll likely get killed up there but I'm up for the challenge for sure.