Well, JV was part of the winning trio at the European Le Mans series race at Spa.

First race win in 11 years!!!

Sports cars is probably where he'll stay. He's too old and washed up for Formula 1 (in the eyes of team owners anyways). He couldn't find money to do NASCAR (and its incredibly hard to make it in NASCAR with a new team because of their qualifying rules). And other single driver series like Indy cars, A1GP, DTM, or V8 supercars probably don't hold any allure for him.

Quote from sil3ntwar :

Im pretty sure they have.

Yep. This year for the first time the minimum weight rule includes the driver. No advantage there anymore for Danica.

This bodes well for her at the Indy 500 next month. Indy and Motegi are her two best tracks.

The DP01 hasn't had near enough oval track testing (or any for that matter) to be ready this soon.

They'd need to develop an oval track aero setup because the big barn-door road racing wings generate waaaaaaay too much downforce for an oval track.

Then the car would have to be stress tested with that package to find out any other weak points. Indy cars of the past have typically needed stronger suspension components for oval racing due to the sustained g-forces. (Having a wheel bearing or wishbone crap out on you at 230mph is a real pain in the ass) My guess is the current suspension setup for the DP01, while sufficient for road racing, would fail quickly on a high-banked, high g-force oval.

Can all those parts be produced, tested to a satisfactory level, and then distributed to ALL participants in time for the first Indy-car race in March? We're talking as many as 25 primary cars that need retro-fitting, plus backup cars and a healthy supply of spare parts. Add to that the fact that over half the combined field does not have a DP01 in their garage, let alone any experience with it.

Or, given such short notice, should they race cars that most of the field already have as well as all the necessary components to go oval racing?

Last edited by RacingSimFan, Sun, 24 Feb 2008 22:42.

Quote from DieKolkrabe :

So, we're back to pre-1995 Indycar again?

DK

Only there's less people involved and less people watching. NASCAR has all the famous american drivers. They also have most of the sponsors Indycar had in 1995...Valvoline, Budweiser, Texaco, etc...

Basically single-seaters have been decimated and are rebuilding from the ground up.

Quote from Viper93 :

What drives F1? Is it the drivers? No it's the spectators. If there were no spectators there would be no F1 like it is today.

It's a wonder sometimes how F1 still has such a huge following given the quality (or lack thereof) of some of their races. And I don't think many of those fans actively follow and marvel at the design of the cars. They want to see good racing, and to see their favorite driver win.

Why is F1 freezing engine development and reverting back to 90's aero rules for 2009? Cuz they think it will improve the on-track show, which is all racing is about these days.

I can understand people wanting to design and build the ultimate car, both in real life and in simulated form and I would like there to be a sim platform for that end. But, as an entertainment device, the question begs asking...who'd want to watch it?

Right now from looking at open physics code such as rFactor, its all a matter of decimal values. A programmer (read: any guy with notepad) can change the physics to say Drag=0 Downforce=maximum and Power=900 no matter whether the vehicle in the game is a streamlined Group C prototype or a London double-decker bus.

Granted, thats a simplified example, but the whole truth is that the physics coding in most if not all games is entirely independent of the graphic/3D modeling.

Quote from lizardfolk :

I didn't know F1 was like that too

Yeah, the numbers change every year according to Constructors points standings except for #'s 1 and 2 which stay with the WDC and his teammate wherever they go.

And the talk is that if Lewis Hamilton doesn't win the WDC, McLaren is gonna get stuck with the last place numbers in 2008 because of being DQ'ed from the constructors championship.

Sorry for the diversion.

Quote from lizardfolk :

Car numbers are used to indicate rank in Europe?

I dont remember seeing that in any of the season recaps i saw

OK, Formula 1 at least. I'm afraid I don't follow any other international/european racing series.

Quote from BlueFlame :

So he BOUGHT, the NUMBER, he bought a number? It can't be that the car is any different to the others, so why does the number matter?

In most North American series, car numbers are assigned and leased on a semi-permanent basis and become part of the car's overall identity along with color and sponsor, much like the red Marlboro Ferrari's or "Silver Arrows" McLaren's. Over here the racing souvenirs you can buy often have the driver's number on them in the same font/typeface as it appears on the car. It becomes synonymous with the driver.

In North America, car numbers aren't used to indicate rank like in Europe.

So by 'buying' a car number, he obtained the rights to use that number from the previous holder of it.

The people who lather the hate on oval racing are threatened by its growth.

The fact that guys like Montoya and Villeneuve would choose NASCAR over LeMans, DTM, WTCC or other open-wheel stuff goes to show how popular NASCAR has become.

The talent level is extremely high. Yes, it's specialised, but racing against guys who've been doing this for years and have been brought up doing it is harder then most road racing folks give it credit for. They have 36 races per season, each race lasting on average of at least 3 hours. The simple technology places a premium on driver skill and wankers are quickly unmasked.

And even if they're only midpackers, the paycheck at the end of the day is better than F1. One NASCAR driver, for instance, this season has failed to qualify for a third of the races run yet still has $1.5million in purse money to his name this year AND gets paid by his team to drive.

In F1, guys like Sutil or Yamamoto have to buy their rides with personal sponsors and probably don't see a dime of the race-by-race prize money.

And if either of those guys read this post and decided to go race NASCAR for the money, they'd suck so bad at it they'd be fired after their first race weekend which would inevitably result in a DNQ.


And I'm not even a fan of NASCAR myself.

Quote from scoobyrbac :

i just want to run a couple servers no insim stuff, 256 mb RAM and like 430 mhz something liek that windows 98 running XP

Do you have upload speed and bandwidth? Those things will cripple you waaaaaaay more than hardware specs. Hell I can run a server on my 7-year-old laptop that isn't much more powerful than the specs you quoted but my upload strength is only sufficient for 6-8 players.

Quote from ajp71 :

Obviously Indy's got it sussed if it can be doing well enough on three events to not want to do any more.

That's just it.

Roughly 600,000 fans for the 2 oval races at an average of $100-$200USD for race day only.
Practice/Qualifying day tickets for the oval races
Food vendors (even though they allow fans to bring their own)
Whatever MotoGP will draw at approx. $100USD a head for 3 days
Museum (open year-round)
Drive-your-own-car-around-the-track days
Indy car 2-seater rides (approx $400USD each)

And it's been operating like that for decades. And while the profit margin may have been higher before the major upgrades and installations to do with the road course, the IMS coffers are very full.

Quote from ajp71 :

Any reason why it doesn't host anything else? It just seems nonsensical to have such a facility and not use it 49 weeks a year.

Part of the prestige of the place came from the fact that only a select few events were held on it. Many cried foul when NASCAR was added in 1994 to be only the second annual event on the track.

Also as far as finances go, a place as large as Indy can't afford to open its gates for small events such as club races or grassroots stock car series, etc. The operating expenses would be too much given the small crowds such events would draw.

Add in the expenses associated with changing the facility from oval to road course configuration (moving walls, crowd control barriers, etc) based on what's racing there and it's just not worth it unless an event can draw at least 150k fans (The track seats 267k in oval config, prolly 220k or so in road-course config).

If Bernie wasn't so arrogant about his series' worth to America, F1 could've stayed and Indy would've had 4 high-profile events worth running at full operation for.

The sad thing for American F1 fans, and the thing that Bernie just can't comprehend is that there are few if any track owners in the US who would want to spend gazillions of dollars to bring their tracks up to F1 standards.

Sears Point and Watkins Glen make tons of money off their present schedules of NASCAR, Indycar and sports car racing. And all of the other road courses do well enough with regional club racing and minor league stuff. They would lose money on an F1 race just as Indianapolis Motor Speedway lost money on all but the first few USGP's.

The FIA and Bernie have priced F1 clear out of the American market, a market that is already well satisfied with its national racing series.

Sorry, and this goes for the other cruise servers too, but if I want to cruise whilst doing mundane tasks and get chased by police I'll get in my real life car and drive to the grocery store in the opposing lane.

As a loser/noob-cam driver I am disappointed in this for reasons already stated by others.

My fear is that the vast majority of servers will force this and the "CHOICE" that the pro-fcv spin doctors speak of will be anything but a "CHOICE" for those who used other views since day 1.

I hope that doesn't happen but the paranoia runs deep here.

And while we're forcing crap on people, lets have a fixed setup option too. Why not... it "levels the playing field"...

Single-Seater. also known as Open-Wheelers. And I hope CTRA will set up a server for FOX (not on Aston Club or Blackwood!)

Yes, it takes time and practice. I went through the same thing when I got my first wheel after years of using a joystick.

You can't really 'flick' a steering wheel like you can a mouse, or even a joystick so the first thing you have to learn is to begin your turning motions sooner with a wheel than you did with a mouse.

Once you adjust your driving style to suit a wheel, then you will be able to go out and find more speed than you ever could with a mouse.

glad to hear!

I know bandwidth is the main issue with a dedi server but I'm wondering if a laptop I have has enough specs to run a dedi.

It's an ancient thing that I fixed up and I only use it for web surfing and word processing but if it can handle it, it would make a nice simple server for me to throw online on occasion.

Here are the specs...please don't laugh:

AMD K6-III 531mhz
184mb RAM (can be bumped to 190 at the expense of onboard video)

It shares my internet connection which is good for about a dozen players when I run a non-dedi server with my gaming machine.

Can the laptop sustain a dedicated server? How much cpu and ram would each client eat up?

I have RACE as well and agree it has lots of potential. My online experiences haven't been all that great however. I guess being in North America doesn't help with the remaining 99% of online players AND all the servers reside in Europe.

But I'm giving this game more than a fair shot by upgrading a system that otherwise couldn't play it. Been through 2 new cheapie gfx cards. First one crapped out on me in less than 24h. 2nd wasn't up to the task as much as I'd like.

Now have an ATI Radeon x850 pro on order which I will then be reflashing and overclocking to x850 xt platinum specs which are the 2nd best AGP card ATI has ever made (an AGP version of the new x1950 was just released).

I agree with the notion that removing post counts would serve to make everyone here 'equals'. For that matter I'd also suggest removing the Join Date display from the forum posts as well. You can still see it in a member's profile but by removing such 'status features' everyone around here would stand a better chance of getting an honest answer instead of a 'HAHA stoopid noob!!'

I'm not saying that that is common practice, but since RSC removed post counts and specifically cited that as the reason, it is obvious that there are some out in the big electronic void who let their post counts go to their head.

That, more than being a de-spaminator which it really won't, should be the reason for removing post counts.

Quote from thisnameistaken :

I can't really do that because I'm using a clutch pedal and braking with my right foot.

I'm afraid thats another way you're losing time to the 'aliens'. Again on the principle of 'to hell with realism', every car becomes like an F1 in LFS. Left foot braking and auto-clutched shifting are a given for most if not all of those WR times.

I would love to heel-and-toe and use an H-pattern shifter but I never do because I know the guys pulling away from me ahead are LFB'ing and flicking a paddle.

Nighthawk nailed it. The draft is too damn big and there's no way to shake off the cars behind you. No strategy until the last turn of the last lap.

Quote from Krane :

Similarly you need to set up all 3rd party programs you use with LFS.

True. Which leads me to my next question. How do I reconfigure the Join2LFS app to recognize that LFS is on a different drive?

EDIT: Solved by uninstalling and re-installing Join2LFS.