Quote from (-Mark-) :

Force India?

That's based across the road from Silverstone. Force India used to be Spyker which used to be Midland which used to be Jordan. Eddie Jordan built the factory there.

Quote from RockBottomWalsh :

Ummm Honda? Toyota?

How can Super Aguri be 'east Asian' if its HQ is in Leafield, England? Same with Honda in Brackley. And Toyota in Cologne Germany.

There aren't any F1 teams based in Asia.

Quote from samjh :

Or else they can stay separate and sponsor Super Aguri, but put the Acura branding on the Super Aguri car (Acura is the luxury car arm of Honda) and provide Super Aguri with technical support from Acura who are experienced at building sports prototype chassis.

Isn't the Acura brand only used in North America? I'm pretty sure that's why Honda's two drivers used helmet visor logos which said "Acura" last year, but only at Montreal and Indianapolis. Expanding that brand to the whole world is a huge undertaking and is not something that would happen overnight.

Doesn't surprise me; Vettel seems like the real deal. He came into Toro Rosso last year and promptly blew away Liuzzi and scored STR's best-ever finish.

Coulthard might retire at the end of this year if the RB4 is reliable and Mark Webber can string together some good results. If he does, Vettel will probably fill his seat.

Quote from Woz :

Its because for the general public it "makes sense" in that you push up for up a gear. Does not matter that you have to fight gravity each change

Who is this General Public and why does he have so much say-so over things like this? What sort of crazy system would promote such a muppet to general in the first place?

Quote from Woz :

Also remember most autos with an up/down shifter are the WRONG WAY AROUND. They have up and up shift and down as down shift.

How incredibly silly, especially considering that it's fully electronic and therefore quite simple to reverse it to behave properly.

Quote from srdsprinter :

SAFER (steel and foam energy reduction) barriers could have done a lot to help reduce some of the forces going to the driver in that corner.

Exactly. There shouldn't be any bare concrete or steel barriers facing the circuit at an angle like that in any high-level racing series in the world.

Quote from MattxMosh :

how much did you pay by the way?

$131 each, plus $2 for new valve stems. The cheapest I could find them online was $127, which isn't enough of an incentive to wait several days.

Quote from tristancliffe :

However, just because they are 'tyre professionals' doesn't mean they know much

Well yeah I know, which is why I took their advice with a grain of salt.

Their argument made sense, it just seemed to conflict a little bit with what I understood about the dynamics of how FWD cars should behave. Therefore I asked on here and called up a couple family members for their input. They all agreed, so problem solved.

Thanks for the help everyone.

So I ended up going with two new Goodyear Assurance TripleTreds, which from everything I've read and heard are some of the best all-seasons on the market. Rain and snow performance outclasses everything else out there, for any price.

However, the guys who put them on did something that struck me as very strange - they put the new tires on the rear, and moved my rears to the front. Of course this is a FWD car, so this doesn't make any sense to me. In a FWD car the front tires are responsible for the power, the steering, and most of the braking force. Don't I want the best tires on the front end? Even if the back breaks away, if the front is still gripping I can steer / manipulate the throttle to get it back in line.

According to these guys, no - Goodyear and Michelin sent them some sort of directive saying that when replacing just two tires, the new ones should always go on the rear, whether it's FWD, RWD, or 4WD. One of them said that particularly in front-engined, front-drive cars the rear will hydroplane first, since there's very little weight back there. So one wants the grippiest tires in the back in order to prevent hydroplaning.

Has anyone else heard this? Does it make sense? They told me they'd be glad to switch them to the front, but I would have to sign a waiver absolving them of all liability. These guys are tire professionals and I trust their advice, so I stuck with what they did originally. I can bring it back to switch them for free anytime I like though.

Quote from PAracer :

Read up on reviews from Tire Rack customers. Pick a tire and see what others are saying.

I did that, but customer reviews were often wildly conflicting. For example, a tire which was given an 9 out of 10 by the site for wet weather traction would have one review which said "outstanding performance in the rain!" while someone else would say "terrible wet performance!". I'm not sure whether I should really trust anyone there.

Thanks for the replies everyone.

So I've had my car for almost a year now. It's a silver 1998 Acura 2.3CL. I bought it used last March; it had one owner and 112,000 miles when I picked it up. Back then the front tires were fairly worn but still had a decent amount of tread left. The rears were still in great shape.

Now, though, the fronts are considerably more worn and need replacing. This was pointed out to me in rather stark circumstances when I went through a puddle which was slightly deeper than I thought and hydroplaned. For those who've never experienced hydroplaning, it is not a pleasant feeling. While driving, grip is life; when it suddenly goes away and you're no longer in control it's easy to react incorrectly and make the situation worse. Fortunately I knew exactly what to do, and it only lasted a couple seconds, so it turned out just fine.

I definitely need new front tires. However, in the course of some research more questions were raised than answers:

The model listed on my current (Goodyear Assurance) tires says: P205/55R16. However, listings for that model gives a bunch of tires which say something like "205/55VR16", or 205/55HR16". What do these letters mean?

My grandpa who knows quite a lot about cars recommended Michelins, or failing that, Goodyears. Does anyone object to these? Why? Are there particularly good brands for Hondas/Acuras, or is it all down to the particular model?

From what I understand, I should only be seriously looking at all-season tires. It's relatively cool here in the summer (80F is scorching), but the winters are more intense. Snow is a weekly occurrence, if not more frequently. It doesn't get that cold here though - average highs in the winter are around 30F, with a few nights getting down to maybe 0F or 5F. I don't really drive in the snow anyway because the bus stops right in front of my house and is very reliable.

I'm not looking for extreme performance - what I want is precise and consistent roadfeel and long treadlife. A tread pattern that is particularly good in the wet would be helpful too, because it rains a lot here. Some of the descriptions are confusing: High Performance All-Season, Ultra High Performance All-Season, Grand Touring All-Season, Performance Summer, Performance Winter, etc. What the hell does Grand Touring mean in tire terms? What's the difference between high performance and ultra high? As I've already stated, EXTREME grip is not what I'm looking for. Grip is good of course, but I'm not going to be racing obviously and I want the tires to last.

What I've found online has ranged from $100-$150. I'm willing to spend a little extra if its worth it, but I want to find the best deal. I've been looking on www.tirerack.com so far, anyone else have any other sites?

Quote from frokki :

No idea what drags me into these topics, but by definition it is drifting.

No, it isn't. That's precisely my point. If the throttle isn't being used to directly control (as opposed to indirectly control with a FWD car) the slip angle of the rear of the car, it isn't drifting. Oversteer does not equal drift.

I didn't know that too many modern family-type passenger cars had TC, especially front-wheel drive ones. I have a '98 Acura CL which definitely does not have traction control. Not that I would want it anyway.

Quote from frokki :

I'm not sure if I understood you correctly, but alt+tabbing isn't recommended with LFS because it hardly works.

Eh? Works fine for me; I do it all the time.

Quote from shiny_red_cobra :

What I mean is that I tried it but never managed to get it going. So I went on to other cars that actually drive properly.

:rolleyes: Are you really unaware that it uses a motorcycle gearbox, so 1st gear must be engaged by shifting down, not up? After first gear is works just like any other sequential.

Quote from MijnWraak :

I thought paddle was a form of sequential?

It is. The statement earlier in this thread was wrong. "Paddle" is not a type of gear shift, they just make it easier to manipulate a (usually) sequential transmission.

Quote from Stang70Fastback :

Are we going to lose traction control in the Formula 1 car? I hear that's what's happening in reality...

If so, I'm so screwed, lol.

No. It's a 2006 car, not a 2008 car. If we get a new F1 then probably, but that doesn't seem to likely.

Oversteer does not equal drifting. Any car can oversteer; only a RWD car can actually drift because drifting is using the throttle to manipulate the rear of the car while cornering in order to make the car behave in a specific way.

Quote from Woz :

Also an auto box has no place in LFS.

I disagree. A realistic automatic transmission would be a valuable addition to LFS. Some of the cars in the current version could feasibly have autos, so it stands to reason that the functionality should exist in a realistic simulation of those cars.

That said, it has to be a real automatic, not an auto-shift driving aid. It should be slower in racing conditions than a properly-used manual gearbox, just as is the case in real life.

And I'm saying this despite the fact that I would probably never even use an auto unless I had no choice - I simply prefer manual shifting because it's more engaging.

Quote from scania :

But whgy did champcar leavw from IRL in 1995?

That has already been posted sir:

Quote from Lateralus :

Before 1996, there was just one premier open-wheel series called CART (Championship Auto Racing Teams). It raced on superspeedways (Indy 500), short ovals, permanent road courses and street circuits.

Tony George's family has owned the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for decades. He was on the board of directors of CART, but his opinions were basically ignored. CART continued to do what it wanted in spite of objections on the part of the owner of the track which held CART's biggest race of the year.

Because of this, Tony George decided to leave CART and found his own series which only raced on ovals. Regs were much more restrictive in order to reduce costs which were spiralling out of control in CART. CART lost the Indy 500, but most of the big drivers stayed in CART. In the first couple seasons of IRL there were very few races and even fewer seriously talented drivers.

IRL struggled to gain much prestige especially in the first few years. CART was strong for a few years after the split, but it gradually waned into obscurity. Somewhere in here the named to CCWS (Champ Car World Series).

A few years ago IRL branched out into road courses. It also gained a few big-name teams which defected from CART. This is when the rumors of a merger started to fly.

A couple years later, here we are.

Quote from mcintyrej :

I think the community should come together, make a list of top priority things that need fixing

That'll never happen. Everyone has a different idea of what should have priority. Democracy simply doesn't work in game development; it has to be left up to the developers on their own to decide what gets done and in what order, otherwise it will go in several different and conflicting directions.

I honestly don't care if the barrier bug ever gets fixed, because I don't drive around with the intent of hitting them. I've driven LFS for weeks and weeks at a time without ever experiencing the barrier bug. Personally I'd rather have development focused on aspects of the sim which most affect my racing experience. The periphery can wait.

Quote from duke_toaster :

Krutch, that's because the DP01 cannot be raced on ovals, it simply wasn't built for them.

Why, exactly?

Quote from duke_toaster :

I Wish I Had An Angle

That was horrid.

Quote from srdsprinter :

It's going to be IRL + Long Beach GP + Surfers Paradise.

IRL Cars, Races, the handful of CART Teams, +2 races.

Well that sucks. Hopefully they'll pick up some better circuits in the coming years. Here's where they went last year:

Homestead-Miami Speedway
Streets of St. Petersburg
Twin Ring Motegi
Kansas Speedway
Indianapolis Motor Speedway
The Milwaukee Mile
Texas Motor Speedway
Iowa Speedway
Richmond International Raceway
Watkins Glen International
Nashville Superspeedway
Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course
Michigan International Speedway
Kentucky Speedway
Infineon Raceway
The Raceway on Belle Isle
Chicagoland Speedway