Quote from ATC Quicksilver :

Hopefully they will call it IRL World Series, thats the name the media are giving it.

IMO that name is crap. It shouldn't have IRL in it, or CCWS in it.

Thinking about it though it's a tough call on what to actually name this thing...

It should imply an equal merger, not a lame buy-out situation. Are the 2008 rules more like IRL or more like CCWS? In other words, will the races be more like last year's IRL races or more like last year's CCWS races? Have they even decided on rules for this year?

This whole thing seems really rushed for what should be a world-class open wheel series. Perhaps they'll continue to run as two series for a while while they work on the details.

I really hope this works out though. Hopefully this merger will bring back American open wheel racing to the world stage like it was in the 90s. To have F1 teams look closely at top drivers like they did with Villeneuve in 95 would really bring prestige and credibility back to a sport that has been in the doldrums since the split.

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 Christopher Raemisch :

That and it seems that the cars are not even prepped yet =)

19 doesn't seem THAT much. NASCAR runs over 35. Sure there are differences but car prep is car prep.

NASCAR venues are generally much closer together. Most of the races are in the southeast, and the others are in the contiguous US, except for Mexico. (Someone who follows NASCAR verify this, because I'm not sure).

It's a lot easier to move race cars, a team and all its equipment 300 miles from, say, North Carolina to Georgia than it is from Japan to Australia.

19 is a quite a few compared to other open-wheel series. I wouldn't say it's too many, but like I said some of the smaller teams might struggle to make it to the flyaway races especially.

Quote from The Very End :

Yes, if you put them on curbs, fences, etc etc, it will be a steper (right word? more degrees angle) degree angel.

Angle =






Angel =

Yeah this can pretty much only be a good thing. 19 races in a season is a lot though, considering that it's already February and they haven't even confirmed the dates yet. A lot of the smaller teams in both series may have problems raising the money to show up at each race.

Quote from samjh :

It's like they improved so fast in the past two years, they've just suddenly run out of ideas (hence the ridiculous bull-horn shaped nose winglets, and chassis that is impossible to balance).

How do you know those nose winglets aren't an advantage? Yeah they look silly but if they're fast they're fast.

A lot of people said the same thing about Mclaren's swooping front wing crosspiece when it first came out. It looks strange but it's obviously fast because most cars are using it now.

Quote from samjh :

Don't forget about Williams. They've made a quantum leap from last year for their car. But I'm afraid Nakajima will be too far off-pace to give the team the constructor's points they deserve.

I'm not sure about that. In his first and so far only race, he set a faster race lap than Rosberg.

He might struggle early in the season, but I think he'll start to do well at some point. Maybe not shading his teammate, but getting close and pushing him.

It won't be live, but within a couple hours of the broadcast, someone here will have captured, re-encoded, uploaded and distributed the whole thing.

http://www.racing-underground.com

Quote from zeugnimod :

Btw, this is what Montoya is doing nowadays.

That was really bizarre. And a little disturbing.

Points Earned in 2008

Räikkönen over Massa
Heidfeld over Kubica
Alonso over Piquet
Rosberg over Nakajima
Webber over Coulthard
Trulli over Glock
Vettel over Bourdais
Button over Barrichello
Sato over Davidson
Sutil over Fisichella
Hamilton over Kovaleinen

Quote from xaotik :

never in a car that could win a championship

That isn't exactly true. He nearly won the championship in 2003 and the Williams that year was clearly the fastest car on the track at several races. He was in mathematical contention until the final race and if he hadn't retired there and gotten a drive-through penalty in the previous race he would have won it.

Quote from DeadWolfBones :

Drove the FE Green CTRA config the other night for the first time, and I have to say their chicane solution is brilliant. Would love to see that brought into the actual game.

I agree, but usually get shouted down by "it sucks!" whenever I say so in-game.

The track is more challenging and overtaking is much improved because of it. You have to be quite precise to pass cleanly, but that's a good thing. "It causes more wrecks" isn't a good reason to remove it IMO; that's evidence of driver skill problems, not the track itself. And I'm not even sure it does cause fewer wrecks, considering how easy it is to flip cars on the high curbs of the normal version. CTRA's version pretty much eliminates rolling over on the curbs there.

I have a 19" CRT which uses 1280x1024 resolution. I use FOV of 95, because that is the narrowest value which allows me to see all of the near side mirror in the road cars and both mirrors in the open wheelers. I don't like having to turn my head to see my near side mirror.

Quote from zeromussov :

New colours for Force India[/IMG]

I think it looks alright, although it would have been better if they had extended the gold and silver more, so there'd be less white.

At least it will be easy to recognize.

Quote from sgt.flippy :

It all just sounds like one big joke to me

It is.

System's broken.

Tear it down, build it anew.

Quote from Gil07 :

That's where I stopped reading.

Same here.

McCain left wing? McCain is the war candidate in the Republican party, relative to Romney and Huckabee. He advocates an enormous, extravagant army with presence all over the world in order to defend our empire - even more strongly than the other 'mainstream' candidates. Permanent bases in Iraq as a base for an attack on Iran. Trillions of dollars more spent on projecting power worldwide.

He's an authoritarian, plain and simple. So are Romney and Huckabee. So are Hillary and Obama, albeit with slightly tweaked rhetoric.

Where does the Constitution give the President the power to make war without consent? Article I clearly gives Congress alone the power to declare war. History has proven that aggressive imperialist foreign policy is a failure. America is bleeding to death because of it. Our currency is weakening, which happens to all countries when they overextend themselves and spend too much money. Money we don't have. We borrow money from China just to pay the bills every year. We print money out of thin air, which causes inflation and intensifies the vicious cycle.

The US government needs to reduce spending massively. Wasteful, frivolous, government programs should be eliminated. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan should cease immediately. All American troops abroad should be brought home.

Foreign policy should be open, humble, and honest. We should be talking with and negotiating with governments who disagree with us, not placing sanctions on them and threatening them with force. Trade, travel, and communication should be free and open. Entangling alliances should be avoided. Military force should never be used as a tool of aggression and empire.

Faith in government should be restored by removing those in office responsible for the morally reprehensible policies of this administration and this Congress, and past ones. The word 'treason' comes up frequently in discussion of these policies, and the Constitution makes clear and simple the procedure for impeachment and trial of officials accused of such crimes.

Quote from DHRammstein :

I've just recently decided to make the move to online

Buy a Logitech G25 from ebay.

EDIT: Or wait a couple weeks and buy the 911 wheel. Maybe. Not sure yet, read reviews carefully.

Quote from Rappa Z :

Well, tickets are $125-$160 at Bristol. That's pretty high considering seats for the U.S. Grand Prix(2004) was $75-150 if i remember correctly. Only 2 section were above $140, and the rest around $100. So i think NASCAR is pretty pricy compared to F1.

Comparing ticket prices doesn't work when you only look at the US Grand Prix, because its tickets are much cheaper than most other grands prix. Tickets to Silverstone, for example, I think are in the £150-300 range (someone correct me if I'm wrong on this point).

Quote from PAracer :

As for the parc ferme, I think what comes close is the impound proceedure. Often the garage area is locked over night so that nobody can get to the cars. This also applies to the race teams themselves. They cannot make changes to the cars typically after 5pm the night before the race, and cannot change the car in any way before the start of the race. They can put air in the tires and inspect the car to see if anything happend over night. Altering the car or changing parts causes a driver to have to start from the back of the pack. In fact, changing major drive components after qualifying also results in having to start from the rear. Remember, 43 cars start the race. You might end up next to Robby Gordon or some other hooligan.

The F1 system is nearly identical. Thanks for the info.

Quote from PAracer :

It's also for the fans who pay good money to see a good race. I wouldn't want to sit in the rain and watch cars running at 60% of their capacity.

Would it really be that much?

I guess that's what it boils down to - whether they'd be able to achieve racing speeds. If they had to drive ovals at 40mph in the wet...

The only F1 race I've ever seen in person was a partially wet race, and it was a pretty good one because of it. We didn't mind standing in the rain.

Quote from Bumpdrafter :

Car setup also is important, i think that the way those cars are set up for racing doesn't allow them to race under rain safely.

Change to a wet setup.

Does NASCAR have a parc fermé-type system before the race?

Quote from Bumpdrafter :

Even IRL does not race under rain on ovals. Even with all the downforce.

Downforce or not, why can't they just slow down?

Quote from lizardfolk :

I find that better than watching a giant mist overcome the entire track

That is totally weak. Mist or not, racing is better than staring at an empty track.

Spray from other cars is not a good excuse. Many other series manage it, including open-wheel series. At least stock car drivers are dry inside their cars and they don't have their visor as a windscreen.

Here's my setup for CTRA's special layout at FE Green. This is really aimed at a specific user who PMed for it, but since for some silly reason this forum doesn't allow us to attach files to PMs, I have to make a new thread.

Of course, anyone else is welcome to try it too. Any suggestions are welcome.

It still needs tweaking, particularly in the gearing. If there's any tailwind on the front straight I end up hitting the limiter in top gear. And on the backstraight I'm between optimum gears - 5th is a little too short, but 6th is too long. These are minor adjustments which can be done easily though.

Quote from lizardfolk :

I have yet to see any decent explanation for running in the wet.

It would eliminate rain delays.

Quote from bamabogger :

Hey im the leader of THeJOKeRz yall probaly dont know us were new, but if yall hear rumors bout us plzzzzz dont believe them its not true this guy wanted to try to get the jokerz and [BT1] together but i said yes but when i wuz on it they started callin [BT1] noobs and stuff and when i heard that i didnt want 2 be a BT1 and 2 day we told him that we didnt want to join teams and i think he might be mad but dont believe the rumors were not noobs ive had the team for like a year.

This is all one sentence. Surely if you're at least 13 you've had some basic instruction in punctuation, even if you are in Alabama.

Quote from shiny_red_cobra :

Do you understand now?

I understand just fine, I just misread what was written. No need for the attitude though.