So what that's 3 ex-clockwork guys in SRLT? Glad to see I did something right

Congrats Tim and SRLT. Best of luck in the future

Quote from PMD9409 :

Montoya did half a year of Nationwide before going into the Cup. But he is also a pretty universal driver (drove latemodels this year at Eldora I think).

Yup: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_yJHsYires (PS is it just me or does Kyle Petty always say "Let me tell you something" LOL)

As well as select races in ARCA.

Quote from manneF1 :

Wow, Salo is a big cock :o

And i remember a thing: Ferrari will be allways the best team...because i drived there :? lol

Well, he´s gotta be better than me
Following the money

I have no idea if this post is a encouragement or not LOL. I will say that he is suppose to have 1 win in F1 but was told to move out of the way for Eddie Irvine. I think Irvine gave Salo the trophy as a sign of good will.

I agree but disagree for 2 reason.

1. I agree that Scott Speed's career was crafted well as he really did his time in the lower ranks and impressed in them. However, look at his rookie season. While not as disastrous as it could have been, it was pretty much a flunk imo. I mean the 82 didn't even make it into the top 35 in owners points.

2. Montoya. He basically jumped straight to Cup and was almost instantly successful. Sure he struggled at Bristol and Darlington. But his rookie season was a great success.

This can be seen elsewhere too. Look at Mark Webber in F1. He came from GT straight into F1. That's a pretty bad idea. Yet he's very successful.

If the driver has the skill and talent. He can make the jump and do relatively well. IMO, adapting to a totally new discipline is what separates the mediocre from the talented. I'm not saying that those who failed are necessarily untalented. They failed for many reasons. Like Dario Franchitti was dropped because sponsors decided to pull out when the results was slowly coming in. But Salo isn't an untalented driver. If he's serious on staying (which he is), he'll do well. But of course this is all just speculation. We'll see what team he signs with and how he drives in consistent 3 wide traffic in 2010.

Quote from hansonator69 :

i seriously hope Mika can succeed on the NASCAR circuit, rather than failing like Dario Franchitti.

Salo will probably bring some Finnish interest into NASCAR similar to what Ambrose is doing. Unfortunately, Salo will have to do well in order to warrant that.

Back when Christian Fittipaldi and Hideo Fukuyama were in NASCAR, Brazil and Japan still remained impartial to NASCAR because both Fittipaldi and Fukuyama performed very very poorly.

While Salo was an F1 driver, I think Salo will fair much better because it's been a very long time since he was in open wheel. He's been mainly doing endurance racing and that's a heck of a lot closer to NASCAR than F1 or Indy. So I say Salo has a good background to crossover into. Of course, right now it'll all depend on money and the team. If he takes over the 47, there's a good chance he'll succeed. But if he takes over one of the backmarker teams like the 0, then I say there isn't much of a chance for him.

Quote from master_lfs.5101 :

Already been done.

http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?t=50247

Exactly....

Quote from ghostrider83 :

First off Team-less is not a team its a community where teams can go to recrute new members and drivers can go to find a team. We don't only do LFS we also are involved in iRacing and other racing games like NASCAR games and Need for Speed Series.

I got the idea to creat Team-Less from www.clan-less.com and my friend TehDisco.

Clan-Less is a community where FPS clans and Players can go to find each other and get help with other things like graphics and server issues. We at [tL] hope to do the same for Racing teams as our community grow.

Why would someone go and register at another site when that thread does it all already? I think you need to wise up that this isn't your typical Counter-Strike community where it can be quite difficult to get into a well rounded group. The LFS community is a tight knit group where this forum is the central hub of everything LFS including well organized teams and leagues. Unlike CS we dont need millions of communities just to organize people. (As official popular FPS forums are usually littered with spam and useless posts).

Just for once...take other people's advice and stop treating the community as if you would treat CS or Halo (and frankly, with the lack of effort being put into your "communities", I doubt you'll have success else where let alone LFS).

Last edited by lizardfolk, Fri 27 Nov 2009, 00:22.

Boy this took a while to confirm. I think he was suppose to be in NASCAR 2009 but I thought it fell through (Made a thread about it a while back)

On a side note...if he lands in MWR he's DONE.

Although it is Nationwide, so I dont know exactly which team he'll be able to be in. He can probably save some teams from disappearing all together like the 07, 09, 11, and 47. Although since this is a MWR test, I'm guessing he'll take over Ambrose's former spot in the 47.

Would be interesting to see how Salo would fair in Ambroses' former ride. But everywhere else is pretty much filled up for next season (due to crossover contracts).

BTW Trulli was there as well: http://www.paddockreport.com/i ... p-up-two-day-nascar-test/

Last edited by lizardfolk, Thu 26 Nov 2009, 21:12.

Quote from tristancliffe :

That's mainly due to the best brains in racing generally being in England, and most of the best drivers being European. Even from the, say, Asian or Japanese series, the best graduating drivers tend to be Europeans (badly managed Europeans for being there in the first place admittedly).

Well

1. You forgot the Australians and the Brazilians who've had a long history of motorsports success. Of course, both areas are more focused on closed wheel within their region (V8, TC2000).

2. As for Asian or Japanese series have always been weak per say. Where as America has a much stronger "other" series being IndyCar, Asian only has GP2 Asia and Formula Nippon. Much much weaker. (Just look at the winners of FNippon).

What else does Asia have? Hong Kong Touring Car (actually being completely asian)? ATCS (also being completely asian)? What the heck is that compared to V8 or BTCC?

3. Another series that Europeans have yet to dominate is of course stock cars and WSORR. Both are strictly american. One oval tarmac the other off-road trucks.

But this is all cultural upbringing. I can bring the classical music competition in here. (Which is essential for a concert pianist's success). Back in the 90s it was an all European game. But now the focus have completely shifted from European to Chinese and Korea. Just take a look at the Van Cliburn Competition. Finalists is almost completely Asian. So are the best classical music minds in Asia? No. But if you are blindly faithful to statistics than it would be yes

Thanks guys, appreciate the kind words

I will have to note that Optixs has a new policy:

ALL OPTIXS MEMBERS PLEASE READ THE FORUMS. THERE IS A CHANCE IN POLICY AND THIS WILL BE MY LAST PRIVATE ANNOUNCEMENT HERE

Quote from tristancliffe :

I said it's vastly more difficult - as proven by the two or three people you mentioned who didn't actually make it to F1. These days you can get an F1 test just be being a best looking in F3 or having the whitest smile in Superleague. Getting to F1 properly is rather more difficult.

Oh we're talking about actual drives Whoops. I'm already pleased that people on the outside gets tests (of course whether that means anything depends on the team). But your right, speaking of drives it is insanely difficult.

Quote from sinbad :

I think much of the same applies, the big ones all have some level of manufacturer backing, which helps. Though IMO they each do well (although "well" is a relative term) because they're in their own respective niche, and have no delusions that they're going to compete with F1 in any way.

You'd be brave to come along and try to set up an "International Touring Car Series of Awesomeness", and run it with much of the cost of the WTCC, but none of the manufacturer support or rivalry and no drivers of much notoriety. You'd be mad to expect it to compete with it, and optimistic to hope it gets the same level of coverage (which in the UK is fairly minor anyway, we get the races live on a satellite channel, but the major channels never give it even a mention).

An off-season international touring car series would be interesting, but it would have to be of WTCC level to be taken seriously by enthusiasts in the long term, and even less likely to be newsworthy. A gimmick would create a brief spell of interest, but nothing more.

Yeah, alright, guess it works the same way because we are speaking of the broad international market. On a smaller scale, it's sorta like how NASCAR basically pushes out all other competition in the US. IROC and CORR closed, and no one here really cares about ARCA, USAR, SCORE or ICSCC.

I think it's too bad that some discipline doesnt get as much attention as others internationally. (Although someone really needs to clean up WTCC). But I guess each to his/her own Which might explain why F1 is so eurocentric

I've set out to remake my original 2 to make them as a better quality and hopefully more emotionally impacting (It's hard to be emotionally impacted by just a white name with a black screen), and finally finished with the second part

Here's the second part: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IfppDsUeZ0

Roger Williamson was especially difficult for me to watch. Thought best to keep the music to a minimum during that section. I was kinda gutted that I couldn't use Shostakovitch's 2nd piano concerto this time around as that second moment is absolutely gorgeous but

Quote from S3ANPukekoh3 :

Don't you mean... The stig? Some say when he drives on an oval, the Stig doesn't turn left... the Earth turns right.

Calder Park Oval?

Quote from tristancliffe :

No. The path to F1 is almost impossible for anyone who doesn't climb the ladder in Europe. You can be born where you like, but if you want to be in F1 get your arse over the Europe (and, ideally, England) as soon as you possibly can. Otherwise you just make life 10000% harder for yourself.

Actually, a couple of IndyCar drivers got tests in F1 (Dan Wheldon/Ryan Briscoe). Although none of them (since the start of the IndyCar in 1996) have actually driven in F1.

CART (ChampCar) was a different story as quite a few of them did get into F1 (only none of them did well except JV).

So yeah, I'd say America has a shot. Only if you are climbing the American Open wheel ladder you better be pleased with IndyCar as the top cause F1 from there is pretty much a miracle (which Briscoe and Rahal almost got). On another note, USF1 was suppose to sign Graham Rahal to make him the first IndyCar driver to make the switch to F1...only they decided to go with a pay driver in Argentinean touring car.

But of course American is hardly the idea place unless you're going for ALMS or NASCAR. Everywhere else besides Europe is pretty much touring car, GT and or rally (V8 Supercar and Super GT WOOT!!!!).

Quote from jrd.racer :

nice & clean
GL for GTAL!

Thanks jrd. We were struggling to prepare before this week but now we're ready to take on GTAL. (I feel like one of those new F1 teams for 2010 LOL)

What about non-SS series sinbad?

Thanks to Zach we now have an official GTAL skin. I'll post the map in our forums.

Quote from count.bazley :

Tristan does have a good point however, at least in European terms. Just quickly look at the top guys in the WTCC for example; they all pretty much went for a career in single seaters and either failed to make it to F1 or never made much of an impact there. Outside of Europe it is different though, and to a varying degree appears to depend on which series has the highest profile in that region.

I'll agree with this

Quote from 5haz :

You can forget WTCC then. :rolleyes:

Oh i do , that's why I didn't mention it (ps. I really do dislike WTCC)

Sorry for the double post but there's a major development for Optix.

We finally got a forum whoohoo. Anyways, discuss any race strategies and sets in this forum: http://optixracing.freeforums.org/ (We have 1 quali set about ready and 1 race set being worked on)

All current Optixs Members please register and contribute asap. Right now since we were quickly put together our key is communication. However, I would like to thank everyone for the tremendous amount of progress Optixs has made. So far we're in good shape but lets keep the momentum up and head into R2 fully prepared Thanks for all who have agreed to sign with us.

Also, I've did a preliminary design of our GTAL skin.

Quote from tristancliffe :

Does anyone think there are too many worthless single seater catagories on the motorsport ladder? What is the point of any aspiring single seater racing driver doing anything other than FFord/FBMW/FRenault/F3 (and then only the UK and Euro versions)/GP2/F1? Sure, some manage it from other paths, but it's a lot rarely, no cheaper, and a hell of a lot less likely.

Superleague - waste of time and money.
A1GP - waste of time and money (confirmed by the fact it has failed).
GP2 Asia - it exists solely to give people a second chance at getting into GP2 after their manager tells them to do something else.

Because that ladder is pretty euro centric. It's not exclusive or discriminatory by any means, but that doesnt mean it's not euro centric. Blame it on upbringing, motorsport culture, or just exclusive talent (if you want to be racists). It doesn't change it's current state.

Quote from tristancliffe :

Then once your career is over you can play in a Touring Car series (DTM/BTCC/WTCC), play on some ovals or commentate.

Sorta irrelevant but w/e. I mean after all, open wheel isn't the sole reason for motorsport's existence. Closed wheel GT/Touring (Le mans (endu), ALMS (endu), Super GT, V8 SuperCar), Rally (WRC, Rallycross), Off-road trucks/buggy (WSORR, World of Outlaws), and many other disciplines opens another side to motorsport that's absent in open wheel. I dont necessarily see why there has to be such a narrow path for motorsports. Why does it matter if you're racing in F1 or WSORR as long as you're racing for the love of racing.

I couldn't care less whether Michael Shumacher is a better driver than Matthias Ekstrom, Keith Steele, or Jeff Gordon just because of their respective series. And frankly, putting so much stock in on prestige is rather silly. Does it have good racing? Are the driver's clean (or atleast make an effort to be clean)? Is the race managed well? If all that's a yes then that's really all that truly matters.

SpeedCar and Formula X before it

I do agree there should be a series during winter

Quote from 5haz :

Nahhh, used to watch NASCAR quite a lot a while back. The point is, if a complete stranger came to this thread of late they'd think NASCAR is some kind of banger racing. Not really a good image if you're trying to attract racing fans, but NASCAR aren't really trying to attract racing enthusiasts are they.

So what made you stop i wonder?

I think it's safe to say that they are gone...while Superleague Formula on the other hand....

Optixs Racing has just signed O. Hardwick (oscarhardwick) for GTAL. Thank you very much for joining us Oscar and we hope you enjoy your stay with us

Now that we are getting a pretty sizable group. For organizational sake I will create a forum for us.

Things are looking up for GTAL R2 so lets continue the good work (btw proa I need to speak to you about the R2 set)

Last edited by lizardfolk, Mon 23 Nov 2009, 20:54.

Quote from 5haz :

Does anyone actually do any racing in NASCAR these days? :rolleyes:

HAHAHA that's great

Quote from AstroBoy :

Glad to know I'm not in the loop seeing as i drove R1 in GTAL for Clockwork and no one even approached me or gave me mention of this new team.
Just shows how much of a "Team" it was.

I said this before and I say this again...I dont get the final say in who gets in Optixs. As far as NDR is concerned Optixs is just a name change from Clockwork but that is quite different from what's actually going on.

Sean Williams has a lot of say in who gets in because according to him, he can spot talent. So your not driving for Optixs unless you convince him. (I had to ok the other recruits by sean. Its not my choice sorry)