DAMN that Lotus is nice!

If I got iRacing, how long would it be before I could drive it? I assume it's kinda up there.

IMO, your top 3 should be: COD4 (played for like 6 months almost every night), GRID (arcade but fantastic racing game) and Forza 2.

Fun fun fun fun fun!

And funny, too. But fun is part of funny so maybe fun includes funny as well?

Quote from jasonmatthews :

TBH I am quite surprised at the lack of apparent talent in the USA. These drivers come over after dominating there own backyard, to find out that the real competition is very hard. Fair enough, the cars/teams have alot to do with it, but still I would expect a few American drivers in F1 who could cut it Also, seen as the USA is such a huge market, then why don't teams give the yanks a chance in a good car, at least for monetary/sponsorship reasons...

The problem is the US's racing economy. It's terrible. Not only that, but it's quite a polluted farm.

Racing is dirt cheap in the US. A couple million bucks will buy you an IndyCar team. You can race NASCAR on a shoestring budget. I have no idea why this is.

As a result, trying to convince US sponsors to give up 4 million dollars for GP2 is nearly impossible. Why spend 4 million bucks on GP2, in a country/region that "doesn't matter" (to them), when they could spend 2 million and have a nice big sign on a top-flight IndyCar or NASCAR, in their home country, with more media coverage? Marketing suicide, to them.

On the flip side, our (formula) development series' are vastly inferior when it comes to value for money. 400 grand to run Star Mazda. Sure, it's got year-round coverage, but it gets piss poor ratings and even though something like Formula Ford only televises a few races per year, it gets much better viewership, and is half the price. The result of which is dubious sponsors for the US driver and enthusiastic sponsors for the Europe driver.

So, financially, we've got a really bad deal. A high price of entrance (400 grand for SM, 800 grand for Formula Atlantic, 1 million + for Indy Lights), and it's mostly out of pocket, but you have a really easy time keeping the big names with low prices at the top. So once you're in, the company you're with gets used to paying what is basically peanuts, and now if you want to move over to Europe for F1 or somesuch, you're out of luck because the sponsor doesn't want to move from it's nice, cheap, comfy-cushy deal it's got at home base.

And that's just the financial side. Now you're talking flesh and blood economy. Since the US is so appetizing, European drivers who have a few seasons of F3 or F3000 under their belt are coming over here with tons of sponsors who think they're stealing from someone since it's so cheap, sitting in the big name seats and basically preventing a lot of drivers who could have gotten there from ever having a chance and they simply fall off the map. It's getting better, but still, just look at the top drivers in IndyCar. Not too many Americans.

So, when you do get an American who becomes really successful in Open Wheelers, he* tends to stay where he is, becuase he knows that to go out of country will require a lot more effort than it's worth. He makes a good living, and he drives really fast cars with other really fast drivers. As far as he's concerned his "climbing days" are over.

*He being a universal word for "person". I'm not forgetting about Danica Patrick!

Really, the only viable career in the US any more is tin tops. Open Wheelers take too much money for the underfunded drivers initially, and we have an excess of them here (I'm one of them). So the only option is the cheap and dirty stock cars, or the cheap and slightly cleaner** GT/touring cars. Those are where all the really talented kids are going these days.

** Cleaner: simply because I like it more.

Hell, a fully funded drive in the MX-5 Cup or the Jetta TDI Cup (both of which are on TV and both of which have huge prizes) only costs 50 grand. That won't even buy a suspension unit in a Formula 1 car. To get to a real, paid, livable endurance ride you're looking at less than 1 million dollars to get there, and a pretty apetizing sponsorship proposal. Endurance racing = LOTS of screen time, and Stock Car racing = fanatical fans full of fanaticism, all for well under half of what they'd be paying in open wheelers. And they get better viewership.

So, young American drivers grow up mostly wanting fenders, and as a result when they get to the top, they really have nowhere else to go, except maybe down south with Stock cars to Brazil and Mexico, or possibly Europe for Endurance. But neither of those options are really apetizing compared to what they already have in the USA, because it's exactly the same, in a hostile environment and more cost.

Anyway, that's my little financial rant. Bitter? Definitely. Also quite off topic...

So on topic: I think Jaime can do well. At least he didn't crash today. There's a lot of talk about him being too young, but if he's got the skill and the determination why not? Torro Rosso sees something in him. Young kids have gone to college before, how is this different?

You watch. In 10 years, the next generation will come along and they'll be coming in at 18.

CLUTCH? What's next? TiRE? HEADLiGHT? SUNViSOR?

Anyway, any game with zombies is cool, and any game which allows you to run over zombies is awesome.

Quote from Becky Rose :

This seems to be what you are after: http://www.500race.org/Men/Russell.html

Whoa, thanks for that! A book, too.

Quote from XCNuse :

But like I said, this is just Road Atlanta, of course not all tracks are the same.

You could get a NASA or SCCA membership and do their HPDE/PDX programs. Those are unlimited. Or you could look up a trackday specific program like Trackmasters and do unlimited track days that way.

brt900, the only way I know of to get on a track before 17/driving age is to be a racing driver. That is to say, karts. Pretty sure you can't get a road racing license in the UK until you're 16... for cars/Formula anyway.

Anyway, if I were you, I'd go down to Oulton and talk to one of the track advisors or instructors. They'll be able to get you on the track, in some shape or form. Most likely, your only option for true performance driving will be karts.

I just finished "Speed Secrets 6" by Ross Bentley.

Next I'm getting "Kill Bin Laden" by Dalton Fury. It's about the SFOD-D Operators searching for Bin Laden.

Quote from gezmoor :

So what about the reflectors they placed on it? Well they could have just dropped them on to the moon. Sure, but how many attempts at doing that at several thousand mile per hour and at a height of a few hundred miles are going to result in a perfectly aligned reflector pointing directly back at the earth??

The reflectors are made up of many triangles so that no matter where the light source is coming from, it always bounces back via the path of origin. Like a bike reflector.

The fine powder on the surface is actually the dissolved remains of ancient cities millions of years old. The inhabitants were neanderthals, who populated earth with various life forms (including us humans) to study them and the effects of terraforming.

But unfortunately for them, the Gorkons, the sworn enemy of the neanderthals, found out about the project and vaporized the surface of the moon, leaving a few neanderthal scientists stranded on the surface of earth. Acknowledging their impending doom, the scientists imbued the humans with basic knowledge of fire and tools, and a recessive gene to one day go forth and continue their campaign against the evil Gorkons.

Some say that the moon will one day be discovered to be the vessel to return us to neanderthal space. The US government obviously found out about this and it's why we never went back to the moon, because the US government doesn't like the idea of going back and bowing to our creators.


... I think it could get syndicated.

Quote from PLAYAPIMP :

OO ****

iRacing looks nice

I want it

I thought that was a real picture for a second! Holy crap.

And real nice scheme there, Spanks.

Can't tell you anything about Terry Labonte, but I always wondered about Jim Russell. I wanted to know more about the founder of my school but all I can find is one paragraph and a picture of one of his Lotus F3 cars from the early days, driven by Emerson Fittipaldi.

Quote from logitekg25 :

i meant left foot braking with the switch to heel toe.

Can you just use your toes?

Or you could try and find an automatic-sized brake pedal pad that will fit the G25.

IMO, LFS is great because it's such a robust simulation that you can play it casually and enjoy it just as much as if you played it every night and were in a league. It's like Halo, in a lot of ways: simple to learn, simple to use, hard to master.

If I were you, I'd buy a second hand Logitech Driving Force GT, which should cost you about 120 AUD on Ebay. That's the cheapest 900 degree wheel and it really outsrips all the other cheaper wheels. Then I'd buy LFS. I played the demo a while back when my el cheapo Microsoft wheel was still working, and even without force feedback it was miles and miles better than the keyboard and mouse.

BTW I played TOCA 3 and LFS's demo is miles better, but you didn't need me to tell you that. TOCA's a great game, but it's not a simulator. Get both. They're both great.

Last edited by MadCat360, Mon, 20 Jul 2009 11:40.

Forget the LX8, lets get an Ariel Atom 500 V8.

500 horsepower and 500 kilos! That's 100KG (220lb) LESS than an F1 car!

So the winner gets a fully funded drive or something?

Quote from The Moose :

You'll love the Skippy in iRacing i suspect...apart from the arcade shifting technique (sadly the same for all the cars in iRacing.. they haven't even attempted to do transmission modelling.. and coming from LFS and netKar that's a massive turnoff for me) As far as I'm concerned, the Skippy is the best car in the sim... The physics are excellent, the thing is a dream to drive.

I'll surely miss it once my subs run out in August. That car and the tracks are really top quality. Unfortunately one car and the tracks isn't enough to tempt me back for a while.

Best of luck with the real thing. I will be interested to hear your comments on the accuracy of the iRacing version.

What is wrong with iRacing's transmissions? Does it not have a clutch or something?

I don't know if I'll be doing the MX5s or the F2000s at Skip Barber. Still deciding. The F2000s are kinda in the wrong direction for me, I want to race sports cars, but its got a bigger prize (350k versus 70k for the MX5s).

Quote from The Moose :

@MadCat360

I'd actually advise you to do 3 months rather than one to begin with. You will get a much better picture of how you feel about it once the "New toy syndrome" wears off.

You wouldn't be the first person to go "Wow, this is the greatest thing ever" and spend a load of cash on content...only to realise a month or two down the line that it's not actually all it's cracked up to be, and sadly lacking in many areas currently.

I always hated people who said "it's not for everyone" But that statement is actually very true indeed.

Give it a try, don't jump in feet first with a years subs, but give it more than a month to really see how you really feel before you start spending on content.

That's good stuff, thanks for that. As soon as my Fanatec gets here and I've settled in with it I'll pick up a "trial" sub. Plus I'm looking at doing Skip Barber next year, so the added track time the sim will allow me will be worth it, even if it's not 100% accurate.

Quote from Dajmin :

I'm a bit sceptical about that second disk install thing. I assume it is just an install disk, since it would make most sense, but with most installs you still need the disk in to access the content. So I'm worried that even if we install the "data" disc we'll still need to physically replace the discs if we want to access that stuff.

Would've been more sensible to make one single-player disc and one multiplayer disc, since you're less likely to flick between them as much.

But I guess they must know what they're doing

Don't worry. Oblivion had the same thing with the "game of the year" edition. It came with a DLC disk that just installed about 2 GB worth of extra content, just like if you downloaded it off of the marketplace, so no disk swapping. Forza 3 will do the same thing I'm sure.

Quote from Ball Bearing Turbo :

Nah you can correct it, you just have to be real fast, accurate, and a bit preemptive sometimes - just like RL. in LFS you can sort of think about what you're going to do whilst at 90 degrees to the road, then slowly and lazily make some corrections which always seem to work.

True. Last weekend at my karting race, my coach was telling me about how I would hop over one particular curb, get airborne by about an inch and a half, and then have the wheels pointed for countersteer before I even hit the ground. As soon as my front wheels touched the ground I would unwind, and that tiny little fraction of a flick would stop a massive slide from ever happening during that corner. It won me the race.

Unfortunately, it's a lot harder to do that in sims, because you can't feel the split-second jiggles and bumps that tell your butt what's coming up. You gotta do it all through your hands and your eyes, and that takes just a fraction longer, and in a real tight car that might as well be death.

This thread really makes me want to get iRacing. I was watching some of that guy Greger Huttu's replays. That dude's unreal.

Brake temps too, maybe? High speed braking is after a long straight. The brakes can cool as much as 400-500 degrees on racing cars after a good straight.

Quote from menantoll :

Would it be best to see a replay from someone who wasn't involved in the incident? Something I won't be able to get hold of now though.

Yes. That would essentially tell you exactly what the server "saw". Like dying in an FPS game. Sometimes it looks like the guy was shooting you for just a split second, but if you look at it from someone else's perspective, it turns out he was shooting at you for a lot longer. It's probable that he was following a lot closer than what you saw in your replay.

Quote from Forbin :

Those "fancy numbers" are why you go to school, so you can understand this stuff.

I understand it just fine. I have to push harder with my foot when I'm going faster, to get lockup or threshold, in a variety of cars with a variety of tires and braking systems. Nothing will ever change my stance on this, because I trust my foot. I've known the guy for 20 years. He's reliable.

So I can't prove what my feet are telling me with mathematics. Oh my God, my life is ruined. Lighten up just a little bit Forby, it's getting so serious.

Why is it so bad that the other players use autoclutch?

Quote from Blackout :

Well, more important is the fact that the games are optimized to run on that specific hardware setting/combination. On a PC you need to make compromises because there is infinite combination of different components you can find in a computer. On a console system you know it will work on any Xbox or PS3 if it works on one, and therefore it's possible to optimize the code to get the best out of the hardware.

That doesn't stop games from looking just as good on the PC as they do on the consoles. See any multiplatform game, such as Grid. There really is no reason why GT5 or Forza 3 can't be run by a PC. It'd just have to be a pretty good one to run at max settings. It's a shame that neither Turn 10 nor Polyphony seems determined to make their game for the PC as well. It would only help them I'm sure.