Just to add a couple of other little points to the discussion as a AutoSimSport contributor and LFS racer.
There was actually a discussion on our forums recently (there is a lot of off topic stuff in the thread but that ALWAYS hapens, sorry, lol
)about why LFS did not receive more coverage in AutoSimSport and what we bascially concluded was : What exactly would we write about? I have had a couple of ideas myself, one of which I did write up about the Drifting scene in LFS I had another idea about naming the corners at Blackwood as a way of giving it some 'soul' but it just never happened, it is still a possibility though.
As would a look into the Car Sound Remixer or a look into why LFS has an 'arcade' image to some people, something which has always confused me, hence the article idea.
The reality is we can only write about what we are actually driving, plus we are only doing this for fun. I have not been in the situation often but having to drive something to review it when I am really not in the mood to fire up the computer is much too reminiscent of homework at high school for my liking. Reading what Bob went through to do his RACE review certainly put me off going anywhere near it, I could not cope with that much frustration!
As for contributing, well, I had a desire to try and give something back to the community, so I put together my first article which hopefully, helped a few people get into sim racing. Now I have been sending Alex articles for over a year, he has a look, a few grammatical things get fixed and bang its in the magazine. Now if I dont get around to doing anything for a month, well, no biggie, thats the beauty of doing something electronically, its very flexible, plus its not like they can fire me!
Now I feel like I am actually a member of the community, not just some one who races on my own. Of course not everyone can do it, not everyone needs to, but the more people that do the better it is for everyone.
There is a lot of very good stuff in the sim-racing community, none of its perfect which is why we can all pick it to bits if we like, but I have an absolute blast racing, it is my favourite hobby and something I devote a lot of time to, as we all do.
I have wondered for a while why there is so much angst in the sim-racing community (I don't mean here, in this forum, but everywhere) and I have a bit of a theory: 99% of us, if not 100%, would much prefer to be doing this for real as full time professionals whether it be like Kimi Raikkonen, Craig Lowndes or Jeff Gordon etc We are all frustrated real racers first sim-racers second and its that frustration that spills over.
Maybe there is another article there?
Anyway thats enough of my dribble and I really need to arrange my desk so I am not typing around my G25...