Tag: iracing update

iRacing Dirt Development Mini Update

~ Jeff Kendrick ~ Leave a comment

For those who are anxiously waiting for more news on the development of iRacing dirt, here is a mini update. This was posted in the official iRacing forum by iRacing staff member Greg Hill.

Development work on dirt is going great! The physics, art, and track dynamics systems are all starting to work together in real-time. Today we took the #25 Sprint car out for a spin at Eldora Speedway. Here you’ll see the first glimpse of a prepared track beginning to develop a groove. Not yet visible but almost ready will be the accumulation of loose dirt and a cushion. Again, this is all dynamic… the track will constantly change and react based on the cars, resulting in an unparalleled dirt racing simulation.

The iRacing Dirt Sprint Car at Eldora Speedway
The iRacing Dirt Sprint Car at Eldora Speedway. Click for full sized image.
iRacing Dirt Late Model
Here is the iRacing Dirt Late Model.

Today’s iRacing Update

~ Jeff Kendrick ~ Leave a comment

iRacing updated the sim software again today with a minor patch/build, and revealed tomorrow’s surprise a day early.

Last week’s surprise invoked a lot of complaints, particularly from the oval side of iRacing. Many people expected something that would be good for the entire iRacing community. Anything from new forum software to a major website update that would fix the myriad of issues with the current web interface. When it turned out to be nothing more than the introduction of the Audi 90 GTO, there was a lot of disappointment all around. Of course many of the road racers were very happy with it.

Audi 90 GTO
Audi 90 GTO

I think it’s a good addition to the service, but I do wonder when the oval racing community will get a classic car such as a 1980s Winston Cup Monte Carlo or Thunderbird, or maybe a late 1960s Chevelle or even a 1957 Chevy Bel Air.

Nissan GTP ZX-T
Nissan GTP ZX-T

Today’s update revealed tomorrow’s surprise to be the release of another classic IMSA GT car: the 1989 Nissan GTP ZX-T. This is the car that squashed Porsche and Jaguar and ruled the late 1980s in IMSA Camel GT competition.

The Nissan will be placed in a mixed class series with the Audi 90. The series will be called the Kamel-GT Championship. That series starts tonight with the new race week and will primarily race the tracks that were raced “back in the day” in the IMSA Series.

Personally, I find this car a lot more interesting than the Audi. I have to admit, these classic cars make it very tempting to try my hand at a little road racing.

iRacing Updates for 2015 Season 3

~ Jeff Kendrick ~ Leave a comment

iRacing has released it’s list of changes for 2015 Season 3. Here are the highlights.

Website

  • Opting out of league emails and private messages now works. [so iRacing says :)]
  • There will now be a button to launch the graphics configuration utility on the settings panel.
  • Popular Races and Practices (what’s hot) will now have a filter to show only sessions using the content that you own. [hooray]
  • Registering for a race session will automatically place you in an open practice session while you wait. For some series, if you register for the race more than a couple of minutes prior to the session, you’ll go right into practice. When your race is ready, you’ll be notified and a green ‘Race!’ button will appear on the screen. If you don’t click the Race! button, you’ll be switched over to the race session automatically.

Simulation

  • Race Points/Field Size – Improvements are made in the way race points are calculated so that small field sizes won’t get too many championship points. It also reduces the advantage of high iRating fields.
  • New Tire Model – The new model of the tire carcass does a more accurate computation of the tire’s stiffness. Tires now respond much more accurately to tire pressure changes. This is version 6 of the tire model. This will only be implemented on some cars in this build.
  • Weather – Reduced extreme wind direction swings.

Cars

  • Late Model Chevrolet Monte Carlo SS – The setups for the Late Model have been updated, and the visible positioning of the wheels has been cleaned up.
  • Legends Ford ’34 Coupe – Updated 3D model, updated chassis torsion and suspension installation stiffness, now has new version 6 tires, minimum cold pressure reduced to 10 psi, updated setups.
  • Super Late Model, SK and Tour Modified – updated setups
  • Street Stock – Fixed the rear spring bug and updated setups.

Tracks  – Five Flags Speedway is Available For Purchase!

The Missing What’s Hot Widget

~ Jeff Kendrick ~ Leave a comment

When I read the iRacing release notes and saw that they planned to remove the What’s Hot widget, I didn’t think I was going to like it. I was right.

The What’s Hot widget was the simplest way to find races on iRacing. The filters were good. You could find what you were looking for at a glance. The new design just makes it more difficult to find races.

It’s no secret that I don’t like NASCAR or anything related to NASCAR, so the Popular Races & Practices button is pretty much useless to me. I figure, since NASCAR is popular, most things listed on a page of popular races is going to be NASCAR related. I can’t really tell what’s going on on that page either. Mostly I just see a long list of broken images, and a lot of tracks that don’t interest me in any way. I’m a short track guy 100%. Talladega bores me. Charlotte puts me to sleep. I don’t own Gateway and I never will. I don’t have any interest in Autodromo Nazionale Monza, whatever that is. I did see South Boston there. If I didn’t already know, I wouldn’t be able to tell what car is running there without doing some additional clicking. I didn’t have to do that with the What’s Hot widget. It was all there at my fingertips with one quick glance.

So that’s Popular Races & Practices. What if I want to run something that is unpopular? I guess I’m just the redheaded stepchild then. I guess I’ll just take a cold tater and wait.

Then you have the Official Races button. This just takes you to the old Race Guide page. That’s something I never liked and never used before. For one thing it only shows races. But, worse than that, it doesn’t update automatically. So if you’re looking at the car count on the Race Guide page, you’ll have to reload the page to get it to update, which renders the page pretty much useless. I did find one solution, though. You can get an addon or plugin for your browser (Chrome or Firefox) to set a page to reload every X seconds. I just set the Race Guide page to reload every 30 seconds. I sure am jumping through a lot of hoops just to use the iRacing service. Wouldn’t it be neat if they had something like a What’s Hot widget so I wouldn’t have to do all this?

And while we’re at it, why not make filters that will filter by car and track. That way I could filter out everything over one mile, and all cars that I’m never going to run; anything other then Street Stock, Late Model, Super Late Model, SK Modified, and Tour Modified. Why can’t iRacing just simplify when something needs simplifying, and leave well enough alone?

 

iRacing Update: Interesting Points

~ Jeff Kendrick ~ Leave a comment

Here are some of the more interesting points from this morning’s iRacing update.

Lucky Dog
  • The spotter is better at communicating with the lucky dog, and the other racers concerning the lucky dog.
  • If you are issued the lucky dog, the spotter will now say, “You are the Lucky Dog, get your lap back by passing the field on the outside.”
  • When someone else gets the lucky dog, the spotter will say, “Car X got the Lucky Dog, let them by on the outside.”
  • When the lucky dog end-of-line is issued to you as you take the two-to-go, the spotter will say “Because you’re the Lucky Dog you will be held at the end of the longest line.”

This should help clear up the confusion about where the lucky dog is passing for everyone. Additionally:

  • The Lucky Dog is now issued when the Lucky Dog driver takes the two-to-green at the start/finish line.
  • A couple of Lucky Dog bugs were fixed.
Chevrolet Monte Carlo SS Late Model Stock Car

The spring range and the cross-weight range were expanded for this car.

Super Late Model
  • The spring range and the cross-weight range were expanded for this car.
  • The spoiler can now be painted.
Street Stock

There was no official update to the Street Stock listed in the release notes, however, when I attempted to view a street stock event before I updated, I got a message that I needed to update relevant content (Street Stock).

That’s all of the relevant updates. There were several other things updated which you can read in the iRacing release notes on the member site.