The Good, The Bad And The Rookie!

With a group of friends at RaceConnect we recently enjoyed a foray into the world of Sim Oval racing, being mostly new to this there is no better place to Oval race than iRacing in the USA!
With their Nascar links, including many real world Nascar drivers, iRacing provide a seamless package.
As a novice or "Rookie" the Trucks make a great place to start, all tightly regulated so that skill and strategy win the day.

The physics of these models is astonishing, very quickly you feel like you are there at a virtual Daytona at 180mph, Everything behaves as you imagine it should, the desktop clamped steering wheel is motor loaded (force feedback) giving you every inch of information feedback from the super accurate laser scanned Daytona surface and ever wearing slick Good Year tyre models.

This is a 55min body and brain endurance test ......without exaggeration I leave the table dripping and shaking and exhausted! The 18 RaceConnect drivers around me, mostly online from europe but some are farther afield in South Africa and the USA, are all in my virtual harms way. One careless 180 mph touch from me and their steering wheel shudders, pulse rates quicken and knuckles whiten to regain control!

Slipstream effects become very real, drop too far back from the pack and you are 5mph down on speed with little hope of catching up... unless the caution flag comes out, as it most likely will because the slipstream buffet with no room to move will end in tears somewhere!

Look carefully at the movement of the cars, they sink on the suspension as the speed and aerodynamics increase, they react to control or ground and slipstream influence in a way that cannot be pre scripted and animated, those movements are a direct results of the thousands of physics equations the PC is processing for each suspension part, tyre grip factor and each centre of gravity location....  A lot of fun for young and old, many of which are or have been real world racers.

This is different, this is a PC simulation over and above an Xbox or Playstation game, and it costs very little.

The film consists of random clips, no particular order and as a note I didn't crash as much as it looks, some are the same crash from different angles ;-)

Sorry for the poor edit,the  result of late Christmas night and a little too many christmas wines!