Some of you may be familiar with the NASCAR racing simulations such as Nascar Racing 2003 which was the last version of an evolving list of racing sims from Papyrus software. These weren't like the EA Sports games that you can play on the Xbox or Playstation, but were simulations of real racing with the physics and ability to set up car and race the car against full fields of actual people, and not just against the computer.
iRacing.com, which is the next step in online racing simulations is now open to the public. A group of us have been beta testing this service and I have to say after almost 15 years of online racing, this is the most accurate, exciting and competitive racing I've ever done.
This is actually a community where you start in the lower tiered cars and learn how to race, keep out of incidents and gain a rating which will enable you to move up to faster and more exciting cars. Unlike most sims where you get only one car, with iRacing, you have the ability to purchase more powerful and better handling cars.
There is a full list of cars and tracks which are currently available at the website, but to give you an idea of how it worked in beta testing, for ovals, we started out in Legends cars. When your rating got high enough, then came the Late Models, after that there is the Silver Crown pavement cars. They currently also have Modifieds. For road racing, they have the Solstice to start out, then the Skip Barber F2000, the Formula Mazda, and Radical SR8. More will be added as we go along.
Now...this does cost money. It is a subscription service and then you have to purchase each car and each track, separately, but you only need to purchase what you need for the series of car you are currently driving. It is not for everyone, but for someone who can't afford the real track time but wants to get into racing it is well worth it. For what I used to spend on the software, then server rental for my leagues, this is actually cheaper.
Even though it is on the computer, the setting up of the cars springs, shocks, tires, everything that can be set up on a real car works just as it does in real life. The racing is just as competitive as it is in real life, and the way the rating system works, as we go along, you will be racing against people with the same skill as yourself to make the fields even and competitive.
There are many real life race car drivers that were involved with the beta testing and are still involved now. While there are some things that are not totally accurate, this is an evolving service which is constantly being improved with input from the members. The tracks that are available have been laser scanned to show the smallest bump. Even the off track areas have been simulated and screenshots comparing the real vs the simulation are sometimes hard to tell apart.
****Disclaimer**** I am posting this because of how much I really do enjoy sim racing and now that iRacing is open to the public, I can actually say something. But also, if any of you do happen to join up, please put my email address in the referral box, I will get a credit on my account. kevin at kdebello.com (replace the at with @).
Check out the website,
www.iracing.com. If you do join up, let me know. If you have any questions or comments, good or bad, email me. Other than a credit for signing people up, I don't get anything out of this, but I really believe in this service and have had the blast racing many different cars and tracks.
Thanks,
Kevin
