AutoSimSport Magazine - Volume 4, Issue 4

Volume 4 Number 4 neeI l

WORLD EXCLUSIVE

IRACING’S DAVE KAEMMER TALKS PHYSICS

IOPENER—WE LOOK INTO THE FUTURE WE PREVIEW POWER & GLORY: PART TWO

NAGT F1 1999 WE REVIEW VIRTUAL GRAND PRIX 3 FERRARI CHALLENGE TROFEO PIRELLI PRECISE ROCKING CHAIR VIRTUAL RACING CHASSIS WE GO TO THE NÜRBURGRING, MOSPORT, AND PREVIEW THIS WEEKEND’S SUPERLEAGUE …

ALL IN YOUR167 PAGE END OF SUMMER ISSUE!

Credits

Editor-In-Chief Lx Martini Editors Jon Denton/Bob Simmerman Marketing/Website/Advertising Lou Magyar Sales/Advertising/Business Greg Haglund/Johnathan Gregorio Editor-at-Large Sergio Bustamante Contributing Editors Steve Smith/Aris Vasilakos Corporate Relations Jon Denton Community Relations Bob Simmerman Art Mike Crick/Julian Dyer

Layout/Design Lx Martini Contributors Fabrice Offranc/Andrew Tyler Björn Erik Hagen/ Magnus Tellbom/Jiminee Smith/ Gary Poon/Luisa Ghibaudo/ Jiminee Smith/Spadge Fromley/Becky Rose/ Photo Editor Oliver Day Logo/Website/Design www.graphical-dream.com Contributor Relations Lx Martini/Jon Denton Merchandising Lou Magyar French Editor Christophe Galleron Italian Editor DrivingItalia.net

AUTOSIMSPORT Media LLC is an independent online magazine, produced monthly, that covers the exciting sport and hobby of simulated racing.

or even offensive, provided that there is a factual basis that underpins the content.

AUTOSIMSPORT Media LLC covers sim-racing by focusing on every area that defines the sport/hobby including hardware, software, and competition.

AUTOSIMSPORT Media LLC maintains an equal distance to every entity with which it conducts relationships including developers, software and hardware producers, and the “community”.

AUTOSIMSPORT Media LLC will always defend and claim the right to free speech, and will also include editorials which some may deem to be controversial 3

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AUTOSIMSPORT Media LLC believes and will conduct itself within two defining concepts: • Integrity • Independence Opinions expressed herein do not necessarily reflect those of the writers/contributors or other affiliates, and all content is copyright AUTOSIMSPORT Media LLC unless otherwise stated. All photos are used by permission. Should you feel your rights have been violated, please feel free to contact AUTOSIMSPORT Media LLC through its website at: www.autosimsport.net., or email autosimsport. Not responsible for contents of linked sites …

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Table of Contents

COVER STORY iRacing.com: Masters Of Mass.

21 Jon Denton speaks to Dave Kaemmer and Ian Berwick …

SPECIAL FEATURES iOpener— 48 Motor-sport At Mosport The Green Paradise

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Sergio Bustamante sits with Raymond Schram and siscusses the new

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Ivan Askew sits with Davide Rigon to discuss the start of the newly organized Superleague that begins end of August at ‘Donny’

P&G: Part Two

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HeadOpEd News Fromadge

REGULAR FEATURES 5 8 17

Spadge Fromley pprattles on about stuff … and stuff

Ivan Askew on Part Two of the greatest mod ever made …

NAGT

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Bob Simmerman on the US Pits’ great hope …

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Sam Sturino shows us the next F1-sim for rFactor

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Force-Feedback Toolbox

18 37 COLUMNS 137

5th Column Life In Orange

Steve Vincent on what it takes to be a marshal … it’s more than

Luisa Ghibaudo watches as Toyota F1 simulate for a grand prix

REVIEWS—HARDware 107

Lou Magyar finds much to love …

cleaning up flying debris!

GPLegacy 146 Sergio Bustamante keeps you updated on the most energetic

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group in sim-racing …

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Jon Denton’s vodka diaries continue …

John Gregorio on a solid and affordable race rig …

Roadster Addon

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ISI BMW 08 …

Superleague Preview

Virtual Racing Chassis

Ferrari Challenge: Trofeo Pirelli

INTERVIEWS Official BMW-Sauber 08 from ISI and Intel 125

Uwe Schürkamp heads for the Nürburgring …

Precise Racing Chair

for purchase … is it GP5 in disguise?

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Oliver Day takes in the ALMS series at Mosport …

Reality Check

Andrew Tyler reviews this ‘sleeper’ sim from Italy now available

RASFIGJOHN on a gem for the PS3 …

Ivan Askew sits with Andy Lürling and has his eyes opened …

1999 F1 Season For rFactor

REVIEWS—SOFTware 53

Virtual Grand Prix 3

Lou Magyar finds something cool to add to the Cadillac of race rigs!

The Dent

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Magnus Opus

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Magnus Tellbom wears his helmet and steps into the minefield

Cover: Photo: Oliver Day: Mosport, August 24, 2008

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“The ultimate goal is to have the iOpener feature integrated in all race games, where both arcade and sim-racers will be able to race against real drivers.”

—Andy Lürling on the iOpener concept: Page 47 www.autosimsport.net

Mad Cows

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Stuart Cowie on madness … and things …

Retro

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Alan Lult turns back the clock

Checkered Flag Rally Pictorial

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This Issue is dedicated to Phil Hill (1927-2008) Volume 4 Number 4

HeadOpEd

LxMartini

Get This Wallpaper—and other beauts specially designed by GPLegacy—at our website’s ‘download’ section!

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10TACLE The rise and fall of 10TACLE was pretty spectacular even

by PC-publishing standards. The company, founded in 2003 by Michele Pes, was listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange in mid-2006, having reported a turnover of nearly thirteen million Euros in the first six months of that year. By 2007, 10TACLE had reached out its, erm, tentacles, and sucked-up out numerous software houses on their way to seemingly solidifying their position as one of Europe’s top gaming publishers.

Their head-office in Darmstadt was complimented by development sites in Duisburg, Hanover, London, Charleroi, Bratislava, and Singapore. In January of 2007, 10TACLE had a staff of about 230 worldwide, and their non-sim-racing-related console games seemed well on course to securing the company yet another successful year.

But by August of this year, 10TACLE had declared insolvency, and its shares had plummeted from the dizzying heights of 16 Euros a share in early 2007 to its current value of 0.20 Euros (as this is written).

So what happened? And how does this impact Blimey!Games, who are the ‘London’ in the abovementioned development sites? Ian Bell remains bullish about Blimey!’s future, which is good news for sim-racing … and as for 10TACLE, those who were paying attention probably noticed this report published by 10TACLE back in March of this year.

This whole story is one tinged with sadness. We at AUTOSIMSPORT actually owe a great deal of our success (such that it is) to 10TACLE since it was they—and in particular Marcel Jung, who was always extremely kind and accommodating to us—who agreed to talk to us even when, back in early 2006, our magazine was still a project that had not enticed that many of the big-guns into seeing us a positive source in which to highlight their products.

10TACLE will be missed in sim-racing circles, too: What many who did not deal directly with them probably don’t know is that they were dedicated to sim-racing, and often

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invited sim-racers over to their offices to sound off on ideas and concepts for future projects. And as trite as this might sound, all of us here hope that the guys and gals who worked there find themselves bouncing back on their feet as soon as possible: For sure, that company had some extremely competent and passionate people, none more so than Marcel Jung, who—I was once told—was known to sometimes read this magazine. If you are reading, Marcel, this little magazine owes so very much to your kindness.

Viel Glück!

OPINIONS MATTER—APPARENTLY A BIT TOO MUCH I spent the early part of last month being hounded at the iRacing forums by a couple of jerks who seemed to think that the fact that I write an editorial for this magazine once every two months means they have a right to post abusive remarks accusing me of everything from out-right lies to … writing an editorial based on—amazingly enough—my opinions. Go figure—an editorial that is opinionated …

The experience was unpleasant—and yes, I’m old, and being abused on forums is not something I was brought-up on. In my day, calling a person a liar was generally done to someone’s face—and the result generally depended on the size of who did the name-calling!

Even more depressingly, it had been six months since I’d received the last death threat, so perhaps I had begun thinking creating a magazine and living a normal ‘cyberlife’ was tenable in this community. Alas, as Alison Hine found out two months ago, if you stick your head up in this community, those who believe they have a self-evident right to lord it over the rest will make your cyberlife a living hell. Which sort of brings me—and brought me—to a thought (a rarity, I grant you): Why do I bother? After the two-hundred or so manhours it took ro produce this issue, I can honestly say—I don’t know anymore.

THANK YOU We had more donations last month than we have ever had. Everyone here truly appreciates this, and your money was quickly spent, as you will see inside this issue!

Volume 4 Number 4

BLUSH

THEY’RE WATCHING FOR DETAILS CONTACT JOHN GREGORIO 6

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News Courtesy: VirtualR.net VirtualR.net is your one-stop site for all your sim-racing news. And now you can get your news on RSS, or email: Never miss a moment …

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Targa Florio For GPL Coming Along Back in Vol3 Num1—from January 2007— AUTOSIMSPORT’s cover story was the building of the epic Targa Florio for GPL. This seventy-two kilometer track, which had its first-ever run in 1904, was the epic race throughout the golden years of grand prix racing.

Even after the Mille Miglie was inaugurated in the 1920s, the Targa Florio remained the one race the mythical drivers from the pre-war years wanted to win.

The race was run on various courses, but the most spectacular was the Madonie circuit that would trace up into the Sicilian mountains on sand roads that would turn into mudpits with passing thunderstorms.

Up in the mountains were bandits and the first glimpse of the real tifosi: When Mercedes ran here with their star Caracciola, they had to pain the car Italianracing red so that the locals wouldn’t pelt the car with stones … a legendary track that has inspired dozens of books, and legends, and perhaps there is no more fitting format for its virtual sister than Grand Prix Legends.

GTR2/GTL Lobbies Go Down—And Up …

The sudden insolvency of German publisher 10TACLE Studios had some unexpected repercussions on the GTR2 and GT Legends online communities as the Lobby Servers were switched off with little to no warning in the middle of August.

The servers, however, returned online not too long after their demise thanks to a partnership between SimBin, and their partner KGN. “We want to make sure that our fans can continue to enjoy our games online and we are very happy that we could find a fast and positive solution together with KGN,” said Henrik Roos, SimBin CEO. “It is of course sad to hear that our former partner has ended up in this situation.”

Did someone say Schadenfreude? (Just kidding!)

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NEWS

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Lückendorfer Bergrennen For rFactor (Courtesy rFactorCentral) Seems GPL isn’t the only sim lately to turn back the clock to the 1920s for inspiration.

Com8, one of the masterminds behind the Nordschleife for rFactor, has now turned his attention on something pretty new for sim-racing and rFactor in particular: Hillclimbing.

The Lückendorfer Hillclimb is a popular and mythical run in Germany, with the road—that have featured so many of the past masters—winding up through the Zittauer mountains still used today for historic events.

Montreal 2008 Released: Includes Wet Pack!

The Lonely and SLN have released Montreal 2008 for rFactor. Based on ISI’s Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, the track has been heavily reworked with new shaders, corrected track layout, new kerbs, resurfaced corners, new AIW, new bumps, and much more. The track is available as both dry and wet version, bringing Canada’s Grand Prix venue to a whole new level.

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U.K. Rally 1.0—Released Raceking has released UK Rally for rFactor, a tarmac rally track that winds its way through the beautiful U.K. countryside. The track comes with lots of eye candy and details You can find out more here— 35Hhttp://simscreens.blogspot.com/2008/08/rf-porsche-911-at-ukrally.html—about this amazingly atmospheric addition to rFactor.

Simply breathtaking! www.autosimsport.net

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GTR Evolution Mini-review {This review was previously published at VirtualR.net. AUTOSIMSPORT will feature a full review of SimBin’s two new sims—GTR Evolution, and The Swedish Touring Car Championship—in our next issue since the release of the latter is imminent, the former too close to the release of this issue for a full review.} GTR Evolution After two WTCC-based RACE titles, Simbin is back in a proven environment by releasing GTR Evolution. Is the newest SimBin tile just what GTR2 fans have been waiting for? Have the passing years meant that SimBin have been able to replace the departure of Bliney!Games, the de facto developers of GTR2? Let’s find out …

GTR Evolution is sold both as expansion to RACE07, and as standalone game. Since most of you are probably aware of the RACE07 content, this review will solely focus on the new content that GTR Evolution brings into the mix.

GTR, GT Legends, GTR2 and RACE. All these Simbin/Blimey! titles have one thing in common: They focus on a single licensed series. RACE07, however, saw SimBin depart from this format, offering a more generalized vision of simulated racing, and GTR Evolution is a further step into that direction.

Which clearly makes the name a bit of an anomaly (though, clearly, using the GTR brand is a wise option) since what we have here is not so much GTR3 as RACE, Evolution.

Those expecting an advancement of GTR2—you can turn away now …

The Cars GTR Evolution features a heap of new cars in three different categories. Previously featured cars from GTR2 are paired up with brand new GT machines such as the Aston Martin DBR9, and more exotic race cars like the Audi R8 GT. Porsche and Ferrari fans will not be happy with GTR Evolution, though, as the game lacks both prestigious marques due to what is probably a licensing problem. SimBin has, however, packed up a very exiting mix of cars that represent almost all concepts of modern GT racing.

While the cars themselves are real, the liveries aren’t. GTR Evolution isn’t based on any real-life series, and the liveries are largelyfictional. Even though some real cars like the Gulf Works Aston Martin can be found, most cars sport fictional liveries that have been sponsored by various companies.

The positive side of this is that SimBin had remarkable artistic freedom, allowing them to balance the cars for close racing. Instead of one or two ‘killer-cars’ in each class, every GT car in GTR Evolution is competitive within its class. Purists, perhaps, won’t be too happy.

This does not mean that all cars drive or handle the same, though. Indeed, ery car still has realistic and unique physics. While the Audi R8 GT is a handful to drive, the Corvette C6.R is easier to be quick with—in theory, and depending on your driving skills. This will

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benefit online racing as nobody will be forced to drive a certain car just because it’s the most competitive.

Alongside the GTs, the game brings another new class of cars—‘WTCC Extreme’. For the first time ever, a SimBin game includes completely fictional cars as SimBin takes the World Touring Car Championship to a level never before imagined. So let’s imagine it alongside SimBin. What if WTCC cars had 600BHP engines, wide-body kits, and rear wheel drive? WTCC Extreme is the answer, and they’re a blast to drive.

There are four different cars here from Chevrolet, BMW, SEAT and, Alfa, making for a total of thirteen cars.

Finally, GTR Evolution also features some road going sports cars. While the Nürburgring Nordschleife surely calls for some road cars, it’s somewhat disappointing to see the limited amount here. You can choose from the Gumpert Apollo, Audi R8, Dodge Viper, and ever-present of late Koenigsegg. Why no BMW? Or Aston Martin? Or Corvette? All of them are included in the GT classes, so one assumes the license was their to exploit … but alas it wasn’t …

So, in three classes of cars, we have the GT cars (that have been a little modified to facilitate closer online racing), the WTCC cars (which have been completely fictionalized), and, finally, a paltry four road-going cars …

The Track GTR Evolution adds only one track to the RACE07 lineup of circuits, and if you don’t know what, you’ve obviously been missing out on the biggest marketing trip of the sim-racing year. Yes, we’re talking about the mother of them all! For the first time since GP Legends, a PC simulation features the Nürburgring Nordschleife in all its glory. Feared, respected, and loved by many (though those who were really quick here always hated the place), the Nürburgring Nordschleife is the ultimate test for every driver’s skills, a sixteen-mile string of corners, crests and bends that requires an amazing dedication to get right.

GTR Evolution includes the Nordschleife Tourist version, the VLN version which combines the short version of the GP track with the Nordschleife, as well as the GP circuit alone. Interestingly, the GP circuit already includes the new main grandstand which, in reality, is not much more than a big hole in the ground right now.

Graphics GTR Evolution utilises the well known gMotor engine from ISI that has powered all past GTR and RACE titles. This engine has been pretty much exhausted of its last human remains by now by SimBin, so don’t expect it to do anything more than it has been doing for a while now. The usual SimBin eye-candy—like animated driver arms, rain, working wipers, exhaust fumes, and such—are all there. Sadly, the

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NEWS animated pit crew from GTR2 has not been included, and the pit lane is a ghost town again, devoid of any immersion.

The new cars fit in right with the ‘old’ models from GTR2, professionally modeled like one would expect. Again, there is no quantum leap here, nothing to be too stunned about. It’s all quality work, but not exactly pushing the envelope. There’s not much to complain about the cars, despite some ugly low-res textures in the street car cockpits.

Perhaps SimBin are saving their best for their upcoming debut on the XBOX with RACE Pro which will feature their in-house Lizard engine?

Track graphics, on the other hand, are top notch. Even though the Nordschleife is four to five times longer than your usual race track, SimBin has made no compromise, and created a stunning representation of the ‘green hell’. This should come as no surprise since, as I have said, it’s the only new track in GTR Evo. The track layout is one hundred percent spot on, every kerb and bump is where it belongs. The only major graphical flaw of the Nordschleife ist the missing draw distance as hills and trees can be seen popping up in the distance at some points, even with the highest possible graphic settings.

While the overall quality of the track is much better than any modding Nordschleife, SimBin’s Ring does lack a little when it comes to atmosphere. While the rFactor Nordschleife (which is also available for RACE07) comes with plenty of atmospheric details such as campers, fans and campfires besides the road, SimBin’s Nordschleife feels a little empty when it comes to trackside objects.

Even worse, there are no tree shadows at all, which robs us of the almost claustrophobic atmosphere of some track parts where the shadows of the dense forest make the track appear even narrower that it actually is.

But, those details aside, the Nordschleife comes close to being brilliant. Personally, I’ve never felt too comfortable on any modded Nordschleife. This is by no means meant to be disrespectful towards the creators, it’s just a feeling I can’t explain. On the GTR Evolution Nordschleife, I felt right at home, and was instantly able to find a good rhythm and get comfortable with the track. It’s easy to become addicted to it as every lap provides seven to nine minutes of pure joy—or eternal hell, for those who never make it around.

Sounds Unlike the graphics, some real improvement can be found in the sound department. In the past, SimBin has had mixed luck with sounds. GTR2 had some painfully wrong ones, and I wasn’t too impressed by the RACE sounds either. GTR Evolution changes all that: The new cars sound excellent.

It’s not just that most of the sounds are pretty much spot on, as much as the fact that the cars now sound more … alive. You don’t have the feeling of listening to a repeated

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continued sound sample, but rather, it’s as if you are listening to a race car at work with all the screaming, squealing, pinging, and whining that is involved.

Talking about squealing, tyre sounds are very prominent in GTR Evolution, giving you excellent feedback.

Physics And Force Feedback Here we’re into a touchy subject that will need weeks of testing … what follows, therefore, is only my opinion. The physics have been improved over GTR2 as the car is giving even better feedback now. If you’re one of those who feel that realism equals difficulty, GTR Evolution will probably not be your cup of tea though.

The cars feel pretty grippy out-of-the-box. I’m not saying that GTR Evolution is easy to handle, not at all—once you drive the Audi R8 GT on the Nordschleife, you’ll have your hands full of keeping the car both at a quick pace and in control—but there is a lot of grip available here.

Force-Feedback has also been improved, giving you excellent feedback on what the car is doing. Combined with the new tyre sounds, there really is no shortage of feedback while driving.

Settings and Surroundings When you’re used to GTR2, or rFactor, you’ll feel a little let down by the way that GTR Evolution restricts certain options. The sleek menu design is both good looking and easy to handle, sadly it does not offer the same customizing options offered by other

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NEWS simulations. The basics are all there. You can either run a test session, a single race, or a fully-customised championship. You can switch from touring car to GT rules by a simple click. The GT racing rules have not been fully included, though.

Why can we only race against twenty-five opponents even though some classes and most tracks are able to handle more cars? Why can’t races be longer than 120 minutes?

RACE07 was made with sprint racing in mind, and its mind-set has eased into GTR Evolution.

Night racing is not supported, either, and you can’t even set a custom start time. Even though the car setup is as extensive as you would expect it to be, why is there only one slick compound to choose from? All this shows that the GT cars are just an add-on (or perhaps an afterthought) to a touring car/sprint racing simulation.

continued The bottom line is: If you’re looking for the modding freedom ala rFactor, the amount of settings and endurance racing abilities of GTR2, or a whole new, ground breaking simulation, you’ll be disappointed with GTR Evolution.

If you love the Nordschleife, and want a good looking, great sounding, feeling and challenging simulation with good stock content, then this is for you. GTR Evolution does not raise the bar, but it provides great driving pleasure on the most challenging race track in the world.

Performance And Modding When it comes to hardware requirements, rule of thumb is that if RACE07 ran fine for you, you won’t be having any problems with GTR Evolution. The Nordschleife is quite a hardware hog, though, and even if it runs smooth for most of the time, be prepared for the occasional slow down here and there.

Those of you hoping for a new modding-friendly simulation, turn away now—all the files are yet again encrypted. However, there is a certain degree of modding support as RACE07 addon tracks work like a charm in GTR Evolution, and SimBin officially supports community painted skins, and will, by all accounts, release a painting templates soon.

Conclusion So, let’s get to the all important question: Is GTR Evolution worth its price? This question is not as easy to answer this time as GTR Evolution comes both as an addon-package to RACE07, and as full version including RACE07.

If you love GT racing and/or the Nordschleife, the twenty Euros are well spent on the expansion pack. You won’t find a better Nordschleife anywhere in the sim-racing world, and the GT cars are a blast to drive despite the simulation not being fully suited to endurance racing.

If you’re just after the WTCC Extreme and/or the road cars, the pack provides a little less value. Even though the WTCC Extreme cars are fun, there are simply not enough of them for proper racing. And the four road cars don’t really justify the price either.

Speaking about the full version, GTR Evolution is easily worth its price if you like road racing. The full game provides a stunning amount of tracks and cars that represent almost every form of modern circuit racing. Looking at what other companies charge for that kind of content, GTR Evolution is a bargain - Especially in the U.S. where the full version is sold for a ridiculous price of just twenty dollars.

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For once the Artificial Intelligence promises to be much smarter than the real-world drivers they’re based around—as anyone who has raced against Bob Simmerman will readily attest to. www.autosimsport.net

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Fromadge Frei

COMMENT Spadge Fromley iRacing. uRacing? lxcertainlyisn'tRacing iRacing was released in an orkut kind of semi-open invite system, and gets ‘fully doors open’ to the fraternity soon, if it hasn't done so already. Question is: will this make the quality of online racing better or worse? Time will tell.

There is already an active area filled with discussion over at our forums, so pop in and have a chat about it.

Alex Martini (whose blurb you ignored at the front of this mag if you have any sense left whatsoever—although that begs the question, why the heck are you reading this bit?) is already banned {though this time he banned himself!} from their forums, like so many other forums including, but not limited to, RaceSimZilla, and a few times even at AUTOSIMSPORT, and has vowed to never set wheel on any track in the sim ever again. So if you were iLooking for an iReason to iGet in on the iAction, there's the best one to date; you're totally safe from the Italian hotlapping menace wrecker (who races under the number ‘00’), both on the track and off it. Hell, even I would pay six quid per month for that sort of thing.

Smokin'Bob Smokes And Bobs For Video Game Fame Our very own media sensation and all round nice guy Bob Simmerman appears in GTR Evolution, and this time he’s got his clothes on. So if you see someone parked on the racing line in the middle of the slowest corner on the track on lap forty-something, you know who to blame.

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It was revealed to me exclusively by a secret source that, after he'd clinched the deal getting his name in the game, Bob went out and lined up ten shots of Jack Daniels. He has since commented that he didn't drink the last two, though, because, ‘If the first eight didn't take the taste away, there didn't seem much point carrying on.’

R.A.C.E.R. Is Dead—Long Live R-O-M! RACER closed its rFactor-racer website, re-opening under the name of ‘Race-Online-Motorsports’ with an all-new philosophy. From here on in. it's going to be all about the mini-season. Kicking off at the end of August with the Cart '95 in rFactor (you've not got long to sign up, unless it's too late already!), we will see the much respected and acclaimed F1 mini-season return later in the year, and some other really cool stuff in between.

The name-change has been mostly to reflect that the sport has changed from being a predominantly rFactor based one (sorry LFS people, I know you disagree, and probably quite rightly, just not in my world), to some new titles that are well worth the time and effort if that's your thing. Like ARCA, and iRacing, for starters. Single weekend events are going to be a lot more ‘for fun’ and casually put together.

The old Crash Test Dummies' Friday Nite Fight (remember those, Bob?) is still hosted over at ROM, as it has been every Friday for a couple of years now. If you've never joined one, get over there this Friday. 8PM EST start.

There will be forty-five mins practice, fifteen minutes

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qualifying, five minutes warmup/loo-break/smokebreak/whatever, then the one hour timed race. Different car/track combo each week, picked in advance by the winner of the race four weeks ago. Join us!

More Power And Glory To You! I recently got my hands on a beta release of P&G v2.0 for GTR2. Suffice to say it is amazing, and I hear the next update will be even better. I can't wait to run that 275 Speciale around LeMans again.

That's All folks!

And see? I haven’t bashed RSZ once in this issue! So expect a double dose next time, you bastards …

Volume 4 Number 4

FORCE-FEEDBACK “The madness of Steam and SimBin” Dear Sir, Here’s the question: I live in the U.S. and can either buy SimBin’s GTR Evolution from Steam for $35.99 … or go down to my local Best Buy and get it new for $19.99, complete with a box, a manual, and—Steam. So since Steam is a direct download from the Internet, and the box isn’t, which do you suppose costs more to produce? And why, then, is it that the Steam version is close to doubt the price?

P.S: I landed up buying it from Amazon.com instead, for $19,99.

—Andy Taylor LETTER OF THE MONTH “Enough Already!”

Dear Sir, I just don’t get it! Over on every forum people keep saying the same stupid thing—you can’t compare iRacing to GTR Evolution, you can’t compare iRacing to SimBin, blab la bla! Why the hell not? This is like saying I can’t compate a VW Beetle to a Ferrari! Why not? They’re both cars, aren’t they? They both have engines, and four wheels, so why the hell can’t I cpmpare the two?

It’s almost as if these SimBin fanboys have admitted that their beloved developer has now ceased making simulators, and therefore comparing it to the current Gold Standard of simulators is somehow out of bounds. But do they say as much? Of course not—what they say is, ‘you can’t compare the two’. Well, I can and I think your magazine should as well!

—Stefan Wurz

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Winners The Winner of last issue’s Forza2 Competition was Huggo de Aquino, from Brazil.

Thanks for playing, Huggo!

The question was: In the original Forza Motorsport, what is the longest multiplayer race allowed at the Nordschleife if the average lap is eight minutes?

The answer: 75 laps. The race lasts about 10 hours with an inutes average laptime.

The Winner of last issue’s NASCAR09 was Allen Lewis, who correctly responded with Joey Logano.

LETTER OF THE MONTH WINS A TRUCKER’S CAP …

SEND YOUR LETTERS TO

LETTERS@AUTOSIMSPORT.NET

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Volume 4 Number 4

THE MASTERS OF MASS.

Photo Details: This Page: 34 Crosby Drive: 11,000 sq ft iRc Offices Page 23: Dave Kaemmer & Ian Berwick at iRc Offices Page 25: TIRF Control Room: Monitor Page 26: Dave Kaemmer & Ian Berwick Examine a Tyre Between Runs at TIRF Page 28: Ian & Dave Examine Tyre Data Page 29: Point Cloud: Miller Motorsports Park: Surface View Page 31: Point Cloud: Miller Motorsports Park: Overhead View of Circuit Page 33: 1970's F1 Driver Howden Ganley Tries Out His Redesign of Silverstone GP on iRc Sim, fellow F1 Driver Divina Galica Coaches ‌

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iRacing

JONDENTON

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The Masters Of Mass.

Jon Denton (along with Alison Hine, and Aris Vasilakos) joins Dave Kaemmer, race engineer Ian Berwick, and Steve Potter on a guided tour of the past, present, and future …

This is the new benchmark in terms of driving feel, hands down. Personally, I got so hooked-up with it that I found myself driving the sim in single practice, for hours with no break, simply because of the sheer amount of pleasure that this experience gave me.

It's actually quite difficult to describe the feel without drifting into cliché. I could talk about how realistic it is, and how the car always reacts in a ‘proper’ manner, but you all know that, and we keep saying similar things for every new www.autosimsport.net

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continued “The graphics engine is all new, and that is really written to take advantage of the modern graphics cards. Going forward, probably the biggest issue looks to be being able to utilize multi-core CPUs, and already we’re starting to take advantage of that. I believe that now, if you have a two-core CPU, it will use them both pretty fully.”

—Dave Kaemmer “We had, for every car, full shop access: We didn’t need to strip them down though {as rumour has it} because most race teams have spares … Basically, being able to weigh the components gave us the opportunity to figure out all the individual inertia parameters, and significant physical parameters.”

—Ian Berwick

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On why the decision to use N2003 as base for iRacing’s new simulator …

DAVE: That code base was the culmination of years of work starting with the Grand Prix Legends code base. It has in it some great pieces of technology, and we didn’t {think it necessary} to rewrite the entire physics engine, nor the multiplayer packet stuff, or {the} things having to do with track representation: There’re a zillion things in there that are still sitting around for us to hook back in, so—a parallel would be {to look at the N2003 code} as a donor car.

We did, in a sense, make the decision to start from scratch, but we did so pulling code over from the N2003 engine because there is so much stuff in there, so many years of work, and a lot of it is very good.

On what remains from N2003 …

DAVE: We are re-using the multi-body physics code, and some of the track representation code which goes hand-in-hand with the physics, and a lot of the multiuser packet code is similar, though there is new information.

Everything else has changed: With the physics, we have rewritten the way cars are structured in terms of the force elements in the car. Also, the tyre model is new—there is a lot that is new, in other words, but the core multi-body system remains the same.

On whether the N2003 engine could be a liability going forward as PCs become more sophisticated …

continued

IAN: We had, for every car, full shop access: We didn’t need to strip them down though {as rumour has it} because most race teams have spares … Basically, being able to weigh the components gave us the opportunity to figure out all the individual inertia parameters, and significant physical parameters, Most of the time the teams had some aero’ data, as well, for the cars, which also plays into it. We also had the CAD files and things like that, depending on the team …

DAVE: Because all of our content is licensed—all nonexclusive but licensed—total access to the cars came with that. This was a critical part of the business model.

On weight distribution, inertia figures, and other ‘numbers’ …

“If we don’t have the aero’ data in a format we can directly use, or if we have coast-down tests, or plots of acceleration curves and top speeds, knowing what we know from the other numbers, we will work backwards to find the things we don’t know.”—Dave Kaemmer The GPL code was an all-new engine, and it was only brought into the NASCAR series with N4: But GPL was started as a completely new engine. And that brings up an interesting point because, as you know, GPL didn’t have that much in the way of race control, pitstops, and that sort of thing {in it} as compared to even our earlier NASCAR sims.

When you start from scratch, you don’t have that old stuff anymore, and you need to build it all in, and that was what a lot of the work for N4 was. And we faced somewhat the same thing here—although we’re using a good bit of the code base to build this, a lot of it is new.

There are things in the N2003 code base that, in order to use them {in iRacing}, would take a lot of translation into the new ways we’re representing tracks, and the different things we’re doing with multiplayer, and so on.

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On how total access to the cars revolutionized the process of creating a simulator …

IAN: Yes, I’ve done everything I can do to make the corner loads match up with the actual cars.

DAVE: There’s always the impression—that is, the marketing guy always makes it sound perfect, spot-on with nothing left to guess work, but—well, guess work no, but there are numbers that are always difficult to gather. A lot of the cars—while we might have exact masses and weight distribution, and exact masses for the moving suspension pieces, and so forth—it’s still tricky to find the exact inertia values. {For instance}, there are some cars where we have the measured inertia values— which is great—and, {since} we have processes whereby we identify those inertia values, we can {therefore} double check {our values} against the cars {for which} we have the actual values.

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DAVE: No, I don’t think so; the pieces we’re re-using are all perfectly fine pieces as long they continue to build Intel CPUs that can run this code. The graphics engine is all new, and that is really written to take advantage of the modern graphics cards. Going forward, probably the biggest issue looks to be being able to utilize multicore CPUs, and already we’re starting to take advantage of that. I believe that now, if you have a two-core CPU, it will use them both pretty fully—and I believe there’s some stuff in there that can take advantage of three, and we have ideas on how to take advantage of more. {But as I said}, that is the challenge going forward.

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We check that in order to refine our processes. {In other words, we use these numbers to validate our processes: Since not all cars have these figures, we use those cars whose values we do have to validate our process, and therefore apply that to the cars for which we do not have these values.} Sometimes {for instance}, if we don’t have the aero’ data in a format we can directly use, or if we have coast-down tests, or plots of acceleration curves and top speeds, knowing what we know from the other numbers, we will work backwards to find the things we don’t know. We therefore have a process for finding the numbers, and we do it as accurately as we possibly can—we try never to guess!

IAN: Also, unlike a process where people are guessing about a car they don’t really have access to, our suspension curves are accurate—they are exact. As is camber gain.

DAVE: You can tell {the accuracy} in the cars we have modeled now: More than in any sim I remember, the cars really feel markedly different, and they do so in a way that mirrors what they do in real life.

I’ve driven the Skip Barber car a lot, and I know that this is very close to the real one: I’ve driven a Legends car a little bit, too, and that seems pretty close: I’ve driven a Late Model, and again, the way it feels and moves around on track and its response, seems pretty accurate. But all those cars feel very different from each other.

“We’ve always tried to make something that is relevant to real racers, and where you can learn something about racing this race car at this race track. Basically we make it so sim-time is good worthwhile seat time, and we never stop trying to find what the limits of the envelope are.”

—Dave Kaemmer

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On Tyres: iRacing had access to a tyre-testing facility where they went through thousands of tyres on a test-bed …

DAVE: We went through millions actually! Millions! We laugh about it, because, as the stories go around, the numbers always tend to grow … more accurately, we went through tens of tyres but, more importantly, we came up with a custom programme for testing those tyres.

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“We have an advantage because we’ve been working for so many years on tyres, and how they behave—and learning what works and what doesn’t, both from operators in the closed loop giving us feedback, as well as research and finding out more and more about rubber …”

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continued

We tested a number of things for which we hadn’t found any data, such as the behaviour of tyres when you vary the pressure, or as you vary the load, or as you vary the camber a lot, and also looking at effects that happen at varying speed.

We did a bunch of custom tests to find some baseline numbers {in order} to see what happens with tyres. We {also needed to find out what happens with} different carcass construction, slicks versus treads, and a range of rubber compounds—so that’s really what we did there— a lot of what we have learnt hasn’t been incorporated into the tyre model actually, and we’re always working to improve it.

IAN: Essentially, your racing sim is only as good as your tyres …

DAVE: There are some rules of thumb, too: Every tyre varies, even in the same manufacturing run of the same tyres, the variations can vary by quite a lot, you’d be surprised—even up to ten percent—so to say you have the tyre numbers exactly right is—impossible. The differences in construction—a lot of these race tyres are made not in large batches anyway, and a lot of the cords are laid up by hand— {results in many things that can happen} which will make each and every tyre different. This is maybe an advantage of iRacing, because everybody is on the same tyre.

But within the different types of cars, generally the tyres are designed around a certain load they carry, so their carcasses are constructed in certain ways, their tread depths are different, and the compounds they use all depend on what’s going to happen to them on the race track. The more we learn about how they’re put together, the better, because we can’t always get all the numbers that we need to perfectly reproduce everything we need by table lookup, so a lot of times we have to extrapolate beyond where the data is measured, and we like to do it in a way that—as much as possible—maps out to a theory that makes good sense. That’s what we’re after when we test these tyres.

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IAN: A predictive model.

DAVE: {We do this also by} getting feedback from real drivers who use the service—they can confirm or deny questions that we have; how quickly the grip goes away, if they’re sliding, a whole host of things. They’re really quite complex, the tyres, how we model them at this point.

On whether anyone can ever model a tyre perfectly accurately …

DAVE: I’m in a unique position where I get to be somewhat of a tyre ‘idiot savant’; not many people get to spend so much time with so much data as I do. This is partly because of what we’re trying to achieve—we’re so focused on that: We’ve always tried to make something that is relevant to real racers, and where you can learn something about racing this race car at this race track.

Basically we make it so sim-time is good worthwhile seat

model. I would say that they are pretty different—from N2003’s; we’re able to currently cover a far greater range of performance for lots of different tyres and loads. There are still things that are not one hundred percent correct, but we’re always working on that, and I think you can feel that they are definitely different.

On no direct NASCAR comparison …

DAVE: The Late Model is somewhat similar, but a lot less power.

IAN: That’s the way it is. It’s a short track car. The Cup cars with restrictor plates don’t have that much more power, though—about 440BHP. On tyres: By now, many of the people in iRacing have blown tyres, so we know tyre wear is being modeled to the extent that, if the tread is worn down far enough, the tyre can lose air. But exactly what’s being modeled? The

continued

and how that affects the grip is in there. A great many effects are there. You mention, ‘the change in the rubber’s characteristics when subjected to heat over time?’ That is a good point, that’s not currently there—essentially the way the tyres will cook themselves and cure more as they maintain temperature—all these things we are looking to get in there at some point.

On how updates effect the overall lap times and will this mean laptimes will eventually become irrelevant benchmarks …

DAVE: This is also true in real-life—records are set by drivers on tyres which then, once the manufacturers are no longer battling each other for softer compounds, can’t come back and run those numbers; lap times skewed by temperature, and air density {also play a role}, and while that is constant in all sessions {in iRacing}, that’s another thing we will starting changing soon—racing can be {a tricky place} in which to compare lap times.

“We have taken the time to get the self-aligning torque numbers correct, and how that varies with load and pressure, and everything else, so it’s really a matter of turning the actual forces of the tyre into what you feel through the wheel.”—Dave Kaemmer time, and we never stop trying to find what the limits of the envelope are: What in the sim might not be modeled that well, what makes a difference, what doesn’t make such a big difference, {too}, because we need to figure out what to tackle next.

We have an advantage because we’ve been working for so many years on tyres, and how they behave—and learning what works and what doesn’t, both from operators in the closed loop giving us feedback, as well as research and finding out more and more about … rubber … {This experience is what gives us an advantage} …

On what remains of the N2003 tyre model …

DAVE: Mostly in the way the tyre model is called, and what the parameters come up with going into that

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change in rubber softness with depth? The change in grip with heat, and the change in the rubber’s characteristics when subjected to heat over time?

DAVE: The list is pretty long as to what is being modeled. For tyre wear, we could have a more developed model, {since} we model only a single number currently, which is tyre wear, and there would {have to} be quite a few numbers in order to do flat spots, and to think about inside, middle, and outside tyre wear.

We currently model wear to the most worn part of the tyre, and that’s sufficient to make it so that you don’t want to overuse your tyre: Other than that, we do model the change in tread depth, and how that affects the tyre, heat,

If we were to make a wholesale change that would invalidate earlier times, {then} we may start to roll those records back—but I don’t know though, the changes won’t be that dramatic. The changes right now in the tyres are less likely to affect the laptimes as they are to affect the controllability of the car—like when you put a wheel on a kerb and crossweight the car, for instance, or overheat the tyres, and things like that.

We definitely want to do flat spots—at some point (obviously we have a long list of things we want to do)— and that is one of the things I am excited about, this new way of reaching the market {because} we can keep updating and everyone will see these improvements over time.

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“The other thing, someone saying there’s too much grip, for instance leads to the question: How much is too much? One percent, two percent? A tyre that falls off in the life of a run generally doesn’t have a significant loss in performance—we’re talking two-to-three percent total—and yet drivers are saying, ‘it’s junk, it’s gone’.”

—Ian Berwick

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continued

On the physics engine’s frequency of refresh …

DAVE: 360Hz. We have found that, for the kind of frequencies of vibration we are able to model, and for stiffly sprung cars, this is a good rate, and we can change it as we go forward; that’s one of the things we can dial up when people get faster PCs, with multi-cores—we can use one for the physics, for instance.

On windtunnels …

DAVE: It’s still a work in progress. We’ve gotten some numbers for some of the cars using it, but for the moment we’ve been sticking more to numbers we have collected from the teams …

IAN: We’re talking about a virtual tunnel here.

DAVE: We have data for some of the cars that have been in tunnels, but we use that for comparison. That’s just one of those things where we have to try and figure out numbers that are not generally known to anyone; for instance, what are the coefficients and moments for a car that is sliding backwards, or sideways, or upside down, or what have you.

It’s amazing how very tiny things can affect the aero’, can affect cars’ aero’ in pretty large ways; even little winglets, or wickerbills, placed strategically, can dramatically change the drag on a car, so to some degree we use that as a double check, as one of the processes to see if these numbers make sense: {Using this} we can get a general idea what the car will do if it is facing an odd direction but—{in essence} it’s another tool at our disposal.

How sensitive are the aero’-cars? How many hot spots …

DAVE: We model a table of coefficients using things like the yaw angle, and pitch angle to the relevant wind, and so on.

Which, if you’re being strictly anal about it, {will mean these} coefficients do change with the Reynolds number, and the Reynolds number will vary as you change the car’s speed, but for the most part those changes are pretty small, and we’re more concerned with how those numbers are near top speeds, or near the racing regime, anyway.

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continued

On weather …

DAVE: Of those pieces we have in there from N2003; at this point the only tricky thing is—the way we’ve structured the service, we have to work it in in such a way that qualifying and time trials are always using fixed weather for an entire week, while practice and races will have differing weather. We laugh about how many people will be online when the qualifying session will be in the rain.

“We look at the point cloud, and build a very accurate bumpmap of the track, so essentially—there’s a view in there, and you can look at the error between the scanned point and the physical surface that we use in the sim once that bumpmap is built. We generally see that there the errors less than a couple of millimeters everywhere—and less than that because the aggregate averaging tends to tighten it up.”

—Dave Kaemmer

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On why the decision not to use the N2003 drivetrain …

DAVE: In what ways is it not the same? It’s actually largely based on same code, but again, there are a lot of little things that have been added, capabilities that we put in so we could attach all the different pieces of the drivetrain to the correct cars: For instance, some cars will have the diff’ attached to the chassis, others to the axle, and all those things affect how the torque paths travel through the car but—it’s pretty much—we have a new model for a Detroit locker diff’ which is commonly used in the U.S., which is better, but a lot of the drivetrain is similar. We actually have set up the code to begin to take into account damage from mis-matched shifts, or abuse … {As for the damage modeling}, N2003 does have some damage modeling which we don’t have turned on because it doesn’t match up with the code changes we have done—we will get to that.

On clutch modeling …

DAVE: That’s something that is always a question for debate. I think that once we do a better job with the drivetrain and the engine, especially at low RPM and starting from a stop, use of the clutch will probably become more important. Either that, or we must do a better job creating an auto-clutch, The way I see it, simulating the starting of a race car from a stop is probably not what most of our customers want to

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practice. In real-life, that can be downright frustrating, {and while} that is a good thing to learn, if we went full realism on that score, you might find that a lot of people will take a long time to even pull out of the pits!

It is modeled pretty well {at present} if you use it— Grant Reeve was just pointing out it is faster to use the clutch with the Mazda, and not dump it into first gear, which is probably one of the primary complaints people have—it’s not realistic to just rev the engine and dump it into first gear. We’ll definitely be doing something about

guess, right now the brakes are idealized brakes, {in that} they don’t take time to build coefficient of friction with heat, and there is no way to damage them other than ripping a wheel off—we plan to address all of this.

On drivetrain wear and failures from bad shifts; will there eventually be some sort of lockout which prevents improper shifts, such as changing gears without using the clutch in a car with a synchromesh transmission? And is there a plan to encourage people

continued

an ignition cut—so all they do is pull the gear back and go, on the upshift, and on the downshift, the drivers literally blip it and stick it—Formula Atlantic have been that way for years in the U.S., and the drivers who get it really right can gain a few-tenths a lap.

Pretty much any small-engined car with a dog-ring gearbox is gonna be like that—clutchless upshift and downshift.

On the feel of the gear shifts …

“Even though you wouldn’t know there was a tree at a specific point, or anything, if you’ve done laps at Lime Rock, your brain has recorded that there are trees there, or a sequence of trees in exactly this spot … “ —Dave Kaemmer that pretty soon, but even so, we may well have an autoclutch feature that enables you to get away from a standing start. I imagine {though} that there will be a performance advantage if you use your own clutch.

On plans to model brake wear and fade—and whether this will prevent people from unrealistically using throttle against brake to stabilize the car during the corner entry phase, a technique which has been exploited greatly by many drivers in previous sims ... will this ever be addressed?

DAVE: We plan to eventually; there has been a lot of talk of stabilising the car using the brake against the throttle.

It’s hard to say. My feeling is that most of the advantage comes from being able to control the brake bias on the car, which is something that can be done in real-life— and we have some evidence from a couple of people that shows it can be done in real-life (there was a trace of Schumacher doing that very thing). More to the point, I

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to use realistic controls (clutch pedal, H-pattern shifter where appropriate) by penalizing the use of unrealistic driver aids like auto-clutch, auto-blip, and—in cars that have H-pattern gearboxes— sequential shifters?

DAVE: Tricky because, unlike the real world, people only have one set of controls on their PC, and they need to use those controls to control what, in the cars we’re modeling, are different controls. Our feeling is that, as long as we stick to a reasonable interpretation of what they’re doing with their controls, that’s okay—as for auto aids, sometimes people don’t have clutches or pedals that they can effectively heal-and-toe with, for instance—so to some degree we need to help people out, and generally they’re not huge aids anyway, and I think most have found they’re faster with those aids off.

IAN: {In addition}, not every car requires a clutch for upshift or downshift—the Formula Mazda, for example, {requires} the drivers to typically shift with no lift—just

IAN: I’m not sure {it’s that critical}—in Formula Atlantics, drivers were saying it was more of a rhythm than feel issue because they’re downshifting as fast as they can brake, literally jamming gears down—and they destroy dog-rings every session for those that aren’t that good at it. That was what testing came down to, getting the rhythm down—even in Formula Mazda, where you can slow down very quickly, you may not have the feel through the gear shift, but you can feel the rhythm, and you can feel the mismatch, and I can feel it ‘cause I do it all the time! It strongly develops the sense of rhythm that you can carry on to any car.

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DAVE: We have done a bunch of changes in the last couple of months to improve the way those different peripherals work, so there’s no advantage between an H-pattern to sequential shifter—that had been the case, up to that point, which generated some controversy.

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On match-making; will there be a way to race only with people—say—who are not using auto-aids, and are using H-shifters?

DAVE: We have not really been thinking about that too much. My guess is, if it is something that the community was ‘clammering’ for, we could find a way to limit it somehow, and make a series that required it, but it is not something that has been on our radar.

“We can scan a mile in an eight hour day. A crew will work longer than that, though, and a lot of times they will work at night, ‘cause it’s the only time it’s open, and you can’t scan when it’s raining.”

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On tracks …

DAVE: The laser scanning technology is a new technology that was developed probably a decade ago now, then used a lot in the surveying field. Basically, the surveyors we contracted with when we first started this said, ‘it’s a tool that allows you to survey a million points in the amount of time it would usually take you to survey four or five’. And that’s what you get, 3D points: {That is}, you get a position, generally of a solid object, and a reflection value—how brightly the laser was reflected from that point. When we set the scanner up, we can typically scan about a mile in eight hours, and once we’ve scanned a full facility, we end up with hundreds of millions of survey points which are all accurately positioned.

IAN: Up to a quarter of a billion …

DAVE: We have tools that let us fly around those point clouds, and build tracks that match them perfectly.

IAN: Even the stuff like the tree lines is perfectly positioned …

DAVE: We found that there are a number of things {for which laser scanning offers an improvement over other forms of track creation}. It eases the problem of building the track geometry itself because there are tools to trace it, and set the elevation and grade, et cetera. We look at the point cloud, and build a very accurate bumpmap of the track, so essentially—there’s a view in there, and you can look at the error between the scanned point and the

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physical surface that we use in the sim once that bumpmap is built. We generally see that there the errors less than a couple of millimeters everywhere—and less than that because the aggregate averaging tends to tighten it up.

IAN: There are laser scanning websites, and three slick laser scanning magazines in the U.S., and they’re all quite fascinated by what we’re doing—how interesting, after all, is it to go through a petroleum refinery? I saw a thing over the weekend—these organic farmers {were using} laser scanning to lay out rows of greens—and so the mechanized picking works perfectly! {In other words}, there’s laser scanning and there’s laser scanning; there are those you toss in the back of truck and drive around, and those are okay for roughly mapping highways, but you need to use laser scanning that has the kind of accuracy that we have in order to get the kind of results we get, otherwise you get—the accuracy is only ten centimeters.

DAVE: When we send a crew out to laser scan a track— we have built our own platform to hold the laser, because it helps us to be able to move it more quickly—it’s all battery powered, and the scanning guys can sit in the warmth of a car and operate it off a laptop. Every scan that they take {means they have to} level the tripod {on which the scanner sits}, and over a period of time—a scan can take fifty minutes or so—even in that period of time, a tripod leg can move a couple of millimetres in asphalt because they tend to sink with time. We can see that change at the end of the scan, and our software will take into account those errors and correct them—it’s pretty cool stuff.

On the time it takes to scan …

DAVE: A mile in an eight hour day. A crew will work longer than that, though, and a lot of times they will work at night, ‘cause it’s the only time it’s open, and you can’t scan when it’s raining. At Virgina International {for instance},

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scanning took a couple of weeks because it rained for eight days while they were there, and there’s five miles of track— STEVE: It was snowing in Watkins Glen …

DAVE: So it can always be a challenge, but generally the scanning takes the least amount of time of any of the pieces—critical, but not time-consuming. The most timeconsuming is building the 3D objects—the scanning helps with those because we can pull those point clouds into 3ds Max, and the artists create the models in exactly the right scale, with the windows in exactly the right spot, et cetera, and it is placed in exactly the right spot because they’re using the existing co-ordinate system from the point cloud.

I also tell the story … we were building Lime Rock Park—which was our first test of the system—and when the artists added the tree canopy, at first they just put in trees to reproduce the canopy, and when we drove around the track, it all looked good but … it didn’t look like Lime Rock. So they went back and they went through the process of placing all the trees that are close to the track exactly where there are tree trunks around the track in real-life, and that transformed it: Even though you wouldn’t know there was a tree at a specific point, or anything, if you’ve done laps there, your brain has recorded that there are trees there, or a sequence of trees in exactly this spot …

IAN: It’s the whole gestalt—there is the tree where I brake—it’s there in that complex thing called vision, your brain says, ‘this is correct’.

continued

currently have a feature map of the track where the grip varies from point to point around the track, but that is one of the things on our to-do list. It is certainly possible for us to dynamically model the track and figure out—oh, every time a car comes through here, they lay down some rubber, and over there is a probability of rubber marbles being thrown off over here—all kinds of things we can do, especially now that we have the accurate bumpmaps—we can accurately model where water will puddle around the track, as well.

On rain on the horizon …

DAVE: It’s not a high priority at the moment, but it is one of those things that drivers would very much like to practice in, and it’s something they don’t have a chance to practice when they want to—and usually when they least want to—but in my experience it’s just not something they want to do: People who drive well in the rain are usually those who don’t like it less than the others don’t like it …

On whether varying friction characteristics of the track surface will eventually be modeled?

DAVE: We do have a number of different surface types that we can use at any tracks, so we have several different grip characteristics, and we have several different asphalt and concrete grip levels as well so—eventually—we don’t

On Force-Feedback …

DAVE: The output to the steering wheel is at a bit of a faster rate than we used to use. The other thing—most of {the improvement has come from the fact that} we have taken the time to get the self-aligning torque numbers correct, and how that varies with load and pressure, and everything else, so it’s really a matter of turning the actual forces of the tyre into what you feel through the wheel.

Some of the cars—the Silver Crown car for instance—the torque path from the front tyres to the wheel won’t transmit a lot of torque because it uses a worm gear at one point, and the feel you get would be very light. Some cars have power steering, and some don’t, but the general magnitude of the force is correct. It’s difficult {however} to calibrate it exactly right since most FFB wheels can’t generate as much force as a real race car’s steering wheel would.

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“We’re always trying to compare the simulated with the real, and this weekend the Formula Mazdas are running at Road America in real-life.

We’re eagerly awaiting what kind of lap times they’re able to do since they’re on radial tyres, which they weren’t on last year, and the track has been changed, and has asphalt run off—both in sim and real life— which they didn’t have last year.”

—Dave Kaemmer F. Mazda At Road America Lap Record Adrian Carrio: 2:03.849 (2006) Fastest Lap August 2008 J.M.Edwards (AIM Autosport): 2:05.275 Fastest Laps: iRacing 1. Greger Huttu: 02:03.954 2. Ilkka Haapala: 02:04.301 3. Ben Cornett: 02:04.589 4. Luke McLean: 02:04.605 5. Domino Duhan: 02:04.612 6. George Sandman: 02:04.882

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On the Solstice—and why we have to suffer …

DAVE: You need to keep in mind what we’re trying to do by having that car as the introductory car {in the service}.

We wanted to pick a car for this service that would give the first time sim-user less of a learning curve—it is a car that you would use out on the street, so it will help you acclimate to the sim because the speeds you achieve, and the kinds of feedback you get from the car, is similar to what you’d get in a road car. In the past, if you take

someone who isn’t familiar with sims, and you throw them into a sim in a car that goes 0-150 in four seconds, they don’t have a good sense of it—and that’s one of the reasons they go flying off at the end of first turn— whereas in a car where you’re more used to the fact that, say, after five seconds you’re going 60MPH, everything about it is more in line with what you’re used to, and this helps you acclimate to the field of view of the sim, and so on—that’s why we wanted to choose a car like that.

The Solstice is a great car {with which} to come to terms with the sim because it is softly sprung, and it will show you right away if you’re not smooth—if you’re

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DAVE: Yes it has power steering …

iRacing

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tossing the car too much, or over-correcting, or jamming on the brakes or gas … it won’t go as fast as when you’re nice and smooth, and get the car turned in gently—doing everything more slowly as you do in a real car {will reward you with more performance}.

A lot of it is—most of the people so far are from the sim-racing community, and are used to driving F1 cars, or GT cars—so it certainly is a step away from those!

IAN: You need soft hands and feet on the controls to drive a car like that. It’s a momentum car, and it was surprising how many people had problems lapping consistently with it.

DAVE: There’s a general impression that stiff springs and dampers must be better but, in fact, for a car that doesn’t have a lot of aero’ download, soft springs and dampers are not a bad thing—they do help the tyres and wheels follow the road bumps better than really stiff springs, and they’re sort of an ideal frequency depending on the mass of the wheels. Back in the ’60s, before they started strapping wings on the cars, the cars had a lot of bump travel and were softly sprung …

IAN: The other thing, someone saying there’s too much grip, for instance {leads to the question}: How much is too much? One percent, two percent? A tyre that falls off in the life of a run generally doesn’t have a significant loss in performance—we’re talking twoto-three percent total—and yet drivers are saying, ‘it’s junk, it’s gone’. So someone that claims there’s a huge difference in performance frequently {means} it’s a small adjustment that we need to make—but just getting to that two-three percent is tough enough ...

DAVE: We’re always trying to compare {the simulated with the real} and this weekend the Formula Mazdas are running at Road America in real-life: We’re eagerly awaiting what kind of lap times they’re able to do since they’re on radial tyres, which they weren’t on last year, and the track has been changed, and has asphalt run off—both in sim and real life—which they didn’t have last year {and which drivers will be able to use to} do lower lap times. Everywhere else our model seems pretty close to what the real cars are achieving—top speeds, cornering speeds, laptimes …

On the real-world Formula Mazda race winner saying the iRacing version has too much mechanical grip and too little aero’ downforce. He said that if he were as aggressive with the wheel in the real-world car as he has to be in the sim, he'd be spinning all over the place. Is he right?

DAVE: We’ve made a modification to the tyres on {the Formula Mazda} with the last patch that was rolled out, and he’s happier with it now—it was actually a small change, but it had to do with the slope of the grip versus sliding speed curve and again, we try and make it as accurate as we can make it—sometimes these numbers are beyond the realm that anyone has measured, but now he is saying it is much closer to what he is used to.

On aero’ damage DAVE: At the moment we are not simulating aero damage.

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On tools … and actual performance data …

DAVE: A lot of the data we have is proprietary data, so we can’t release this to everyone. In the real world, when you spend your fifty thousand dollars or more for a race car, you often get that stuff—here, the most we can do— we’re certainly looking at telemetry at some point so you can measure performance in a more precise way than you can do now, and we are currently working on some setup guides that will explain what the systems do, and how they will change things, but as far as providing actual data, I’m afraid we probably can’t do that …

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On optimum tyre temps and pressures …

DAVE: We will probably start to do more to help the engineers—right now, to be honest, we’re still working on this stuff, and it would be pointless to put data out {which then} changes from under people when we do an update.

As you can imagine, there is quite a bit that is going into this that is not sim related—as there will continue to be (the sanctioning, the point system, the overall infrastructure of the service, and so on), but—we keep plugging away, and every year we look back and compare where we were a year ago, and it’s always a dramatic change, and we look for that to continue. It will be exciting for everyone, I think.

On more tracks … European versions?

DAVE: We’re pretty certain that we want there to be, but it’s a matter of—again we focused on the U.S. because that is our largest market, where most of the online membership is—but also because it has been cheaper for us to build the race tracks here, visit them, scan them and so on—but we certainly want to do the same thing in Europe as we did here—everything from good club tracks to top level circuits.

IAN: That’s the thing about having a long term commitment—we have the time to do a lot of them eventually.

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Odd’n’Ends Aristotelis Vasilakos spends quality time with Kaemmer’s best … so where, precisely, does it stand … and where does it sink? …

Toolbox

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Windsor’s Wisdom “The driver simulations—talking to the drivers, Hamilton, Kimi, Couthard—they learn .. nothing from the simulators these days because it is all 2D for them—no dynamic movement of the weight in the simulator for them—so for them it’s coming out here and walking the circuit like David Hobbes used to do in his day.”

Peter Windsor, on SPEEDTV—August 22

“I went to the simulator to find a reasonable balance and to learn the track.”

Felipe Massa, post-qualifying press conference after claiming pole-position for the Valencia Grand Prix—August 23

LEFT: A beautiful video featuring three legends of motor-racing: Pre-war ace Hermann Lang drives one of the original 1937 Mercedes’ around the Nordschleife while world champion Graham Hill narrates, giving a turn-by-turn analysis of the mightiest track on earth.

RIGHT: The Onion give an in-depth analysis of what it takes to drive NASCAR. “Go faster, faster!”

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ALMS

Motor-sport At Mosport Selena Howell and Oliver Day headed out for this year’s Mobil 1 Grand Prix of Mosport featuring the ALMS, Star Mazda, and Speed Touring, and GT series …

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Mosport is an old beast, a beast born into the world when motor-sport was fast and dangerous, and when everyone assumed death was as much a part of the spectacle as winning. As hard as you can try to pacify such beasts with run offs, catch fencing, and grinding out the bumps, the threat always remains. Earlier this year, Dino Crescentini, a ten year veteran of vintage motor-sport racing, headed into Turn 6 in his 1970’s Wolf Dallara CanAmandnevermadeitout.

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The Wolf Dallara was never the most stable ride at the best of times—Gilles Villeneuve was drafted in to drive it ‘back when’, and declared the car basically undriveable, while Chris Amon walked away from it after just one race. So when what one fellow driver suspected was a failure in the gearbox occurred on the Wolf, Dino stood little chance of gathering the beast in: It got airborne and barrel-rolled down the short straight out of Turn 6. Dino was transported to a nearby hospital, but sadly succumbed to his injuries.

Now, this beastly image of Mosport is a double-edged sword. Sure it’s dangerous, but it still provides an enormous return on investment for both the viewers and racers. For the fans, even with the ever-increasing amounts of catch fencing going up around the circuit, Mosport’s hilly nature provides terrific vantage points for viewing that is pretty-much unmatched anywhere in North America. As a fan, you’re treated to the sights, the sounds, the smells, and the visceral impact of man (and woman) and machine combining to push the limits of the possible. For photographers, Mosport is also a rare joy. Those brilliant views translate into great opportunities for photos, so much so in fact that many of the pros are out there mixing with the crowd and snapping away, yours truly included. It’s pretty rare nowadays that the accredited press corps will share the same spots that the average spectator can actually buy a ticket for. But that’s Mosport for you.

The racers are not left out of the fun either. Mosport is a fast, fast track nowadays.

Add to that a number of blind and challenging corners smashed into a relatively short and undulating layout, and it’s easy to understand why so many drivers give it top marks for pure enjoyment.

Passing isn’t always easy here, but it can lead to the most stirring moments as witnessed during the Speed Touring car battles between Seth Thomas and Chip Herr, for second place behind runaway leader Lou Galati, that included a spectacular piece of side-by-side racing out of the final turn going into the last lap which ended in disaster for Thomas, and disappointment for Herr. More successful was Acura’s Pierre Klienubing who recovered from a race start penalty to hustle through the field for a stirring sixth place finish.

The main event, the ALMS Mobil 1 presents the Grand Prix of Mosport, would prove equally exciting. Qualifying was record-breaking in every category except GT1. In fact ten cars broke track records in qualifying, including the Audi R10 TDI in the hands of ‘Dingo’ Capello who shaved 1.7s off his own track record to clock a 1:04.094 (average speed of 138mph). Compare that to your ‘GPL rank’ time, or Formula One’s best by Mario Andretti in the fall of 1977—1:11.385.

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VICI GT2 Porsche in the hands of Marc Basseng had a suspension failure that threw him hard into the wall after Turn 3, bringing out a full course caution

The Audis could have broken into the 1:03s if not for F1 ‘almostbeen’ Frank Montangy getting in the way of Capello’s teammate Marco Werner on his hot lap. If you need help translating any of that, let me sum it up … insane! The cars were literally ripping the track up (and causing a few delays as a result). At one point I wandered out to the Andretti straight, a rather terrifying experience as the cars scream by just feet away. Another photographer did the same … and said he’d never do it again ...

With the two Audis on the front row, the Penske Racing Porsche of Bernhard and Dumas took the third spot (and LMP2 pole) with a time of 1:04.318, followed by Patron Highcroft Racing’s Acura piloted by Brabham and Sharp. The Aston Martin providing no challenge for the Corvettes left Johnny O’Connell and Olivier Baretta to scrap it out for the GT2 honours. After swapping the top of the time sheets back and forth a few times, it was settled in favour of Johnny O’Connell late in the running. The GT2 class was headed by Jamie Melo and Mika Salo (Risi Ferrari). They had been there after every session all weekend, their Ferrari F430 revelling in the twists and turns of Mosport.

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Luhr and Werner in the winning Audi draw the sparks into the approach to Moss

The race itself was another thriller. There are four classes of cars hitting the track for almost three hours, providing a mix of teams and drivers with a wide variety of skills and experience.

For the casual observer it looks chaotic. For the hardened race fan, it looks like the best racing in North America. Although there’s some work involved in order to follow who’s leading and leading what class, ALMS’ ingenious lighting system (each car has three built-in LEDS with different colours per class indicating positions) makes that relatively easy.

Early in the race, the Marco Werner/Lucas Luhr Audi took the lead from teammates Capello and Pirro, and promptly marched off to hide twenty seconds up on the road.

Then the VICI GT2 Porsche in the hands of Marc Basseng had a suspension failure that threw him hard into the wall after Turn 3, bringing out a full course caution. Marc was okay, but VICI’s entry for Detroit is in some doubt. The full course yellow did a terrific job of splitting the strategies and mixing up the field. All classes were thoroughly shuffled in the pack, and the overall victory was still anyone’s guess until late in the race Gil de Ferran (in his self-named team running an Acura) staked his claim on the lead and looked set to claim the victory ahead of the charging Audi of Werner and Luhr.

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We tried to get a word with the Grand Marshall for the race, Dan Ackroyd. We thought he’d have something sim-related to say to close out the article. Maybe something about the driving model in the new Ghostbusters game, you know, the physics modelling of Ecto1 but the problem with Dan is—he’s a long winded bastard, and talks endlessly about recycling this and that and cars, and when we thought we’d get in, he was whisked off by a hoard of tequila girls.

So let me quote race winner Marco Werner instead: ‘I’ve not seen such a great race for quite a while. It was really exciting. It was nailbiting because we were not sure if we could bring the victory home. There were two different strategies for our two cars. It’s great that this gave us a one-two victory. It was really close in the end for Emanuele Pirro who opted for the ‘save fuel’ method. We went flat-out, but had to pit under ‘green’. I dedicate this victory to our boys who worked a lot this week and put a great car on the wheels for us.’

Gil de Ferran leads late into the race: One second’s mis-calculation will see Gil have to run one more lap … alas, his Acura didn’t have enough fumes left …

But as ever in motor-sports, fate was about in intervene—and today, Fate was in one her bitchy moods. It is often said that one second is a lifetime in motor-racing, and this, for Gil, was never truer. Gil had crossed the line on his 125th lap with victory practically ensured, figuring the 126th would be the final lap. He crossed the line, however, precisely one second too early and, this being a timed race, the miscalculation meant that there would be 127 laps in this edition of Mosport. Gil never made it round, running out of fuel less than a mile from the finish …

With Gil coasting to a tear-filled end, Werner and Luhr went by for the victory on a race strategy based on pace, while teammates Capello and Pirro came in second overall on a fuel conservation run, Audi showing that any way you play it, they had it covered.

Gil wasn’t the only one to lose out to an empty tank though, as Penske’s Dumas and Bernhard also ran dry on the last lap allowing the Patron Highcroft Acura of Brabham and Sharp to close to within ten points in the championship as they came through to win the LMP2 class ahead of Fernandez and Diaz in their Fernandez Racing Acura.

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‘How the race panned out I have no idea,’ Brabham revealed post-race. ‘I didn't know Gil was leading when he ran out of fuel. My main concern was getting past Fernandez toward the end. I think he was trying to save fuel as well. It was fantastic racing. We were passing backward and forward. It was a joy to be a part of it.’

The GT1 class provided the usual close two-car battle between the Corvettes with Johnny O’Connell and Jan Magnusson repeating last year’s victory here. Johnny summed it up nicely: ‘This was an amazing race. The history of this place is magical, and for us to compete here is a very cool deal to be a part of history. We had a really good weekend for both cars. Here, one of your biggest concerns is traffic and how psychotic the P2 cars and P1 cars are. But they were all pretty respectful and I think it showed.’

Jamie Melo and Mika Salo won in GT2, their first of the season after winning eight times last season, but it was another dogfight for every step of the podium. Werner and Kaffer in the Farnbacher Loles Racing Porsche finished second, but exerted pressure on Melo and Salo all race long.

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Points leaders Jörg Bergmeister and Wolf Henzler finished third for Flying Lizard Motorsports in their Porsche, but it wasn’t without incident. Lap after lap in the closing stages the Tafel Ferrari hammered at the door with driver Dirk Muller doing all he could to wrestle third away from Bergmeister. This all got rather serious with a lot pushing and shoving and Muller eventually getting the job done, but the racing gods didn’t want disappointment to be restricted to the LMP classes, and Muller was handed a thirty-second penalty for his troubles which effectively dropped him back behind the Porsche.

I’ll say this again, this is the best racing in North America today, and Mosport is one of the best places to experience it in all its glory. This was a brilliant weekend, and something I would recommend to everyone. Though, if truth be told, it’s not for everyone. This is ‘old school’. There are no real grandstands. You build your own. There’s no sushi or curry—or even steak. You can have a burger and fries. Or fries. There’s no parking lot. You park where you can, and hope it doesn’t rain. Hell, even the grid girls look like they were rounded up Friday night by drunken race crews wandering amongst the campers. This is just racing, plain and simple. You deal with the rest. That said, as soon as Selena and I can catch our breath, we’re off to Detroit next weekend to follow the ALMS circus, and pretty much the exact opposite applies south of the border! Casino parties, celebrities, yachts, big city, great food, fully wired media centre … almost enough outside the race to make it comparable to Mosport for an experience … almost. Because the old beast is always sure to throw something up for Mosport remains nothing but pure, adrenaline-nourished motor-sport.

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Being a photographer at a race like Mosport comes with its own sacrifices. You have to be awake super-early to make the drive into Mosport (it is thirty minutes from civilization in any direction) for the mandatory photographers’ meetings. These meetings are endlessly entertaining to me. It’s like being in high-school. You have the hotshots that are there every race versus the establishment (circuit and series bosses). Guys will be called out for breaking the rules who will shout bitterly that, ‘I’m me so you’re stupid, leave me alone!’ Then continued you’ll have the folks coming from local papers for the first time. They’re quiet and timid, and will ask you about locations and such. Selena and I are pretty non-threatening so we actually get in a good deal of chatting with non-hotshots. Also, Selena is a woman, and young and beautiful, so everyone talks to her. This is extremely handy when your editor hasn’t set up any interviews, and you need to talk to various team press agents … or when you lose your media pass and you just have to bat your eyelashes and everyone, including the series media director, pitches in to help find it.

Mosport isn’t big on the catering, but photographers will make any food items you set down disappear. And perhaps worse, much worse … they’ll drink old coffee … cold, old coffee from the day before if the new stuff hasn’t arrived after the meeting.

One thing that is really nice about any ALMS event you cover is that they actually want you there. They want your attention. You are well treated, and respected. Bob Dickinson, VP of Media for the ALMS, is a very active presence all weekend long, and he’s a pleasure to talk to.

The actual photography is a world of opportunity. In addition to the usual keys to decent photos, you might want to add a bit of bravery, stamina, and perhaps some wilderness training. You could take it easy and get a cart most of the way up to Moss and snap away, getting the shot everyone gets (it’s still a terrific shot), or you can head up the hill and into the forest, or even out along the back straight where there is no fencing to protect you while the cars go by at three times the legal limit on the nearest highway. The hills are high and the forest filled with ghosts (and water and animals and dense vegetation) but through them lies the holy grail … the inside of Moss, shooting up and around.

Now I’ve tried twice to find this magical land, and I’ve watched others try and fail … but I’ve seen one succeed, so I know it is possible.

Maybe walking the inside of the back straight, but I’ve seen someone denied that as well. Who knows … maybe one day …

This year I did wander from the start/finish all the way to Turn 4 on the outside. That included the trip down the Andretti straight … alone.

I could understand why a fellow photographer said he’d never do it again, it is both awe inspiring, and aggressively intimidating. Sometimes things go wrong with race cars … you can find parts of the concrete wall around the track, where you happen to be standing, that are shattered, from extreme impact … thick concrete walls, with a thick layer of tyres in front of them. But one must take a bit of risk in search of something special. Mind you, I don’t know if that trip up Andretti will be a yearly one.

With your hiking boots on and your water packed, you can also wander out of the forest onto the hills alive with the sound of drunken screaming and beer cans being crushed against skulls. From there, good shots are provided to those with long lenses. In addition, you get a real sense of the local colour. You’ll see folks stuck in bogs, kids chasing dogs, hairy beer bellies, and a first for these eyes … attractive young women! Still, not as popular as belching men, but a welcome addition nonetheless. You can also swap stories of Mosport lore … like one fine fellow who told me how he once fell off the track at the same spot where we had just watched an IMSA Light car fall off … after he broke into Mosport … in the winter … after a large snow fall … at night. Let’s see if you can find a story like that at Monaco!

And speaking of Mosport lore, I spent time with one photographer who claimed a bit of experience around the Ontario hills. This gentleman was well into his seventies, and still milling about and posting-up trackside with his camera. Soft spoken, with input on the latest cameras—yes, he was full-on digital though without the 600mm lens now de rigueur with the young cubs—he was a calming presence in a room filled with testosterone. With the weekend at an end, and the celebrations all done and the photos taken, we were packing up and going over how and where and what we shot during the race. While talking to one photographer who was forced to dive into the ditch as a storm of carbon fibre and racing car ploughed into the wall in front of him, the old photographer walked up, sporting a grin as big as any face would allow. He plunked down onto the table in front of us one rather full bottle of champagne that he had somehow secured from the podium festivities. He quietly said good-bye to us, picked up his bottle, and walked out the door. I wish I could say he wandered out into the woods to drink his bottle of champagne and sleep under the stars, soaking in the weekend before returning home the next day to mow the lawn … something he’d done every year since 1967 when he won a support race for that year’s first-ever Canadian Grand Prix. But honestly, I have no idea where he went …

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Futurist

Eye-Opener!

Imagine: Racing against Lewis Hamilton, live, behind your desktop, on a perfectly laser-scanned version of Monza. Come November, you will no longer need to imagine, as science-fiction will meet reality courtesy of Andy Lßrling, and the brilliant team behind iOpener Interactive Media ‌

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Get used to the logo because it will feature on virtually every sim and racing game you buy in years to come “iOpener is a young, dynamic organisation headquartered in Aachen, Germany, with an R&D office at the Delft University of Technology in Delft, the Netherlands. In 2007, iOpener successfully participated in the European Space Agency Business incubation initiative.

Backed by a seasoned venture capitalist, iOpener is shaping up to be a leader in providing and facilitating Real-time data into games and the virtual world, through its patented technology; using satellite navigation technology. iOpener is constantly exploring new creative ways to use new technologies to improve the user/consumer experience in both the real and virtual worlds. The organisation brings together an international team of seasoned professionals with backgrounds in TV, Internet, Telecom, Marketing, and Gaming, and is ready for the era where the real world and virtual world integrate.”

With that out of the way, all that is left is for company CEO Andy Lürling to walk AUTOSIMSPORT through what must be one of the most intriguing projects we’ve seen designed for simulated-racing in quite some time.

Perhaps it’s because I’m old, but the idea that—in my cockpit at home—I can both race against, and simultaneously watch, the best drivers in the world doing it for real a half-aworld away and yet right there on my PC screen, is the stuff of science-fiction. And yet, if iOpener’s Andy Lürling is to be believed, this amazing reality is but a few months away. And he’s got the talent—and the finances—to prove it.

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The Real-time concept relies on real series transmitting all their information to i-Opener’s servers which will then ‘broadcast’ them to the virtual driver …

Their proof of concept has won Andy both the regional European Satellite Navigation Competition in 2006, and the 2007 Ernst & Young Best Business Case Award.

In short, not only do they have a plan, but they have a product which has already caught the attention of those moneymen some call Venture Capitalists. For Andy, though, this is par for the course in a career that has already seen him co-found a crossmedia company in his native Holland that focused on interactive concepts and innovative technical solutions for internet, mobile, digital TV, and online games, working for a host of blue-chip companies—everyone from Vodafone, ING, and even an interesting interactive joust with Heineken.

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Eye-Opener!

“The ultimate goal is to have the iOpener feature integrated in all race games, where both arcade and simracers will be able to race against real drivers.”—Andy Lürling So how does it all work? Well, since we’re in the realm of science-fiction, you’re probably not surprised to hear that the answer is a combination of outer space and Galileo. No, not the guy who, under the threat of torture, finally admitted that the sun moved around the earth (and yet, he whispered to his daughter, “the earth, it moves”) but, rather, the satellite Galileo, which will be Europe’s very own global navigation satellite system providing an accurate global positioning service under civilian control (the current GPS technology is controlled by the U.S. Military, and can—as happened after 9-11—be turned off in a moment).

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iOpener’s product, dubbed ‘Real-time Live Play’, works as follows: Real cars on-track are fitted with GPS receivers, and they send the live position of the cars to the racers at home who are racing against their graphical alter-egos—live. And with Galileo, we will be looking for an accuracy of around three centimeters, since iOpener will be using what is known as ‘differential GPS’ (DGPS) that beams GPS into stable bases from whence the position of the vehicle can be further refined. Once this signal has been received into the iOpener servers, the speed and position of the cars will be mapped.

But that’s just the start: In order to further enhance the experience, iOpener will be using so-called ‘inertial measurement units’ that measure everything from the car’s yaw angle to its acceleration. Then, to finalise the deal, the cars will also be shooting their telemetry live—to iOpener’s servers—and then directly to your PC. What we have here is total integration between live and simulated, with the entire operation—that is, the collection of this multitude of information, and its transmission to your PC—taking between two-and-a-half and five seconds, about the same delay you experience when watching a ‘live’ race on your TV. The concept itself, Andy says, came about while the team was watching a live Formula One race while simultaneously playing a PC sim: Why, they wondered, can’t we race against the pros live? Andy takes up the story from there: “A patent application was filed, and in 2005 the patent was granted. Additional patents applications were filed.

With this concept, in 2006, iOpener was regional winner in the European Satellite Navigation competition, and, because of this, the European Space Agency let iOpener join in their incubation programme lead by Frank Salzgeber. The ESA provided knowledge and funds to iOpener, and with this, iOpener developed the proof of concept/technology. This was done with cooperation of Bleekemolen’s Raceplanet, and Circuitpark Zandvoort. The PoC was such a success that Venture Capitalists were standing in line {to test the product}. In the end, in December 2007, iOpener chose Triangle Venture Capital Group. Currently, iOpener is developing the next generation of their technology (hardware and software), and is working towards a market introduction of their technology, expected in November of this year.”

The proof of concept, which was so successful, was both simple, and, by all accounts, quite brilliant. The team set up their hardware and software at the legendary Dutch circuit of Zandvoort in 2007. Bleekemolen’s Raceplanet Porsches were then equipped with iOpener’s experimental hardware, while, up in the tower, their own (basic, by Andy’s account) software was set up so that those in the tower could race against those on the real track—live. All of this was created using iOpener’s patented technology. (A video of this is available at the iOpener website.)

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Real cars on-track are fitted with GPS receivers that send the live position of the cars to virtual racers racing against the graphical alter-egos—live. DGPS— that beams GPS into stable bases from whence the position of the vehicle can be further refined—will see the cars beamed to within 3cms 50

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The proof of concept saw the team set up their patented tech’ at the legendary Dutch circuit of Zandvoort Porsches were then equipped with iOpener’s experimental hardware, while, up in the tower, their own software was set up so that those in the tower could race against those on the real track—live. www.autosimsport.net

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However, eliciting any kind of technical information from Andy is met with a—‘sorry, can’t really tell you at this stage’. What he will divulge, however, is the scope of the project: That is, this is not limited only to motor-racing simulation, but also, “For other game genres, for example, flight simulators, and other markets such as educational training simulators.”

As for the motor-racing side of things, Andy explains that, “Our technology is shown in games as a feature, and you can play this with your keyboard, mouse, joystick, and so forth. But of course,” he adds, “using a steering wheel, and/or simulator will give the most immersive experience. We are in discussion with motor-racing series and brands, but I can’t mention names yet.”

What Andy can confirm, however, is that this technology will be made available for lease to third party developers—so that, in a year or two, you may just find your next PS3 Gran Turismo outing featuring this technology. In the meantime, however, iOpener continue working on its own software, primarily in the sphere of Artificial Intelligence.

That is, what happens, for instance, when you outbrake yourself and go flying into Lewis Hamilton’s rear-end at Turn One? Clearly the ‘real’ Hamilton won’t be affected—yet (this is the realm of fantasy, not science-fiction!)—but, in order for the sim to be touted as realistic (or, indeed, even a ‘game’), virtual Lewis (who is, you follow, also the real Hamilton) will need to react according to events in your own personal game.

Andy is, of course, reluctant to go into any technical details this close to release, but what he does say is quite tantalizing: “The gamer will play a game as just any game only knowing (and receiving some info) that he is playing against the real professionals. In future versions, the real experience will be even improved.”

Naturally the success of this technology, for sim-racers, will depend on whether any of our developers take this feature on board: Consider, for instance, if we had laser-scanned tracks accurate to a millimeter or two, along with perfectly replicated Formula One cars, and the ability to race at the very same time as the real guys are racing, with their positions beamed into our race-rigs and screens to a few centimeters’ worth of accuracy.

Andy and the team at iOpener look at this project as something beyond a curiousity: They see its application becoming standard fare in the future of motor-racing sims, something that, in a year or two, we will take not so much for granted, as much as de rigueur, something along the lines of realistic tracks and so forth. “The ultimate goal is to have the iOpener feature integrated in all race games, where both arcade and simracers will be able to race against real drivers. We believe, and some of the game publishers and developers, as well as race associations tend to agree with us, that in a few years, games will not be Triple A games anymore if our feature is not integrated.”

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The way the service will be bought is, Andy explains, multi-faceted, and depends entirely on the sim or game involved: “Our feature may be integrated in some, or will be for free for others, while others will feature a one-off purchase, and yet others with micro-transactions.”

So, I ask, is it possible that, in a year or so from now, we will be able to watch a race— live—while, at the same instant, race in that race? That is, instead of watching races as we do now, we can actually watch a race as an actual competitor in that race?

Andy smiles. “Might well be … but I would say more in two or three years.”

You can see more detail—including some illuminating videos and documentaries—at the iOpener website, under the ‘News’ section.

A video featuring iOpener’s technology (above)—more videos and details of this fascinating project can be found at iOpener’s website under the ‘News’ section … (click to play) www.autosimsport.net

Volume 4 Number 4

WIN! WITH AUTOSIMSPORT WE HAVE 4 LOGITECH HEADPHONES TO GIVEAWAY QUESTION: FROM 1950 TO 2002, THERE WERE TWO F1 CONSTRUCTORS WHO STARTED THEIR FORMULA 1 CAREER AS A SPONSOR, WITHOUT ANY RACING BACKGROUND. BENETTON IS PERHAPS THE MOST WELL KNOWN. WHAT IS THE SECOND? THE FIRST FOUR CORRECT ANSWERS TO COMP@AUTOSIMSPORT.NET WINS* *FIRST CORRECT ANSWERS WINS *COMPETITION EXPIRES OCTOBER 1ST, 2008 *CHECK THE AUTOSIMSPORT FORUM FOR NEWS ON WINNERS OR, FAILING THAT, SOME CLUES!

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Review

Virtual Grand Prix 3 Andrew Tyler joins the ongoing development as VGP3 it finally hits the virtual shelves … is this the true successor of Crammond’s Grand Prix 4?…

ANDREWTYLER

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Virtual Grand Prix 3 uses something called ‘quasi-finite element realtime analysis’ that divides the tyre into elements called bristles, which are connected together by visco-elastic constraints calculated on the fly in three dimensions.

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First Impressions Virtual Grand Prix 3 is the third in a series of sim-racing titles that I had never heard of before. You would think that, given how few true racing simulators there are, it would be difficult to slip not one but two of them under my radar, but apparently they caught me looking the other way. As it turns out, though, there’s a pretty simple explanation for this: The first Virtual Grand Prix (released in 1998) was for the Amiga (yeah, those were still around in 1998, surprisingly), and the second (VGP2 would you believe) was released in 2004 for the Mac. Virtual Grand Prix 3, however, natively supports both Windows and PPC based Macs. I can’t afford to buy a Mac, and I’m probably not hip enough to own one anyway, so Virtual Grand Prix 3 is the first in the series that I can actually run without putting ‘product’ in an asymmetrical haircut and wearing really tight jeans.

For those interested in the history of the Virtual Grand Prix series, as well as an interview with its lead designer, AUTOSIMSPORT ran just such an article back in Vol3, Num7—for those who want the abbreviated highlights, the Virtual Grand Prix series was created by an Italian, Paolo Cattani, who is from the era when programmers were real men who could massage the last drop of performance from the bare metal of a computer. And here we begin our comparison to old Crammond himself. Paolo’s also a really nice guy to boot with a passion for racing and, more importantly, for writing racing simulators. He’s had over a decade to learn and perfect this art, too, so I was pretty excited to see what Virtual Grand Prix 3 was all about.

Virtual Grand Prix 3 is designed to be a totally open platform. When it’s all said and done and the horse has bolted from the shed, it will have a fully featured set of development tools, and every aspect of the simulator will be documented—from the file-formats to the physics implementation. Presumably. It doesn’t really have these things yet, which is why I say ‘presumably,’ but the files are all plain ASCII text files so as to be easy to edit, and there is some documentation available on the official Virtual Grand Prix 3 Wiki. The sim then, as you’ve probably gathered, isn’t totally done yet—as of the time of this writing, we’re at version 0.71, but it is now available for purchase, hence this review.

Virtual Grand Prix 3 is one of those ‘come along for the development ride’ projects, much like Live for Speed and iRacing, and (an entire beta-test team is currently working on V1.3—presumably), nKPro. Indeed, with the exception of SimBin, this is now standard fare in the creation of our simulators, for reasons which are seemingly obvious (time constraints, money constraints, the internet, and the fact that a well designed physics engine can last for years)—so we might as well start getting used to it and, when correctly handled, this method can have a lot of advantages, for both the developer and the end-user.

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The bottom line is that the AI works, can put up a good fight, and are enjoyable to race against. Some of the Virtual Grand Prix 3 fans have even described it as a spiritual successor to Crammond’s Grand Prix 4, which I have to admit, did cross my mind the first time I ran a race against the AI. . www.autosimsport.net

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What this means for VGP3 is that the community is relatively small at present, and therefore getting a word in about the development and features remains possible for everyone. It’s progressing pretty quickly too: I was confounded on a few occasions in the throes of writing this review as the sim progressed over the course of a month from version 0.60 to 0.65 to 0.70 to 0.71—and I had to modify the review accordingly.

At this stage, it’s also a light on content because the base content itself isn’t yet totally finished, and the modding has yet to begin as we’re awaiting the tools and full documentation. It’s safe to say these things will come, though, as Paolo clearly isn’t just going to give up on the series after ten years or vanish into the ether for two years like some developers I could mention.

What you’ll get out of the box right now is a full field of F1-like cars—I usually drive the Ferreti or the McCormick—and four grand prix circuits (three when I started, so they’re coming along too): Imola, Indianapolis, Silverstone, and the Hungaroring. No imaginary tracks here, these are the real things. ‘ Now, you’ll probably agree, this isn’t the amount of content you’d get with a SimBin title or iRacing, so keep this in mind should you decide to purchase it right away.

Though I have every reason to believe, and full confidence that it will have a full season’s worth of tracks by the time it hits 1.0, nothing in life is a sure thing, and I don’t want to be drummed out of the community in disgrace.

Bristling Tyres—No, For Real Yo! The first thing anybody worth his salt always asks when a new simulation or a mod is released is, ‘how are the physics?’ In the case of Virtual Grand Prix 3, I can say they’re pretty damn good. Turning off the traction control (the TC, like most things in this sim, is sophisticated to the extent where you can select how much you want it ‘on’—just like real Formula One, of course) results in a car that is hugely ‘chuckable’, and you will get a great sense of the physics in motion as you flick the rear-end out and zip around the track on pure skill alone. A serious challenge and tremendous good fun!

It seems that the days when Pacejka’s magic formula for modeling tyre behavior ruled our simulated rides have gone the way of the bias-ply, though. This is, I understand, the reason why I suddenly go flying off the road when I’m lazily negotiating a slow curve in some of the older simulations. Anyways, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Virtual Grand Prix 3 uses something called ‘quasi-finite element realtime analysis’ that divides the tyre into elements called bristles, which are connected together by viscoelastic constraints calculated on the fly in three dimensions. No, I don’t really know what that means either, but I think the gist of it is that it chops the tyre up into bits, calculates the grip at the location of those individual bits, and then figures out what those bits are

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doing in relation to one another. My understanding of it more or less petered out at the ‘quasi’ part, but anything with that many big words must be pretty impressive. As I understand it, this is a similar approach to the tyre modeling in Live For Speed though the feeling is significantly tighter than the open wheel cars in Live For Speed, which frankly never really did it for me. Just to head off the LFS fans who’re undoubtedly already loaded up their e-mail client to write a mean letter: I love LFS, but its strength lies in tin-tops where it undoubtedly excels, while Virtual Grand Prix 3 is focused on open wheel racing, and it shows.

I can tell you, it feels pretty good once I’m out on the track. The tyre behavior feels natural—the car starts sliding when I feel it ought to be sliding, and stops sliding when I feel it ought to do so. There are no sudden surprises, the god of traction doesn’t come down from the clouds and boot me off the track on a whim, and everything behaves predictably so that I can just drive it like a car without having to second guess the tyre behavior, or treat slow corners like oil slicks. The tyre model in Virtual Grand Prix 3 is at least as good as any out there—perhaps with the exception of iRacing—and shows some serious potential going forward.

Though the tyres make up most of the voodoo in any racing simulator, the rest of the car cannot be ignored. Loading up the setup screen displays an impressive array of options. There are things in there that I’ve never seen before, and it undoubtedly boasts the most expansive setup options I’ve ever seen in a simulator. The electronics and the diff-unit have more options than I’m used to, with two of those involving radians, which, if I remember my high-school trigonometry correctly, are solely responsible for that Bminus which meant I couldn’t get into Harvard (well, that and the parties, but I like to blame it on radians). There’s a lot of stuff in there, including all of the settings one is accustomed to from our sims. Except for the bits I don’t fully understand, these things have the effects you would expect out on the track. Indeed, these cars are highly sensitive to setup changes, and it is quite remarkable what you can accomplish with a twist of this or a dab of that within the simulator, and it makes VGP3 now the most authentic Formula One-style simulator we have available … it’s that good.

Feel Is Control Virtual Grand Prix 3 has some pretty good Force-Feedback of the physics-based type we’ve come to expect of a good simulation of late. Initially, though, the FFB configuration can prove a little confusing, and I hope to see some changes in this department at some stage. Not so much in their ability to convey what the car is doing out on the track, where it matters, but in actually setting it up. The options for prediction and damping, for instance, are measured in milliseconds—which confused

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me at first—but it turns out both of these can be left at zero and ignored with most wheels, though it can be used to fine-tune the FFB. The other two options are relatively simple: ‘strength’ and ‘linearity.’ Strength should be self-explanatory, but the linearity setting is new as of version 0.70, and compresses the range of forces produced, which is pretty useful for wheels that can’t effectively produce the full range of force. I found that I could set this to fully linear with a Driving Force Pro, but I had to tweak it a bit with my MOMO Racing otherwise it was a little limp at low speeds (in order to model the stronger forces with more accuracy), which is not uncommon with simulations of highdownforce cars. Tweaked to about eighty-five percent or so, though, it was firm throughout the full range.

The rest of the controller setup could also do with a little slipstreaming: At the moment, they are far from intuitive. In order to choose the correct axis for each assignment, you’ve got to click through each available axis while wiggling your wheel or pedals until you see the display responding. This is a little annoying, but you only have to do it once, so it isn’t a big turn off.

The button configuration proved a little cumbersome as well, since it won’t allow you assign a button to an action if that button is already assigned to something else.

This means that if, like me, you don’t actually know the ‘number’ of each button, you have to clear them all and reassign them, or at least clear them one by one until you figure out which is giving you trouble. Painful. While this was only a problem when I switched from one wheel to another in order to test the Force-Feedback, it could do with an overall. Naturally though, one of the benefits of the close developer relations is that if you go to the message-board and make a case for why this and that should be changed, you may find it probably altered in the next version. As I said earlier, new versions come pretty quickly now, as Paolo develops his way closer to Version 1.0.

Aside from these niggling complaints, the controller support was perfectly fine. It recognized and allowed me to use multiple controllers simultaneously, which means people with separate pedal sets won’t have any problem with it. Overall, my experience with the controls and the FFB was positive in all senses of the word.

They Think Perhaps the single feature that makes Virtual Grand Prix 3 stand out from the crowd is its AI implementation. These days it’s hard to find a racing-sim that takes AI seriously: Either it’s totally absent, only partially implemented, or just the vestigial remains from a more single-player friendly day somewhere in March of 1997. Virtual Grand Prix 3 has full, working, pretty damn impressive AI, and arguably (though not from me) the best AI in any current simulator.

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Setup options in VGP3 are detailed, reflecting the sim’s inspiration— Formula One. Traction control can be turned off, but for those who insist on keeping it on, the range of fine-tuning the TC is both deep and technical. VGP3 offers probably the most in-depth setup options of any current sim … www.autosimsport.net

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In my very first race against the AI, I lost it and spun 100 meters or so before Imola’s Traguardo chicane, and was left rolling slowly backward onto the track in a most preposterous and dangerous fashion. I’d managed a pretty good jump off the line, and was in second place at the time so nearly the entire field was barreling toward my suicidally-placed, yet luckily undamaged, car at some 150 odd miles-per-hour. In rFactor, or even GTR2, this would virtually guarantee a monumental pile-up taking out half the field forcing a restart, but as I sat there cringing, waiting for the inevitable calamity, I realized that my AI buddies were deftly avoiding me while barely slowing down at all, treating me for what I was—a minor annoyance in their epic race. Even more impressive—when I spun her around and rejoined the track after the chicane as quick as I could (pretty recklessly to be honest), the cars that hadn’t made it that far yet again avoided me, dodging both the left and the right to continue on racing. Of course, I can’t say that the AI never took me out, it did happen on the rare occasion, but it was virtually always because I had done something silly like cutting them off too aggressively entering a corner.

They’re equally impressive at avoiding one another, and AI-on-AI accidents are rare.

Even when they’re aggressively fighting for the same patch of asphalt in a chicane, they don’t get bogged down, timidly avoiding one another and allowing you to pass them a half-dozen at a time like they do in some other sims. For the purpose of this review, I spent some time parked on the side of the track just watching the AI race each other from the track cams, and it was impressive to see both cars taking action to avoid a collision during an overtaking attempt instead of just one slamming on the brakes when things start to get dicey.

They can be a little slow off the line, but once they get going, these guys are quick. I still haven’t managed to be competitive with the AI at full difficulty. They put up a pretty good fight, too, for position with both you, and their fellow AI. When I would brake too deeply into a turn, or run wide on the exit forcing me to come off the accelerator a bit, they wouldn’t hesitate to use the opportunity for a pass, and I would often find myself overtaken again and again at some part of the track that I didn’t quite have down properly.

The list of features on Virtual Grand Prix 3’s website claims that they learn the track as they drive; improving their braking points, and cornering speeds.

Presumably this is true, though it’s not really the sort of thing you can see in action, atop of which I wasn’t racing them at their full difficulty setting since—did I mention it already—they are quick! I can tell you though, that from AI driver to driver the lap times were appropriately varied, and there was none of that nose-totail conga-line rubbish.

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The cockpits themselves are in the same mould. Again, the phrase to describe it would be ‘clean and effective.’ Nothing too fancy, but there is nothing amateurish or out-of place looking. There are some pretty cool effects as well, particularly the real-time reflections of the surrounding environment on the bodywork as you look out over the nose. www.autosimsport.net

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Despite their impressive racing prowess, however, they can at times appear a little robotic. They take off from the start all at precisely the same instant, which looks a little unnatural in the replays, but I didn’t actually notice from the cockpit. They also make their maneuvers in a slightly stilted fashion, but again, this was something I only noticed from the track-cams in a replay. These are relatively minor quibbles though. The bottom line is that the AI works, can put up a good fight, and are enjoyable to race against.

Some of the Virtual Grand Prix 3 fans have even described it as a spiritual successor to Crammond’s Grand Prix 4, which I have to admit, did cross my mind the first time I ran a race against the AI. The Racing Line The network multi-player isn’t quite as full featured. It works fine and has fancy prediction whatsits and whosits, and is respected by the community, but it doesn’t have a matchmaking lobby, or a dedicated server at this point, and since the community itself is pretty small, don’t expect to be able to join a pickup race on a public server any time soon. Given that network racing is a big part of what sim-racing is all about, hopefully this will improve as time goes on.

The offline and online race weekends follow the format you would expect: Practice session, qualification sessions, and then the race. The length of time allowed for each session, and the overall length of the race, can be modified from within the options menu. Naturally, any of these can also be skipped, but I did find that, should you skip the qualifying sessions, it will put you in the grid according to the number on your car, which made me feel a little bad getting the pole position without having to actually qualify or anything. Naturally, this means you can choose wherever you want to start by assigning that number to your car in the driver setup menu. When I don’t intend on running the full weekend in an AI race, I usually like to start toward the middle of the pack to make things a little more interesting.

So far in its development, the pit-stops in Virtual Grand Prix 3 seem to be relatively simple things. You pull into the pits, stop at your lollipop, and it will fill your tank and change your tyres instantaneously. There don’t seem to be any options to choose a pitstrategy, which is a shame, but I understand these things will be coming in the future.

Failing to follow the correct procedure for pit entry and exit will result in a stop-and-go indicated by a black flag icon in the upper left corner of your screen. I haven’t yet seen any other flags, blue or yellow, so presumably these too have yet to be implemented.

While we’re on the subject of things not yet implemented, probably the most significant of these is damage. Though it is said to be coming, resulting from both wrecks and mechanical wear, so far there is only tyre wear.

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The Tracks Go Bumpity-bump As I’ve mentioned, Virtual Grand Prix 3 currently comes with four tracks: Imola, Indianapolis, Silverstone, and the Hungaroring. You might be wondering how they’ve managed to include these tracks without official licenses. It’s very simple really. They can include them because shut the hell up. Intellectual property is a funny thing with many whys and wherefores, and I’m not about to go throwing stones. Besides, the worst case scenario is that they’d have to give them generic names like that red Ferreti I’ve become so fond of driving. Of course, more tracks should be released as they are finished, and I’m looking forward to giving them a go.

The actual track surfaces are convincingly done with just the right amount of bumps and surface variations to make driving interesting, but not so severe as to make you go pogo-sticking off the track or burning out the FFB motors in your wheel. The kerbs, equally, seem about right with some more punishing than others. Should you depart the racing surface, you’ll find the grass a bumpy and slippery place to drive, and the sand traps are sticky enough to bring you to a stop—but no so much as to actually trap you and end your race. (Clearly Lewis Hamilton must have had a say in this sim’s design then!)

The track layouts themselves seem to be about as accurate as those in any other sim not armed with laser beams, and while the off-track details do their job, they aren’t really anything to shout about. Overall, the tracks are visually well done, but don’t particularly stand out as exceptional in any particular way. The textures are solid overall, though they can look a little flat in certain places. Monza is now on-schedule for next release.

They just aren’t particularly fancy. ‘Effective’ is probably the best word. People aren’t going to be Photoshopping screenshots to use as desktop wallpapers, but when you’re in the cockpit, right on the gearbox of your opponent, it looks as it should—exciting.

This seems to be an ‘Italian’ thing, similar to nKPro, in that you get the brute essentials, and either you like it or you feel ambivalent toward it.

The cockpits themselves are in the same mould. Again, the phrase to describe it would be ‘clean and effective.’ Nothing too fancy, but there is nothing amateurish or out-of place looking. There are some pretty cool effects as well, particularly the real-time reflections of the surrounding environment on the bodywork as you look out over the nose.

It is important to note, though, that it is not the graphics engine itself that isn’t capable of pumping out Blimey!-level fancy graphics. The graphics engine, which uses OpenGL, is actually pretty advanced, and as community content becomes available, I fully expect it to be able to compete with the best of them.

The performance of Virtual Grand Prix 3 on my test-rig was optimal. It’s difficult to say for sure because I recently upgraded to relatively fast setup, but clearly there is power to spare as it runs smooth as glass, and I never noticed it hesitating for even an instant. This is to be expected from someone who has been a programmer for a decade and more. In the graphics configuration, the anti-aliasing option is currently unsupported and grayed out, but I had no trouble enabling it in my Nvidia control panel with no apparent ill effect.

There is also something called ‘vertex buffer objects’, which is also currently grayed out, presumably to be implemented at a later time, but lord knows what that does anyway.

Apparently it has something to do with improving performance by using vertexes and buffers in some sort of magical way. It might involve kittens, but I’m not sure.

One neat thing about Virtual Grand Prix 3 is that you can download a ‘compatibility test’ that displays a 3D scene of a section of a track with cars whizzing by that you can pan around in with the mouse. This is a fine idea in my opinion, and means you can check out the performance if you’re unsure about your computer specs. It also has the added benefit of giving you something of an idea of what the graphics look like.

Graphical Illusions The screenshots will largely speak for themselves when it comes to the graphics. Virtual Grand Prix 3 doesn’t have the ‘bling’ of some SimBin titles, and it isn’t boasting laserscanned cars either. What you see in the screenshots is pretty much what you’ll get. The car models themselves are detailed, and the shader effects and real-time shadows are done well. They aren’t modeled down to the knurling on the suspension arm bolts like with the iRacing models, and they don’t have the animated drivers like the SimBin titles, but they look professional and clean. There is nothing at all that looks bad about them.

Feature Show As I’ve mentioned, Virtual Grand Prix 3 comes with relatively limited content out of the box at this stage, but along with the official tracks yet to come, the modding scene looks promising. If you go to the VGP3 homepage and click the ‘VGPEDIA’ link, you will see that some of the modding tools, file formats, and vehicle dynamic information are already partially documented. From having a look at the TrackDesigner3 manual, it seems as if this is going to be a pretty impressive bit of work. I expect interesting things once this, and the other tools, are released.

And while we’re on the subject of tyres—over the course of my experimentation with the damage simulation, it seems as if there is a ‘simulation’ of wheel-to-wheel contact. I can't tell for sure since it’s surprisingly difficult to arrange this with the AI, but when I get into somebody from behind, off-center, it launches my car, and sometimes I end up on top of them. It could just be the impact though, so don’t quote me on this ... but it is interesting all the same.

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Undoubtedly the most interesting aspect of Virtual Grand Prix 3 will be this modding support. There are already a few projects underway. Jim Conners, known online as JimmyC, has permission from IDT to use their 2006 Champcar model, which he converted brilliantly to Grand Prix 4 last year, to create a fictional European Champcar series, and it seems that work is already coming along. Likewise, another VGP3 community stalwart, Jason ‘JaguarGod’ Frabotta, who is responsible for the impressive VGPHD project, which updated the textures in Virtual Grand Prix 2, is continuing to do the same for Virtual Grand Prix 3. So far he has released a nice Ferrari skin and tyre textures modeled after the white-striped F1 softs. Things are coming along inch-byinch, but we can hopefully expect an explosion once the tools are released.

As for other as yet unrealized features, there are a few tantalizing options as yet grayed out in the menus: wet-races, for one, which ought to make those races against the AI even more exciting once it’s implemented, as well as a few graphical features like motion-blur.

There is an entire ‘simulation’ menu mysteriously grayed out under the in-game options, too, and perhaps this will add driving aids or other such things, which are totally absent for now. Not that many of you really give a damn about driving aids anyways.

Great Expectations Well, there you have it. In most respects, Virtual Grand Prix 3 is an excellent simulator. It does everything it says on the tin, and it does it well. The only real weakness it has is the, so far, limited content. The choice of whether or not to lay down your hard earned €15 (U.S$22 as of this writing, but Lord knows what that will be tomorrow) will depend upon what you’re after. For most sim-racers, it’s probably not going to replace your favorite sim, but who knows what will happen as time rolls by and Virtual Grand Prix 3 matures with full support for community content.

If you’re looking for an entertaining F1-style single-player experience, it’s hard to go wrong with Virtual Grand Prix 3, even if it’s just to run the occasional offline race. Of course, there is also the online functionality, though you will have to organize your own races. Given the amount of money people seem to have no problem spending on iRacing lately, twenty-two bucks is a pretty reasonable price for what you get. That price will buy you one year of access to updates, and a small but friendly community where your suggestions will help to mold the future of a promising simulation. It is a shame that there is no demo available, and hopefully that will change at some point because the only way to really appreciate its strengths is to try it.

So, is this Grand Prix 5? Not quite: But maybe Grand Prix 5 Lite wouldn’t fall too wide from the mark.

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PROS: —Solid graphics, solid physics, and a fascinating tyre-model all build to a solid simulator that is fun to drive, and difficult to drive quickly —Perhaps the best Formula-One ‘style’ sim currently available —Small community means you have a chance to get your hands dirty in the development of the sim CONS: —Lack of content—one series of car, and four tracks —Small community means tiny online grids, with no dedicated server as of yet PRICE: 22 Euros for a year—Available now for download

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The Green Paradise Uwe Schürkamp (and MP3 recorder), and Marco la Mura (and camera) headed for the Nürburgring to get the thoughts of some legendary and up-andcoming drivers competing in the Le Mans Series …

UWESCHÜRKAMP Dedicated to: Don Scurlock This article is dedicated to the memory of Don ‘DonS’ Scurlock, long-time Screamers member, GPLRank mastermind and Admin, friend and racing buddy who perished in a motorcycle accident in early July 2008.

Godspeed Don, you will always be in our hearts.

25Hhttp://rfactor.gplrank.info 26Hhttp://screamers.gplrank.inf /

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August 16, 2008 It's a beautiful, sunny Saturday morning as we head for the Nürburgring GP circuit. The Le Mans Series is scheduled to hold its penultimate round of the season here tomorrow, but that’s incidental to our actual mission which was—grab some drivers straight off the pitlane and ask them questions about sim-racing, and its relationship to real-life racing.

Nothing could be easier, eh?

Right. So why—armed with our press credentials courtesy of Mr. Magyar, whose introductory email to the LMES organizers made it look and sound as if Nigel Roebuck and Paul Cahier themselves were descending upon the circuit today—do both Marco and I feel just a bit anxious as we begin to stalk the drivers?

On the way down, we had discussed our game-plan: Do we play the confidence card, waving our press passes around while loudly demanding the drivers’ attention from a host of other activities (not to mention magazines with far less prestige than AUTOSIMSPORT!), or should we just simply stand around looking mean, lean, and professional? The latter option, of course, comes with its own in-built risks—what, for instance, do we do when some official ushers us away because we’re blocking out the sunlight from one of the glamour girls—or cars, for that matter?

Salvation—as if often the case—comes from an unexpected source, and occurs during the qualifying session for the ‘ADAC GT Masters’ series. We were sitting in the grandstands as the number fifteen ‘Mühlner Motorsport’ GT3 Cup S Porsche screamed into the notorious Turn One when we heard the public address system announce the driver powering through the bend as none other than Frank Stippler. I turned to Marco with a smile; it was as if the very gods of thunder were watching over us, and had sent old ‘Stippi’ to save the day.

Who, you are probably wondering, is Frank ‘Stippi’ Stippler? Well, he’s a thirty-three year old German hailing from the historical and sleepy spa town of Bad Münstereifel who spent two seasons in the German DTM Touring Car series (‘Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters’), as well as the winner of both the German national and Porsche Michelin Super Cup championships in 2003, before he turned his attention to the Swedish Touring Car Cup with Audi (for whom he currently enjoys a testing and development role at—you guessed it—the Nürburgring). So what, you ask, does this have to do with the voices from the sky bringing salvation? The answer can be found way back in the year 2000 when our Mr. Stippler scared the living crap out of your friendly author when he took me for a lap around the Nordschleife at the end of a driver safety promotional event sponsored by Sun Microsystems. The experience, for any GPLer, was not to be forgotten—and neither was that close encounter with fear for those first couple of turns down into and through the Hatzenbach section, come to think of it!

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‘Stippi’s’ Cup Porsche ready for action—the national and Michelin Super Cup Porsche winner was a Godsend as we began trawling the pits in search of opinions on sim-racing’s relationship to real-world racing

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“The parameters you can play with in real-life—like dampers, springs, and the ARBs—are hard to model in simulations, and while there’ve been quite a few advances in simulation technology. it’s no replacement for reallife physical feedback.”—Frank Stippler 65

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Once the GT Masters qualifying session has ended, we decided it was time to take a stroll around the open paddock in search of my ‘buddy’ ‘Stippi’. This was not too difficult to accomplish, either—his 1.92 meter figure is hard to miss among all the drivers of a slightly lesser stature (in fact, seating problems because of his size in the tight-fit DTM cars never ceased to plague him during his time in the series).

He's already changed back into ‘civilian clothing’, and appears—as we approach—to be having a relaxed chat with some team members, and his co-driver, Tim Bergmeister, with whom he shares the ‘Mühlner’ Porsche during the one hour race sessions. Of course, ‘Stippi’ is no stranger to the ‘Ring, or to sharing his cars: at the 2004 twenty-four hour classic here, his shared the Audi TT with teammates Christian Abt, Karl Wendllinger, and Patrick Huisman that came in a strong fourth.

So, with Marco and I now committed to our course of action as ‘Stippi’ himself had been committed to Turn One an hour earlier, we step into the breach. I introduce myself as, ‘the guy who’s been bugging you by email every other month since we had our little outing on the Nordschleife together eight years ago—do you remember?’ and Frank, sure enough, nods and suggests that he does, indeed, remember me. Whether it’s because of my emails or my screaming-fit in his car, he does not let on, but, since he readily agrees to an on-the-spot Q&A—‘sure, right now is fine’, I don’t ask for illumination and, instead, motion to Marco to get the camera ready as I get out the recorder. Gently-gently, of course—nothing should reveal that this is, in fact, our very first racing driver interview. Excited? Never—we’re seasoned professions over here!

(Before we get into the transcript, just a note on all our interviews: They were conducted in German, and then translated into what you will read below, so any errors in meaning or context belong to us, the translators.)

Frank ‘Stippi’ Stippler Our first question, of course, is whether he’s ever used sim-racing as part of his professional preparation for a race meeting. His answer is quick and unequivocal: No. He’s far too busy with real-life racing concerns.

AUTOSIMSPORT: Where do you see the main problems with racing-simulations in relation to real-life motor-sport? Is it just the missing physical feedback, or are there other aspects missing?

Frank Stippler: Indeed, it’s the lack of G-forces that is the most important part. The parameters you can play with in real-life—like dampers, springs, and the ARBs—are hard to model in simulations, and while there’ve been quite a few advances in simulation technology, as far as I'm aware of, it’s no replacement for real-life physical feedback as for how the changes affect the car. Real-life racing remains just that, real-life racing.

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“On the one hand, simulations allow you to save money because you don't have to go testing. On the other hand, F1 teams can usually afford to pump a couple of million into the development of a simulator, to see if it provides a real benefit to the team.”—Frank Stippler 66

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AUTOSIMSPORT: What do you make of current developments in the U.S. where real-life racers (mostly from the NASCAR series, like Dale Earnhardt Jr.) have signed up for iRacing, and are working their way up through the lower classes right now? Would you say that oval racing is better suited for a computer simulation?

Frank Stippler: As I don’t have much experience regarding oval racing, it’s quite hard to come up with something clever on this subject. However, I can well imagine that the guys are simply having fun racing online, although it may be the case that the special situations during oval racing—like close drafting, or lots of traffic on the oval tracks— can be simulated in such a way that the drivers are able to prepare themselves better for the real-life racing experience.

AUTOSIMSPORT: Let’s talk a bit about data recording. Many race simulations allow the use of MoTeC software to retrieve car parameters from a simulated run. Can you tell us whether real-life data engineers use simulations to improve their skills handling the MoTeC software?

Frank Stippler: Not that I am aware of. Most, if not all of our data engineers, work their way up through the lower racing classes, and learn their skills during real-life racing sessions where they are given enough time to familiarize themselves with the tasks at hand. I’ve found that the engineers in the classes I competed in over the last years know their job inside out, but it’s hard to tell whether they’ve actually used MoTeC in a simulated environment.

AUTOSIMSPORT: What’s your view on the current situation in Formula One? More and more teams are developing their own super-secret simulators and use it, for instance, to allow drivers to learn tracks like Valencia, which are new to the Formula One calendar.

Do you think that this development is going to trickle down into the lower classes so that maybe one day there will be standard software for this kind of task?

Frank Stippler: As usual, it’s a question of the costs involved. Basically, everybody in racing is trying to keep costs down as much as possible while providing a good show.

On the one hand, simulations allow you to save money because you don't have to go testing, which always results in a major effort, and has a large price tag attached. On the other hand, Formula One teams can usually afford to pump a couple of million into the development of a simulator, to see if it provides a real benefit to the team.

In the classes we’re competing in at the moment, the know-how and skill are certainly available to develop such a simulation. Having said that, even within the DTM, the initial effort and cost would be prohibitive, and most likely restrictions and regulations within the series to keep costs down would prevent such a simulation from achieving such a sophisticated state that it would provide a competitive edge.

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Theclosestanyonewillevergetto meetinggenuineNürburgringroyalty.

‘Strietzel’s’firstquestion—asbefittingthe sonofthelegendary1930sdriverHans Stuckwhoracedonthiscircuitwhenit wasopenedin1928—was:‘Whoareyou, andwhatmagazineareyoufrom?”

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AUTOSIMSPORT: Apropos the DTM: The two years you competed in the DTM seem to have been the highlights in your career so far—what are your plans for the future?

Frank Stippler: The DTM won’t be a subject as long as I don’t fit into the cars! At 1.92 metres in height, I'm atypically large for the DTM carbon monocoques—just look at any team photo, and you'll see what I mean! However, I believe that I’m still on good terms with Audi, and if an opportunity opens that allows me to fit into the cars again, there’s certainly a possibility.

I spent two years racing the ‘Jahreswagen’ {in order to keep the fields in the DTM to respectable numbers in what is a two-car series (Audi and Mercedes), the DTM organisers allow teams to compete in year-old cars, so-called ‘Jahreswagens’}, but in the DTM at present, it’s tough to get good results in the older cars, and a mid-field position is the best one can hope for. If you manage to sort your car out really well, you might hope for maybe eighth or tenth—just a couple of notches off, and you’re looking at fifteenth, so naturally the ‘fun’ of racing decreases in this kind of situation over time.

You’re still fifth or better within your class, but it’s obvious that long-term motivation also suffers.

AUTOSIMSPORT: So did you manage to finish your degree in engineering?

Frank Stippler: Yep, I got my degree five years ago, so right now I am happy to be able to help Audi with the testing and development of their current line of sportscar models (the R8, and the R10). I’m mostly involved with testing various damper/ARB/spring settings, and do some tyre assessment work, too.

With that, we thank ‘Stippi’ for his time and wish him well for the weekend. Thinking how pleasant it had been to meet up with an old friend after all these years, Marco and I decide—with our first interview in the bag—to take a stroll down through the paddock sipping on ice-cold beers to lift our spirits even higher. Up ahead, we spot yet another towering figure, and a glance between Marco and I is enough: quickly, we down our drinks, and quicken our step for this is an opportunity not to be passed up. It is not every day one gets to mingle—and indeed, ask questions of—genuine Nürburgring royalty.

Hans-Joachim ‘Strietzel’ Stuck ‘Strietzel’ Stuck is classic blue-blood motor-racing royalty, being the son of the pre-War Auto-Union ace Hans Stuck. Legend has it that it was old Hans who, in the mid 1920s, persuaded Hitler of the importance of motor-racing in a nation’s international standing while the two men were out hunting together. At the time, Stuck was driving for Mercedes but, by the time Hitler became Chancellor in 1933, Stuck had deserted the Stuttgart-based firm for Auto Union. Hitler, a mere twenty days after taking charge of

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the Reich, called Stuck up and reminded him that not only had he not forgotten about their conversation, but that he was going to personally see to it that the German National Racing Car project would be immediately funded, with his hope (Hitler had a penchant for Mercedes, to the extent that Rudi Caracciola himself had once delivered Hitler’s new Merc’ to the Fuhrer in Munich—complete with all its ‘personal’ touches such as a special cabinet for a pistol) that Mercedes would once again become the world’s greatest race team. Stuck was left in the unenviable position of explaining to the Fuhrer that he was no longer with Mercedes, but with Auto Union, leaving Hitler no choice but to financially back not only Mercedes, but Auto Union to boot. The result, of course, was the Silver Arrows that would crush all before them between 1934 and 1939.

The only real defeat for the Silver Arrows? At the Nürburgring in 1935, when Nuvolari beat the might of Germany in his aging Jano-designed Alfa Romeo P2 in what most consider to be the greatest drive in the history of grand prix racing.

Hans Stuck was a legend in the Age of Titans. In 1951, Hans’ son—the very man standing here in the paddock before us—was born, and it was inevitable that he would follow in his father’s footsteps. Indeed, the boy was taught to drive here, at the Nürburgring, where his father became an instructor after retiring from racing at the sprightly young age of sixty. And it was here, at nineteen—in the very first edition of the 24 Hours of the Nürburgring—that young ‘Strietzel’ announced his arrival on the international racing scene by winning the race outright. His father’s training had clearly rubbed off on the young man who, on the back of that victory, went on to drive in Formula One where he enjoyed some success despite his imposing height—1.94 metres. A bad decision—coupled with some bad luck—saw his drive with Brabham in 1977 (a year that saw him lead the USGP East) fail to launch his career. Niki Lauda took his seat at Brabham for 1978, and ‘Strietzel’ missed out on the Williams seat just as Williams came to form after a decade of back-of-the-grid failure. ‘Strietzel’ then moved to sports and touring cars, where he went on to have a brilliant career, capturing Le Mans twice, and becoming DTM champion on 2000 with Audi. (Audi is all that remains of the magnificent Zwickau-based Auto Union team of the 1930s, the Porsche-designed Type C and D that once powered Hans-Joachim’s father to glory vanishing behind the Iron Curtain in 1945.)

The first thing Hans-Joachim wants to know who is: ‘Who are you, and from which magazine?’

I hand him my AUTOSIMSPORT card which has the magazine’s URL on it. He tells me he’s going to look at the website when he’s back at the internet-connected computer, in half an hour or so—in the meantime, he looks down at us from his towering, balding head, and invites us to ask some questions.

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Christian Droop, race organizer of the ‘Radical Sports Car Cup’, confirms that Radical is aiming at an online communitylaunch this autumn, featuring real-time data available for online qualifying sessions … also to come is their own‘branded’virtualsimulator… www.autosimsport.net

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His assessment of racing-sims is brief, but telling: ‘No, I have never used racing simulations in my life. We have a setup for our guests available here at the ‘Ring for the duration of the event, but it’s much too ‘plasticky’ for my taste, all wobbly, and no physical feedback, so it’s all quite useless.’

(Having later seen the setup to which he is referring, Marco and I are left in no doubt that we agree with him—it looks truly awful {apart from the Playseat that’s holding the wheel}. Apparently the system is running on a PS3 or XBOX, with only an el-cheapo wheel/pedal combo that doesn’t even sport a clutch pedal. That explains it, we think.)

With that, he informs us that his son may have dabbled with racing-sims (who’s right now recovering from a major shunt in a recent race at—where else, this being a Stuck—the Nordschleife), and points in the general direction of his whereabouts in the paddock.

Sadly, we’re unable to locate him. Still, ‘Strietzel’s’ comments reflect something of a common thread amongst the ‘older’ generation of racing drivers. I’m reminded of the time when Jackie Stewart got to drive GPL shortly after its release, and was far from complimentary. But these opinions are understandable when you consider the setup he—and Stuck—had and have been exposed to. I wonder what both ‘Strietzel’ and Jackie would have to say if we put them into a state of the art Force Dynamics setup today, or, indeed, into McLaren’s super-simulator …

Christian Droop Christian Droop is the race organizer of the ‘Radical Sports Car Cup’, and considering that several recent titles (Race0X, iRacing) include the Radical line of sports cars in their lineup either commercially or using a community created mod, we decided to ask him a couple of questions dealing with Radical’s plans vis-a-vis simulation software, especially in the light of one of the Radical Cup’s goals—to allow racers running on a smaller budget to compete in a tight field and show their talents to a large audience.

The Radical sportscar—the brain child of two amateur races (Englishmen Mick Hyde, and Phil Abbott)—has a close connection to the Nürburgring, having established the outright record at the circuit for production cars with their ‘SR8’ standard model (6:55s).

Christian tells us that, beginning this autumn, data recorded from the real-life race events will be made available online to be used in a regulated competition for would-be and virtual racers. Christian explained that it will not go as far as allowing people on the net to compete in the real-life field in the simulation, but sector and lap times from the real-life races will provide the benchmarks for the simulated car classes.

‘We're aiming at something rather large here,’ he says, ‘with organized online qualifying sessions to allow the drivers to qualify for the advanced racing classes. It’s not

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going to be possible to jump straight into the SR8 (which features Radical’s biggest engine unit, a 2600cc Powertec RPA V8 producing somewhere around 370BHP) right away.’ Asked what the basis for this simulation is going to be, he states that, ‘it's going to be an add-on mod created by ‘Virtual Racing’ for RACE07.’

In addition to that, Radical plans to create their own ‘branded’ simulations for business customers, enabling them to run their own, customized cups in the future using the Radical line of sports cars. ‘We're certainly looking to expand into this area,’ Droop confirms.

As his own experience regarding race simulations is limited, he points us toward the ‘Speed Factory Racing Team’ a bit further down the paddock, where (he tells us) there’s a driver named Dominik Ruff racing an SR5 who uses race simulations frequently.

‘GPL was hard! Just to drive in a straight line back then was quite an effort!’

—Dominik Ruff www.autosimsport.net

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“Yes, I have RACE07, but to be honest, I was rather disappointed. Just three days prior to the real event, I ran the Radical at Monza (where my braking point {in the real car} is around the 175 mark): In the sim, {I was braking} at the 50 mark “—Dominik Ruff 70

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Ruff showed his credentials—and the cup for the ‘Speed Factory Team’: “Shift-R would come in useful!” www.autosimsport.net

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Dominik Ruff Dominik Ruff learned his ropes in karting (more specifically, long-distance and endurance events). He recently won the ‘Rüsselsheim-Racing-Days’, a six-hour epic of a race, on the back of which he was signed by the ‘Speed Factory Racing Team’ to compete in the final events of the 2008 European Radical Masters Series. Like ‘Stippi’, and Stuck, he hails from the dizzying heights of a mountainous 1.90 metres, but appears to be an approachable, all-round good natured bloke. His father worked as a mechanic between 1987 and 1988 for the ‘Brun Motorsport’ racing team at the Le Mans twenty-four hours, so it’s only natural that his aim is to secure a drive in the LMES series in the future.

‘I'm not going to claim that Formula One is my ultimate goal like most other young drivers would,’ he tells us. ‘Le Mans has been part of my family life right from my earliest memories.’ He enjoys the teamwork, the night driving, and especially the endurance part of racing, making Le Mans-style driving ideal fodder for his talent.

Once we broach the subject of simulators, Dominik immediately shows his bonafides by naming Grand Prix Legends as his first encounter with sim-racing. ‘GPL was hard,’ he recalls, laughing, ‘Just to drive in a straight line back then was quite an effort!’ More recently, he’s run a few of the Race Driver products, as well as RACE07.

We asked him to outline the differences between sim-racing and real-racing.

‘Well, not many differences remain,’ he suggests, ‘apart from the fact you cannot feel the G-forces. It’s hard to tell, within the simulation, how much further one can push the car; in the sim, it’s usually ‘over’ much quicker than in the real thing.’

Does he, I ask, have any direct comparisons to the Radicals via iRacing, or RACE07?

‘Yes, I have RACE07, but to be honest, I was rather disappointed. Just three days prior to the real event, I ran the Radical at Monza (where my braking point {in the real car} is around the 175 mark): In the sim, {I was braking} at the 50 mark, and {I was} still able to navigate the corner. That's a bit ‘F-1 style’, and not really transferable into the real world.’

Has he had a chance to test the iRacing Radicals yet?

‘Sorry, but being a student working through my exams, and doing real-life racing, means I haven’t had a chance to try the iRacing Radical, as it’s kind of hard to find the time to race at the computer. What I usually do, however, is when preparing to race at an unknown track, I use the computer to learn my way around it before going there, like where it’s turning right, left, elevation changes, and so on. However, the real-life track usually proves quite different from the simulated model, so I have to look for new braking and turn in points when I’m doing the first laps there.’

Which specific titles does he use to familiarize himself with a new track?

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‘Mostly RACE07, and the DTM/Race Driver series,’ he replies.

Most of Dominik’s racing is financed by sponsorship and private efforts. He estimates the price tag for a full Radical season to be around 70,000 to 100,000 Euros—which does not cover damage or repair costs. ‘Shift-R was a blessing in GPL, for sure,’, he jokes, probably thinking about his recent ‘off’ at Monza which, he confides, resulted in a five figure repair bill for him and his family that prevented him from participating in the following event because of a lack of funds.

While he confesses to following the Formula One races on TV when his schedule allows, he confirms that his heart and soul beat for endurance racing, specifically, ‘The teamwork, driving at night, the long distances involved—it’s just totally different from sprint or Formula One races where you’re usually out there on your own. For me personally, the Le Mans series is certainly where I want to be.’

Late in the session, Dominik’s father joins us for a quick smoke, and a sip of coffee from a paper cup. With this intimate setting, he explains the hardships and sacrifices involved in raising a racing son. While he’s not about to sell the house to support Dominik’s career just yet, you can certainly tell he’s going to great lengths to support his son’s efforts. Fitting their travel and work schedule into anyone’s life sounds like a daunting task, even if you had nothing else to do with your time all day. The constant search for private or corporate sponsorship is arduous work.

With the afternoon drifting into silence as evening approaches, Marco and I sit around watching the teams work on their cars with most of the drivers now long gone, perhaps to Adenau, as Hans-Joachim’s father would do back in the 1930s, to share a few drinks and stories with Tazio, and Varzi, and Rosemeyer. As for us, we’re left with our photographs, our interviews, and our impressions. First and foremost of those being how little iRacing has penetrated into Europe at this stage, and, more pointedly, how simulated-racing has yet to penetrate into real-life motor-sport at this level. It remains the domain of the well-informed, sim-racing, while those outside the scene seem unaware of the advances of this sport … and it is perhaps time for us to admit that it may not be a question of when this penetration will happen but, rather, how?

*Frank Stippler on the Web: 30Hhttp://www.frank-stippler.de/ *Hans Joachim Stuck on the Web: 31Hhttp://www.hansstuck.com/en.html *Radical SportsCars Germany: 32Hhttp://www.radical-deutschland.de/ *If you're interested in contacting or sponsoring Dominik, contact his father Harald at 33Hharald.ruff@teliko.net. *More Pics Available Here: 34Hhttp://picasaweb.google.com/uwe.schuerkamp/LeMansEnduranceS eriesNuerburgring2008

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Davide Rigon FIA GT Ferrari driver, Euro3000 and Italian F3000 Champion, A1GP Italy driver and ... Superleague Formula driver for Borussia Dortmund in the nascent league that sees its birth on the last weekend in August at Donington Park— AUTOSIMSPORT gives you the lowdown on the drama to come …

Minardi TV is available at Minardi.it, featuring a fascinating interview with the legendary Dallara. Go see …

AUTOSIMSPORT Photos: Minardi.it & Daviderigon.it

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Davide Rigon

Barcelona, Spa-Francorchamps, Vallelunga, Bucharest, Donington—these are the tracks on which Davide Rigon will race this August, a really intense month for last year’s European F.3000 champion, current FIA GT BMS Scuderia Italia Ferrari F430 driver, and future Superleague Formula driver.

Rigon began this intense tour de force with a first test at the wheel of the 750BHP Elan/Panoz to be inaugurated at the Superleague Formula debut race at Donington at the end of August. Hardly had the tyres cooled when Rigon flew to Belgium for the mythical twenty-four hours of Spa-Francorchamps, a weekend that ended in the best possible way for the young

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man from the Veneto, when he claimed both his first podium and win for 2008. Two days later, Rigon was back testing the mighty Panoz for the second collective test session for the Superleague Formula, in which he will take the grid racing for the German football team Borussia Dortmund.

In the next fifteen days, Rigon will divide his time between the FIA GT series (next race scheduled for August 24 in Bucharest), and the Superleague test for the series’ much-anticipated debut at Donington Park on the 31 August. Rigon has shown himself to be on the pace for this new series, and is very excited by the prospects.

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You took part in your first twenty-four race at Spa, and you powered to a fantastic victory: Can you tell us about this adventure behind the wheel of the BMS Scuderia Italia F430?

The twenty-four hours at Spa is a unique race, and it was a fantastic result for us. We didn’t have any problems at all, and the strategy of the team worked perfectly. For sure, the experience of the twenty-hours of Le Mans was very useful for us here. From the Thursday practice session we were the fastest cars, and this continued into the race where we were able to impose our own rhythm, for which we have to thank Pirelli.

Driving during the night was not the easiest thing I’ve ever done, but after a few laps I got acclimated and was able to bring the car back from my stint without any mistakes. Unfortunately, a tyre blew during this stint, but I was able to control the F430 and, once the tyre was replaced, we had a problemfree run. Standing on the top-step of the podium is always a fantastic feeling.

After five races, you are now fourth in the FIA GT Championship with thirty-three points: What are you objectives this year?

My objective has always been the same: Being a debutante in the FIA GT, my priority has always been to bring home as many points as I can for the team, and to see my F430 as far up the grid as possible. As with all championships, the technical level is very high, and there are drivers here with a great deal of experience, and this helps motivate me to always push to the maximum.

Let’s talk about the Superleague Formula: In the two collective tests (at Barcelona, and Vallelunga) you had the opportunity to test the new Panoz. Can you tell us a little more about this new car?

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The Panoz SF is a ‘big’ monocoque, in terms of its dimensions. The thing that impressed me the most, though, was how it handled under brakes: Very similar to the Dallara GP2, with a very quick gearbox.

Unfortunately, in those two tests we were not able to use one hundred percent of the car’s power—but at the same time, I learned that this is a car that is difficult to drive. It has a lot of aerodynamic load, and not so much mechanical grip. It feels almost as if all the grip comes from ‘the sky’. It’s great fun to drive though, even if it is difficult to setup for both the teams and the drivers.

The Superleague Formula will spring to life on the 31 August at Donington Park: What are your expectations and objectives for this new adventure?

Since I decided to aim for this new adventure, my objective was simple: To win the championship and, now that the first tests are in the bag, we know we can score some good results. If the Zakspeed team give me what I need, it will be difficult for the other teams—we are all very determined to do well.

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THE SUPERLEAGUE WHEEL WITH DAVIDE RIGON

The Superleague Formula Wheel I like this wheel a lot, actually, and as you will notice, it’s positively riddled with buttons (similar to a Formula One wheel). So what do they do?

1. Push to pass: Pushing this button will give you about 30BHP—rather useful for passing!

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2. Pit Limit: Used in the pits to make sure you’re going at the right speed: 60km/h 3. Confirm: This is used in moments during the race when you’re too busy to talk to the pits via the radio.

When you press it, it confirms to the team that you have received their information.

4. Alarm: As soon as there’s something anomalous happening (for example, engine temperature, or elevated gearbox pressure), the onboard computer will signal this by illuminating the screen on the steering wheel. To accept, or reset the screen, you push this button.

5. Rain: To activate the rear lights (obligatory in case of rain) 6. Neutral: Every time you start the car, there is a procedure you need to follow. First thing is—you need to push the clutch in (the lever is behind the steering wheel), then you press the ‘Neutral’ button. At this point, you insert first gear with the lever on the right in order to move forward. You can also use this button to stick the car into neutral while moving.

7. GCU: This button is used to change the gearbox mapping. We use a faster gearbox for qualifying, and one that is more reliable for the race.

8. ECU: This button is used to change the mapping of the engine. This, too, is altered for qualifying and for the race. It is also useful to alter the mapping to save fuel.

9. Talk: This opens the channel to talk to the pits.

10. Page: Press this to go through the three pages on the main screen: Start, Practice, and Race.

11. Fuel: When you’ve topped-up with fuel, this button resets the consumption calculation.

12: Drink: A pump will be installed into this button which will draw water for the driver to drink during the race.

In the main screen you can see the three pages that will give the drivers all the information he needs on the car, such as temperatures, oil pressures for the engine and the gearbox, and so forth. In addition, we can see which gear we’re in, and the RPM of the engine via the LED will indicate the ideal moment to shift, in order not to go ‘off-revs’.

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SUPERLEAGUE FORMULA The Concept: Take the two most watched sports on the planet, and combine them. That’s football and motor-racing, in case you were wondering.

The Championship: Superleague Formula will have a Saturday practice session, and two races on the Sunday. There are twenty cars scheduled to take part, with each finishing position place paying one point (that is, twenty points for first, one point for twentieth. The winning team walks away with one million Euros (1.5million U.S$): Champion is driver and team with most points at the end of the season.

The Format: Saturday: Free testing and qualifying. Sunday: Two races. First race features grid as per qualifying on Saturday. Second race features a completely reversed grid.

The Prize: €1,000,000 prize per race weekend.

The Teams: There are twenty teams scheduled to take the grid on Sunday August 31. However, as we go to press, only seventeen clubs have confirmed their entry. AC Milan, PSV Eindhoven, FC Porto, Olympiacos, Borussia Dortmund, RSC Anderlecht, Flamengo, FC Basel, Galatasaray SK, Sevilla FC, Corinthians, Rangers, Al Ain, Beijing Gouan FC, AS Roma, Tottenham Hotspurs, and Liverpool FC. The Tracks: 1. Donington Park, United Kingdom, August 30/31 2008. 2. Nürburgring, Germany, September 20/21 2008. 3. Zolder, Belgium, October 4/5 2008. 4. Estoril, Portugal, October 18/19 2008. 5. Vallelunga, Italy, November 1/2 2008. 6. Jerez, Spain, November 22/23 2008.

The Car: ANOZ (USA) SUPERLEAGUE DP09B CAR SPECS Overall car width to wheel rim 2000 mm Wheelbase: 3156 mm Total Length: 4600 mm (tbc) Max Height: 995 mm Front Wing Width: 1400 mm Rear Wing Width: 1000 mm Bodywork Width: 1400 mm Weight Target: 675 kg Gearbox: Hewland (UK) LSFA semi-auto Longitudinal 6-speed Front Suspension: Steel/Carbon wishbones and steel pushrod to twin shocks. Driver adjustable front ARB Steering: Titan (UK) made rack and pinion (cast magnesium housing). Bespoke quick release carbon fibre steering wheel designed jointly by Menard Technologies and Pi Research specifically for the SF Championship Rear Suspension: Steel aero tube wishbones and pushrod to twin shocks. Adjustable rear ARB Pankl (Austria) drive shafts and tripods Tyres: Michelin Bodywork Composite: Carbon fibre, made by Panoz The Engine: No of Cylinders: 12 Capacity: 4.2 Litres Configuration: 60 degrees V formation Weight: 140KG (Dry) Peak Power: 750BHP @ 11,750 rpm Maximum RPM: 12,000 Peak Torque: 510 N/M 9,500 10,500

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“I took a bunch of cars out for a spin around Le Mans; the Shelby Le Mans, 275Speciale, GT40 in some flavour or another, all from the two-litre plus class. It’s been a while since a sim-car actually scared me like the GT40 did. That thing is pure bloody hell, and I love it. On every corner it wants to kill you, and do it quickly. There is no smooth option. You just have to beat it into submission and hope you’re tougher than it is. And with the right gearing set, it will quite happily go down the ‘straight’ at 190mph. It’s the only car of the bunch that I was having to slow for the kink. But then, I was slowing it to a speed still faster than the Ferrari could manage. Then it tries to take off over the crest, and you’d better pray your brakes still work for that nasty right-hander. After that, it gets really scary. If the back isn’t stepping out, then the car is going to go wide, and carry on going wide until you hit something.

“The 275 really is something special though. I could run a series in that thing. Just give me ’67 spa, Les Essarts, Le Mans, and ‘Nords’, and I'll be gone for weeks.”

—Spadge Fromley

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The Power & The Glory: Part Two Brake fade, historically correct suspension geometry, never-before seen updates to the GTR2 graphics-engine, over forty types of tyre compounds, thousands of hours of research, aerodynamic lift, exact-period-specific skins … and we’re still merely scraping at the the textures of this monumental tour de force that the GTL Workshop will unleash this autumn …

IVANASKEW

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The Power & The Glory: Part Two

In the spring of 2007, this magazine was given the rare opportunity of unleashing what has since gone on to become one of the most respected mods ever released: The GTL Workshop’s ‘Power & Glory’ mod, an instant classic, and arguably (but not from me!) the most important mod ever created for GTR2. For those who missed it, the idea was quite simple: Update SimBin’s GTL to GTR2 (with permission from SimBin and Blimey!Games) in order to have an historical mod for SimBin’s (arguably, but not from me!) finest simulator.

Somewhere along the line, though, the GTL Workshop seem to have become a little too obsessed with their project to the extent where the P&G mod now far exceeds its original remit, and has mutated into nothing less than the virtual recreation of the glory years of endurance racing. In its current guise, the mod is nothing short of a definitive history of endurance racing’s finest years, and you not only get to learn about this epic era in motor-sport, you actually get to live it in the classic beasts of lore. Like all great mods and simulators, the P&G mod is more than simply cars and tracks; it is a living piece of history.

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So what does Part Two promise? It will arrive with full updates to all cars from the first iteration, and add another thirty-three intimately created cars (not including skins) into the mix. But these are not just ‘cars’—they are cars rebuilt to their historical specifics down to the final timbering exhaust note. Indeed, the historical research—led by the team’s archivist, David Wright—far exceeds anything we have seen before on this magazine. Those of you who have a love for classic motor-sports are in for a rare treat— this project is simply breathtaking in its breadth and scope. But don’t take out word for it …instead, let’s take a walk through the Workshop alongside chief mechanic Aris Vasilakos …

Graphics “Dirt textures have been introduced because these are racing cars, not showroom cars,” Aris begins. “All cars from Part One have been completely redone and overhauled. The Cobra roadsters will feature no windshields, the Alpines will sport entirely new front ends, and cars that set the world alight in the late 1960s, such as the GT40 MK1 Gulf, GT40 MKII, Ferrari

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250SWB, Grand Sport Corvettes, will finally see the light of day in GTR2. These cars are not— as was the remit of the initial version—their modern-day equivalents: They have, rather, been recreated the way they were designed which means—no rollbars, no fire extinguishers, no modern equipment from GTL cars at all. Some Austin Healey 3000s, for example, will feature front flares, and all cockpits for all cars have been redone after exhaustive research. The exhausts, too—such as the amazing Cobra exhausts, and various Corvette exhausts—have all been remodeled. And speaking of the Cobras, they will feature different cockpits and dials, while the air intakes on various cars (like the Mustangs, and Cobra Daytonas) have been completely redone as well. Correct era wheels and tyres for all cars, brake intakes, different front and rear bumpers, different lights front and rear where needed, all have been included to historically-precise proportions. Even side-lights used by some endurance cars at major events—such as the Ferrari 275GTB/C at Le Mans—have been included.”

More tantalizing still, the GTL Workshop have made a breakthrough with GTR2, and will be offering the first-ever night-lit dials on all cars. The skins, meanwhile, for all cars, will be high-resolution, and exact to the very last lettering of the logos.

Sound “The sound department, led by Ducfreak, has searched and researched to find the best and most authentic samples from the era,” says Aris. “An outstanding amount of mixing has delivered not only the best sound experience while racing, but also while simply driving around. This would seem, perhaps, to be an indulgence, but many mods sound great at the top-end range of engine revs, but are a bit lacking lower down. P&G, on the other hand, sounds authentic from the idle revs all the way up to the limiter, and even if you over-rev the engine while downshifting, you’ll get the correct sounds. This is important because it not only enhances the immersion of the mod, but also the feedback of the cars themselves when driving them. Tyre sliding, scrubbing, gearbox sounds, brakes sounds, even different volumes of wind at speed, depending if you’re driving a roadster or a coupe, all will make these cars unique in the way the sound.”

What’s more, the external sounds will be completely different than those you’ll be hearing when in the cockpit, and, naturally, those sounds, too, have been exhaustively researched so that, when you’re viewing a replay, you will get a sense of what these cars really sounded like in their heyday to the spectators. “It’s also useful in the sim,” Aris adds, “so that you will be left in no doubt as to who is behind you or in front of you on the track!” Finally, we will be able to hear what those fortunate enough to be at Le Mans in 1968 will have heard: The thunder elongating into a scream of the GT40 down the Mulsanne Straight …

To add to the atmosphere, new garage sounds, and music scores for the main menus, have also been added.

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Historical Details And Implementation “An enormous amount of historical information has been assembled since Part One,” Aris confirms. “Homologation papers, interviews with chief mechanics, drivers, team managers, magazine reviews of racing cars, racing results, historic videos—all have been used to create, with extreme precision, every single car’s features. For every single car we have drivers’ information, years active, races run, positions, results, and hundreds of technical statistics.”

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This is more than just a mod, as I said: It is a living piece of automotive history. “Technical information such as spring/wheel rates, dampers, aerodynamic resistance, lift or downforce values, authentic gearbox ratios, straight line performances, lateral acceleration on skid pads, all have been used to recreate the cars, including details on tyre makes and compounds used throughout the 1960s and 1970s.”

Physics “Every single tyre maker with its dedicated compound for each year of racing in the entire length of the 1960s decade has been included,” says Aris. “Each car—every single one—for each iteration, and for every year it was run, has the precise tyre and compound as used by that car. Indeed,” Aris continues, “there were dozens of tyres that were raced in that period, and each was different in terms of grip performance, handling, the way they heated, wear characteristics, wet weather characteristics, exercise pressures, dimensions, and so on. The mod has made each of them perfectly proportionate in terms of overall performance, and every other characteristic. We are talking about forty tyres (including compounds for all three different makes—Dunlop, Firestone, Goodyear) used in about ten years of competition. And here we are talking about a huge array of performances: From the first attempts of lower profile tyres in the early 1960s that demonstrated high aquaplaning risk, to the late 1960s’ wide tyre profiles with specific compounds for qualifying, endurance, and wet conditions, just a year before the era of slicks changed racing forever.”

If that sounds impressive, the aerodynamic performance exhibited by the cars is a veritable tour-de-force in simulated-racing. “All the cars’ top speed is balanced to 1km/h on the long Le Mans straight, as per the era results, and speed trap data. Most of the cars also produce lift,” adds Aris, “which is something extremely rare and, as far as we can determine, perhaps a first for any mod. What this means is that you will suffer aerodynamic instability on the straights, the severity obviously depending on each car. Indeed, an attempt was made to

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simulate the cars’ sensitivity to side-winds, but the ISI engine does not simulate wind. The effect, though, is evident on the car’s stability while braking, and its tendency to drift sideways or, indeed, to resist this and remain stable. Setups, too, are forced by these characteristics: For instance, the Alfa Romeo GTA’s rear-end instability will force the driver to aim for a more stable setup under braking.”

The suspension geometry of the cars, too, has been significantly overhauled. “The advent of tools like the fantastic ‘Kangaloosh’ application,” Aris says, “has created a playing field in which each physics modder can now create suspensions with excellent driving characteristics, far more realistic behavior, and, as a result, great fun to drive. But we beg to differ. With the modern tools of our virtual world, it’s ‘easy’ to create ‘perfect suspensions’.

That, however, was far from the case back in the day when suspension geometry was heavily influenced by chassis limitations, the availability of materials and compounds, and, most importantly, a limited knowledge and complete absence of simulation tools for the engineers of that era. A car’s handling, as a result, was often determined by the engineers’ experience and personal knowledge.”

The suspension geometry for P&G Part Two is largely based on the excellent work of Doug Arnao’s GTL geometry but—“We took things a bit further, trying to match, as far as possible, the geometry of the virtual cars to those of the original ones. What this means is that cars ‘roll’ more, bounce more, and, depending on the car, also turn on three wheels.”

Indeed, P&G Part One was the first ever mod using the ISI engine that pioneered the three-wheel turn, both for rear wheel drive cars (Alfa GTA, Lotus Cortina, and Porsche 911), and front wheel drive cars (the Mini’s rear internal wheel) as a realistic handling characteristic.

As anyone who has seen a photo of Jim Clark throwing his Cortina around some club circuit in the U.K in the mid-1960s will attest to, three-wheel cornering was an intimate part of the 1960s club-racing scene … And speaking of Jim Clark’s 1960s Cortina (for many, as much a part of Clark’s legend as his Lotus), his 1965 MK1 Ford Lotus Cortina was sold at auction at the end of last year for just under U.S$300,000 (not too shabby for a car that was available at about U.S$2,000 when first built).

As a final note, Aris adds that, “A lot—not all but a lot—of the cars will feature their actual setups for racing, or at least those used for homologation papers. Of course, the setups would change from race to race. Moreover, accurate historical brake temperatures and performances, accurate historical engine temps, rev limiters, fuel consumption, and a lot more has been added to Part Two …”

We would love to feature all the cars in this magazine, because each is a masterpiece in its own right (both in its real-world life and now in its virtual recreation) but … time delimits that option, leaving us the unenviable option of selecting the three cars which we believe are, in some way, icons of that era.

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TECH SPEC: BRAKES The brakes in Part One of the Power & Glory mod were superb. But the GTL Workshop were not content with leaving this crucial aspect well-enough alone, and have spent the intervening year researching and implementing a new brake model that will, once it is released, be the most sophisticated braking model ever created for a commercially-available simulator or mod.

Yes, they’re that good.

The brake model hinges on the work of Harold Theyer, Ferodo’s competitions manager of the time, who enjoyed an unparalleled knowledge borne from experience on everything related to brakes: Brake pads, how the brakes needed to be bedded in, the operational temperatures of the brakes … the man knew it all.

The pads from the 1960s had an ideal operational range of between 300°C to 700°C, with an optimum temp of around 500°C. They could stand even 350°C over the ideal operating temperature before experiencing significant fade and eventual cracking.

Bedding in—the procedure that consists of carefully bringing the pads up to temperature for the first time—was therefore of extreme importance for the life expectancy of the brakes themselves. Nothing much has changed, of course, in the intervening forty years: Those who watch Formula One will recall how one unfortunate driver was forced to begin the race on unbedded pads. After two laps, he was off the road, into the sand, and retired.

The research into brakes has been extensive, and here are some of the more pertinent quotes taken from the time.

“For frequent stopping and starting in traffic under 30mph, they (the brakes) were quite inadequate. In point of fact, the notice on the facia panel reading, ‘The brakes on this car are of competition pattern, and require additional pressure to operate,’ was one of the understatements of the year!”

—Ford Mustang 350GT road review “It’s fitted with DS11 competition pads, which means that braking can be a dodgy business. The material needs to be warmed before it will work effectively, and until then, it has all the bite of a marble slab when it comes into contact with the discs. You need a hefty shove on the centre pedal to haul the car down from speed, even when the pads are warm. But the hauling is rapid.”

—Jaguar E-type lightweight road review “In the wet, the rambunctious Aston Martin is all the more entertaining for being so short of lateral grip (meatier rubber is used for competition). If it is also short of braking adhesion, I never found out. Racing pads that require as much pedal pressure as this car’s render lock-up virtually impossible.”

—Aston DB4GT road review “I was expecting to be able to lock the wheels under braking but that was not the case.”

—Graham Hill complaining after testing a prototype lightweight E-type “Although the car was fitted with big brake discs, it was impossible to lock them even when braking down from top speed at the end of the Mulsanne Straight.”

—Ken Miles report on the GT40 MK2 at the Le Mans 24 Hours race So how is all this translated into a physics engine that doesn’t actually support brake bedding? With compromises, of course, but by carefully selecting the correct values for the brake temperature range, the GTL Workshop have managed to achieve a brake behavior that is both challenging to drive, and as realistic as they can make it given the limitations of the physics engine.

With any car, you must be careful if not for your entire out lap, then at least for the first three-to-four turns. Always brake well before your braking points when you first come out of the pits, otherwise you will simply not be able to stop the car in time to negotiate the turn. The brakes need to build up heat, and this is also relative to the outside ambient temp.

Another thing to keep in mind is the fact that there is a wide range of different cars on offer with Part Two, and each of them has different brakes and, of course, weight. Generally, lighter cars can have problems heating up their brakes, and could end up never reaching the optimum temperature, especially on cold days. On the other hand, heavier cars will not only be able to heat up their brakes, but could also manifest brake fade at the end of long braking zones, again especially on hot days.

Here is the GTL Workshop’s braking technique advice for the cars included in the mod.

—Don’t push the car on the opening lap. Always brake sooner than what you’re used to in order to heat up the brakes.

—Once the brakes are heated, remember that their temperature at the end of any straight will be lower than optimal. Push the brake pedal as hard as possible while starting to brake. This will heat the brake pads, bringing them to an optimum temperature range. You will know where this is by noticing that the car decelerates much faster after the initial five-to-ten meters of the brakes being applied.

—After about half the braking distance, you might experience sudden lockups. This is due to the fact that the brake pads are now operating at their optimum temperature, and have enough force to lock the wheels. You should, naturally, begin modulating the pressure on your brake pedal as soon as you feel the tyres locking up.

—For heavier cars, toward the end of the braking zone, you might experience fade. Since you have been modulating the brake pressure-pedal, it’s now time to step again on the brake pedal hard in order to squeeze out the last vestige of stopping power available from your brakes.

—Heavier cars on hot atmospheric conditions will experience brake fade. Being more gentle on the brakes on your outlap will delay this phenomenon. Another solution is to move the brake bias toward the rear, as this will put less stress on the front brakes, and will make the car more dependent on the rears. Of course, beware of braking instability should you go backward with the bias.

—Some of the cars have rear drums instead of discs. Drums heat much quicker than discs, and can get up to optimum temperature way before the front discs. This could lock your rear wheels if the brake bias balance is not correct. Take care, and choose an appropriate braking bias setup. Also keep in mind that the drums can easily fade, too.

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TECH SPEC: TYRES

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THE ALPINE A110 1300S—‘THE FRENCH CORVETTE’

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Alpine A110 1.3S Weight: 605kg (no fuel, no driver) Engine: Renault Gordini 1296cc 4 Inline TorqueL 134Nm @ 6,750RPM Power: 134BHP @ 7,250rpm Engine Limiter: 7,500RPM Top Speed: Over 210km/h Dunlop tyres: Front Width: 148mm Rear Width: 148mm

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The Alpine A110 1300S—‘The French Corvette’ An iconic shape and certainly one of the most recognizable cars of the 1960s, the Alpine A110 went through no less than thirteen iterations during its period of production between 1962 and 1977. But the car itself has always inspired the type of gut-reaction love that has led to many misconceptions and myths surrounding its actual heritage.

To begin with, it wasn’t—at the time—owned or produced by Renault, although the company’s ties with the French giant was evident from the very start when Jean Redele, the son of a Renault concessionaire, built the first ‘Alpine’ using a re-framed chassis from Renault’s post-war CV4. This reframed CV4 had its debut race in 1953, and enjoyed a great deal of success in rallying. By the end of the decade, the Alpine had become a production car, and by the mid-1960s was heavily involved in rally, and, to a lesser extent, sports car racing.

Another source of much heated debate surrounds the actual designer of the A110. The French, of course, love their Alpine, and will go to the wall claiming that it was designed by none other than Redele himself. Italians, however, looking at the thing, are reminded of their own sports cars of the early 1960s, and will point out that an earlier Alpine—the A108—had had one variation designed by the legendary Italian coachbuilder Michelotti (who had gained much notoriety by designing the British Triumphs such as the ‘Zobo’ in the 1950s).

The truth, however, seems to have been lost to the mists of time, and since we don’t want to upset any of our French readers (because saying the Alpine was designed by an Italian is like saying the Ferrari GTO was designed by an Englishman), we will leave this debate well enough alone and, instead, remember that the first A110 was built in 1961 as a small, agile, road-going sports car using parts from the mass-produced Renault A8.

The car was light (thanks to its fiber glass body, it topped the scales at about 800kgs), but not terribly well behaved, featuring a steel chassis, and pushing out about 85BHP from its 1.1 litre engine. This was quickly upped by the introduction of a small Gordini-tuned power-plant (Gordini, of course, went on to design the Renault Formula One turbos from the mid-1970s that redefined that series for six magnificent years) that eventually popped-out about 100BHP at 6,500RPM. The car was entered into sports car and rallys, and enjoyed so much success in the latter that, by 1968, Renault was using its entire sports budget on funding the Alpine adventure.

The Alpine A110—much modified—would go on to international fame as the rally car of the early 1970s, winning the Monte Carlo Rally in 1971 (in the hands of Ove Andersson, who would go on to become Toyota F1’s first chief before passing away tragically this year during an historic rally in South Africa). In 1973, Alpine was bought out by Renault who then ran the A110 as their official car in that season’s first-ever ‘World Rally Championship for Makers’, which they duly won. But that was the last hurrah for the A110 that was now in its second decade, as the 1974 season saw the introduction of the all-conquering Lancia Stratos.

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In sports car racing, the Alpine did not fair quite as well. The car we will test here is the Alpine A110 S1300 that ran at Le Mans in 1968. The number designated for this car in-sim is 68061—or, (1968), number 061. The car was entered by the Ecurie Léopard, running the number 61 in the GT class. The drivers were Jacques Bourdon, Maurice Nussbaumer, and Michel Pouteaux. The car used a Renault-Gordini-tuned R8 1.3S engine that peaked at about 132BHP. Before we test-drive it, though, just a few technical notes on the Alpines: The car came with a fair-few engine configurations during its decade-long run in international motor-sports, with the abovementioned 1300S being the most powerful engine used by the company until they introduced their 1600 engines in the 1970s. The 1300S was used between 1965-1971.

In the course of researching the car, GTL Workshop’s David Wright had the good fortune of being able to count on the input of a chap called Roger, who runs an Alpine in historic races in the U.K. Roger explains that, “None of these cars used a rear ARB, and all have swing axle rears. Front track is wider than the rear. The fuel tank sits above the

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driver’s knees, and behind the front wheels.” Roger further explained that his car—the very one we’re about to test—“is fitted with a 4:125 gear ratio, and on thirteen inch tyres (579mm diameter wheels), it will show about 210kp/h on the ‘speedo’ at max revs.”

Roger proved to be a treasure-chest of knowledge and feedback during the creation of the Alpine’s physics as he compared the virtual ride with the ride he enjoys week-in, week-out. Indeed, he went as far as to ring in the changes himself, as he explains in an email to the GTL Workshop: “The changes,” Roger writes, “are as follows: More weight to the rear, reduced rear ride-height a little, and also reduced rear droop travel (this is limited by straps in the real car). Extended front droop travel. The result is a car that feels astonishingly similar to mine. Especially the way you can manage the rear weight on a trailing throttle corner entry, and lift-off mid-corner should be quite troublesome (which it is now!). I also moved the centre of gravity further back, and have the feeling of the weight in the tail, and ability to use that weight to adjust my line. Also, the other handling oddities have arrived; the nasty oversteer if you go too far, and the tank-slappers that are easy to get. Also the fact that it will often understeer as readily as oversteer. I don’t know how others will get on with the oversteer, but I find this really easy to drive in a slide; again, very much like the real one, great when you have it, but evil if you overstep even a tiny bit.”

The Alpine was notoriously edgy to drive, and his advice on setups landed up surprising Aris, who had implemented the physics. “I was stunned,” recalls Aris. “I knew it was a pretty difficult car to setup, and everything I was doing—once I had the car down pat, and in-game—was simply not working, the car was completely unstable.”

Then he read an email from Roger: “The first thing I noticed in the 1300,” Roger wrote, “in the setup menu was that only minus one degree camber was available. I have adjusted this to allow minus three-and-half degrees of camber (although I am sure that more wouldn’t be inappropriate—I have seen mad rear cambers on these things).”

“I couldn’t believe a car from that era could have a negative three degrees of camber at the back!” recalls Aris. “I was laughing at how crazy that was ... then I tried it ... and magic happened!”

Which pretty much echoes Roger’s own sentiment when he tested the final(ish) version of his own Alpine. “Handling—with the extra rear camber setting—feels very accurate. I have had the thing drifting around ‘Donny’—quite snappy if the slide is overcorrected, and also the way understeer suddenly converts to oversteer (and the odd sensation where you get both in the same slide!) is all there. It’s a car that can be maddeningly hard until you tune into it, and then ludicrously easy to hurl around once you have it …”

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The Power & The Glory: Part Two

Behind The Wheel First thing you’ll notice—and think—is, this car is light and extremely agile. It also suffers from rear-end lift, so jacking up the front-end to maximum height, and lowering the rear-end as much as you can, will help with the handling. Tremendous amounts of rear negative camber are also de rigueur here, but you need to balance this with low front negative camber. This will give you a car that is far more stable since the real downfall of the Alpine is not in getting it to turn—but not getting it to turn too much! (God, there she goes again!).

If you nail the correct setup (the default setup offered with the car is an historically correct one), the car will transform into an agile beast that will whiz through the turns with magnificent French panache. You can carry amazing amount of speed in mid-turn in this thing—but that only happens if you are deliberate and careful when you’re committing to the turn because if it gets loose on you there, it’s going to be a lot of work from there on in.

Indeed, with the 1.1 liter engine, getting the rear out like a two-buck tart is risky business because you won’t have the power to handle the drift, and you’ll usually end up in a pendulum before finishing up on the other side of the road looking rather silly.

With the 1.3 engine, there is enough power to powerslide the car with much aplomb, but you have to understand how, because if you react too fast, the car will snap into a tankslapper. The way to get this car to perform is to let the oversteer calm down (meaning, you are counter-steering, but not enough to force it to stop), and allow the car its head. It will drift in a high angle, and you will progressively counter-steer until you reach maximum lock. But don’t panic, because this is actually the way you’re meant to drive this thing! When you are close to maximum lock, step on the gas, keep your foot planted, and prepare to straighten the steering wheel quickly when the rear end finds some grip.

The reason for this—and the reason why those rally Alpines were always in some ridiculous slide (part of what makes this car such a legend)—is to be found under the fiber glass bodywork, in the geometry of the suspension.

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If you get into a drift, let it go sideways on a big angle, then catch it. If you do it too early, it will bite you; if you do it too late, it will spin. If you do it properly, however, you will be rewarded with a car that is tenuously balanced in a massive high angle drift with the occasional front inner wheel off the ground for good measure. Feels great in the cockpit, looks quite magnificent on the replay! You will look like a Gallic hero in this car, so make sure you’re wearing your Sunday best because you will be noticed out there!

Despite this madcap approach to racing it, the car’s low weight means it is excellent on its tyres; you won’t be experiencing heat issues, nor wear: Indeed, one of its advantages is that you can use the softest tyres even in longer races, and its terrific fuel-consumption means you can run long into the race. The car won several ‘specific consumption’ awards at Le Mans, replacing the Lotus Elite in that category. It is also aerodynamically efficient, which means the ‘tiny’ engine will get you somewhere around 210km/h with only 132BHP. The 1.3 litre engine has a five-speed gearbox, which was a big improvement over the older four-speed box of the 1.1 litre. Speaking of the 1.1 litre: It is very peaky, but let’s face it ... it’s a dead horse. The 1.3 is rather nice, though, the gearbox is short, and gives you the idea that you are going extremely quickly as you change rapidly up through the gears. Of course you get this feeling until some of the big GTs blast by you, and the speed difference and acceleration rate is ... well ... depressing … but don’t be discouraged, you will still be looking the hero!

As for the way the car looks, it has been vastly improved from its GTL cousin. The interior is totally new, as is the front exterior, all of it done from scratch, and, of course, absolutely authentic. Even the wheels are authentic, and the body-shape has been heavily modified with the front headlights now correctly in place. The wheels on the Alpine were—unlike the GTL model—the classic three nut French wheels that you can also find on the 2CVs, and such (the Alpine was made of mass-produced Renault bits and pieces). At the rear of the car, finally, sit two air intakes. Over the right intake, there is a grille, and on the left, this grille is missing. This is historically correct: though why it was done this way remains yet another part of the Alpine’s mystique that defies the historian.

The sounds in the Alpine are exceptional; considering this is a simple four cylinder engine, it sounds great, and is testament to the work done by Ducfreak. For internal sounds, authentic cockpit videos were used, and what is noticeable is Ducfreak’s interesting variation on the way he creates his sound files. Most sound modders implement a bit of sound clipping, which results in a ‘harsh’, and somewhat realistic sound, but if you pump up the volume on your stereo or headphones, it can tear them apart, and also damage your ears!

Ducfreak’s sounds, on the other hand, are ‘clipping free’, and they are outstanding. You can pump the sound at max’, and they sound excellent all the way through their range. Which reminds me: Get a good set of headphones for this mod, or plug it into the hi-fi … trust me, you won’t be sorry.

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Volume 4 Number 4

FERRARI 275 GTB SPECIALE—‘THE SILVERcontinued BULLET’ Preview The COMPETIZIONE Power & The Glory: Part Two

Ferrari 275GTB/C Speciale Weight: 920kg (no fuel, no driver) Engine: Ferrari 250 LM V12. 3000cc Torque: 322Nm @ 7,000RPM Power: 330hp @ 8,000RPM Engine Limiter: 8,500RPM Top Speed: 270km/h Dunlop Tyres: Front Width: 165mm

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Ferrari 275 GTB Competizione Speciale—‘The Silver Bullet’ We are now firmly placed in the land of myths and legends. But before we look at the 275GTB/C that we will be test-driving, we need to turn back the clock to the early 1960s when Ferrari’s 250GTO was ruling international motor-sport with a beauty and grace never-before (or since) seen in endurance racing. The GTO went on to win the World Manufacturer’s Championship in 1962, 1963, and 1964, against some serious competition including the Cobras, with which Ferrari had an epic struggle between 1963-1965. In 2004, the U.S. magazine Sports Car International named the GTO as the top sports-car in history. They failed to mention it is also, in this humble person’s opinion, the most beautiful car ever designed. And, like the Alpine, it does not have a ‘father’, but, rather, was—unlike most Ferraris—the work of an entire team headed by the then young and promising engineer, Mauro Forghieri.

By 1965, however, old Enzo knew his GTO was struggling, and he needed a replacement. The 250LM was Ferrari’s answer, this being a prototype racing car which the Old Man wanted to pass off as a GT car. The FIA were not buying the story, and refused to accept the car as a homologated evolution of the GTO, leaving Ferrari no alternative but to turn to Ferrari’s recently introduced road-going 275 for GT racing.

Three 275-based competition cars were thus built throughout the winter of 1964, early 1965, with each car being subtly different from the other. All, however, sported incredibly thin aluminium bodies, with steel and aluminium structures to create a very light car powered by the 250 LM engine. The 275 GTB/Cs were so scarcely covered with aluminium that sitting on the car would actually dent it, and the rear of the car was eventually reinforced with fiber glass. Yes, motor-racing was dangerous in those days: Fancy running around Sebring in a car with an almost invisible layer of aluminium at 250km/h with the fuel tank somewhere under your ass? Well, then this Ferrari is for you … The cars, however, were no replacement for the dominant GTOs, even if their evolution saw them looking quite different from the original 275 GTBs on which they were based: They were a bit larger, with wider openings, and a longer front end with supplementary lights. Indeed, they were so different to the 275GTBs that they gained the name: ‘1965 GTOs’.

The GTL Workshop decided not to model these three cars since their body-work was so different, and little original documents exist to model an accurate car around them. What they settled on, instead, was a one-off design (based on the three 275 GTB/Cs) built in 1966, a car that had specifically built for the use of Ferrari’s favoured son of the moment, Lorenzo Bandini.

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The Power & The Glory: Part Two

This was to be a further refinement of the 275GTB/Cs, and was numbered 8249. It included all the refinements of the earlier three cars, but was even lighter, and featured a longer nose than the earlier versions, which was, in fact, closer to the original 275GTBs. Bandini never raced it, though, and the car, instead, was sold off to Giovanni Pessina who ran it as an independent in March and April of 1966 at Monza, finishing first and second in the GT-class …

And it is this car—#8249—which we will be test-driving. It had all the ‘tricks’ of the other ‘Speciali’, but its body is closely related to the original GTL’s street-going 275GTB. These GTL cars were the street production cars, though, and were used as the base for the ‘Bandini Speciale’.

“We changed the GTL car quite a bit to make it authentic,’ Aris explains, “but the main body is similar. The Speciale is quite a bit lighter, it has a better chassis, and slight modifications on the suspension, and, of course, it has the 250LM engine.”

Behind The Wheel The 275 Speciale is the best handling car in this release. It does what you tell it to do, and it does it with grace. It is stable, it can turn, it has traction—basically, it’s just a fantastic race car. It is also highly sensitive to setup changes (just don’t overdo it with front-end grip, because it likes to oversteer on corner entry—though this won’t cause you too many headaches, as it is easily controllable). You can drive this thing any way you please: If you like to take a precise line, or if you prefer a drive-it-like-you-stole it (a

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similar car sold this year for U.S$995,000, so buying it is probably out of the question!), it won’t much matter, this car will oblige you with a beautiful ride. It rides the kerbs and bumps without problems, and will respond to your every desire. Those, however, who are used to the street-going 275 should take note: The Speciale has the LM engine with less inertia, and it’s also quite a lot lighter, which can result in the rear breaking traction.

Not that this is a bad thing, but, if you want to be quick with it, sometimes a gentler right foot may be required.

The biggest problem with the Speciale, however, is its engine: It overheats like a bad tempered geriatric. If you work the engine as it should, red-lining with every shift, it will easily overheat, even at low ambient temperatures. This is a pity, naturally, because you’re going to have a hard time not revving this fantastic engine: The sound is something epic, and it will go up to 8,500RPM in no time at all. It will also go down to zero in no time, so … don’t do it too often! You need to shift at about 6000-7000RPM, and you need to keep an eye on your oil temp’.

“Yes, we’re sorry about this,” Aris says, laughing, “but that’s the way it was historically so …”

The car has low aero’ lift at the front, hardly noticeable, and top speed will see you hovering somewhere near 270km/h.

The sound of this car is another amazing feat. The GTL Workshop obtained samples from Nick Mason’s personal collection video/book, and you really need to hear this car screaming up to 8,000RPM down the Mulsanne Straight. Seriously …

The car, sadly, was never truly competitive despite its amazing feel: You’ll be running along thinking—I have this lap nailed—with that engine whining and breathing—and then you’ll glance at your laptimes and realize … hang on, where did I lose those ten seconds? You will be fighting hard against the lightweight E-types, and they will generally be quicker, while the Cobra Daytona will simply humiliate you in the worst possible way.

The car accelerates out of the corners with authority, and you can happily keep the accelerator planted without going into any wild oversteer nightmares.

The P&G 275GTB/C features no rollbars in the cockpit, new gauges, different exhausts (four pipes, instead of two), rear-welded vents, fuel caps, rectangular lights up front, bumpers where needed, rounded driving lights where needed, right hand driving conversion, different front grilles (including the lack of them in certain occasions), two side exhausts for the Speciale, historically specific wheels, and a host of other modifications from its GTL cousin. The aluminium skin, what’s more, on the Speciale, is something never before seen in any mod, and it is simply gorgeous. Spec’ racing anyone?

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Volume 4 Number 4

PreviewFORD The Power & The Glory: Part TwoASSASSIN’ continued GT40 MKI GULF—‘ENZO’S

GT40 MK1 GULF (1969) Weight: 870kg (no fuel, no driver) Engine: Ford 289c.u. V8 Torque: 535Nm @4,800RPM Power: 426BHP @6,000RPM Engine Limiter: 7,000rpm Top Speed: In Excess Of 300km/h Firestone Tyres:

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Front Width: 240mm Rear Width: 325mm

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Ford GT40 MKI Gulf—‘Enzo’s Assassin’ The Gulf GT40 was to Le Mans what Woodstock was to Rock & Roll in the 1960s. But what many may not know was that this icon was not run by Ford in 1968 and 1969 when it featured the now legendary Gulf Oil decal. Before we get to that, though, we should quickly recall the story of the GT40, because if it wasn’t for Ferrari—and for Ford’s cold desire for vengeance—the world would never have actually seen one of these 7 litre beasts roaring along the Mulsanne Straight.

Back in the early 1960s, Ferrari and Ford—that is, Enzo and Henry II—were in serious negotiations about the Dearborn-company buying out the Maranello concern, lock, stock, and smoking-hot exhaust. The negotiations went as far as Ford being given total access to Ferrari’s books, before the Old Man decided—literally when there was nothing left to the deal other than his signature on a dotted line—to cancel the deal. Henry II was not a little miffed—he was furious to the point of making the decision—in the summer of 1963—to bring Ford into sports car racing with one single remit: Beat Ferrari at Le Mans. Vengeance!

For the job, however, he needed to find a European partner: Lotus quickly turned him down, Cooper was seen as too Formula One-centric, which left only one company capable of delivering Ford his wish: Lola, which was given the remit to create Ford’s Ferrari killer.

Lola chief Eric Broadley readily accepted the challenge, having already accumulated an intimate knowledge of the Ford power-plant after running a Ford V8 in his Lola GT (which had enjoyed a solid—if ultimately fruitless—run at the 1963 Le Mans). Broadley brought in Aston Martin’s team manager John Wyer to oversee the day-to-day running of the operation and, with the chassis sorted, Ford sent his ‘own’ man Roy Lunn to the U.K to oversee the engine and car design, Lunn being the only engineer at Dearborn who had an intimate knowledge of a mid-engined car (after his work on the Mustang 1 concept car).

The first prototype—dubbed the GT101—was raced in May of 1964 at the Nürburgring 1000km. The ‘pony’ car showed potential, and in that season’s Le Mans race, it proved quick, too—fragile, difficult to drive—but enormously quick.

Vengeance, as they say, is a dish best served cold, and Ford was ready to wait—but not that long, because his patience would be rewarded as early as 1966 when the Ford GT40 MKIIs, running the 7 Litre Ford engine, simply crushed the opposition at that year’s Le Mans, finishing first-second-and third, before repeating the win in the 1967 event for good measure. Indeed, even the revised rules for 1968 could not stop the GT40 winning that year’s Le Mans (as well as the International Championship for Makes) running a smaller, 5 litre power-plant. That very same car—#1075—would return in 1969, and claim the GT40s fourth victory on the trot, and that chassis’ second win in a row (though this time against some stiff competition in the guise of the Porsche 917 that would, in 1970, dismantle the rest of the field).

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TECH SPEC: THE MKI VS. MKII

This is the work in progress of the MKII. It is a completely different model to the MKI, and, naturally, scratch-built since this car did not exist in GTL. From the 289c.u engine, the MKII employed the 7 litre 427c.u NASCAR brute, which was well-known and reliable. The MKII produced about 480BHP, much wider tyres, and a wider body with lots of extra air openings to let the engine breath better. It also had a different suspension, slightly modified aerodynamics, and a four-speed gearbox (the five-speed 窶話ox couldn't manage the torque of the 7 litre engine). The MKII was also 200kgs or so heavier than the MKI.

The model is a GTL one, but with rear arches widened to the dimensions of the P&G Gulf model. Front arches are from the GTL model. The outline on the blueprint is the MKII.

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They also said this about the MKI Gulf, in comparison to the Ferrari 330P4 that it was basically a car of brute force, capable of incredible straight lines speed and acceleration, purpose-made for tracks like Daytona, and Le Mans. The engine and car was tremendously reliable, it could go on and on for a long time, and that is why it triumphed over the more agile, but fragile, Ferraris.

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Volume 4 Number 4

Preview

The Power & The Glory: Part Two

So, when did the iconic Gulf GT40 come into being? In 1968, the rules for sports car racing were altered, leading to Ford’s grunting 7 litre engine being outlawed. Ford withdrew from racing at that point, leaving the GT40 project in the hands of ex-Aston Martin man John Wyer, who quickly went to work refining the GT40, with sponsorship from Gulf Oil. And the rest is not so much history as automotive legend. The chassis number #1075 that won both the 1968 and 1969 Le Mans became only the second chassis to do so in the long history of that epic twenty-four race … and this, gentlemen, is the very car that we will be test-driving today—and you will be driving in a few weeks …

Behind The Wheel The Gulf GT40 MKI from 1969 has a 5 litre V8 power-plant which grumbles out approximately 430BHP. What makes that horsepower even more impressive is that it is planted into a car that weighs a slim 946kgs. The tyres, meanwhile, are of the wide profile variety, and this helps make the car feel react (and feel) as if it were a ‘real’ prototype.

For those who are accustomed to the GTL version, it’s time to rethink what a GT40 is all about: The GTL version was based on the ‘pony car’ MKI from 1965, and was also speed-limited. (P&G Part Two will also feature this same car in all its historic brutality, and without the capped speed-limit). However, since that car’s aerodynamics meant it had a lot of downforce at the rear, and a significant amount of lift at the front—not to mention the grunt of that V8 (the thing is capable of 295km/h or so), and thin tyres—it is a serious handful, and best left to the heroes.

The MKI Gulf, on the other hand, is aided greatly by its enormous tyres, and also its upgraded suspension lifted from the successful MKIIs. The car is also wider, and the aerodynamics refined and balanced, although there is still a lot of downforce at the rear, and the front aero’ lift has not been completely cured. It’s still a tricky beast to handle considering the kind of speeds it is capable of reaching, but compared to the ‘pony car’ from 1965, it’s a revelation.

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One of the classic problems of the ‘Gulf’ is the trade-off in setups: If the track has fast turns, you tend to make a setup that leans toward oversteer to handle the aerodynamically induced understeer—but this is going to bite you on the slow turns where the thing will oversteer on you. That said, once you’ve dialed in the setup and become accustomed to the way the car handles, you will be rewarded with the fastest car of its era, and, naturally, of the P&G mod. The trick is simple: Don’t overdrive it, because it responds to finesse, to clean precision. You get that right, and this car will bury everything else quite comprehensively.

Where you will run into problems is with the brakes. The car was designed for speed, and it’ll get to 320km/h but, because of this, the brakes are extremely well ventilated resulting in pads that are seldom up to optimum operating temperature. When you add to this the fact that this car accelerates like a pocket-rocket—you’ll find yourself doing 250km/h even on a short straight—you will need to brake far earlier than you think would be the case. The GT40 is a prototype, and it will remind you of a ‘modern’ car in its handling characteristics: You should drive it that way. The handling is not perfect, of course, but you’re going to have a lot of grip, even when you nail the throttle coming out of slower turns.

The car was designed for Le Mans, and approaching the Mulsanne kink at 325km/h … well, you need to experience this to understand what the real guys must have felt going through there. It’s a shame that the ISI engine doesn’t model damage from wheels banging onto the ground, because if you’re brave enough—or stupid enough— to keep your foot down, the car is actually flying through there. Madness.

The cockpits have been completely overhauled, and the various gauges are now authentically placed. You will also notice the front of the windshield has a small piece of transparent plastic: This was placed there because, at high speed, the wipers would actually rise off the windscreen. This plastic piece actually moved the air above the wipers in order to make them work. Sadly, the GTL Workshop is still unable to make the wipers work in GTR2—but you do have the plastic shield!

The sounds should have been simple to get into the mod since this is the self-same engine found in the Falcons from Part One. The engine, however, while being prettymuch the same, features different exhausts, both in shape, and where they are placed (in the middle of the car), so the sounds have been completely overhauled. The engine sounds like thunder at low RPM—a real-American muscle car—but once it gets to 7,000RPM, it just screams like a banshee.

And that’s pretty much what you’ll be doing as you hustle through the kink at upwards of 320km/h … those boys had some serious ones, folks … and in September, you’re going to learn a whole new appreciation of how brave those really were …

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Volume 4 Number 4

Preview

NAGT The U.S. Pits and Racesims Revolution Team Collaborate on the mod that has taken three years to create … Bob Simmerman sees whether the wait was worth its weight …

BOBSIMMERMAN

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NAGT

Honestly, this gig isn’t half bad. True, there haven’t been any Ferraris full of Super Models Who Like Short Fellas, but without question, this sim-racing deal and writing about it has had more than its share of special moments.

Unfortunately, during the most memorable of them, I always seem to be suffering from some sort of ridiculous malady. Spontaneous pneumothorax? Happened the same day as a whopper bombshell scoop of the millennium landed in my email box. Cataracts that are degrading so fast a welder would be jealous? On that very day I was diagnosed, yep, damned if news of a secret beta for me to try, one of the most anticipated

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mods for the venerable rFactor platform based on the SCCA Speed World Challenge GT series—the NAGT mod—didn’t wind up on my cloudy desktop monitor.

And as my vision had finally degraded to the point that my eyeglasses had become a hindrance, I couldn’t help but think that something like this can make even a legally blind man happy!

With surgery on the way, it was nevertheless a difficult thing to wait—I could sort of get around the track, but within minutes gave up in frustration as I simply couldn’t see a thing which, as you can imagine, took much of the fun out of the overall experience.

Odd, I seemed to be quicker…

The day of surgery was one of apprehension and excitement—if it came out fine, I could expect 20/20 vision in that eye, with the need only for reading glasses when, well, reading and stuff. Sure enough, thirteen minutes after the doctor began, the surgery was complete, and the tape around my face came off. I knew instantly my vision was going to be amazing. I have one more eyeball to bring back online, but with a miracle of this magnitude, it was time to get back into the swing of things, and, at the very least, give the latest rFactor mod—a brilliant collaboration between the US Pits and Racesims Revolution Team—a quick once over.

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NAGT

Well, a quick once over that, as usual, turned into too many hours and a grumpy morning!

Nearly three years in the making, this mod must surely be the most manpower intensive mods in all of modhistory. And not only is the mod special, the readme that shipped with my beta version was a great read, and accurately described the specifics and features of the mod in a detail that is seldom seen with mod offerings— or even full-blown sims, for that matter. I like that sort of thing; not only did the readme explain exactly what I was seeing in the interface—okay, I played the mod first and

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then read the readme—but many a tidbit about the physics modeling were revealed as well, not to mention over a page of beta testers! Blood, sweat, tears, and simple love for the genre got this one off the ground, and put it rather high up in the rarisphere.

The collaboration between the US Pits and the Racesims Revolution Team apparently came about since both had wanted to create a World Challenge GT mod at about the same time. Talk about great minds thinking alike—but, of course, all was not smooth sailing and free tequila. Work on the mod, at times, began to wear

members of both teams out, with modders leaving never to return and all sorts of behind-the-scenes drama … you definitely get the impression from the included documentation that this was one hell of a difficult mod not only to create, but, ultimately, to simply get out the door. Three years … Dogged determination ruled the day, though, and the mod that some of us may have put near our Duke Nukem Forever boxes, is, finally … here.

And there I was, blind as an effing bat.

I already spoke about all that doctorin’, and now that I could see again, firing up the NAGT mod was the second thing I did when I got home from surgery—the first thing I did was turn on the computer. Man, that thing was dusty, no wonder my times were off!

The ambition of the mod is immediate when the car list is taken into account. Sure, anyone can make a great car model. Well, not everyone, but you know what I mean—great car models do not a great drive make.

Little worry of rail physics here, count on each of the eight models to have distinctly different driving feel and characteristics as each have been painstakingly recreated from their real-world counterparts with a fine-toothed car making tool. Dodge Viper, Ford Mustang Cobra GT, Pontiac GTO, Porsche 996 GT3, Cadillac CTS-V, Aston Martin DBRS9, Corvette C6R, and, last but certainly not least, the Volvo S60-R. And though top-level access was possibly restricted, more than a small amount of real-world data from teams, engineers, and tyre experts went into the modeling of these gorgeous cars. Not only have aero’ factors been modeled, but they went and modeled internal friction components as well!

The sounds that blast from the exhaust of any of the cars is more than satisfying, and speaks volumes as to the perfectionism and dedication expended during the creation of the mod. Hats off to the sound guys, great sound leads to great immersion.

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any where, any time! Did someone say something about the ‘Ring?

With the advanced rule system implemented, leagues will also have an experience not unlike the real-world counter parts. Saddled with fifty pounds of ‘reward’, the fastest guy on the block may run into some tyre wear issues if he isn’t careful. The implications are abundant, and it is wonderful to see this sort of thing worked so well into a mod. Nice touch.

I have only been on the mend for a short while— surprising how even a ‘routine’ surgery can take a lot out of a fella—but I did get to do a couple races with twentyfour AI cars, and must say I was left most impressed. AI are one of the areas that often get little or no attention in mods—or commercial sims for that matter—but from what I saw, I think the off liners are going to be well catered for here.

So, over all, I’ll just leave it at this: The phrase must have really means a lot in this case.

The cockpits come with intimately detailed, including a MoTeC-type LCD data display which I predict may even result in some of our gravity-defying roof riders coming indoors for a while. All the cars are upgradeable to the NAGT class, and the SCCA Pro Racing Regulations have been heavily consulted for the creation of a realistic Rewards Weight and Team Compensation System, a system designed to keep the on-track competition close.

This is fully implemented in the NAGT mod. Stuck with Huttu? Add a few hundred pounds to his car. It probably won’t matter, but, what the heck, it’s worth a try, eh?

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Also of note is a multiple selection for FFB strength and feel, including a special selection for those with the RealFeel system active on their install.

All of this precision and beauty comes at a price, though, and those with slower rigs will need to keep the car count low for good frame rates, but if you have some sort of powerhouse under the hood, you can turn on all the bells and whistles and amaze yourself with a few laps around the Mid Ohio masterpiece from VLM. These are cars that run on American roads, but that is just one of the great things about rFactor and its mods—any car,

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Volume 4 Number 4

5th Column

Life In Orange Steve Vincent on what it takes to be a marshal … it’s more than cleaning up flying debris!

STEVEVINCENT

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A Day In The Life Of …

Oulton Park, one of the prettiest and most challenging circuits in Britain, is also my local track. Today’s racing is a real mixed bag, 250cc super karts, Citroen 2CVs, Minis, Formula Renault, and Sports Saloons (anything from Ford Fiestas to ex-DTM Opel Astras). I picked this event to marshal especially to see a fellow gamer compete his kart in real life, just to see if he was as fast on track as he was on a simulator.

Today is quite unique as we are using the ‘Island’ configuration, something we rarely do these days. I’m feeling especially lucky, as I get to flag at the Island hairpin and work on my blue flag skills, something I find immensely difficult to do but which gives me a great sense of achievement when I get it right. There’s a real buzz you get when you blue a driver, and he immediately looks to his mirrors and allows a faster car through safely, it tells you the job has been done well.

Being a ‘flaggie’ is all about ‘talking’ to a driver, and that type of feedback is invaluable, as are the comments from fellow marshals, especially when you get it wrong! You can only learn from mistakes when they are pointed out to you, so all feedback is good in my view.

Most of the morning runs smoothly from our post until the first race of the meeting, the super karts session.

Two karts touch wheels on the run down from Lakeside to Island, sending one kart sideways and then into a roll, throwing the driver in to the air. He lands about twenty feet in front of our flag point. Unknown to me at the time, this driver is a paraplegic who is racing a modified kart with hand controls. He tries to sit up, feels one of his legs, and lies back down again, clearly in some distress.

The view from the box is slightly obscured by our flag point, so we beckon our incident team over from there, and call for a doctor. Our team deal with the injured driver and the mangled karts, helping the rescue crew to stabilise him and transport him to the med-centre.

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Tyre marks from the Morgan +8 showing the point of impact with the flag point in the background (gray box)

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One of the perks: Sometimes you get to meet the legends, and not only after they’ve come unstuck on track … Steve meets Sir Jack Brabham at the Gold Cup, Oulton Park, August 2004

There’s a reason why the turn is called ‘Lakeside’—as an unfortunate Mini was to discover when he flipped the tyres and landed up for a soggy landing!

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First incident of the day, one driver with a suspected broken thigh—a sign of things to come perhaps?

After lunch, we crack on with the rest of the day’s racing. The first Mini race passes without incident for us, and we’re treated to some very close and hard racing, just as we’ve come to expect from the Minis. Then we have Formula Renault, single-seaters similar to GP2 and F3 cars, and raced by drivers keen to pass on to bigger and better things. On today’s performance though, they could do with learning to drive first …

First lap, pack screaming its way down toward us, and a similar incident to the karts happens right in front of us.

Two cars bang wheels, spin, and partially block the track with car parts flying in all directions. Red flag, race stopped, and our guys go to help clean it all up. Restart.

They get a few laps in before another red flag, this time a car spins and stops on the edge of the track in a dangerous position at Lakeside. Third restart—and this

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time we’re not sure they had their smash but a third red flag is the result, and their day is over. Oulton has a 6.30pm curfew, and to get everyone a race, the stewards have no option but to end it there.

The second super kart race, though, sees much of the same—it’s red flagged and stopped for what is probably the nastiest incident I’ve seen whilst marshalling. Driver lost it coming out of Lakeside and hit the barrier right in front of the post, which sent him into a violent spin, round and round three or four times. Rescue unit deal with another injured driver and take him to the med-centre, and I start to wonder if karting really is a sensible way to spend your weekends.

Then it’s our turn for a close call and race stop in the Sports Saloon race. A couple of laps in and a Morgan +8 in the middle of the pack gets clipped from behind and sent spinning straight towards me at over 100mph. It missed us by a few feet, and then as I turn around, I see it hit the very end of the tyre barrier in the middle of the hairpin, right where two of our guys are standing. The big tractor tyres that make up that part of the barrier are sent flying, and the Morgan stops in the middle of the track. Our guys are fine, but maybe needing a new pair of undies afterward. The Morgan is badly damaged, though, and taken away on a recovery vehicle. A close call and a good illustration of why marshals should always be alert and ready to move.

The final incident of the day belongs to Lakeside. Part way through the second start of the Sports Saloons, and a Mini loses it at the same place the kart did earlier. This time the Mini rolls side-over-side about three times, then endover-end a couple of times for good measure, bouncing right over the tyre wall and actually landing out of my sight—in the lake! The marshals on Lakeside (guess you know why it’s called that now, right?) do a fantastic job dealing with it, and the driver is safely removed (or fished) from the car, a little shaken up, but otherwise fine.

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One messed-up Mini, one lucky driver …

The Motor-sport Marshal Marshalling methods differ greatly across the world, but one thing is always the same no matter where you go— racing cannot happen without marshals, and marshals would look pretty stupid if there were no drivers racing around the track!

Be it NASCAR, A1 Grand Prix, Formula Ford, SuperKarts, Saloons, Formula 1, or Caterhams, you'll always find a hardy band of volunteers standing around

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the track in all types of weather, waving flags and dealing with any incidents that occur in their sector. How do you go about becoming one, and what is it that makes us get up before the birds every weekend to stand trackside for ten or more hours?

The Myths Firstly, you don't need any special qualifications to be a marshal. What you will need is a good sense of selfpreservation, and be able to work as part of a team. Some

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countries such as Canada and Great Britain have well established training procedures and grading schemes which help you learn your skills, but it’s not like going back to school and taking exams, so don't let that put you off!

Secondly, if you’re looking to make a career of it, think again: Marshals are volunteers and not paid employees of the track or organising clubs. Some clubs do offer a little remuneration to help ease the pain of fuel bills and accommodations, but most of the time we travel at our own expense, buy our own food and drinks and the various bits of clothing we use while trackside. Where that might put some people off immediately, think of it another way: You love motor-sport and would probably head for your local track more often if it didn't cost so much to get in. Marshals, on the other hand, get free entry to every meeting they volunteer for, and get the best views possible added into the bargain. For a normal club meeting that might only account for a £15 entry, but when you consider it can cost £200 or more for a grandstand at a Formula 1 Grand Prix, marshalling doesn't sound such a bad idea after all. Couple that with the kind of freedoms we are privileged with at events like A1 Grand Prix (we're allowed pretty much everywhere including pits and paddock), and marshalling starts to become an attractive hobby. And hell, you might even get lucky enough to have your hero come visit you at your stand—albeit perhaps at some rapid speed of knots in a cloud of dust and debris!

Becoming A Marshal I can only comment on marshalling in the U.K, but probably the easiest way to find out how to become a marshal in most countries is to ask another marshal.

Obviously when there are cars on-circuit, or when we’re in the midst of clearing an incident, may not be the best time to ask, but in between sessions, try and grab someone's attention, and I’m sure they'll try to help if they can.

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Why Do I Do It? This is a question I ask myself every time I get out of bed at 5am or earlier in order to get to a track, especially when the Great British weather is doing its usual impression of Niagara Falls. The main reason is—I simply love motor-sport.

I've grown up with cars and motor-racing, it’s something I never tire of watching, and marshalling is a fantastic way to give something back to a sport that has given me so much entertainment in the last thirty years.

The team work and camaraderie that surfaces while marshalling is also a major contributor. Very often you'll see the same guys and girls marshalling at each event, you form friendships, and when out on the circuit, you have to work as a team to be an effective marshal. Sure, you'll have a laugh and a joke (usually at each others’ expense!) during the day, but when the brown smelly stuff hits the twirly thing and you're called into action, the team pulls together to ensure that not only are the driver(s) safe, but the incident is cleared up quickly and professionally so the meeting can continue before the inevitable curfew.

There is also a sense of ‘what goes around, comes around’. The likes of Lewis Hamilton and Kimi Raikkonen would not have got to Formula 1 without first progressing through the lower ranks of motor-sport in the U.K. Despite advances in technology, circuits still need marshals to run events of all types. Without people like me volunteering their weekends, those events wouldn't run, and eventually all motor-sport would die out, leaving us with nothing but reality TV shows to watch—imagine that!

What Can I Do? Each post will usually have a team of people to deal with an incident, someone to co-ordinate them in the event they have something to do, people to wave flags (numbers vary post to post), along with an observer or post chief, who will deal with reporting incidents back to race control, including requesting race stops if necessary.

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But that’s not all marshals do, they also run the paddock (getting drivers and cars ready for the next session), and pit lane. Even the lofty heights of Clerk of the Course are volunteers at club events, and most of them will have had many years of experience as drivers or marshals (or both) before becoming clerks. With some limitations, even ‘under-sixteens’ can help join in with such things as errand running and results posting in race control, so literally anyone can do anything when it comes to helping out.

A team of people, some you may never have met before, working together to allow drivers to race, and spectators to watch cracking motor-sport—that’s essentially what marshalling is about. Most marshals are quite happy to have nothing to do all day as long as they can watch some excellent racing, but when needed, we’ll always be there to ensure that drivers can race another day. All marshals are spectators who decided they wanted to spectate a little closer and cheaper, so why not come and join us, you might just get hooked to days like those at Oultan Park.

In the U.K there are also some websites that can help you get started; 21Hhttp://www.volunteersinmotorsport.co.uk/ 22Hhttp://www.marshals.co.uk/ 23Hhttp://www.barc.net/marshals/index.php 24Hhttp://www.brscc.co.uk/marshalling.html

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Precision Rocking At The Seat Of Your Pants Lou Magyar takes a seat in the Precise Racing Chair

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On a slow afternoon, with little to do but surf the internet aimlessly, I decided to go looking for a product to review. Google being Google, I didn’t need to look far. As Google's ‘ad words’ customize themselves to one’s current browsing patterns, I easily found the Precise Racing Chair. I clicked on the link presented and was intrigued by what I discovered.

The Precise Racing Chair is a marriage of a gamer’s rocker chair, and a serious simulator rig. An email later, to Ron Minke at Aptimise, the marketing

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company behind the Precise Racing Chair, and I was waiting for the chair to arrive. The company being in Fort Wayne, Indiana (about 175 miles from me), it wasn’t too long before the Precise Racing Chair arrived—with Ron seemingly following it all the way to my front door.

I set out to get a good feel of the Precise Racing Chair. It’s a design unlike any other that I have seen, much less reviewed. The chair uses no fasteners, and simply snaps together. In just a few minutes the chair

is ready for your wheel. The entire seat is made from blow molded panels whose fit is excellent, in my opinion, when component size is considered. Of course, I am not a molding expert, so I could just be blowing bits of polyethylene. A side benefit of polyethylene is that it is impenetrable to just about anything sticky … almost nothing will stick to the chair, keeping it clean and easy to clean should a spill occur. Now, did I mention how really easily this chair fits together? From the literature provided, I was able to glean that the Precise Racing Chair began its life as something called the ‘AK Rocker 200 Gaming Chair’ (the AK Rocker 200 box was a big clue!), and evolved, with the help of some modifications and add-ons, into what now sits on my floor—the Precise Racing Chair.

The box ... if you've ever read one of my reviews, you know that I look at the box. A box will tell you a lot about what you’ve just received: It is an indicator, a sign not only of the contents, but of the manufacturer, the designprocesses involved—indeed, one day I will write the definitive book on the deep symbolism of the box, and how its contents are folded therein.

This box is just that, a box. No foam, no bubble wrap, nothing but two extra pieces of cardboard for puncture prevention. The small pieces are all taped to the inside of the box with packing tape. Recyclers rejoice—the whole package can be recycled. The various pieces of the Precise Racing Chair fit in the box so compactly, that I, of all people, the guy who is known for his ability to pack ten pounds of crap in a two pound box, couldn't figure out how to get it back into the box, once I got it out—though, granted I didn't give it that much thought, and perhaps I wasn’t trying that hard to send it back.

The AK Rocker 200 portion of the Precise Racing Chair is made up of four primary components. Two legs, a back, and a seat. That's it. Simply slide the legs into the back, slide the seat onto the legs, give it a sit, and the chair is assembled.

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A nylon strap—the Power Strap—helps maintain the leg position when a load (aka your ass) is applied to the chair. It’s called a Power Strap, but it’s not actually plugged in to any power—its purpose is to maintain the lateral position of the legs relative to each other ... (aka it keeps you from falling on your ASS, which would happen if the legs spread apart). The AK Rocker 200 has a choice of padded seat cover skins. The original skins came in either red or blue with attractive embroidered logos, but Ron tells me that they will shortly have skins available in orange, gold, green, a brighter blue, and a brighter red along with the all black. These will not have the embroidered logos, so that users will be able to get a customized logo applied. The new covers also have thicker padding in the seat and back rest areas. The new colors are the much brighter tones that are typically seen on race cars.

I chose the red skin for my seat. The skin attaches quite easily to the seat, with three mesh pockets at the top, two straps, and a series of side clips that secure it to the edge of the seat bottom. In less than ten minutes, the AK Rocker 200 chair is ready for any gaming. With just a few more minutes’ setup time—

about fifteen in all—and the AK Rocker 200 transforms into the Precise Racing Chair.

The components that morph the AK Rocker 200 into the Precise Racing Chair are elegantly simple. Two front, and two rear stabilizers keep the chair from rocking. They simply slide on, in the case of the rears—or engage a hole, in the case of the fronts. That done, the AK Rocker 200 is a rocker no more. The front stabilizers have three molded slots in them. These slots are for ‘mounting’ the controller stand. The controller stand is the component that holds the wheel in place, and it’s an adjustable square metal tube topped with a pivoting 11 x 4 inch platform. If your wheel has a table clamp system, it will work with the controller stand—no doubt about it. The controller stand has both adjustable height and tilt, and you can set your wheel up to whatever position is comfortable for your driving style. The three molded slots in the front stabilizers adjust the wheel’s distance from you—forward for close, rearward for far, with middle being what you might imagine. Setting it up is simply a matter of placing the stand's crossbar in the stabilizer slot of your choice, applying magnetic ‘shims’ to the stand, and clamping the stand to the AK Rocker 200 seat with a high tensile strength wire loop and latch.

The purpose of the wire loop and latch is twofold: Firstly, it maintains the wheel controller stand in position while you are driving: And second, it allows you to lower the wheel to the floor when you are finished to accommodate easy egress.

That’s it for the basic Precise Racing Chair. There are several add-on components, as well as an option for really aggressive drivers which—while I didn't experience it personally—sees the controller stand wheel platform pivot when you need it to the least! To remedy this, Precise has made available a ‘grade 8’ nut and bolt kit, complete with wrenches, called the Power Clamp. This nifty little extra will, beyond all reasonable expectations,

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clamp your wheel platform into the position you like best, and keep it there. The Power Clamp kit also comes with a shim to place between the two halves of the wheel upright tube. The shim takes up any slack between the two, and effectively prevents any movement of the head relative to the tube.

Also available separately are two side platforms. These are mounted on tubes that simply slide into the end of the wheel controller stand tube. The platforms are available in either 10 x 10 inch or 10 x 20 inch configurations, and are mounted either left or right, depending on your preference. For example, if you are a 1967 BRM driver, you might want your shifter on the left, just for historic accuracy. Either platform can be rotated in a full circle, and raised or lowered to suit your specific needs. With two of them, you can use a shifter on one side, and have your keyboard or remote at your fingertips on the other. Ron sent me one of each to test out. I found that with my G25 wheel, the shifter mounts well to the 10 x 10 inch platform mounted on the right, and the keyboard (or eight pound laptop) fits nicely on the 10x 20 inch platform on the left.

The whole unit assembly, with two add-on platforms, including mounting the wheel and shifter, takes about fifteen minutes to get ready to race. The efficient design of the components makes assembly a pleasure and, unless you add the Power Clamp, not one tool is harmed in the assembly of the Precise Racing Chair. Did I say it was easy to build?

When visiting the Precise website, I was impressed with the amount of documentation available. They have a complete set of user guides and instructions, in web-based .PDF that provide step-by-step details for every component and its assembly. From assembling the AK Rocker 200, to adding the Power Clamp, its all right there for your reference ... and if you aren't inclined to read so much as watch (which is inconceivable, considering you are reading this review at this very moment), then there is

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an assembly video on the website in which a rather attractive young lady inquires, ‘Are you ready? Do you have what it takes? Do you have the right equipment?’ So yes, I’ll wait here while you go watch. This short video is a complete assembly of the Precise Racing Chair—no edits involved, and I know this because I just assembled the chair … did I mention how easy it was to assemble then?

By now, you should know that I'm a big man, and I don't need to go into the details of my six foot, 300 pound frame, and the difficulties I have finding a comfortable racing seat. Needless to say, it is a challenge to be comfortably seated in most standard racing seats for any length of time. The Precise Racing Chair has no such challenge for me. Even before I put the skin on the AK Rocker 200 seat, I was impressed by its deceptive comfort.

The seat is wide, yet somehow seems to hold you like a true racing seat. The position of the back relative to the seat is snug and relaxed. I experienced no discomfort from long duration stints in the chair racing, which—having tested a fair-few rigs in my life—is certainly not something I take for granted, as most have proven challenging to my frame (aka ass), and—for those on the upper-end of the spectrum like the Roadster—means I need to get the larger (I like to think of it as the deluxe) seat (while the lower-end products like the Playseats have no such thing available at all).

The Precise Racing Chair is lightweight, and easily reconfigured from gaming, to racing, and back again in short order. I have been testing it in our playroom with the various game console racing titles we have (EA Sports NASCAR ‘09, Gran Turismo 5 Prologue) and with my laptop running several different PC sim titles. It’s quite well suited to the task. We have two gaming chairs in the playroom now. the Precise Racing Chair, and a chair that my son brought home from ‘retirement’ (he works part-time at EBash—a gaming café). This chair is covered in microfiber, swivels and tilts, and is equipped with speakers ... yet the

kids all like to sit in the Precise Racing Chair or AK Rocker 200 (depending on what they are playing) rather than the other cushy chair. In my opinion, it speaks volumes when the padded chair with speakers is put aside in favour of the Precise Racing Chair, a utilitarian, and efficient thing if I ever saw one.

Moreover, its light weight is deceiving because the thing is strong—it weights twenty-three pounds, and yet holds my 300 pounds with ease. Amazing!

Precise now has an adapter for the XBOX360 Wireless racing wheel, as well. The adapter mounts directly to the base of the wheel and replaces the controller stand platform. Previously, the table clamp accessory included with this wheel had been criticized as too flimsy, but that device has now been bypassed, and you’re able to mount more directly to the wheel base for much better results. To use this, you remove the brackets and wood wheel mounting platform on the top of the silver extension tube, and install the provided bracket in its place.

Judging by all the recent improvements, modifications, and adaptations, I think it would be safe to say that Precise is committed to making the Precise Racing Chair a quality chair at a great price. The base Precise Racing Chair retails for $229.95, with the optional equipment ranging from $13 to $55. If you already own an AK Rocker 200, Precise sells a complete add-on kit for under $130, and provides detailed instructions to modify the chair to accept the Precise Racing kit. As tested, the chair with the Power Clamp and two side accessory platforms, the Precise Racing Chair would be about $350 retail. When you roll-up the comfort, configurability, and ease of use into the factor, one might expect to pay twice that for a comparable product. If you are in the market for a racing chair that doubles as a gaming chair, then look no further.

The Precise Racing Chair is just what you've been looking for—comfortable, affordable, fun—you won't be disappointed with the Precise Racing Chair.

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PROS —Easytoassemble —Lightweight —Comfortable —Quickly Reconfigurable for gamingorsom-racing CONS —The seat skin has a tendency toslipoffonoccasion —Magnetic Shims can get lost (whenthekidsplaywiththem) PRICE $229.95

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Volume 4 Number 4

HARDware

Virtual Racing Chassis John Gregorio takes a ride in the VRC, the brainchild of former road-racer Bob Earl—so how does it measure up?

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First Look I have been ripping around the tracks in all of my favorite sims (Forza Motorsport 2, NASCAR ’09, rFactor, and Arca Sim Racing) using Bob Earl’s Virtual Racing Chassis (VRC).

Bob Earl is a retired road racer who won the 1973 Formula Ford National Championship, and the 1981 Formula Atlantic Macau Grand Prix. He drove the Nissan Performance Technologies GTP car to victories in Miami, Watkins Glen, and Sebring in the early 1990's, and is currently a freelance driver coach and instructor at the

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Jim Russell School at Infineon Raceway. Needless to say, when he decided to design the Virtual Racing Chassis, it’s no surprise that he designed a simple, effective, functional, and comfortable rig that reflects his years of racing experience.

True-to-life racing seats for home use are nothing new, and the market is full of potential suitors for every sim-racer. Some seats come in the form of high-priced full motion racing rigs costing thousands of dollars, and others are made to appeal to a broader market, both in

terms of design and price. The range today is so full that there is little reason if you (yes, you, sitting there with your wheel attached to your desk) don’t have one yet.

For the casual racer, an affordable, easily stowed racing seat that still meets the needs of 'sim racing immersion' is generally the way to go. Bob Earl has created the Virtual Racing Chassis to be an affordable solution to the family room racers conundrum—space, or the lack thereof. If the VRC looks as if it sits low, and in a reclined ‘racing’ position, that's because Bob has designed his unit to emulate the racing position found in most racing formats.

Bob Earl’s company, Bob Earl Racing, offers an affordable sim-chassis that is pre-assembled and delivered directly to your door in short order. The Virtual Racing Chassis is available with either a black or red frame along with a black/silver seat cover. I opened the enormously large shipping box (a fully assembled race rig needs a large box ... it was so big; it could have doubled as a coffin!) to discover that Bob thankfully sent me the red VRC, as the black seemed a bit—boyracer—to me. The design of the VRC is so efficient that it was only a matter of minutes (about ten) before I had my wheel attached, and was ready to go racing.

The VRC has the looks of a quality build, and the feel of the thing backs that up. The chair is comfortable and low to the floor—which makes getting into it feel rather authentic! The chair itself is a fiberglass racing bucket that is dressed in vinyl with a foam pad behind it for extra comfort during those long endurance races. The pleated vinyl seat shell is stretched over the fiberglass bucket and secured with a nylon draw string.

There’s a heel pad that is included which fits at the base of the pedal plate so that your feet are sitting comfortably while using the pedals. Without it, the pedal position feels awkward.

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Virtual Racing Chassis The wheel itself sits on an adjustable wheel plate that can be raised or lowered to your individual liking by twisting a knob loose, and pulling the plate up, or pushing it down. The same thing applies to the chassis length adjustment knobs: They allow you to adjust distance between your seat and the foot plates making the chair easily adjustable for children and adults alike. The pedal support has an adjustable range of twenty-one inches, and the steering support moves higher and farther from the driver simultaneously to accommodate the taller competitors. With this range of adjustment. the VRC will fit racers ranging from four foot all the way to a towering six-foot-six. The VRC is about as good as it gets when it comes to comfort and adjustability, while offering you an authentic seating position.

When fully compressed, the VRC measures a paltry 47" x 21" x 21". It can be stored standing on end, with wheel and pedals attached, and thus stored it occupies a minuscule three-and-a-half square feet of floor (or closet for married guys) space. Great news for apartment dwellers, or those who have limited space in their office/game room.

On The Flip Side A larger racing wheel, such as the Thrustmaster Rally GT Pro (see Vol4 Num3 for a full review on the wheel) does not adequately tighten down to the racing wheel plate, and will require some sort of modification to keep the racing wheel from slipping around while racing.

If you are an owner of the Logitech G25, you have nothing to worry about, though: The VRC comes with pre-drilled holes for the pedals and wheel, and the sixmillimetre bolts are supplied along with the instruction-guide.

You can also purchase— separately—a G25 shifter mount.

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So Who Is Bob Earl?

Bob Earl started racing in 1972 and has since established himself as one of the most competitive drivers in North America, as well as an excellent test driver and driver coach. Earl's major successes include: 24 career victories in the International Motor Sports Associations Camel GT Series (in 86 starts) —Two victories and one second in six attempts in the 24 hours of Daytona —One Victory and three seconds in five attempts in the 12 hours of Sebring —13 Solo Camel GT victories —Macau Grand Prix Champion —Formula Ford National Champion.

—2001-current-Freelance Driver Coach, Invented the Virtual Racing Chassis, Lead instructor for Jim Russell Racing School Mechanics Training Program —2000-To Present—Freelance Driver Coach, Oversees the Mechanics Training Program at the Jim Russell School at Infineon Raceway in Northern Calif. Invented and sells the Virtual Racing Chassis —1996-2000—Started and was Director of instruction for the Derek Daly Performance Driving Academy, also the chief coach in the Team Kool Green Academy driver search

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Virtual Racing Chassis

In the package that comes along with the rig, you will also find the ever-dependable Velcro straps that you can use to keep your pedals from moving around, and additional Velcro is included to be used to organize and keep your power chords from sticking out from the chair.

There’s definitely a lot of thought that went into this baby, but … you need to make sure you check their website here to establish whether your wheel/pedal configuration is supported with the VRC because, while Velcro is an amazing thing, it is not substitute for a solidly-attached pedal-unit. You can check your compatibility here.

Once I had the cables secured to the chassis, all that was left to do was to put the footrest next to the pedals, and I was ready to burn rubber.

Final Thoughts I have been using the VRC off and on since I received it and I must admit it feels solid in all aspects while I am turning laps at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. I haven’t used it

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in official sanctioned races yet, however, as getting used to the new racing position is taking some time.

Overall, I would highly recommend the Virtual Racing Chassis to anyone who wants to take their racing experience to a new level. It’s not an expensive motion simulator, it doesn’t fold away under your bed, and no, it doesn’t have a cup holder. But i you are ready to kick your racing experience up a notch, pick up Bob Earl's Virtual Racing Chassis as it adds another level of enjoyment to all of your racing experiences. The racing chair will work with most racing wheels that are on the market today as well as those that may be coming in the near future.

With our new generation of motor-sport simulations, the time has never been better to invest in a race rig that will both their entertainment and performance. I like the fact that the chair can be put away when not in use as it scrunches down to about three feet in seconds. I also like the price. Another feature that the VRC adds is its shape: It has no sharp edge on which you—or more importantly your kids—could get injured, and thus makes this unit ideal for home use. Oh, and I almost forgot to add—this chair is light, and can be picked up and moved around with ease if you need to move it around while cleaning (not that anyone cleans your race-room, right?) or storage.

The Virtual Racing Chassis will run you about $299 with an additional range of $25-$55 for the Western U.S. to $45-$70 for the Eastern U.S. depending on where you live—did I say it comes in a big box? Aside from the chassis and shipping, you may need/want to purchase additional accessories. Items include a monitor stand ($99.00), G25 shifter adaptor ($45.00), and an extra wide seat ($99).

A check of the Bob Earl Racing website shows that the red chassis is on sale for a $50 discount Good looks, style, and less expensive, and for the price of a VRC last month, you can now throw in a G25 shifter adaptor. Still here?

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PROS Compact design with no assembly required Lightweight assembly for easy storage High-quality construction using powder-coated steel frame Large, comfortable bucket seat—wide seat option available at extra cost Velcro strap cable management Works with most PC or console wheel and pedal sets that use a table-top clamping system Fits racers from small kids to 6'6" adults CONS No seat angle adjustment—it’s a true-to-life racing position with adjustable wheel and pedal positions Low seat hight means 'climbing' in and out of the chair FEATURES 0.7cm fiberglass racing-style bucket seat with pleated and padded flame and perspiration-resistant vinyl for comfort Rugged, steel frame with durable, powder-coat finish and nylotron sleeves for easy adjustment Easy to store and no assembly required Heel Riser Pad Shifter Adapter available Monitor Stand available For ages 8 and up; supports driver height up to 6' 6" PLATFORM Compatible with most table-top steering wheel and pedal sets for PCs and consoles (for a list of VRCcompatible wheels) Available Colors: Black or Red Dimensions: 47 x 21 x 21 inches fully compressed (L x W x H) Weight: 22 lbs (10 kg) PRICE U.S$299

Volume 4 Number 4

Elevating Your Game Roadster

Lou Magyar gives us the lowdown on the uplifting addition to the Virtual Roadster Cockpit ‌

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The before and after: The laptop once sat on a chair (left)—now, it sits on the deck (right) A while back, following my review of the Virtual Roadster Chassic, Ted Heys (the man who created the race-rig) asked me if I wouldn't mind reviewing his latest add-on piece for the unit. Ted had designed a keyboard/stick deck for the Roadster, and he wanted me to run it through its paces in true AUTOSIMSPORT fashion.

My charge: “Put it to the test and see if you can get it to fail.” I accepted the challenge and set about to finding the limits of the rather useful add-on component to what I called—back in Volume 2 Number 4, ‘The Cadillac’ of race rigs.

The Keyboard/Stick Deck attaches to the Roadster chassis just like the original purpose-built stick deck. A bolt-on clamp, pipe, and mounting head, along with the platform itself, form the unit. In my case, since I already

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had the stick deck, Ted simply sent me the platform to replace the shifter platform I already had in place. Two bolts hold the platform to the mounting head, so in just two minutes, I had replaced my tiny shifter platform with a full-sized shifter/keyboard platform. Adding the shifter unit itself was covered in my review of the Roadster, so I won't go into it here—suffice it to say that the Keyboard/Stick Deck can be mounted on either side of the Roadster, at whatever distance and angle is comfortable for you.

Since I had already placed the original shifter in a location that worked well, I didn't feel a need to move it from its current location. I re-mounted my G25 shifter unit and set the laptop I've been racing with atop the platform ... and caught it! The G25 shifter by itself, on the

small platform, doesn’t require a lot of force to maintain its position about the mounting head bolt center. Add a 26x12 inch platform and an eight pound laptop, however, and the moment of inertia changes substantially. Since I am currently writing this review on said laptop, I can tell you that disaster was averted successfully. The two-piece mounting head is fastened together with one single bolt that is used to ‘fix’ the angle of the head relative to the pipe. As it turns out, placing an eight pound laptop, equipped with a seventeen inch monitor, and an extended-life battery, is a little beyond the normal torque range of the mounting bolts’ ability to maintain the set angle … If I lost you, let me put it this way: ‘Heavy laptop with a long pivot point needs to have very tight clamp’.

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I grabbed my 9/16" box-end wrench and put some extra torque on that little bolt, hoping that it was sufficiently hardened to withstand my ability to crank on it. Happily it was, and I clamped that bad boy down as tightly as I humanly could (without leverage assistance) produce. The primary friction for the two pieces of the mounting head is a thin sheet of rubber between them. This helps keep the pieces in place when the bolt is tightened. There is a bit of pre-loading (thanks to sheer forces with the rubber ) between the two pieces, so if you want your ‘heavy’ laptop to be parallel to the ground, make sure you add a bit of upturn to it. There are a couple of solutions to the slippage that come to mind. The type of mounting head used also comes in a mating-notch configuration—the kind you see on lawn swing canopies. Implementing this type of head would prevent the platform from slipping, but would also limit the adjustability of the deck. The other option that comes to mind is a fixing bolt. A tapped hole in the head, with a bolt threaded in, would allow the head to be fixed with a locking means, thereby relieving the need for excessive tightening of the center bolt.

With the platform stoutly clamped at a decent angle, I set the laptop upon it once again. This time, it only moved a little (see pre-loading) ... another extra effort tweak with the wrench, and it was stay-put time for the platform. Racing with the laptop (or keyboard, which wouldn't require an Herculean effort to ‘fix’ in one position) in such a convenient location is a welcome change. I had been placing the laptop on a small plastic stool. It worked well, but was low to the ground, and difficult to type on while in the Roadster's seat.

With it at arms length, the keyboard was now quite usable, and easy to locate for those needed keyboard shortcuts when the red mist descends.

After a great racing session, it was time to put things away. The Roadster sits in my family room, between the sofa and the kitchen counter—so ‘putting things away’ means making the space somewhat usable for foot traffic—though

the fact that my wife tells me to ‘put my toys away’ in the same tone of voice she does with the kids does not build my confidence in my sim-racing career! Before the Keyboard/Stick Deck, this consisted of putting the little plastic stool on the Roadster chair. Now, I have this twentysix inch wide ‘accessory’ jutting out from the side of the otherwise sleek (relatively speaking) Roadster. This left little room to access the desktop computer (also between the sofa and kitchen counter), and bar stools (ditto). In fact, the platform left barely enough room to navigate the gap between the bar stools and the now-twenty-six-inch-wider Roadster.

My first solution was to remove the bolt that I had oh-so forcefully clamped down. After the first tear-down, and subsequent struggle to re-align everything, I decided that there had to be a better option. It was a challenge to get the platform back where I wanted it, and immobile! My next attempt at reducing the width requirement of the Roadster was to remove the mounting head from its pipe. This worked great! Nothing but two socket-head screws to retighten to clamp the head back to the pipe! Simple and efficient, the platform, with G25 shifter still attached, could be set in the Roadster racing seat until it was time to go racing again. This worked for about two such occasions before Karol (that’s my wife), informed me that, ‘You need to do something about that thing {aka pipe} or move the thing {aka Roadster} from the family room”. Yes, that tone of voice again!

Despite the fact that the shifter had been sitting there on its previous shifter-sized platform for months incident free, she had scraped her leg on the now-exposed open pipe end—so it was time for Lou to do something about his toy.

(No, I did not point out the fact that, if she had been watching where she was going, nothing would have happened.) With the G25 shifter sticking out, no problem ... remove the shifter, thereby reducing the width problem. Go figure. My last, and currently successful solution, was to

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remove the platform, head, and pipe from the clamp at the base of the frame. The original clamp is still attached to the frame—I just remove the pipe and the rest, G25 still attached, with an Allen wrench. Only one socket-head screw now stood between me and a full post-race tear-down. The only drawback with my system became evident last night when, having left the Allen wrench in the socket screw, I caught the top of my foot as I exited the Roaster. I have a nice gash on the top of my foot for a racing war wound—a wound only deepened by Karol’s smile when she saw my unfortunate accident.

What does all this ‘stowing’ floobydust have to do with the functionality of the Keboard/Stick Deck? Not a thing, but now that you've read it, you can decide if your S.O. will need you to move it too.

The Virtual Roadster Keyboard/Stick Deck add-on is a must have, even if you don’t have a wheel with a shifter.

There's nothing that makes a great sim chair look cheaper than not having a place to put a keyboard (or your vodka, for that matter). Seeing them sitting on the floor as an afterthought makes one wonder why no one thought to put something in place to hold the keyboard. If it’s out of reach, you cant get to the shortcut keys without taking your eyes off the road. If you race in a sim rig, especially the Virtual Roadster, then the need for the Keyboard/Stick Deck is a foregone conclusion. Just get it!

PROS Adds space for anything from a keyboard to a large laptop Provides space for shifters as well Sleek, functional design Fully customizable with respect to location CONS Makes the Virtual Roadster up to 26 inches wider Needs extreme tightening to hold heavy loads COST Virtual Roadster Keyboard/Stick Deck retails for $149 as tested.

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Reality Check: Getting Ahead With Simulation Panasonic Toyota Racing take a look at how the (reputedly) biggest-budgeted team in motor-sports prepared—virtually—for the Canadian Grand Prix …

LUISAGHIBAUDO

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The Canadian Grand Prix was the first time the TF108 had got to grips with the Gilles Villeneuve Circuit. Well, in real life that may be so, but not in the virtual world of simulation at Panasonic Toyota Racing.

Even before a TF108 turns a wheel in anger around Montreal’s Ile Notre-Dame, Panasonic Toyota Racing engineers already have a bank of information to draw on after simulating the car’s behaviour around the 4.361km track.

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At the team’s technical centre in Cologne, Germany, an array of sophisticated simulation techniques are employed to give the drivers a head start when practice begins in Canada, ranging from the wind tunnel, engine test benches, a seven-poster rig, and computational fluid dynamics (CFD).

For the Canadian Grand Prix, riding the kerbs is key, and Panasonic Toyota Racing has spent time in the build up simulating the TF108’s behaviour on a seven-post rig,

specifically set up to replicate the demands of the Montreal track.

A full-size TF108 is placed on a hydraulically-powered rig, which uses data from previous seasons to shake and shudder the car exactly as though it was driving over the bumps and kerbs of the Ile Notre-Dame. This provides important information regarding suspension and damper settings, giving engineers a strong indication of what works and what doesn’t.

Chief Engineer Race and Test Dieter Gass says: ‘This is very important because, unlike other circuits, at Montreal you have the four chicanes and the more you can ride the kerbs in the chicane, the more you can straight line them and the more time you're going to gain. That means if you have a car that handles perfectly over the kerbs you're going to gain a lot of speed and lap time.’

That is just one element of the standard pre-race preparation at Panasonic Toyota Racing; the engine dynamometers, or test benches, are another. An engine test bench allows the RVX-08 engine to be ‘driven’ on its own, with no TF108 chassis in sight.

By pushing the engine through all the same revs and gear changes as Jarno Trulli and Timo Glock will in Canada, an engine can complete the entire race distance without moving a millimetre. The data from these tests allows engineers to fine-tune engine behaviour to a particular circuit, as well as spotting any areas to improve well before the drivers hit the track.

‘Typically, before Canada or any other race, we have in our computer the complete throttle behaviour that can, for example, reproduce Jarno’s driving style at that track on the dyno,’ says Senior General Manager Engine Luca Marmorini. ‘In this way we can already start to anticipate some potential problems in terms of engine response or engine mapping that the driver and the team might find in Canada.’

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computer simulation and we're looking in a fruitful area where we can cultivate performance.’

If the CFD tests are successful, the virtual part becomes reality and faces wind tunnel tests, where a scale model is blasted with air to recreate the effect of driving at speed, including simulated track conditions, ride heights and many more factors. Only then would a part be considered for use on the car itself.

However, no amount of simulation can ever guarantee a perfect set-up; that has to be finalised on track, as Senior General Manager Chassis Pascal Vasselon says: ‘Simulation faces natural limitations so what is essential when you use it is to know exactly the limits.

You cannot expect the simulation to tell you exactly how stiff your suspension has to be, for example. What you can expect from the simulation is to give you some direction. It will give you a diagnostic.’

So, plenty of work awaits the Panasonic Toyota Racing engineers and drivers when they arrive at the Gilles Villeneuve Circuit, but they can begin their weekend safe in the knowledge that a virtual reality means they are as well prepared as possible for the task ahead.

These preparations are specific to each race but simulation goes on across the board as Panasonic Toyota Racing strives for the continuous improvement necessary to compete at the front in Formula 1. The fruits of this work eventually make it to the race track, but not before rigorous testing has proved their validity in advance.

Before every new aerodynamic part is fitted to the TF108, it has been thoroughly analysed back in Cologne to ensure it does its job.

The first part of this process sees virtual testing using CFD—computers which simulate air flow over a new

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part, and the impact it has on the car as a whole. If a part fails this process it is extremely unlikely to be worth pursuing, so this simulation streamlines the development process and ensures only worthwhile projects progress beyond the virtual drawing board.

President John Howett says: ‘We live in a digital world now, we have to recognise that, and in Formula 1 we are pushing the limits of simulation and the utilisation of computer power to absolutely understand where performance can be found in the future. So even though we still use track testing and wind tunnel testing, normally the area we're looking in is predefined by

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OnTheTrack

The Official ISI And Intel BMW Sauber 2008 Raymond Schram modeled the oficial BMW Sauber for MMG before it was scooped up by ISI—Sergio Bustamante found out how …

SERGIOBUSTAMANTE

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The Official ISI And Intel BMW Sauber 2008 continued

SB: It’s been a while since we last featured you in these pages—and I know a lot of exciting things have happened in the interim …

RS: Yes, a lot has happened since then, the ‘MMG 2007’ mod being the main thing, for which I modeled five cars (Ferrari, Renault, Spyker, Super Aguri, and Honda).

Also, I modeled the driver body, and Schuberth helmet shape for it. Apart from that, a lot of work went into finalizing the mod. Getting all cars in-game, fixing any problems we found ...

The 1.0 release of the mod didn’t go as expected, however, since the sounds and physics were not tested well enough. After that, we withdrew the 1.0 public edition in favour of a server edition, where all known bugs were sorted, and the sounds were reverted back to default. Right now we’re still working on public edition 2.0, which will have new sounds, improved physics, with all the cars now featuring accurate wheel bases and ride heights, and will also include the season’s final Ferrari and McLaren.

I’ve also began work on the ‘MMG 2008’ mod in March after the first GP, starting with the BMW. SB: The recently released BMW Sauber 2008 was a collaboration between ISI and MMG, and you were the head modeler for that project: Can you tell us how that came about?

RS: Since the BMW Sauber was the first car I did for the 2008 mod, we had it done relatively early in the season. We were also in the fortunate position to have contact with ISI. So once the car model was done, we showed it to ISI, and they liked it enough to start talks with Intel to see if they could continue their 2007 license for it.

While this was going on, Juandi, our painter, who also worked on most cars in the 2007 mod, started working on mapping and painting the model I had made. As the word came back from ISI that Intel were definitely interested in the car, we had just finished the paint, and it was just a matter of bringing the car in-game, making sure the car was bug-free, and giving it to ISI. Afterward, ISI put in the 2007 physics from their old BMW Sauber 07, since the community seemed to like the 2007 physics a lot, and ISI didn’t have the time to develop or test a new version. It was Intel that released the car, which is why it’s not on the official rFactor website.

SB: You must have felt very excited at working with BMW Sauber on this project— motor-racing teams don’t get much bigger, do they?

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Yes that’s Raymond—and … oh yes … Avril Lavigne

RS: For sure BMW Sauber is a great team and, to me, also the best looking car, both aerodynamically, and in terms of livery. As I started to build the model, it was still unknown that it was going to be an ‘official’ car. Once the model was finished, I felt it was my best to date, so to then also have it as an ‘official’ car for ISI and Intel was an awesome feeling. I’m sure the feeling is the same for Juandi, who really outdid himself on the paint in general, as well as the shaders in-game (specular/bump, and alpha map).

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The Official ISI And Intel BMW Sauber 2008 continued RS: For sure, when you invest as much time into a car as I’ve done with the BMW Sauber 2008, you become quite attached to it. From start to finish it took two months to build the model. To me, just to finish the car was tiring. The shape was the most complicated of any 2007 cars I’ve done, which means that I had to pay close attention to the poly-count, as well as the shape itself. Apart from that, I also wanted to include real-life measurements, so that the vehicle length, width, height, and wheelbase were accurate, which will help physics later on.

For this car, I built everything from scratch: Tyres, brakes, suspension, cockpit, steering wheel, diffuser, everything. All the while trying to give the car as much detail as possible while sticking to the polygon limit I set for myself.

When the entire car was done, I was definitely proud of the model; despite the difficult shape, I managed to get the car done within the poly-count I set for myself, and the car was definitely smoother than most of my 2007 cars.

Apart from the modeling, I have to thank Juandi, Sandrox, DJ, and F1Racer for their work as well. Juandi for the mapping and paint, DJ for the helmet paint, Sandrox for the in-game process, and F1Racer for the rendering. Together we definitely made what I feel is the best car MMG has produced to date.

SB: The car you built, of course, is still a current model in this year’s championship: Did this fact influence you at all?

RS: For sure it helps. In 2007, I also built most cars while the season was still going but the Honda 2007 was done after the season was finished. It didn’t much matter, since the season was still fresh in my mind, but compared to, for example, an older season like 1994 on which I worked, it’s really an advantage to be working on a current season, since I get new inspiration with each GP, while, with a season like 1994, once you’re done with the cars you really like, it gets really difficult to keep the motivation.

SB: What was it like for you, emotionally and technically, to build this car, and how demanding was the model?

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SB: Can you discuss your reference material?

RS: First of all, a lot of images. Fortunately for me, BMW Sauber took some studio shots of their 2008 car which show an excellent top-down image of the car. This saved me a lot of trouble with scaling. Also, I took a side-view image from the Melbourne GP to serve as a blueprint. Apart from that, I used about 300 images as base to create the BMW Sauber 2008.

As I said, for 2008, I’m trying to create cars with accurate measurements, and it is fortunate that websites such as ‘F1 technical’ had already gathered the information for a lot of teams. BMW was fully known when I started, which helped, again, with the scaling.

Apart from those resources, it’s just really down to interpreting the images I have, and how the areas should be modeled. Some angles I only have one decent shot for, so it can be difficult to know exactly how something looks in three dimensions. For other pieces an image of the complete part does not exist—for example the small wing under the front suspension—so I had to piece the wing together from about eight different images before I knew what It was supposed to look like.

SB: Finally, the BMW Sauber will also be used for the MMG 2008 mod: Can you discuss if there are any differences between the ISI release, and the MMG 2008 mod?

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The Official ISI And Intel BMW Sauber 2008

RS: The 2008 BMW Sauber for MMG will be different from the ISI version in both the physics and sound departments. We are also going to fix the tyre measurements—ISI’s was just scaled visually, while the MMG version will be done with exact measurements. Apart from that, there’s only one fix needed in the LCD which will bring us to the MMG version.

All round, what we are doing for the 2008 mod is looking at every single aspect of our 2007 mod to see what we can do better. For the models, we have already included the measurements, and put up a maximum poly count to not only have the detail, but also to maintain good FPS. The 2007 mod had no damage model, but for 2008 we have started experimenting to get a good mix between breakable parts and FPS.

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continued Apart from looking at what we can do better compared to 2007, we are specifically looking into a whole range of possible add-ons for the mod; for example, fullyanimated driver arms, or animated pit-crews. It will be difficult, but it seems possible at this stage, so we will try to bring that bit extra.

All in all, we are making good progress on 2008, and we are also working on completing 2007 version 2, which is the release as it should have been the first time around. And no, don’t ask, it’s simply done when it’s done.

You can download Raymond’s Sauber 2008 at rFactorCentral here … and you can get rFactor here …

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The 1999 Season Comes To rFactor Sam Sturino and Team Modfather are about to reveal their 1999 mod for rFactor … AUTOSIMSPORT got a glimpse of the soon-to-be-released demo featuring the Jordan, and Stewart, and Sam was kind enough to give us some details …

AUTOSIMSPORT DOMLESTE LOUMAGYAR

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‘very passionate about racing’. A mod team for the community, not for egos, and a mod team where the average guy with some talent and great ideas can feel at home in, that was our idea. We would listen, help, and develop these ideas into hopefully a great mod that the community can enjoy.

We want to share our hobby with others that enjoy online racing. The fact that this is all free and open to the community is truly amazing. Thanks to ISI for making an open script game.

Well we are very young in terms of mod groups. In our short time as a fully-fledged group, we have learned so much from other mod groups and their leaders—and I should say at this stage, thanks—you know who you all are!

AUTOSIMSPORT: Could you tell us a bit of the history of the 1999 mod?

Sam Sturino: We started our modding group with the hope of making a scratch-built mod … and quickly discovered how steep the learning curve is. Our original goal was to create mods that no-one was currently working on. Our first project was a 1961 Formula One mod based on that classic season. Ace and I are both vintage-car fans, and thought this would be great.

During the commencement of that mod, we were presented with an opportunity to complete a 1999 F1C conversion. We jumped on this project for two reasons: Firstly, to get the experience required to build future mods, and, secondly, as this was a great season in Formula One, and we believed the interest generated would allow us to hire more staff.

AUTOSIMSPORT: Can you tell us a little about the team—The Mod Fathers?

Sam Sturino: Ace and I began our modding careers in the same way, which was, beta-testing for other mod groups. We were both part of other large mod groups, and we found that we shared the same views with

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regards on which way we thought the groups’ future mods should go, and things went downhill from there …

Ace and I got to talking through MSN, and decided that we should try and develop our own mod team. Ace and I are not ‘Glory Hounds’, we are, as our logo states,

AUTOSIMSPORT: What is the plan for the mod—all cars and tracks, just cars …?

Sam Sturino: We are planning on all teams for the 1999 season, with some added extras—that is,. extra teams so that leagues may run and paint their own teams.

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control, this car will be capable of producing a massive 550BHP in qualifying trim. The top tier, the 900BHP, 3.0 litre twin-turbo V6 powered Furiosa (ZR1000) also has in-car boost control, and is 4WD. This means the car will produce over 1300BHP in qualifying trim, and will be like riding a rodeo with no hands!

AUTOSIMSPORT: You’re working on two other mods— can you tell us a bit about what they are, how they're going?

Sam Sturino: A 1961 Formula One season mod, and a Fantasy Custom Racer series. We are hoping to have all cars represented for the 1961 F1 year—however, a few cars are extremelty difficult to find detailed information for. Currently, we have the Ferrari 156 Shark-nose in game, and are in the process of modeling another five cars.

The Custom Racer series is being modeled by Zed whose designs are just incredible. This mod will have three tiers, the lowest being a 2.0 Litre 260BHP rearwheel driven coupé currently named by its chassis number: ZJ260. The middle tier will be a 2.5 Litre turbocharged rear-wheel drive coupé producing 450BHP: We’ve named it the ZK450. With in-car boost

AUTOSIMSPORT: What do you regard as the highlights of the cars for the 1999 season?

Sam Sturino: Real simple: Sixteen races, six different winners, from four different teams. Team Stewart’s firstever win. Schumacher’s crash was bad, which gave Eddie Irvine the chance to fight for the title. Then Ferrari cocked up a pit stop for him. It almost seemed like Ferrari did not want Irvine to be world champion. But our Team favorite was … ….BAR claiming they would put their new car on pole postion and win the first race!

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Dom Leste Test-drives the Jordan, and Stewart, at Barcelona The first impression of the mod is: It reminds me a lot of the BMW F1 08 car for rFactor.

First off, I had to change the in your face FOV of fifty degrees. I prefer the GPL-like eighty-degrees FOV. Hands are not needed!

Off the ISI Barcelona then!

Physics wise: Two cars only to test. Stewart, and Jordan. Both are tricky to drive, even with 50 litres of fuel onboard. Once I figured out the car setup and traits, they were just as fun as F1 BMW series. As I said, tricky— but once you get the hang of them, they’re great fun to race.

I think the front downforce is feeling a bit odd though. The Jordan is a bit faster that the Stewart : They have the same ‘feel’, but I’m able to throw the Jordan through the turns that much faster.

One problem I did discover with the physics—in their current state—is that, if I set the car up with 35/35 wings, the car just snaps into oversteer mid-corner when you apply the throttle. Weight transfer, meanwhile, feels like a fast BRM! So, after having my ego bruised trying 35/35 wings, I had to lower the front wing even more.

Front wing downforce needs to be tweaked, I think. Limited ground effects works as you have more overall grip when you lower the ride-height. Brakes are similar to ISI’s BMW, so no surprises there. Brakes were hard to keep temps down in optimal range, so nothing to complain about there—I could brake as I liked, which is what Formula One cars are all about.

The tyre physics are excellent. The only problem is—there are two compounds, soft and hard, and I am frying those softs in no time at all! Very good feel, too.

Sound-wise, the mod is a pleasant surprise. The sound team did a great job with the engine range. The engine comes in progressively through the low and high revs as both fade in and out depending on engine range.

Again, excellent.

The biggest problem with the mod at this stage is that both the Jordan and Stewart felt too similar to me.

Engine-wise, the power kicks in around mid-band of the engine range, as if the cars had pseudo-traction control. Of course, apparently some of them actually did ‘coughs Ferrari’.

Cars on entry brake similarly to the BMW ISI cars: That is, very stable. You won’t have much trouble braking when you get settings right. It differs when you exit from corner exit to mid-corner, though, as the car’s rear then had less downforce, and the backend wiggles. That’s where the fun begins. Again, I feel as if the mod needs to focus their attention on the way the front is behaving.

Jordan was almost on par with BMW F108 when comparing times. But you have to play with the throttle more, and it’s a lot more enjoyable when you’re on the edge than the modern BMW F108. The engines have a V10 engine 800BHP.

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The 1999 Season Comes To rFactor

1999 Nineteen hundred ninety nine marked the fiftieth season of the FIA Formula 1 World Championship. The season saw the introduction of the Malaysian Grand Prix to the calendar (yes, it’s been nine years), and, along with it, the introduction of the grooved tyre (yes, it’s only been nine years). Mika Hakkinen won the championship, although Eddie Irvine, David Coulthard, and Heinz Harold Frenzen all had a chance of clinching it. Ferrari won the Constructors title.

Mid way through the 1999 season, Michael Schumacher suffered a crash at the British Grand Prix in Silverstone, breaking his leg in the process. He would miss six races of the sixteen rounds that season, yet still finished fifth in the Drivers World Championship.

The 1999 season saw the British American Racing team enter the field of contestants, with former World Champion Jacques Villeneuve in the primary driver’s seat, and Mika Salo, who shared a seat with Ricardo Zonta before filling Schumacher’s vacant Ferrari seat.

The FIA had produced after-the-fact evidence that some teams cheated in the 1998 and 1999 seasons by using forms of traction control that were deemed illegal. Because of this, for the 2000 season, traction control was allowed as a measure to level the field.

Another rule change, this one implemented for use in the 1999 season, was the advent of grooved tyres. Michael Schumacher vehemently fought against them, citing that they could threaten driver safety by reducing grip through fast corners … like Becketts, perhaps.

—Lou Magyar

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Team Mod Father —Acestumater: Co-ordinates the general running of the team, and is currently working on physics for all mods. Sim racing for eight years, and founder of the 27HF1simracer.com web site.

—F1Lover: Co-ordinates the general running of the team, and is currently working on video, press, and public awareness. Has been sim-racing for twelve years, and has been involved with several mod groups and leagues.

—Apex: Co-ordinate the press releases and public awareness of the team. Has been into race sims since the days of Stuntcar Racer and GP1. Was ranked number two in the U.K in GP3 league until life became too busy. Got back into online racing in 2006 using LFS before eventually turning to rFactor.

—LaserCutter: Co-ordinates modeling development, and is the track maker. Currently working on ‘F1 99 Season’ mod. Has been into racing sims for only three years, and uses 3Dsimed, 3dmax, and ‘Bob’s Track Builder’.

—Enders; role within the TMF team is to co-ordinate model skins for in game. Currently working on F1 99 Season. Enders is a painter extraordinaire. Has been involved with sim racing for 4 years and has taken part in 2 French league champion ships.

—IRFL-Iceman: Created the initial conversion of the basic 1999 season from F1 Challenge to rFactor. He is also the lead guitarist and lead singer for the band ‘Impur Insomnia’ which is also creating some music for the F199 mod, as featured in some of the short video previews.

—Speedglenn: Sound creator. He is using video footage to record and reedit/remix sounds so they sound they way they should from video reference. Modding F1 Challenge since 2003. You can find some of his work 28Hhere.

—Zed: Co-ordinates the Custom Racer Series mod. Zed has modeled mostly fantasy cars, but his attention to detail is unsurpassed. Has bee involved with sim-racing for four years.

—HouzE: Photos and beta-testing —Maxs: Promo videos and editing.

—Teamferrari : Physics and engines.

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Ferrari Challenge Trofeo Pirelli Rasfigjohn gives the tropical review of the topical console officially-licensed Ferrari sim, featuring physics developed by legendary racing-stable Eutechnyx alongside Ayrton Senna’s nephew—and GP2-star—Bruno Senna ... so is the heir to the seminal Ferrari F355 Challenge that once featured at London’s Trocadero (complete with telemetry charts and three-screen race-rig) up to the challange?

RASFIGJOHN

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The Quest For A Challenge Jon says: “It would be good to have a review for Ferrari Challenge.”

Jon says: “I’m talking to the boys who have a PS3, Bob and rasfigjohn.”

Jon has a PS3.

Bob says, “I called all the 45,549 stores in the whole U.S., and can’t find this game.”

Bob says, “I am also blind in one eye, and deaf in one ear.”

I say I’ve been to all four stores on my tropical island and can’t find this game.

Alex jumps into the conversation and says: “Rasfigjohn, you’re going to Paris next week—why don’t you pick up the game there?”

I say: “Well, Alex, it’s a long trip from the Caribbean ... eight hours in a plane for a game? And it’s expensive!

And ASS is just an internet fanzine that does not even have a wikipedia entry …”

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Alex says: “Shut up! We are a real magazine, we have thousands of readers, and my gardener's cousin knows someone whose aunt was in school with Rupert Murdoch! And we had four donations since we started our donation overdrive! We have a budget! We can’t wait for the game to be delivered! Go pick it up.”

Jon says: “Alex, you live in Manhattan, you don't have a gardener.”

The conversation then quickly degenerates into a wholesome discussion of gardening in the Northeast U.S., leaving me alone with my thoughts: Why do we have to write a review for this game? Why did I buy a PS3? Why did I tell them I bought a PS3? Where is my passport? And who still buys pink toilet paper in 2008?

But the real question I kept asking was … why me, dear Lord, why me? I had spent the last two weeks happily ensconced under the warm, fuzzy blanket that is iRacing … and now I’m stuck with this console game review? For which I actually have to pay good money?

Jon, I thought, is this you wanting to punish me because you can not beat my time in the Solstice at Lime Rock? (Note that Jon Denton has officially stated on ASS' forum that he could beat my poor time … but just didn’t want to. Yeah right.) Or is this because of my Arca Sim Racing physics review in which I stated that, “it’s fun”… Is this the reason why I have been condemned to consolegame reviews instead of iRacing? Why, I wondered, did Aristotelis get the iRacing physics review? I mean … what has he done except that minor vintage mod filled with old bangers for that obscure SimBin sim that he had the humility to name ‘Power and Glory’? And why, I wondered (all the while staring at those knitting needles in the kitchen, sitting there beside the KFC bones), did they give the review to Alison Hine. A girl.

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Ferrari Challenge Trofeo Pirelli sits side-by-side with the flagship sim of the PS3—does it have a chance against Gran Turismo 5: Prologue?

Come on guys… let’s be serious for a minute! It’s simracing … You can’t let a girl who likes to call herself ‘EagleWoman’ do a review of iRacing! And then, just to confirm my worst suspicions, I went online in the Pontiac, at Summit Point, and was overtaken by someone named Judith. (Could this person please confirm to me that he is a man who had to borrow his wife's or mother's credit card? Thank you.)

But I am nothing if not a professional: So I grabbed my tickets, left my KFC bones and knitting needles on my terrasse, and flew to Paris where I immediately went to the Eiffel Tower just to prove I was, in fact, in Paris, before heading to a famous store on les Champs Elysées. While I was on the most beautiful avenue in the whole world (as the French like to say), I visited a couple of car stores: At the Toyota store, I read: “Try our F1 simulator upstairs”.

Upstairs was some guy standing next to the official Toyota simulator who informed me that, “The simulator is broken, come back tomorrow”. When I asked if it was broken because they had lent it to Timo Glock, he just shrugged his Gallic shoulders and informed me that Jarno

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The Challenge Quest(ioned) My wife says: “C’est moins beau que l’autre jeu…”

My wife—who thinks a Six-axis is a palindromic porn movie title (just like Dualshock)—was sitting next to me when I put the BD in the PS3—says, “Less nice than the other game”. When she says the ‘other game’, she means Gran Turismo 5 Prologue. Of course. Like everyone else. The FCPT game was, after all, next to GT5P in the store. Because it’s a racing game, just like the ‘other one’. Because it is for the PS3, just like the other one.

I totally agree with what my wife said, and I'm sure Mark Cale (System 3's CEO) did not think, for even an instant, that any racing game on the PlayStation would be compared with the most successful racing game ever created for that platform—the flag-ship of Sony’s console as Bob said in the previous issue—and so I will thus try to review this game without comparing it too much with GT5P... promise!

I have to admit a few things. I'm not a Ferrari fan. I'm a racing fan, so I admire Ferrari and love their cars, but I don't burn red candles every two weekends, and I don't dream of driving an FXX. My only link with Ferrari is that baby seat I bought for my son (which would tend to disprove all that I have just said) which makes people think I'm a Ferrari freak when they see my ten year old Honda Civic in the streets.

I must also confess that I’d never heard of 1999’s Ferrari Challenge on the PS2, and I felt no anticipation for this new iteration the way I had, for instance, with GT5P (damn I did it again). So, for those who—like me—don’t know, Ferrari Challenge is more than the name of a PS3 game: It is (firstly) the return of the sim that many purists retain was the best simulator ever created for the PS2, and it is (secondly), also an official series involving—hold on to your seats—Ferraris.

Quoting from the official real-life series site, “The Ferrari Challenge and Historic Challenge were created to allow Ferrari customers a chance to enjoy their cars in a structured competitive environment, racing against other Ferrari owners on some of the great race tracks in North America.

“The Challenge was created in 1993 for the thencurrent Ferrari 348. As newer cars were announced—the 355 and 360—special Challenge versions of these cars were included in the series. Since 2006, the F430 Challenge, the special racer created just for the series, has filled the grids.”

The game, then, is a fully-licensed Ferrari sim that brings the excitement of this series straight into your living room. This is a good thing for people like me who are really too lazy to get their F430 out of the garage in order to race against a bunch of dentists, doctors, and gynecologists. Really, why even bother?

The first introduction to the sim involved nothing more than me sitting on my couch: I just wanted to see what it looked like graphically, and test the driving model with the Six-axis (that's what I usually call ‘family mode’, Nintendo lazy-sofa sim-racing).

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would be there in four days to sign autographs. I told him I would not be there for the simulator, and neither for Jarno, because I had to write a review of Ferrari Challenge for AUTOSIMSPORT. He seemed really impressed as he motioned me on my way down to the mostbeautifulavenueintheworld's sidewalk.

Coming back home, I find an email from Alex saying he needs the scan of the receipt for the game in order to reimburse me. The email reminds me of the deadline. When Alex says deadline, all you hear is dead … Especially when Ferrari is involved. Fortunately, I found a Blu-Ray copy of Ferrari Challenge at my island's airport when I came back— for only ten Euro more than the one I’d seen in Paris. I sent a scan of the plane ticket along with the receipt, but Alex was suddenly not answering his emails.

Jon says: “Don’t listen to Alex. Only Lou’s words matter.”

Lou sent me a trucker's hat and a T-shirt which was my remuneration for the trip to Paris—and the game. Which reminds me …

Consol-Nation

When the game started, a little message on my Sony Bravia told me that it was in full 1080p glory, which was a nice surprise, until the first images actually appeared. Before that, however, a quick run through the opening stuff: The menu is not too flash, but it does what it's supposed to without too much fuss. The music, however, is quite … funky ... some kind of post-classic ultra-mystic hip-hop opera. Sacre bleu! … In the menu, amazingly enough, you can change the game settings (such as driving aids— automatic gears, driving lines, SC, ABS, TC with different levels for these three settings), map keys, and—something that you should take careful note of here—alter contrast, luminosity, and gamma for your display.

Then you can choose your driving mode. We'll focus on the single player mode only because, to tell you the truth, the last time I went online with a racing game on

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the PS3, it was in GRiD, and the memory of that still has me reaching for the Ativan bottle.

I have a problem with racing modes in games, as I suspect most serious sim-racers do: I almost never understand their point, or, indeed, how they work.

FCTP has different driving modes that will make you progress through the world of Ferrari Challenge, unlocking new tracks and new cars with a complex system of competition cards as you progress, but don't think I will explain this to you here, as I have no idea how it all works. Or rather, you know how it works already: I'm thirty-three, have a kid, a wife, a job, a car, a dog, a cat (well, actually it's the neighbor's cat, but apparently he does not like the neighbor ... and that is something we share in common—that, and my dinner), an iRacing subscription, a forum to moderate,

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and almost every single sim released for the PC in the last ten years installed on my PC. All of which is to say—I can’t afford ten hours to unlock the very car I have in my real life garage (yeah, Mr Yamauchi, I'm talking to you, Mr-let-me-put-a-dozen-models-ofHonda-Civic-in-my-game).

Of course, I hear you say, I don’t have an entire collector’s catalogue of Ferraris in my garage. This is true: But unlike Jon Denton (see his Vodka Diary from Vol4 Num3), I don't need a point. I just want to race cars: I don’t need artificial goalposts to motivate me.

And so I did what most people in my position would do: I cheated. (I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Paul ‘PorscheDriver’ at nogripracing.com, for sending me his savegame, and no, I'm not ashamed— except for the ‘Porsche Driver’ bit, that is!)

The mode sees you start with a F430 along with a couple of tracks on which you can thrash it around. Gain credits, buy other cars, unlock other tracks—you get the deal. You can also personalize your car with your own colours and stickers, and while I did not spend much time doing that, it certainly is a nice feature.

Track List CALIFORNIA SPEEDWAY, FONTANA, CIRCUIT GILLES VILLENEUVE, MONTREAL, FIORANO, ITALY, HOCKENHEIM, GERMANY, HOMESTEAD, FLORIDA, INFINEON RACEWAY, CALIFORNIA, MISANO, ITALY, MONT-TREMBLANT, QUEBEC, MONZA, ITALY, MUGELLO, ITALY, PAUL RICARD, FRANCE, SILVERSTONE, GREAT BRITAIN, SPA, BELGIUM, VIRGINIA INTERNATIONAL RACEWAY

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Pedigree: Ferrari F355 Challenge Ferrari Challenge F355 is a racing game based on the actual race car and Ferrari event. It was developed by the AM2 division of Sega for arcades under supervision of producer Yu Suzuki, and was later ported to the Sega Dreamcast and PlayStation 2. The only model of car featured in the game is the Ferrari F355 Challenge model.

Some versions of the arcade cabinet are noteworthy for having three screens, allowing the player to look through the side windows as they would in a real car. The three-screen cabinet version also features an Hshaped gear stick, and three foot pedals, and presents a tough challenge to any player who decides to use them. The game also allows the player to use an automatic transmission or paddle-shift the gears. The Dreamcast version has link cable play for direct competition, however as of Jan. 2006, the online servers for F355 Challenge are now offline, and the website has gone offline.

The game features an original soundtrack that mimics the style of 1980's hard rock/heavy metal which is integrated into a radio station format during gameplay. The radio DJ (and the announcer) goes by the name of Alan J (the Voice).

Yu Suzuki is a keen Ferrari enthusiast who allegedly used data from his own Ferrari 355 at certain tracks to help with the game.

—TEXT: Wikipedia

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The Challenge Unleashed For my first race, I chose Monza ... like my good friend George always says, “Where else?” The first thing that struck me was ... the loading times. How much time have I lost in my life because of loading video games?

Two hours? A day? A week? Once I had worked out, to the exact second (using a NASA-inspired calculator), how much time I had wasted of my life waiting for video games to load, FCTP had still to load … My tip?

When you buy this game, buy yourself a guitar along with it … during loading screens, you’ll have more than enough time to learn to play ‘Yesterday’ …

So here we are, in our F430 at Monza, Italy: The race features rolling starts, and we get an outside

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cameraview as the cars approach the start/finish line.

The car models are excellent: Perhaps not the best-inclass, but sublime nonetheless.

A couple of seconds later, your soul flies behind the cockpit—the green flag flies and—Oh my God, I forgot to take off my Senna TAG sunglasses! Which is odd, because I don’t actually wear sunglasses … I felt just like the first time I drove in Simbin's RACE (before the light patch): The graphics are way too dark, especially at Monza with all those trees and their shadows falling across the track.

Remember the menu? Yes, it’s where I went to spend an annoying thirty minutes trying to find the right contrast/luminosity/gamma balance until—realizing my sim-time to review-time coefficient was being

dangerously tested (I have a fail-safe technique to monitor this—my wife)—I thought screw it, and decided I would play with the bonnet camera instead since it offers better lighting. That's too bad, though, because the cockpits are gorgeous: No, not as nice as ... erm ... right, not that nice, but they are certainly right up there with (again) the best-in-class. Cockpit view also provides you with the best engine sounds, too, so … it’s too bad the lighting was so off. Even more so when you realize that the entire cockpit has been created to be almost a photo-fit to the original cars, along with fully working dials, dashboard, and even gearshifts.

Now don’t get me wrong here: the graphics in FCTP are superb. The tracks are wonderfully modeled, and the textures are pleasant, while the cars really knock your socks off, as befitting the most beautiful cars in the world. Indeed, the cars have been built using CADcam designs directly from Maranello under license, and the game itself features some nifty effects such as scratches to the paintwork, as well as completely-detachable bodywork that will fly off and remain on the track while you’re racing. Even the engines have been modeled using photo blueprints direct from Ferrari itself. But … some colour choices, it must be said, were rather odd. The track surface, for instance, is more brown than grey, and sometimes you'll feel as if you were driving over a muddy terrain.

That is tolerable though: What isn’t, is that the surface is too dark to distinguish the racing line or braking points. Another thing that bothered me—and this, I should add immediately, is my personal impression— is that they have added far too many things on the trackside: Trees, flashy signs, and what not, all of which—while clearly trying to model the real-world accurately—lands up looking almost arcadish, and makes it difficult to focus on the racing.

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Did I say that the tracks were wonderfully modeled?

Well, yes, they are, but that doesn’t mean they are accurate: it just means that they are pleasant to drive on.

A few months ago, track accuracy in sim-racing had a certain meaning ... before, that is, the arrival of the gorgeous laser-scanned models of iRacing which has resulted in every track lacking this technology appearing, at best, as rough caricatures of their real-life counterparts. Indeed, FCTP has a few of tracks that are also found in iRacing—Miami Homestead, Infineon, and Virginia International Raceway and, speaking of the latter ... I'd bet that if you put Dave Kaemmer, Greger Huttu, and Harvey Siegel together in front of a PS3 showing

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FCTP’s VIR, they would not be able to recognize the track.

And yet, the track is fully licensed ... and no, I’m not an iRacing snob, just pointing out that sim-racing—after iRacing—has taken a noticeable step forward.

Again, that's a real shame because the driving experience is excellent. Really. For a console, of course. I was surprised at how sensitive the car was with the Sixaxis (I have not yet invested in Dualshock), and pleasant to drive. With all aids on, and using the generic pad, I still found plenty with which to be challenged. The car acts as you would expect it to handle, and this is both rewarding and, without a doubt, testament to the behind-thescenes work of Bruno Senna.

A word on this: Senna, by all accounts, is an avid simracer who met with System 3’s Mark Cale at Silverstone while he (Senna) was competing in the 2007 British round of the European Ferrari Challenge Series (he won both heats, and secured pole as well—Senna is scheduled for a 2009 ride in Formula One). The two hit it off immediately, with Senna providing the racing driver’s feedback to the simulator, making sense, as Cale notes, of the data for the cars which was supplied by Maranello.

Indeed, turns out that Senna himself was a huge fan of the original Ferrari F355 Challenge.

So what does this translate to, for us sim-racers?

Understandably, the physics are not as sophisticated as what we are accustomed to on our beloved PCs, but still, it must be said, FCTP is nothing if not … challenging. We are a long way from Codemasters, here. If you own a PS3, and you’re in the market for a sit-on-your-couch-andrace sim, you’d be wrong to neglect this title—with the pad, I found myself thinking that this is, indeed, a worthy heir to last century’s Ferrari Challenge F355.

So impressed was I that I decided to actually get off the couch and strap on my ever-dependable DFP into the console. For this, of course, it was time to dial-off the aids. I was really disappointed: the Force-Feedback was erratic, far too strong, and the car would spin every time I rested my foot on the gas pedal. Rather than the sim, though, I suspected the problem resided with my DFP, which has—sadly—reached the end of its brilliant career (its twilight being inaugurated by GT4).

Up stepped the G25, for which I needed to alter the pedal sensitivity settings in the menu, and … ah yes … much better. The feedback was still too strong, but much more playable: The tyres were still locking and spinning too easily (reminding me of that other PS2 luminary, MOTOGP), but, at the same time, I began to sense that, with some serious seat-time, I could tame this beast.

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You're probably surprised by this, so let me clarify: The driving model is not as difficult as GTR. Which is, as many of you are probably thinking, no bad thing—spinning at 3MPH in a high-performance car is not the most realistic slip-angle curve I’ve ever tested. But … and here is perhaps the point I am trying to drive home—it's not as subtle as the best of our PC sims, either, and there is probably too much grip available (even under the rain) when cornering. But once you slide down all the aids, the cars become way more difficult to drive than those in GT5P. Why? Well, I'm not sure it means that the driving model is more realistic. The impression I have, again, is that it's not as sophisticated as GT5P. You'll have to spend a long time with FCTP before you understand

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what the car is doing—especially on the limit. And still ... even then you'll probably be surprised by the time you get to the next turn and find yourself all locked up on the brakes. I have read some gaming magazines refer to this title as ‘intuitive’: And perhaps they have spent a lot more time behind the wheel of a Ferrari race-car than I have, but in my experience of driving—admittedly slower!—cars, they tend to be far more predictable in their handling than what is on offer here.

What I’m getting at, essentially, is this: In GT5P, you get a sense of the car—an intuitive feel of what it is doing—which builds confidence, and the ability to not only predict what the car is about to do—but also

a sense of how to correct its impending action. Here, when you feel it, it's probably too late.

On the other hand, this unpredictability in the driving model may well be because I have not spent the kind of time this game requires: It is not for nothing, I think, that it is called a Challenge. It really is that—and more.

And don't think the driving tutorial will help you, because it won’t: It’s designed primarily for newbies who have yet to realize that an apex exists, and sticking a car on it is what racing is—almost—all about. But it’s a fun section of the game, featuring the lazy-tones of BBC’s ‘Top Gear’ veteran Tiff Needell.

Still, the driving experience of FCTP is pleasant, and I found myself spending quite some time with the game, and enjoying every moment of it. But as I said above, I'm not sure the endless hours you spent in GTR2 will help you here: as Pierre Yves Corthals said in a recent interview, real drivers, when they try a sim-racing game, must get used to the game, whereas in the real life, they have to get used to the car. That's exactly how I felt with FCTP. Another feature that comes to FCTP is the Artificial Intelligence, long the bane of racing-games, on consoles and PC. This time, however, we were promised something more than the usual fare, and I can say, immediately, that there was certainly at attempt here at making the AI … yes, you guessed it, challenging.

Races feature a maximum of sixteen cars, including yours, and where the trophy element becomes interesting is when you realise all your competitors have the same cars as you do. I won't say that the Artificial Intelligence is best-in-class, but they are ... interesting. In fact, at first they seem much more subtle than what we have become accustomed to of late. Try to dive inside a driver into a turn, and you will find your nose choppeddown in quite unceremonious fashion, as the AI defends her line. That's quite a nice surprise the first time it happens, but it becomes annoying after the thirtieth

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Consol-Nation episode because it's too systematic: the problem is that the cars don't really defend their line, they're just blocking you. But as they do this every time, it becomes a bit of a predictive model, and soon you’ll be flying past the suckers on the outside—with a nice shake of your fist to boot! Which, actually, is the point: I found racing the AI quite amusing because it does make you feel as if you’re racing against some real guy as an opponent—a jerk, but a real one, and he— must—just get—out—of the—way!

The engine sounds, too, are polished, and abundant. They're not jaw dropping by any means, but they do sound like racing cars. Of course, true Ferrari fans will probably be disappointed because he won't find the raw Italian sound he likes—or assumes—emanating from the exhausts of his beloved Scuderia. My only problem with the sounds is the repetitive nature of a few (what can be perhaps best described as) ‘canned’ effects. They sound like gunshots, and some of them are probably backfire, but they're a little bit disturbing! On the other hand— and again, as I say, to demonstrate that time and thought has gone into this sim—when you park the car under the rain, you can hear a cool wiper sound on your screen. (And yes, they work).

Ferrari Challenge Trofeo Pirelli

Challenge Complete!

Let me start my conclusion by explaining that, while I have been negative about this game in certain areas, I'm actually quite impressed, overall, by what I have here. Indeed, I like it so much that my criticisms are, in a way, like stabs to my own heart, because I really want to like this game absolutely, in part due to the fact that the guys at System 3 have decided to create such a challenging game for a console in 2008. They took a risk—a big one, and also, an important one.

This is quite refreshing indeed. After the thing Codemasters gave us a couple of months ago, it's stimulating to see that not everybody is taking the same path—that is, the shortest way to the nearest garbage dump. GriD was not a bad game, if you take it for what it was—middle-of-the-road kak with no pretense other than being an arcade game for kids with too much time and (judging by the price) expendable income.

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I don't, however, think FCTP is a real frontal GT5P or GT5 competitor, just like Enthusia’s Professional Racing was for GT4. Having said this, it is most certainly a solid filler in between GT5P and the whole enchilada that’s still to come, and I sincerely hope FCTP sells, because it will probably prove that Studio 3 was right to make this choice. If you own GT5P, and you’re looking for something to bridge the gap to GT5 (latest rumour is 2010 earliest), then you can forget GRiD, and buy Ferrari Challenge Trofeo Pirelli instead. Indeed, it is unfortunate that they decided to release after GT5P, and even more unfortunate that Polyphony Digital finally has licensed Ferraris in their game: Were it not for those two events, this one would, I believe, be one of the best sims in the PS3 shelf.

To sum it up, FCTP is a strong entry into the burgeoning simcade titles on the PS3, and can stand tall and proud amongst some of its more illustrious cousins. Unfortunately, the title suffers from many flaws that, taken together, may well prohibit it from entering into PS3 lore as Ferrari Challenge F355 did for the PS2.

Car List & Patch Details 250 GTO, 250 LM, 250 Testa Rossa, F333 SP, 348 TB, 348 Challenge, F355 Berlinetta, F355 Challenge, 360 Modena, 360 GT, 365 GTB/4 Comp., F430 Challenge, F430 GT2, 512 S, 512 M, 550 Maranello, 550 Maranello GT, 575M Maranello, 575 GTC, F40, F50, FXX, F348 Berlinetta, and F355 GTB Since this review was written, a patch has been made available: Here are its release notes:* Fixes to the on line play* Force Feedback strength adjustment* On line Name Tag toggle On/Off* Selectable A.I. difficulty (Easy, Medium, Hard, Dynamic)* Vinyl tool fixes including scaling issues and problems when a G25 is connected* Revised engine sound mixing in all camera views* TC/SC/ABS cheat fixed* Time Trial leader boards fixed* Improved A.I. racing including:* More intelligent defending of the inside line* Mid line defending on corner entry so as not to compromise entry and exit speeds as much* Grudge racing, where by if a player consistently rubs paint with an A.I. racer, they will respond appropriately* Improved defending tactics when trying to overtake on the straights* And a few more surprises.

I did not have the time to try all these things in depth but it looks like it does what it says, the AI is not as predictable as before, the FFB can be reduced, and the game even looks better (or did I get used to it?)

Some Downloadable Content will soon be available: Nurb GP circuit, The Ferrari Enzo, Ferrari P4, Ferrari 430 Scuderia, Ferrari 612 Scaglietti

www.autosimsport.net 144 Volume 4 Number 4 und Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano for probably 3.99 BP. Other content coming: Laguna Seca, Daytona, Brands Hatch, Donington, Barcelona, Hungaroring, Suzuka and Monaco.

79%

‘ASIMCADEWORTHYOFATTENTION’

CONS —The game does not look like a next gen’ console game. It looks like it was made for the PS2.8 —The graphics are too brownish, a little bit cartoonish. That's a shame because, unlike GT5P, the tracks don't look as they were just pulled from the washing machine (A note to Poliphony Digital: Tracks are not clean, and not shiny) —The damage model is poor: A frontal impact at 150MPH will see you happily rejoin the track and keep driving on the limit —The snooker table syndrome: In 2008, a game that doesn’t model track bumps is passé —FPS issues —The game runs at 30FPS, but even that does not make it rock-stable —I can read about the entire history of Ferrari in the time it takes to load one track … and have time to write this review —The replays (available only after yet another painful loading screen) can not be controlled— no pause, no FF, no RW, no screenshots —No setup-change options —No Pit stops, no fuel, no tyre wear (the pits are closed with cement blocks!)

—You always start from the final position on the grid (sixteenth) PROS —Personalising your car with stickers is simple and actually quite pleasant… even if you’re not a NeedForSpeed fan —The rain effects are excellent —A well done manual, in colour … but who reads manuals? I mean ... Except for Bob …

—The physics: Glad someone has the balls to produce a licensed console game with such physics in 2008 —The developer is determined to keep improving the game with patches and (not free) addons —A lot of effort has gone into making the Artificial Intelligence ... intelligent

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GPLegacy

Keep The Dream Sergio’s regular column will be back soon … in the meantime …

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Volume 4 Number 4

The Dent

Vodka Diaries Jon Denton discovers what it is like to work for an entire lifetime for one goal—and to fail at it ‌

JONDENTON

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I had the fortune to find myself in Eastern Europe a couple of weeks ago. Yes, not often you hear someone say that during a brief war in Georgia. However, I was not, as initially expected by Mr. Martini, joining the ranks of the Georgian militia, I was, instead, enjoying a slice of Slovakia, and a brief day-trip into its old friend, The Czech Republic.

Brno, to be exact, to watch one of the finest motor-sportsmen to have walked the Earth, pertinently, walk a race.

Indeed, the legend that is Valentino Rossi is sure to be one that few readers of this fair publication have not had some experience of, the man, the ‘Doctor’, is a genius, and in an odd way it felt fuzzy and warm to be within a hundred feet of him, even if only for a few seconds per lap. Of course, it also felt fervently exhilarating to be amongst a huge crowd of fans of the ‘number 46’ when his latest challenger, Mr. Casey Stoner, lived up to his surname and crashed his bike for no apparent reason.

I could, of course, bellow pugnaciously about the thrill of being amongst the tide of testosterone that swathed across the mighty crowds, and the feeling of being as one with the ardently bellicose throng. But I shall not, no, for that would be absurd. What I shall tell you of is the manner in which they all fail.

Yes, Casey Stoner is but one, but before him have come other challengers to the might of ‘Vale’, and one by one they have fallen: Sete Gibernau, Max Biaggi, Tohru Okawa, Noboru Ueda, all lost out, Nicky Hayden, and Loris Capirossi (2006 and 1997 respectively) scraped championships, and not many others have been able to say that during Rossi’s career.

However, this Stoner chap is the real deal, or at least that is what Spadge told me, once, not just some rather quick young Aussie who crashes a lot and managed to jump on the best bike last year. He did appear the real deal until such a time as his brain started falling apart. Yes, it seems as if Rossi has implanted one of those horrid braineatey things from ‘Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan’ into the Ducati’s ace’s earhole, just as he has to so many others.

I did find myself pondering, as I watched an ardent Stoner fan crash to the floor and place his head in his hands, what it must be like. I mean, what can it really be like to work so hard, your whole life, for one chance to achieve one thing, and then realise that you just are plain not good enough to do it? When there is always someone else, someone so complete, and so stunningly quick that you cannot understand it, to a point where it eats at your brain and sucks away your soul, eventually plopping it all out onto the race track, leaving you a lifeless husk as it tramps away to its next victim.

What is this evil of which I speak? I tell you what, it is Greger Huttu.

I use Greger’s name, hoping he won’t mind, as a metaphor for that driver that you can just never match, whether in the same machinery or sometimes in machinery markedly better. Seriously, I once nearly took pole in a race that Greger was joining us in

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for GP79 beta testing, until Greger stole it from me. I should have been happy to be close, but I was in a Lotus, and he was in a Merzario!

These days, every time I pick up a Skip Barber for a round of iRacing, I end up circulating three seconds off Greger’s pace, and then slowly descending into that place where the nasty ear-diggy beast is growing fat on the sweetmeats of my brain.

You see, where it becomes tough is when you see the track switch every week, and you find that you only had two hours of time that week to even practice, so you never had enough time to get even up to pace to feel comfortable with racing and then, and then, and then …

And then you steadily find yourself turning into Nigel Mansell and rolling out just about every excuse you can find for any lack of performance. Every excuse except for, “I am shit!”

Okay, so it’s natural to assume, in most cases, if someone has a competitive nature, that they will find every reason other than themselves to blame for lack of performance.

It’s also natural to assume that people involve themselves in interactive entertainment to have fun, but mainly to win!

Perhaps this is why iRacing have aimed their service at the concept of driver development rather than interactive entertainment; it isn’t a game, because it just gets too serious, and it gets serious because competition becomes fierce, tempers get flared, and forums get engorged with the venomous vitriol of the disgruntled loser.

Sometimes it is justified, sometimes it is not, either way, no one else really needs to hear it, but they get the benefit anyway, not unlike a worldwide TV audience witnessing Stoner turning down Rossi’s handshake in Laguna Seca’s Parc Ferme.

So, is it that sim-racing is so replete with racers, people who are so feverish in their desire to be the best at their sport, that they will stop at nothing to get their way? Could this be, coupled with the decidedly gender imbalanced nature of the sport, a reason for all the bitterness and hate that can spew in an instant, and then be distilled a few minutes later?

Could it be that every product in the sim-racing world is ultimately doomed to failure because it is quite simply impossible for everyone to win? Or will we see a return to racing AI, and feeling dominant over a bumbling mass of halfwit robots? I don’t know, but as far as I can see, the only alternative is some sort of paradigm shift in fundamental human nature taking place. My money is on the Ceti Eel. Alas, that rather sad Star Trek reference brings me to my final truism; that is, all that glitters in not gold. Indeed, I visited an odd race the weekend after Brno, a race where there were no engines, merely pilots atop equine beasts of some sort, and in one of those races, I saw one such beast that went by the name of Valentino Rossi. Suffice to say, my £5 was a wasted effort, for ‘il Dottore’ did not have control of this one.

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The Dent

Vodka Diaries

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IF YOU’RE READING THIS SO ARE THOUSANDS OF OTHERS YOU CAN BE HERE FOR LESS THAN YOU THINK CONTACT LOU MAGYAR

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Volume 4 Number 4

Magnus Opus

Feeling The Heat ...

Magnus Tellbom gets a first glimpse of SimBin’s STCC at the real-event at Karlskoga … and no, they didn’t even beat him for wearing his AUTOSIMSPORT trucker’s cap!

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Digital Illusions CE (DICE) created the first two installments of STCC—but what many don’t know is that, after DICE were bought out by EA, many of their staff landed up being hired by SimBin, making SimBin’s STCC the third installment of DICE’s STCC …

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The summer of SimBin: After a year of hiatus, SimBin are back with three sims scheduled for the next few months. GTR Evolution, their much-anticipated Swedish Touring Car sim, and RACE Pro for the XBOX (perhaps even featuring their Lizard engine) www.autosimsport.net

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Jan ‘Flash’ Nilsson, Tommy Kristoffersson, Tommy Rustad, Thomas Engström, Fredrik Ekblom—all great names that have sharpened their nails in Sweden’s top racing series.

These drivers have earned the respect and admiration the hard way, by never giving up, always coming back, and never quitting. For more than ten years, these guys have battled on small, highly-technical tracks around Sweden for the crown of what many consider the world’s premiere Touring Car series. I am, of course, talking about the Swedish Touring Car Championship, the STCC. The STCC features Alfa Romeo, Audi, BMW, Chevrolet, Honda, Mercedes, Opel, Peugeot, and Volvo, racing over eleven rounds on seven tracks, all of which are in Sweden with the exception of the short and demanding Vålerbanen in Norway.

But the drivers are unique in one other way, too: They are the only ones who have appeared in not one, not two, but actually three racing game titles, all named STCC. And the developers of all these sims have something in common, too: By and large, the team involved in their creation are pretty much the same.

Surprised? Well, let me explain the evolution of the STCC sims—and how SimBin— who are creating the third installment of the STCC-brand—fit in.

Back in 1999, Swedish game developer Digital Illusions CE (aka DICE) created the first STCC game called, funnily enough, STCC. It was a huge step forward from their previous racing titles (S40 Racing, and V70 Racing), and it was a veritable blast to drive. All the cars, all the tracks from the then-current STCC were present, and for its time, the graphics were cutting edge. It really only suffered from two things: It had a crappy net code, and it was published by Electronic Arts.

Digital Illusions, for those who don’t know, are perhaps Sweden’s most notable developers, having coded everything from the highly-profitable Battlefield series to EA Sports V8 Challenge, Rally Masters, Rallisport Challenge, and many others.

In 2000, though, Digital Illusions developed the second in the STCC series named—funnily enough—STCC 2. This time out, it featured even more Swedish tracks, and an extra racing class, the ever-so-popular, STCC-support series, the Camaro Cup. The graphics were even better than the original, and the models were stunning, with fully-modeled 3D cockpits, and full-motion arms. To add to this, the physics were developed with help from then-current STCC driver Carl Rosenblad. The only drawback was—yet again—a pretty poor multi-player net code, and the fact that Electronic Arts was the publisher.

Now, eight years on, and things have, naturally, moved on. Digital Illusions—which was started by two students in their dorm room back in 1994—was bought out by Electronic Arts in the Autumn of 2006, and re-branded as EA Digital Illusions, and no longer develop racing sims. Instead, another Swedish developer has taken over that branch, and I am, of course, talking about SimBin, who are about to release their Swedisn

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Touring Car title called—funnily enough—STCC—The Game. But the historical connection to the original STCC games remains, since—after the split between what is now Blimey!Games and SimBin—SimBin needed to recruit talent, and they went in search of local Swedish talent. And guess who they brought in? Yes, you guessed it, a lot of the guys from none other than Digital Illusions. In other words, all SimBin titles postGTR2 have been created by guys who once worked on the original STCC titles of the late 1990s, early 2000s. Small world, isn’t it?

Right, so with that little history lesson behind us, let me flip forward to the weekend of August 16-17, when I headed for Karlskoga, in Sweden, to watch the real-life STCC event. Naturally, Alex, having heard of my intention, was quick to ‘recommend’ that I go hunting for the SimBin tent to bring back some photos and early impressions.

“Wear your AUTOSIMSPORT cap,” Alex tells me.

“But don’t they hate us?” I ask.

“Don’t be stupid, Magnus,” replies Alex. “We have great relations with SimBin—just go in and tell them I sent you.”

Right, well … first things first. No, I wasn’t—strangely enough—given a beating when I turned up at the tent. The other thing is—STCC is basically RACE07 with a hairdo. And I’m not saying this as a criticism per se, just that it has been intentionally developed as such. System specs remain the same, and it will be sold both as an add-on for RACE07, and as standalone, though the standalone version will contain a copy of RACE07 in the box—the same deal as with GTR Evolution. Indeed, SimBin will be releasing two add-ons to their RACE07 platform within a month of each other—good business? I’m not entirely sure, but I suspect STCC—The Game will be more suited to their local market, rather than GTR Evo, which looks scheduled for an international release and market.

STCC, however, seems to offer more than what will ship with GTR Evolution: While the latter only features (and is anchored around) one new track (Nordschleife), the former will feature all the tracks used by the Swedish Touring Cars this year. That results in no less than seven new tracks, the Ring Knustorp, Sturup Raceway, the by-now legendary Mantorp Park, Karlskoga Motorstadion, the ever-so-exciting city track in Gothenburg (which made its debut in June), Falkenbergs Motorbana, and the Norwegian track at Vålerbanen. You also get two more cars to play with that did not feature in RACE07—The Volvo C30, and the Peugeot 308.

But wait, there’s more ... and if you’re a fan of American Muscle Cars, much more. You see, STCC, in real-life, never feels really complete without the Camaro Cup which runs as a support series. The Camaro Cup dates back to the 1975 season, and has featured as a STCC support series for most of its life (except between 2004-06), and features the ultraclassic and (do I have to say it?) way-cool Chevrolet Camaro Z28s.

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I suspect that, if you were to ask SimBin, they would tell you—why choose? Buy GTR Evolution now—which comes with a copy of RACE07—and then simply buy STCC—The Game as an add-on. What’s the problem? On the other hand, if you already own RACE07, you can buy both titles as add-ons.

But that’s what SimBin would probably say. If you’re asking me—and I really don’t know why you would!—I’d tell you to hang on until STCC comes out, because it’s the best damn racing in the world. How long should you wait for? I was told to expect a mid-to-late September release. That is four to six weeks away. A long time for a fan of the series! But I am prepared to sacrifice: And indeed, I will even abide by the stinking STEAM that will inevitably come with it because the STCC series is worth that—and more.

No STCC game would be complete without it, if you ask me. Thankfully, SimBin has decided to add this exciting series for their STCC sim. For those not familiar with the Camaro Cup, I have added a few YouTube vids in the sidebar—you’d be a fool to miss it.

American Muscle-Cars, raced the way they should be raced: That means side-by-side on tight and technical Swedish tracks.

So, we’ve covered the history of the STCC (both simulated and real), and we’ve profiled what we can expect from SimBin STCC—The Game. All that’s left for me to do is to give you my first impressions of the sim, as gathered from my brief visit—and test—at the SimBin tent.

I sat down for a quick two laps around Mantorp Park. I instantly felt at home. I have visited this seminal Swedish track many times for the real-life STCC Grand Finale, and I could actually spot the place where I usually stand, camera in hand, from inside the virtual cockpit of the Honda. The ride was solid, and in-line with RACE07. A faulty shifter on the G25, hooked up to the rig, did not spoil this moment for me at all: Indeed, my run was over way too soon. I spotted only one flaw (untextured hands on the steering wheel), but I was told that this was about to be fixed.

All-in-all, it felt like a solid sim, and I'm sure that by the time of release, it will be as polished as all the previous titles by SimBin. And as for SimBin, their marketing department seems to have left us in a bit of a quandary here. After all, if you’re a serious sim-racer, you’re probably shy to try too many sims at the same time. So, should you jump on the train and get GTR Evolution, or should you get STCC—The Game, scheduled for release about thirty days later?

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Volume 4 Number 4

MadCowie ...

MadCows

Stuart Cowie—aka Madcowie—is one of the most prolific modders in the history of sim-racing … he’s also one the oddest!

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Hello and welcome to Madcowie’s Column.

I should probably start off saying it is an honour to be writing this article for AUTOSIMSPORT, but it is, also, a daunting prospect as well since I’m a modder, not a writer. I’ve been asked to write an article on what’s to come from ‘the Cow’, which, as those of you who are involved in rFactor know, is usually a lot!

However, my output of late has been down due to reasons I will now explain in this, my first column for AUTOSIMSPORT …

About three months ago, I was approached by D-Box Asia who asked for permission to use my tracks and mods for shows and demonstrations. I accepted the offer as it was an honour that D-Box Asia was interested in my work. A few days later, and D-Box contacted me again, inviting me to come down and meet them in London at the CEDIA Show at the Excel.

I hear the reader asking, okay, sounds great but—who the hell is D-Box? Well D-Box is the creator of the ‘GP-200’. Oh yes, I hear you say, and what the hell is the ‘GP-200’ then?

Well, this is a motion simulator—aka, a mechanical chair with high powered motors. (lf you’re in the market, you can pick one up for about U.S$16,500.)

So, four weeks before the show, I thought I would create a nice surprise for my arrival.

I sat down and made what has to be my most professional looking track so far—the ‘GP200 International’. I logged the amount of time I spent on the track: Minus the beta testing time, I spent ninety hours to create this beast, and it has to be said, the track is really rewarding to drive. Let’s put it into comparison: Most of my other tracks have probably taken me roughly twenty hours to create, so this one had better be good!

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Four weeks later, I set off to London from Leeds, which is 250 miles away, on the train—the government wasn’t going to sting me for the congestion charge in London!

I’ve visited London three times in my life, the last time when I was nine years old. So familiar with the capital of England I am not. I arrived mid-afternoon. First thought— where hell is London Excel from here? Bloody miles away turned out to be the answer.

Seven tube rides later, and I finally arrive at the London Excel. Getting here has been fairly smooth—getting back would prove another story altogether …

I walk into the show looking for the D-Box stand. Now this is a trade show only, so it’s not too busy and, whilst walking around the stands, nothing was really standing out until I saw a large gathering of people. Bare in mind that every other stall had five people, max’, viewing their gadgets: the D-Box stand, meanwhile, had about fifty or more people all crowded round the chair.

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Within the hour, we had the GP-200 International track on the computer, and the chair strutting its stuff. I couldn't wait to have a go on this fantastic piece of kit, and when the time came, I was buzzing. Here I am—in London—i the Excel Arena (probably England’s biggest show venue), with one of my creations being the star of the show!

Doesn’t get much better than that for a modder …

I sat down in the chair. It’s a racing seat with some noisy speakers mounted either side of your head. The controls are from the Logitech G25. Now, before I set off, let me say for the record: This is one comfy chair! But I’m not here for comfort—I’m here to have fun!

Okay, so first gear selected, I head out of the pit garage. I blip the throttle whilst driving down the pit lane, and light up the back tyres. To my amazement, you can feel the grip loss (literally) in the seat of your pants. Whilst out on the circuit, you can feel every bump in the road, and it feels so real. I made the track with lots of elevation changes and some pretty violent kerbs, so every corner and hill just add to the sensation of the GP-200.

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The GP-200 comes with many settings, and it can simulate movement in many different ways. So whilst I was there, I also got to test out ‘ORR’ with a track pack I had been working on recently. We tweaked the settings, and I headed out on track. Now this track has a long ‘whoops’ section, and after one lap of the whoops, we had to modify the settings as I was pulling 2 Gs of vertical movement! Understand, I am not Travis Pastrana, and have not been designed to be battered to a pulp! So we numbed the settings to keep my limbs intact.

With my heart racing (literally) and my excitement really buzzing, I set off home.

Remember how smooth a journey it was coming here? Well, now it’s going to be the complete opposite (did I say literally?). 7pm I left London, and when I arrived at London Kings Cross train station, I was met with total chaos. All trains out of London had been cancelled due to some fool trying to steal copper wiring from the train track during a thunder storm! Yes, you guessed it, he was electrocuted and, as a result of this, my journey took a total of seven hours surrounded by some extremely grumpy people! Still, it was well worth it, all things considered.

Let me wrap this up by updating you on some other projects I have on the go. First of all, the GP-200 International track will be available for download for rFactor very soon, and this track will mark my first sponsored track. Sponsored by D-Box Asia (sorry, had to get that bit in!).

Also the ORR track pack I talked about has also been sponsored, and will be available under the name of ‘MWM Arena’. You have to check this track out as I’ve most definitely gone ‘Madcowie mad’ with this one.

Olympic ORR should be out very soon, too, maybe even before this article is published. I was influenced by the Olympic sport of BMXing for this track, so … keep that in mind when you run it.

I also have other track ready to go (well, it’s a road-oval—that is, an oval and rallycross track all in one) which is currently looking for a sponsor. So if you’re reading this, and fancy sponsoring one of my efforts, please let me know. I am very cheap compared to the big guns!

Also, I have been working on two tracks for the Monster Truck mod which is just around the corner, and also playing a big part in developing the street circuit ‘Houston’.

Rear wheel drive rallycross, and four other tracks, are still on the way, it’s just that the dollar sign has been getting in the way recently!

Right, before I go, I would like to say a big thank you to D-Box Asia, Pulse Marketing, and MWM. You guys have changed my life this year. Hopefully, my ultimate dream is not too far away now!

See you in October!

www.autosimsport.net

Volume 4 Number 4

Retro

RH vs CTDP The years 2004-2005 saw F1 Challenges' popularity spike, with both of these mod-groups enjoying over 10,000 downloads apiece for their F1-related mods.

So, we turn back the clock and see which was best ‌

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Rh2004 vs. CTDP 2004 Both base-packs are reasonably sized, with RH weighing in at 66MB, and CTDP at 88MB, with the CTDP package including basic 2004 track updates. The RH mod enjoys a simple install, while the CTDP install requires that you to download a conversion pack first. With the RH pack, it took me less than an hour to download and install, and it worked first time out: From the off, I was able to run Championship Mode in-game without the smallest glitch. With CTDP, however, it was a different story. After downloading the conversion pack and base pack, I ended up having to repeatedly shut the game down to fix errors. There was worse in store. After finally getting everything running (or it seemed), I found that the .MAS files on some tracks were missing. I tried re-installing it, but no luck. I then found out that the .MAS files were installed with CTDP2003, and the installer for the 2004 mod had just moved them to the new location.

The expansion packs were both relatively easy to install, and there is nothing to choose between them on content. However, on the CTDP pack, I found that the rear wings that were included floating behind the car—a new installation fixed this. Neither track pack includes a Brazil update, even though CTDP showed a new Brazil in their preview screens. The CTDP Germany, in particular, is excellent, and it features still pit mechanics and various other pit objects. There is, however, a strange looking man that floats above the pit straight.

For the texture and shape quality, CTDP easily gets the better of the RH effort: CTDP enjoy some high poly brake ducts and carshapes with seemingly no loss of FPS. The CTDP textures, what is more, are also much easier to paint to as well.

CTDP have gone further than RH in the amount that they have changed, with their mod featuring new tyres as standard, a new damage update, new terrain files, and high quality new rims. The RH packages, on the other

hand, seem only to update the sim itself: The look will remain pretty much that of the original. RH, however, have got the physics spot-on—they feel far more drivable than the CTDP equivalent.

The CTDP package also has a completely new menu update with buttons on the right hand side of the screen, and a ‘showroom’, whereas RH have updated the menu system but kept the original layout. The CTDP2004 mod has one final trump card over RH: It has a launcher which lets you configure many game options like formation laps and different camera positions.

Cars and Tracks Development Project 2004: 8.0 EMAC (RH) 2004 Formula One: 8.0

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Retro

RH vs CTDP

CTDP 2005 vs. EMAC 2005 F1 2005 was the last these mod groups made for F1 Challenge 99-02, before moving on to rFactor. The RH mod was fairly easy to download and install, and, as usual, came with two packages: the base pack, and track pack. Ditto for the CTDP mod.

The CTDP mod wins the realism debate hands down.

The cars look great in the spinner with great textures and EMAPS. The physics on track are insanely hard to control compared with the RH offering. Therefore, if you don’t spend a year admiring the cars, you will spend that time setting the cars up. The RH textures, by comparison, are basic and have not been developed since the 2004 mod.

The CTDP car shapes, meanwhile, are very high-poly— even the hoop that is pulled for the onboard fire extinguisher is 3D, and sticks out from the engine cover convincingly.

RH has hit the nail on the head in the sound department, while CTDP seem to languish behind as they still use the original games sounds. The tyres as standard on RH are dull, but can be beefed-up using the control panel to install the high-poly versions. On the CTDP, you get high-poly tyres as standard.

CTDP’s pièce de résistance, however, is in the damage department. Here, instead of six detachable parts (which comes with the RH offering), you get a total of thirteen, featuring barge boards, all four wheels, the rear-wing, and many more.

The last thing that will make you want CTDP no matter what is the wheel rims. RH use the original game templates and motion blurs, and although they do the job, CTDP seems to have gone way over the top with their rims: There are no less than twenty-eight .BMP files for four wheel rims, per team, and all have motion blur.

The content that comes with each mod varies—but not by much. Each offers some new car shapes and textures. But the CTDP mod has two expansion packs

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which add all the track dependent textures and car shapes to the 2005 base. Where each tries to outdo the other is in the ‘flash’ department: RH give you their control panel, which basically allows you to configure the sound, car details, cameras, LEDs, and menu styles. It also points you their support forum where you can download an update. CTDP, meanwhile, gives you a fully-blown launcher that lets you configure and change camera angles, LCD steering wheels, car details, and also switch between 2005 (no tyre changes permitted) and standard pit stops.

CTDP wins at everything apart from the setup (which will probably confuse everyone). RH, while superb in its own right, cannot cope with CTDP’s advancements since their 2004 mod.

CTDP 2005 Formula One: 9.5 vs. EMAC F1 Formula One 2005: 8.5

Damage Comparison

Above: The CTDP damage features thirteen pieces …

Below: The RH features only four detachable pieces

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Volume 4 Number 4

Test Rally Montemale Chequered Flag

Official testing at the end of August for the Montemale rally ‌

LUISAGHIBAUDO For more photos, follow this link: 29Hhttp://www.rallyracing.it/fotorally/main. php?g2_itemId=15175

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LAST GASP

DON’T FORGET TO DONATE IF YOU ENJOYED TTHIS MONTH’S ISSUE! .

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