iRacing News, Updates and Rumors

Dale Jr. Spotter Pack Added: Head over to our Spotter Packs Page to check out the new Dale Jr. spotter pack available exclusively at iRacerstuff.com. This spotter pack was created by Joshua A Thomas and includes nearly 500 audio files from Dale Jr., Steve Letarte, TJ Majors and Rick Hendrick. The audio has been compiled from the last two Sprint Cup Series races at Darlington and Talladega. Note: The pack is currently missing “car left” and “car right”, more updates are in progress. 5/16

NTM for V8 Coming Monday: Unless something goes dramatically wrong in testing, iRacing will release the new tire model on the Aussie V8 on Monday evening on the week change over. iRacing has received a lot of great feedback from Shane van Gisbergen and Scott McLaughlin on the car. iRacing also plans to roll out an update to the IndyCar on Monday evening with a tweak to the drafting. 5/16

inRacingNews.com: The iRacing.com Protest System – May, 2012 by Tony Gardner UPDATE:
A very interesting article posted by inRacingNews.com written by Tony Gardner. It covers in depth of the current protest system and looks at the near future of the protest system. The article discusses items such as
• A point and click automatic protest form is in the works.
• iRacing automatically removing a driver that earns (for example) 20x in one race. Coming “Soon”
• Accepting and documenting protests even without full details and replays to build information on each driver’s file.
• In the previous build, several new options were added instead of just; no chat, no forum, complete suspension. iRacing can now turn off a drivers ability to join official practice, qualifying and race but they can still do hosted, etc.
UPDATE: Tony Gardner posted that the 20x is just an example. As iRacing nears this testing will be done and the engineers will do further analysis but they do want to start conservatively with something like that. He also mentioned that the number may be different for road and oval. 5/16

inRacingNews.com: iRacing.com to Build Digital Honda for New Super GT Series by David Phillips
iRacing.com has bolstered its commitment to its Asian market with the announcement of new partnerships with Japan’s Super GT Series and the Honda Motor Company.  Beginning in 2013, the Japanese Super GT Series will join NASCAR, GRAND-AM, IZOD IndyCar and the Australian V8 Supercar Championship in staging an officially sanctioned iRacing series:  the iRacing.com Super GT Series.  And thanks to a new agreement between iRacing and Honda, the featured car in that online racing series will be the Honda HSV-010. Read More 5/10

New Paint Schemes Added – 5/10:
• 1980-81 Dale Earnhardt GM Goodwrench painted by Dylan Schmidt
• 1989 Rusty Wallace Kodiak painted by Dylan Schmidt

Two New Cars Signed: iRacing has wrapped up a contract to add two new cars to the service. The Honda Civic BTCC and the Honda HXV-V10. Steve Myers said they have been working to get the Honda HSV-010 GT for over three years and the Civic for over a year. 5/8

Layne Sim Products NEW SITE: Layne Sim Products has launched a new new website and a new store front. LSP provides unmatched quality and customer service with their button boxes. LSP also has the ability to fully customize your button box, as well as Ready to Race button boxes for the eager to go Sim Racer without the worry of customizing their own box. All LSP button boxes are constructed out of a steel chassis.
UPDATE: Layne Sim Products has released a mount that will slip under a G25/27 shifter that can be used to mount a Button Box, iPad, Touch Screen and any other device you can think of! Currently LSPDM is set to give $7 off the device mount order until the end of the month. Visit Layne Sim Products Website. 5/8

ORP iRacing World Tour Event Cancelled?: An iRacing World Tour event was scheduled for May 25th, a tournament at ORP before the iRacing.com Indy 500. Sean Siff posted that ORP will likely not be completed in time for this event and that tournament has been removed from the special event schedule for now. 5/8

Maintenance Scheduled: UPDATE Bug Fixes: Monday’s scheduled maintenance is primarily for bug fixes and setups. The new league feature will not be included in the update, nor will the new tire model for the V8 (both of which are expected Within the coming weeks.) 5/
UPDATE: iRacing fixed several bugs in today’s updates. Adjustments to the fuel limiting in hosted sessions were made. Minor adjustments to the spotter including how often some messages were keyed up. Some adjustments made to the new tire model to prevent the surface temperature from exceeding the burn temperature of rubber. This will help the tire from getting too greasy when too hot. Several new setups were added. 5/7

Mouse Over Tips & Setup Notes: Steve Myers posted on his twitter that iRacing is currently in the works to add setup notes and have mouse over help to the garage inside the sim. 5/5

NTM Coming to V8: Testing is nearing completion for the new tire model on the V8. Steve Myers mentioned on twitter that iRacing hopes to release the NTM on the V8 before Season 3. 5/3
UPDATE: The new tire model on the V8 should release within the next few weeks. Steve Myers posted that the car is so much better now it needs to be in your hands as soon as possible. 5/5

iRacing 2012 Video Contest: Make an exciting video about iRacing! Any style, any length. Just make sure it’s all about iRacing. Not too many restrictions other than you must have the rights to any content included – music or video footage (you have our permission to use iRacing footage and the iRacing logo). Videos can be any length but we would prefer them around 2-3 minutes. Videos need to be posted to YouTube and must be submitted via a form on a page on iRacing.com that we will setup soon (we will edit this post to include the link) by Friday June 1, 2012 at 23:59 GMT. iRacing staff will review all submissions and post the top submissions for members to vote on. The creator of the top vote recipient will earn $500 in iRacing credits. Also, creators of the top videos selected by iRacing staff will each receive $100 iRacing credits. Online voting will run from June 8th through June 15th with the winner being announced on June 19th. 5/3

Build Updates: Read all about the new build information from this week’s updates on our New Build Updates Page. 4/27

Track Release Schedule: Langley is currently slated to be released in June, with Zolder coming in August and Oran coming September/October. 4/27

Motegi Real vs Virtual: Very cool videos created by iRacer Pablo López comparing Twin Ring Motegi and Motegi Ovals Real vs Virtual. 4/27

Ford Coming to NASCAR Series in 2013?: Hearing that iRacing is in discussions with Ford to come to iRacing’s top NASCAR series in 2013. NASCAR will have new Cup Series cars in 2013 that are much closer looking to actual road cars (like the Nationwide Series cars). No word yet on Dodge/Toyota. 4/20
UPDATE: Steve Myers posted on twitter that he could neither confirm nor deny this is true. iRacing could be able to add a make button to the paint area where you choose a car number to choose Chevy or Ford for the sim to stamp the correct decal set to the car, without having to build a completely new car and require everyone to purchase it. 4/26

Twin Ring Motegi Screenshots: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 – 4/20

Shaders to Track Surface geometry: iRacing showed screen shots today of the new track surface shaders that are coming beginning in next week’s build. Check the shots below, much more detail. This new feature will debut on one new track and one old track… Twin Ring and New Smyrna. Other tracks from the library will be updated as time permits. 4/20

New Build on Tuesday?: iRacing has scheduled maintenance for “new build deployment” on Tuesday, April 24th. All times are subject to change. Check our the New Build Updates Page for info about the next build. 4/18

NTM for 2 cars: Steve Myers confirmed that the Indy Car and the K&N Series (National Series) cars will both receive the new tire model in the next build slated for next week. Steve also confirmed no other cars would receive the NTM at this time. 4/18

Changes coming to in-race adjustments?: It appears a lot of talk is going on about drivers making adjustments during pit stops in races that would end up making the car fail tech in the garage (example: if dropping the RF tire pressure 1psi would cause it to fail tech, it could be done in a pit stop just fine as there is no post-race inspection). As members are hearing about this exploit, it appears iRacing has some plans to help at least limit it to some degree. iRacing says the easiest solution (meaning, one they can implement now) is to allow no adjustments during race sessions. Neither iRacing nor the iRacing community like that idea very much. A more likely one would be to limit the adjustments we have now. Possibly limiting tire pressures +-5 would do, and half the amount of spring perch adjustment. A post-race tech, or even in-race tech, that won’t allow illegal change(s) is a far off solution at best, at this point. 4/13

2012 iRacing.com Indy 500 & 2012 World 600: iRacing has announced the official dates and times of these 2012 world tour events. Both the 2012 iRacing.com Indy 500 and the 2012 World 600 will be run on the same day. The 2012 iRacing.com Indy 500 will run on Saturday, May 26, 2012 at 11am EST running the Dallara INDYCAR at Indianapolis Motor Speedway – Oval. Practice sessions will begin on May 21st with qualifying beginning on May 22nd. Qualifying sessions will be four laps, with the average of the four being your time. The 2012 World 600 will be run on Saturday, May 26, 2012 at 6pm EST running the Chevrolet Impala (open setup) at Charlotte Motor Speedway – Night. Practice sessions will begin May 21st with qualifying sessions starting on the 21st as well. 4/13

2012 Season 2 Schedule: iRacing has released the new schedules for next season. This season is mostly the same as last season in regards to tracks on the schedule. Next season iRacing will open up discussions on major overhauls to the track schedules (this is typically the case twice per year). iRacing did try to match up real world racing series schedules when appropriate. Some highlights:
• Cadillac Cup has been added as a special official series open to all members.
• Motegi has been added to some schedules on the oval AND road side. (Class A COT)
• We have added a GT series at the C level with just the Ford GT and Vette.
• The Street Stock is now the rookie oval car and the Legends the advanced rookie car.
• There is a road race on the Legends schedule.
Click Here to view PDF of the entire schedule. 4/13
UPDATE: Langley will go on the schedule for the K&N Series when it is done in place of the week 8 Dover week currently on the schedule, which should match up with that real world race week. 4/13

Fuel Options for Hosted Racing: It looks like hosted racing will get a new option in the upcoming build that will allow you to choose your own level of full. The plan will make it able to put in any percentage of a full take you want as the maximum fuel allowed fuel. Default will be a full tank which is 100%. For example, if you want the maximum fuel allowed at a half tank, put in 50%. If you want maximum at 1/4 full, put in 25%. Etc. More than likely there will be some sort of cap and not let you go under 10% or 15% or something like that. If it is allowed to go to 1% for example probably would not even make it a lap in some cases. There are no plans for this feature to move to official series. View Screenshot of Hosted Page with Fuel Option. 4/13

NASCAR.com: Pit strategy, caution lift Stergios to victory by Jason Lofing
Jake Stergios (Candia, N.H.) used pit strategy and a timely caution to grab an improbable win in the NASCAR iRacing.com Series World Championship race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, spoiling a dominant run by Robert Hall (Hampton, Ga.). It was Stergios’ first series victory. Read Full Article 4/3

New Hand Model: A new hand model will be arriving in the next build, coming in late April. Much more detailed and smoother looking overall. Steve Myers posted that the new hands are actually Sean Siff’s “dainty hands”. 4/6

League Functionality: Steve Myers posted a photo today on his twitter account showing the new league functionality that will be coming to iRacing. Steve says “Going to make running your league on iRacing very easy”. No confirmed date of release, expected in the next build in April. View Photo 3/29
UPDATE: There will be pre-build NASCAR and F1 style scoring along with the ability to create custom scoring. The admin will also be able to go back post race and adjust scoring for penalties and bonus points if they want. 4/3
UPDATE 2: Posted by Tony Gardner: Not meant to be build notes but thought I would mention what the new league functionality will look like that we hope will make it into late April build. Basically the functionality is intended to allow full management and view of your league with new customizable league page right on iRacing. No longer will you need to host your own website, although you still can if you want. Many don’t have the time, funds and ability to code and maintain a website so this takes care of all that. With the iRacing Leagues Page, each league could have their own dedicated page within the iRacing member site where they view and manage their league with easy-to-use administrative controls and features. Just an FYI, we will probably charge a small league setup fee only as a measure to try and keep it to real leagues, something like $5-$10. Mainly because we don’t want someone to go setup 50 leagues with no intention of using them and clutter up the site and database. Not to mention, if we make the leagues viewable to public a real cost to us for each league. Once you setup your league you could even transfer it to other members.

Here are more details. Whether you want to get together with your five closest racing buddies or organize a large-scale group of 500 league members, iRacing’s new League system has all of the tools you need to get started.
iRacing Leagues will debut in the Spring of 2012, and will support the following features at launch or in a future update.
• Create your own league page
• Invite your friends or make your league open for applications to the whole iRacing membership
• View all of the leagues in iRacing. See which are the most active, the largest, or those which are recruiting new members
• Have your own customizable league page featuring
- Custom league logo
- League description and information
- League calendar
- League wall
- League roster manager
• Create race Seasons of any length and create your own season Championship battle
- Choose your points system… Oval, Road, or Custom where you can plug in any points values you would like
- Modify race points to give drivers bonuses or penalties based on whatever criteria you the League administrator would like
- Schedule your events all at once in advance or at your own pace as you go through the season
• Create single pickup races or events with access restricted to just those in your league
• Create League vs. League competitions by limiting access to Hosted iRacing sessions to any number of leagues
• Privately e-mail your league membership through the league interface without exposing e-mail address to one another
• Organize your league membership into groups and control which Seasons these groups can access
We also hope to have an option to make the league page public, viewable outside of iRacing member site. However that option will not be in this build. 4/6

Team Racing: Tony Gardner also posted: Just as an FYI, we are still hard at work and making good progress on our major team racing project. (Not to be confused with leagues but could be used by leagues). Team racing meaning ability to join races as a team, share setups, has a spotter, crew chief etc. Also being able to swap drivers on your team without joining the race together and all that. There will be no aspects of that in this build but again making good progress. It turned into a much bigger project that we originally planned (more functionality) which required significant and complicated changes to the system architecture of iRacing. 4/6

Past iRacing News, Updates and Rumors: January 2012 | February 2012 | March 2012

Upcoming Track News

Head over to the OVAL Track News Page and the ROAD Course News Page for more on all of the tracks rumored to be coming to iRacing.

  • Lucas Oil Raceway (formerly known as ORP and IRP) is expected to be released in the next build.
  • Twin Ring Motegi appears to be the next road course to be release. It is believe to be in production, but no official word on when to expect its release.
  • Phoenix International Raceway UPDATE: This track was resurfaced and reconfigured in 2011. No word if iRacing plans to rescan/reproduce this track anytime soon.
    UPDATE: iRacing may re-scan Phoenix later this spring and try to have this track re-leased for the fall Sprint Cup Series race. No official word yet. 3/4
  • Rockingham Speedway: UPDATE – Licensed: NASCAR will return to Rockingham Speedway in 2012, no word yet if iRacing has any plans to scan and reproduce this track.
    UPDATE: Tony Gardner announced today that they have executed a license with Rockingham Speedway in North Carolina. They do not yet know when they are going to build, but plan to scan it next time they are in that area. 2/2

Car Content News

These and more can be found on the Car Content News Page with info about the new car content headed to iRacing.

  • The Cadillac CTS-V is currently in production and is expected to be released in the next build. iRacing will release this car FREE to all iRacing.com members and this car will be part of the base package.
  • Lotus49 has been scanned. No word on when it may be designed and released.