February 2012 – iRacing News, Updates and Rumors


iRacing Interview on West Michigan Local News: Check out this interview that Tony Gardner helped setup for the local Fox News station in West Michigan. They wanted to tie the iRacing interview in to the Daytona 500. It aired on the 10pm news last night, but because of the rain delay they re-aired it on the 6:00pm news tonight. View Video Here. 2/27

Team MPR Pit Commander: This program will allow you to change tires, fuel, and other pit stop items via a touch interface (requires a touch screen for windows). Not sure if there are any plans to merge this program into an app for iOS or Andriod.View Site. 2/27

2012 iRacing Daytona 500 Stats: 
• 2222 Racers participated.
• 509 racers started both races.
• Only 2 racers won both races.
• Only 14 racers finished both races in the top 5.
• 1 racer finished both races with zero incidents.
• 104 racers finished 1 race with zero incidents.
• 22 racers finished all 400 laps.
• Only 1 driver had over 50 incidents.
Thanks to iRacer Mike Grandy for these stats. 2/26

Chevy Silverado Getting New Gauges?: It appears that iRacing is working on getting the SPEK gauges that are currently in the Chevy Impala A and B cars into the Silverado Truck. No word when we will see this, we can assume it will be in the next build. 2/26

2/25 Articles:

Changes Coming to iRacing Sim Updates?: Grant Reeve spoke briefly about why the site must shut down in order to push sim updates: “If we just made the update live then you can get people with mismatched physics in the same sessions that were already running at the time. So we need to at least shut down every series that is using those cars – which turns out for the top 4 oval cars is something like 9 different series, and that doesn’t prevent issues from arising with any existing hosted events that are running using those cars. We don’t really have the tools in place to do such a thing, so we ended up putting teh whole site down instead, which is not ideal. Probably the best solution would be for us to investigate the ability to shut down series using and hosted use of particular cars so that we don’t have to shut the whole site off to maintain synchronicity when we are only updating certain vehicles, but that won’t happen overnight.” 2/24

Article:

GlacierTV Gains Rights to World Tour 2012?: It appears GlacierTV has earned the rights to broadcast the entire 2012 iRacing World Tour. An official announcement from GlacierTV explaining their future relationship with iRacing is expected within the next week or so. 2/23

Ghosting/Lag Drafting Not Fixed?: The ghosting advantage is gone. There were two different bugs however: ghosting and warping with ghosting. Now the ghosting part has been mitigated. The one that’s left allows a bigger push when the latency/quality of the lead cars connection is fluctuating. One way to tell is the lead car appears to have it’s rear bumper jacked up when the trailing car gives a big push. iRacing is working on a solution for that also. 2/18

Daytona Graphics Bug Fix Coming: A bug has been found and fixed by iRacing to fix translucent catch fences at night tracks and other disappearing objects. This fix will be rolled out with the next code update. 2/18

Grille Tape Coming “Soon”?: Hearing that grille tape adjustments (like in NR2003) will be added in the next build. Grille tape would let drivers add or remove tape during a pit stop. Not sure if it would be the same as NR2003 where you could add a percentage in increments of 5, or a different type of system. 2/17

More Changes Coming to Two-Car Tango?: Hearing that iRacing may make more changes to the drafting and engine cooling at Superspeedways. Possibly some extra speed and the ability to push even longer may be in the works. Look for any changes early next week after this weekend’s NASCAR practice/shootout before the iRacing Daytona 500 next weekend. 2/17

Added NiSWC Promo Video: 2012 NASCAR iRacing Series World Championship video by Jon Adams has been added to the Video’s Page. 2/17

Extra Discount for Members: Save an extra 5% through 2/20/2012. Buy any 3 or more cars/tracks and get 15% off (was 10%), Buy 6 or more cars/tracks and get 25% off (was 15%), and Buy ALL cars/tracks to become a 100% content owner and save 30% (was 25%). 2/16

Minor 2/16 Build: Some highlights from the minor build on 2/15: Improvements have been made to how drafting affects engine cooling. Now he radiator gets better airflow in general draft pack traffic if you aren’t sealing the nose against the bumper of the car in front of you. There is no longer any benefit from trying to ghost along inside another car to gain an extra strong draft effect. In fact, it is not slower than being by yourself to try to do this. All three top NASCAR series cars have had the Superspeedway engine’s cooling tuned to survive better during length races in a tight pack (water temperature is now in play as well). Some updates were made to fix bugs with the spotter, sim crashes, and telemetry. 2/16

New Daytona Is Here: Daytona International Speedway was rescanned and remodeled to reflect the significant re-paving project performed by the track in 2011. This re-build of the track is now available as an all new track on the service. The old Daytona has been maintained and renamed “Daytona circa 2007?. If you owned Daytona circa 2007 prior to the release of the new Daytona, the new Daytona will be given to you free-of-charge. If not, going forward the new Daytona International Speedway can be purchased for $14.95 and Daytona circa 2007 for the low price of $5. A sim update will be coming later this week to brighten the lights on the ferris wheel and swing, which are objects that appear when running the Road and Bike configurations. Screenshots: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 – 2/14

iRacing Seminar Event Feb. 23-25th: A seminar has been organized by iRacing members, for iRacing members around the country featuring special sessions with David Cater, Greg Spears, and other top iracing drivers. There are two days of hands-on sessions including: Building a balanced setup, basic and advanced telemetry software techniques, advanced setup building, how to broadcast league races, paint tutorials, how to build an iRacing computer, an intro to iRacing (for newbies), road racing basics, and much, much more. There will also be free food, prizes (including a new Thrustmaster T5000RS, and a tournament. This event is free but space is limited. You can register on their website at http://www.irace4life.org or call 817.203.4165.

Featured Articles:

Drafting Lag Fix?: UPDATE: Eric Hudec said in the forums: “We’re working in a fix for the lag advantage, and a couple other problems that are associated with this type of drafting.” 2/3
UPDATE: Hearing that a fix may be released in the update next week, to keep cars that are lagging from driving into each other and getting a super boost. 2/9

Minor Build Coming Next Week? NTM on IndyCar? UPDATE NO: With the new Daytona track coming “early” next week, it appears some other things are in the pipeline as well. Tony Gardner posted that bump in Turn 3 at Indy is now fixed and should come next week. Tony also mentioned there may be a surprise in this build for the IndyCar folks – but no promises. This could be the new tire model for the IndyCar, but no official word on this. 2/9
UPDATE: Tony Gardner said the NRM will likely NOT be on the IndyCar in the build next week we are doing to roll our Daytona. It is a top priority to get that car working well with the NTM but still not there yet. 2/9

Two-Car Tango to be Removed from Trucks?: UPDATE NO: Hearing the two-car tango was only supposed to be put on the Impala A COT and was inadvertently put on the Chevy Silverado Truck. Supposedly iRacing may put a fix out next week that will remove the tango from the truck. No official word from iRacing. 2/4
UPDATE: There are no aero drafting changes imminent for any of the oval cars including the trucks. The tango is here to stay until we see exactly what NASCAR has planned during speedweeks. 2/7

Article: N4g: iRacing Gets a new Trailer, Promo code

iRacing Announces GRAND-AM Premier Series: We are excited to announce the return of the popular GRAND-AM Premier Series. Pretty similar to last year although we added the North American Endurance Championship inside of the series much like GRAND-AM did. A quick view of the schedule:

  • Daytona* – Sunday March 4th – 144 minutes
  • Barber – Sunday March 25th – 90 minutes
  • Homestead – Sunday April 22nd – 90 minutes
  • Mid-Ohio – Sunday June 3rd – 90 minutes
  • Road America – Sunday June 17th – 90 minutes
  • Watkins Glen (Long Course)* – Sunday June 24th – 120 minutes
  • Indianapolis* – Sunday July 1st – 90 minutes
  • Watkins Glen (Cup Course) – Sunday July 22nd – 90 minutes
  • Mazda Raceway – Sunday September 2nd – 90 minutes
  • Lime Rock Park – Sunday September 23rd – 90 minutes

Painting Rims: Steve Myers said that painting rims on cars is “definitely a feature we want to get done at some point. It may seem like any easy thing to incorporate into the sim but it is a big project unfortunately. We will try and devote some research time on the project in the near future.” 2/3

iRacing to be Featured on “The Ellen (DeGeneres) Show”: UPDATE: Todd Bettenhausen has announced that he will be working on a project to help IndyCar, Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and “The Ellen Show” with production of a Super Bowl-related segment expected to air this coming Monday. They will be providing two sim rigs for the event. Two fans from the competing Super Bowl cities will be racing the Dallara IndyCar head-to-heat at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. One car will be in Patriots livery and the other will be in Giants livery. Helio Castroneves may be there as a driver coach. 2/2
UPDATE: Unfortunately the segment with iRacing and the simulators – generously donated by Todd and Cary Bettenhausen – has been canceled. Most unfortunately, the Ellen show TV producer had to move up the filming to tomorrow and wrote us out of the episode as a result. To their credit, Todd and Cary offered to IndyCar to make it work for tomorrow anyway, regardless of the schedule change and ensuing logistical challenges. The TV producers moved ahead without it anyway. 2/2

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

NTM on Ford V8 Super Car: Grant Reeve mentioned that the Ford V8 Super car is always the first car he tries any new aspect of the new tire model on. It’s such a handful of a car that it is really susceptible to showing any dificiencies in the tire model. Chasing down things that make this car act up often results in improvements that make the other already good NTM cars better, who while it’s not on the NTM yet it is certainly contributing to the NTM’s development. The car is getting better and better on the NTM, but it’s about 2.7 times more of a handful that the current old tire model car. As we iron out the tire model even more the car should get to a point where it is “safe” to unleash on the general public. iRacing says to not fear they are ignoring it, they just want it to be as awesome as possible before making the switch. 2/2

NTM Shaky on Indycar Ovals: iRacing has said they have really focused on this car and have spent as much time on it as the F1 car would have loved to get it it out with the NTM. If the F1 car ran on ovals, it may not have been released either. It’s just not quite there yet on the ovals. iRacing’s Tony Gardner went on to say they are still working on how they plan to do the NTM on the Indycar. If they should have half the season with the old tire model and half with the new tire model, and they are sure when exactly they will be working on the 2012 IndyCar as they are waiting on needed data and they may wait for that to focus on building the entire car new with the new tire model. 2/2

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