iRacing 2011 Pro Race of Champions Highlights Video
iRacing at Autosport International Show in January
iRacing will be making an appearance at the Birmingham NEC for the Autosport International show on January 14-15, 2012, with two state-of-the-art VRX simulators loaded with all the current cars for anyone to try out.
In addition to the full car list, the simulators will also offer the full range of 50 tracks, from Spa-Francorchamps to Brands Hatch. Kevin Bobbitt of iRacing.com said: “We are looking forward to showcasing our motorsport simulators at Autosport International and inviting visitors to drive a few laps.”
Autosport International is a motorsport show with live demonstrations and appearances from stars including F1′s Paul Di Resta, along with displays of a variety of motorsport vehicles. Tickets cost £30 for adults, with children £19.50 (Under fives go free). For more info contact 0844-5811420 or visit www.autosportinternational.com
Voting starts for iRacers of the Year 2011
Voting is now underway for the first ever iRacer of the Year Awards, with categories for Top Driver and Top Member. The voting continues until 23:59 GMT on December 31st, with the winners announced in early January.
The nominees for iRacing Driver of the Year are:
- Ray Alfalla – NASCAR iRacing.com Series World Championship winner with 3 wins and 8 more top fives; also scored two top fives en route to fifteenth place in the iRacing.com NVIDIA Grand Prix Series.
- Chris Hughson – iRacing’s winningest driver in 2011 hands down, with 1179 victories in inRacingNews Challenge (Solstice and SRF), Street Stocks and NASCAR iRacing.com Class C (among others).
- Greger Huttu – Beat many of the best iRacers to win the Intel GP Series; scored four wins and ten more top tens en route to finishing runner-up in iRacing.com NVIDIA Grand Prix Series.
- Hugo Luis – iRacing.com NVIDIA Grand Prix Series champion with five wins (including four straight with the title in the balance) and ten more top five finishes.
- Yang Ou – Dominated the IZOD INDYCAR Premier Series, taking both the Oval and Road racing crowns with a total of 16 wins and five more top fives.
And the nominees for iRacing Member of the Year are:
- John Bodin – One of iRacing’s “good guys,” Bodin has helped countless iRacers (particularly rookies) with chassis setups and driving tips, and is a regular contributor to iRacing’s official FAQs on the member site.
- Glenn Chalder – Worked tirelessly to create a setup guide for the Skip Barber F2000, and updates the Skippy Tuning Guides every new season. Glenn also created the Periodic Table of iRacing Racetracks and Cars and is always a good source of creative ideas about the iRacing service.
- Rusty Greer – Another one of iRacing’s real “good guys,” Greer not only spends countless hours developing set-ups, he selflessly shares them with the sim racing community and is always ready, willing and able to offer a helping hand.
- Chris Hall (aka “Captain Obvious”) – Hall’s knowledgeable and entertaining articles are a staple of inRacingNews, and he’s a tireless booster of iRacing in paddocks across the UK and Europe.
- Steve Luvender - The driving force behind the Trading Paints.com, which enables iRacers to download, upload and share their cars’ paint schemes with the iRacing community, Steve is a thoughtful and creative influence on the sport of sim racing.
- Nick Neben – An invaluable voice of reason in the sim racing community, Nick is a dedicated champion of Sprint Cars and Silver Crowns whose thoughtful Q&As with Tony Gardner and Dave Kaemmer (almost) single-handedly crashed inRacingNews.
- Pete Ness – Father of iSpeed, an application that creates both a digital dashboard and a real-time race analysis.
- Tim Terry – The Maritimes’ force of nature provides expert commentary on iRacing’s broadcasts, covers oodles of race series for inRacingNews and gives sim racing plenty of virtual ink on “Tim’s ‘Sim’ Corner” website.
- Stephane Turpin – Creator of the Motion Cockpit View, which enables drivers to bobble their head around the cockpit based on their cars’ physics.
- Jari Ylimainen – Developed the iRacing TV Overlay, a tool for creating TV style broadcast overlays from spectator sessions used by hundreds of league racers to post their races on the Internet.
So you can make your choices and vote on the iRacing site right now.
iRacing announces iRacing.com NVIDIA Series
The top championship in iRacing will now be known as the iRacing.com NVIDIA Series after securing the title sponsor who have already been involved in the iRacing.com NVIDIA Cup, which features the Mazda MX-5 and is open to all iRacing members.
But this championship is the big one with an 18-round championship featuring th the top drivers competiting in replicas of the Williams-Toyota FW31 Formula One car. Prizes and cash for top finishers are valued at more than $18,000, and with 11 rounds of the series now complete, the action is hotting up with leading drivers including Finns Klaus Kivekas and Greger Huttu, and Brazil’s Hugo Luis.
“There are many fans of sim racing here at NVIDIA,” says Phil Eisler, General Manager for 3D Vision at NVDIA. “It’s a great application for GeForce and even more immersive with 3D Vision. Therefore, we are delighted to work very closely with iRacing to continue to make the experience more and more realistic.”
“As online racing continues to grow in popularity, we are witnessing a corresponding increase in support from companies whose products and services are associated with the sport. The iRacing.com NVIDIA Series is the latest example of this trend.”
iRacing partners with McLaren Electronic Systems for F1 and NASCAR data
iRacing has partnered with McLaren Electronic Systems to incorporate ATLAS Express data analysis software, which means you’ll now have similar data acquisition and telemetry software to that used by every F1 team since 2008, and on NASCAR’s standard ECU in 2012, to give you the most amazing insights into how your virtual race car is performing.
iRacing is also releasing an upgraded API which means the data can be used with an array of external features including motion platforms and external displays.
“With the new iRacing telemetry capability, our members will be able to log detailed telemetry from their virtual race car to disk,” says Dave Kaemmer, iRacing’s chief executive and chief technical officer. “Using McLaren Electronics’ Atlas Express data analysis application, members who wish to delve into the engineering details in order to improve their cars’ handling will be able to do so, using very similar tools as F1 and NASCAR teams. In addition, with iRacing’s new real-time telemetry interface, multiple applications will be able to access telemetry simultaneously, allowing easier support for motion platforms, external gauges, and other add-ons from the sim-racing community.”
“Up until now, our members have only been able to work on their setups by ‘feel,’ tire wear and temperatures, and by gauging their performance on the stop watch,” says Kaemmer. “ATLAS Express will now allow iRacers to view driver and car performance in a given session to help them tune the car with actual data.”
iRacing wants 2000 racers for QA event on May 14th, 2011
iRacing is looking to attract 2000 racers for a special one-off event to test some infrastructure changes in preparation for the iRacing.com Indy 500 on May 28th, and as an incentive, if 2000 people turn up, you’ll all get a special ‘iTested’ award on the Awards page.
The official event will feature the Mazda MX-5 and Okayama International Circuit (full) which is available to anyone with the most basic iRacing subscription, and will start on Saturday, May 14th at 4pm ET (8pm GMT). Qualifying for the 15 lap race begins at 8.30pm ET on Thursday May 12th (00.30 Friday May 13 GMT), and runs every 30 minutes until the race starts on Saturday.
So if you fancy taking part in an event with 2000 fellow iRacing fans, this should be a good one – if you do take part, let us know how you get on…
Major updates this summer for iRacing
Version 2.0 of iRacing has been announced for release this summer, based around an even more releastic and accurate tire model, which is the result of three years of work by by the iRacing team. The game has grown from 400 racers in its first month back in 2008 to over 25,000 members with 30 official series, over 60 tracks and more than 1,500 official races each week, with sanctioned series from the likes of NASCAR, INDYCAR and GRAND-AM. The schedule for releases will be:
May 2011
- Early preview of Dave Kaemmer’s new tire model available on the new NASCAR Nationwide car.
- Launch of in-game awards program – over 50 different participation awards members can earn.
- Night racing on road courses using headlights beginning with Sebring International Raceway and the V8 Supercar, Mazda MX5 Cup & Roadster, Corvette C6.R, Riley Daytona Prototype, Pontiac Solstice, VW Jetta TDI Cup and Mustang Challenge race cars.
- New NASCAR “Nationwide” stock car – race the car you watch on Saturdays.
- Okayama International Circuit (Japan) – the first of several tracks from the island nation.
- New telemetry output for the data hungry racers.
- Private league racing enhancements including: reduced pricing, advanced scheduling, new race session options and additional grid spots to virtually every track.
- Graphic and shader upgrades in-game for more lifelike visuals.
- Complete graphical overhaul of the Skip Barber FSB2000 race car – updating our first car to current standards.
- Opening practice sessions to all license levels (excluding Pro Series).
- Enhanced pitting and damage repair for all cars.
- Preferred/custom car numbers.
- Improved accuracy of the model of physical track surface to match the laser scanned data better than ever before.
August 2011
- New Tire Model for all cars.
- Enhanced aero model for improved drafting and more realistic downforce characteristics.
- Heat/Tournament racing for private leagues/sessions.
- Driver aids available for private leagues and Rookie series (ABS brakes, traction control, driving line, steering aids, etc.).
- Enhancements of new sound system.
- Endurance racing and driver swaps.
- Suzuka Circuit (Japan).
- Iowa Speedway (USA).
- Ford GT race car
- Honda LMP ARX-01C race car
- Live pop-up chat on member site.
So if you’re tempted by the idea of iRacing, this summer could be the perfect time to give it a try!
And if you’re already involved in iRacing, we’d love to hear from you – we’re keen to get more iRacers writing for OnlineRaceDriver, and you can let us know if you’re interested in the comments, by posting in our forum, or by contacting us directly. Sadly we can’t pay for any submitted content at the moment, but we can offer the chance to get involved in one of the biggest online racing sites on the internet, and to give you access to perks including access to pre-release games, helping you to become a better writer, and other incentives…
How to: Your iRacing career
iRacing.com World Championship Road Racing: Spa
iRacing 24 Hours of Racing to support Japan Relief Efforts
On March 22nd, iRacing.com will hold a dozen races over a 24-hour period as a special fund-raising event to support the Red Cross relief efforts following the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, named ‘Racing For Japan’.
iRacing has more than 25,000 members in 87 countries, including more than 200 Japanese members, and all iRacing.com racers are eligible to participate and asked to donate to the American Red Cross’s Japan Earthquake and Tsunami fund.
The event will consist of six Street Stock races at Thompson International Speedway, and six Mazda Roadster races at lime Rock Park. The first of the races will be a 40-lap Street Stock event at Thompson which starts at 01:00 GMT (March 21, 9:00pm ET), with the first of the 40-lap Roadster races at Lime Rock two hours later at 3:00 GMT (March 21, 11:00pm ET). The racing then alternates between the two tracks with a race starting every two hours.
“Just as in real-world motorsport, racing is the common bond for everyone in the iRacing community,” said Dave Kaemmer, iRacing.com’s co-founder and chief technical officer. “In both the real and the virtual worlds the social connections and the friendships that racers develop with one another are just as important. In iRacing we really do bring together people from all over the world, and in this case we are mobilizing them to respond to a tragedy that touches us all. We have the potential to generate a substantial amount of money to support work that will be essential to the address the needs of individual victims of this disaster.”
David Kaemmer will be joining other members of iRacing.com’s staff in making personal donations and driving in simulators at the company’s offices throughout the event.
