iRacing 2.0

[AMRacer89]

Hate to sound like an infomercial, but "soon" iRacing will release their biggest build since opening to the public, known as 2.0. The initial phase of it will see iRacing's "New Tire Model" make its appearance on several cars including the top 3 NASCAR vehicles (Cup, Truck, and 2009 Nationwide car; 2011 NCOT already has a "preview" of it, which will be updated tomorrow), iRacing's two newest cars - the GT2 Ford GT and Honda LMP2 prototype, and the Skip Barber Formula 2000 with more cars receiving the new tire throughout the coming months.

 

Having driven on the new tires myself, I can say that the cars will now act almost exactly like you think they should. Within a couple laps, I noticed mistakes I was making that I made in the real cars in terms of driving technique, yet the experience felt familiar. All I was really missing was the g-forces and smell of burning rubber. It was really surprising. As I've said to some friends, I know I probably annoy people with all my iRacing talk, but I hate seeing racers and race fans miss out on a really fun and shockingly realistic experience cause they see it as "just another video game" or the relatively inexpensive monthly sub scares them off. Now is really the best time to jump in if you're into sim racing.

 

Edited for accuracy...

[racecar25]

Nascar Racing 2003 all the way!!!

[alttuede]

Nascar Racing 2003 all the way!!!

O you gotta try this "Sim" the "feelings" of racing a car mentally are all there , you just dont get the physical forces , which takes some time to adapt .

 

The same people who made N2K3 make iracing , except , without the publishing deadlines and the whole community is connected so to speak , i figure if its good enough for Dale Jr. its good enough for me

[AMRacer89]

Quite a bit's improved since I originally posted this. I think all but 4 or 5 cars have the "new tire model", including the Late Model and Street Stock. There's several new tracks and cars in the pipeline, among them are several short tracks, and as far as the cars, the Cadillac CTS-V R which races in the World Challenge Series and the Lotus 49 F1 car. They just released the repaved Daytona (and also allowed us to keep the old one).

 

The basic content package comes with 9 race tracks and 6 cars, and it's just $12/month, so if you try it and don't like it you're only out the $12 you might have used to go see some crappy remake/relaunch/re-imagining at the movies. And that's assuming you don't play the pricing game (if you play your cards right, you could get a 1 year sub for roughly $10....something that's normally $100). Also you don't need some kind of supercomputer to run it, I race in a league with a guy that runs on a 10+ year old machine. His graphics aren't very pretty, but he still manages to race (and he's fast).

 

And as alttuede mentioned, you have quite a few pro racers that use the service. Dale Jr probably being the most prominant, but you could also throw in several other NASCAR, ARCA, Grand-Am, ALMS, and F1 drivers in there as well. Ron Capps from the NHRA is quite active there, I think over half the IndyCar field is on iRacing. A lot of them use it as a training tool to keep their skills sharp, but also use it for fun.

 

It's not a bad substitute for those of us that can't make it out to the real tracks for various reasons, or over the off season. I haven't been able to race a bunch lately, but I still back it 100% and think any racer should take a swing at it. It's not for everyone, but I will say don't get discouraged if things don't go well at first. This isn't your kid brother's racing game, this is supposed to be an accurate simulation of what it's like to drive a real racecar. Almost along the same lines of the simulations pilots use to train.

 

Anyway.... /endsalespitch