All News: Sim Racing News

iRacing Open House

October 18th, 2010 by

iRacing.com held its first open house on Friday, October 15 and, if the enthusiasm and good times generated by the event are any indication, it won’t be the last time the Bedford, MA-based online racing service opens its doors to its membership.  The event attracted more than fifty members and, while most of the attendees hailed from in and around the Northeast, several members made longer treks to the home of iRacing.

Davies' Day, Towler's Title

October 6th, 2010 by

Richard Towler entered the final week of the NASCAR iRacing Series World Championship with nothing but high hopes.  Trailing Towler in the championship by 34 points, Brad Davies entered the final week of the NASCAR iRacing Series World Championship with equally high but (slightly) slimmer hopes.  The season finale at Charlotte Motor Speedway would be … Read the Rest »

Monstrous News for iRacing.com

October 5th, 2010 by

iRacing.com has added Dover International Speedway to its ever growing catalogue of race tracks.  Known as The Monster Mile, Dover is a real beast of a race track, exactly one mile in length and featuring 24 degree banked turns – not to mention a 46 foot tall, muscle-bound, statue outside the gates named “Miles the Monster.”  One of only two tracks on the NASCAR Sprint Cup circuit paved with concrete, Dover has been a fixture on the NASCAR schedule since 1969 with a list of winners that reads like a Who’s Who of NASCAR including Bobby Allison and Richard Petty, who each won seven times at Dover. Dover is also unique in that the track is part of a larger sports and entertainment complex that includes a hotel, gaming casino and harness racing track.  But it’s the mechanical ponies – as in the 750+ horsepower NASCAR Sprint Cup machines and their sibling Nationwide and Camping World Truck Series racers – that grab the attention of motorsports fans twice a year.  Up to 135,000 people from the Mid-Atlantic and beyond flock to the track for two big NASCAR weekends in the Spring and Fall.  Now, thanks to iRacing’s three dimensional laser-scanning technology, its members can also enjoy racing on the Monster Mile

The Williams-Toyota F31 – More (and Less) Than Meets the Eye

September 28th, 2010 by

On the face of it, designing and building a virtual version of the Williams-Toyota FW31 figured to be the most formidable challenge yet faced by iRacing.com.  After all, Formula One is the technological pinnacle of the motorsports world, and it takes a virtual army of engineers, technicians and mechanics just to start a modern Grand Prix car.

JWH Racing League Debuts

September 19th, 2010 by

Looking for that private league feel in an official iRacing series?  Would you like to see bigger splits in “regular” races?  Or maybe you’d just like a little something extra from your weekly races. If you answered yes to any of the above (and even if you didn’t), then iRacing’s newest mini-series – JWH Racing League – is for you.  From now until the end of Season 3, the league will bring together iRacers with all levels of experience and skill for spirited but friendly competition in the regularly-scheduled NASCAR iRacing Class C Series race (Thursdays at 8:45 pm ET) and the Skip Barber Series race (Sundays at 3:45 pm ET). As with any other regular iRacing event, each split matches sim racers with similar skills and experience.  The beauty of JWHRL is that you’ll also be competing with everyone in all the other splits – no matter the strength of field – for league points.   Otherwise the races will run exactly the same as always; nothing will be different apart from the fact that league points and standings will be calculated off-line and reported on the Member Site and inRacingNews.

My Netflix Queue is 'Going Faster'

September 18th, 2010 by

I’m in the doghouse at home. Perhaps I deserve it. I convinced the family we needed to subscribe to Netflix because of the streaming movies we could watch on our new DVD player, and also get a steady stream of DVD’s sent to the house to watch at will. Of course I had an ulterior … Read the Rest »

FW31 Envy

September 17th, 2010 by

If you ever envy motoring journalists who get to drive exotic machinery before it becomes available to the wealthy businessman and footballers (let alone the fact that most of us won’t ever get to drive them), then at least we can console ourselves with the knowledge that a virtual Grand Prix car costs the same as a virtual VW Jetta! Of course if you are an inRacingNews journalist then you just might get to drive the upcoming Williams FW31 before it is made available to the membership.

iRacing Continues Japanese Growth

September 17th, 2010 by

iRacing continued its Japanese expansion with today’s announcement that Twin Ring Motegi, Suzuka Circuit and Tsukuba Circuit will join Okayama International Circuit on its growing list of global racing facilities.  In addition, iRacing will also be augmenting its line-up of virtual race cars with the Mazda Roadster and MX-5 Cup racing cars.  The announcement was made by iRacing president, Tony Gardner, in conjunction with this weekend’s running of the Japan 300 IZOD IndyCar Series race at Twin Ring Motegi. “When we announced last spring that Okayama was joining iRacing, we promised there would be more tracks and cars of particular interest to our Japanese members,” Gardner said.  “Now we’re pleased to announce that our members in Japan, and elsewhere in the world, will be able to compete themselves with other drivers in Japan and elsewhere in the world on exact virtual versions of the tracks that are home to Japan’s two most important races, this weekend’s Japan 300 and next month’s Japanese Grand Prix, in precise digital versions of the Dallara Indy car and AT&T Williams FW31 grand prix car.  Tsukuba Circuit is popular with Japanese drivers, who enjoy its demanding technical nature, and we believe our members world-wide will enjoy driving on our virtual version.” According to Gardner, the AT&T Williams FW31 and the Mazdas will be available to iRacing members later this fall, and the four Japanese tracks will be available during the course of the next year.  Laser scanning of all four tracks and related data gathering will begin in November. The four new race tracks cover the gamut of motorsports activities in Japan.  Twin Ring Motegi boasts a 1.5 mile, egg-shaped oval, together with a state-of-the-art road course facility including a 12 turn, 2.9 mile circuit as well as two smaller club tracks.  Suzuka Circuit features a unique cross-over design in its signature 17 turn 3.6 mile circuit and, like Twin Ring Motegi, several shorter configurations.  Tsukuba Circuit is a short, but testing road course packing everything from fast, sweeping turns to hairpins and medium speed corners into its 1.2 mile layout while Okayama International Circuit (which hosted two Pacific Grand Prix Formula One races in the 1990s) mixes a series of flowing corners and straightaways with a technical infield section over the course of 2.3 miles.

So What Does That Button Do?

September 14th, 2010 by

Recently on our forums I read a topic where our users were wondering whether they should use the High Resolution Car Textures or the Uncompressed Car Textures selections in our graphics options menu. There seemed to be a lot of confusion over what those two selections did, and how they would affect the way the … Read the Rest »

O'Keefe, Hermann Top Barbers at Laguna

September 9th, 2010 by

The Andretti Hairpin. The Corkscrew. Rainey Curve. The Pass. Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca is world famous for its challenging layout and the racing it has produced over the years.  This week sim racers in the iRacing.com Skip Barber Race Series made their seasonal trek to the historic circuit. While opinions varied on whether to love … Read the Rest »