All News: nascar

Commodore’s Garage #12 – Tire Data

November 4th, 2016 by Matt Holden

Whenever we put a race car on track, be it real or virtual, we have two things that can give feedback on how the car is performing:  The driver, and the tires. Drivers are usually very literal when they communicate what the car is doing. If it’s starting to spin, they’ll say it’s loose or … Read the Rest »

Commodore’s Garage #11 – Sway/Anti-Roll Bars

October 21st, 2016 by Matt Holden

  I had a professor in college say, “Springs for speed, bars for handling”.  It’s a short, but interesting statement, and it’s a concept that’s easy to forget and go about things in the other way when tuning a race car, be it real or virtual.  Modern race cars, oval cars especially, have seen huge … Read the Rest »

Behind the Scenes: The NASCAR Peak Antifreeze Series powered by iRacing.com – And So It Shall End

October 18th, 2016 by Matt Holden

Sixteen races.  2400 laps.  3600 miles.  Over all that distance, the championship came down to two drivers, and between those two drivers, it came down to two points.  In my opinion, the finale to the 2016 NASCAR PEAK Antifreeze Series was one of the most exciting races I’ve ever seen, including real-world races.  Two points … Read the Rest »

Alfalla Captures 2016 NASCAR PEAK Antifreeze Series Title

October 13th, 2016 by

Ray Alfalla of Cape Coral, Fla. captured the 2016 NASCAR PEAK Antifreeze Series Powered by iRacing.com title last night, the third championship of his sim racing career.   Alfalla and veteran sim racer P.J. Stergios of Candia, N.H. came into Tuesday night’s season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway separated by just five points in the standings.  While Stergios … Read the Rest »

Commodore’s Garage #8 – Coil Binding

September 23rd, 2016 by Matt Holden

Last week I went over the various thing that can influence your spring choices for a given track.  How much banking, amount of bumps, and even the weight of the car can drastically alter what you need in your race car, but can those rules be broken?  Of course they can, and it’s not uncommon … Read the Rest »

Commodore’s Garage #6 – The Spring

September 12th, 2016 by Matt Holden

In the history of sim-racing, nothing has been more associated with chassis setup than the springs.  At the same time, nothing has been more misunderstood than the simple coil spring.  There are countless different kinds of springs, from coil, to leaf, to torsion springs, and everything in between, and racing series regulate them heavily.  When … Read the Rest »

Commodore’s Garage #5 – Roll Stiffness

September 2nd, 2016 by Matt Holden

When we watch a car go around a corner, we almost always take a note of how much it rolls over, or lifts the inside of the car, but how much do we really think about what’s happening?  In the yester-years of NASCAR, it was probably never given a second thought to how much a … Read the Rest »

NASCAR Driver Tony Stewart is a Big Fan of VR, Too

August 22nd, 2016 by John Gaudiosi

Three-time Sprint Cup champion Tony Stewart is doing his final lap in NASCAR. After 18 years of racing, the 45-year-old driver, who also owns Stewart-Haas Racing, has watched technology improve everything from the safety on the track to the way fans can experience the sport. Fox Sports, for example, recently livestreamed the Daytona 500 in … Read the Rest »

The Commodore’s Garage #2 – Step 1: Grab a Pencil

August 4th, 2016 by Matt Holden

“We learned how to make them loose, now we need to learn how to make them fast.”  Mark Martin said this during a post-race interview after an Xfinity Series race a few years ago and it’s stuck with me ever since.  It’s a simple quote that largely went un-noticed, but carries so much information that … Read the Rest »

The Commodore’s Garage #1 – Welcome to My Shop

July 22nd, 2016 by Matt Holden

Six years ago I began writing a setup guide.  There are tons of these things that exist around the internet for any racing sim you can imagine.  In the past, they were quite good for what they were to be used for, but when iRacing showed up in 2008 with a radically new approach to … Read the Rest »