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5dollarpromo_160x600 Simcraft

February 2012

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M T W T F S S
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iRacing TV

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The Team

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  • David Phillips
    Editor and Chief
    David Phillips is a long-time contributor to print and electronic publications in the U.S. and abroad, including Racer, Autosport, AutoWeek, Motor Sport and SPEEDtv.com, oversees the daily updating of news stories and assigns, edits and contributes feature material for inRacingNews.com.
  • Chris Hall
    iRacing.com Series Writer
    Chris Hall has been writing since the nineties and moved into motorsports reporting in 2005, covering series such as ALMS, British GT, FIA GT, Le Mans and 2CV racing for Full Throttle magazine, Motorsport.com, The-Paddock.net, GTGateway.com, L' Endurance and, of course, inRacingNews. During 2008 and 2009, he worked with the RSS Performance Porsche Carrera Cup Team (and former British GT(C) champions) as a data engineer for a variety of drivers and models of 997s.
  • Jameson Spies
    Contributing Writer
    19 years old, Jameson Spies lives in Quartz Hill, California. He grew-up surrounded by racing. His mother raced late models throughout Southern California while his father built and setup the car. Not surprisingly, Jameson began racing go-karts at the age of 13, and is now racing Spec Trucks at Toyota Speedway at Irwindale. He has a passion about all forms of racing and hopes to make a career out of it.
  • Jason Lofing
    iRacing.com Series Writer
    Jason is 21 years old and was born and raised in Elk Grove. California. A big time NASCAR fan, he hasn’t missed a race on Sunday in years. Lofing is also a huge San Fransisco Giants fan and tries to take in at least a couple games a year. Other than sim racing, his biggest (and far more expensive!) hobby is photography. Although he is rather new to sim racing, Lofing has already accomplished some pretty impressive results, qualifying for the 2011 iRacing Oval Pro Series in Season 1, 2011, winning the inaugural Landon Cassill Qualifying Challenge and finishing runner-up in the second one.
  • Ray Bryden
    Technical contributor
    Ray grew up in Nova Scotia, which means he’s a hockey nut, but in Nova Scotia’s two non-winter months he had to find other diversions, which meant watching F1 racing on weekends with his dad and brothers. Without the resources to get started in racing, he gravitated to computer versions of racing – first Atari games like Pole Position, followed by PC racing games like Indianapolis 500: The Simulation. Dozens of others came and went, until Grand Prix Legends came along and he decided sim-racing was his official hobby. Years were spent enjoying this both offline and online until a few years of fatherhood took priority. When free-time reappeared he heard about iRacing and signed up in 2008 and became so involved in the service that he wrote one of the first books on the subject of sim-racing, iRacing Paddock. When not writing for inRacingNews.com, his main occupation is as a research associate with Saint-Gobain working on advanced ceramic materials.
  • Patrick Atherton
    Contributing Writer
    Patrick Atherton, originally from Adelaide in the state of South Australia, currently resides just outside of Melbourne, Victoria with wife of 17 years and 3 kids. A business manager by profession, but also dabbles with blogging, cartooning and fine art, having been published both as a writer in a short-lived South Australian motorsport yearbook and later as a cartoonist in a niche trade magazine. At the age of 19 he competed in club circuit events in an Austin Healey Sprite, later indulging in sprint karts between 1994 and 2000. Following the move to the State of Victoria he raced Road Race Karts (“Superkarts” as they are known in Australia) in the popular Rotax class, competing at Phillip Island, Oran Park, Mallala, Wakefield Park, Eastern Creek, Calder Park, Sandown and Winton. It was during this time he met former Australian F2 champion and inventor of Australia’s first, and most prolific race simulator rig, Jon Crooke. This culminated in an introduction to Papyrus’ legendary NR2003 simulation, and the subsequent sim racing addiction which brought him to iRacing.
  • Tim Terry
    Contributing Writer
    Tim Terry, aka the voice of Maritime stock car racing, fell in love with sim racing in 2004 after he joined the Sim Racing Network crew as a pit reporter. From October 2004 to SRNtv’s closure in June 2007, he’s covered prestigious races and leagues such as the Online 500, FLM Fall 400, Real Racing Online and the DMP Racing League – each as the lead broadcaster for the company. At the same time the wheels started to turn in another direction as he began announcing stock car racing locally. Terry became the assistant announcer at Scotia Speedworld in May 2007 and took over full duties in May 2009 when long-time voice Mike Kaplan retired from the track. Terry also became the series voice of the Parts For Trucks Pro Stock Tour in ’09 and continues to hold down both posts in 2011. He has also announced races for the Pro All Stars Series, Atlantic Open Wheel and Maritime League of Legends tours and has called races at six different Atlantic Canadian tracks. Terry can be heard online at WebRacingNetwork.com, RLMtv.com and OLRtv.com covering sim races. He also makes occasional appearances on PSRtv.com. In addition to inRacingNews, his articles and columns can be read on ScotiaSpeedworld.ca, MaritimeProStockTour.com and his own website at timterryonline.com.
  • David Allen
    Contributing Writer
    North Carolina born and raised with over 15 years of computer/IT experience, I combine two of my biggest hobbies -- racing and technology -- here at inRacingNews. In my spare time I run a Nascar fan site and cure my own need for speed riding atvs. If it involves technology or racing I'll be there, but combine the two and I'll be looking a front row seat. Stop by and say hello anytime!
  • Allen Krier
    Contributing Writer
    Allen was born in West Palm Beach, Florida but grew up in Atlanta and attended Georgia College and State University where he received a BS in Information Systems. Currently a resident of Albany, GA, he started sim racing in 2008 while in college when iRacing was first released to the public. Since then, Krier has been a two time iRacing Pro Series driver (2009 and 2010), picking up one Pro Series win at Daytona in ‘09. Besides sim racing, Allen’s other hobbies include RC Car racing as well as “attending and watching any sporting event that I can including going to the local dirt track.

FPS is Still King

by Ray Bryden on April 24th, 2010

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FPS is Still King

Well, Black Friday came and went and left me with an Eyefinity upgrade project which I finally was able to tackle a couple of weeks ago. Unsurprisingly I found it necessary to upgrade the CPU as well since my frame rates in testing were, shall we say, challenged. Of course, I can only really notice slow frame rates during testing when it dips below 40 or so, but anything slower than 60 is prone to have some stuttering during race conditions which makes control a big problem. Smoothest performance and lowest lag happen with the frames uncapped and running stable above 80 fps. To me, I find the graphics quality always come a distant second to having a high enough frame rate. As an aside I have to say that [...]

Sim Racing’s Code of Uncertainty

by Ray Bryden on March 27th, 2010

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Sim Racing’s Code of Uncertainty

A cop pulls over Heisenberg, and asks him “Do you know how fast you were going?” and he answered “No, but I know where I am.” It’s a geeky scientist joke about the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle which states the more precisely you know the location of something, the less you know about its velocity, and vice versa. I often think about that when I am fighting for track position, because there is always an uncertainty principle of sorts at issue for online sim racing. Since all iRacing events are online over the internet, there is always a certain amount of uncertainty about where everyone on the track actually is at a given time. The reason is simply that although your computer knows your virtual location and trajectory well enough, it [...]

Book ’Em, Dario

by Ray Bryden on February 27th, 2010

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Book ’Em, Dario

When I was a kid I wanted to not only drive a race car, I wanted to design and build it. I was fascinated with the story of Bruce McLaren who not only achieved those feats but excelled in all. There were no racing-related resources where I lived, but after a five hour trip to visit my brother, he brought me to Atlantic News, a magazine shop that not only carried Formula 1 magazines, but also real books on racing, and I snapped up a copy of Racecar Engineering & Mechanics by Paul Van Valkenburgh. I was completely hooked even if I only understood a fraction of it at the time.  Coincidentally, I eventually went to university a block away from Atlantic News and began to bolster my racing library [...]

Grassy Know

by Ray Bryden on February 6th, 2010

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Grassy Know

We may argue for centuries about who killed JFK, but if there was someone suspicious on the grassy knoll, I  can guess he didn’t make his getaway in a car with lots of torque. Given my online racing experience with iRacing, he likely would have been another easy target for Jack Ruby since he’d be spinning his wheels on the grass while the car was stationary. I remember cursing the slippery grass at various tracks and praying for the wizards at iRacing to “fix” it. After all, going off track at high speed at a place like VIR with wide fields next to the track means you could be in for a long excursion before you can collect your bearings (in every sense of the word), and turn on the [...]

Second Shift

by Ray Bryden on January 16th, 2010

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Second Shift

Alright, I wouldn’t go so far as to call this a retraction, but let’s call it a little clarification of the last article I wrote on the optimum shift RPMs for the Skip Barber car. Based on the calculations of horsepower and RPMs, I put together a prescribed set of shift RPMs for each gear change. But like all theories, it doesn’t hold much value until it is put to the test. The proof is in the puddin’. So I set out to confirm if my shifting advice would put a driver at an advantage as they scream off the grid towards turn one. To do this I ran a number of starts at the beginning of an 800m long straight stretch and tried to hit a variety of shift [...]

The Power of Skip Propels You

by Ray Bryden on December 19th, 2009

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The Power of Skip Propels You

Lately I have been running the engine so hard in the Skip Barber F2000 that it wails in such a way that I think I need to call Father Karras. In the past I was kind and gentle to the powertrain, but now I’ve learned that it needs to be pushed closer to the limit to be faster. As hinted in a previous tech tip, I ran some tests at Indianapolis to determine approximate power and torque curves. This is easiest to show using the Skip Barber since it is a straightforward test in this car, as the car is very easily brought up to full speed and handles very neutral with few complicating setup factors. If you have a telemetry logger like vbox, this testing involves starting the car [...]

iRacer Christmas Ideas

by Ray Bryden on December 12th, 2009

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iRacer Christmas Ideas

Let’s face it, if you’re angling for a great gift this year it’s probably a big-ticket item like a monitor or three, or a high end CPU, pedals or video card. But if the budget is tight or you just want to tack-on some extras, here are a few items you can give to yourself or an iRacer friend for not much more than the money you’ll find between the seat cushions. 1)    Optimize your system Any extra vacation time would be well spent doing some preventive maintenance. Spending a half an hour cleaning the dust out of your system, particularly the fans cooling off the CPU and video card, can prevent unexpected problems, especially when the weather heats up.” Also, removing any unused bloatware, or disabling unneeded apps that [...]

Drag’n Slayer

by Ray Bryden on December 5th, 2009

261
Drag’n Slayer

I was working on some acceleration tests at Indianapolis with various cars to determine their power curves and stumbled upon an interesting idea. I figured I could estimate the drag coefficient from the cars by capturing some telemetry data. I wanted to remove the aero drag and rolling resistance forces from the data in order to grasp the values of the power to the wheels, and to do that the best approach is to collect speed data as the car coasts down from a high speed. But I realized I could also extract the aero drag values for each car tested. When you plot the deceleration rate (change in speed/change in time) and curve-fit using Excel, you can estimate the aero drag and rolling resistance force since: F = m [...]

V-Sunk

by Ray Bryden on November 15th, 2009

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V-Sunk

In the past, when I configured my video each time I upgraded my system, I made sure to check-off the box for V-Sync under the graphics options because the resulting effect on the sim was quite smooth and produced the best moving image quality with little or no stutters or “artifacts”. So I have been quite happy with this and what I would describe as intermediate settings (no shadows) on an intermediate quality video card and CPU/motherboard. But although the graphics quality is more than sufficient for my needs I have plateaued in my driving skills, which I always blame on lack of available time to devote to practice and improvement. But after reading a couple of recent forum threads related to graphics settings (specifically V-sync) and input lag, I [...]

Type A Race Debrief

by Ray Bryden on November 8th, 2009

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Type A Race Debrief

I’m a Type B personality. I don’t over-plan my vacations, I don’t make lists, I let things happen. But I concede that there are advantages to the type A personality – not forgetting to pick up things at the grocery store, not scrambling to deal with a lack of available hotel rooms, etc., so I’ve come to adapt some of the Type A lifestyle just to make some things a little less troublesome and disorganized. When it comes to iRacing, I am beginning to believe that the precision of the system and the constancy of the racing environment – not to mention the level of competition – make it a place more suited to Type A people who can take lots of notes and apply what is learned from one [...]

Who Has Pot to Cell?

by Ray Bryden on October 24th, 2009

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Who Has Pot to Cell?

It’s time for an intervention. I read with interest many forum posts on pedals and how different brands, constructions, and components can yield a big gain in performance on track. Every such proclamation made me quite skeptical. My belief has always been that it’s the poor writer who blames his pen, and if ‘aliens’ were using my low-end equipment, they could adapt quickly and easily beat my times within a couple of laps and likely also match their best times achieved on high-end equipment. My nine year old pedal set was starting to go sour with worn out potentiometers in the summer time, so I was forced to use a much maligned two-pedal set that came with my wheel while I struggled with repair problems on the old set. I [...]

Camera Editing Primer

by Ray Bryden on October 17th, 2009

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Camera Editing Primer

Editor’s note:  2009 Season Three saw the introduction of dramatically enhanced camera functions to the iRacing service.  “inRacingNews’” Tech Tip guru Ray Bryden was kind enough to put together the following camera editing primer: To Activate the Editor Hit <Ctrl> <F12> on the replay screen. This brings up the Camera Edit box.  You can edit either car cameras or track (including blimp and chopper) cameras. For now, you can add cameras to any group, except for on car camera groups. For example, you could add a second chopper camera to the chopper camera group, but only the TV1/TV2/TV3 groups will save anything but the first camera in the group. Next release we will have full control over what the groups are called and how many cameras are in each group. [...]

Schlemetry

by Ray Bryden on September 23rd, 2009

261
Schlemetry

I’m no stickler, but ‘telemetry’ is not the right word for collecting data from a simulated car. I’m not holding my breath about a change in nomenclature, but I’ll just note quietly, that the true meaning of the term ‘telemetry’ is something like “far off + measure.”  True if applied to a real racecar, but not when your computer is measuring the bits flying around on the same processor. But that’s enough on that – I’ll use ‘telemetry’ for expediency. There is a great value in using telemetry in iRacing to understand several things. First, how the car behaves in relation to other cars offered on the service; second, how changes to the car setup can affect that behavior; third – and most critically – what you are doing right [...]

Skidpadman – Effect of the Rear Anti-Roll Bar

by Ray Bryden on September 5th, 2009

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Skidpadman – Effect of the Rear Anti-Roll Bar

When iRacing threw in the free skidpad to the list of goodies in the recent update, I decided it was time to learn things about car handling systematically starting with a car with only a few setup variables – the Skip Barber F2000. I checked four different rear anti-roll bar (RARB) settings, and at least 3 different spring perch settings.  You may rightly question why I did not measure the effect of tire pressure which has probably the greatest effect on the handling of the car, but I was limited in how much I could do in one experiment and the number of permutations added by varying tire pressures was too much to handle. As well, I had a fairly good understanding of the impact tire pressure: the generally accepted [...]

Lotus (79) Stew

by Ray Bryden on August 28th, 2009

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Lotus (79) Stew

I had an embarrassing start in the Lotus 79 and was far off the pace in my first online practice at the Glen. It was due to a couple of reasons – I’d never tried Watkins Glen in iRacing, and I was using the baseline setup. I was doing okay in the fast sections but through the medium and tight turns it understeered noticeably. I figure that making a good setup is not unlike making a good stew, and only people with a lot of knowhow, experience and some special combination of ingredients can make it palatable. So I envision the setup gurus to be some talented chefs cooking up tweaks to make their car’s handling a perfect balance of flavors/traits. With the help of the new skidpad, I have [...]