All News: Nick Ottinger

Commodore’s Garage #26 – Let’s Get Started

July 7th, 2017 by Matt Holden

  After twenty five articles covering the major concepts and options in our sim-racing garage, it’s time to actually start applying all of what we’ve learned to build a setup from scratch.  Some of you may be thinking, “Finally…it’s been over a year!”, while others may be thinking about what a daunting task it is … Read the Rest »

Commodore’s Garage #24 – The Dreaded Push-Loose

May 12th, 2017 by Matt Holden

  All three NASCAR iRacing Series just finished a short-track swing, and during those weeks I saw, heard, got involved with, and was even asked about one of the most difficult phenomenon to understand in sim-racing:  The “Push-Loose”.  The series went to four of the most troublesome tracks to set a car up for, starting … Read the Rest »

Commodore’s Garage #24 – Minor Settings

April 28th, 2017 by Matt Holden

  We’ve gotten almost every major part of a race car covered in the articles so far.  All that’s left before we dive into the meat ‘n potatoes is the adjustments in the garage menu that frequently get overlooked because they rarely need any attention.  Despite this, they can often lead your setup process in … Read the Rest »

Commodore’s Garage #23 – Sideforce & The Gen6 Update

March 31st, 2017 by Matt Holden

  I’m not sure if you guys have noticed, but lurking in the shadows of the dirt update was a small update to the NASCAR Gen 6 Cup cars.  In addition to a reworking of the aerodynamic behavior of the car itself (2017 butter-knife spoiler!!), the suspension was updated with new, tighter restrictions for the … Read the Rest »

Commodore’s Garage #21 – Telemetry

March 3rd, 2017 by Matt Holden

  The most valuable thing to tuning a car is data.  Whether it’s tire temperatures, pressures, wind tunnel, or telemetry data, anything that can tell you what the car is doing at any given moment can be worth its weight in gold.  Despite a visual simplicity, telemetry data is a rabbit-hole of complexity with almost … Read the Rest »

Commodore’s Garage #17 – 2017 is here!!

January 20th, 2017 by Matt Holden

  Happy New Year!  I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season and, hopefully, everyone has been able to take what we looked at in 2016 and apply it to their sim-racing experience.  Before we dive into the more complex components of the cars such as bumpstops, shocks, and alignments, let’s take a final look … Read the Rest »

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 »

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 »

Commodore’s Garage #9 – Bump Springs

September 30th, 2016 by Matt Holden

So far we’ve gone over how the main springs work on the car, but we still need to cover secondary springs, or “bump stops”.  iRacing has recently overhauled the Gen 6 Cup cars and the Xfinity cars to use bump springs, but those still fall under the category of bump stops.  To understand why the … Read the Rest »

Behind the Scenes: The NASCAR PEAK Antifreeze Series powered by iRacing.com – Making the Best of Very Little

August 16th, 2016 by Matt Holden

It’s been a long time since we had one of these articles.  It’s no secret that, while Gale Force Racing has flourished in the Class B and Class C series this year, our NASCAR PEAK Antifreeze Series efforts have been less than stellar.  In the 2014 season, the #05 car wasn’t off by much, but … Read the Rest »