Draco-REX

http://one13thirteen.com 8 hours to go.

Since we've veered away from topic to land firmly in another one. Here's a Clutch song that's just "Cool" IMO.

My current vote for a band to inherit ZZ Top's title for Coolest Band.

Can't wait. I am a little bummed that the aero revisions were pushed to 2015 (or 2016?), because with whole new cars from the ground-up it could really make for some interesting racing. But in all reality, having a new aero formula and a new engine formula at the same time would probably just mean whatever team manages to cobble together something that works a bit more consistently would dominate. That's just too much to tackle with the limited testing rules. (It'll also likely give the other teams a chance to catch up to Newey before he sails off into the sunset again.)

lol. Awesome.

It's a free subscription, but you have to pay for the cars. To be fair, you also have to buy cars and tracks in iRacing too. Yes. Gear drive FF wheels sometimes have an unavoidable vagueness at center. The DFGT might be one. I have a couple more things I can try.

Oh yeah. Turn 1 survival is top of my list. I read a few threads about rejoining after a crash. It seems the consensus, especially for newbies, is to rejoin if you can and concentrate on racing clean because you can work off your penalty and even get a respectable finishing position as other people crash out / ragequit/ etc. The Nvidia Cup looks like the races to do for newbs. Though someone mentioned regional series. And another thread centered around the Spec Racer Ford for newbs. But I'm not finding anything that matches. iRacing has a learning curve like an Armco barrier. Not a bad thing, I used to play EVE, but it takes a bit longer to get comfortable.

I got some seat time last night. THe controls are tighter than SRW, but I'm still dialing them in. I'm fighting with a loose steering wheel at center, but I think there might not be a solution for my wheel. Did lots of laps in a Miata at Lime Rock, and got to within a few seconds of what looks like a fast time. So I'm feeling good. But I haven't dared actually race yet. iSpeed is pretty cool. The telemetry functions will be invaluable, I'm sure. The Phone/Tablet functionality is pretty cool too. Though I wish I could set up a shift light on the display. ShiftTone would work, but I haven't got that set up yet. I'm going to try a race soon and see how that goes. I'll try for not-last. If it goes well, I think I'll start upgrading my wheel/seat combo.

Don't really like it, but that's because there's such a good looking alternative.

Well I re-upped iRacing last night and gave SimRaceway a try. I didn't get all my updates with iRacing installed so I couldn't do a back-to-back comparison. SRW is pretty good, but I don't think it's where it needs to be just yet. They have an outstanding track collection (Circuit of the Americas, anyone?) and tons more street cars than iRacing. The physics are good, but have there are a couple issues. Cars seem to want to swap ends under heavy braking, even nose-heavy ones. The upshot to this is that I was taking the downhill esses on COTA in full-on 4-wheel drift mode with the Evo X. But that's not the way it's supposed to be done. The cars also feel very heavy. But that might be due to an inconsistency between the game's "wheel" and my steering wheel (Driving Force GT). SRW only accounts for 360 degrees of rotation and the DFGT does 900 degrees so even with the sensitivity cranked there still was a discrepency in how much I turned vs how much the game turned. I also question giving them money for a product clearly marked as Beta. But that's another discussion. So, in my opinion, SimeRaceway is more like Forza than a hardcore racing sim. You don't get Forza's modification system, but you can win actual stuff in the organized racing seasons. It's definitely worth a look for anyone who likes the iRacing concept, but felt deterred by the full-sim nature of it. Since it doesn't have a monthly subscription, I'll keep it installed for fun and maybe pick up a couple cars I think are interesting. But the whole push at getting back into these games, for me, is to give me some seat-time in the winter and tame my "hoonigan" driving style somewhat, so iRacing will get most of my attention.

True. Alonso was a miracle worker leading the championship in the Ferrari. Reliability and excellent driving almost got him another championship. If the boys in red were more on their game, he'd be the 2012 champ, not Vettel. But Ferrari stumbled hard with the new cars in 2010 and haven't recovered since. If Ferrari want to become synonymous with F1 again, they better be burning the midnight oil on their 2014 power units right now.

Cool. Though those are the only two Race Edits I saw on that guys channel. WIsh there had been more. But the night races are some of the best to watch. The ribbon of light in Singapore is just awesome in the heli shots. This was a great year, and next year should be good too. It'll be neat to see just what Hammy can do with the silver arrows. Vettel is still the man, and I hope to watch him become the next Schumi. But it's the Grand Master behind the scenes, Adrian Newey, that is the man to beat. He's to F1 aerodynamics as Masamune was to Japanese sword making.

I tried it a year or two ago. It's really good and rewarding for getting things right. I only dabbled in some Miata races but it was fun. (Hint: When exiting the pits, do NOT go over the white line on exit.. Took me a couple laps to figure out what happened.) I quit because I was more interested in RallyX and low-traciton driving. Also, at that level of simulation, not being able to *feel* the car or the g-forces is kind of handicapping. Everybody has the same handicap, but I kept thinking I could do better if I were actually piloting the car. Now though, I may re-up. I'm thinking of changing my focus (racing-wise) and I need all the grip racing practice I can get.

Really good food. You guys missed out. This place and AH are tied for first in my book when it comes to sushi. Though the dishes at RG are better if less authentic..

Part of what made the original Veyron so great was that along with its performance, it was actually a world class car in quality and comfort. I wonder how much of that civility has been shed to lose those 500+ lbs.

Ahh-CHOO! Why am I in Canada?

Cool. I'll be there.

I wouldn't mind trying a new sushi joint..

If Days of Thunder is shown, I petition that it must be balanced by Grand Prix (1969). Balad of Ricky Bobby must be balanced by Senna as well.

There are a couple FR-Ses I'd love to get my hands on. One is flood damaged, the other looks like the front right corner was scraped off. I'd seriously consider getting one of these , stripping it the shell, (dipping it if it was the flood car), and then using it for a build instead of an 818. The one with the corner damage would be awesome, but there's a bid on it already, and I'll bet he's willing to go a lot higher than I would for a car I'm going to strip.

Add my votes for World's Fastest Indian, Senna, and Grand Prix. Cannonball Run, Smokey and the Bandit, Gone in 60 are also good. Other movies that aren't really car movies per se, but have good car elements: Ronin, Italian Job (both), Transporter 1 and 3, etc..

To a lesser degree, this. Materials costs are going through the roof. It's the new "gas prices". I can usually tell if some shit is going down in the world when our battery prices jump. Downside is that materials costs don't drop like gas does after the shit-storm ends.

The eyes model doesn't do rear bumper clearance as well. Especially on high-tailed cars.

149.99

In the BRZ it depends on how I feel like driving. Usually I don't care about the system. I'm not planning on driving aggressively, so I leave it on. If I feel like I might want to drive aggressively, I'll change it to VSC SPORT mode so I can point the car with the back end without getting too out of hand. If I'm in outright Hoon-mode I'll shut the whole system off. With snow tires, the VSC does a reasonably good job of catching the car in the snow. Starting can be tough, but that's what the TRAC button is for (other than shutting the whole system off). It'll shut the traction control off for a moment to let you get started, then turn it back on when you hit 31mph. So on my long trip to MA and back I left the system fully on to catch any surprises. When I drove 555, I put it in VSC SPORT mode as a safety net. For AutoX, it's fully off.