Tony Rizzuti Blog: Iracing.com goes live!

If you are a sim racer or have ever wanted to check out computer racing like Dale Jr., Denny Hamlin, AJ Almendinger, and Brad Keselowski do on a regular basis, you are going to want to go to iracing.com next week. Well you can go now. Iracing.com opened its sim doors to the world. I helped beta test for this group, which is essentially the old Papyrus group that brought NASCAR 1, 2, 3, 4, and 2003 to the world. They also designed what had been considered the most accurate racing game ever- Grand Prix Legends.

John Henry, who owns the Red Sox and Roush-Fenway Racing, bought the code from Papyrus and hired the dean of racing sim design Dave Kaemmer. They have developed what I think (and Dale Jr. agreed) is the closest thing to real racing that has ever been developed. Go to the site and you will see what all the have to offer. I have been racing daily. It is very addictive and to say challenging, would be an understatement. Last night, I ran Skip Barber car at Summit Point and finished 5th. Then turned around 20- minutes later and ran a Modified race at Concord Motorsports Park and finished 8th after being taken out by Dale's spotter TJ Majors. It really wasn't TJ's fault. He spun off of turn two and I was right on him with no place to go.

They have various levels of cars from a showroom stock Pontiac and Legends to Silver Crown and Formula Mazda. They have scanned a truck and was told by a source in the garage area that they have scanned a COT as well. You'll see on the site how their scanning brings reality to your computer.

Now what makes this sim different is that everything is done online. That means you race against real people, who make real decisions (some good, most bad). But here is what makes this great. In most sim racing, there is no recourse for reckless driving. But iracing uses a liocense rating system that rewards clean driving and punishes mistakes. For example: I started with a level 2.0 Rookie license. That meant I had to run Rookie legends or Showroom Stock in a Solstice with closed setups - meaning they couldn't be altered. Think IROC. Iracing tracks any mistake and penalizes you accordingly. Run off course - 1 pt deduction. Spin out - 2 points. Hit wall - 3 points. And finally hard contact with another car - 4 points. As ther points go up, your license comes down. Each license level allows you access to faster cars and different tracks - so you have a reason to race carefully. Licenses are as follows.

Rookie - Legend ovals, Solstice Road Course (RC)

Class D - Late Models, Modifieds ovals - Skip Barber RC (rumor Spec Racer coming as well)

Class C - Silver Crown ovals, Formula Mazda RC

Class B - ??? yet ovals (could be trucks or Sprint cars), Radical RC

Class A - ??? ovals (could be IRL), ??? RC (could be Daytona Prototypes)

Pro Class - ??? yet (Cup COT?), ??? RC (F1 or IRL?)

There are also plans for Drag Racing, Go-Karts and Motorcycles.

I like the system, though as a Rookie you will race literally as if the trunk of your racer contained explosives. But as you get better and get more comfortable (a couple weeks), you can go out and race pretty aggressively and not have to worry much. Zero points is the best goal, because you will probably have had a good race. But 4-6 points won't hurt your license too bad. The Skip Barber race I mentioned, I had 3 points and my class C license went up from 2.45 to 2.62. If I get to 3.0 by the end of the season (we are in week 3 of 12), then I will graduate to Class B, which will be the open cockpit Radical, similair to a AMLS car. Over on the oval side, the crash with TJ brought me down from a 3.58 to a 3.44. The ovals can do that to you.

Anyway, thats my rant on that. I pay for the service like everyone else, so I have no interest in the sim other than I love it. Speaking of costs - its not a cheap hobby. I had to get the latest and greatest computer to run it and a good set of wheel and pedals will run $300 (Logitec G25 is the one to get. I'm saving for one). The service runs about $130 a year. Plus different cars and tracks cost additonal $15. It's not for everyone, but if you have an interest go to www.iracing.com

I gotta go race. Late Models at Martinsville starting in five minutes and the Euro racers run during the morning (i guess that would be their evening) and they aren't great on ovals. They'll whip your ass on road courses though.

Tony Rizzuti Blog

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Iracing.com goes live!

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