Top Favorite Blog Posts

• A day in the life of a cat her A day in the life of a cat herder....#2

  • From: Steve Myers
  • Description:

    I thought for this week’s blog I would do a development update and some insight on how software updates get deployed to our customers.

     

    A few weeks ago we announced that a new build is going to be released during the 13^th week of the current season.  We do our best to try and pick the best windows of opportunity to roll out major updates to the software so we don’t disturb the racing and points battles going on.  There are certainly going to be times that we do a software update during the season when we have found an issue that needs to be corrected immediately but for the most part we will be shooting for the break between seasons.

     

    Creating and timing these software updates is not an easy task.  We have two major engineering teams here at iRacing, the Website and Infrastructure team and the Software Development team, who for the most part work independently from each other.  For instance, the recently released iRacingWorld was developed and implemented entirely by the Web team with no involvement from the Software team.  Where this changes is when we get closer to rolling out a software update.  A number of our software systems require significant use of an Oracle database which in essence is a “middle man” for how the Web team feeds you information about things like sessions you are signing up for or just completed and many other mostly invisible functions our website serves.  Any time we make database changes for the software we will more than likely need to roll out significant changes to the website.  This is one of the reasons why we have lengthy maintenance mode periods when we are rolling out new builds.

     

    Being able to roll out software updates whenever we choose is a nice luxury we have here at iRacing which we did not have at Papyrus.  We used to have a date in January that whatever we wanted to have in our product for that year had to be completed and tested or it was not going out.  With four planned software updates scheduled here at iRacing we have essentially four three month windows to try and make as many improvement or additions we can.  In reality these quarterly development windows are really only about two months each because we try and do about a month of testing on each major build.

     

    For the most part each software engineer works independently from each other on given tasks for their two months of development time.  In this development window we have been working on sound and UI improvements, Yellow flags and race control, improvements to tires and aero, incorporating the first stage of pitting, open practice servers, backend stuff nobody but Randy understands, the Silverado and Daytona Prototype along with many other projects.  Once we get towards the end of that two month development period we assess the open projects and make an evaluation on if they will make the next build. (Just to stop the speculation, this next build will not have the Daytona Prototype in it because it is pretty far from complete and open practice servers are a much longer term project.  There will also be tasks like tire and aero that will never be complete.)  The Web team has the ability to roll out updates much more often which is why you see us put the service in maintenance mode for five minutes to a few hours every few weeks.  I will tell you that one of the big projects the Web team is working on and hope to roll out before the end of the year is incorporating Paypal into our service.

     

    Once we have reached the end of our two month development period we start the process of making a build.  Creating a build and all the associated packages and uploading them to our servers and distribution partner takes us an entire day to complete.  We have an entirely separate testing environment that we roll out any changes we want to make to the service before they make it to the environment you use.  We do extensive testing on these updates and find many, many problems that we take the entire month to try and correct.  We generally end up doing three to four builds and updates over the last month to try and correct issues we find during testing with the goal for each one to not break anything else. If an engineer has fixed all the open issues on their plate they may try and sneak a last minute addition into the build but only if it is deemed to be at low risk to break the build.

     

    Testing is actually going pretty well at the moment and I feel pretty confident about the build we are targeting for the next release.  I know that it is difficult to be on the outside trying to figure out what is going on in the inside, but nothing is as easy as it appears even for guys that have been doing this for two decades now.  We all do our very best to try and make improvements as quickly as possibly but we absolutely do not want to roll out something or promise you something until we know it will work the way we want it to.

     

    One major piece of the build puzzle that I did not really touch on is how content is created and this is worthy of a blog post all its own.  I will likely tackle this topic next week.

     

    Steve

  • Blog post
  • 2 years ago
  • Favorite count: 20
  • Views: 2187

• A day in the life of a cat her A day in the life of a cat herder....

  • From: Steve Myers
  • Description:

    I am the Executive Vice President and Executive Producer at iRacing.com and I have been here since the company started.  I was previously employed at Papyrus Racing games were I started in QA in 2000 and ended when the doors closed in 2004 as the Producer.  I figure I will start this blog and put some thoughts I have in here from time to time for those that would like to read them. 

    I figure I will just ramble off some random memories I have from Papyrus that people may find interesting.  I figure this stuff can come out now because it can’t hurt that company any longer!

    I was driving Jeff Burton’s car on the box cover art screenshot for NASCAR 4 and current iRacing employees Jay Taylor, Greg Hill and Kevin Iannarelli are all also driving cars in the image.  The NR2002 and 2003 box cover art was done by an artist.  If you look very closely at the NR2003 cover you can see the Winston Cup Logo on the car which was mistakenly included by a mix-up in artwork by the marketing manager at VUG.  There is also something else wrong with the car which I can’t remember right now.

    We did in fact begin to port the PC code to the consoles and we planned on using this project to get GPL 2 made.  I believe that we had settled on the 1972 year to base that product on before it got canned by the publisher.  Greg Hill actually had the Nurburgring, Monza, Monoco, Zandvoort, Kyalami, Spa and Mexico converted and the code was running on the xbox before it was canceled. Our great Shawn Nash was the one that actually did all this work.  That man is probably the smartest guy I know and has yet to be stumped by any project we have thrown at him.

    I created all the Darrell Waltrip track tours in NR2002 along with the driving guides by Dave Kaemmer.  This project took me 8 months to complete which required me listening to Waltrip and Dave for 8+ hours a day.  I have a very difficult time listening to the Fox broadcasts of NASCAR and occasionally have to be restrained from going after Dave if he talks too long…..

    When we created NR2003 we pretty much knew that it was going to be our last NASCAR product at Papyrus.  My primary mission was to get Dave the tire data from Goodyear that he always wanted to have to implement into his models.  We got very lucky that Mike Stackpole and Greg Stucker at Goodyear decided to help us out.  We actually had to prove to Mike that we would not be wasting his time by going into great detail on how our model worked.  Only after he knew that we had a proper model did he decide to give us data.  I won’t name names, but he rejected another company looking for data for this exact reason.

    When word came down that we had an opportunity to do one last patch for NR2003 I was able to convince the late Rich Reilly (Papyrus GM and one of the kindest and most genuine guys I have known in my life) to let me secretly sneak the additional three physics models into NR2003.  Grant Reeve literally had a week to create these physics models with whatever data we could get our hands on.  The PTA physics model is actually loosely based on the red GT1 Corvette which I have posted a picture of. 

    Rich also let me start the infamous Project Wildfire group as a final thank you to all our loyal customers.  I started this group and had these physics models made because I wanted the community to have a legal way to create something for themselves to contribute to the community.  This group was entirely on their own after I put them together and we told them how to find the physics models.  I knew most of the guys as they had been former employees, contractors or testers for us. The two guys I did not know were John Hughes and Kevin Combs.  I had seen their work on a truck mod they did for NASCAR Heat that was impressive so I emailed John and started a conversation with him.  John told me he would only want to join the team if he could bring along Kevin.  So basically, Kevin should be buying beers for John every time they get together because he along with Brian Simpson, Jay Taylor and John have been happily employed with iRacing for the past 4+ years!

    My last little nugget of information is going to be out of left field.  In the year after we released the final patch for NR2003 we started developing console design concepts and actual technology demos.  One concept that actually went pretty far down the design road was a title called Black Ice.  We had a pretty detailed design document created and it got far enough that I actually got to pitch it to the marketing people in Paris.  We also had a cross platform technology demo for a Karting game that was actually a lot of fun.  I am not talking about shifter carts, I am talking about a Crash Bandicoot and Simpsons arcade like karting game.  The final demo ended up being a Simpsons version that had incredibly fun physics.  Our goal with this demo was to show VUG that we could do other projects outside of pure simulations even though this is really what we wanted to do.  We knew that we had to do both if we were going to survive but felt we could make a console game fun by making a decent physics model.  The demo was presented to VUG who ultimately rejected it because they had another studio doing karting games at the time but they did admit our demo was more fun than the actual approved project.  It was not long after this that the doors closed at Papyrus which ultimately proved to be a blessing in disguise.

    If more Papyrus memories come to me I will post them or if anyone has any question about those days I will try and answer them.  I also have some interesting ideas for some posts in the future.

    Steve

     

  • Blog post
  • 2 years ago
  • Favorite count: 17
  • Views: 2271

• A day in the life of a cat her A day in the life of a cat herder....#4

  • From: Steve Myers
  • Description:

    I am going to have to try and do a relatively quick blog post this week as my day is pretty hectic as it is build day.  I mentioned in my first blog that I would try and go back in time and tell some stories about how we got here today.  For this week’s blog I thought I might tell the story about how we met John Henry and how the seed was planted to start this company.  I am going to stick with our initial meeting for now and document further down the road how this company was started.

     

    I think the best place to start this story is by bringing up a book you should read if you are a baseball fan.  The book is called Feeding the Monster and it is written by a guy named Seth Mnookin.  This book goes into great detail about how John and his ownership group were able to acquire the Boston Red Sox and start a run of playoff success that life long Sox fans like myself could never have believed would happen.  The reason I bring this book up is because it documents a sequence of events that transpired in the bidding process for the Sox which ultimately led to John owning the team when it appeared very unlikely he would.  I really don’t have much doubt that if these events had played out differently iRacing would not exist.

     

    So the story begins with us at Papyrus working diligently on NASCAR Racing 2003 Season.  The date is September 25^th, 2002.  I get a call from the front desk that there is someone on the phone that has questions about setting up a server for NR 2002 and, oh, by the way, he is the IT guy for John Henry.  As I mention in the previous paragraph I am a life long Sox fan having lived in Massachusetts for almost my entire life, so needless to say I was pretty excited to help out.  I talked with Jon (his IT guy) for about an hour and gave him all the information he needed to get a server running for John.  At the end of the conversation I threw it out there that we were basically right down the street (really, about half an hour) from Fenway and if he ever had any interest in seeing what we do to give me a ring.  I really did not think anything more would come of it and went out to lunch for about an hour.  When I got back to my desk after lunch, much to my surprise, I had a voicemail waiting for me from John saying he would be out the next morning.

     

    Thursday morning September 26^th arrives and I have pretty much not slept because I am so excited about our guest for the day.  Pretty much everyone is the office is excited, except maybe Grant, who is never excited about anything.  John arrives mid-morning and we start our tour through the studio.  I have given many office tours in my time here at iRacing and at Papyrus and nobody has ever taken the time and asked as many questions as John did that day.  He made a point to talk to every single person in the studio to find out about them and what they did for the company.  What was really amazing to watch during the day was that John became more and more excited about the product and company as the day went on.  The tour ended at a cubicle we had setup with a computer running a Matrox video card that could output the cockpit on three screens.  John sat there and drove on the system for close to an hour.  It’s a pretty gratifying experience to watch someone who could be doing anything else in the world at that moment thoroughly enjoying something you helped create.  After literally spending 6 hours with us that day, John left with the promise that he would be in touch because he wanted to help with beta testing NR2003.  As it turns out, John was one of the most active participants in testing going forward and was instrumental in developing a lot of the aids that allowed new comers to get up to speed with the software for NR2003.

     

    A few years ago I was talking with John about his visit.  He told me that he gets many invitations like mine and he rarely accepts, but something told him to visit Papyrus that day.  I know that personally it was probably one of the most significant days in my life, ranking right behind my wedding and just recently finding out I am going to be a dad.  I consider myself to be pretty lucky in that I have gotten to do my dream job now for almost a decade because of John and Dave, and one could argue that I need to thank Charles Dolan as well.

     

    Steve

  • Blog post
  • 2 years ago
  • Favorite count: 10
  • Views: 1284

• WAKING WITH A BUZZ WAKING WITH A BUZZ

  • From: Chris Page
  • Description:

    

    
    
    A first blog entry is sometimes very different from those that follow.  My plan is to use this format to communicate what the iRacing Technology group is doing and planning, as well as to answer some questions. Some, like this entry, might be a little too revealing - we'll see.  In any case, here we go...
     
    I didn't wake with a buzz this morning and that felt unusual.  I've been waking with a buzz, it seems, much too frequently.  I've been able to keep the majority of iRacing management and employees here "in the dark" about this; some more than others.  All of my colleagues know the story.  I'm actually pleased about that.  They've been helping me.  I'm still coming to terms with all of this, and I know I can't handle this all by myself. 
     
    Last night was quite a night and one that I'm sure to remember for a long while.  I am a huge Red Sox fan, and last night they pulled off the second biggest comeback in MLB history in beating the Rays.  I thought I was going to miss the game, because last night I also saw the Australian Pink Floyd show, which was amazing and unforgetable.  I was still able to find the game in time to catch the comeback.  Those were some of the best innings of baseball this season.  It seems that lately having fun and getting buzzed go hand in hand so I was fully expecting to wake with a buzz.  I'll admit that I was surprised that I woke up refreshed this morning.
    
    
    The previous morning was quite a different story. I starting getting buzzed early in the evening.  Before long it was 3am, and there I was - buzzed, and couldn't sleep.  I didn't get to sleep until close to 5am.  There was no way I was going to make it into work  and be productive.  So I slept, and I slept late, but apparently not late enough.  When I got in, people were talking and telling me that I wasn't myself.  It was worth it though.  Ask me today, and I'll still say that I'm up for getting buzzed at any hour of the day.  People in my life understand.  I must have a slight addiction to the excitement.
     
    I'm happy to say that I take responsibility for my actions that result in my getting buzzed oh so frequently.  When we are at risk for losing data - I get buzzed.  When the load is trending higher than expected - I get buzzed.  When a server crashes - I get buzzed.  Our whole team gets buzzed.  We are responsible for iRacing site operations.  We get buzzed, so that you can keep racing.
     
    Randy Cassidy, Scott Nash, and Hieu Tran were at the heart of the effort to built out the site infrastructure to deliver the service.  The site and service have redundancy built-in.  There have been failures had, and failures avoided.  There will be more, and like the majority that have come before, I hope that our membership will have no idea.  One of our first initiatives has been to improve the monitoring and alerting framework so that we can respond to problems in the making.  When I get buzzed by our alerting service, it is the equivalent to the seeing the "bat signal" in the sky or the alarm sounding at the firehouse.  It is our chance to solve a problem that hasn't yet happened.  The whole team stops what they are doing and gets to the matter at hand.  It is both inconvenient and rewarding.  Most people, even here at iRacing, don't know how frequently this happens.  I think that is a good thing because it means the problem was avoided.
     
    This service was not built overnight, nor is it running on a collection of servers in a garage or closet.  It is well designed. Yet, we are far from perfect, and far from done.  We've got Champagne dreams, but also the ability to pull them off.  The people at iRacing set out to do things top-notch long before I arrived, and the commitment is still there.  A good chunk of your subscription cost goes directly to delivering and managing the service.  Part of our group's challenge is to keep these costs down and still deliver a high level of service, 24x7, to anywhere on globe; this is an expensive proposition.  Each dollar saved is an additional dollar available to fund new features and enhancements.  It is also an additonal dollar that we don't have to ask of our members.  This is always on my mind.
    
    
    I've spent years in the technology industry, and as an employee and consultant, I have had the opportunity to work with the best.  Take it from me, someone who goes through life getting, and waiting for my next buzz.  What we have here at iRacing is special.  It is already great fun, and we are just under way.  I, along with newer additions Dean Marsh and John West, are working with Randy, Scott, and Hieu to build upon what has already been built.  It is a solid foundation.  We are going wider, taller, and deeper; and as a teaser for a future blog entry: further.  We aren't doing it alone -- all of iRacing is involved, and we are partnering with some great organizations.
     
    If you have ideas, questions, or an interest about how we do things or where we are going, please step up and comment or send me an email.  I won't always be able to share specifics, but I'll do my best.  Or just say hi.  If I'm looking a little weird or distracted, it is probably because I just got buzzed.  If that is the case, I'm probably tnot be sticking around to chat.  I hope you'll understand.  There are people that need to be racing!

     

  • Blog post
  • 2 years ago
  • Favorite count: 10
  • Views: 869

• A day in the life of a cat her A day in the life of a cat herder....#7

  • From: Steve Myers
  • Description:

    In my last blog entry I had talked about how I’m not too fond of the cold weather.  To prove to all of you that I’m a man of my word, I was on a beach in the Pacific for the last 10 days.  At least this is what I told my boss as the reason I had to be gone last week, but let’s keep that between you and me…  I’ve been thinking about blogging this week on why it is acceptable to have a beer at any hour when on vacation, but I was reminded that I had also promised to give you an update on development, which, because I am a man of my word, I will do instead.  As a silent protest, I will be consuming an adult beverage as I write this…

     

    We have made a lot of progress on the spotter and the testing on this has gone extremely well so far.  I have not heard any complaints at all about listening to the Aussie Greg Hill as the spotter and crew chief, but as I mentioned in my previous blog you will be able to create your own samples to use instead.  We will eventually have a more elegant way to change between spotter and crew chief packages, but for now this is how it will work...

     

    First, your files need to be saved in the following format:  PCM, Mono, 5.512Khz, 8 bits per sample.   Second, there is a specific list of files that the sim looks for; you can replace some or all of these, but you cannot (yet) add additional files.  Once you have placed your new samples in the directory the sim will use your samples instead of the ones we supply.  Don’t worry; we will have a well documented process on how to do this when the new build is released.

     

    I can also confirm that the open practice functionality will be done for the start of next season.  It’s really slick and I hope it will become the place that people “hang out” now instead of on the forums or in chat.  This is basically how it will work…

     

    Each open practice session has a limit of how many drivers can be on track at the same time. When the track is full, nobody else will be able to join the session until someone else withdraws. Also, each open practice session’s entry list is currently limited to a total of 64 unique drivers. Once the entry list has become full, only drivers who were previously in the session, and therefore already in the entry list, can re-join it.
    
    Whenever a new driver enters the session, your computer will generate the several textures and helmet images that make up that driver’s paint selections. When this new entry comes out on track you might see him for several seconds in a white car or with gray helmet images in the user interface. Once your system finishes creating their textures and helmet images, their proper paint schemes should appear.

     

    One very cool feature the web team has developed for the open practice servers is a new popup window that shows the current drivers that are registered for the selected open practice session. The popup can be seen on the home page’s new “What's Hot” open practice widget as well as on the session selection page and it is deployed by mousing over a helmet icon that is displayed to the right of each open practice session.
    

    I mentioned that we will have a new “What’s Hot” for the open practice sessions but we will also have a new design for the “What’s Hot” section that will now be a widget that includes more useful information such as the starting time, the track, and the type of session.

     

    Grant has made a lot of progress on race control since my last blog, but as always, I will neither confirm nor deny that this work will be done in fear of suffering the wrath of the mostly evil Mr. Reeve. 

     

    I will tell you that as of right now local yellows AND blue flags are in limited testing.  I am sure this will be a hotly debated topic in the forums but the blue flags are informational only.  In qualifying if you are on your out lap and someone who has finished their out lap is close behind you, a blue flag will appear in the top left corner of the screen. In a race session if anyone who is about to lap you or is multiple laps up on you is close behind you, you will see the blue flag.

     

    We have made terrific progress on the replay system and this will definitely be in our next rollout.  The web site is used to filter, sort and otherwise navigate the saved replays, as well as to play them. Replays are saved within your My Documents\iRacing\replay folder. You may create subdirectories within there either from within the sim, or from Windows itself, and save/load replays from those directories as well.
    
    You will be able to add saved replays from other users to this folder, and the web site will see display them and allow you to play them. You must own and be up-to-date on all of the content used by a replay file in order to watch that replay. For example, if a replay contains a Radical being driven at Sebring, you must own and have up-to-date versions of the Radical and Sebring.

     

    We have done some physics work and have a lot more we would like to get wrapped up for the final build.  The Silverado's suspension has been markedly improved, but this means old setups are only marginally useful now.  The main difference is the perch heights--they are all always 0" or negative. If you load an old setup, be sure to change the 4 perch offsets or you won't be able to leave the garage. The motion ratios are a bit different as well, so spring and bar rates will have to change. Coil bind setups can be made (and they work!) The ride height minimums have been raised to 5", as that is more in keeping with real-life rules (and it helps keep the truck off the ground).

     

    We have also started testing the Impala SS which we are getting a lot of positive feedback on.  I put up a 200 lap race at Vegas for the guys to test the other night and our lead testing coordinator Chris Weidner told me it was the best race he has ever participated in and many other of the guys said the same thing.  As always what we have complete when it’s time to ship this car will never be a finished product.  Dave is already thinking about a significant update to his tire model that should be a dramatic improvement on what is already a great model.

     

    Dave and Ian have also done quite a bit of work improving the Late Model (and eventually the Silverado and Impala) for use on the road courses.  The Late Model now has an option to attach the left side of the sway bar which makes it possible to create a roadable setup. No ballast changes are implemented yet, however, so it is still fairly spooky turning to the right.

     

    For what may be a cruel tease on the licensing side of things, we are getting very close to being able to announce a handful of SIGNIFICANT deals we are working on that I think will be incredible for all of us.  For those who have been asking for more tin-tops, I will tell you that I expect to be signing one of those significant contracts that will put at least three in the development queue.

     

    One contract that we have signed on the technical side of things that we plan on implementing this year is the Akamai IP Acceleration technology.  Akamai is a very big partner with us in that they handle all of our data distribution which is why our content is delivered very efficiently whenever you download a new build or package from us.  We have used Akamai from day one for this, but the new piece of technology we are going to incorporate should make everyone’s connections to our race servers even better than they are now.  The general idea is that Akamai is going to figure out what the optimum path through the internet for you to connect to our race servers is so you will always have the best connection possible.  We hope this will especially help improve all of our international customer’s online experiences.  Chris Page is going to do a blog post on this in the next few weeks that will go into more detail on how it will work.

     

    Okay, my adult beverage is empty and my hands are cramping… I think I have written enough for this blog.  As always, we will be doing everything we can to add as much as we can into the next build.  I expect that we will be releasing this build during the 13^th week of the current season which is the last week of January.

     

    Good luck to everyone in the final weeks of your championship battles.

     

    Steve

  • Blog post
  • 1 year ago
  • Favorite count: 8
  • Views: 5226

• A day in the life of a cat her A day in the life of a cat herder....#3

  • From: Steve Myers
  • Description:

    As I alluded to in my last blog post I will touch on the content creation process in this week’s blog.  I am going to be going over this at a fairly high level as I would have to write a novel to explain exactly how it all works.  We are also in the last stage of readying what will hopefully be a release candidate build for final testing so things are hopping around here.

     

    I think the best place to start on how we create content is how we license it.  We have signed many agreements with a wide range of partners through the years and I can tell you that is a time consuming and often frustrating task.  Some agreements happen in a matter of weeks and some take years.  Our wonderful Divina Galica (who I need to convince to start a blog to talk about all the incredible experiences she has had in her life) does most of the heavy work on acquiring our partners and I will tell you that she is focusing her energy on international properties right now (cough, cough, Spa).  Tony Gardner and I also have a few other projects that we are working on domestically that will have a significant impact on our service if we can make them happen.  Nothing surprises me anymore with this whole process and the bottom line is literally nothing happens with content until the bottom line is signed.

     

    Once we have a signed agreement in hand we evaluate what is in the content development pipeline already and where this particular partner may fit in our racing schedule.  The issue that takes the most precedence right now is trying to fill out our racing ladder to keep pace with the license level progression of our customers.  I know that some of you are frustrated by us announcing the signing of wonderful partners that you still have not seen in our service, but our content takes a significant amount of time to create and we need to fill out the license ladders first.  I think it’s probably fair to say that once an agreement is signed it will generally take three to six months before it actually starts its path down the development pipeline.

     

    The development pipeline is constituted by many different steps.  The first step is obviously the laser scanning process done by a team which is headed by Dave Moulthrop and includes our scanner operators Reed Rundell and Kevin Iannarelli.  Scanning cars is pretty straight forward as they can generally be done in a day.  It really is only a matter of finding a car and an owner who does not mind it smelling like baby powder for a few days.  Yes that’s right, baby powder.  We use the baby powder on the cars to dull the finish as it is too reflective for the scanner. Scanning a track is a much different animal and is often an extreme undertaking.  We generally try and book scan trips to do three or four tracks at a time so the guys may be on the road for a month or more straight.  They often work at night as this is the only time that the tracks are not rented for racing events or testing and cannot work in the rain.  These guys are the unsung heroes of this company and the next time you take a lap around the Jefferson circuit you can thank this terrific team for dealing with a night of cows getting loose and making “deposits” on the track to bring this circuit to your PC.

     

    Once the track scanning is complete the data makes its way to Greg Hill.  Greg is our VP of Art and Production and is responsible for managing the car and track content creation process.  Three specialized teams contribute towards making an iRacing racetrack.  The track geometry itself (the area you can drive on) is created by a member of the production staff who builds the racing surface from the laser scanned data with our proprietary tools.  The objects that surround the racetrack, such as the buildings, flag stands, and grandstands are created by one our object art teams.  The textures that cover the track, such as the grasses, asphalts, dirt, and concretes are worked on by yet another art team who specialize in these types of materials. At any given time we are usually working on four to five tracks.

     

    Our car creation process is a little different than tracks because there is quite a bit more data collection required and obviously engineering support needed.  We still have multiple art teams that will take the scan and sometimes CAD data and begin the process of building and texturing the models.  The difficult part of creating the cars is getting access to all the data we need to build the actual physics models.  When we are working with a major manufacturer we generally can get everything we can dream of for data.  Unfortunately this is often not the case and we have to send Ian Berwick who is our Vehicle Dynamics Engineer to the race shop that houses the car and he goes through an extensive process of weighing and measuring everything he can get his hands on.  He also works with the manufacturers or teams to get tire and aero data if they have it but we also gather data ourselves by going to Calspan and the tire manufacturers which has given us a ton of data that we have barely scratched the surface on to begin implementing.  One of the last steps we do in creating a car is to take it to a dyno or track to record the engine sound.  We use the Aussie Greg Hill (we have two Greg Hill’s) at Soundwave Concepts to do the actual processing of the sound data and he really does a wonderful job of giving us terrific samples to plug into our sound engine.  Generally, cars take us about three months to create but this is entirely dependent on how long it takes us to collect the data we need.  For instance, we have had three data collection trips canceled or abruptly ended for the Daytona Prototype car because the car we planned on using was destroyed in testing or a race.  We actually had our equipment on a car once when it was wrecked…

     

    Again, I just described an incredibly detailed and difficult process in 5 paragraphs which is really not doing any of the topics much justice.  Maybe down the road I can talk some of the people who actually do some of these tasks into writing their own blog on what they do.

     

    Steve

  • Blog post
  • 2 years ago
  • Favorite count: 7
  • Views: 2148

• A day in the life of a cat her A day in the life of a cat herder....#6

  • From: Steve Myers
  • Description:

    So it’s starting to get cold up here.  Having lived in the Northeast pretty much my entire life I can honestly say there are very few things I enjoy doing when it’s cold anymore.  One thing I do enjoy about winter is that there are a lot of occasions to see family and friends and catch up on what’s new in our lives.  So let’s pretend we are all sitting around a fire sipping some hot coco (or maybe something stronger) and how about I catch you up on what we are working on?

     

    Let me start by saying this is always the most difficult milestone of the year.  Typically this is the time of the year that we take the shackles off the engineers that bind them to their desk and actually let them see what the bright yellow thing in the sky is or meet the people that live in their houses.  Let’s be honest, as much as we love our jobs, our product and community, taking some time off around the holidays to spend with family and friends is nice.  Don’t get the wrong idea though; we have a lot of very cool things we are working on, so here is what’s cooking.

     

    One of the things I am most excited about is that we are finally getting the spotter and crew chief working.  I don’t think anyone will be very surprised to hear that it is looking like it will work very much like it did in the Papyrus products.  We have recorded all new samples using our favorite Australian, Greg Hill of Soundwave Concepts for the spotter.  Yes, that’s right; our spotter is going to be Australian.  This is a little shout out to our loyal customers down under and a personal tribute to Greg for all the hard work he does in creating our sounds.  As of right now he is the voice for the crew chief also but we may have time to make that some one else.  For those of you that are dreading the thought of listening to Greg drone on as I do, we are going to do our best to make it so you can use your own samples that you create instead. 

     

    Here is a random yet somewhat related Papyrus fact brought to you by Clip’em Lawn Service, the industry leader in lawn care repair for victory donuts.  The voice actor for the spotter and crew chief for NASCAR 4 on was the same guy that did the voice for Duke Nukem, Jon St. John.

     

    Another big project that I honestly thought was not looking like it would make the next big build was open practice servers.  As of today we actually have a very, very, early development version of this working.  It still has a long way to go, but it is looking very promising that this will be here sooner rather than later.  Basically, once this is completed, you will be able to go to the sessions screen for each series and join a practice session that is already in progress.  We know you have been asking for this and we are doing our very best to bring it to you for next season.

     

    One item that has already been rolled out that you will notice if you join our 24 Heures du Fun series is unofficial series server allocation is now most heavily weighted by your friends list.  I encourage those that are looking to get on track with your friends to make sure you all have each other on your friends list.  I know that many of you have requested more opportunities to race with your friends and this is a good first step in that direction.

     

    Another feature that you have been asking for is local yellow flags on the road courses.  I can confirm that this is being worked on and will tell you in the same sentence that race control is the last thing I will ever promise you a completion date for.  Our loveable Kiwi Grant Reeve never gets too excited or too mad, but if you told him that race control coding was easy or HAD to be done on a certain date he may actually raise his voice at you.  Just trying to test and uncover every potential issue in race control is a very difficult task and as you can see from the number of “emergency” releases we have done this season to fix problems that popped up.  Trust me when I say that Grant is working as hard as he possibly can to finish this up because he desperately wants to work on something else!

     

    Replays are in fact on the horizon.  This is a much more daunting task than what it may appear because of all the different pieces of the service and software that actually interact when the software launches.  We have a few more tasks left to complete like compressing the data and the interface in how you select and play a replay from the website, but it is looking promising that this will be complete for the next major build.  A related task that is much further down the road is figuring out a way to broadcast live events to the internet, but it’s on our list to do especially with our desire to launch a professional series.

     

    I have seen a few threads in the forums as we head into this holiday season asking about gift cards.  Our elves are furiously working in their workshop to try and get these completed for this holiday season but it will be close.  These will be electronic gift cards that can be emailed or printed and can be purchased by someone that does not have an iRacing account.  These gift cards will only be good for use on the member site and cannot be used on our merchandise site.

     

    What is probably the most obvious announcement in this entire blog is that the Daytona Prototype and Impala SS will be the next two cars released.  These two vehicles are slated to be in our Class A road and oval series.  I would like to publicly thank our good friend Dale Jr for all the work he has done in collecting data for us, especially for the Impala SS.  We consider ourselves very lucky to have him helping us in so many ways.  I am very excited for the launch of both of these cars.  I have driven the DP car some and even in its very early state it is probably my favorite road car right now.  I am very much looking forward to the Impala SS also because I think it will obviously be a true benchmark for how far we have come from NR2003.

     

    I have seen a number of posts in the forums asking about the development status of the Spec Racer Ford and Lotus 79.  The SRF’s graphics model is complete as is the sounds, but unfortunately we have not had any time to work on its physics model.  The Lotus 79 3D model is almost complete and is heading to the texture guys, but we have not had a chance yet to get our hands on a car in a state that we can take the necessary measurements we need.  I expect the SRF development will move very quickly once we get a chance to work on it and could be out early next year.  The Lotus 79 will be a much longer project due to the fact that there is just not many of these cars around and very limited hard data that exists that we can use.  We will build a fantastic car, it’s just going to take longer than anyone will like including us.

     

    There will be a number of other features and fixes that will go into this next build that I have not listed here.  All of the items that I have listed are “cooking in the kitchen” so to speak and when these dishes are served and the next order is up I will plan to do another blog on what’s next for your table.  In the mean time I hope you enjoyed our little chat around the fire and I wish all of you a very happy holiday season.

     

    Steve

  • Blog post
  • 2 years ago
  • Favorite count: 6
  • Views: 3614

• A day in the life of a cat her A day in the life of a cat herder....#5

  • From: Steve Myers
  • Description:

    I like to call the week after a new build goes out and a season starts hangover week.  We spend some much time and effort putting the final wraps on everything that needs to be in place for a new season and build that once it’s out the door, pure and utter exhaustion hits.  We then get a massive surge of energy watching the forums when our members start digging in to the new features and fixes we have made in the new build and excitedly begin dissecting what is new and different.  It is very rewarding to see that the work you have done for the past few months is generally well received and makes all those long hours and tight deadlines worth it.

     

    Then the next week starts……and the hangover hits………and you start seeing the little things that fell through the cracks…..

     

    I was talking with Chris Page the other day and he summed up perfectly the conversation we were having about how things slip through the cracks.  He said “the easier a system or service is to use, the harder it is to maintain and fix behind the scenes.”   I think no matter how hard we try, or how many resources we devote to testing, we will never be able to find every potential problem before it hits the public side of our service.  There are just too many permutations to replicate of racing conditions, hardware configurations, software suites, service providers, etc, etc, etc.

     

    The really tough thing, and the thing that makes a company great, is to put the same energy and effort in during hang over week that you put in the week before to find and fix all the little issues that pop up.  We had a problem that presented itself immediately that needed to be fixed first thing on that Monday morning, but we also found the following list of things that will be fixed in a build we roll out this week.

     

    - A series banner now loads in-sim.
    
    - Fixed a bug where the exit car message would show while pitting.
    
    - Fixed a bug where a replay TV camera could move strangely when the replay buffer is full.
    
    - Fixed a phantom collision bug at Lowes.
    
    - Fixed a bug where the available reset could be used without resetting.
    
    - Fixed a bug where passing during a caution was not properly penalized if the race finished under caution.
    
    - Fixed the auto-brake so the car won't roll on the starting grid.
    
    - Fixed a bug where if you missed the race start you could be a lap down.

     

    We have a really talented group here, and it is really refreshing to watch all these guys and gals put that energy in without being asked to get these problems fixed.  There really is no better work environment when people take ownership of making sure things are done right.  It is also appreciated that you our customers are understanding of the fact that we can’t always be perfect

     

    Hangover week is over, and I am happy to announce that we are heading into our weekly engineering meeting to officially start the next development cycle.  I will leave you with one little tease, we got the Riley Daytona Prototype running with proper physics for the first time the other day.  This incredibly incomplete version is already a blast to drive….

     

    Steve

  • Blog post
  • 2 years ago
  • Favorite count: 5
  • Views: 1599

• PHRIGGIN' FHYSICS PHRIGGIN' FHYSICS

  • From: Chris Page
  • Description:

     

     

    I don't like the physics.  I'm pretty sure that there is no getting around it.  We are going to have to live with the physics as is, but we can do some things to address the limitations.

     

    In this case, I'm not referring to the sim physics but instead, real physics.  Still, you might be surprised to know that you should care.  It has a real impact on your experience in the sim.  I'm going to tell you how, and what we at iRacing.com are doing to improve the situation.

     

    Bear with me through this paragraph, but there happens to be a drop or two of geek blood in me.  The second postulate of Einstein's special theory of relativity is that the speed of light is constant.  The Lorentz transformation, which is key to quantifying Einstein's theory, breaks down when considering anything moving faster than the speed of light.  The operating assumption is that nothing can move faster than the speed of light.  This includes your vehicle, even downhill with the pedal to the metal.  Although this is a sim... and I know that the Lorentz transformation, where spacetime warps as the speed approaches the speed of light, well, that is coming to the sim..."soon" - I can't say as much for v >= c.  I actually have no idea if any of this paragraph is correct, but I think it is close.  I hope it sounded good.  I can watch educational TV with the best of them.

     

    The bottom line is that an electron, which is our medium for communication, isn't going to move faster than the speed of light.  The speed of light is pretty fast, but even so, Michael Flatley could probably get in a few toe taps in the 130 milliseconds or so that an object would take to travel the circumference of the globe.  Or put another way, it could circle the globe 7 times per second.  Ever notice those time delays on TV when a question is asked over a satellite link and there is a measurable delay before the answer?  That's the same issue.  Stuff can move only so fast.

     

    Why do we care?  What has to happen for a driver in New Zealand to race a driver in Finland?  They've got to pack their things and jump on a plane to meet at an agreed upon track, and...  or sign up for iRacing.com.  But even with iRacing, for these two racers to share the same virtual track, the two client computers need regular updates about the position and status of the other driver.  All racers interact with not a shared physical track, but instead a shared server.  And sometimes that server and the other driver are on the other side of the globe.  We want to minimize the time it takes for information to get to the server and back.

     

    The time delay between when that information is sent and when it is received is called latency.  Latency is not our friend when we are talking about having a great racing experience.  If everyone is at a LAN party in a conference room, then there are no problems, but what happens for those drivers that are far apart?  We don't have the option of exchanging information as the crow flies.  The latency you experience is probably more greatly impacted by your local Internet service provider than by the underlying physics.  Luckily for us, the engineering team has experience dealing these issues and also with artificial intelligence (AI) to predict where vehicles will be in the absence of, or in gaps in, information.  Not only is the information slow to get to where it is needed, but sometimes the information is sent, but never makes it.  This is not a simple problem to address.  The easiest answer is to shorten the distance that the information must travel, and to minimize data loss.  My proposal to limit membership to those within 50 miles of the central servers didn't get too far.  I feel another one of those headaches coming on.

     

    We've already done some things to address latency and network performance, but we are far from done.  We have active projects in this area that extend beyond what is happening in the sim "netcode".  

     

    One approach is to shorten the distance between the racer and the nearest race server.  Yes, there are going to be more servers, and closer to your part of the world.  How much closer is a great question.  We're trying to maximize member coverage with each installation of a new farm of race servers.  We have laptops literally being flown around the world from one data center to the next.  With each stop we collect data that reflects not only the quality of the local infrastructure but also how locating a race farm in that data center would impact you - literally you, our existing member.  When you race, we can characterize the network performance that you are experiencing between your computer and the race server.  We also capture this information for between you and a data center under consideration.  This is specific to each of you.  We want to make sure that the experience gets better for our existing members as well as for future members.

     

    A second approach is to optmize the network traffic from your computer to the server.  We currently leverage a network of computers that spans the globe.  When you are accessing our content, you aren't necessarily accessing a computer in our primary data center.  More likely, you are accessing data from a computer that is local to your region.  This is why downloads can seem quite fast!  All of these edge servers are connected and understand the different routes from one server to another and the associated realtime performance, which varies over time.  The default Internet routing isn't always the smartest or more efficient.  There are often better ways.  What we are trying to do is to discard the default Internat routes that everyone is using and instead use routes for which recent performance data indicate are the best performing.  Sending the information along these routes, while simultaneously directing duplicate traffic along one or two other high performing routes seems like a win.  Not only will the fastest route always minimize latency, but if there is data loss along one route, the information will still make it via another.

     

    A third approach to shortening the distance is all about direction.  Rather than traveling the circumference of the globe, we can  take a more direct route.  We can tunnel through the center of the earth.  As each member will have his or her own direct route beginning directly under his or her computer, we'll have to plan to meet up at the center.  However, if you end up at the Land of the Lost, we can bear no responsibility.

     

    In college, physics classes were always so brutal.  I'd think, when am I am ever going to need this stuff?  For my first job, I found myself creating simulated RADAR returns to test an air traffic control system, which of course, relied heavilly upon a knowledge of physics.  Now, years later, my job is very different, but the physics remains.  Some things never change.

    
    

    Next week, I hope to write about what happens when quantum entanglement meets the childhood game of telephone, and how it proves that garbage in equals garbage out, but at least I won't see it from my house.  Or maybe I'll write more about the infrastructure instead.

    
    

     

  • Blog post
  • 2 years ago
  • Favorite count: 3
  • Views: 1455

• Stat monkey, for the week star Stat monkey, for the week starting 5th October 2008

  • From: Darren Marsh
  • Description:

    Membership

    Total 6421 124
    Active 2168 67
    

    Club stats

    Active members
    
    West Europe Club 554 7
    International Club 420 20
    Mid-Atlantic US Club 220 24
    Northeast US Club 199 33
    Southeast US Club 158 7
    West US Club 137 15
    Midwest US Club 128 2
    California Club 123 0
    South US Club 120 13
    Central US Club 109 2
    
    Total race starts
    
    West Europe Club 3243 35
    International Club 2739 13
    Mid-Atlantic US Club 1695 62
    Southeast US Club 1269 90
    Northeast US Club 1210 333
    California Club 984 30
    West US Club 919 1
    South US Club 865 34
    Midwest US Club 783 107
    Central US Club 749 115
    
    Average incidents per race
    
    West Europe Club 4.07 0.14
    South US Club 3.98 0.22
    California Club 3.96 0.32
    Southeast US Club 3.86 0.04
    International Club 3.79 0.38
    Mid-Atlantic US Club 3.67 0.22
    West US Club 3.52 0.51
    Midwest US Club 3.49 0.26
    Central US Club 3.49 0.33
    Northeast US Club 3.45 0.49
    
    Average finish position
    
    International Club 5.99 0.02
    Central US Club 6.12 0.05
    West Europe Club 6.23 0.05
    Northeast US Club 6.35 0.01
    California Club 6.36 0.18
    Southeast US Club 6.37 0.09
    West US Club 6.40 0.06
    Mid-Atlantic US Club 6.44 0.10
    Midwest US Club 6.48 0.15
    South US Club 6.84 0.11
    
    Average series entered per member
    
    Midwest US Club 2.08 0.10
    Southeast US Club 2.06 0.08
    Mid-Atlantic US Club 2.03 0.16
    California Club 2.02 0.11
    Central US Club 1.99 0.01
    West US Club 1.88 0.15
    South US Club 1.87 0.07
    Northeast US Club 1.83 0.05
    West Europe Club 1.67 0.02
    International Club 1.61 0.05
    

    Series stats

    Active members
    
    iRacing Legends Cup 812 23
    iRacing Solstice Challenge 802 84
    Skip Barber Race Series 708 41
    iRacing Late Model Tour 562 36
    iRacing Advanced Solstice Challenge 418 56
    iRacing Advanced Legends Cup 347 6
    Formula Mazda Championship 117 34
    SK Modified Weekly Series 108 23
    Legends Weekly Road Racing Cup 40 0
    iRacing Silver Crown Cup 38 29
    
    Race starts
    
    iRacing Solstice Challenge 3884 720
    iRacing Legends Cup 3874 390
    Skip Barber Race Series 2751 88
    iRacing Late Model Tour 1517 117
    iRacing Advanced Solstice Challenge 1109 91
    iRacing Advanced Legends Cup 867 64
    Formula Mazda Championship 214 47
    SK Modified Weekly Series 145 36
    iRacing Silver Crown Cup 49 40
    Legends Weekly Road Racing Cup 46 3
    
    Average incidents per race
    
    iRacing Solstice Challenge 4.79 0.27
    Skip Barber Race Series 4.56 0.82
    iRacing Late Model Tour 4.26 1.12
    Legends Weekly Road Racing Cup 3.98 1.73
    SK Modified Weekly Series 3.87 0.87
    Formula Mazda Championship 3.38 0.73
    iRacing Advanced Solstice Challenge 2.84 0.30
    iRacing Legends Cup 2.82 0.73
    iRacing Advanced Legends Cup 2.75 1.01
    iRacing Silver Crown Cup 2.11 2.04
    
    Competitor licenses
    
    Formula Mazda Championship
    
    D 39 9
    C 78 25
    
    iRacing Advanced Legends Cup
    
    R 227 3
    D 92 1
    C 28 4
    
    iRacing Advanced Solstice Challenge
    
    R 282 41
    D 108 13
    C 28 2
    
    iRacing Late Model Tour
    
    R 213 35
    D 279 15
    C 70 14
    
    iRacing Legends Cup
    
    R 633 19
    D 154 0
    C 25 6
    
    iRacing Silver Crown Cup
    
    D 13 8
    C 25 21
    
    iRacing Solstice Challenge
    
    R 692 75
    D 91 5
    C 19 3
    
    Legends Weekly Road Racing Cup
    
    R 17 6
    D 16 1
    C 7 5
    
    Skip Barber Race Series
    
    R 287 16
    D 331 26
    C 90 3
    
    SK Modified Weekly Series
    
    R 23 6
    D 42 6
    C 43 11
    

     

     

    Biggest gains

    Road iRating
    
    Pieter Marien 731
    Mark Zeidler 580
    Ian Travis 541
    Michael Chamberlin 480
    Brandon Shown 460
    Michael Pares Jr 452
    Don Keightley 424
    Don Canright 418
    Marcus Lindsey 393
    Maxime Trepreau 335
    
    Oval iRating
    
    Ryan Moody 791
    Justin Weaver 477
    Jonathan Lintner 460
    Joe Doiron 430
    David Welborn Jr 396
    Christopher Bland 381
    Jake Swanson 337
    Tim Willis 319
    Martin Hillig 302
    Daniel White 297
    
    Road SR
    
    Pieter Marien 1.73
    Don Keightley 1.50
    Daniel Almeida 1.46
    Tamás Hartmann 1.44
    TRENT BROWN 1.40
    bret thurman 1.29
    Jacky Ackley 1.24
    Michael Pares Jr 1.21
    Arto Ihamaki 1.19
    Daniel McClelland 1.17
    
    Oval SR
    
    Jody Haddow 2.15
    David Scott2 2.03
    Luis Rodrigues 1.81
    David Black 1.81
    Richard Arwood 1.80
    Ruth Roset 1.77
    Larry Hook 1.76
    baraldini paolo alberto 1.57
    Richard Gile 1.44
    Ryan Moore 1.41
    

    Top 5 per club

    California Club
    
    Race starts
    
    danny ault 42
    James Sowell 38
    steven ridley 35
    Jeff Bye Jr 35
    Don Keightley 24
    
    Race wins
    
    Jeff Bye Jr 21
    Troy Decuir 5
    Tristan Bayless 4
    Chad Peterson 4
    Russell Kao 4
    
    Points earned
    
    John Prather 454
    Tristan Bayless 414
    Harrison Manhart 398
    Bryan Heitkotter 395
    Jeffrey Cagle 330
    
    Central US Club
    
    Race starts
    
    B. Hillebrand 39
    Kevin Cress 35
    Robert Cottell Jr 32
    DAVID DICK 32
    Michael Woodring 29
    
    Race wins
    
    Marcus Lindsey 22
    Kyle Gibson 8
    Jonathan Lintner 4
    Doug Arnett 3
    Kevin Cress 3
    
    Points earned
    
    Chuck Johnson 703
    Dave Hoffman 667
    Jay Osborne 570
    Josh Connors 544
    bryan nevil 381
    
    International Club
    
    Race starts
    
    Laszlo Miskolczi 89
    Andy Mills 62
    Leo Greenwood 42
    Brad Adamson 38
    Eric Potvin 37
    
    Race wins
    
    Andy Mills 27
    Laszlo Miskolczi 14
    Mikko Vuorinen 11
    Curtis Fung 8
    Anton Mironov 8
    
    Points earned
    
    Peter Read 499
    Luke McLean 483
    Sandeep Banerjee 428
    Markus Aberg 387
    Ian Travis 376
    
    Mid-Atlantic US Club
    
    Race starts
    
    Ryan Moody 59
    Jeffrey Gearhart 49
    John Stafford 41
    WILLIAM KLINGER 40
    rich dorshimer 37
    
    Race wins
    
    rich dorshimer 12
    Michael Chamberlin 10
    Justin Garrett 10
    David Cater 9
    Jason Meeks 8
    
    Points earned
    
    Johnnie Gandy Jr 517
    Justin Garrett 495
    Dustin McGrew 453
    Kurt Krumm 443
    Nim Cross Jr 438
    
    Midwest US Club
    
    Race starts
    
    luke omann 27
    Ryan Ameen 26
    chad smith2 24
    Joey Gase 24
    Ray Ehlers 23
    
    Race wins
    
    chad smith2 5
    Joey Gase 5
    Mark Zeidler 4
    Randy Tessar 3
    Ryan Ameen 2
    
    Points earned
    
    Scott Ehlers 853
    Mark Zeidler 488
    Randy Tessar 456
    Justin Kirby 448
    Scott Smith 261
    
    Northeast US Club
    
    Race starts
    
    Robert Kern 60
    Christopher Jackson 27
    Dale R. Easterly 26
    William Fields 24
    Rick LaBanca 23
    
    Race wins
    
    Christopher Jackson 7
    Harrison Widelitz 6
    Richard Davidowitz 5
    John Peters 5
    Thomas Lewandowski 5
    
    Points earned
    
    Troy Watson 581
    Jeff Sharp 455
    Joe Doiron 435
    Thomas Lewandowski 424
    Robbie Baker 394
    
    Southeast US Club
    
    Race starts
    
    Jon Thurman 43
    Jacky Ackley 40
    John Maddox 40
    Ricky Stansel 35
    Allen Krier 29
    
    Race wins
    
    Ray Alfalla 11
    Keith Medeiros Jr. 7
    Jacky Ackley 7
    Doy Woods 7
    Josh Berry 6
    
    Points earned
    
    Matthew Kingsbury 565
    Ray Alfalla 472
    Jeff Dukehart 453
    Brad Davies 404
    Alvin Lewis 360
    
    South US Club
    
    Race starts
    
    Chad Bulner 67
    Ronald McGrane 42
    Robert D Gates Jr 40
    Brandon Shown 33
    Mark Noble 27
    
    Race wins
    
    Chad Bulner 15
    Tyler Hudson 12
    Brandon Shown 8
    Shawn Murphy 5
    Ronald McGrane 4
    
    Points earned
    
    Tyler Hudson 412
    Brandon Shown 284
    Clifton Cockrell 283
    Jason Elrod 283
    Frosty StClair 251
    
    West Europe Club
    
    Race starts
    
    Dirk Wagner 89
    Kevin Seal 56
    ken odoherty 50
    FREDERIC LEGRAS 41
    michel duraffourg 40
    
    Race wins
    
    Kevin Seal 22
    Florian Godard 12
    Mario Vargas 8
    K Wegter-Hoekstra 8
    Antonino Arcidiacono 7
    
    Points earned
    
    Richard Bouchot 732
    Florian Godard 666
    Mathieu Bouysset 625
    Luca Ceretti 509
    Enzo Lodi 478
    
    West US Club
    
    Race starts
    
    Scott M Valley 43
    james barber 33
    Jeremy Cross 30
    bret thurman 28
    DAVE SADORRA 24
    
    Race wins
    
    Jeremy Cross 5
    Bruce Lawson 4
    Bruce Snelson 4
    bret thurman 4
    james barber 3
    
    Points earned
    
    Michael Kelley 839
    Raymond Emmons 484
    Matthew Shanks 393
    Tim Whalen 363
    Michael Vaughn 363
    

    Top 5 per division

    Division 1
    
    Race starts
    
    Tyler Hudson 23
    Ray Alfalla 18
    Justin Garrett 13
    Daniel Rodriguez 12
    Harrison Widelitz 11
    
    Race wins
    
    Tyler Hudson 12
    Ray Alfalla 10
    Justin Garrett 9
    Daniel Rodriguez 6
    Harrison Widelitz 6
    
    Points earned
    
    Jay Osborne 570
    Luke McLean 483
    John Prather 454
    Dustin McGrew 447
    Scott Ehlers 427
    
    Division 2
    
    Race starts
    
    Pieter Marien 33
    David Cater 24
    Rick Savage 20
    Steve Wright 16
    Neil Stratton 14
    
    Race wins
    
    David Cater 9
    Jonathan Stewart 7
    Justin Weaver 3
    Steve Wright 3
    Neil Stratton 3
    
    Points earned
    
    Dave Hoffman 347
    Michael Kelley 331
    Joe Doiron 301
    Jeff Sharp 297
    Josh Connors 290
    
    Division 3
    
    Race starts
    
    Craig Byerley 16
    Daniel White 13
    Tim Willis 12
    Daniel McClelland 9
    Michael Scheurer 8
    
    Race wins
    
    Daniel White 2
    Josh Buckwheat 2
    Daniel McClelland 2
    Michael McDowell 2
    emmanuel grossin 2
    
    Points earned
    
    Michael Kelley 331
    bryan nevil 228
    Mark Plank 220
    Kyle Hadcock 201
    John Bayes 157
    
    Division 4
    
    Race starts
    
    Don Keightley 17
    Robbie Baker 14
    Tony Johns 11
    Don Canright 10
    Tamas Laposa 10
    
    Race wins
    
    Brandon Shown 4
    Giuliomaria Garbellotto 4
    Flavio Gianesello 2
    Ian Travis 2
    Parker Kligerman 2
    
    Points earned
    
    Parker Kligerman 334
    Robbie Baker 320
    Tim Whalen 266
    Mauro Bisceglie 235
    Ian Travis 196
    
    Division 5
    
    Race starts
    
    james barber 19
    James Sowell 14
    Steve Claeys 11
    Doug Gegenheimer 11
    George Buhr 11
    
    Race wins
    
    james barber 2
    Steve Claeys 2
    Doug Gegenheimer 2
    Antti Levoska 2
    Kevin Cornelius 2
    
    Points earned
    
    Mats Gustavsson 224
    Troy Watson 193
    Laust Olsen 185
    Chuck Johnson 169
    Stuart Thorp 162
    
    Division 6
    
    Race starts
    
    robert senneville 17
    Donald Wright 11
    Luc Van Gossum 10
    Wes Propst 9
    Colin Penney 9
    
    Race wins
    
    Colin Penney 2
    Chad Peterson 2
    Richard Charles 2
    Andreas Wilke 1
    Richard Green 1
    
    Points earned
    
    Wes Propst 193
    Brad Hicks 182
    steven peterson 163
    Arto Ihamaki 135
    Vince Fernandes 131
    
    Division 7
    
    Race starts
    
    Paul D Smith 14
    Greg Moore 12
    Michael Woodring 9
    Juhana Kukkula 9
    luke omann 9
    
    Race wins
    
    Juhana Kukkula 2
    Andre Perron 1
    Alexander Brown 1
    Steven Foster 1
    Jake Armstrong 1
    
    Points earned
    
    Shane Wright 144
    Chad Peterson 136
    Bill Johnson 130
    Michael Woodring 117
    Ray Ehlers 108
    
    Division 8
    
    Race starts
    
    Eric Potvin 27
    Marcus Iglesias 14
    Michael Perry 12
    Tom Ecklein 10
    Dave Lodl 10
    
    Race wins
    
    Michael Pares Jr 3
    Mark Zeidler 3
    Eric Potvin 2
    PJ Jordan 1
    Dave Lodl 1
    
    Points earned
    
    Gary Jorgensen 197
    Simon Gymer 173
    Martin Nachtsheim 133
    Dave Lodl 117
    Garth Galinat 111
    
    Division 9
    
    Race starts
    
    Allen Dossett Jr. 16
    Sheldon Lemoine 12
    Tony Törnqvist 12
    John Sofley 12
    Joseph Cooke 11
    
    Race wins
    
    Sheldon Lemoine 4
    Allen Dossett Jr. 2
    Drew Bateman 1
    Matt Spivey 1
    Joseph Cooke 0
    
    Points earned
    
    Ross Eldridge 106
    Michael Woodring 104
    Justin White 93
    Brian Cross 86
    Robert Hedan 86
    
    Division 10
    
    Race starts
    
    Gerard Florissen 25
    Michael Wren 23
    Steve Wright 16
    maxwell mangum 15
    Chris Hatton 14
    
    Race wins
    
    Steve Wright 2
    Gerard Florissen 1
    Jeffrey Gearhart 1
    Chris Hatton 1
    Angelos Devletoglou 1
    
    Points earned
    
    maxwell mangum 190
    James Legault 154
    William Kabela 137
    Don Bowden 120
    Angelos Devletoglou 105
    
    Rookie
    
    Race starts
    
    Chad Bulner 57
    Dirk Wagner 44
    Laszlo Miskolczi 44
    Robert D Gates Jr 40
    Petri Pyöriä 30
    
    Race wins
    
    Chad Bulner 14
    rich dorshimer 9
    Martin Krouza 7
    John Stafford 6
    Jean-Marc Bernardi 6
    
    Points earned
    
    Florian Godard 388
    Markus Aberg 387
    Randy Tessar 364
    Johnnie Gandy Jr 357
    Robert Björkman 352
    

  • Blog post
  • 2 years ago
  • Favorite count: 3
  • Views: 864

• Houston, We Have a Problem... Houston, We Have a Problem...

  • From: John Hughes
  • Description:

    Hi,

    I guess I will take this time to introduce myself and maybe share a little inside info into my past and present work. During the day I work as an artist with iRacing primarily doing the modeling of cars and track side objects. At night I transform into somewhat of a super hero where I continue to work on modeling cars and track side objects. This blog will probably be of little use to you mortals, but I’m required to do what I can to make iRacing World a better place to be. It’s a tough job, but someone has to do it. 

    My humble beginning starts somewhere around 1999 when I started making some skins for NASCAR RACING 3. The sim painting community was much smaller then it is today with only a few sites braving the 100+ colors we could use to paint those cars, but with much lower resolution skins, the standards weren’t near as high as they are today. You were lucky to be able to read the contingencies so we were able to cheat quite a bit. (Ah, the good ole days)

    Next for me came NASCAR HEAT by MGI. I would say this is where my story made its first big turn. By this time I had my own website called HCMotorsports.com  I contacted Ed Martin who was the producer of that game and was able to do some beta testing as well as set up a good working relationship with both him and Dan McJilton. Soon after release of the game I began looking for others to help with my site. While doing so I came across another site which had some good work on it and I thought I would ask this person if he wanted to join forces in the fight for truth, justice and the American way. This was when I met Kevin Combs. He soon joined with me and we began producing more and more work for NASCAR HEAT. With some encouragement from Kevin, I approached Ed Martin and was able to secure tools in order to start "modding" NASCAR HEAT with the intent that we release them with tutorials and such for the community to be able to use. HCMotorsports became quite popular and we had more members join and help us with mods and tracks. Many of these people have since been hired by game developers such as EA and Microsoft.   

    Well, Kevin soon tired (lost his mind) and left to work on mods for some train simulator. While he did his thing, I started learning to do some 3d modeling myself as it was time for me to step up and be what I was always destined to be. (Sadly, I’m still trying to figure out just what that is)

    In 2003, shortly after NASCAR SIM RACING 2003 was released, I was contacted by Steve Myers from Papyrus. He had seen some of the work that we had done at HCMotorsports and was wondering if I would be interested in doing some mod work on that sim. This was surprising to say the least as Papyrus sims had always been pretty much locked. Well, it didn’t take much thought on my part (thankfully) and I eagerly agreed to do it on the condition that they let me bring Kevin along. (Batman needs Robin) They agreed and soon ProjectWildfire was born. Not only did I get to work with Kevin on some new projects, but I got to meet a lot of other great people and work with one of  the best mod teams I’ve ever had the privilege to be part of.

    During this time, my paying job was in construction and had been for 18 years. I did drywall, metal stud framing and pretty much everything it took to build McDonalds all across the south. Thankfully, Dave Kaemmer and John Henry saw something in our little team and I was offered a job at what is now known as iRacing. I can never thank them enough for letting me be a part of this awesome team.

    Well, for now that’s going to have to do. In future blogs I hope to be able to give you guys an inside look into how a model can go from the laser scan to the finished product you see on the screen. In the mean time, I will try and work on my grammar. I’ve been called a lot of things, but an english scholar isn’t one of them.

     

    John Hughes

     

     

  • Blog post
  • 2 years ago
  • Favorite count: 3
  • Views: 758

• A Social Network A Social Network

  • From: John Henry
  • Description:

    I couldn't be happier with iRacing's social network.  It's just the beginning, but I can't believe how well constructed this first version is.

    I'm adding friends and have gotten a lot of requests to be friends with members.  I have never done anything yet but support complainers, but I think I will leave them out of my friend list so I can deal with iRacing complaints on the forums rather than as friends.

    I can't wait to learn how to use video and audio here!

    Many thanks to all of you who I've listed as friends.  I hope this list will grow.

     

    John

  • Blog post
  • 2 years ago
  • Favorite count: 3
  • Views: 577

• A day in the life of a cat her A day in the life of a cat herder....#8

  • From: Steve Myers
  • Description:

    Let me start off by apologizing for the long delay since my last blog post.  Things have been very busy over here for me the last two months and I have been traveling more than I usually do so my writing time has been limited.  I hope I can make up for this by telling you a few stories from my travels, share a few pictures and give you some updates on development and other projects I have been working on.

     

    As you are all aware by this time I am not a fan of our cold winters up here in the Northeast so I was thrilled to head south for the Daytona 500 weekend in February.  I was lucky to get a chance to spend some time with some of our professional iRacing drivers such as Dale Jr, Marcos Ambrose and Brad Keselowski while I was there which is always a treat.  The 5 and 88 Nationwide cars will be running an iRacing sticker on their B-pillars for the entire season as a kind gift from Jr so I hope everyone will be rooting for both machines.  Jr was kind enough to send along some extras to me so the first 5 people to comment on my blog will get one, so make sure your address is correct in our system.  If you would like to see what it looks like I have posted a picture of it in my media section.

     

    The icing on the cake for my Daytona weekend happened quite unexpectedly.  After the race ended I got a text message from iRacing employee Dave Moulthrop (who moonlights as a credentialed photographer at NASCAR events) that the boss was in victory lane celebrating Matt Kenseth’s victory.  I headed over to victory lane and after Dave used his muscle to get me over with him in the press section we got John’s attention to congratulate him.  Much to my surprise John said, “come on, lets get your picture taken with the trophy”, to which I responded to by jumping the fence and joining him and his fiancé for the latest picture to go on my personal wall of fame.  It is also in my media section.

     

    My next journey took me to Las Vegas for another NASCAR weekend.  This trip was intended to be one last fun weekend with the boys before my bundle of joy arrives in May and it turned out to be a little fun and a little work.  We did a great demo on Saturday night at the Stratosphere where we had the sim running on two motion simulators brought by the CXC guys.  I brought a third machine which I used to broadcast the racing action to the Stratosphere’s massive marquee display on the side of the building.  I did not have high expectations on how the screen would look considering I had to output the software at a 632x312 resolution but surprisingly it looked great.  You could see this marquee from miles away so I am sure it must have looked very cool and I have also posted a picture of this. 

     

    All in all it was a fun trip with some great memories from a very much sleep deprived weekend.  I need to thank my wonderful wife for being so kind in letting me have fun with my friends and never complaining when we got 12 inches of snow while I was gone leaving her to shovel and unbury our cars all the while being very pregnant.

     

    Now for some updates on development which is what you probably hoping for anyways and are now irked at me for having to read everything I have written so far!

     

    We have a few massive projects we are currently working on that will not be ready for the next major build, but one is worth mentioning now.  We are deep into development on bringing private leagues to our service in a way that will hopefully maintain the integrity of the overall service.  I will focus a blog post on this topic further down the road when we are prepared to reveal more details on how this will work, but I think we are well on the way to adding an exciting new feature to our service.

     

    It has been our intention all along to remove resets once we have the damage repair and towing features complete.  It does look unlikely at this point that these two items will be finished for this next season but I can confirm that we will have the ability to make resets available by series.  Starting next season we will be eliminating resets in Class C series and up.  Patience and respect for your fellow driver will be very important next season…

     

    We really have not had a chance to touch our netcode in some time so we have started exploring several ways to improve it.  We have mentioned this before but we are making great progress on implementing the Akamai IP acceleration technology and hope to have this in the next major build.  We have a larger announcement coming soon that will touch on this and other latency related topics.

     

    I am happy to announce that we have hired another Vehicle Dynamics Engineer and we have immediately thrown him into the fire and have him working on the Spec Racer Ford.  Eric Hudec joins us from what was formerly known as Petty Enterprises where he was a Race Engineer.  We are obviously excited to be adding someone with Eric’s experience to our team and he should bring a lot to the table, particularly on the oval side of the service.  We hope to have the SRF ready for the start of next season and we are doing everything we can to also try and get the Nationwide version of the Impala SS ready as well.  We are also making great progress on the Corvette C6.R and the Lotus 79 as well, but I don’t expect those to be completed until this summer.

     

    We have also hired a new software engineer to try and speed up the rate that we are turning out features for you and his name is David Tucker.  David is already churning out work and has completed a project already that will hopefully be of great use to real world race engineers in being able to use our track data in their simulation tools.  David is currently taking a look at our replay cameras to try and make some improvements in how we show you the action.

     

    One of the most popular requests we have received and something I know I have told you we are working on is the addition of Paypal to our service.  At this time we are in testing stages of this code and it does look like it will be ready to be incorporated for the start of next season.  We do apologize in the delay for getting this feature to you but unfortunately this is not a plug and play item with the way our service works.

     

    I am sure everyone has already seen the news that we are adding a club logo option to the cars for next season.  We are also trying to get work done at the same time to add sponsor packages.  These will be sponsors that we supply for you to choose from, but this will start to give you more options to make your cars look more like they are in the real world.  You will also be able to choose different fonts for the car number on certain vehicles.

     

    Last but not least, I expect that Road Atlanta will be joining our track lineup at or near the start of next season with 5 more oval tracks coming between now and July.  We are also set to begin scanning Mosport this spring to get into production as soon as possible.

     

    Now for a very cryptic licensing update.

     

    I told you that I had been working on a contract that would net you three new tin tops and that contract was officially signed last week.  I will now torture you by telling you we have the announcement of these cars planned to go out this spring in conjunction with other announcements.  Sorry about that, you probably are angry with me for even mentioning it now.  I am also so very close to signing a very unique agreement that will involve a popular entry level tin top series with a significant marketing campaign.  So those that have been asking for more sports cars, they are in the development pipeline along with the C6.R.

     

    We have signed a MAJOR track that we will be scanning in the next few weeks that everyone should be excited for.  Once again I will tease you but not telling you what it is but I will give you a hint that the announcement will come in May…

     

    We have a few very high profile agreements we are working on that should garner us attention from everyone out there that has not already heard of iRacing.  I hope to have more information on these projects in the coming months.  I will also tell you that we have been working incredibly hard in trying to secure tracks outside of North America and we are making some great progress.  I hope to have some announcements about some signings here in the next few months as well.

     

    I know the licensing update portion of this really does not tell you much, but there is a significant amount of work that goes on here that is difficult to communicate about until the dotted line is signed.  We are also trying to do our best in trying to pace out announcements so not to overwhelm you and our marketing staff who are tasked with these communications. 

     

    Speaking of marketing, the guys have been pounding the pavement to try and bring more awareness to our product and company and have been doing a terrific job as we have seen a nice spike in our membership numbers.  I hope everyone will check out Sean Siff‘s blog to try and find a date when our Mobile Marketing Unit will be in their area to stop by and say hello.

     

    That’s it for now.  I hope you have enjoyed reading this and will do my best to not let two months go by again before my next post.

     

    Steve

     

     

     

     

  • Blog post
  • 1 year ago
  • Favorite count: 2
  • Views: 5096

• Much ado about something - the Much ado about something - the Lotus 79!

  • From: Eric Hudec
  • Description:

    “FAST! Unbelievably FAST!”  That’s the first thing that popped into my head the first time I drove a development build of the Lotus 79 in the sim.  I just couldn’t believe the grip, the acceleration.  I always figured I have a pretty good idea of just how quick a Grand Prix car would be behind the wheel.  But the sensation I got when I finally started making laps just blew me away.  The car just screamed up the Esses at Watkins Glen.  130, 140, 150 and then 160 mph all before reaching the backstretch!  On the brakes hard at 175 mph and shoot like a canon through the Bus Stop.  “Wow!” I thought to myself, “How could any sane person ever strap themselves in one of these things for real”. This thing is literally a rocket ship!  The funny part is I didn’t get the full sense of how much performance this car was going to have. Although the stats on paper look very impressive, driving it just something entirely different.

     

    I started here at iRacing.com in early March of this year.  Within a few days, I thought it was a pretty cool perq to get to visit Highcroft Racing in Danbury, CT to check out the Lotus 79 that is housed there.  Now Duncan Dayton, the owner of Highcroft, has some unbelievable race cars on display in his shop, but the Lotus 79 is the crown jewel.  I’ve been to a number of historic events but never had the chance to see a Lotus 79 in person.  The thing is a masterpiece.  It was obviously one of the most dominant GP racers ever, but it also looks the part.  It has big aggressive wings, big aggressive tires and, of course, a proper Cosworth DFV engine.  This thing epitomizes the wild and sexy 1970s Formula One era.  iRacing had unfettered access to this car.  My colleague, Ian Berwick, and I spent the better part of two full days measuring and taking photos of every inch of the car so we could get everything right when we began modeling the 79 for the sim.

     

    Once back at the office work began on building up the suspension, chassis, engine and drivetrain components.  Doing this kind of work is a pretty straightforward process – nothing too abstract.  The really interesting work was searching for information to develop tires, on which little information exists, and especially the groundbreaking aerodynamics that were the predominant reason the car was so successful (although a couple of guys named Andretti and Peterson helped a far amount!). 

     

    Essentially, I had to start from scratch developing downforce and drag numbers from anecdotal information I was able to gather by asking a lot of question of a number of people, some of whom were intimately involved with the car’s development.  Basically, I had a target and I reverse-engineered all the downforce and drag contributions of the sidepod tunnels and the floating skirts as well as the front and rear wings.  All of this was based on the tones of aerofoil data and first principles of physics. 

     

    What turned out was a double-throw-down rocket ship!  The great thing is Divina Galica, our own in-house F1 driver, and the great Mario Andretti verified much of my interpretation of how the car felt to drive.  The ’78 World Champion made comments that correlated well with how the 79 performs in the sim.  The thing I took away from our conversations with Mario was just how stable the car was and how easy it was to tune.

     

    So far, in the time I’ve spent at iRacing, the Lotus 79 has been by far the most fun car to work on.  Developing setups, tweaking the aero and tires, has been an ongoing process to make the car feel better and better.  I hope when it gets released everyone will feel the same sensation I felt when I first drove it:  “WOW!  This thing is FAST!”   

     

  • Blog post
  • 1 year ago
  • Favorite count: 2
  • Views: 1811

• iRacing US Spring Tour 2009 iRacing US Spring Tour 2009

  • From: Sean Siff
  • Description:

    Hello iRacers!

     

    My name is Sean Siff and I work for iRacing as the iRacing US Spring Tour event manager. The entire department at iRacing have heard your requests for a major marketing project and we are officially kicking off our iRacing US Spring Tour 2009 in Sebring FL at the ALMS Mobile 1 12 Hours of Sebring. It is time we share this simulator software with the world and our plan is to bring it to you, one racing event at a time. 

     

     

    To warm up for our first big event at Sebring, we set up our display at the Speedway Expo, located near our Boston head quarters in Springfield MA. The Expo was a really fun event for all of us as we debuted the Hot Seat iRacing Cup challenge. We gave drivers and fans the opportunity to qualify for the Hot Seat iRacing Cup by driving the SK Modified at Stafford Speedway. The fastest drivers were narrowed down into three finalists who competed against a slew of actual pro drivers from all different professional Motorsports disciplines. 

    Our pro drivers included F1 driver Justin Wilson, truck series driver Willie Allen, drag racer Ron Capps, Koni Challenge driver Barry Waddell, and SCCA World Challenge driver Eric Curran.

     

    Other guest appearances made the event a lot of fun. Former Winston Cup driver Ricky Craven stopped by our simulator as well as Truck Series driver Steve Park, along with SK Mod driver Renee Dupuis, who helped out as a guest driver coach. Whelen Modified driver Ted Christopher, Koni Challenge driver Nick Leverone, and Formula Drift champion Von Gitten Jr each tried our software for the first time.

     

    Our display won top honors as 1st Place Best In Show. When we bring our sim on tour, we like to go all out and the judges noticed. Unfortunately, there was no podium to spray champagne from.

     

    This, my fellow readers brings us to the 12 hours at Sebring; our first stop on our iRacing US Spring Tour. Please come introduce yourself and check out our display and put in a few laps behind the wheel.

     

    After Sebring, we head to Martinsville VA for the Nascar Sprint Cup race. And from there we travel to Mazda Laguna Seca in Monterey CA and on down to the streets of Long Beach CA for the Indy and World Challenge Race.  Next we head back across the country to VIRaceway for the Grand Am Rolex race and the NASCAR race in Richmond VA.

     

    Thank you for checking out my blog and I hope you stay tuned for more info as I will be updating this post with more tour dates and a re-cap after each stop.

     

    PS:  Do you have an interesting mid-week racing related event happening near our weekend event stops?  If so, please write me an email with your event and we could be stopping in your backyard... literally!  We have set the majority of weekend events, but let us know what is going on near you!

  • Blog post
  • 1 year ago
  • Favorite count: 2
  • Views: 1185

• How To: Responding To A Prote How To: Responding To A Protest

  • From: Nim Cross Jr
  • Description:

    The Sporting Code does a very good job in explaining how and when you should file a protest.  If you are unfamiliar with the protest procedures check out section 8 of the Sporting Code. 

     

     

    What do you do if someone has filed a protest against you?  How do you respond?  When you initially receive a protest in your email your initial reaction may be emotional.  Responding to the protest on pure emotion is never a good idea.  If you respond in such a manner you will most likely not get your points across and miss your opportunity to state your case. 

     

    When you receive a protest take a moment and read the details of the protest.  Most protests are straight forward.  At the beginning of each protest I ask for you to respond to the accusations contained in the description of the protest.  At this time you should present your side of the complaint, calmly and respectfully. 

     

    If there are specific points I would like you to respond to I will let you know by writing a note to you at the beginning of the complaint.  For example: I might ask you to respond to the accusations of intentional wrecking.  At this point you know what I am looking for.  I want to know if you’ve had intentional contact with the driver filing the protest.  You should read the description in the complaint and respond truthfully to the accusations.  If the incident was not intentional explain to me that it was not and what happened from your point of view.  If the incident was intentional you need to be truthful about it.  There will be a penalty but for first time offenders I will show leniency when I receive a truthful and proper response.  You will only get one shot at leniency though.  Repeated offenses confirm to me that there is a lack of respect for the rules laid out in the Sporting Code, for your fellow racers, and for the leniency shown in the previous complaint.

     

    A great number of protests that come to me contain saved “FRAPS” replays.  FRAPS replays are greatly appreciated.  Often they confirm the accusations in the protest; sometimes they show me the protest may be slightly inaccurate.  The protest filed against you may or may not contain replays.  I may or may not tell you that I have seen the replay of the incident.  If I find your response to my inquiry is less then truthful I will not show any leniency and will assess the maximum penalty appropriate for the violation you are accused of.     

     

    When I receive your reply I will consider both sides of the story and any other evidence I may have accumulated in my investigation.  I will render a decision in the case and you will receive the “Penalty Notification” email.  The current penalties you might receive are…

     

    No Action Taken – I use this ruling when I find the accused was not guilty of the accusations in the protest.

     

    Noted Incident – I use this ruling when I do not have enough evidence in a case to make an accurate and fair ruling.  This is not a blemish against the accused account but is a way for me to resolve the case in a way that does not assign blame. 

     

    Warning – I issue a warning for specific violations that are not egregious enough for probation or a suspension but the protested circumstance needs to be address.

     

    Probation – Probation is used mostly for first time offenders of a violation that could lead to suspending the offending party.  This is a way for me to let the offending party know of the service’s rules and there will be no toleration of breaking said rules going forward.  All probations issued are a minimum of 8 weeks.

     

    Suspension – I use suspensions when there is a complete disregard for the service’s Sporting Code and Code of Conduct policies. In most cases this is because there was a second violation of the Sporting Code’s Code of Conduct policies.  I might use a suspension as a first resort in only the most violent violations against other members on the service.

     

    You will be told the duration of the penalty if you receive probation or a suspension in the notification email.  If you do receive probation or a suspension you may be able to appeal your penalty.  For rules pertaining to appeals see section 9 of the iRacing Sporting Code.

     

    There are some occasions where someone has made a code of conduct violation and I have the proof I need to make an immediate ruling.  iRacing collects all server chat logs and even some voice chat files.  If I have proof that you have made a code of conduct violation you will receive the protest in the mail and in the description I will let you know the violation you have committed is unacceptable, why it is unacceptable, and when you will receive your penalty notice.  In such cases where I have undeniable proof of the code of conduct I will include said proof in the description of the protest. 

     

    So responding to a protest is pretty easy.  Just make sure you stay calm and do not let your emotions get in the way of responding to the protest properly and respectfully.  Read the details of the protest, respond to any points I may ask you about, and explain your side of the story.  If you do these things your side of the story will be considered and I will be able to make a fair and appropriate ruling in the case. 

     

     

    Nim Cross

    iRacing Chief Steward

     

  • Blog post
  • 2 years ago
  • Favorite count: 2
  • Views: 925

• Same Symptoms, Different Remed Same Symptoms, Different Remedy

  • From: Susan Flint
  • Description:

    I've been in Tech Support/Customer Service for the better part of this century and I've never seen this more true than here at iRacing.

    We can see 10 machines having the same exact behavior for 15 different reasons. For example, "I am unable to download. It just loops back to the main page." We've seen the solutions be: adding the .exe's to exceptions lists, running the updater manually as admin, uninstalling the antivirus software altogether, uninstalling Windows Live Care One Family Security, setting the transparent proxy server flag, use Internet Explorer, use FireFox...I could go on and on. What may work for one computer, may not work for another.

    There are so many things with computers that can be a factor. Not only the basics like CPU, RAM, graphics card (and drivers), sound card (and drivers). Then add on top of that the many types of antivirus', firewalls, modems and routers and IPSs, not to mention umpteen million different misc softwares someone could have on their computer - some unknowingly.

    The fact that it never is just one easy solution is a testimony to how well the software is made in the first place so major kudos to the web team for making our job easier.

    So, if you call or email us here at Support, and we make you run through the list of possible things the solution could be, humor us :)

  • Blog post
  • 2 years ago
  • Favorite count: 2
  • Views: 215

• A day in the life of a cat her A day in the life of a cat herder....#10

  • From: Steve Myers
  • Description:

    When I was a “civilian” over a decade ago I can remember how the weeks and months would drag on and on as I eagerly anticipated the release of the next Madden or Papyrus title that I had squirreled away my hard earned dollars to purchase.  I can most definitely relate to the anticipation you all have when we are nearing the release of our next build and the frustration you may feel by having more questions about a release than answers.

     

    It is amazing how your perspective on the development timeline of a title changes drastically when you are on the other side of the fence and trying to cram in as much content as you can into the very limited time you have to produce a product.  In the old days we were spoiled and got 12 months or more to develop a product.  Now we are trying to manage many different layers of development into releases every three months which is a superhuman feat if you ask me.

     

    We have made a lot of progress on all levels over the past three months.  I think it is often forgotten that your membership dollars are not just being used to fund new features in the sim software, but also improvements to how we host the website, manage the immense amount of data and expand functionality of our member site.

     

    As an example, the team implemented a new design in the database and started using new caching technology on the web tier.  The result is that the system has better scalability and performance has improved, in some cases by an order of magnitude. It has dramatically reduced the load on the servers, which reduces our projected hardware and license needs as we go forward.  That's a big win for members, as it helps us control our costs, while delivering improved performance.

     

    Your membership dollars also help to pay for some major projects we have been working on for more than three months now that will allow us to put iRacing in front of hundreds of thousands of potential new customers every year. The nice thing about some of these projects is it helps us move the ball down the field on projects like private leagues which we hope will be in the build at the end of next season.

     

    I am really excited for the release of a slew of new website features.  We have done a significant redesign of the main page which now includes tickers with all kinds of information.  We have also “gadgetized” the main page so that you can customize it to your liking.  The release notes will describe in more detail how all this new functionality will work.

     

    Due to popular demand and under the careful study of John Henry we are moving to a completely new club scoring system in which every race counts toward the Club competition.  No more dropped races or weeks, no more averaging in the club scoring system.   Each non-Rookie driver racing in an officially scored, Advanced Rookie or higher series will have the opportunity to score club points based on where they place and the size of the field.  Other championship scoring systems remain unchanged. 

     

    On the software side of things we also have some great improvements and additions.  I will release the full release notes for the build later this week but here are some highlights.

     

    It is no secret anymore that we will be launching the Lotus 79 with this build and it will be running as a Class B car for the upcoming season.  Although the VW Jetta TDI Cup car will not be in this release, I expect it to be released sometime in the second week of August.

     

    We made some minor tweaks to the Solstice and Spec Racer Ford.  The Solstice now has anti-lock-brakes and the SRF has had its brake bias adjustment range increased.

     

    We have also made an adjustment in how the tire temperatures work.  The temperature distribution is now properly based on a tire’s load and pressure which will allow you to use tire temp to tune your setups.

     

    On the oval side of things the Truck, Nationwide and Cup car now have rear sway bars and rebound and compression are adjustable on the shocks.

     

    I have seen a few posts in the forums about this so we went ahead and made Summit’s Jefferson course and the VIR Patriot course available to be run in the reverse direction as well.  Chicagoland will also be released in this build and it is on the schedule for the Oval Pro Series.

     

    We will also be giving away a free track called the Centripetal Circuit which is a 200 meter radius skid pad.  This is the only track in our service not modeled after a real track and it will be featured in our driver training series that will be released later this year.

     

    Towing has been added, replacing resets during a race. Tows are always available in any series. Exiting your car or disconnecting while driving will automatically trigger a tow. A tow will place you in your pit stall until the specified tow time has passed. The pit crew as of yet can not repair any damage, but the types of damage we currently support are either not typically repairable during a race, or have no physical effect and are therefore not worth repairing. If you bust your car up too much you may not be able to keep it on the road.

     

    For lower level races (Rookie and D license level races) you get one "fast" tow, after that any further tows are regular speed. A fast tow takes a little less time than a regular tow, and will give you a fresh car, restoring tires, damage, etc.

     

    The camera system has had a massive overhaul and significant functionality has been added.  This is probably best left for you to see in person but one highlight is that we have added a camera tool that can allow those that enjoy getting creative the chance to edit, save and share new groupings of cameras.

     

    Brake calibration has been updated to work well with both pressure-sensitive and deflection-sensitive brakes.  There is now an option to control the linearity of the simulator’s brake pressure response to your physical brake pedal travel.  Potentiometer-based pedals (most pedals) can adjust this value to suit what feels best for them; lower values give a more linear brake response (more initial brake force with pedal travel than before), while higher values give a more non-linear increase in brake force (less initial brake force, more force near full pedal travel).  Linear pressure sensitive pedals (with load cells) should set this value to zero for the most linear true to life feel.  A brake force curve factor of 2.0 is close to the brake force curve before this change.  This factor is now reset automatically to 1.8 any time the brakes are calibrated—you will need to change it to your preferred value after calibrating the brakes if 1.8 is not to your liking.  For most pedals this gives a good feel.
    
    The pedal meters on all screens reflect this change. The throttle meter has also been corrected to match on all screens.

     

    There is plenty more and I could keep typing all day but I will save the rest for the official release notes.  Just to start you thinking about what is on the horizon, we do hope to have private leagues, an updated tire model and the ability to do night racing in next season’s build along with many other features and improvements.  These projects are all underway and progressing very well.

     

    As I normally do, I will just update you and provide a little information that we have been globetrotting in an effort to build our international portfolio of content.  Divi and I have just recently returned from a trip to Europe to meet with potential partners and I am optimistic following those meetings.

     

    I will tell you that we have a huge announcement planned towards the end of August that I think everyone will be extremely happy about.

     

    Just to come full circle.  All of this work I have highlighted and much more was completed in less than three months of development time.  I think all of us internally relish the actual release of these builds because it reminds us of why we do this and what it was like before we stressed out day and night to bring you what we hope you feel is worthy of your time, patience and hard earned dollars.

     

     

  • Blog post
  • 1 year ago
  • Favorite count: 1
  • Views: 3363
  • Not yet rated

• A day in the life of a cat her A day in the life of a cat herder....#9

  • From: Steve Myers
  • Description:

    I thought you might like to hear a great story surrounding the announcement of our deal with NASCAR this past weekend and how it all came about.

    We actually have had a dialogue going with NASCAR since the very early days of this company.  We have known some of the folks in the licensing department for well over a decade at this point so it made sense to keep the lines of communication open. 

    The real turning point for this deal though was a meeting we had on July 31^st of last year that was brokered by Dale Jr.  Dale had been advising NASCAR on some of his ideas on what they should be doing in the gaming space and he was pretty emphatic that they sit down and talk with us.  When he reached out to us to tell about this we obviously were enthusiastic about it so he communicated this to NASCAR and they picked July 31^st as the date.

    Now this part right here should make all of you proud of this sport we call sim racing and the importance of it to John Henry.  July 31^st is the trade deadline for Major League Baseball.  When John heard that we had a sit down meeting on the 31^st brokered by Dale Jr at his race shop he immediately said he felt it was important that he attend.  This was no ordinary trade deadline and the significance of this day will forever be a footnote in MLB history.  July 31^st of 2008 was the day potential Hall of Fame left fielder Manny Ramirez was traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers and John was heading to a meeting to cement the future of sim racing when it happened.

    We had a terrific meeting with NASCAR, one in which Jr dragged one of his monster computers from his house down so Paul Brooks, Blake Davidson and Nick Rend could demo the software.  Jr was the one that actually sat at the computer and toured them through the website and software showing them all the thought and engineering that has gone into this service.  Both sides left the meeting with a desire to work together and nine or so months later here we are.

    I have had a lot of great experiences in my life, but being present for such a historic meeting for this sport we call sim racing ranks right near the top, not to mention getting to watch such a historic day in the history of the Boston Red Sox from behind the scenes.

    I know most of you probably tuned in to hopefully see some development updates so I will throw some out there to tide you over until I do a true development update blog.

    As I posted in the forums last week the Lotus 79 is drivable in a development build right now and it is a blast to drive.  Eric Hudec has been working on the car and doing a terrific job so far.  I have asked him to do a blog post of his own on how the development of the car is going and some of the back stories around it.  I think you will enjoy that.  Ian is working on improving the aero models for the COT, Nationwide and Truck models with new data we have received and is plugging away at the Corvette.

    For international licensing news, we just literally inked a deal five minutes ago for two tracks outside of North America and expect we will annouce this........wait for it.........soon!

    I have teased you in the past about a big track announcement for the month of May and there has been a delay in that actual announcement.  So I will instead ask you to think about Jim Nabors singing the following….

     

    I have always been a wand'rer

    Over land and sea

    Yet a moonbeam on the water

    Casts a spell o'er me

    A vision fair I see

    Again I seem to be

     

    Back home again in Indiana,

    And it seems that I can see

    The gleaming candlelight, still shining bright,

    Through the sycamores for me.

    The new-mown hay sends all its fragrance

    From the fields I used to roam.

    When I dream about the moonlight on the Wabash,

    Then I long for my Indiana home.

     

    Fancy paints on mem'ry's canvas

    Scenes that we hold dear

    We recall them in days after

    Clearly they appear

    And often times I see

    A scene that's dear to me

    And finally for one last tease, we have announced two of the three tin tops I had promised earlier (Ford GT, Mustang FR500s) and the third will be announced very soon, hopefully accompanied by an international track….

    Have a great weekend and I hope all of your significant others let you have some peace while you watch all the wonderful racing this weekend.

    Steve

  • Blog post
  • 1 year ago
  • Favorite count: 1
  • Views: 2383

• Pitting Anticipation and setup Pitting Anticipation and setup adjusting

  • From: Jeff Thomas
  • Description:

      Since iRacing went public one of the biggest begs in the forums has been pit stops and flags.. well it seems we might get this addition real soon like in days now not months ...   I can not help but wonder to myself how the forums will lite up with complaints about racing being run more under yellow than green flag laps :)

      Now I must say I've been luck enough myself to run in very clean events this season overall.. only 2 races out of this entire current season have I seen events that would not be fun at all with active flags.. but I certainly understand those will happen.. but I wonder about the many that so much want the flags how quickly they will revert to complaining about them and the caution laps that follow..

     

      I must say I'm looking forward to seeing a caution here and there in the longer events, it mix's up pit plans, makes ya rethink on the fly what ur gonna do..   and how much fuel your gonna put on, or how much air to add or take away and so forth.   change 2 tires, change 4..   Ya know its as much fun to win a pit strategy event as it is to just go out run everyone.. I do enjoy crewchiefing the car. 

     

    Also as most of you oval drives, I'm very much looking forward to the Trucks, I expect they will be better than Project Wildfire CTS mod for NR2003 and I thought that was an awesome mod.. I have to say PWF CTS Mod is what kept me in NR2003 Series racing for as long as I did..   So I have very high hopes for iRacing's Truck Series, and can't wait to race door to door, fender to fender with many of you out there again in a pick em up truck.

     

     As our current season winds down to all the new changes we have to look forward to I reflect back on my Fall Season with enjoyment, even though it appears this will be the 1st season I won't receive a top 3 in any of the points series I ran in.. I must say I've had a great season and some very clean competitive racing, and so looking forward to the new season ahead.  My oval C class license has not been a challange this series, as I have pretty much retained a 4.99 rating through out most of the season with only a small fade with a very quick come back..      My roadies C class license caused me some concern when it dipped down to a 4.52 but I've gotten it back to a 4.88 in just a short number of weeks and thats me only racing my weekly events and time trials for the week.. not running multiples each week, just 1 per series each week.. So I'm still very much in favor of the license structure here.. it seems to be working as designed.   I do very much desire more racers though so that my events are more classed to my license ability.. but this is only a want, not a need.. racing is racing.. i love racing with everyone.

     I hope each and everyone of you have had a great (Fall Season) and I look forward to seeing you all on the track next season, as we enjoy the new upgrades coming to our software.. and seeing who all upgrade to B license with me.

    best of luck to ya both on and off the track

    JT

     

    

     

    your comments to my blogs are always welcome either postive or negative

  • Blog post
  • 2 years ago
  • Favorite count: 1
  • Views: 1043