@pseg: FORMULA DUDER

After my first few days on iRacing, I think I've become a former Gran Turismo fan. This is the most fun I've had with a game in many years.

As much as I'd love to go buy some new cars and tracks, my budget is quite limited. So I will ask you guys: recommended purchases? I think a Gen6 car is appropriate, as I'd like to participate in the Carburetor Cup as well as whatever PsEG comes up with here. As a huge F1 fan I'm tempted to go for the Williams, but as a beginner I'll surely be in over my head with that right now..

Awesome logo!

@mouse Glad it's got you hooked! The season 4 schedules are going to be announced soon. If you plan on moving up from the Miatas & Street Stocks into another series may want to look at the schedule for series you'll be moving into. That way you can budget out what tracks you may need to purchase to complete the season. Road side there's pretty much the open wheel path and the sports car path. You can do which ever, but open wheel usually goes Skippy>Star Mazda>Indy(some people skip this one)>F1. Then there are tons of sports cars so you can just pick and choose your way up there. The most frugal path up is stay in the Miata from the Rookie series>inRacingnews Challenge>GrandTouring and/or Global Racing Challenge. But in those last two the number of tracks you'll have to purchase is probably going to be around 8 for the 12 week season. At that point it's going to be the same cost (plus to the car) to go to Skippy. I feel the Skippy is the best car to teach you car control and should be a must drive for anyone. Also it's the 2nd most driven road series so it's super easy to get a race at most times of day.

RRAAAGHGH!%#&^*&^*, Sorry guys I need to work for the 3rd Saturday in a row. I really wanted to be part of this weeks Friday Night Thunder, maybe next week. I better see some more F1/Indy cars in dat thunder!!!! @pseg *glare*

Just ran both tracks for a bit. Running the F1 at Charlotte is like taking all the Slo-Mo. It's pretty incredible. Managed a 27.6 as my fastest lap.

Bristol is like driving over cobblestones at 180 miles an hour. It's SO HARD, but it's going to be pretty amazing to run this week. I managed a 11.92 in the F1 car.

@skullcrushermountain: I can imagine after 100 laps of Bristol them tires are going to be all sorts of worn and overheated, its a constant issue on short course Indy's.

Man, been a bad couple of weeks for me in the FNT/FD :(

Keen to claw myself back some points this weekend, though.

@khann: Where you been? Thought you died. :*(

@skullcrushermountain: Was ill a couple of weeks ago, and completely messed up my times last weekend. With any luck there shouldn't be any reason not to show up this weekend.

Looks like an awesome weekend for it, too. Been waiting for PsEG to bust out the F1 car ;)

@khann: Welcome back. Sucks no FD this week, but next week should be really neat since we've run Okayama already, and it doesn't have that bastard turn 6. Should keep us all more bunched together :)

@skullcrushermountain: What's the go with FD this week?

@khann: PSEG's out of town or something.

Well I just bought the F1 car despite being scared of how difficult it would be to drive. After messing around with it for a bit, all I can say is wow. That thing is a freaking blast to drive. It is insanely forgiving. You can overshoot the braking point and still manage to slow down enough to make the turn. It's crazy fast but is very manageable. It feels like it's on rails compared to the Skip and everything else I've driven in iRacing. I had so much fun on the first track I tried that I wound up taking it for a spin around several other tracks. Spa was incredible with that car. The only thing that gave me trouble was when I exited a slow corner and got on the gas a little too much. As long as you're rolling into the gas and not being stupid with your gear selection, you aren't going to lose control with this car.

I tested it at Bristol and Charlotte as well. It sticks to the road like glue at Charlotte. The Gen6 won't be competitive at all. Bristol is another story. You can go 3+ seconds faster compared to the Gen6 cars, but the uneven surface can easily throw you off the line and up into the wall. Gen6 seems to be more stable on that track, and those cars can probably take more damage, but they're nowhere near as fast. So, I dunno. I haven't decided which car to take to Bristol. Charlotte is an easy choice at least.

Aww man, I'd really love to join this friday since its the F1 car and sounds ridiculous, but I'm out of town as well this weekend. AT A PROPER RACE.

@iron1c: Sweet, which one? I'll be at a rally event in 2 weeks. Also, I need to get my plans together to go to Daytona 24 hours in January.

@maxx77 Tempted to run the F1 season for season 4? I'm really close to saying I'll do it.

@datarez: The SECOND I'm A level (Going B at the end of this season), I'm racing F1. I don't care if I'm last place every single race, I'm racing in that goddamn series because F1s are amazing.

@datarez: I'm still in D class, so it'll be a while before I'm eligible for official F1 races. I've not been doing regular races since I got out of Rookie class. I keep doing our league races and Carburetor Cup practice sessions instead. Now that I've driven the F1 car, I have some proper motivation to work on my license.

@khann: Glad to see you're doing better, dude!

We're having a mid-season break this week for Formula Duder, which is for two reasons:

1. I'm likely to lose my mind and have an existential crisis sometime this weekend, probably Sunday, and
2. When planning the season, there was an expected chance that I would be off at a meetup of some sort with Patrick Saturday night.

That said, I will be away the Saturday afterwards in St. Louis, so I'm going to miss a Formula Duder event regardless. I'll admin someone in my wake, but disappointed I'm going to miss streaming it. Still, hopefully we can drum up some support and finish this season strong.

...and speaking of that, Bathurst's coming, likely in less than a week. It will be used by our league to some extent. I might even have a series idea that revolves entirely around it...

@pseg: Kangaroo races? Knife contests?

Retro F1 cars at Bathurst for the ultimate level of carnage and despair?

@pseg: And I just realized I'll miss the 26th race since I'll be in Disneyland.

@pseg: Ah bummer the day you're in St Louis I'll be down in Perryville. http://perryville.100aw.org

The DTM season finale at Hockenheim. Bit of a bummer that the championship was already decided last race, but thats what you get for buying tickets to the finale. You'll either get a great race or one thats basically already decided/doesn't matter as much.

@slowbird: Now that would be fantastically ridiculous. Can't even imagine trying to drive that bloody thing over the top of the mountain...

Some type of endurance race would be fun, though that'd require quite a bit more of a commitment from folks. Shame there isn't a built-in way to do driver swaps. Could be fun to pair fastest and slowest drivers ;)

rFactor has driver swaps and 24h cycles. Just saying. :D

I AM NOT SETTING UP AN rFACTOR RACE I WON'T ALLOW IT THAT GAME IS CREEPY AND SMELLS FUNNY

Seriously, though, in regards to an endurance race, we have this once-a-year event for Forza, the GB100, that's a long race/competition of some type each year. I certainly wouldn't be against the idea of perhaps renting out 6 hours for an endurance race of some length in iRacing. It'd have to be set at Bathurst this year, the cars could perhaps be voted on by the Giant Bomb community (much like the GB100), and heck, I'd even be OK opening it up to anyone, be it league members or otherwise...Giant Bomb vs. the World, perhaps.

Anyways, food for thought, there. I will be around for a little while Saturday night, so I might plan out an impromptu test race for next season. Stay tuned for that.

@pseg: If we are doing a Bathurst enduro we really should be doing it with Caddies or the Fords, the track has so many hard corners that open wheel cars will be constantly crashing into walls up the mountain.

@khann: oh god the F1's don't work so good on Bathurst, the track is thin as hell on spots and the harsh elevation changes scrape the bottom all the time.

Bathurst with the Mustang FR500 :D

I'd like to note that I picked up my first win tonight. :) I was running the Mazda Cup these past few days. Not a big accomplishment but it feels good to win one.

Looking forward to the Charlotte race, most likely I'll be in the CTS-V as I'm not able to purchase any contest this week. I hope I'm not the only guy running that car though; with some luck maybe yellow flags can hand me some positions.

+1. Game Stock Car 2013 karts on the other hand...

Your mother makes my F1 car scrape.

Anyway, I vote for all GT cars. I think GTs vs Corvettes vs McLarens would be AWESOME. If they have the Porsche by then, I'd think that'd be awesome, too.

@skullcrushermountain: I see what you did there :D, 2 for one deal. Fat and Yo mom joke, high five.

In other news, I beat my previous 11.920 fastest lap time in the F1 around Bristol by, um. Kind of a lot. This race is going to be AWESOME.

Congrats! Every win is a big accomplishment.

@skullcrushermountain: Also Formula Truck..

If only we could somehow get @drewbert to do a Formula Truck 2013 quicklook...

Has anyone tinkered with the setups for the F1 car at these tracks? I'm not too worried about Bristol with the baseline, but the baseline setup at Charlotte hits max revs in 7th gear pretty easily... and unlike a stock car, you can change the gear ratios for each gear on the F1 car, which is daunting to say the least.

Anyway, man... Bristol is gonna be so crazy. I was able to hit 11.119 seconds. I can't imagine having to race with other people there!

@samuraigarrin: Man, that's a half second faster than I hit. I didn't dick with any of the gear ratios, though. Just wing settings & tire pressure.

@skullcrushermountain: I think I just had one lucky lap. I'm not consistently that fast, more like 11.3-ish or so normally.

@samuraigarrin: You might have to share your setup. I was running low 11.6s.

Yeah 11.5 is around where I'm at as well. Those bumps on corner entry are the worst.

Well Bristol was surprisingly the easiest race of the night. Can't believe how awful Charlotte was. I had to jump into a random practice session on Watkins Glen as soon as it was over just to reaffirm my love for the F1 (and to prove to myself I knew how to drive it).

I noticed that coming out of the pits in a practice session, the tires are almost 200 degrees F. When we were pacing around Charlotte, our tires were dipping real close to 100 F. I was swerving around like some other people, but the temps weren't budging much. I really like the F1 and hope we do more racing with it, but definitely no more full course cautions with that car.

Yeah those cold tyres were ridiculous. I was trying to do burnouts to warm my rears, but even the tiniest bit of throttle was sending me sideways.

I had fun. Double the field size would definitely make something like that Charlotte race a bit more interesting.

Nice work Samurai on that first race. Destroyed it.

@khann: Thanks, man. You should have seen the shape my car was in for the last half or so of that race. I have a feeling I was on the edge of a meatball flag that whole time, but I really lucked out. If you hadn't gotten in wrecks, I'm sure you would have passed me and ran away with it.

Watching PsEG's broadcasts of tonight's races. Realized I kept saying that the F1 car goes up to 300 gallons of fuel. 300 pounds is what I meant. Either way, how crazy is that. That's like adding two extra drivers to the car.

26:40 of the Friday Night Thunder - Charlotte race is maybe the funniest thing I've encountered all night. At least something good came out of that race!

was expecting there to be a race today, glad theres not. the 16th plm and final ever american le mans race is starting right now and want to watch it :D

www.alms.com

... and with that, the american le mans is done for ever.

rest in peace ALMS :_(

Looks like the new season update adds notifications to league sessions. Any idea how people get the notifications? Could be very useful for getting more folks to show up.

New drafting updates for road cars and a bunch of new cars given the NTMv5. Gonna have to jump in and try a few out I think.

Also Bathurst (WOOO)

@khann: Any idea when the updates go live? I'd presume soon?

Derp. Looks like Tuesday 22-Oct-2013 1400 UTC

Nope. Looking like tomorrow, because of Bathurst. This is why we can't have nice things, Australia.