Our Glorious Leader, @pseg posted the recap of our first league race today!

Watch the thrills! The spills! The low speed spinouts!

Great video, as someone who missed it due to the timezone I have to say it looks like a lot of fun! What a random finish :D

A few ideas (just from watching the video) for the next race:

If the pace lap is an issue, what about doing a standing start next time? And I don't know when the next race is gonna be, but what about using the MX-5 on the current track of the week (right now Lime Rock Park)? This way people who are unfamiliar with the track or generally new can practice the track and car before the event with other human players without having to rely on hosted sessions.

Got an email today for 3 months for $12 if i sign back up, very tempted with all this going on...

You totally should!

@Pseg Sign me up! G27 on the way. Been itching to get another FF wheel since I had my thrust master for motor city online.

I really want to sign up, but I would need a race wheel as well, right?

Just finished watching that. Fun to watch what happened in the rest of the field (was a pretty lonely race for me). That battle at the front was pretty damn intense there at the end. Didn't realise slowbird was that close to the line when he disconnected, haha. What a pain.

Would really like to see you do these in future if it's not too much of a hassle on your end.

re: an overlay. Unfortunately it doesn't seem like anything will work with replays, which is a real bummer. All the overlay/race info plugins I've had a look at all need to be run in a live race to work properly.

The more the merrier!

@pseg:

I am definitely interested, will take a look at filling out forms this afternoon

I just signed up. Haven't mess around with it that much but would like to more. I have a Logitech g27 and ready to fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.

Really good video PsEG. I know you didn't want to show anyone's real name but what can you do. I'd say in the future it'd maybe be better to use our real names but not our GiantBomb names.

I really like how you never see me screw up in that replay. You manage to cut away right before I spun out right in front of you on turn 1. And then all the times I screwed up on that long left turn after the corkscrew. That turn did me rotten just one time, and then from that point on I never had any confidence going around it. But I managed to avoid the wrecks and got as high as third at one point, so I'll take that as a minor victory. I'd never raced that track before and haven't practiced the MX-5 much, but I definitely learned a lot by the end of the race. Watching the video makes me anxious to get back out there and do better.

That ending though, wow. I heard you guys in the chat talking about Slowbird's internet flaking out at the last second, but until now I had no idea it was literally the last second of the race when it happened. At least it wasn't an official race, but all the same, what a finish.

@hayfourzee is a dude that is generally pretty good at racing games. Seeing him finish three laps down has my iRacing fear level at an all time high.

You might be able to get away with using a gamepad, but really, you're going to need a wheel if you want to be competitive/safe.

How demanding on your computer is this game?

@alwaysbebombing: Not very demanding at all. Most of the work is taking place on the iRacing servers. A good internet connection is more important than a top of the line computer.

Awesome. I really think I am going to get into this.

Ordered my Racing wheel yesterday, once i get that i'll see what i can do with jumping in on this.

Yeah my PC is a 5 year old mid-range gaming PC and I run it with a lot of settings up high, at 1080p, with AA and I get a solid 60FPS (occasional dips to 50 or so). Unless your PC is really terrible, that won't be an issue at all.

@chaser324: It was just an unlucky race for me. I got rear-ended during the pace lap and got hit trying to get around an accident on the second lap. Forcing me to pit and losing me 5 minutes of time.

@pseg: I would very much be interested in joining your automotive club my good man!

Thanks for all the feedback on the video! I was waffling this morning over whether to make the video public or not due to my commentary, but finally decided "fuck it, I can't control the Internet's filter," made it public on YouTube, and tweeted it out. I'll definitely post more of these when we run more events in the future, since I like to spend time re-watching past races anyways. Next time, though, I'll try to put together notes on where to focus each lap. Wasn't happy with how I panned aimlessly around the track mid-race.

Hitting on a few more points brought up:

To be perfectly honest, I knew the pace lap was going to be chaotic, just not in the way I expected with the fast car and all. We'll probably have a mix of starts over time, but I tend to prefer rolling starts, so you'll likely see more of those in events of my creation. Wilder-looking starts and a good opportunity to practice lane discipline.

I kind of misspoke in the video in this regard. An overlay for the viewer would be great, but I'd like to be able to see timing and scoring on another screen to better tell where battles and incidents are occurring. Then again, any programs for that probably suffer from the same issues as the overlay programs do with replays. Ideally, I'd love to be able to have a tablet that I can use to remotely control cameras and car focus, as well, but that's getting somewhat pie in the sky.

I did try the iRTVO overlay program, and while it's interesting and has some potential I still need to play around with, a windowed iRacing drops from 84 FPS to 24 FPS when it loses focus on my computer. Not great for recording purposes.

If it has anything to do with the pause every time I switch cars and try to identify the driver, rest assured that's because of me struggling to identify them on the results print-out I had. I have a few ideas on improving that in the future without much work.

In regards to revealing real names, though, I feel a little awkward about that. I know we all know each other by real name in-game because we have to, and that's totally fine, and our GB usernames are sometimes a little silly to say out loud, but I don't want to risk inadvertently "outing" anyone's real name against their wishes. It's the same reason the roster's private (or should be, at least) until you join, since I have your real names and GB usernames linked there.

@pseg: For the record, I don't really care if you use my real name in future replays. Additionally, any idea if there's going to be a race this weekend? I'm going to post a new topic in a minute, since I kind of want to host a race this Saturday afternoon around 2 or 3 PM MST. I don't want to overlap with anything you're doing here, though, so I'm happy to move it if it does.

@skullcrushermountain: No plans for a race this weekend, as I'm going to be in Indianapolis this weekend at GenCon. If it's a race for Giant Bomb and you'd like it on the league's dollar, you can PM me the details and I'll set it up, pay, and set you as a race admin.

Either way, hope it goes well and would like to know the turnout/results!

Do we have a league logo? If not, is there anyone here who could make us a logo?

Because if we had a logo, see, I could put the logo on dumb shit like giveaway promo pens, and then anyone in the league could have their own personal Giant Bomb Racing League pen to do shit with, like write and stuff...

(I'm just saying we could do that, not saying we have to...)

C'MON GUYS YOU KNOW YOU WANT ME TO BUY 375 DUMB PROMO PENS WITH A DUMB LOGO ON THEM AND MAIL A FEW OUT TO VARIOUS PEOPLE WHO ASK FOR ONE.

There is word about.

Don't buy the pens, Slowbird.

@pseg: Ok, cool. I'm not sure if I'm going to limit it to just GB racing league members, or set up a GB centric password. But I think I can swing a buck. Kind of cool that it's only $0.50 an hour for a hosted race.

Also, @pseg I'm not sure how it works, but I know in league races there is a way for users to show a nickname instead of their real name. The figure-8 league I joined has a few people who race under nicknames.

@slowbird: That's a cool feature and all, but it really doesn't serve a purpose in terms of the replay videos, since I'm trying to avoid showing any of the menu system there, and names would thus be hidden anyways.

@pseg: Just too many self mistakes on my end, like you said trying to be too aggressive. That tends to be my crutch in some races (damn I hate that turn before the corkscrew).

Also for future reference you can just call me "Dew" or by my real name if you want. My usernames are usually Dew or TheDew, but if those are taken I just use "thee." It's kind of dumb so "Dew" might just be easier.

This was a lot of fun. I can't wait for the next race so I can try to redeem myself. Thanks again Trace for putting all of this together.

EDIT: Also, there is an add-on called iTicker that displays and scrolls the race order on replays on the top of the screen as you're watching it by name. It only updates at the beginning of each new lap, but it might be helpful for the recap videos.

DOUBLE EDIT: Just realized that would defeat the purpose of you not wanting to use people's real names. I'm not sure if you can set it up by nicknames or not.

That FPS drop on loss of focus is actually a "feature" of iRacing. You can disable it in your app.ini (My Documents/iRacing). Under the "[Graphics]" heading, change reduceFramerateWhenFocusLost to 0.

If our real names are going to end up on the screen in these videos, I say just go with it. It's not like we have any way of hiding our real names in iRacing. Who knows what all videos each of us might show up in during our time with this game. If you play iRacing then your name is in the public.

I don't care if someone sees my name, but I'm not crazy about people connecting my real name with my GB name. To me, that's more information than I necessarily want the world to know. I don't really mind that the people in our league know who's who, but if videos are going to be posted on youtube with commentary where anyone can see, I'd rather not have both my real name and my fake name told to everyone.

Anyway, that's my take on it. If I had the choice, my real name wouldn't even be in iRacing at all, I'd just be Maxx and everyone would know me by that name. But iRacing doesn't allow us to do that. Might as well just embrace the real names and then not worry about what's shown in replays.

\o/ 2nd last looser baby, them cars be slippery.

Hey guys, don't forget, since Pa PsEG's away, I'm holding a race on Saturday at 2 PM MST (-7 UTC). It's going to be the Skippy at Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve!

Come let me know if you're going to be there over here!

Just applied in iRacing. About to fill out the Google Form.

Ok I applied.

Sign me up! I'm not always available, but I'd love to participate in some events.

I'm back, and caught up on applications. I'm also about to boot two unknowns in the league, so if the booting process is as buggy as the acceptance process and people are accidentally removed, simply re-apply and I'll get you back in.

Next Sunday, I'm going to try another test race from 1-3 PM EDT. I think Lime Rock is the ideal track for this, and the cars will be Pontiac Solstices, Ford Spec Racers, and Skip Barber Formula 2000s. Pick whichever you like the most, and rest assured that this odd group of cars is being used for a Legitimate Testing Purpose™.

More details to follow in the next few days.

Just applied. My schedule is all over the place, just like my driving. This looks like a lot of fun.

I'll probably take a Skippy.

You should put a warning somewhere for multi-class races. When you join the session and you're given a choice of vehicle, make sure you choose the right one, because you cannot change it once you've chosen.

Yep, and for exact same reason it would be nice to know which car people are driving. Is there a way to spectate the session before committing to a vehicle? I don't want to chose a class and just race with 2 other people :D

@pseg: By "next sunday" do you mean the 25th or the 1st?

I'm planning on driving the Skippy since I got stuck with the MX-5 last time.

@skullcrushermountain: But surely the Mazda Miata is the car for the king of kings!

The next league race is the 25th.

Choose wisely.

@pseg: PsEGACHU, I CHOOSE YOUUUUUUUUUU!

I have just signed up again, Brian McIntyre

@mccrash: Thanks! Sorry I booted you, but I didn't have any information to indicate you were "one of us" at the time. If you could fill out the extended application when you get a chance, it'd be greatly appreciated, as I don't have one filled out for you at the moment.

Wont be making this weeks race, 1-3pm sunday in US time puts it way out of possibility on monday for me.

Any specifics on tomorrow's race yet? (length, etc.)