SimHQ.com - Motorsports Zone - Racing Online: A SimHQ-er's Vignette

But #6’s time as the 4th place car was short lived. He made a very small error at the T1 entry, just enough for me to build a speed advantage at the T1/T2 apex and carry that through to the inside line on the back straight. We went into T3 side by side, almost a mirror image of the previous lap, but with me on the inside line. As we exited T4, he came on with the throttle a little too early or with his nose not quite set for the turn, and wound up pushing his car hard against the wall. The concrete barrier scrubbed off enough energy that I easily slid by in the inside, regaining the 4th position once more.

He came on with the throttle a little too early or with his nose not quite set for the turn...

#6 goes into the wall.

And 4th is where I stayed through the finish. All that side by side racing had worn down my tires, making me a tad slower than the lead cars. In the end I was 7 seconds behind the winner, but I didn't care. It was some of the most exciting racing I had ever experienced online. What a rush.

No victory but fantastic racing!

My hat is off to all the great hobbyists in that race who ran clean, drove fair, and simulated the professionalism that hallmarks the real world racing that the development team at Papyrus strove to simulate so well with NASCAR Racing 2003 Season. That’s one online race I’m not soon to forget.

Editor’s Note: If you’re a dyed-in-the-wool flight simmer and don’t think a good racing simulation is your cup of tea, you might want to reconsider. There are some extremely challenging and rewarding racing simulations out there that demand many of the same mental and physical skills as a high end flight sim, and offer tremendous “bang for the buck” in terms of entertainment value. I’d highly recommend NASCAR Racing 2003 Season as one of these values. You won’t master it overnight, or over a few weeks, but with patience you’ll find it to be one of the most addicting simulation title’s you’ve ever owned.

If you're interested in trying some online racing in a warm, friendly environment geared towards learning and sharing this great genre of our hobby with your fellow SimHQ-ers, keep your eyes on the SimHQ Motorsports Forum here to see when and where folks are racing online. If you ask around, I think you'll find that everyone that's participated in the SimHQ sessions so far has had a great time racing online with each other.

Chunx's #56 car is from #1 Racing and is available in their Fictional Cars area here.

System Specs

Intel Pentium 4 3 GHz CPU (Retail, with heat sink and fan)
Asus P4C800 Deluxe mother board
1GB of Corsair 3200/400 DDR Ram (2x 512 MB DIMMS)
GeForce 4 Ti4400 video card
Creative Audigy 2 ZS sound card
IBM hard disk drive
DirectX Version 9.0b
Windows XP Pro with SP1
Logitech Momo Racing FF wheel

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