SimHQ.com - Motorsports Zone - Feature: The SimHQ 2.4 Hours of Le Mans

The 24 Hours of Le Mans is one of the most well recognized races in the world. Even non-racing fans recognize the name of the event, much like the Indy 500 or the Dakar Rally. With the popularity of online racing growing in the SimHQ community, "guod" brought up the idea of hosting our own Le Mans event the same weekend of the actual race. After countless e-mail exchanges, mostly between our resident racing experts, "Chunx", "Jens" and "guod", the decision was made to run a 2.4 hour race using rFactor. Our race took place on Saturday, June 17th and this is the story of our experience.

The race was run using rFactor and community mods including the add-on track and Proto Demon cars. We also used German Sim Mod Foundation's (GSMF) Porsche Carrera Challenge (PCC) mod, and Dave's All Car Challenge 2 mod. This allowed us to have multiple classes driving at the same time, like the real race. A complete circuit of the Circuit de la Sarthe is 13.65 km long and takes between 3:30 and 5 min to complete a lap, depending on car series and driver skill level. The track features long straights, sweeping high speed turns and occasional heavy braking zones and sharp corners. As a novice racer (this would be my 2nd time racing online) I left it up to the experts in the group to figure out the types of cars we would run as well as the different variables such as environmental conditions, damage levels, and both the number of artificial intelligence (AI) drivers and their relative skill levels.

The Le Mans Circuit.

One thing I was disappointed in was the sameness of the human racer's cars: they were all Proto-Racer Demons. But in practice, we all decided that the Demon was the weapon of choice for La Sarthe. The McLaren F1 was faster, but more unstable and required a bit too much work for a long race. In retrospect, I'd have chosen a different car just to mix things up. But the Demon was a treat to drive on this particular circuit. – "Chunx"

Talking with "Chunx" before the practice session started I learned that he was bringing the Demon, and since my off-line practice earlier in the day had revealed that the Howston, which I really love to drive, was 30 to 40 seconds slower a lap than the Demon, and very hard to drive consistently, I gave up on that idea. Next, I realized that in order to run somewhat competitively, I’d also have to go back to left-foot braking; right foot braking with my DFP cost me about 10 seconds per lap. – Jens

"Chunx'" ride.

The SimHQ 2.4 Hours of Le Mans was interesting in that there were two primary challenges to face. The first was the technical challenge of getting all of us together, at the same time, using the correct mods, all the while using the new SimHQ.net game server (which was in it's testing phase) for both the hosting of the race and the hosting of our TeamSpeak connection. I am amazed at how well it worked and our concerns about connectivity for a full two and a half hours of racing turned out to be a non-event. The second challenge was actually driving in the race itself. Prior to this race, I had competed in an online race exactly once. Could I possibly drive for 2.4 hours in a race environment? Would my back get sore? Could I reserve enough time in my day without distraction to allow for the uninterrupted concentration the race would require?

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