SimHQ.com - Motorsports Zone: Feature - The Eight Hour Daytona Endurance Race

James Burroughs’ Daytona Road Course v1.1 — a NASCAR Racing 2003 Season conversion — was used for the event. It is available from rFactorCentral here. The track is a combination of the 2.5-mile NASCAR superspeedway tri-oval (interrupted by a chicane on the back straight) and a 7-turn infield road course. The cars run almost the entire length of the banking, which means the circuit is a high-speed affair with multiple heavy braking zones.

Daytona Loading Screen from James Burroughs’ Daytona Road Course v1.1

The Event

Since its inception, SimHQ Motorsports has held four rFactor endurance races. SimHQ uses rFactor for its main endurance racing events because of its large user base, its stable multiplayer, and its driver swapping abilities.

The first was the SimHQ 2.4 Hours of Le Mans, a race run by SimHQ staff to wring out the then-new SimHQ multiplayer server.

After that came The Deuce: 2.4 Hours of Orchard Lake (a fantasy track similar to the Daytona road course) run at 10x time compression so that the lighting could complete a full 24-hour cycle. Download the 22MB 2.4 Hours of Orchard Lake video. Divx plugin required.

Then in June 2007 came the real test. A full-length simulation of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, with teams of four and driver swaps. While enthusiasm ran high and excitement for the event was strong, the event was quite a technical disaster plagued with restarts, disconnects and the always present driver swapping difficulties. You see, rFactor driver swapping is a rather finicky process, and the SimHQ organizers weren’t really aware of everything that was needed to be done for such a complex project. The ill-fated 24 Hours of Le Mans race did make the participants hungry for another attempt. Download the 25MB 24 Hours of Le Mans video. Divx plugin required.

SimHQ’s latest endurance race was a full-length simulation of the Indy 500 with no driver swaps. The event went off without a hitch.

After considerable discussion among the racers, it was suggested [wisely by Joe! - "guod"] there should be a series of preliminary events leading-up to the 2008 Le Mans race attempt. That was the basis of The Eight Hour Daytona Endurance Race. It was to be first and foremost a test. A fun test, but a test.

SimHQ has had two major upgrades to the original game server and a new host, so hardware and bandwidth wasn't anticipated to be a problem.

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