SimHQ.com - Motorsports Zone: Review: ARCA Sim Racing

What is ARCA you may ask? ARCA is the Automobile Racing Club of America. Why is it important? ARCA is like the minor league for NASCAR. The “Farm Club” if you will, like other major league sports teams have. It’s where the newest talent starts to be seen by big league scouts for their chance in “The Show”. Many of your favorite oval track stock car greats had a start in the ARCA Remax series, and your future NASCAR favorite driver will likely come from the same league.

Why a “minor league” sim? Every great driver started from the bottom and worked their way up. It just so happens that the development team for ASR (ARCA Sim Racing) has an actual interest in the ARCA Remax series… to the point of being a partial owner of an actual team.

“Real Racing”?

Yeah… real racing. I had the opportunity to talk with Rob Coulter of The Sim Factory on the phone a couple times about the new sim while it was in early development. He mentioned he used real world data from real world drivers in the actual ARCA Remax series. As a partial owner of a real ARCA team, he would quiz his drivers after a race or practice session at the track for actual data, and have them drive the sim in the beta stages for input about specific track conditions about how the car should handle. Listed in the credits you’ll see some people you’ve heard of before who have helped with technical assistance or beta test driving. People such as Dale Earnhardt Jr, Martin Truex, and AJ Allmendinger. Yeah, it’s that real. Those same real drivers along with many more have also been seen on a few online race servers from time to time so you may just find yourself driving with the pros if you’re lucky.

Real Racing

I’ve been waiting for the release of this sim for quite some time. I started my own sim racing career a few years ago with NASCAR 4 and NASCAR Sim Racing, although I wasn’t too serious about stock car racing sims at the time. I raced N4 online at Papyrus and generally had a good time, but was still driving with my Sidewinder flight stick and was never very proficient. I started driving rFactor on SimHQ Motorsports a couple years ago and really got the bug to compete with other drivers, although mainly on road courses with open wheelers or GT tintops.

ASR was supposed to be launched during Daytona SpeedWeeks… 2007. We’re used to hearing “two weeks” from developers if they’re running behind schedule… but this ended up being “one year” from the original announced release date. "Hang in there, it’s not so bad" I said to myself. After all, we want quality no matter how long it takes rather than a quick fix that will leave a sour taste in our mouths right?

Hearing that ASR was finally released for ordering, I jumped onboard, slapped down my $49.99 (plus shipping charges) and ordered a copy of the DVD-ROM. The ordering process went smoothly. Within a week I had a yellow soft-pack envelope with an ARCA Sim Racing PC-DVD in my mailbox. Maybe a little odd for simmers of today, but there is no downloadable version of ASR to purchase… only the “snail mail” option.

The packaging isn’t all that impressive. I’d hoped to see at least a car on it or some screenshots on the back. I suppose if this stays mail order only and never goes on retail store shelves, then it doesn’t really matter. It’s just a plain black DVD game case with ASR and the ARCA Remax logo on front with The Sim Factory logo and credits on the back. There are no system requirements listed on the game case. Guess they figure everything you need to know about it is on The Sim Factory web site.

Initially, there was not a manual available for ASR. That has since been resolved and a PDF manual is available for download here.

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