SimHQ.com - Motorsports Zone: Preview: iRacing

This past week our longtime friend and fellow SimHQ staff colleague Jens "McGonigle" Lindblad announced that now that his NDA was concluded, he was able to say he had been involved with iRacing as a tester for nearly four years! Here is Jens first report on the new sim.

Introduction

With the 2003 release of NASCAR Racing 2003 Season, an era ended. Papyrus subsequently lost the NASCAR license and as a consequence closed its doors to the despair of many a sim racing aficionado. Under the headings of Project Wildfire, ex-Papyrus staff released free add-ons such as tracks and series mods for the venerable sim.

The acronym “FIRST” started appearing and we today know that this abbreviation stands for the Federation of International Simracing, the sanctioning body overseeing races using the iRacing simulator.

Since the demise of Papyrus and then Project Wildfire, we have heard precious little about the development of the new sim, so little in fact that some of us were beginning to hum to the old Tom Lehrer tune these slightly changed lyrics, “Whatever became of Kaemmer?”.

After almost five years of waiting, Dave Kaemmer and many of the former Papyrus staff are back with a little help from John Henry Esqr., Boston Red Sox MLB team owner and co-owner of the Roush NASCAR Racing Team.

Dave Kaemmer and John Henry founded the company iRacing, and now we are finally about to see what they have been doing to bring sim racing forward to the next level.

Having had the great privilege and honor of watching the work progress and driving this sim during a prolonged test period and in many races, SimHQ has experienced firsthand over a period of time how the new software that will step in the footprints of legendary titles such as IndyCar Racing/CART, Grand Prix Legends and NASCAR Racing 2003 Season, works.

We think iRacing succeeds very nicely indeed, in establishing a new benchmark for racing sim realism with second to none force feedback, driving physics, online code and an entirely fresh look at what a sim should be about in terms of league management and ranking system - while still retaining and expanding upon that unrivalled magic feel that many of us associate with the Papyrus titles.

iRacing succeeds so well, that it is difficult to see one self going back to other sims.

“We are about to launch an amazing product. We could wait a year or so to add more features, but we'd rather begin building this sport as is. Why should we wait for everything or for anything. This is just the beginning.”

- John Henry

The scenery of iRacing

Go To Page 2

Click here to go to top of this page.