(Ruud van Gaal) wrote:

> Like everything else, being on the cutting edge of cars
> means you have to have serious skill to be any good with
> it. I've seen very few.

The iRacing Dallara isn't very popular on iRacing (so far, perhaps due to the A/B+
requirement, perhaps due to the race lengths, or the need to buy even more content)
but it is very easy to drive with the right setup. Mind you, I was five or six
seconds off the pace in the races I joined this season, which may explain why it
was so easy for me to stay on the track. I didn't enjoy getting lapped much, but I
did enjoy the fact that even the longest of tracks became fun to drive... and
gaining a few points from the fast guys who fell off. :-)

The Top Gear/Richard Hammond segment where he tried to drive an F1 car was pretty
interesting. Despite his experience in many fast cars he struggled a lot with the
shift up to insane levels of acceleration and grip. But then he also had the whole
danger/fear thing to cope with... and perhaps the threat of being beaten senseless
if he wrecked it. It's a lot easier to find the limits when you have an infinite
supply of cars to break.

Personally the iRacing F1 announcement left me cold. iRacing already has more than
enough tracks & vehicles to keep any serious racer happy for several lifetimes. I
don't subscribe to the view which says 'cheerleading' content is what's stopping
people joining. The slow move towards greater flexibility, and lower pricing, is
what's helped boost numbers so far. Still, it can't do any harm.

I'm more interested in the thought that Spa might (pure guesswork) get released at
the same time. Apart from The Ring it's the only track I really miss from other
sims.

Darn... now I managed to remind myself how much I'd like to experience The Ring
with iRacing's Skip Barber. I'll have to fire up Shift now to scratch the itch.

Andrew McP