(Uwe) wrote:

> Anyone tried the new Lotus F1 car yet?

It's... well, a pretty satisfying hybrid between the lifeless (IMO) Mazda and the
wonderfully 'throwable' Skip Barber. In low speed corners it's relatively easy to
slide and catch the back end a little, which gives you a sense of satisfaction. The
fastest guys seem to be getting round Watkins Glen in about 1:33... only five
seconds faster than me. :->

I've only had one race Wk13 race in it so far, and that was a predictable T1 farce,
followed by about ten cars sat in the pits for about two minutes during the new
'tow'/reset process. Plenty of time to get a drink, bite to eat, and visit the
toilet before restarting. It was so boring it became funny. They might as well ban
all resets altogether, even in Wk 13 & fun races, and be done with it.

Anyway, as the 79 is class B I doubt I'll race it much because the race lengths are
way beyond my comfort zone level. So ultimately it's probably a poor, but
entertaining, investment.

However as I have lost control of my wallet again this week the cost will get lost
in the flood of money pouring down the iDrain. Last weekend I deleted everything on
my computer was all set to give up. A few days later I was spending another $84 on
all the content i needed to enjoy Wk13. It is, after all, when iRacing is relaxed
enough for me to actually enjoy it. And today I forked out even more for the Lotus,
Silverstone, and pre-ordering the Jetta.

iRacing is a disease, not a hobby. I now have 24 hours to decide whether to be
tempted by the current $25 bonus for a year's subscription. With about $400
(!</swoon>) locked up in iRacing content now I guess it's stupid to let that rot.

While I'm here, one feature in the new build which is pretty impressive is the new
Triplehead handling. You can now configure the three screens to be rendered as
either one continuous screen, or three separate panels, entering the angle of those
side screens and some other parameters, to produce genuine 'windows' you can
configure to suit your setup. It's a bit more graphically demanding, slowing my
setup down a little too much in places, but it's definitely superior to the normal
setup.

Andrew McP... getting increasingly assimilated despite his continuing frustrations
with the service wrapped around that great sim code.

PS In the last 12 week season there were more than 7000 active racers. That's quite
a big jump, thanks to the various promotions. It'll be interesting to see how many
of those 'stick'.