SimHQ.com - Motorsports Zone - Driving rFactor: A Fast Lap at Toban Raceway Park's Short Track

Simulation Title: rFactor
Developer: Image Space Incorporated (ISI)
Racing Mod / Series: German Sim Mod Foundation's (GSMF) Porsche Carrera Cup (PCC) '05
Venue: Toban Raceway Runoffs
Location: Toban, Indiana (USA)
Dimensions: 1.6 mi (2.6 km), 12 turns
Details: Short road course at Toban, used for smaller cars, amateur/club racing (e.g. SCCA)
Rules: Full Flag Rules
Weather: Sunny, 10 AM, 25°C
Difficulty: Auto Clutch - ON
Comments: A great track for beginners, short and easy to memorize but with plenty of challenge.

Introduction

In the past few weeks you might have noticed a bit of a theme emerging from the editorial offices of SimHQ. It would seem as if we can't stop talking about ISI's rFactor, and all of it in a glowing, "fanboi" hype. There's a good reason for this: THE GAME IS REALLY GOOD. Great physics, rock-solid multiplayer code, eye-catching graphics, strong support from the developers, and an ever-growing lineup of superbly crafted mods. The motorsports staff here at SimHQ has adopted rFactor as their sim-of-choice for online racing sessions, and rFactor's goodness has even started creating converts from our aviation ranks (welcome, 20mm!). But it's obvious to us from our rFactor Forum numbers and the results of our Best of 2005 Readers Poll and 2005 - A Year in Review article that there's precious little visibility for this great title with the sim racing community. Our goal at SimHQ isn't to get you to buy rFactor — that's a personal choice. But we do want to make sure that everyone is at least aware of the entertainment value packed into this great title and the mods that enhance it.

Background: It was over a scrumptious Mexican dinner in a border village south of SimHQ's palatial offices that 20mm pitched his great new idea to me over a pitcher of margaritas: "We should do a 'driver's clinic' at SimHQ, and help sim fans new to motorsports titles learn some advanced driving techniques." 20mm's theory was that folks, armed with SimHQ's driving tips, would be less likely to get frustrated by the hard-core physics of racing sims, and thereby help ease the learning curve.

Although I think 20mm was speaking from personal experience, it's clear that he's not the only one who can be a little "over-challenged" at times by some racing titles. Becoming consistently quick in a high-fidelity racing title requires quite a bit of dedication and concentration, but without a good "vector" on what to do or where to aim the car, it often turns into a frustrating sequence of "trial and error." Everyone's been there, so it seems obvious that a driving clinic would be a welcome addition to the SimHQ archives.

Just as 20mm is learning now, six years ago I too discovered how addictively frustrating a hard-core racing sim can be. My first racing sim was Papyrus' superb Grand Prix Legends. Luckily, GPL debuted in the "milk and honey" era of comprehensive, printed game manuals, and GPL shipped with an absolute gem of a strategy guide titled "Four Wheel Drift," authored by a writer for Car & Driver magazine. I know that I got a great education on driving technique from that strategy guide — one so well written that I would take it with me on business travel as pleasure reading (in much the same way that I enjoyed the manual for Falcon 4.0). Unfortunately, a comprehensive guide is something rFactor doesn't come with — yet. But we're hoping that ISI will fill this void in the near future in their ongoing support of the title (hint hint, ISI!).

Likewise, there's nothing like watching someone else turn laps at a track. You can learn a lot from studying the styles and techniques of other drivers, noting their strengths and weaknesses, their tricks and errors as they negotiate a track. To that end, we'll be providing for download both movie and replay files that reinforce what I'll discuss in this article. As an added bonus, we'll also include the chassis setup used in the making of the replay for you to try out if you so desire.

So, what we have in this article is a homologation of two concepts: Continued visibility for rFactor and its mods among our readers; and a "drivers' clinic" to ease the learning curve of new sim racers. Ultimately my hope is that in the coming months, the Motorsports staff at SimHQ can provide some "how to" guides for attacking the various tracks and mods in rFactor, and along the way provide some driving tips that will help quite a few of you ease into this challenging and rewarding racing simulation title and maximize your entertainment experience.

With that in mind, let's plug our minds into the rFactor "universe" and head off to Toban, Indiana!

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