I installed CrewChief and had some chatter during my hotlapping which is cool. Can this be set up to use voice recognition to say change pit strategies. That's one of the things I love about F1 20xx. I've just scratched the surface so far with this app. But I think it will be indispensable. I also noticed RaceRoom supports Track IR, and I should give that a go and see how I like it. I think I would and it would give me a sort of middle ground between fixed view and VR. Worth a go anyway.

After those early stints in this X-17 rocketsled I felt like I could do better. The setup wasn't dialed in all that much yet and i was making mistakes, which I expect getting accustomed to this car on this track. A better setup would reduce mistakes, or so it should be. I experimented with gear ratios and final drive. I'm getting in to 7th gear as I exit on to the long backstraight near the end of the lap, so I'm max rev down basically the whole thing. But stretching out the gearing didn't net any improvement and actually the car struggled to wind it out, maybe because it's uphill. So I had to go back to the default. It was about 10km/h difference at the peak speed. I'm running high aero, especially at the back, and I increased the power side of the diff to tame the exits a bit. Made everything just a touch softer on the suspension.

First stint I improved, but was still locking up too much in the heaviest braking zones like Steilstrecke is it called? The righthander before the Karussell. But I never know if I'm locking the fronts or the rears, but now I have Crew Chief! He told me it was the fronts. Dialed the bias back two more clicks and then turned this lap

I just pulled over here in the first turn after crossing the line, it looks worse than it is

This is a very fast car

I said earlier that the 5:35 was 'over thirty seconds' slower than the fastest lap submitted on the leaderboard. Actually it was 45. The top time is a 4:50.2! Around the Nordschleife! That's insane. But with this 5:19 I'm 29 seconds off the pace. 5:19. I just can't get over these lap times, not that I drove that fast, but that the car can go that fast. And with a better driver it can go much faster haha. Here's the Nordschleife leaderboard for all car classes in RaceRoom. The X-17 dominates proceedings as we would expect. I'm 74th at the mo.

RaceRoom Nordschleife leaderboard

I talked above about an article I read comparing lap times in various car classes to establish a pace hierarchy. Found it

How fast is F1 compared to IndyCar, WEC, Super Formula and more

Being quite impotent at learning such a long track, and playing with a controller, I had to find a potent car, to at least hold the trophy until one of you read this post, found the car, ran it and beat my time by a minute.

Anyway, even if I fried my brain at this speed, there it is:

4.48 something. Not pretty, not good, but fun

What a lap!

I hadn't accounted for fictional cars, but I did say 'any car' so I'll allow it

I think your lap will stand a while as Frank is too old to go that fast and I have no 1500 horsepower batmobiles lol.

Last night I drove the Saleen, the Indy Car, Formula 3 and a couple more in RR. And also the 2022 F1 car in AMS2.

Gotta say I am really liking Race Room. The driving's great in this one.

I got the Indy Car down to 5:47 and no longer last on the leaderboard.

Non fictional, but still fast, even with me behind the wheel, Alonso's ride:

5.38

Great lap and cool car.

Sub-six at the Ring, congrats (after you'd already done a sub-five)

I'm having a lot of fun taking a mix of whips around the Nordschleife in leaderboard mode in RaceRoom. Last night I did more laps in the 488, dialing in the setup and turning a 6:55, and the Pagani Zonda, which was five seconds faster. The Zonda has limited chassis setup options, but is a fast car even so. I drove a number of Porsches. But as I've said the game features no specifications, and I have no idea how each of these compares. At minimum I want weight, power and weight distribution. Is that too much to ask? Apparently so. Motor type would be nice too.

When I got in to AMS2 I did so in part because it has a great rep as an open-wheel sim. But I'm liking RR a bit more I have to say. I drove the V-8 X-90 I think it's called, a representative 1990's F1 car. There's a V-8, V-10 and V-12 version. Pretty cool. No TC on these cars. Turned a 5:58 which is top ten on a sparsely populated board and 23 seconds off the top time. I'll give the V-10 and V-12 a run out as well. I like that the leaderboards are on the net so I can check them anytime and see where I stand and how the lap times are distributed.

https://game.raceroom.com/leaderboard/

Use the dropdowns to select car and track in the upper right

Since getting back in to this a few months ago I reckon I've driven more distance on the Nordschleife than I have on every other track combined. Love this track.

I would probably be more in the 10mn range with damage turned on, this track is scary at these speeds !

Anyone up for starting this up again? I do a lot of hotlapping for the leaderboards and doing these challenges was a lot of fun. Just throwing it out there. Any car, any track, any sim, it don't matta to me!

Well I shouldn't say 'any sim' as I probably don't have them all, but must be close

Would anyone consider this a challenge?

What sim Is that on?

That’s Assetto Corsa, the hotlap challenge in AC Manager.

Thanks Jens, will try that out too. Just trying to shave off some mils on the NSU and I´ll give that a spin.

Why yes, we would indeed

A nice surprise on a beautiful Sunday morning. Hadn't fired up AC since October of '22, according to Steam. But there's a old time rocketsled challenge at old school Monza and that's like a moth to a flame, isn't it? Thanks Jens.

Struggled at first. I had a setup saved, but it wasn't very good for me, today, so I spent a number of stints exploring and tweaking. Lesmos 1 was just killing me. Too wide, or lose the rear, or tip toe through and go too slow. I had to change the balance and did so with springs, roll bars, diff and more. Got the car in a better place, but never did put all my sectors together. I think there's a 28 in there somewhere. I could use a better turn marker in to Ascari, and Grande and Parabolica are so inconsistent. Such a simple track, but a massive challenge to go fast here.

29-flat

An awesome laptime Derek! I surrender!

Surrender? Pfft, time to dig in and deploy the reserves to counterattack

Such a different feel to AC. I know many players love it, and especially the physics and force feedback, but I prefer some of the others here. Subjective.

AC however does have gobs of content, and a lot of achievements and challenges. My son likes it for drifting. I bought him exactly the same setup I have, same wheel and seat, plus a H-shifter which I don't have. He drives AC and BeamNG mostly

OK, I've got one. Formula Junior at Nordschliefe

FJR @ der Nurburgring

I see one of us gave it a go

Just a random tip.... I wasn't happy with the gearing, so I shortened the ratio by one click and the car came alive. You cannot adjust individual gear spacing, only the ratio. I picked up quite a few seconds when I did this, and was able to keep it in a better rev range throughout the lap.

Thanks for the tip Derek. I’ll try and give that a go. I must admit to being tempted by other combination this week end. Apart from the competition re the Porsche @ Imola and the DTM @ Red Bull Ring, I reaquainted myself with Charade and the Crosslé. I can’t remember what times we did back then but I managed a decent-ish lap.

I also took the Formula US car to Mid-Ohio, the Glen, Road America. Sonoma and Laguna Seca must wait their turn another day. Mid-Ohio is just such a super course, a blast.

I'm saying ratio but that's the wrong word. Final ratio perhaps, or final gear I think it is called here.

Love Mid-Ohio. When I came back to RR a couple weeks ago the first track I hit in the 296 was Mid-Ohio. A real driver's track, this. Last night I took the Formula X-17 out at Nordschliefe and turned a 5:21. Around the Ring! Blistering speed around such a track. Absolutely amazing experience.

Did you do the Charade laps in leaderboard?

yes I did. All the laps I did were on the leaderboard.