That does look fun.

Too bad we can't tempt you back to the tarmac, as I would have been interested to see what you could do with the Crosslé.

I slung it around the Nordschliefe and ran a 8:45. Not exactly a screamer this car, but fun to drive. Like driving a Cooper

The MP4/6 is now the second-fastest car I've taken round the Ring. 5:39 in AMS2. But I'm still nearly 20 seconds behind the top time. Having an issue with terminal velocity. There are four places on this track where you really open it out, but I'm maxing top speed well before the end of each section, and I suspect this is where I'm losing time. Making fifth and sixth gear taller isn't netting higher top speed. So how to find that extra top end? Skinnier wings would help, but you can only lose so much downforce and still turn a fast time. A bit of a puzzle, this.

I was reading some dev updates and one of the things Reiza have planned is a big focus on improving the career/season/championship modes in 2023. They didn't got in to much detail about what that might mean, but I hope they succeed. Over the past year I've bought a bunch of racing sims. But only two of them really have a satisfying career or championship mode. F1 22 is far and away the best, and ACC is good too. The rest it feels like an afterthought, like the devs knew they had to have something and did the minimum. rFactor, AMS2, RaceRoom and even AC have barebones championship modes. I bought two rally games but never gave them much of a look. Maybe I should. I've read that at least one of them has a great career mode (WRC10 or Dirt 2.0?)

Frank, what makes the World of Outlaws career fun? What do you think is good about it?

Derek, you start your career basically as a nobody with just enough money to either buy a Street Stock or a 305 Sprint car.
Then you try to earn money during your first local season to upgrade your car to get more competitive. With better results you get more sponsorship opportunities to get even more money.

At the start of the season you´re a one man team but you get the chance to hire more personel to get better sponsor deals and lower the repair costs or purchase new parts with a discount. More and better personel will be available throughout your career.
As your car gets better you probably get better results which then will probably allow you to switch from a local championship to a regional championship. Either in the same car or in a new car which you need to buy then. And the competition gets more fierce the higher you go in the season.

While you can be competitive in a local season with a half upgraded car, the regional or national seasons require much better/expensive upgrades. The difficulty settings play a big part too of course.

The constant need to reinvest in your team to stay competitive, while learning new more difficult cars on different tracks with better opponnents is the main attraction for me in the World of Outlaws career. Plus the driving experience is just intense!
It feels just great to be constantly on the car/track limits. Maybe belonging to iRacing now helped them in the physics/AI development?

The homepage of the game gives a much better and more detailed description of the career features: WoO Career

BTW WRC10 has a much better career option than Dirt 2.0 imo. It´ s really fun if you can enjoy the game´s driving physics.

Thanks Frank, sounds like the progression is compelling and that's good. Climbing the ranks through rewards to your own performance is always a good way to go.

Is it only on consoles? I had a look during the Steam sale but they don't have it I guess.

Yes, console only unfortunately.

Time to "borrow" that playstation from your son...

He has joined the dark side. I bought him his first PC for Christmas. Faster than dad's!

First thing he did was drift in Assetto Corsa haha

So yeah, I guess the consoles are free game now.

Agree with what? The career/championship thing? Or that the MP4/6 is my second fastest Ring ride?

Welcome to SimHQ.

My last post makes it look like I've lost it. But there had been a post from some new guy who then deleted it.

Not much activity around here, but I'm still racing. I've been spending time in both AMS2 and F1 22.

In AMS2 I'm mostly driving the classic McLaren F1 cars like Senna's MP4s, the /4, /5B and /6. The MP4/6 is a hell of a rocket sled, with a big V12, and incidentally is the last F1 car to win a title with a manual transmission. I probably already said this in this thread. I'm mainly doing leaderboards hotlapping. I've nicked a few records too. Spielberg Short Course is mine

In F1 22 I just started the fifth season of my current My Team career with Exocet F1. My teammate is Theo Pourchaire. It's been a steady climb from the bottom, and we now have the best car on the grid by some margin. Last night I drove races 2 and 3 of the fifth season, winning Australia and coming home third in Miami, which Oscar Piastri won to claim his first win in Formula 1. I've talked extensively in this and the F1 thread about how dynamic My Team is, as teams rise and fall down the years. In the current season, which would be 2026 Merc are the fifth fastest team after Exocet, Red Bull, McLaren and Ferrari. Aston Martin have been the slowest car on the grid, but recent development upgrades have seen them vault over Haas for the moment.

AMS2 keeps improving. The latest update added Historic Nordschliefe 1971. It's a fantastic rendition too. This is the version that contains the north and south loops that we raced in GPL. I fired it up and took out a Brabham BT26A. GPL with wings basically.

Honestly I crashed out or timed out by running wide on the first fifteen attempts, but then I put one together just because I was tired of starting over, and with the rubber now up I turned a better second lap. Turned these laps in time trial, because why not right? 40 seconds off the best I think, so plenty to improve. Took the default setup, raised ride height a little, added wing, shifted the brakes back, stiffened both ARBs and reversed the differential, 50/45 instead of 45/50. There's work to do as it steps out too easily under a heavy boot, and I lock up too easily. Need more finess in my feet.

It is a fantastic motoring experience

It certainly looks the part.

Yes, and it sounds the part too. Just glorious. Lots of fun running this routing of the Nordschliefe. Really takes you back.

And they also added the Gesamtstrecke, the full course, 28 kilometers long.

The amount of tantrums I’ve thrown because of The Green Hell biting me is atronomical.

I can dig that. I've fouled up a thousand times, literally, at the Ring down the years. But I never lose my cool. It's the challenge of mastering such a track that makes me determined to get right back on the horse. Back in the day we only had this track in GPL. But now I've got it in AC, RR, AMS2 and rFactor. And having so many versions is wonderful. Full course, historic, GP, 24-hour and so on.

Since getting back in to the racing thing a year or two ago I've probably dropped 1/2 of my time at the Ring, and its various iterations. Half at the Ring, and half everywhere else. It just holds a mystique and is so much fun to drive. Last year I did that thread where I took out a few dozen cars in RaceRoom to see how fast I could lap the track. That was a lot of fun. And a hell of a lot of laps!

In GPL if you fouled up you had to start over by coming all the way around. In these modern sims it's just a couple clicks and you're back at the start of the lap. Much easier to hotlap now.

Hit the Ring again last night. Took the Brabby back out and shaved 5 seconds, 8:06, Still plenty of time to find, but getting there. 30 seconds off the best lap in class. Not going to find that, but I can make a dent.

Then I swapped to the car that seems to have become my main ride in AMS2, the McLaren MP4/6. What a car. Clocked a 6:26 to make the top ten, but that's only because not many have driven this car/track combination.

It's just so much freakin' fun to rip around the Ring. I was having such a good time it made me wish we had been able to generate some interest in racing here at SimHQ. What fun this would be with a crew of like minded people. Hotlapping is great, and racing against the AI is good too. But it doesn't have the enduring appeal that online racing does. So after a few weeks I'm on to something else. League racing would change that. But I don't care to do public much, so there I am.

Anyway, Automobilista is a great automobile simulator.

Didn´ t touch my wheel for quite awhile after last year´s spike of interest here with ACC, F22 and AMS2. But the historic version of the Nordschleife sure looks tempting.

Public online racing, even when it´s perfectly regulated for different skill levels like iRacing for example simply doesn´t do it for me either. It´s convenient and competitive but at the end of a race you just leave and that´s it till the start of the next race.
Sure you get some nice statistics to show off and a seasonal ranking. Maybe I would have cared when I was younger, but no more at my age.

There are long time members here at SimHQ like McGonigle (Jens) and semmern, who I used to race with in GPL in the early 2000´s with my first ever small online racing community, the ADC (Average Drivers Club).
Was getting up early after only some hours of sleep doing nightshifts at sunday morning to get into some friendly racing competition with guys from all over the world.
Where the fast guys would always pick the slower cars to level the playing field and winning was never the main concern, but close and fair racing.

Got the same feeling later racing together with Derek, Mark, Jussi and other members from Frugalsworld in GPL and GTR2.
And in small league racing in iRacing shortly after it was launched in 2010.
After those times the genre probably got more popular, the grids bigger but I lost interest.

Don't forget Crash Test Dummies, unless of course you were not part of that. Jussi and Brooks' site.

Yeah, I'd be all over a racing league here at SimHQ... <redacted as it serves no point nor profit>....

So that leaves hotlapping

Motorin' through the countryside. Lotus 49, or thereabouts, at Nordschliefe 1971 in AMS2. Actually called Formula Vintage Gen 1 Model 1 in the sim. But you slap these colors on it and good enough. Had more difficulty getting to grips with this car/track and setup than the Brabham with wings. After some trial and error, mostly error, I got it settled down with some soft springs and a GPL-like differential. 70/35/4 I think at the moment. Got one timed lap at a decent clip.



It does indeed, doesn't it?

Far away across the field
The tolling of the iron bell
Calls the faithful to their knees
To hear the softly spoken magic spell

How an image like this does not elicit an avalanche of oohs and ahhs I cannot understand

On August 18th, 2006 I turned my fastest ever lap at der Nurburgring in Grand Prix Legends, at 8:04.966. It was the culmination of countless hours of practice and racing. So that personal class record has stood for nearly 17 years. But last night it fell, and I knocked off a second haha.

A few years ago we had a thread in Community Hall about GPL, and several of us posted our GPL Rank page, showing our chassis/track PBs, so I have the record of my best laps, in each car. Of course AMS2 is not GPL, and who knows how much different the physics are, the grip levels, the aero, the car and all the rest. But who cares, it feels great to drive, and having this particular version of the Nordschliefe is wonderful. When I am coming around the second loop after the start finish, I'm taken back to those days. Standing on the throttle with the back end on the edge of adhesion just starting to step out, winding out a few too many RPM in a desperate attempt to say ahead, I can almost see Frank and the boys screaming alongside. I wish I could experience that time again.

Grand Prix Legends : Were You Fast?

Hit the track again yesterday, this time back in the '68 car with the wingwitchcraftery. Managed to break 8 minutes at 7:53. Still some time out there, but that's a decent lap. I'm down by 15 mph top end compared to the '67 car and if I could narrow that gap I could put in a cracking lap I think. Need to keep working on the setup. I had the wings at 2/9 but maybe that's what is slowing me down on the fast bits. But man I love ripping round the Ring. Too bad more here don't do this stuff as I'd like to have friends lists and ghosts to chase.