Is the IROC slot free in July?

[Fred Basset]

Not for me I'm afraid. I'd rather go and drive the wife's Volvo estate round the local fields than the Impala

Can't wait until the LMP2 however.

Regards
Gary

[Simon Gymer]

Can't wait until the LMP2 however.

Yes, definately a car I'm looking forward too.

[Simon Gymer]

So let me get this straight. The Class B Impala is the car with the new tyres and the 2009 is the car with the old tyres.

Am I only the only one that thinks the 2009 car feels waaaaay better than the Class B Impala? I can sort of vaguely drive the 2009 one. The other one just has a mind of it's and doesn't feel connected to the track which = spin city.

Hope they don't ruin my beloved IndyCar in the same way!

Already thinking of ditching iRacing anyway and if the IndyCar is ruined in iRacing 2.0 I think it could be night night iRacing for me.

However, the Impala sucks the balls off a camel so it's actually pretty hard to tell in all honesty as I can't get past the car being so ruddy awful.

[Paul968]

Am I only the only one that thinks the 2009 car feels waaaaay better than the Class B Impala?

probably!

The other one just has a mind of it's and doesn't feel connected to the track which = spin city.

I don't really get this as the old car is a lot worse - floaty and much less connected. The only thing I can think of is that you are driving like you used to - chuck the car into a corner and just expect it to go round. Now you have to feel what the tyres are telling you and adjust quickly to keep the car from sliding too much. This is much closer to real driving than before, where a good slug of throttle would almost always sort out a tail slide (if only it was that easy to control a racing car).

Hope they don't ruin my beloved IndyCar in the same way!

I think we are all assuming that the dedicated road cars will be better to drive, but they may also be a lot more edgy. It will be interesting to see.

[Simon Gymer]

The only thing I can think of is that you are driving like you used to - chuck the car into a corner and just expect it to go round.

Not sure what you mean by chuck? I would expect that you can drive a car round a corner at speed. If that means chuck then I'm guilty your honour.

Now you have to feel what the tyres are telling you and adjust quickly to keep the car from sliding too much. This is much closer to real driving than before, where a good slug of throttle would almost always sort out a tail slide (if only it was that easy to control a racing car).

I've said it before and I'll say it again, I don't give two hoots how realistic the maths is, if it's not driveable then it's not fun. iRacing is hard enough as it is without making it even harder.

Most of us we have to rely on a crappy plastic wheel attached to a desk that has some pseudo feedback, some pedals that have no feedback at all and aren't pressure based and a single flat monitor. So you take away most of the real world feel of movement, grip, depth of vision, peripheral vision and real sounds and what you're left with is something that reality has very little to do with.

but they may also be a lot more edgy. It will be interesting to see.

Yes it will be interesting to see, but given that most people already think the IndyCar and many of the cars are too on the knife edge this is only going to make matters worse if the cars are even harder to drive than they already are. I hope they are easier not harder, but we'll wait and see.

I will reserve judgement till I can try it on a decent cross section of cars rather than this Impala thing which is rubbish whatever tyre model it has.

[Paul968]

Not sure what you mean by chuck? I would expect that you can drive a car round a corner at speed. If that means chuck then I'm guilty your honour.

Sorry, that wasn't meant to be a personal attack on your driving!   I just meant that IMO a lot of sim racing up to now has made the corner entry phase rather too easy - as long as you were not jumping off the brakes you could turn in very aggressively without much risk of things going wrong. The NTM changes this and makes you take care all the way through the corner to feel what the car is doing and adjust. This is much more in line with my experience of driving cars on the limit and also of watching real drivers in-car. The actions you have to take and the 'body language' of the car are now very similar to the real thing.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, I don't give two hoots how realistic the maths is, if it's not driveable then it's not fun. iRacing is hard enough as it is without making it even harder.

I don't think it makes it that much harder necessarily, but it does impose constraints on the way you drive the cars. If you do accept those constraints then the NTM is quite driveable, although I would accept that there are a few teething troubles that they need to iron out.

Most of us we have to rely on a crappy plastic wheel attached to a desk that has some pseudo feedback, some pedals that have no feedback at all and aren't pressure based and a single flat monitor. So you take away most of the real world feel of movement, grip, depth of vision, peripheral vision and real sounds and what you're left with is something that reality has very little to do with.

The NTM gives you a lot more feedback that before, so I don't really understand you on this. Threshold braking is now miles easier than it was and feeling the car slide is also much better. The only thing is that you need to be watching out for all the signals and I think it is easy to forget to do this. If I put my mind to it I can drive the Impalla round RA with the tail out on every corner without spinning it, but when I start pushing for a fast lap I think my brain switches back into the old way of driving and stops looking for the subtle clues that the car is going to get away. That will change with practice but most people are probably going to have to cope with a period of adjustment.

[Simon Gymer]

I drive however I drive, I don't really know what that it is, it is whatever my natural driving style is. I would not be surprised at all to find out my sim-racing driving style is rubbish and wouldn't translate to a real race car.

As I said, I just hate this car so much that I won't pass my full judgement on 2.0 until I try a car that I like and that I'm comfortable with in the first place. All I know is that with this car I preferred the old model to the new one. I don't know why that is but I just preferred the feeling of the old one to the new one.

I notice there is another thread for 2.0, perhaps a mod would move some of these posts into there?

[Mike Wrightson]

This new tyre model even in the current form that needs some tweaking, means that a realistic driving style now works.  I found the 2009 Impala B to be the most hateful thing imaginable, whose tyres were a work of fiction.  To be fast you had to run a crazy loose setup, which is the same as the V8 Supercar come to think of it.

The new Impala B actually has tyres   You can feel what's going on with the car, you can tell when you're about to go too far.  You can also get out of pitlane on an oval without spinning    I've driven it quite a lot at Road America.  The Impala is not exactly a natural road-racer, as mentioned earlier it has the agility of a supertanker, but even so once get to know how it needs to be driven, it's very good!

Of course since the NTM drives completely differently, it takes some time to adjust to using it.  No longer can you get away with a big slip angle and drifting all over the place.  With the Impala, you need to brake early...  earlier than that... no even earlier!  Get it slowed down and into the apex and drive it out... but not too much throttle or you'll spin up both rears and unless you make the small corrections required immediately, it'll have you off.

I can still use trail braking, just enough to feel the car move on the rear tyres as it rotates, but not enough to start sliding, then power on to hold it there, right on the edge, so you can straighten the wheel and get more power on.  That is the area that the aliens will be living all the time.  I've done 2:12.7 at RAm but I've seen guys doing 2:10's, so it would appear that the gap between the aliens and normals has closed just a little.  I'm only 3 seconds per lap off now rather than 4

I don't think we need to worry about them ruining the proper road cars.  NASCAR tyres have peak grip at ambient temperature apparently, so your first lap will be your fastest, then as temps come up, grip falls of a little but the tyres get a little more forgiveness at the same time.  The likes of the V8, DP, Radical and Dallara will have tyres that only deliver peak grip once up to temperature.  I think it will improve all the cars, particularly the DP and V8, both of which are a complete fantasy at the moment.

[Fred Basset]

I'm starting to change my opinion after quite a few hours tonight and a little annoyance at being so far off the pace. I'm a tenth off Mike now at Road America, the big change for me was moving away from the iRacing settings in terms of brake balance. There is more to come and I'm starting to get a little interested in it now.

I am in awe of Mike though, if he's braking that late he must be an alien. Don't let him fool you as you need to brake even earlier than he says.

Regards
Gary

[Mike Wrightson]

Yes, I moved the brake balance back a bit, stiffened the springs, took some camber off the front and added a little caster.

If the V8 SC gets a similar transformation, it will actually be fun to drive and race.

[Paul968]

I mainly use the advanced setup with a couple of minor tweeks - a touch less front ARB, a bit more forward brake bias (66 or 67) and I may have tweaked the dampers a click or 2 to make it more pointy, but I'm not sure these really help much (apart from the brake bias). I also tried a setup off the forums from Jesse Nieminen which was certainly more pointy and potentially a bit quicker but was also more likely to overheat the rears before the end of a flying lap and so make it slower. You can get the setup and replay here:

http://members.iracing.com/jforum/posts/list/75/1486954.page

Best timefor me with the normal advanced setup is a 2.11.0 but I've had a 2.10.7 with qual tape on (which may be a red herring - who knows?). I've got a replay of a 2.08.9 from Jesse, so the Aliens are still a little way up the road. I doubt Jesse is the quickest either.
Dan Rasch posted a setup with much softer springs, saying it was easier to handle. I tried it and felt it was more woolly but possibly more forgiving:

http://members.iracing.com/jforum/posts/list/1488719.page

might be worth a try if you are struggling.

[ross.mcw]

I'd probably be up for a bit of a SROU NTM series if you get this organised.

Cheers, Ross.