rec.autos.simulators

I usually don't like to do this.....but I answered each of your "answers"
below yours.......designated by a <Pabst>.......

While my original post was a little bit of "tongue in cheek".....your
answers/questions seemed to be serious....so my reply is serious.  No
kidding around this time, I promise.

Regards,

Tom

******************

By "cutoff"....I assume you mean, what would the criteria be for racing in
the "veterans only" RASCAR race?  Right?   That's pretty simple:  your
"reputation" as a sim driver is your ticket into the RASCAR veterans race on
Saturday.  If you are a "veteran" sim driver you've probaby been racing
since the TEN days....participated in online racing leagues for 3 to 4 years
(or longer) and are probaby pretty well known within the sim community.  I
can name 2 or 3 hundred guys with a little thought......that fit this simple
criteria.  Sure, not all are still sim racing.  Not all of them even run
N2K2 these days.  Not all of them would participate anyway!  But enough
would - IMHO....to fill a vets race nearly every Saturday....after some time
was given for the "word" to get around.

Of course...everyone has time constraints to one degree or another.  And,
what they can do on one Saturday, may not be what they can do *every*
Saturday.  With two RASCAR races, you'd need the 3 to 4 hours you mention
(plus 10 hours practice during the week leading up to the
race......minimum - for a vets only race).  And, some of us would have
that....on SOME Saturdays...but not ALL Saturdays.  Sometimes we'd only have
time to run in one race......some times we'd not have any time to
participate.  If you have enough of a "participant base".....and r.a.s.
should be able to provide that......you'd have fairly full races each
weekend......or should have full races once the RASCAR events were well
established.  This won't happen over night.....but in two to three
months....you'd probably have some weekends were you'd have to turn away
drivers.  I'm sure of it.  I'm really sure of it if enough time was given to
allow "the word" to spread around the sim community....and it was properly
promoted.  I would love to have the time to do this......but I don't.  So,
I'm stuck trying to get you guys to at least consider adding a "vets only"
event to the Saturday RASCAR racing.

I tell you what.....if you guys would consider adding a vets only
race.....I'll find three hours a week to help you promote and organize it.
But, I can't be responsible for actually conducting the races on Saturday
since that is not a time slot I can "fix".......because of the work load
around here at PR.  I know I can find three hours dispersed in the week, to
help you, though.  Maybe that's not enough....but its a start?

read more »

David G Fisher

Cautions wer off.   :)

If you want to send me email, go to the first URL shown
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=========================================================

I think I know what you are getting at........i.e., will an online races
ever mimic a real Winston Cup race.....in terms of bunching of cars, running
side by side and nose to tail for hundreds of laps, etc.  Probably not.
But, if you consider that most online races are done with amateur
drivers.....then to blame the sim directly for this isn't totally accurate,
either.  Would it be possible to have a sim race in N2K2 that would be
closer to the real thing.  "Yes"...its possible, if you could get 43 of the
best N2K2 sim drivers together....let them race each other week after week
for several years.....knowing each other's habits and racing style....if all
that could be done, my contention is the N2K2 race would be about 95%
accurate to the real world Cup race (the sim is 95% accurate to the real
world racing).

If I was using N2K2 as a "training device/simulator" for a real world
Winston Cup race.  I would want to run against (well programmed) AI cars
rather than human drivers...of the sort we find in online racing today.  The
AI mimic the top pro drivers much closer than any group of current human sim
drivers.  Again, this is not the fault of the sim.....you know what I mean?

I did think you were talking about a more narrow issue, that of being able
(or unable) run side by side for multiple laps....in today's version of
N2K2.  My contention is that if you get the right group of sim drivers
together, equally prepared and practiced....and they can do that all day
long......at any track.  I thought you were saying that wasn't possible.
Guess I wasn't clear about that?

Good discussion, though.....don't you think?

Tom

Actually, I don't think an N2002 replay of even 20 laps of what I saw Sunday
in the real Michigan race can be presented to me even though there are guys
who have been racing each other in Papy NASCAR sims for years now.

At some tracks, sure you can run side by side three wide. Tracks with steep
banking or the shorter tracks. It's easy. At tracks like Michigan though,
the real drivers were going three and four wide through the turns, one or
two feet apart, glued to the track, and were just as fast on the outside
line. I am positive that I won't see anyone recreate this in N2002. This
will make some people mad, but I don't find N2002 to be the hardest thing
I've ever done in sim racing either. It's not as if an oval has 16
completely different turns spread over 3.5 miles like an F1 course. If
people with more experience than me with the sim can't do it, then something
is wrong with the sim.

A replay shouldn't be too hard to find if I'm wrong though, right?

David G Fisher

You did this with the default <fast> setup Tom?
dan

So how much time DOES it take?  And as I've asked before(but haven't seen an
answer yet) - what can you learn in the 4th hour that you didn't learn in the
first THREE?  Bristol looks the same after 1000 laps than it did after 50.
We're talking about tracks with lap times of less that 40 seconds, for the most
part.  I've also heard that sim racers often run MORE practice laps than real
drivers.  We don't have to pay for gas and tires, we don't have to travel to
and from the track.  We can run laps at Daytona for a couple of hours, then run
some at Phoenix in the next.  We don't have to repair care that we tear up, and
don't have to recuperate from serious accidents.

This, I'd agree with.  I know *I* don't have that kind of time.. :-(

Since you know and watch real-world drivers, what kind of practice schedule DO
they have?  Certainly they're not at the track driving 4 hours per day, every
day...

Eldred
p.s. Yes, I'll call...
--
Homepage - http://www.umich.edu/~epickett
GPLRank:+8.09
N2002 Rank:+22.329

Remove SPAM-OFF to reply.

Darf

   <VBG>  It's the sim, has been since N1.

John

John

I don't recall what setup we were using.....but if you are referring to the
lap times I wrote, those are easily within reach of the "fast" setup for WG
in N2K2.  That setup is actually a pretty good "race" setup.....it mildly
pushes....which is what you want for a race set up were you need to have a
stable car "out of the racing line" ....which is more important in road
racing since you spend a lot of time during the race, out of the groove.

TP

Any chance the 5pm can be changed to 6pm ?

Thanks for the practice server!

-Larry

-Larry

I think we are talking "hypothetical" here, aren't we?  Do you really need a
replay to prove it is possible.....I wonder?

I don't think the Michigan race (real) had guys running two feet apart,
3-wide all day long.  You get in and out of "packs" like that and you can do
it for a few laps.  But, even in a real race car....that's hairy stuff and
you don't like doing it any more than you have to.  Of course, watching the
race on TV....you are always seeing a "group" running that way....but the
"group" isn't the same cars all day long.

The "banking" on the track has nothing to do with the ability to stay in
your lane......when racing on ovals.  The skill and technique used to do
this at Talladega....is the same one you'd use at Loudon.  You do this
primarily with throttle control and its somewhat easy to do once you get the
hang of it.

"Racing" on oval tracks isn't primarily about "driving skills."  Its about
pit strategy and saving your equipment (through driver conservation and
having the right setup)........over the course of the entire race.  The
actual driving part....is pretty simple to attain.  That's not the same in
road racing.....but you attempt in road racing to get to the same place,
i.e., you are relatively fast on all laps, without having to "think about"
the racing line or the fast way around the track.  You just get to that
point faster on an oval.  There's nothing about the sim's inadequacies that
limit this part of oval racing in N2K2, IMHO.

After reading your response here, I decided to go run some practice laps at
Michigan.  I wanted to see what you were talking about ....regarding the
various lanes (lines) being so different in speed.  I spent an hour and a
half there.......just before coming back here to make this reply to you.  I
didn't find the high, mid and low lines to be all that different in
speed.....maybe a 1/10 of second was the spread on my lap times.  I did have
to spend more time figuring out what the car wanted.....in the high line, to
get its lap time equivalent to the low line.....but that was pretty
normal/expected.  For my driving style, the fastest line was the
mid-line.....for the "Fast" setup.  It pushed too much in the low line to be
quick there....but others may not have the same experience with that setup.
The "entry" wasn't so bad (push wise), but I kept having to left foot brake
to hold the nose down on the yellow at the apex and was late with the
throttle coming off.  The middle line was where I found that "Fast" setup
liked to run.  I could drive in pretty hard...roll out of the throttle
slowly....and let the car have its head through the apex and trackouts where
smooth and early throttles.  That's probably why I was a 10th quicker in
that line than the other two.  I struggled a little bit with getting the
high line up to speed.  The car wanted to be on the throttle very early into
the turn.....I didn't figure out how to do this until I slowed my
straight-line entry down.  So, my technique then became to roll out of the
throttle on the main straight a lot earlier than either of the other
lines.......but only roll out of it to about 90% throttle.....then let the
car roll-out for a bit and get back on the throttle modulation very early
(no braking at all into the turns)....well before the apex.  I saw apex
speeds in the 6 to 8 mph range higher than the low line....with exits about
10 mph faster.  Of course, I was taking the long way around so that didn't
translate to a faster lap time over the middle line....but it was only about
a 10th off.  So, I don't know....but I didn't find the "lines" at Michigan
to be harder than any other track to equivocate.  That's just part of the
standard practice routine of learning a new track (for
racing....."qualifying" is a whole new game).  David, how many sim drivers
do you think spend time learning how to drive all three lines.....at the
same lap time (window of 1/10th is always my goal....not always
achieved...but its my practice goal to achieve that at every track)?

So David, I issue a challenge to you.  Go to a track you've never been to.
Figure out how many "lines or lanes" it has (not all tracks have three
lines....some (most) have only two....a few, like Darlington...have only
one).  Then, practice each until all three are producing lap times within
about 1/10th of a second.  Keep track of what you had to do to get those lap
times equivocated, then come back and tell us.  Or tell us, it can't be
done.

TP

I want to answer you....but I'm out of time....so, I'll be back later today.

TP