rec.autos.simulators

There is a famous drag racing strip in the UK called Santa Pod. It is the venue for most
of the European drag record attempts, and brings in great crowds. However, a computer
simulation would be about as interesting as cleaning the grout off bathroom tiles. I was
however correct in saying that all you would do is accelerate then brake, except it would
have the added bonus of parts of your car failing to work.
If that isn't worth staying in for, what is?
--

An accurate simulation of drag racing would be very difficult to make,
indeed, for a few reasons.  Things that come to mind:

* Reading the track.  While teams do use electronic sensors to learn
the track temperature, there's also that visual inspection of the
slickness, which would be hard to simulate.  A simple gauge reading
of track slickness would take out one of the most important human
elements of drag competition.

* Part failures.  Many parts of a drag racing engine tend to fail
during their 4-second lifetime, sometimes rather unpredictably,
due to imperceptible flaws in the machining of the parts, or being
slightly improperly installed, or just universal chaos.  The chaotic
failure of parts could frustrate players used to simulations where
things only break due to driver error.  The other failures come from
another human element that would be very hard to simulate.

This all said, I did still enjoy "Top Fuel Eliminator" on the C64.

--

Carl

well... there is an older set of games for the pc that included some
drag racing, etc. not exactly high tech by todays standards of vr,
but kinda fun - they were called "Street Rod" and "Street Rod 2".
don't remember who wrote them.  you basically started with a minimal
machine and made money to build it up by winning races, and buying
cars/parts from the classified section of a paper. haven't seen it in
stores for quite a while.

maybe a modern drag-sim might be slick if you consider some options
like drag bikes, bracket racing, rocket racers, etc.  there's always
replays (of close calls/wicked accidents).  when's the last time you
tried to steer something going over 300 MPH with tiny little
motorcycle tires?

If we got Nigel Mansell/Damon Hill/Johhny Herbert to drive a Top Fueler
would you give the game a try, it appears that anything that goes around
corners may be a bit hard for them. Seriously why don't you lighten up,
if you don't like the sound of a Drag Racing sim stay out of the thread.

Anthony.

   Then add delay boxes, air-operated shifters, RPM controlled modules, you
can pretty much sleep during the whole race! Dont forget to test the awesome
handling on the return road with those 4-inch wide front tires, too.

   And one run only costs about the same as joining 2 consecutive Daytona 500
races! What a deal!

Craig.
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