Archive for the ‘General Musings’ Category

iRacing Data Analysis with iSpeed

Sunday, April 11th, 2010

Split timing is something that has been lacking in iRacing since the very beginning, and in order to plug the gap several community members developed their own utilities to provide the functionality, until iRacing provide their own version.

iRacing will be providing their own implementation of split timing in the next build (a couple of weeks away) but in the meantime the best community-developed effort has been a fantastic tool called iSpeed.

It works best with the use of a separate monitor but I use my iPhone display to show me the realtime data.

iSpeed running on an external monitor

iSpeed running on an external monitor

iSpeed provides three key features which makes it essential.

  1. Provides basic split time data. Of course, it wouldn’t be much of a split time tool if it didn’t do this!
  2. Provides realtime delta information. As well as the time delta (where I can see if I am ‘up’ or ‘down’ at any point in the lap) iSpeed also provides me with a speed delta which is incredibly useful at telling me if I am travelling faster (or slower) compared with my best lap. More useful than I imagined.
  3. A library of lap traces that can be downloaded. At any time I can check the library, find a faster lap and download it to iSpeed. From there I can either plug the timing data into iSpeed and race against the faster lap, or I can take a closer look in a telemetry application for a more detailed breakdown of where I’m losing time.
iSpeed's telemetry view

iSpeed's telemetry view

I strongly recommend iSpeed – check it out at http://www.nessoft.com/ispeed/.

iRacing release Zandvoort circuit

Friday, March 5th, 2010

Circuit Park Zandvoort

Circuit Park Zandvoort


iRacing released their latest track today, Circuit Park Zandvoort.

To mark the occasion I produced another in my series of ‘Real Vs. Virtual’ photo comparisons, using Zandvoort as the reference photography this time.

Check out the Zandvoort series here and you can also see the previous sets in the series by clicking here.

Formula 1 hits iRacing.com!

Thursday, January 14th, 2010

Quite a momentous day today in iRacing-land. Somewhat unexpectedly (at least, so soon), iRacing.com and AT&T Williams announced a partnership that will bring a modern Formula 1 car to iRacing in the near future!

This is an exciting development if only to act as a major catalyst in bringing in interested new members to the iRacing service. A modern day F1 car will bring the premier racing car in the world to iRacing members and rounds off a formidable trio of top tier racing series (NASCAR, IRL and F1).

It will likely take some time to arrive (as the development work literally starts this week) but hopefully it’ll be fast-tracked through development to arrive in time for the virtual Silverstone F1 GP to be held in iRacing.com this summer.