Please note that I have a 360° panoramic photo from the inside of Lincoln Castle, too. You can view it here. (Java required).

If you would like to go straight to the main photo gallery, please click here.

Otherwise, here’s a few photo I wanted to show off before you view the main gallery…

I hadn’t bothered to qualify (I actually wanted to run the SK Modified, but at this time in the morning everyone seems to be running the Skip Barber Race Series). I would start fourth.

I got a bit of a slow start and dropped behind a slower car. This lost me about three seconds over the first five or six laps until I passed him. Once I did I had to work really hard trying to close down the two cars that were now ahead and this actually was a lot of fun! Trying to get my lines right each lap, trying to eek away 0.1s per lap to close them down actually made the race interesting for me…

Anyway, I wound up finishing third. I was the fastest man on the track and set a best lap of 21.003. I’m slightly dissapointed about my poor start because I could have been right with those guys and made it an even more interesting race - but nevermind!

Late Models at Martinsville

I ran an absolutely clean race. I do remember brushing the wall once, but it didn’t result in a safety rating penalty.

I joined the 9:15am race session and was in an eighth-place starting position. I got a good start, being very careful into the first turn (like everyone else). I swapped position between eighth and ninth a few times as others spun or passed me until finally, on lap six of thirty-one, a huge wreck happened ahead of me.

I JUST managed to squeeze by on the grass and made five positions! I went right up to fourth! I stayed there until the end of the race too, so finished well above where I was otherwise capable of doing.

I had four incident points from the race, two off track incidents and one loss of control (a slide in turn one). My fastest lap was 59.722 and that was done on lap ten.

Soundcard:
External USB Creative SoundBlaster Live!. (With remote control).

RAM:
256MB PC3200 400Mhz. (Two available).
512MB PC3200 400Mhz.
256MB PC2100 266MHz.
256MB SDRAM 133MHz.

Please bid and buy if you’re interested in any of them.

One of the really cool things is that the software apparently also works when Windows XP or Vista are installed, via Bootcamp, on a capable Mac, too.

In addition to the general launch, a referral program was announced. You can enter the account email of the person who referred you and they receive $10 of iRacing Dollars (credit towards the purchase of cars, track and their subscription).

This year should be steady growth, next year will be big! Expect an update to the software by the end of the current “2008 Season 3″.

Will County Fairgrounds Demolition Derby

One of our friends ran in the Will County Fairgrounds Demolition Derby last night. She did really well, but unfortunately she got stuck on the logs at the track edge and even though she took hardly any damage - couldn’t continue. She would have easily won, but I guess she learned from it and will be back! She’s the red #11 in the photo gallery. As always, the gallery will be available in the post and the photo gallery page.

CABLES, PLUGS & SETTING UP

The box contained wheel, pedals and power supply unit. I don’t have a Playstation, but reading the documentation that came with the wheel, my version should work with both the PS2 and PS3. It comes with a USB connector and (what I’d refer to as) a ‘gamepad’ connector. Obviously in this review I’m talking about the PC, so you would use the USB connector. The first thing I noticed when unwrapping was how wonderfully long they made the wires! No longer am I going to have to use the front USB connector on my computer case for my steering wheel! Not only that, but the wire between the pedals and steering wheel is similarly well-endowed, as is the power unit.

I attached the pedals to the wheel, plugged in the power (at both ends) and then mounted the wheel on my desk. Running the driver EXE I had downloaded from the Logitech Web site I waited until I was told to plug the wheel into the computer and then did do. Following the onscreen instructions made it very easy and after a quick run through the calibration I was ready to race… It hadn’t taken longer than three minutes.

I now took a quick look at the unit in it’s new home and tried to find faults. I must admit, I found it hard to pick faults on how the wheel looks. Apart from the obvious Playstation-related buttons, which don’t bother me, the wheel both looked and felt sturdy, professional and like it could take a race or two! I certainly didn’t feel like the thing would fall apart anytime soon.

I guess my only real issue is with the clamps. They don’t reach forward enough for me and I’m sort of concerned they’ll work their way loose as they’re clamped onto the lip of my desk, rather than just past that lip - where I would prefer. I guess this isn’t a big deal, I’ll just have to keep checking the tightness every week or so.

FORCE FEEDBACK & NOISE

Compared to many other wheels I have heard with motors, the Driving Force EX doesn’t make much noise at all. Infact, if you disable both Force Feedback and set the centering force of the wheel to 0% - you won’t even hear it. I’m used to a wheel with no motor (it did have one, but I guess it burned out) and I was delighted to see that I could get the same effect by just modifying a few settings rather than waiting for it to break! With full force feedback effects it’s certainly not more noisy than I would expect and I don’t even need to turn my speakers up to compensate.

I don’t normally use force feedback, so although I’m trying it with this wheel, your mileage may differ. Any review of force feedback is heavily reliant on the game or simulation used to test it anyway…

Trying the wheel with Richard Burns Rally I mainly found myself feeling tightening of the steering, there wasn’t really any notification when you’d landed after a jump. It seemed like the force feedback was only simulating the feedback of the steering column and ignoring any vibration or ‘jolts’ that I believed I should be feeling.

Trying the same general settings with Flatout: Ultimate Carnage I felt the tightening of steering in the turns, but also felt a ‘jolt’ during sideward impact (from other cars, or the armco). I also felt the car becoming ‘light’ while in the air. Again, this force feedback was missing any sudden jolt’s you would expect when getting front or rear impact but did seem better than Richard Burns Rally. Annoyingly, Flatout 3 gave a constant rumble of vibration… I can only assume this is meant to simulate the engine? Whatever it is… It doesn’t work for me, it feels silly.

One thing I have discovered though is just how vast the difference is between software. Interestingly the force feedback in Richard Burns Rally doesn’t seem as good as that seen in the new Flatout title, they are a world apart!

I’ve seen a lot of sim racers saying how good the force feedback is in iRacing and after a quick test - I have to agree. You can feel transitions in different levels of banking, you can feel individual bumps/kerbs and you can feel the armco/wall and other contact forms seen in both Richard Burns Rally and Flatout. As much as this sounds like a compliment of iRacing, it’s actually a compliment of the Logitech Driving Force EX because when given the ‘feedback’ this wheel can certainly supply the ‘force’. It does actually feel pretty good… Whether it’s enough to make me switch on force feedback from this point? Probably not… My wrists ache as it is and I find it harder to keep concentration when driving!

GENERAL DRIVING

So, turning the force feedback off as I will normally be using it, how does it feel?

It feels great. You can’t feel any ‘workings’ in the wheel, it’s nice and smooth, but there is a bit of a problem (and maybe it’s just me)… When going down the straight I find my steering oscillating left and right… I actually ended up setting the wheel to pull back to the center with a strength of 30% - this made keeping it straight a lot easier. I’m thinking that the wheel is probably just a tiny bit too precise compared to what I’ve been using; my tiny compensations in steering didn’t help keep it straight.

FINAL THOUGHTS

It’s a very, very nice wheel and well worth the current purchase price (about $80 right now on Amazon.com, $55 on Amazon.co.uk). It’s probably the best feeling wheel I have ever had (so far anyway!) If you can’t afford the Logitech G25 and don’t want to go for the cheaper or unknown options, this is a great wheel.

Bristol Motor Speedway.

BEDFORD, MA (August 20, 2008) - The eyes of the stock car racing community turn this week to the hills of eastern Tennessee and the high-banked, half-mile Bristol Motor Speedway. You probably can’t buy a ticket to Saturday evening’s “Sharpie 500″; all 160,000 seats tend to sell out well before race day. But starting today, iRacing.com subscribers will have access to the best seat in the house anytime - the one behind the wheel.

I was so excited as soon as I found out the company had nabbed this tricky half-mile track. It’s a bit of a mixing bowl and always sees plenty of on-track action… Should be exciting to see what gets scheduled to race on it within iRacing. You can read further details on the track here or read the full news item on iRacing.com here.

Anyway… That’s it for today.