timwheatley.org

I’ve been a racing fan all my life. From a very young age in the UK I would be woken up at 3am by my parents to watch just two things: American Football and Formula One races from East Asia. I had to get to bed early so I could wake up early and unfortunately I was the only person I knew with an interest in those sports.

As I got older I continued to find that the only person crazy about auto racing, was me. When the internet came along it allowed me to find other people with similar interests at last and finally allowed me to find other people who raced simulations.

Until the Inaugural A1GP event at Brands Hatch in 2005 I had only ever seen any racetrack in either a racing game or on TV, I was so shocked to see just how different that fantastic British track was, compared to those games and the 2D image TV had given me.

I’ve been lucky enough during my time with iRacing to be sent to a number of racing facilities (as scanning team backup coverage in a scheduling emergency) and every single one of them I have been shocked by. Those little intricate details that are finally captured and used by the production team after they’ve been captured by the scanner, they’re all things that (having a photographer’s vision) I’ve analysed, trying to figure out how it’s going to affect the cars as they drive it.

This year I’ve been on two scan trips, both of them ovals. Each one amazed me for different reasons and gave me a whole new respect for what those who race on them actually do…

The first track had pretty high banking and as I was standing, gripping hard on the safer barrier for support, I actually realised that if I slipped, I was going to really hurt myself. The greasy sheen that the surface had (because it had newly dried from rain) meant that my sneakers gave me no grip whatsoever. I actually ended up coming down the banking each time with one foot tucked beneath my butt as I just scraped and controlled the inevitable slide down to the apron using my hands. The scale, just the sheer scale, left me in total awe.

So, as someone who isn’t actually afraid of heights, I had a pretty good appreciation after that. I realised that some of these ovals are the modern equivalent of the Roman Colloseum because - even if their life depended on it - some people just could not save themselves from competition or the location itself.

I’m sat in a hotel right now as I post this, I fly home tomorrow. I’ve been at another track this week which frankly looks lifeless and simple on TV, yet I’ve seen now a lot of the little elements that must make this track one of the most challenging facilities around. I think with the level of detail and the magic wand of those guys in the production department, this place could actually become my favorite track within the service.

As crazy as some events might look on TV, they are most certainly a sanitised version of what you see when standing beside the track as a fan, and they cannot possibly compare to the experience within the cockpit. I think that the level of track surface detail you have experienced after racing at Daytona in the Chevy Silverado with iRacing, finally gives fans like me and you a closer appreciation than we could get from standing in the infield. I know that each track I have helped the production dept. with, I have watched the next race there in a totally different way.

I am oh-so excited about this car! *Bounces up and down*

Most Successful Grand-Am Prototype Racer To Be Included in Motorsport Simulation

BEDFORD, MA (July 18, 2008) – iRacing.com will add the Riley Mk XX Daytona Prototype to the stable of racing cars available to users of the company’s motorsport simulation software and service. The agreement was announced today by Bill Riley, president of Riley Technologies and Scott McKee, iRacing’s vice president of marketing.

“Riley Technologies is one of the world’s foremost designers and manufacturers of racing cars, and the Mk XX continues Riley’s long line of winning prototype sportscars,” McKee said. “Several Daytona Prototype drivers have already made use of our service as part of their pre-race preparation for Grand-Am events; with the top car in the class becoming available, and so many of the tracks where they race already in our inventory, we expect even more teams and drivers will decide to take advantage of our simulation service for race rehearsals.”

“I drove a pre-release version of the iRacing software last December at the Performance Racing Industry show in Orlando,” Riley said. “The accuracy of the tracks and the cars was just amazing. One of the secrets of our company’s long-term success has been the level of support we provide for our customers. I look at our association with iRacing as an extension of that service; now the drivers for our teams can get meaningful behind-the-wheel practice before a test session or a race. That’s a big advantage.”

Ian Berwick, vehicle dynamics engineer at iRacing, noted that working closely with Riley’s engineering staff and having access to their design and performance data will permit iRacing to produce an extremely precise digital representation of the physical race car. “That’s one of the benefits of licensing all of the content in our simulation – tracks as well as cars,” said Berwick. “To be useful to real-world racers, the level of fidelity needs to be really high; approximations just aren’t good enough.”

One of the keys to making the Riley Daytona Prototype perform in the simulation precisely as it does in the real world is reproducing the car’s aerodynamic qualities accurately. “Our general aerodynamic model is very good, and getting better all the time,” Berwick said. “But we’ll be able to check our values against what the Riley engineers have found in their real-world testing. For a high-downforce car like this one, that’s an important factor.”

The iRacing.com laser scanning team recently visited Riley Technologies’ Mooresville, N.C., facility to scan the Mk XX for modeling purposes. Additional data gathering is underway, and the same version of the car that the Grand-Am professionals will use for their race rehearsals will be available to all iRacing subscribers later this year.

Also announced as “coming soon” on the members home page, Barber Motorsports Park!