The Chicane Podcast

Sim Racing in Japan

• Track Ghost Sim Racing • Episode 30

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What if you could revolutionize your sim racing experience without breaking the bank? Join us this week as we kick off with our Thanksgiving plans, trading stories of holiday traditions and family get-togethers. From Eric’s laid-back home gathering to Jeff’s bustling celebration in Boston, and my own coquito-filled festivities, it’s a feast of holiday insights. But the conversation takes a techy twist as we go pedal to the metal with Black Friday sim racing deals, including Eric’s new MagLink from SimMagic, which adds a custom touch to his setup.

Are immersive driving experiences worth the investment? We dive into sim racing technology, discussing full motion platforms, seat movers, and belt tensioners that promise thrilling realism. We weigh the pros and cons of splurging on high-end gear, sharing our personal tips for optimizing setups for maximum immersion. Whether you're a seasoned racer or a curious newbie, there's something here for everyone as we explore the balance between cost and experience.

Finally, we shift gears to the exhilarating world of online drifting and Japanese import car culture, spotlighting our adventures on the "No Hesi" server. From iconic cars to stress-free highway cruising, it’s a haven for car enthusiasts. We also tackle the dreaded cable management challenge, exchanging stories and tips to keep your setup tidy. As we celebrate surpassing 200 subscribers on the TrackGo SimRacing YouTube channel, we express our gratitude for your support and look forward to what’s next.

Please e-mail the show for any questions, comments or stories/experiences at thechicanepodcast@gmail.com

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Intro/Outro Rights below:
Song: Low Mileage - Hold You [NCS Release]
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Watch: http://ncs.lnk.to/holdyouAT/youtube

Jason:

The Hello and welcome to the Chicane Podcast, where we discuss all things in the sim racing world. I'm your host, Jason Rivera, and I'm joined here again by Mr Eric Kelly and Mr Jeff Smart. How's everybody doing today?

Erick:

Doing good man.

Jeff:

Doing good, as always, fellas, great seeing you. Great seeing you.

Jason:

Man, it's been a great last few weeks. Black Friday is upon us and also Thanksgiving, so if we don't get a chance to chat, everybody's going to be busy with their families having their dinners and whatnot, and you know it's going to be awesome. What do you guys got planned for Thanksgiving? Anything crazy.

Erick:

For me, one of the more chill Thanksgivings. We've got a lot, lot going on, so we'll actually be staying home and my wife's father-in-law be coming up. So we got to decide how we're going to do this bird whether we're going to smoke it, fry it, air fry it. Either way, it's going to be some good eating hell, yeah, be careful.

Jason:

um, what do you call it? Frying this? I've heard and seen some explosions happening on the internet.

Erick:

Yeah, it's more than likely either air fried or smoked. But my homie next door, he has all the stuff for frying it and he's fried a couple. He feel like he an expert so I might put him to the test on it, but we'll see, yeah, all right.

Jason:

What about you, jeff? What's going on in the smart Jeff? What's going on in the in the smart household? What's going on over there?

Jeff:

Yeah, man, we're heading up to Boston here, you know, in the next tomorrow actually. So we'll be going up to the East coast and my family does Thanksgiving pretty big. We'll have a, you know, start the day off. We go, uh, you know, the local high school football game, um, just meet up with a whole bunch of people that I hadn't seen in a long time, and then my family perhaps, like we have like 30, 40 people over the house, you know, by 11 o'clock and we have, uh, some turkey manhattans and we just crush those hang out.

Jeff:

It's a great time because I haven't seen these. You know a lot of these people since last time I've been home and you know I don't know a couple years. So it'd be great to see a bunch of people I haven't seen before. Uh, have some turkey manhattans. It's a good tradition we have. There's always a couple people that don't make dinner. You know those are passed out on the couch from the the uh, the wild turkey. But uh, no, it's great, we have a bit. We do a big, uh big thanksgiving back up in new england. So looking forward to it headed up there here shortly. So, uh, yeah how about?

Jason:

you. That's what's up, man. For me it's just going to be simple. Man, it's just going to be a dinner and probably cook for the week. Uh, we usually cook a giant turkey and then we're just eating turkey until freaking turkey's coming out your ears, basically so, and then also a puerto rican tradition, favorite of mine, which is the coquito. I'm going to make that this week and, eric, I need to get you on this, man. It's hard having you all the way out there in Huntsville.

Erick:

I'll take whatever you got. Man, you haven't filmed me yet.

Jason:

Dude, I'm telling you, jeff was over here eating chocolate chip cookies and he's like yo this is the truth. Man with some chocolate chip cookies.

Jeff:

Oh man, it's dangerous. It's a hell of a way to end the day.

Jason:

Yeah, man, hell. Yeah, I hope everyone had a chance to look at the deals that we put out last week. Hopefully there's something better. There's always something better. We were just trying to get you, get the gears rolling, get your wallets ready, because, yeah, it's definitely a good year for sim racing. I've never seen this many sales before, so it's a good sign for the community. So that's all I got for announcements. Man Over to Eric.

Erick:

Yeah, man. So speaking of those ironically speaking, of Black Friday deals, this is something I bought last week that actually was not on sale. I was trying to wait, trying to be patient, but I wanted to go ahead and get it in so I could play with it. Before Thanksgiving I ordered a MagLink, All right. So if you're not familiar, the MagLink is this connector that SimMagic sells that works with their GT Neo. It allows you to directly connect the steering wheel to your computer. So, instead of connecting it through the base which offers limited customization, I'll say and SimHub, using the MagLink, will actually let you connect it directly to the PC and you'll be able to do all the cool stuff with the LED profiles and the things that you see.

Erick:

Jason do in his videos, especially on Instagram. I'll try to get like him.

Jeff:

Things are getting serious over there.

Jason:

Eric, that's what's up. Man, I told you baby steps, man Baby steps.

Jason:

You know, eric, you know what's cool about the MagLink is that you know it comes with the cable and everything else, but it also comes with an additional cable. That's like a godsend and it's a USB extender cable. That's like a godsend and it's a usb extender and you can use. If you have an 8020 rig, you can use um t-nut bolt and bolt it in to the rig itself. So it's like you have a solid connection where you can customize wear and then you have a place where you can plug your wheel in.

Jason:

The only thing I would say is be careful with the SimMagic wire. It's a good wire, high quality. It's just kind of it's on the short side. So make sure you compensate for that or get an extender or somehow whatever you need to do. Man, I use these little clips that they have a sticky back and I stick that behind the wheel base and I literally push the wire up into it. That way it's not dangling or moving around or something like that. So that's what's up. How much did you end up paying for it on sale or before it went on sale? Sorry?

Erick:

Well, so that's the thing. It's like one of the only sim racing things that's not on sale right now.

Jeff:

It's raising the price. Isn't that the way it always is, man.

Erick:

Yeah, but it's 20 bucks Like.

Jeff:

I literally got it for $19.99. Damn man Shipping was like $10, though, free shipping or something right, that's all you're asking for.

Erick:

That's the problem. Shipping was like $10.

Jason:

From where? From the Sim Shop place.

Erick:

So I ended up ordering it from. I think I ordered it from Sim Shop. Wherever I ordered it from, I did some comparing. Some places had free shipping but they were charging like $35 for it, so I ended up going with the place I got it from. It was $19.99, but shipping was $10. And it was three to four days shipping. Some places were saying like four to six days, and you know so. Either way, just looked around for the best shipping. That was really the negotiating piece. But as of right now, at the time of this recording, it's still regular price. Nobody's discounting yet, so I don't. I don't foresee it going on sale because most black friday sales are in full and full swing right now right, or they bundle it or something if you buy a wheel.

Jason:

I don't know.

Erick:

Yeah, it might be in a bundle, yeah but like you said, it's 20 bucks, you know.

Jason:

I mean it's kind of like a light jab.

Erick:

Yeah, yeah, I take that over some of the other stuff I'm looking at.

Jason:

A hundred percent, man, Jeff. What about you, man? What's going on with you?

Jeff:

No man, I'm just slowly grinding away over here. I told you guys, sher, that I was having some problems with the safety rating as we're coming down. I'm going to be away from the rig for, like you know, two weeks here so as we come down to the stretch of the last couple weeks of the season for iRacing. So I had to uh, I had to do some some racing, but some really really clean, and kept it on the track and not, you know, running into anybody else out there to bring that safety rating up. So I didn't lose my B license while it switched over. So I have successfully done that. So nothing real eye-watering interesting stuff going on over here. We're in there grinding away, having a good time.

Jeff:

So, that's about it from my neck of the woods.

Jason:

That's all you can do, man, because two weeks away from the rig or whatever it is, trust me, it'll, it'll, it'll do something to your legs, like yeah, but it was honestly, it was just nice to get in there, just drive and not have like trying to just win or get to the front.

Jeff:

You know, just go out there and you know just like crude. You know, you know, just go at your own pace, you don't have to be driving on the edge. Yeah, it was fun. It was fun.

Jason:

Okay, all right, man. So today, before I get into the discussion portion, I will announce that today's the first episode that we're going to introduce the new section of our show. It's the track of the week, so stay tuned for that. Right after our discussion we'll have a portion of that and it's kind of in the test phase, so we might change things around. Also, I would like to make an announcement. There was a few viewers and that commented on our videos, asking for a SOPEC review. We are working on that. Jeff's working on that. He's been kind of um busy lately and he's trying to get it together. He's trying to do something right. He's trying to get it right. Before we put something out, we don't half-ass anything.

Jeff:

On the chicane podcast that's yeah, I just don't want to, you know, sit here and hold it up and that's all it is is just hey, look at my new wheel, yeah, we'll give you something, a good quality review here. Show you some, some, some, absolutely. You know, maybe me and jason uh ripping some hot laps with it and then, you know, kind of walk you through, uh, with it on the screen, so straight down chaser.

Jason:

I mean that's that's jeff saying, and uh yeah we want to, if we're going to put something out on the show, we're going to make sure that it's the best thing that we've could have done at the time. You know, not look back and say, hey, well, we could have done this or we could have done that, with the exception of any guests that comes on the show or anything major that's going to take over. Take its place, if you will. So, with that said, the first topic today is a simple one the argument of motion platforms, seat movers and belt tensioners. And this is a quick thing. I just want to kind of have an interactive thing, and the reason why I'm saying this is because I don't own any of them, and none of us do, you know. So we can also.

Jason:

Only thing we can do is kind of speculate, and you know they're divided into three categories. You got your motion platforms priced way up, the most expensive one. Your movers are kind of in the middle. You're looking at maybe half the cost. And then the belt tensioner is a new tech and it's the cheapest option. So I'm just going to do a round with you guys. Eric, I want you up first. When we talk about motion belts or seat movers, what is your take on?

Erick:

it. I'll say the thing that I think the first two like the motion platform and the seat movers. What they offer is kind of straightforward they're going to give you motion relative to the car. The thing that I've actually been the most surprised about just seeing other people respond to are the belt tensioners. A lot of the videos I've seen and the feedback I've seen on those has been it adds a great sense of you know, being kind of pinned in a seat when you're breaking in a car and they say it kind of fools you into you know, feeling like you're really, really breaking.

Jason:

Breaking against G's or something like that.

Erick:

Like, like yeah, yeah, and you know that's something that you know. Obviously, if you have like full motion, you you get that. You know, obviously, if you have like full motion, you you get that. But it's almost like a lower kind of lower cost way to get that sensation, because braking is really, you know, probably the most important part of driving, almost Once you learn to track in your lines. You know, being able to understand how hard you're breaking, getting some more feedback on that. In my opinion, that's a lot of information for less cost, especially from a full motion platform.

Jason:

Right, okay, all right. And what about you, jeff? What are your thoughts when someone says motion, full motion, or seat mover or belt tensioners?

Jeff:

I mean the full motion ones. I mean the first thing that comes to mind is they look like they're a shit ton of fun. They look, yeah, you know, like it's just like I don't have to ask somebody if they're having fun. I know they're having fun when they have full motion, um, and to a certain level of you know, the seat movers. And then you know, probably even like this, I mean talking with you know Michael telling us about, you know, and watching his review of the belt tensioners, the belt tensioner, you know he had high praises for it and said it was really interesting and cool and it probably is a direct correlation to the price versus the um immersion, if you will. You know, obviously the full motion costs the most and gives you the most immersion and then the seat tension is the cheaper we use the term air quotes here cheaper, right, still, 1200 bucks belt tensioner um.

Jeff:

But honestly, like I think I kind of view these in the same realm of watching reviews of the butt kicker. I watched review after review on YouTube of a butt kicker. But you can't see or explain to somebody how it feels with the butt kicker. You just have to get in and experience it for yourself and experience it for yourself. Um, yeah, once I finally got the butt kicker and put it on, I was like oh man, like total game changer. So I imagine that motion is kind of similar to that experience.

Jeff:

It's, it's hard to communicate to somebody how interesting and fun and enjoyable it is and immersive it is, until you do it for yourself. Then it's like yo, this is next level stuff. Uh, yeah, that's probably a long way to when to put it, but it's uh, I'd love to try one.

Jason:

I've never, it'd be cool, it'd be really cool yeah, I mean, that's the, that's the biggest thing, right, and that was kind of the plunge I took with the active pedal is such a high cost for an item that you don't know what it's going to be like.

Jason:

And it's really hard to talk the language right and say, hey, this feels amazing and I'm like, okay, but is it worth the money or is it just a novelty thing? So that's why I haven't really purchased any of those options, right, because I just it's a straight immersion thing, all three of them. In my opinion, none of them are going to make you faster, absolutely. If anything, they'll make you slower because you will have to adjust from your body being tossed around in the rig or something tightening on your shoulders. I was worried more about maybe some strain on your shoulder from from, because usually, technically you watch a race, these guys are bolted to the seat. They't really move, you know. So, yeah, f1 car is the only one that moves, but that's like two or three freaking g's on your hand, your neck.

Jeff:

That's making you kind of shift slightly, you gotta feel the tension.

Jeff:

You might not be moving, but you're still gonna feel the tension when you go from you know, 200 miles an hour to you know to 60 and you know a couple hundred feet, you have to still feel that somewhere you might not not be moving. But uh, I guess so yeah. But here's another problem is like if you were to move to full motion. Now you're talking about, like, solving another problem with your monitors. You know, if you're going to, monitors are going to amount to that rig wear and tear on your monitors cause they're not designed to be bounced around and stuff like that yeah it's, it's.

Jeff:

This is where it gets spicy, right, because you know one little change here. And then the trickled second and third order effects into the rig of how, what other?

Jason:

that's what I'm afraid of. I'm afraid if I get a motion on a deal or something and I haven't seen not a single motion platform on sale during a black friday just putting that out.

Jeff:

Yeah, none of them were 10 off. That is a lot of money they're losing.

Jason:

Yeah, it's a lot of money that they're losing and dude nah, man. So I know myself I'm gonna do that. Push the rig back, put the monitors in front of the motor. It's going to be too small. I'm going to upgrade the triple 55s Now I'm looking at 15, 16,000. Easily, easily. And if I'm going to go big, I'm going to go right. Trust me, I'm going to go OLED all three. Yeah, of course, oled 120 hertz, the whole nine, and I think that's the one thing that I'm kind of grateful for.

Jason:

It's kind of like we don't have nowhere to test them, so you can't really convince me to get it, but eventually that'd be it that'd be yeah, I mean eventually upgrades are gonna slow down for, for for people that have end game rigs, and then you'll start looking at adding something to increase that immersion if you wanted to. If not, you can just remain and stay how you are. So that's how I view it. I think the belt tensioner has the highest potential for me to give it a go.

Jeff:

I'm 100% with you. That's what I see. If I was going to make the next big jump, if you will, financially-wise especially talking with Michael his feedback, that's where I think it would be. I mean, space is limited Just realistically. That's kind of where I would see the next step.

Jason:

And to close that, to close on this, think about it. You add a belt tensioner to the rig. If later on, maybe a year or so, you wanted to add motion, you don't have to remove the belt tensioner. It kind of adds to the immersion. So a seat mover is a complete waste of money if you want to move over to a full motion and then vice versa. And I would say this seat movers do not convince me. I just don't like being moved around and everything else is stationary. That can mess with your foot placement and braking and all kinds of stuff and it's just not worth it. It'll be fun, you know until you're trying to be competitive right yeah.

Erick:

Yeah, I think that's a good distinction. If you're trying to have fun, obviously you know more immersion is fun, more emotion is fun.

Jason:

But, like you say, when you're trying to be fast, you really want a lot of variables in there as far as stuff moving and taking you off position correct and for me, I like the balance, I like the immersion, but I wanted the rig to stay competitive and that's why the the active pedal that I purchased adds both of those.

Jason:

It adds the immersion, performance and versatility, has all three, so you give me all three sold yeah so well, that's about it for my portion of this week's discussion over to eric yeah, so, um, simple question.

Erick:

I've experienced it, but what is? If you had to describe it, what is no Hesi? Because I'm PC and diving into the original Assetto Corsa and seeing what the hype is all about, I ended up in the no Hesi server. That probably came from jeff, honestly, yeah, but the the reason why I ask is because I could see myself like just coming off from work, like hopping on one of those and just like cruising, like yeah, all right, so I'm gonna go first, because I know jeff has a very, very comprehensive answer to this um go ahead so no hessy is a group of sim racers that most of predominantly is street.

Jason:

you know it's drifting and it's um japanese import culture, which I'm a huge fan of If you're not seeing my jacket. I'm a huge fan of that culture, that life and, yeah, it's a place for you to go to have some fun. No one's looking at leaderboards, no one's looking at track times. No one's looking at leaderboards. No one's looking at track times. Everybody is just on the server. They're driving on a highway which is the SRP, the Shittoku Highway. I would suggest going to the original SRP server, because the no Hesse server has different car selection. It's mostly geared towards muscle cars or BMWs and stuff like that. When you go onto the SRP, which is the original, you're going to have the Honda Civics, you're going to have your Skylines, you're going to have your Supras, your MR2s, rx-7s, which is dear to me, yeah, brapp is what that's. That's my take on no hessy.

Jeff:

what you got, jeff yeah, I mean just to give a, you know, a couple sentences to those that you know. I guess this is the first time they've heard the term. No, hessy, uh, you know, it's a server on discord and you get dropped in like what jason said is a highway system in Japan. And first things first, it is incredibly heavy on the storage on your computer. You have to download maps and cars and these things are not small. You're talking gigabytes of stuff. But once you get all that stuff out of the way, go YouTube.

Jeff:

No, hesi, there's plenty of directions out there, step-by-step directions, uh, to go figure out. But once you get it it just drops you in and it's awesome. Like jason was saying, it just kind of drops you off in the parking lot right or pit stop on these highways and there's people doing donuts, you know, in the parking lot and then on the side of the highways, cars whipping by, um, like just ai, you know computer animated cars, right. And then you start your car and, like, you just chill, you just pull off into the highway and if you just want to cruise, you know, with the traffic you can cruise and there's off ramps and there's tunnels and there's overpasses and it's just like an old highway.

Jeff:

But yeah, if you want to drop a gear and disappear, my friend there's plenty of space to do that, and that's where it's fun is, when you get some of these people that are pulling out of the rest area kind of at the same time as you are, um, and you're doing the weaving in out of traffic. You know, like some of those famous scenes in, uh, you know, fast and furious tokyo drift, uh, dude, it is a lot of fun for like to get away from, like, like I racing sometimes, or like when you're racing other people can be stressful, like it's silly to say, but it can be stressful. But just to get on there. There's no score, like jason, no leaderboard, yeah, and you're just you know weaving in and out bro shoot these gaps, you know, like through tunnels and stuff.

Jeff:

It's it's a blast, you know. Shoot these gaps, you know, tunnels and stuff. It's a it's a blast, you know. And then like, without a doubt you're going to Nick something and the tumbling goes on forever, I know.

Jason:

Like let go of your wheel.

Jeff:

It just is like oh yeah. Skyground, skyground, you know, uh, and they just reset. Yeah, a couple people also reset you in the parking lot and off you go again. Uh, it's cool, it's just totally different, right, just getting there and just cruising around and, um, so you can see somebody say, this man go ahead no, no, no.

Jason:

Hessy server just like any other server. You know, I'm praising srp because I'm an srp fan, whatever. But the same thing type of thing can happen in any server. But you know, sometimes I have my gopro in a head mount and there's only so much footage that the gopro can record right. There's no scheduled planned event, so I usually jump in there after a few drinks or whatever. I jump in there, I want to drift, I throw my drift wheel on and go into the server.

Jason:

Usually around 15 minutes you find some people and they all pull up into the side of the road and they want you to follow each other. And it's not about racing each other, it's about drifting into the corner with them kind of like a tandem style. That shit is fun, dude. That shit is fun. And it's not about racing each other, it's about drifting into the corner with them kind of like a tandem style. That shit is fun, dude. That shit is fun.

Jason:

And it's something that's hard for me to. Can I get the camera and record this so people can see it on social media? But it's really hard to capture something like that that's going on at the moment. You can't just jump in there and expect these things to happen. You kind just jump in there and expect these things to happen. You kind of jump in there, you drive around and the right set of people just come around and those are the guys that are coming in after work. They want to drive in Japan and pretend because the road is long, like easily 30 minutes for you to do a full circle around this track.

Jeff:

I mean you're going to crash before you bake it around.

Jason:

Yeah, If you make it around, dude, there's so many exits, there's so many the signs like if you follow the signs, they actually because you start at the airport, at the what's it called, damn it Haneda. So you start at Haneda Airport, tokyo, and if you follow the signs to Haneda, it will take you to Haneda, which is kind of dope. You know what I'm saying? That you can go back around and stuff like that. So, yeah, guys, content Manager is the app you need. You need the full version of Assetto Corsa. Wait for a sale, like Mr Kelly picked it up for $16, which is the best $16 you'll ever spend, promise you.

Erick:

Oh yeah, easily hands down. I feed it on storage.

Jason:

Yeah, all right.

Erick:

As Jeff said, but everything else is free. Storage is starting to disappear.

Jason:

Nohazy is free.

Jeff:

Nohazy, all those stuff is free, which is super cool. All the cars the maps. Sometimes it's hard to get a car unless you're paying the maps. Sometimes it's hard to get a car unless you're paying. But if you're just patient enough or jump in a different server, you'll find a car that's available.

Jason:

Yeah, just jump in an early one and then you can just hang out there and as long as you're active, it won't kick you out or anything. So yeah, so you've been messing around in Old Hesse, huh, eric.

Erick:

Yeah, I pulled up in there a couple times.

Jason:

You need a six gate, bro. Do you have a six gate, eight shifter, like I said, see there you go.

Erick:

I'm going to list the stuff to get, because I don't even have a shifter.

Jason:

You need a clutch too, bro, you need a clutch.

Erick:

I got to get the arm so I can mount a shifter 80-20.

Jeff:

Jason, our man has like stuck his head into that rabbit hole and be like oh boy, this is deep, this goes way down there.

Erick:

I'm looking over the. At first I was looking over the edge and now I'm kind of looking back up. Damn, I think I fell over a the edge and now I'm kind of looking back up.

Jason:

Damn, I think I fell over a little bit. What have I done?

Erick:

But it's fun though, man, it's awesome.

Jason:

That's cool man. So there's like hundreds of these servers out there, so we'll leave a link in the description Get on their Discord, read the rules, make sure you, you know, don't be an asshole.

Erick:

Excuse my French, don't be an asshole on the server, and they've got great instructions on how to set it up. Follow them step by step, like Jeff was saying.

Jason:

Turn your lights on.

Erick:

Yeah, had it completely set up and ready to go.

Jason:

Turn your lights on, bro, you get kicked.

Jeff:

Yeah, there's tons of I mean no, has. He's just one of countless you know servers out there. There's one. I was doing one in one of the new corvettes on the nuremberg ring, uh, with like 50 other people. It was chaos.

Erick:

It was awesome, but it was chaos because you're nothing, all right, just driving yeah that sounds fun, yeah yeah, said low stress for sure.

Jason:

Oh, 100%, 100%. So all right. So that covers Nohessy, and that's kind of cool that you brought that up. There's so many different servers. It's kind of hard to pinpoint what do you call that kind of server. So I'm really glad that you brought up Nohessy, because it's a multiplayer server. But then how do we break that down, right? So how do we? Break that down for you to tell you hey, this is the kind of server. It's a drift server or it's a street racing server.

Erick:

Yeah, I was curious about it and saw it coming up a lot. Yeah, man, yeah, they got a nice it and saw it coming up a lot.

Jason:

Yeah, man, yeah, they got a nice Discord. Check them out Again. Links in the description. So over to Jeff, jeff. What you got for us this week, brother, all right.

Jeff:

So, jason, you came over. I don't know when I moved the rig down here. Maybe that was like four months now, maybe now was it like four months now. Uh, and I'm gonna bring up a topic that I think is um, I don't, I don't think it's accurately portrayed in people's social media when they take pictures of their rigs. And I want to talk a little bit about cable management, because when I moved my rig down here, my rig looked immaculate, with cable management down one side. You know all lines you know were perpendicular. It was super clean.

Jeff:

Um, and then, like maybe a couple of weeks later, I needed to make a change and I needed to take a cable out of these nicely coiled cables that were going down my rig with these little I even bought you know hundreds of these little etsy, you know little rings. You put the cables in them half turn, put it half turn into your rig and it looks beautiful 80, 20. Everybody takes pictures above their rig like, oh, how's my cable management? That's full of shit. Because it looks great. Show me a picture in two weeks when you need to take one of those cables out, because it looks great. Show me a picture in two weeks when you need to take one of those cables out.

Jason:

Yeah, man Because.

Jeff:

I'm reaching out to whoever's listening. If you got an idea of how you, or maybe Jason Eric, you got an idea how you can keep these rigs looking nice and clean once you want to take one of those cables out of one of these keepers, it's impossible, it's a nightmare. It's impossible Unless you guys got a solution to this, so I've tried.

Jason:

I started off real nice, just like you, and then cables started draping and then you get lazy. I got lazy bro. I was like why am I? The attraction is there in front of you. Look see Screens. Yeah, see.

Jeff:

Everybody can see. Don't look back there. You, yeah, see everybody, don't look back there. The rig looks nice, but if you can see, like right around in here the rat's nest, yeah, but like there's nothing, you want to make one change and like all that work that you did, gone, gone yeah, yeah and unfortunate, there's no solution yet to this problem.

Jeff:

I mean, other than I don man running cables through a wall or something, maybe if you had a rig, I guess, where it was easy for you to get around both sides and the back, but like I don't know who puts a rig in the middle of the room.

Jason:

Unless you've got that much space, right, yeah, and that'll double installation times. And see, here's the problem. Okay, I kind of understand. So here's the problem. Okay, I, I kind of understand. So here's a problem is that when you build the rig, you start off simple, right so steering wheel chair and maybe a shifter on the right. Then you add an e-brake okay, where's the e-brake gonna go? Then you add a button box, then you add a screen, then you add a stream deck, then you add another screen and then it's like you're moving, shifting, moving, shifting, adding pieces. The last thing you want to do is make the cables. I mean, you try, see, I make them pretty all the way up until they get to the monitor and you can't see it. Once you can't see it, bro, it is a nightmare back there. I'm like I have a fire extinguisher right there in the rig just in case, man, because this shit looks hazard. That's funny.

Erick:

Rob Markman. How many USB ports are you using, jason?

Jason:

Jason Hall, I'm embarrassed by that question, man.

Erick:

Rob Markman, Just to give you an idea. So the last time I counted, I'm using 34 and and all the reason I asked that question and the reason why I've been kind of quiet is because I have a starter rig, so I have like literally like three usb cables I know it's beautiful, so enjoy it.

Erick:

For the people that are in my situation, that are kind of like hey, well, man, it's me, that's super easy. I know exactly which cable is which. Once you, once you start, you know going off in the deep end, and I'm I'm telling you, I'm not saying it's a bad place to be, but once you get there is, it can get out of hand really quick so I've just heard jason mentioned it before freaking.

Jeff:

I think you brought up a great idea was if, when you are installing things like if you're at the three or four usb devices and you're slowly building when you plug them into your hub, put a little piece of tape and label what it is, you will thank yourself months down the road. When you're like walking lines back to be like, oh, I need to unplug thing, you take it off and the you know the power light's still on. You're like, oh wrong more. Plug it back in.

Jason:

Nothing is labeled. I just bought a pack of those. All my shit is unlabeled, bro.

Erick:

I think I'm asking for it.

Jason:

If I had to move, that'd be the only time I would redo it, because I kind of know where things go. But again, I changed my mind so much I moved the DDU. Now it's on the side. I added an active pedal. That changed everything. Now I needed an extra plug and dude. This plug right here is probably pulling over a thousand watts easily at all times, like my light bill is insane, bro, dude I think my electric bill has gone up lately since I moved it down here and I've been using it more.

Jeff:

I bet you anything.

Jason:

Hiko, the Hawaiian electric guys. They're looking at the counter like how.

Jeff:

What are they doing in there? Mining for crypto? What are they doing in there? I?

Erick:

know, I'll tell you.

Jason:

What are you guys doing in there? How many? You got like 10 microwaves or something.

Jeff:

It's good to know that I guess I'm not the only one that thinks like cable management is like this thing, that we act like we do but we really don't maintain it.

Jason:

I will say this Jason for you.

Jeff:

thank you, you make me don't feel terrible about myself.

Jason:

My PC was a pre-build. I got it made. What do you call this? I got it custom made from a company called Next and I told them what I wanted in it. The only thing I changed was the video card. The first version of it had a 3080, and I took them what I wanted in it. The only thing I changed was the video card. The first version of it had a 3080 and I took that 3080, put a 4090 in there and added an SSD.

Jason:

But the cable management inside the computer is perfect, but everything outside of it, everything outside of it, is horrendous, bro. I mean, you can't see it though. That's the thing.

Erick:

If I can see it, it would. That's what really matters.

Jason:

Yeah, it would eat at my. What do you call this OCD? Because I can see it and I'm like, oh, this cable's hanging and it's hanging. And I'm like, okay, let me take care of this cable. Yeah, man, yeah, I feel you.

Erick:

So yeah, man, yeah, I feel you.

Jason:

So yeah, I mean, jeff, don't feel too bad, brother. I mean it's going to happen. You're going to think that you're done and you're not done. Like I said, we just talked about belt tensioners. That's more USB cables, more power cables, More power. It needs to be behind the seat now. So now you have a different animal to deal with, because now you have to find a way, because I don't want any trip hazards. That's the one thing. No, zero trip hazards. So I will say this, for with USBs, you're going to stress it out so get a power wise, you're going to stress it, get a powered USB, get the biggest one you could find, I swear.

Jeff:

And don't cheap out on it.

Jason:

I was going to bring this up. Sabrin, sabrin, we're out for sponsorship. Sabrin, if you can hear me ChicanePodcast at gmailcom. Listen, I started with a four, then I went with a six, then I went with a 10, which I donated to Jeff.

Jeff:

I brought a 10. Thank you, jason, you're welcome brother.

Jason:

Now I got a 20. I think it's a 16 or 20. I don't know. I have one of those and I have a 12. And then I have another four one on the side.

Jason:

That's wild and it's all in the back. And then Etsy God bless Etsy they make a mount just for that same model, the Sabrent model, and it goes on the back. So again, I don't like unplugging and plugging devices, because the more you unplug something and plug it in, the more wear. So I'm just trying to take care of my equipment and just disable it with a button switch. That's easily replaceable than my computer motherboard, which is expensive and it'll be a pain to replace. And one last thing with USB is a good point.

Jason:

Jeff, sorry to steer your thunder on your topic no, go for it buddy, the most important things that should be connected to your motherboard at all times is your pedals, your wheel and your yeah, pedals and wheel and any peripheral that you rely on the most. If it's a shifter, I would directly plug that in. But any steering wheel steering wheel, even your Sim Magic steering wheel pulls a lot of power. If you turn the brightness up all the way, it's gonna pull a shit ton of power. You're probably not noticing it because you don't have that many devices, but it can. It can make the system look weird or or shut down or your screen show it and it'll tear in half and it's because it doesn't have enough power. Those are the ones you want on the hub at all times. So, okay, yeah, but anything that's like the brain, like, for example, if I'm mid-race, I don't want my steering wheel to not function or my pedals. So if my, if something glitched out in sim hub and I lost my screen sim hub's not perfect or I lost a peripheral or whatever a button box it's not a big deal I can restart sim hub. I've done it. Mid-race on a three-hour race. I've done it. It freaked out on me, I restarted it and I was still able to control the car. So that's how come I say plug those devices directly into the board.

Jason:

Usb 2.0 apparently is better for controls than a 3.0 slot. Doesn't make sense to me, but apparently that's what SimHub the creator of SimHub, nikola recommends. So I mean, there's definitely something that he knows, that I don't. But yeah, that's about it. That's all that's my take on USB cords. I'm not proud of of having that many devices connected. It's just it. Just it didn't start off like that. I promise I had like five, and then I had like five and then like 10, and then it just kept going.

Erick:

So yeah, man.

Jason:

All right. So I'm excited for this next portion, gents. Track of the week. This is the first one, the first three tracks that we're going to cover on the show. Obviously is going to be a track per episode because we'll be here forever, but it's going to be our top favorite and I'm going to open it up with my own personal favorite and that's Suzuka. So let me get some photos up for everyone to see, if you guys just bear with me, and we'll go over this. So here we got Suzuka's track as it stands right now, 2009,. It's been through. Let's see two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11 changes right. So I'm going to give you guys the lowdown on this track real quick. And Suzuka Circuit, owned by Honda, is a renowned and challenging motor racing circuit with a figure of eight layout. It hosts major events like Suzuka 10-hour and Suzuka 8-hour, which are significant in the FIM Endurance World Championship. The first game to feature Suzuka International Racing Circuit was an F1 game published in 1987. The circuit has been 1987, gents.

Jason:

That's crazy, that's cool, that was way before our modern sim racing days, but a bunch of legends were able to race it, which is kind of awesome. It says the circuit has been featured in many other video games and arcade games, including NASCAR 98 and the Gran Turismo series. Suzuka Circuit is a 5.8-kilometer track that's considered one of the most difficult in racing. It has a top speed of 315 kilometers. For you, miles per hour, guys, that's around. I don't know. That's close to 200 miles, I don't know.

Jason:

I'm trying to do math right now. And an average speed wow, check this. An average speed of 230 kilometers through this track. I'm telling you the track is fast. Yeah, telling you the track is fast. Yeah, the track is known for being a traditional title decider, with many world champions celebrating their success here. So I'm going to go over the origin real quick. Um soichiro honda, founder of honda, built the suzuka circuit in the early 1960s as a racing facility and test bed for Honda products. The initial design they designed the circuit around a lake complex, so saw expertise from John Hugenholtz for a world-class venue. So Hugenholtz designed the current circuit layout, incorporating a unique crossover and emphasizing diverse corners and challenges. And that was the one thing that Jeff brought up just between us is that it's one of the few tracks that do that, that pass over each other like that.

Jeff:

Yeah, I think it's the only one on the F1 circuit that has an over-under.

Jason:

Right, right. So it says here early events the circuit hosted car and motorcycle races, including a sports car Grand Prix and motorcycle. Of course, motorcycles are on there. Um suzuka became honda's primary test venue for both cars and motorcycles, hosting formula two races and eight hour endurance motorcycle event. That's got a hurt on your back, bro.

Jeff:

Imagine riding off that's a long damn time so not many renovations, right?

Jason:

So it says here. Suzuka underwent renovations including adding a chicane, realigning the spoon curve and modifying the Degner curve to meet F1 safety standards. So that's not many since its debut.

Jeff:

Yeah, If it ain't broken, I guess don't fix it. Right Suzuka was added to the.

Jason:

Formula. Yeah, it was added to the Formula One calendar in 1987, leading to the construction of new pit buildings, medical facilities, a heliport and a refurbished control tower. Yeah, so there's some history here. Um track changes it again. It didn't go through many um, so the last significant update was in 2009. Some safety improvements after a crash at 130r, the corner was reprofiled into a two-raddy sweeper to enhance runoff area and reduce the risk of accidents. So, yeah, I'm going to. One last touch. Here is the racing events that are held here are the World Touring Car Championship, super GT and Super Formula, which the reason why we're bringing this track up too is, if you are in iRacing, suzuka's on every major sims out there anyway, but on iRacing they do have Super Formulas.

Jeff:

It's a great track for that car.

Jason:

I know, man, that's a great track for the, for that car.

Jeff:

I know man, that's a, that's a, that's a death wish a lot of high speed, high speed turns where you get that downforce and that, the hairpin and stuff where it's slow speed. Yeah, it's a great track for that car yeah.

Jason:

So right here is the start. Right, you start here, you get into the first corner and you get into the yes turns. Now this turn. I usually hug this corner right here and then go really wide out and you end up here and then you're just bouncing all off these S curves.

Jeff:

You're hanging on for dear life at that point.

Jason:

Yes, sir, yeah, they call this the snake turns here. Anti-bank curve, a Dunlop here. I hate this turn right here. This right here is almost like a 90. This one is definitely a downshift, a break turn In out, usually end up in second gear or third gear. I'm not sure. This hairpin too is pretty nasty too if you're not careful. And then from then on it's nice and smooth. Second turn this is almost a double chicane. This spoon curve and out through a straight which, this straight is freaking crazy.

Jeff:

Hang on.

Jason:

Because you can go full out right here. Rob Markman, yeah.

Jeff:

I think in the super formula you're hammered down around the 130R Rob Markman.

Jason:

Yeah, and fun fact is that when we had Daniel Morin on the show, he mentioned that in his GT4, he was able to take this full Rob.

Jeff:

Markman, he did say that.

Jason:

Yeah, rob Markman, what do you call this full out like yeah full throttle, wide open now this one, the casino triangle, bro.

Jason:

That'll make or break you that right there. This is definitely a depending on the car, maybe a second gear, maybe a first gear turn and then boom out to the back on track. And these little gray areas you guys are seeing here are kind of what the changes were. And on the last episode I mentioned getting confused on the braking point. That was right here. This runoff I wasn't used to in a different sim and I was ready for the turn to be close sooner, but it was way further.

Jeff:

Oh, that's what you were talking about.

Jason:

Yeah, that turn right there just kind of ruined it for me. So it comes in four different formulas. So you know motorcycles and cars and four different versions and yeah, that concludes our segment for this track of the week. That's our first one, so kind of had a hiccup there with the information.

Erick:

But let us know.

Jason:

Yeah, man, let us know what you think of these. Everybody to all that's listening. Any feedback? So let us know what you think, or if there's something we need to add to it. Yeah, I was going to say it's not my favorite, but like I was telling Jason before, so let us know what you think and or if there's something we need to add to it.

Erick:

Yeah, I was going to say it's not my favorite but, like I was telling Jason before, I've been racing it a lot and it's grown on me a lot. It's up there. It's definitely my top five.

Jason:

Suzuka Right now. Yeah, what do you? Yeah, man, and the beauty about Suzuka you can race anything on it. You can race F1, f2, 3, 4, gt, gt3, all of them. I don't know about peak, I'm pretty sure P1 cars go on there too. I'm pretty sure I got to check. But Suzuka's highly regarded as one of the most dangerous, fastest tracks out there.

Jeff:

It's a longer track, comparatively Right. It takes a minute to memorize that track, if you're jumping in there for the first time.

Jason:

Oh yeah, yeah, I did hold on real quick. Before I wrap up this track of the week, I'm going to share one more screen grab here, and it's an aerial shot of the track. Just had saved this to show you what it would look like. You can see the rides there, the famous Ferris wheels down there, and it's in the countryside, you know. So there's not really much out there.

Jeff:

That's the bummer part about if you're going to go there for F1 is it's not easy to get to, I imagine.

Jason:

Yeah, and Jeff, I don't know if you noticed, but this looks like a little. I'm not sure, but that might look like a little mini go-kart track, because usually they have those.

Jeff:

I have noticed those a lot, a lot of the nature tracks have a go-kart track of some type.

Jason:

They got a go-kart, they got amusement park, most of them, at least, at the F1 venues. I'm pretty sure it's the same across the board. But yeah, that's going to wrap it up for the Track of the Week section. I thought it would be cool to cover some cool facts about the track. There was many different facts that you could look up on this track online. So if you're interested or if you have any questions specific to the track, email the show at chicanepodcasts at gmailcom, and with that we're going to go into the round table portion and we'll start it off with Eric. What you got for us, if anything. Is there anything we need to cover?

Erick:

Nothing, no, nothing to cover for me.

Jason:

Okay, and Jeff, anything else before we close this one?

Jeff:

No man, I don't have any. No save rounds or anything for the round table today. Just drive fast, keep it between the lines and break late Rob.

Jason:

Markman Jr. I love to hear it, man and listen. Everybody. Happy Thanksgiving. So please take this time to spend the time with the family and your loved ones. Sim racing can wait, unless they go to sleep. If they go to sleep and you're up there, you go, man, improvise. But with that I just wanted to thank everyone.

Jason:

The YouTube channel TrackGo SimRacing passed 200 subscribers this week. Really grateful to everyone supporting the channel and supporting the group. We're trying to diversify and grow the show, you know, by adding guests and, you know, inviting others to come on. We have some surprises for you. So I just want to say thank you, because when I crossed 100, I really didn't announce anything. I'm too busy in the lab, just banging out episodes and getting on. This weekly show is amazing and it's crazy to think that six months ago we started this podcast and here we are, like closing the year out, like almost we're getting there, so in the holiday season, like almost we're getting there, so in the holiday season. Anyways, just wanted to say thank you both and to all you listeners and viewers out there. Have a great start of your week, thank you.

People on this episode

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Jason Rivera

Host
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Erick Kelly

Co-host
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Jeff Smart

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