The Chicane Podcast

Racing and Building Your Dream Rig

• Track Ghost Sim Racing • Episode 34

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What if the world of sim racing could offer you not only thrilling competition but a tight-knit community as well? Join us on the Chicane Podcast as we celebrate the holiday season with Erick, Jeff, and myself, diving into everything from Gran Turismo 7 podium finishes to the new BMW M2 series in iRacing. Our stories paint a picture of the joy and camaraderie found in sim racing, with hilarious anecdotes about aging racers and the evolving lifestyle that comes with it.

Ever wondered how a shift in technology might change the racing game? We tackle the newest updates in iRacing, including a user interface overhaul and advanced tire models, discussing their profound impact on gameplay and track realism. Our conversation takes a turn toward the technical as we share the rollercoaster experience of building a new PC and integrating a cutting-edge racing wheel, proving that purchasing from reputable dealers can make all the difference. Plus, we offer practical advice on organizing your sim racing setup, from USB connections to managing performance tweaks.

Racing isn't just about speed—it's about connections. We explore the unique dynamics between league races and open lobbies, emphasizing the thrill of racing with familiar faces and forging lasting bonds. The episode takes a historical detour to Long Beach's storied street racing past, before circling back to the present with a heartfelt reminder to appreciate the sim racing community during this festive season. Whether you're a seasoned racer or new to the track, there's something here for everyone to enjoy and learn from.

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

Watch the show in video podcast form on YouTube at: https://www.youtube.com/@TGSsimracing

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Intro/Outro Rights below:
Song: Low Mileage - Hold You [NCS Release]
Music provided by NoCopyrightSounds
Free Download/Stream: http://ncs.io/holdyou
Watch: http://ncs.lnk.to/holdyouAT/youtube

Jason:

The Hello and welcome to the Chicane Podcast, where we discuss all things in this embracing world. I'm your host, jason Rivera, and I'm joined here by Mr Eric Kelly and Jeff Smart. How's everybody doing this week? How's it going?

Erick:

Doing good man Ready to bring in the Christmas season.

Jason:

Oh snap, Look at you.

Jeff:

Somebody's ready to get into the holiday season. I like it, man. That's a killer shirt.

Erick:

Hell yeah, get this kind of stuff when you got a wife.

Jeff:

Well, it's great seeing you guys, as usual. That's what's up, man. Great seeing you, gentlemen.

Jason:

Anything exciting, Anything happen this week. I know a lot of stuff happened to me so I'm ready to get into it, but I'm just checking in on you guys. What's going on?

Erick:

Yeah, I mean I get my little stuff out the way, so grab another podium today.

Jason:

That's not little stuff, man. Congratulations.

Erick:

Yeah.

Jason:

In GT7, huh, another podium, yeah in GT7.

Erick:

Yep, and I'm far away from a podium in iRacing, not to say I haven't been playing it.

Jason:

You haven't, I have to.

Erick:

I need to lay up every now and then, you know, just to keep my confidence going confidence going.

Jason:

So I go to gt7 eric. Eric, I've been texting you, man, I was. I was trying to tell you that the the I racing league that we spoke about a few episodes back. Um, they have a new dude, they have a new m2 series. That bnw is awesome. It's free. Um, I drove it. It's a beast. You like it?

Erick:

yes, it's like it takes some work.

Jason:

It takes some work man, but it's probably the best freaking free car you can buy. You can download or install or just get into right now I mean and it's free, for sure, yeah 51 cars were on grid.

Jason:

Um, 51 cars we had on grid, bro, and we did a multi-class. So we had, uh, mx5 league, which is another free car. So if you like that one, you can jump into that one. And then you have the bnw. The bnw is obviously faster. I was in the chat with the boys and I was telling them hey, why are you guys got these slow ass freaking Mazdas over here? Get them out the way. So it was funny, dude, because we had a Discord chat and it was all of us together and they said we're making our own Discord room. Whoever's driving a freaking MX-5, jump over here. And we kind of separated.

Erick:

Yeah, the MX-5 is uh unforgiving um.

Jason:

Is that with vlad? That was with vlad, yeah, all right. Yeah, I think he commented on the video the last video.

Jeff:

If I remember correctly seeing his name in there, well, vlad was the one that suggested the uh track of the week oh, oh, it was him. Okay, We'll get to that, yeah, it was Vlad Cool.

Jason:

Thank you, vlad and Eric. Congratulations on the podium. Let me let you finish. I'm sorry. I got all excited. I just wanted you to come over man. This is a good league. Guys. If you are worried about safety rating or having enough eye rating to race against people, this is a strength of field that is way higher than your eye rating because it's everyone together, it's all mixed together. There's actual real life instructors racing with us on on track.

Erick:

I need, I need that that goes to my discussion point that I have later on.

Jason:

It was so dope dude, I've been trying to get one of the guys to come over and do a little thing with us on the podcast. Um, yeah, but we all jumped in a room and we all looked at incidents that happened on the race and it was a stewarding.

Jason:

Yeah, it was a, it was a live dude, I'm telling you guys it was a stewarding yeah, it was a live Dude. I'm telling you guys it's a live stewarding event. And guess where? And guess where? We raced Olin Park. So I was already. I've been driving the shit out of Olin Park ever since we spoke about it.

Jeff:

I've been trying to find my pennies, jeff, I don't know. Just so everybody like after uh last week's recording of uh olden park you know it was like 10 minutes after we were done jason sends a picture out of uh, of that corner where, um, the two little the two, uh gallon girl, uh, the gallon guy were, uh, you know, getting into it. He's like I can't find them panties. I'm trying to find the panties bro I mean.

Jason:

I just wanted to see if I could run over them or something, I don't know. It was a lot of fun, eric, and to all you listeners the league is IRL. I need to find.

Erick:

IRL, I can join now, since I'm on.

Jason:

PC. You can join now, since I'm you know, you can join your, your, your, let me. Let me look up their discord right now. Jeff, do you have anything for us man? Global iRacing league G I L. I was so off. Yeah, it's cool.

Jeff:

They got a little bit of everything. It's just I would definitely do it. It's just hard to you know for somebody with you know kids and you know kids and going a million different directions to meet for their Formula Le Riste. That was like Wednesdays at 3 in the afternoon. For me it just is a hard time. But they got tons of stuff, dude, it's super cool.

Jason:

Squared away. This one's at 4 o'clock, jeff, and 4 o'clock is the qualifying. So and four o'clock is the qualifying. So as long as you make it as long as the qualifying, as long as you make the race, you can do a late in.

Jeff:

And it's not. It wasn't bad.

Jason:

Start in the back or start from the pits. 30 minutes, it was an 11 minute sprint? No, an 11 minute sprint, I believe. And then we did a 30 minute race.

Jeff:

Yeah, it's cool how they have it set up, but yeah, so I can do that.

Erick:

I've joined some other leagues and it's a lot of, you know, getting guys together and waiting around and you know it's not as tight. And to Jeff's point, when you got you know little people that are like kind of clamoring for your time. It's hard to kind of just you know, sit around when you're like okay, I got an hour and it's like 30 minutes in. We're still trying to round guys up before we kick the race up.

Jason:

I'm like yeah, these guys are on point. Dude, these guys on track already. They're already on the discord're already. If you're not there, bro, the second that that race is that race is going? The race is going.

Jason:

I like it and it's casual, so like, for example, if you can't make it one week, they're not going to kick you out. You know what I'm saying? It's meant to be casual like that because, yeah, I mean not just kids, but people have other responsibilities. Stuff comes up in life, right, you got a house, or wife or kids or a second job, or you got a podcast that you have to look after or something like that.

Jason:

Any little thing, and I understand that it's hard to say yes to a certain time and day in the same day. It's hard to say yes to a certain time and day in the same day. But hey, man, if you find yourself and you have that time available, I would highly recommend looking at that, because it's hard enough for us in Hawaii to find races. Anyway, when we do have the time and then when we go in, it's mostly rookie races. So I get Jeff sending me stuff from F4 races. I'm pretty sure he'd rather be in an F1 race or he'll rather be in an SF23 race, guaranteed he's a B class. So he'd probably rather be in the B class. But you kind of get what you can take, right, yeah, mean.

Jeff:

Yeah, and even if I get into it, it's not a great time for the rest of the world, especially, you know, bigger in Europe and you know it's dead middle of the night for them. So, yeah, absolutely.

Jason:

And then it's rookies. Right, your skills are different, but you're still racing with in a rookie.

Jeff:

I mean, f4 is what is D class and anybody else that wants to get in it. Right, that's just. I think they push off a f4 every like 15 minutes right yeah, which is cool but, and those are always get into a uh, you know, a faster car.

Jason:

Sure, absolutely yeah, so don't sleep on the bmw jeff, because the bmw is.

Jeff:

I have spun a couple laps with it, not gonna lie. Oh good, I've got in there. Put my settings you know, made a steering, put the steering wheel settings to it. Yeah, absolutely, I've got in there. I've got in there, and it's weird, man, without driving a you know a sports car class and just been strictly with formula dude, it's like you're driving on ice skates. It's like you're driving on ice skates.

Erick:

That's why I say make a man out of you.

Jeff:

That brake pedal is you know, reactive is my formula. Brake pedal oh dude. But, it's still fun. It was, it's still. I mean, it's just, it's all fun.

Jason:

So and it and it and this car, for whatever reason it eats through tires like like crazy, like we. We drove a 30 minute race and 20 minutes into the race and my tires were completely done and nobody was pitting and I'm not about to be that one guy that pits and yeah, so very clean racing too. Door to door. Rob Markman oh yeah, that's really what.

Jason:

I need Rob Markman. Very clean and we're all in the same chat. Everybody has a microphone, everybody's talking. Somebody bump you, they apologize or the stewards. Even if you apologize or not, the stewards are going to look at that and you're going to get it.

Jason:

You're going to get it. They got a whole spreadsheet with everybody's points and their incidents and what happened and if you race a few clean sessions and your points, your penalties kind of go away. They fade away. But if you're that guy you know they might ban you or something. They don't want that in there. They're in there for pure Clean racing and adrenaline. Clean racing, yeah. So, anyway, jeff. What about you brother? What's up with?

Jeff:

you? Yeah, I've had a pretty good start to this new season. Like I said, we're not an iRacing podcast, but we do use iRacing.

Jason:

I know We've been talking for like 10 minutes and it's straight.

Jeff:

I'll be quick and then we can get on to the good stuff here. But I've had a. I don't know where this driving came from, but I think I did three races this week yeah, in week one and I got like two podiums and a top 10 and I mean, I've had podium and I think I have two career wins and you know a number of podiums. But uh, I was like, where'd this come from?

Jason:

uh, on a track.

Jeff:

I spent, like you know, 10 minutes on before, but I think it's just a lot of. It has to do, especially in those F4s, of avoiding the first lap you know shenanigans and then just kind of keeping it clean. And if you go off a track, just get on quick again, don't lose too many positions, but don't take anybody out. Don't get taken out. I think that helps tremendously. But I do have a question for you. Fine gentlemen, I did notice a number of the updates. A lot of the debris was the easiest thing to notice. But my question is I thought we were getting a new UI for iRacing. They showed those, you know, the graphics and stuff that I thought we were getting.

Jason:

The planned release? Is it coming out later, For early next year? Yeah, early next year. Oh it is.

Jeff:

Okay, all right. Well, that's fair enough. Maybe I didn't read the full detail. And a new tire model.

Jason:

Those are the two big ones. Is the new tire model and the UI update. Just roll it all in one go.

Jeff:

Would you iRacing?

Jason:

I know right yeah.

Erick:

I feel like they're kind of slow rolling it because a set of courses coming out no.

Jason:

You think so. I don't know, man, but you know what, Eric?

Erick:

I think they're taking their time. There's no pressure for them to release it before that drops.

Jason:

This game, or sim, updates every season.

Jeff:

Every 14 weeks.

Jason:

You're guaranteed a massive update. Some sims don't see updates like that for months or even years, so I think we're kind of we got to give them a little credit now. They're redoing tracks. They don't have to do that. They're redoing tracks with drones and all this stuff. They don't have to do that. That's a lot of money we're talking.

Jeff:

I don't know how much money I'm with you, but then don't put it in the season 14 release.

Jason:

Be like like hey, we have a mid for mid season.

Jeff:

I think we should go back and read that, jeff, I'm pretty sure.

Jason:

I'm sure it's like the two point.

Jeff:

You know the point at the bottom, be like we will not guarantee that, this all comes out, yeah, when it comes out, you know you'll be lucky to get it. Yeah, yeah, you'll take it and you'll like it. Yeah, but anyways, yeah, that's um kind of that's my week. Yeah, I'm I don't I shouldn week. Yeah, I shouldn't have said anything. I shouldn't have said anything because now it's going to go downhill. I'll be on next week being like I don't know why I said it. It's been downhill.

Jason:

Oh, it's a lot bro.

Jeff:

Yeah, I've been. You know, haven't even finished two races.

Jason:

You can't take it back. We do it one take all the way through. One take, bro. All all the way through. One take, bro. All right. Well, that's always good to hear. And, eric, congratulations on your gt7 win that we completely ignored. So what was the race? Can we please go over we?

Erick:

just straight up no, so we we test on it real quick.

Jason:

It was a kyoto park um I didn't even hear that, bro and clean race but um, and I posted it on uh on facebook as well, in um I think it's one of the gran turismo chats.

Erick:

Oh okay yeah, gran turismo 7 and gran turismo 7, over 30 chat for us old guys I need to find some of those the over 30 group.

Jason:

Yeah, oh my God, I need the next one up.

Jeff:

I refuse, I refuse to do that. The over 40 crew.

Erick:

Got to embrace it, man. Yeah, I'll be up. I turn 40 next year, so I have to find me a new Well.

Jeff:

I can stay in that group. Don't ever apologize for getting old Privilege denied to a lot of people.

Jason:

That's not even old, though 40 is like that's nothing bro.

Erick:

My knees tell me otherwise, still winning races out here you got to take care of yourself.

Jason:

That's the one thing, and it's no longer an uphill battle. It's a downhill battle now, so you got to take care of yourself. The decisions that you make now matter. When you were 20, it didn't matter what the hell.

Jeff:

Oh, that cheeseburger was getting crushed.

Jason:

Now it's like cheeseburger four o'clock in the morning, go to the beach, hang out all days. Oh, we're not sleeping tonight, so we're just gonna keep, oh yeah man I'm into healthy eating trying to fast do an 18 hour fast. Now we're like other stuff yeah, I messed up today damn it getting old sucks I can't eat dinner now, I'm done. I guess I can't eat dinner now, I'm done.

Jeff:

I guess I can't eat dinner.

Erick:

That was my dinner. You said something when you mentioned that sleep. That used to be, you know, I was a night owl. Now that's the biggest difference I notice. If I don't get that sleep, the next day is shot.

Jason:

Well, I just finished building a new PC.

Jeff:

You're not getting any sleep.

Jason:

Sleep yeah is fucking overrated. However, comma, I do have updates for you guys let's go, it's gonna be my portion of the of the of the show here.

Jason:

Um, here she is in all her glory. Yeah, buddy, let me get a. You know we got to get the angles right, you know? Oh yeah, so I have the sim running in the background. I wanted to kind of show that she works and rig is reacting to ignition, or maybe I should put it right here. How does that look? Yeah, right there, there you go. So it came in. I took my camera guys to DHL, I recorded the lady. I opened it up.

Jason:

And she's like do you want to do this in the car. And I was like, no, you're going to stand there and watch me open this wheel. And I pulled out a laptop, installed SimHub 6.9, whatever it was version was. And there was people behind me, you know, because we're in the season, right, we're in the Christmas season and people are like picking up, you know, gifts and stuff like that, or want to ship out stuff to the loved ones, and I'm that asshole that's over here opening the Artura in front of them and everybody's looking at it and I was like what the hell is that? Is that a steering wheel you got? You got a McLaren. I was like, nah, man.

Erick:

I got many cars bro. I got, I got lambos. I got.

Jason:

I got formula cars bro. I'm filthy bro big rig, don't worry about the car outside.

Erick:

That's my daily driver, don't worry about that yeah, that, that's my daily driver, don't worry about that. Yeah, that's my running around car, yeah.

Jason:

So anyways, long story short, it worked out. Wheel plugged in, worked right away out the box as it should. So I'm here to tell people don't take no for an answer. After 30 something emails, I kid you not. I will screenshot it. I finally got through to an answer. I think they must hate me, the guys that, because I was. I even had emails on schedule. Like every day, at nine o'clock in the morning there was an email being sent out that says status, what, where are we? Or, as a different variations, I ain't got time to be emailing these guys. I really don't. I'm the customer. You need to take care of me.

Jason:

Anyways, as far as the wheel, it is the most amazing wheel I've ever used. I'm not going to say it's my favorite. My favorite thing on the rig is still the active pedal, but what makes this wheel special is the integration with the lovely dash. So I don't have the stickers yet to label these dials, but each of these dials do an input and I just want to showcase that, because there's no other wheel on the market that does this. You know what I mean. That's fully customizable. There's no other wheel on the market that does this. You know what I mean. That's fully customizable.

Jason:

Some wheels allow you to switch a button or map something, but this right here, these MFMs are reactive. So I'm going to try and get her a little close and I'm pulling this from the rig. I hope I don't break this shit, I just got it. So if I switch this dial, that's my deployment, my MGU, so my map, right? So if, for example, this dial listens to the plus and minus buttons that you see up here, that's what this dial listens to. And this secondary blue dial, that's what this dial listens to. And this secondary blue dial where are you? I have my spotter volume, I have chat volume, I have button box. So let's say I want to change my volume there and it tells me my game volume.

Jason:

That's pretty dope and it's the same button.

Erick:

So if I switch this switch over to shaker. Now I can control the volume of my butt kicker that's, dope that's badass Team. No, sleep right there.

Jeff:

So it's 12 dials.

Jason:

That's times two times four, so that's 48 inputs just with these two dials and these four buttons. And then I have these guys, dude, I'm telling you, it is amazing. It's a beautiful looking wheel and, as you can see, it's using dnr's profile, it's listening to all my inputs and go ahead and cut the engine here. So highly recommended. I just be careful if you're buying directly from Asher. I still don't like the business practice.

Jason:

Things could have been done better. They could have been done significantly better for the price of this expensive piece of equipment. And just pick a dealer that you trust, because at least the dealer is not going to let you down. And I think that was the best thing I could have done. Because if it wasn't for Murray Motorsport and we're not sponsored by them if it wasn't for them, good luck, because I got an email from Asher saying that they're taking two weeks off on the 18th. Yeah, they're taking two weeks holiday off, like the entire company, or I don't know the people that were taking care of me, and they're already bad at communication to begin with. Imagine getting sent the wheel replacement, bro. Yeah, be held to pay.

Jeff:

I think there's a lesson there that if you're going to order something from a company, um, make sure that that company's got good feedback with customer service, because a lot of these times the manufacturer wants you to go through the company that you bought it from, not through the manufacturer. So, um, just you know a word to the wise there, when, when you're purchasing stuff, make sure that you're comfortable working with that company that you're buying it from, not the man, if you're not necessarily the manufacturer yeah, that's a good point yeah, and and it and it's a little more reassurance because you have a second layer.

Jason:

That that's what saved me, was that second layer. If I do, if I went directly with asher, I've heard people that's you know that had some issues, because nothing's perfect either, and they didn't get a replacement for three weeks. So when I heard that, I went hard and now I'm bringing it on the show because it seems to be a common occurrence. I don't want to say it like that, but it seems to be happening lately. And if you're interested in one of these, the wheel itself is awesome, but if something's wrong with it or something don't work right, you need to act quickly. You need to act quickly and you need to be firm when you talk to these people. That's all I got to say about the Asher. It's my favorite wheel. This wheel replaces my SimMagic GT Neo and it's going to be my primary GT wheel slash, lmp, slash prototype, all that stuff. That's why it's got to deploy.

Jeff:

You know the battery and all that stuff. You know deployment. You're going to use that thing on formula.

Jason:

Who are you?

Jeff:

kidding? I thought about it, bro, I know you did use that thing on Formula. Who are you kidding? I thought about it, bro, I know you did.

Jason:

I don't want to turn my back on my CSX3, man, that's going to hurt my heart.

Jeff:

Just put it on the wall.

Jason:

She is on the wall, man.

Jeff:

She's going to stay there, brother.

Jason:

She hasn't been touched since I got this new PC too.

Erick:

That's going to continue.

Jason:

man Eric, you're looking for a Formula Wheel bro.

Erick:

I was about to say man, I'm about to talk to you about that.

Jason:

We'll make payment plans a firm. You know what I'm saying.

Erick:

But anyways, that's it for me, rivera Pay.

Jason:

Rivera Pay, that's right, chicane Pay.

Erick:

Chicane.

Jason:

Pay Chicane. Pay, bro CP. So I don't know, Jeff, why did you put this in my head, bro, See now.

Erick:

You make sense, you make sense.

Jeff:

The Sim.

Jason:

Magic's definitely up for sale. That thing is up for sale. It was a good wheel to me. I had a few little issues with it but I mean, if you look at the cost of the wheel and the materials, it kind of makes sense why a wheel would creak or make a noise or, you know, let's be honest though, like here it is, it's a hell of a wheel for the price.

Jeff:

Yes, it's a hell of a wheel for the price. Yes, it's a hell of a wheel it's a awesome.

Jason:

It is an awesome wheel.

Jeff:

Uh yeah, mine's. I I'd sell mine too. It's just, I I'm not gonna lie, I'm not ever taking my wheel off, no matter what I'm driving.

Jason:

So yeah, it's still a badass wheel, but it's a nice showcasing thing.

Erick:

I mean, yeah, I don't know once you get something with a with a display in it. I'll join you guys one day and I'll retire my knee up.

Jason:

I'm telling you, bro, when you got that ignition off, just to remind you of what's going on, you hit that button, bro, and it's just like boom. See the rig. I love this thing.

Jeff:

I love it. I got my little, you know, AMG with my name on it.

Jason:

Yo, we need to talk, jeff, and, if you can, for the people that use a lovely dashboard, how did you get that image so perfect, dude, because I can't get it.

Jeff:

Bro, I got jazz, just like my man, dan Newman, says. It takes time. You resize the image, drop it in. Load it Too, big, resize it, drop it in. Load it Too big, resize it, drop it in send it Dude hundreds of times to make it just perfect, Throw up bro and the ratio. The size that's on the lovely dashboard tab just didn't work for mine.

Jason:

It doesn't compute dashboard tab. It just didn't, wasn't, didn't work, it doesn't, it doesn't compute. So, constantinos, we well, we might have a little conversation with constantinos here shortly in his defense right.

Jeff:

It depends on like the one that fits your screen isn't going to fit mine, so he can't really put in. This is true. Uh, resolution to that would be good for everybody. This is true. So, and even if I told you my setting, it's not going to work right because we have different screen sizes.

Jason:

So yeah, I got a 6.8 and a and a 4.3.

Jeff:

I think this is what that is 4.3 yeah, so you just gotta, you know, test, resize it drop it in tanker yeah, so, yeah.

Jason:

So I put this wheel through hell. I raced it on that m2 race and then did an hour and a half, so I raced it for almost three hours and I put, bro, I turned that force feedback. I turned it up to like 15, 16, just to stress the component, whatever, this thing is rock solid, rock solid, even when you lose control. Have you ever lost control in your cars? And when the wheel's spinning out of control, you can hear like buttons clicking and clacking when you let go of it. This thing, bro, this thing, you don't hear anything. I heard the motor, which I never hear. It's like oh shit, that's the motor doing that noise. Oh man, yeah, so it uses real buttons too. It's not like stickers or anything. Really high quality. I just wish that the customer service was a little better, that's all.

Erick:

Yeah, and hopefully you'll never have to talk to them again.

Jason:

I hope not, man. Unless they want to send us a wheel for review. Definitely review some of them products if they want to send them over here if they want to give me off the NIO, they're more than welcome to the NIO is still a great starter wheel 100%.

Erick:

I love it, especially if you got more of a mid tier.

Jason:

That was the one thing I loved about it good size, 300mm, great functionality, great support.

Erick:

You know with SimHub thing I love about it it's more mid-tier wheelbase, comfy. Good size, 300 millimeter, great functionality, great support with SimHub.

Jeff:

great price, oh yeah. Yeah, you can customize the hell out of it. It's still good wheel.

Jason:

Yeah, all right. Well, that's enough for me on the Asher and over to Eric, I think up next on on the discussion portion. So if you guys have any questions, email the show, the chicane podcast, at gmail. Comment, like, I mean, you don't have to like to ask a question, but you know, like like the video if you want, but but might as well like if you're gonna ask a question if you're here yeah, help us out with a like it'll help out and if it's your, first listen.

Jeff:

hey, we'll take a subscribe. It won't hurt. There you go, we'll take those too, you know, we'll take those too or share.

Erick:

You know, there you go Any of those things you know, Tell your mom and them.

Jason:

Yeah, if you have any specifics about this one, let me know. I got hands on on it and yeah, so over to Eric.

Erick:

Oh, yeah, yeah. So we kind of touched on what I was going to discuss a little bit, which was the league racing. That is one. No, I'm new to our racing, you know doing the PC thing, and one of the things that I don't get to do very often is race with people that I know. Right, even on DT7 I'll see familiar names, especially if I qualify, and you know, in my class there are certain people that kind of I fall in line with. I'll see them, but we're not in the chat, I don't get to talk to them and just kind of I feel like that's the, the next piece that I'm missing, which is racing with people that I know, like being able to talk to them, and just kind of I feel like that's the, the next piece that I'm missing, which is racing with people that I know, like being able to talk to them and kind of oh, yes, the race along with them on top of the benefits of you know the human, the human part of it

Erick:

yeah, the human part. And then just you know people that kind of have a similar um goal like trying to race clean, trying to learn, trying to get faster, just having that connection, yeah, so I just want to get you guys' opinion. I know you guys are for league racing, but do you still race? I guess I don't want to call them randoms, but people that you don't know or are you kind of you know, racing a league, go ahead jeff.

Jeff:

Basically, let's hear brother yeah, I race strictly off the I racing. Open races, um, you know that are open to anybody. Uh, I just I will eventually figure out a league race that I can get into that works with my time frame, my time schedule, with work where we live, time zones, my responsibilities to my kids, my family, wife, and stuff like that. But to your point about racing with people, jason, I think we've done maybe two races together, we've been in two races together and it's totally different, like when you know the people in the race a, it's, it's more fun, right, because you know like I know j, if I can, if I can close on jason, you know, or, or he, I know he's behind me. It just adds a little bit of like drama.

Jeff:

I don't know if that's excitement, excitement, right like like it's not just you know, like joey from omaha that you're racing. You know like like jason down the road where do you come up with these? I don't know, it just comes to me, and it's always like in the midwest and so he's like in the middle of nowhere, like south dakota or some shit like no offense to our south dakota listeners, or ohio?

Jason:

what'd you say ohio?

Jeff:

uh, I forget what I said idaho or omaha I think, it's an omaha, um, but yeah, it's way better racing with people and yeah, I'd love to get into a league. I just can't do it. Can't do it right now, but on that note, so this one of the races I it was yesterday, the day before it was like the most polite race I've ever been in. People were like, you know, as we're gritting everybody's, like, hey, everybody have Merry Christmas. You know, just keep it clean. You know, first couple of laps, you know, you know, no, robin's not racing, you know. And then we're racing and people, like you know, take each other out inevitably. But they're like, hey, my, you know my fault, totally my fault. You know, I, I should have gave you more room. I'm like where did this come from? Yeah, where am I.

Jeff:

This is the total opposite of how I race. It goes. Usually it's like keep it clean everybody in the first turn and then 30 seconds later everybody's cussing everybody else out. For like you, idiot, you know it's like oh, that's the best part.

Jason:

Yeah, it just was like the most, that's when I turned the chat up I'm like what the hell happened yeah yeah, so um somebody I wish I could do a league race.

Jeff:

Yeah, I wish I could do league race. Um it'll happen eventually.

Jason:

Um just can't do it right now, can't support it okay jason what about you so I think that racing in the open lobbies is important because those are ranked races. League races are not ranked, so you can't progress. However, if you haven't been racing in a while, you know what I mean. It's kind of like do I really want to jump in there with these guys right now and regret it five minutes in or 10 minutes in? So league racing at least league racing you have nothing to worry about. Yes, you're trying to push and improve, but these guys are there for the same reasons. So it's kind of like you get to know them and you meet them and you can tell.

Jason:

Like I was behind Vlad and I saw him spin out in the corner and I was like what happened? And he's like I don't know what happened to the car, Because the BMW is a beast. It gets upset for any little thing. So, which is good, because that's what you need. You need to understand how to push the car, how to respect the car and understand what it's doing. If you can get those three, you could drive any car.

Jason:

It'll be faster, way earlier brake points or way later brake points, but the turn-ins are the same. The corners are the same. Carry and speed through the turn-ins are the same, the corners are the same, you know, carrying speed through the corner, that's the same thing over and over. So it's kind of like I saw him spin out and then he's like, damn it, he spun out, went off track, came back on track and he's back fighting for positions back up. So it's kind of like I'm looking after him now. So I'm kind of like, because I know Vlad, Well, I don't know Vlad. Vlad posted a question and I don't know Vlad. He posted a question and then we've been talking like almost daily on the Discord Like he'll ask me about things and I'm asking him about things, about rigs, about sim racing, and he was the one that told me hey, Jason, you need to join this league race that's happening in two hours. I was like bro, I literally just got the Artura plugged into the PC.

Erick:

I need to test Break that guy in.

Jason:

That was the perfect setting, so I went in, and that's another thing. Eric, I'm going to butt in a little bit and take over your thunder just a second. I cannot stress enough, I'm going to take it out of this case. I cannot stress enough, guys, if you've been doing this for a while and you've racked up time in your rig, all those little settings that took you five minutes, 10 minutes, five minutes 10 minutes.

Jason:

Try doing that all over again from scratch. I wouldn't be able to imagine that. So here comes this guy. You make yourself a rig backup. It's a small price to pay to get one of these and back up your settings, sim hub, back up your wheels, buttons, configurations.

Jason:

It took me five minutes to get the wheels back to where they were. Now the Sims were a little different, but the wheels it was instantaneous, it was quick and, yeah, I felt the pressure dude, because I was like one I haven't raced the M2. Two, I drove maybe two laps around track with the car. Three, I was driving Alton Park, which kind of gave me high hopes. I was like, okay, alton Park, I've been on that track a lot, but I was on with a different car. I was racing GT3s, which is a totally different animal, very different, very different. You can go hard on those cars and you can slam them in the corner. So I think there's a.

Jason:

I think, eric, to answer your question, I think that as a sim racer, it's important to have both things, because Jeff is on a schedule. He's like I want to be competitive but I need to work with my schedule. Okay, so this is my option, but if he could, he would join a league and have that awesome time I met. You know you meet people. I need to figure out a way to make you guys do it at least one time, so that way you can see all that goes in, because these guys are doing this for free. You know what I mean.

Erick:

I'm down for it. Yeah, I kind of forgot about them since I built my PC, but you bringing it up earlier reminded me. That's why I'm like I need the name of the league and make sure I have a discord.

Jason:

And literally the races on this league it looks like a train, it looks like a snake, because they're all in line, they're that good. Huh, yeah, they're good, so, they're really good. So they put me on the limit. I was on my limit the whole time, even though I don't know the car. I was slamming this car in the corners. I didn't lose the car. I think I lost it one time though. I think I lost it, but it was a minor like slip, like I slipped and then I kept and then I caught it, hit the grass, got a 1x maybe. And then I had an incident with a guy that we were at mid-corner and we just literally that soft and you know, I racing is like, oh, 4x right away yes, there's no difference over a head-on collision contact yeah, or sometimes it gives you zero, which is weird, so I don't know.

Jason:

But yes, I highly recommend, and this has been, I mean, 51 cars on track. Do you know how crazy it is being in a chat room with 50 people? Just think about that.

Erick:

I can't imagine I can't imagine.

Jason:

You know, and people getting into wrecks, and then you hear them getting into wrecks, then crew chief comes on and tells you someone wrecked, and now you know who it is, and now you know what turn and now you know what sector. That's what sim racing is all about. It's about the immersion of you being on a track you know, with other real life drivers. Yeah, I like it. The one thing I don't support is the AI racing. Stay off AI Once you get comfortable, despite the bullet. I don't think Jeff and I, jeff, didn't even touch AI racing. Stay off AI Once you get comfortable. Just bite the bullet. I don't think Jeff and I, jeff, didn't even touch AI racing. He jumped straight in.

Erick:

Yeah, I did AI race. I did like one AI race, just to-.

Jason:

And they talk shit too, right? Weren't they talking shit to you, the AI?

Erick:

So my little AI crew talks shit to me after I lost. That was an embarrassing performance here. I'm like wait a minute, you know I'm paying for this, I know you see the charge come up on a statement like.

Jason:

That's what I paid for like, yeah, I think the first couple, the first couple races?

Jeff:

ai just to know the mechanics of like, hey, what is the red track? Yeah, what is the first couple, the first couple races? Ai just to know the mechanics of like, hey, yeah, what is the? What is the red lights gonna look like? You know what? When's it gonna go green? You know, it's not like a f1 race where they go, you know, red, red, red, they just go out right. You know, like things like that. I totally understand doing a couple ais just to kind of get the mechanics of it.

Erick:

But yeah, yeah, and that was pretty much what I did. Um, did ai race? Because, obviously, going from gt7, you know I racing is like the. You know the, the elephant in the room is like well, unless you know how to race on our race, you don't really know how to race. So just to kind of see, like, can I control, like let me race a car on.

Jason:

Oh, that's a good question for you eric, now that you've been back and forth, what are you seeing different, bro, and what is your preference? Those are my two questions for you, because we hadn't touched that with you.

Erick:

It's been a while Eric Deggans yeah, so I'll try to keep it quick. Racing and iRacing is not as difficult, but it's solely because of the latest update they did to GT7 a while back. Before then it would have been very difficult, but it was almost like a baby step because they did change the tire models, they changed the suspension model in GT7 and it required like people would just be driving the straight line after that update and just spin out like dry track, because it was a little bit more realistic, like you couldn't just slam the brakes. It wasn't like you're on rails. Granted, it is more like to your point. You mentioned it before. Uh, even just watching the replay, you're like there's no way that that grip works there and being able to get in the car and go on the same track and be able to look at like well, in gt7, this is my breaking point it just looks planted to me I gotta move that back.

Erick:

I gotta peel off. Save off a little bit more speed. I have to. Even just the gearing affects the cars in high racingacing. That was one of the biggest things I noticed. But going between the two, to your point, Jeff, if I'm just in GT7, I struggle. But if I hop in iRacing and I do some races or do some laps and I go to GT7, like when I won that race, I just came out of iRacing and I just hopped in.

Jason:

So you're applying techniques that you, that you kind of picked up, or just it's more, it's, it's more.

Erick:

I'm going to say with GT7, you can be lazier when you're racing, but with iRacing it just requires more control.

Jason:

Oh yeah.

Erick:

And so going into GT7 from iRacingacing, it is I'm not going to call it arcadey, but it's a lot more forgiving when you're racing, so it's interesting fast.

Jeff:

It's easier to race faster in gt7, I'll say it's interesting that you said you, you won the race in gt7. After you were done iRacing, you just jumped in. That, like you, made no quality, no, that's what like it's not like you were so finely tuned to the settings and you know the tire model that was in gt7.

Jeff:

You were like back and forth. That's cool, man, I would have never thought it was, it would be that way. I would the total opposite, right you know? Uh, yeah, different handling characteristics, different set. You know all of the things. Good for you. Tip my hat to you.

Jason:

I agree with Jeff Good work Because, dude, if I jump into ACC and I try to pull, there's a very fine line where ACC and they're breaking the system the way it works.

Erick:

So I'll say it's. It's interesting because, like driving, acc is definitely different. Like acc to me is very like strong force, feedbacks, very strong cars, like you feel the weight of them. It's it's acc is almost like a different style, almost like a different style of just sim.

Jason:

Still fun. Still love it. Still fun, oh it's awesome.

Erick:

GT7 feels almost like a baby iRacing, just in the tire model and the braking. If I do things in iRacing and I go to GT7, they pay dividends in GT7.

Jason:

Oh, dude. Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead, eric. Sorry, something came to me right now. I wanted to mention is that the new debris update is crazy.

Erick:

Oh, that's next. That's tough. Between that and cars not ghosting what they do in GT7. Is not ghosting what they do in TT7 the entire race.

Jason:

There was the biggest mess on the track and you taking the patch, I'm feeling the patch in the wheel do you guys see more exhaust coming out of the cars too?

Jeff:

yeah, in the Formula in F4 I'm seeing like puffs of smoke out the back of the cars that's the dust, that's debris, jeff. Yeah Well, that's all, yeah, so dust smoke, yeah, exhaust or whatever, yeah, okay, yeah, it's like what is that? Yeah?

Erick:

Oh, it's them going over the pebbles on the road, orers, and get thrown around. That's wild, huh.

Jason:

So when you have 50 cars in Oten Park, things kind of change a little bit and you have people spinning out. Then there's all this dirt and I was just really careful not to hit the brake at a certain I would brake a lot harder. But I'm seeing the rocks on the road and I'm like I can't break, I can't stop here, so I'm gonna have to lift. So it's dynamically changing. How you're racing in the is a mate bro. I'm telling you they keep do, they keep doing it, they keep doing it. It's it's dope, it's dope and the track conditions carry over.

Jason:

So let's say Jeff is a great qualifier. So I'm going to put myself in the seat. Me and Jeff were qualifying. Jeff usually qualify, he's a good qualifier. For some reason I just I don't know I'm lazy to qualify because I have an empty track. When I have other people I get in the zone, I zone in. I don't know that's just me, but let's say I lost control and that was in the quali. That same debris carries over into the race. So you're on grid and there's rocks on the track already.

Jason:

There's dust and stuff it's freaking that's wild and it's a free update. It made zero nothing to my performance. You know what I mean.

Erick:

Yeah. It did nothing which is I don't know how they did it. Yeah, it seems like that would take a hit or require some more resources, but CPU, definitely All that yeah. But the, the particles, like processing that stuff real time keeps on the tracks, throwing in their memory.

Jeff:

It doesn't do it, it doesn't make a difference, it's crazy yeah, I took a just a hair of a performance but it's hard because I did the uh, the boot, the image boost thing, that on uh um, that you do right at this, right before the you lose about 10, maybe 10, maybe 8 FPS for using it. Yeah, I'll just put it.

Jason:

A reshape, but I'll take that oh it looks amazing.

Jeff:

Yeah, it looks nice.

Jason:

Well, you know, if you guys are getting 80 frames, anything over 80 frames is really irrelevant. I cannot see past that. You know what I mean. And we're racing. It's not like we're playing Call of Duty, where you're like spinning.

Erick:

It's not twitchy, twitchy, not twitchy and not you know.

Jason:

It's fast, it's consistent, but it's not jerky movements like this, because that's when you will notice if something's lagging or not. Rob.

Jeff:

Markman, it helps peripherals. Their side screens make it nice Rob.

Jason:

Markman, that's true. Yeah, I can see that.

Jeff:

Or it's just overall smoother.

Jason:

You know it's overall smoother, but still 90 plus. You're good to go. Don't worry about it. Turn the limiter off.

Erick:

Don't look at it, Just have fun once you, once you're going, you know, 150, 200 miles an hour.

Jason:

Everything's blurring away so exactly, it doesn't really make a difference. But uh, all right, eric, that's good question. Yeah, that's this question. Yeah, uh, jeff, all right next.

Jeff:

But we've had a couple convert a couple. We've've tiptoed around this topic the last couple episodes. I want to talk a little bit about USB devices, More specifically what you guys are using like. How are you, what are you deciding to choose, to plug into your PC directly and then what are you choosing to plug into? I'm assuming, Jason, I know you have a hub, hubs on hubs on hubs for USBs, and your new CPU has, you know, gajillions of USBs directly but what are you guys deciding to put directly to the PC and then into your hub? Yeah, so I'm curious. I know what I do and I kind of follow guidelines. It's not just picking onesies, twosies, but I want to hear what you guys have to say and then I'll kind of go Jason, why don't we start with you being the you know, the man that has 45 USB devices?

Jeff:

I don't know how many you have, but it's, it's around.

Jason:

It's around 30 ish, but okay. So here's the thing with USBs. Right, what's more important to you? I'm gonna lose connection or something's gonna go wrong. I don't want to lose my wheel or my pedals, because that's what, that's what makes me go. I can lose my screens, I can lose my audio controller, I can lose my monitor, my top monitor or whatever. You know what monitors, that usb, bad example.

Jason:

But you know what I'm trying to say, ddu stream deck, I don't anything I don't want to lose control of the car because of a fault it's gonna is. I'm gonna go ballistic. First of all, I'm gonna lose my shit. Uh right, you know it, it's going to be bad.

Jason:

So wheel pedals need to be directly connected and most of our hardware is designed around the USB 2.0 protocol. And I know a lot of computers have USB 3.0, which supports higher bandwidth, and they have a compatibility mode to convert right Anything you plug into a USB 3, it will work with a USB 2. However, talking to Nikola from the SimHub guy, I've had many problems trying to equalize system load right and not overload a hub or a port. Or Because motherboards share data. Sometimes they share data via two channel, sometimes they're one channel, sometimes they're two channel. Some motherboards use data bandwidth from your GPU slot, which can affect performance.

Jason:

So you got to know what kind of motherboard you got slot which can affect performance. So you got to know what kind of motherboard you got. You got to know what are these USBs really rated at, because under certain conditions, like if you put an SSD or if you put two SSD, well, that's going to downgrade your speeds on your USBs because now the system will even out the load for you, but now you're adding more shit to it that's going to even bog it down even more. So in a to make and you know, I know I nuked this, but I'm just, I'm a guy that's just have been super anal on getting every single cable labeled and what port does it need?

Jason:

3.0 or 2.0? And that's what I've been. I got this new board. Thank God I found a board that has enough data that can feed all these devices and not care or give me any type of issue or whatever. So, in a nutshell, the wheels, the wheel, the pedals, pedals, obviously, the wheel base right, you don't want that to fail so what about your ddu, ddu, excuse me, your uh, your uh um direct drive base yeah, the base, the steering wheel and the pedals.

Jason:

Those are the three. Everything else is fluff. Nice to know.

Jeff:

Okay, yes, oh, okay, I do want to add something.

Jason:

If a device you're using has a screen or has an LED, anything that sucks power, that looks bright, that you can control, that you can literally turn up the brightness on, that needs to be on a hub so that way that hub can give it the consistent voltage that it wants, or wattage. So that's how I would do it okay, eric off to you.

Jeff:

How do you have yours organized?

Erick:

I'm gonna be short and sweet. Um okay, I have four usb devices.

Erick:

I got a wheel I got a room to grow, brother and I got it all right, um, so I just choose from one of the 12 usb ports on my motherboard. But to jason's point though, kind of decide between the usb 2.0 or 3.0 ports. Um, I haven't noticed a difference, just because I haven't ran into that bottleneck issue. That does exist. Exist where you might kind of pull some bandwidth from your GPU slot or your M2 slot or something like that. Yeah, that's pretty much my setup. All to the motherboard, okay.

Jason:

All right, I also want to go ahead, jason, sorry no, I was just gonna say there's nothing wrong with having stuff connected to the motherboard like that, you know. I mean, it's just, you'll see, eric four, it's gonna turn into five, six, eight.

Erick:

Oh yeah, I got 12 15 I got plans. The man says I wanted to. I wanted to turn into about 12 right now.

Jeff:

Got to get through Christmas, got to get through the holiday, got to get through Christmas, man.

Erick:

I hear, you buddy.

Jeff:

Um, also, I think, jason, you gave me I mean you gave me a bunch of uh advice getting into this, but uh, two of them that you gave me that I think is I don't want to say valid, but I would echo to everybody as you grow is to do not cheap out on two things. Well, we say don't cheap out on a handful of things, but other things that I want to echo here is get a good USB powered hub.

Erick:

Don't get the $99.99 on Amazon, the dollar store one yeah, spend some cheddar and A dollar store one yeah.

Jeff:

Spend some cheddar and get a good powered one. Jason, you showed yours that you're using. I have a similar one Hand me down from you. Get a good powered USB hub and use that. And then the other thing that you told me don't cheap out on is a surge protector with power, the plugs built in. Get a good one, yes, and that's paid dividends. So, anything else you guys like to add about the USBs.

Jason:

Well, sabrent is my high recommendation. I can comfortably say that right here All day. Sabrent is the only hub that I will buy. I have a 16 port Sabrent and is an absolute beast of a freaking. It's 90 Watts, this thing alone. So I mean crazy it's 90 Watts. And at first I was like do you need it? No, but you might need it later. Like do you need it? No, but you might need it later. So I'm not saying go out and buy that one, but a nice 12 or 14 or or or 10 port you know.

Erick:

So just a quick question Does the Sabre that you have allow you to control power to like individual USBs or banks of them?

Jason:

Yes, so you can have. So I'll give you a quick breakdown, very, very quick. So I have this is the back of my rig. I have a 16 port right behind the center and that has all the all the juiciest beefiest, the DDUs, all the things that love to suck power on that. Then I have one off to the side which is my streaming and my cameras, and then I have one to the front it's a four. I highly recommend you guys pick that up, why you literally glue it to the side of your post on your rig and it has four buttons on the side and you can plug stuff in. So if I want to turn the wheel off, some wheels don't have switches. This wheel doesn't have a switch, but with that button I could just touch a button and it turns off the wheel.

Jason:

So sometimes you put your computer to sleep and things might stay on. Has that ever happened to you? Your computer to sleep and things might stay on? Has that ever happened to you? Like things, things, things stay lit up. Yeah, I know, I've been there. I'm telling you I it's.

Erick:

That's why I was asking. I saw it on Facebook. I was like pay the.

Jason:

It's like yeah, man, 20 bucks. And you always have a hub in front of you too. Like, let's say, you want to jump into your BIOS on your computer to make a setting. The BIOS doesn't use Bluetooth, bro. So if you have a Bluetooth keyboard, you're kind of screwed, but you can plug it in right there into your front port. Or if you want to connect the USB pen drive for something, it's just a convenience, I think it's like 15 bucks, bro. I can post a link in here. Someone's going to make some money with this affiliate bro. I don't have it, but I mean highly recommend any of their products, and if you go on Etsy, they make brackets specifically for the Sabrent hubs.

Erick:

Yeah, I've seen them For 80-20.

Jason:

So yes. To answer your question, Eric.

Erick:

Go buy one, right now Gotcha Appreciate it man.

Jason:

All right, Jeff, it's that time of the week bro.

Jeff:

Yeah, buddy, let's get after it.

Jason:

It's that time of the week, and what did we come up with? I'm curious what did?

Jeff:

yeah, we had um, I think we talked about. Vlad, made a comment and asked uh gave two recommendations and we I picked uh, long beach gp track, um, or grand prix track, I guess is the name of it. Um, but without further ado, let's get get into this track of the week here and we'll get through it. Super interesting history here being that this is kind of like the first road course that we've talked about, dude wow.

Jeff:

Look at that. So this is the current day layout here. So we'll start here. As I kind of get into this, let me see if I can get back further, but anyways, I'm gonna dig, start into this.

Jeff:

This is a really interesting story. So there's this dude, chris pook um, who is, uh, he's, a gearhead motorsports enthusiast but he's also a travel agent, um, and this is in the 1970s and he has an idea to bring a road street race to long beach. But it's, you know, long beach is kind of like in the shadows of Los Angeles and San Diego and it's kind of run down. The really only thing that it has kind of going for it, I guess, is this queen Mary cruise liner that's been permanently docked as a whole floating hotel and casino. So this dude has the idea. He's like, hey, I'm going to make this city the Monaco of the west coast of the United States. Bold move, cotton, but anyway. So this dude convinces the city council to allow a street race in the downtown area close to the beach.

Jeff:

First events in 1975. And they run formula 5000 cars. Uh, for the 5000. I looked it up for what they look like. They just kind of like an old school formula one, you know indie car, um, kind of smushed down a little bit, but that could just give you an idea the car, what car, looked like in 75 when they raced it Long nose right.

Jeff:

Yeah like big tall hood scoop behind the driver's head. But dude, they got 46,000 spectators the first race, damn. I figure that's pretty impressive. But dude, listen to this.

Jason:

And they didn't have that social media back then. Imagine if they kept the word out so yeah, color tv they didn't have a lot of things.

Jeff:

Um, so this dude's like, hey, that was great, but pook, this is like hey, I want to get formula one here. In six months later, it hosts its first formula one race and clay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna butcher this dude's name. Clay ragazzi wins it in the ferrari, so of course, yeah, so I think it wasn't in, maybe just over the over the year turn, the year turning dominated 1976, they have the first uh f1 and they're on the circuit uh.

Jeff:

So fast forward about uh, about uh five to 10 years. So in the mid eighties, um, the cost of moving these F1 cars in the circuit to long beaches just became unrealistic, um. And to take the, the sanctioning fees of the city uh was just too much and it was unrealistic. So they dropped a formula one from their calendar uh, along with some codes that the city had um. But they picked up the indycar series uh took it on from there uh, and indy held its first gp in 1984, uh, where al answer jr has won it six times since uh, including four in a row. We don't talk a lot about indycar, so it's kind of cool that we're hitting it here, because I'm sure some of our listeners drive or are interested in IndyCar. Well, mario notched up two more victories and his son is also 1-1, michael Andretti. So here's where it gets interesting, because Monaco, I think, is the most famous street course, if you will. That's my opinion, maybe, but I can't think of anything.

Jason:

That's the one that's more famous, I agree, man most like monaco.

Jeff:

Yeah, in monaco's, for the most part, remain unchanged, right and and honestly I think, to the detriment of the f1 race, like it's by far the most boring I mean race on the calendar it's all about qualifying, bro, they don't really have the space. So the growth of the race built the local economy, the downtown area real estate-wise, forcing the track to make a number of changes. The development of land surrounding the area is necessitated, circuit changes over the years. Here I'll click through some of the changes that you guys can see here on what I'm sharing. So it started off kind of, I guess, the right side of the track if you're looking at it from the sky, I guess the right side of the track if you're looking at it from the sky. But the paddocks and the excuse me, the pits and paddock have changed Now that they moved them from the original location to onto Ocean Boulevard. I think that's the long bending straightaway that you see there. Then there's been substantial elevation changes on Lindell Avenue and then that added the tight hairpin turn here at 13, turn 13. Then the pits were moved to Shoreline Drive, adjacent to the traditional starting line here, if I can jump ahead to the more current tracks here, so here, so down down the straightaway.

Jeff:

And the last major change here's where it gets interesting, right, because I think the landmark for uh long beach, the last major changes, have been into turn one area, a redevelop the marina, requiring the track diversion, including going around the fountain and later a roller coaster. So, uh, my first time running uh long beach in iRacing. I'm driving around, I'm like, oh, there's a water fountain in the middle of the track. Um, so yeah, they built that, you know, around the Marina area and the you know the GP was like, well, it's here, we got to go around it. Uh, so it's just kind of interesting that you know, you have Monica on one hand who's telling you know, everybody that raises here, hey, deal with it, we're not doing anything.

Jeff:

You know, in long beaches, kind of. You know, uh, the GP is like, hey, we've been with the city long enough, we're going to, you know, make our track fit the city. So it's super interesting. In 2015, formula E had its championship race there, which, unfortunately, that was the only year it stayed there for the championship and it's gone. But that was probably I don't want to say the biggest, but interesting that Formula E ran there. They ran a smaller track. They had to make it smaller because of the electric motors or, excuse me, the electric battery didn't have the length. Uh, I guess to you know put out for that long yeah.

Jeff:

So you know, just super interesting, you know it does. The track doesn't have the history of like world war ii built into it, but the fact that this dude, chris pook, back in 75 had an idea, you know, and and really like dude, like this dude should have a statue in the city and keys to the city, uh, for what he's like done. I don't want to say it was only the race, but this had a huge impact on, you know, the, the, the city, the real estate, the development, um, and it's a huge stop in the um, the indy car racing series now, um, what's that?

Jason:

a lot of people. It brought 45 000 people, right, yeah?

Erick:

the first race. Yeah, up the gate is so crazy, it is interesting.

Jeff:

Uh, it is only 1.98 miles. That's a pretty short F1.

Jason:

It doesn't feel like that.

Jeff:

It don't feel like that at all. You know, I don't know what an Indy car track normally is. I think for a formula race that's a pretty short track. Maybe I don't know it. Just I don't know. I saw it. I was like, ooh, not even two miles. But to prep for this I got into the track and I jumped in the Super Formula 23 car and let me tell you that is not the car to drive on this track to learn it.

Jeff:

Yeah, so over here on turn 10, as you're coming down the straightaway here out of seven into eight and you're slamming on the brakes from a straightaway to get the car straight and you're just hanging on as you kind of come into nine and ten to the hairpin. Uh, ten, turn ten in the super formula car is like you come out of nine and you're on the left wall and you turn the wheel as hard as you can and that turn is about as tight a turn as you can make in that car. You're going from the the wall on your left wheel to the wall in the right wheel and there's nothing else without the steering wheels pinned together. So, uh, super interesting track. Um, driving it in the SIM is challenging because it's. It's a, it's a street course. There's walls all the way around the track. There's no runoff, there's very. I think turn two has a runoff, but if you're going to do track limits you're going to hit the wall. It's tight racing gentlemen. Any of you guys get any experience racing it?

Jason:

Yeah, man, I think I raced F4 race there.

Jeff:

I think they do yep F4.

Jason:

And I've also taken the what you call gt4 cars. I like to bring on that track like the uh mercedes, uh, the amg mercedes, um, and it's a very fun track. It's super fun, like the pit, the pit lane. It looks like the street. Have you noticed that it looks?

Jeff:

like no kidding.

Jason:

Like you're like am I in the pit lane? Did it drop me off on?

Jeff:

some random street.

Jason:

And that first turn is confusing. If you're not ready for it, you're like where do I need to go?

Jeff:

Oh, because that's the turn. I think it's technically two has the runoff. But if you don't know that the track has the runoff, you're just going straight into like the bear, like eventually that'd be like weird I, I, there ain't no turn here I'm not gonna lie, dude.

Jason:

That's when I first tried it. Dude, that was me I was. I had to physically remind myself there's a left turn here, bro, and then the fountain comes right up on you yeah, it's just cool yeah, it's crazy, dude, that the fountain's right there and you can see the roller comes right up on you.

Jeff:

Yeah, yeah, it's crazy dude that the fountains right there in turn three you can see the roller coaster right as you come around, roll, uh, you know turn two, it's, it's cool, it's cool. And then I in in in iRacing. I was in there practicing this week just to kind of get a feel for for the track of the week and they have the Bubba burgers. You know banners on here. Then, sure enough, they have the Bubba burger. I don't know if they have a relationship or a sponsor for, uh, the long beach track or long beach GP, but uh, it's just interesting tidbit um for you.

Jeff:

But uh, interesting dude, like this guy just was like, yeah, I think it'd be cool to have a race here and convinced, you know, the local mayor to let it happen. And look at that, it you, the local mayor, to let it happen, and look at that it has a huge economic impact to the city. Yeah, that's crazy that he was able to get that together. Yeah, indy stops there. It's a big race for Indy. Now that I want to figure it out when Indy is going to hit there and give it a watch.

Jason:

Or bring it back to Formula dude. I would love to watch a Formula race on this.

Jeff:

It's got to be nuts bro yeah, I mean it's cool because turn one's that straight away, but it's a turn like with a bend. It's a cool track it's it's a tough track, it's super challenging, very unforgiving. Yeah, they do, they have this on on gt7 eric uh, I didn't see it on there.

Erick:

I looked at it on iRacing, just kind of glanced at it.

Jason:

You got to buy it, bro, you got to buy it. So, many things for you to buy.

Erick:

Exactly I put it added onto my ever-growing wish list of stuff I'm going to buy.

Jason:

Which reminds me, jeff I don't know if you want to take the honors of this, but um, you know that day's coming christmas and you're a new I racer, so, jeff and I decided that we're going to um support you welcome you to the I racing family family. Oh man, I don't want to hear about GT7. You better not cast this shit in and buy some money on GT7.

Erick:

I'll be heartbroken To our earlier comments or question about the difference between iRacing and GT7, after paying for GT7, I spent zero dollars on it, none For years For hours of racing. That's one huge difference.

Jason:

That's alright, man, but you're growing up, you know what I'm saying. You're growing up. You're becoming a man now and you're becoming you know. So Jeff and I had a discussion and we don't have physical cards because this is iRacing, but the next airing of this episode is post-Christmas, so we wanted to do it while we still got you here.

Erick:

I appreciate that.

Jason:

There's going to be something hitting your box here very shortly, momentarily, momentarily, momentarily.

Erick:

Man, I don't care what anybody says about y'all, y'all cool with me, man. Everybody say something bad about y'all, they got a problem.

Jeff:

Nah man, we're pumped for you. We're happy you got a PC.

Jason:

Hey, we always helped each other out. Jeff's helped me out. We all collaborate together. That Jeff's helped me out. We all collaborate together. That's what we do in the sim racing community. It doesn't matter if it's with money or if it's with helping build something or helping someone out on the phone with something. Help is help. That's how I look at it. So it'll be my pleasure to give you my side and my recommendation, and I'm going to let Jeff recommend. He's probably going to tell you to buy a fucking formula car. Man, get out of here. Listen, hey, man, that McLaren GT3. Listen, yeah, that McLaren, the McLaren. Or you already got the BMW, which is kind of nice. You're on your way, bro, to road racing.

Erick:

I got the bmw, which is kind of nice. You're on your way, bro, to road racing.

Jason:

Bmw got the ferrari oh, you got a ferrari, so I don't know, maybe check out a p car, you know, if you want, like a prototype, to mess around with um maybe the f4 car, what the f4 car? You know what I was talking? Shit, jeff. I retract my previous statement. Get the F4 car. 100% You're going to love this car.

Jeff:

It's so replanted.

Jason:

No, it's not free. Of course it ain't bro High racing.

Jeff:

Anyways, man, you do what you want with it, you're a good friend, I say buy Trax bro, trax, trax, trax, trax.

Jason:

All the way, good friend, trax All the way, if y'all got suggestions.

Erick:

Good dad, I appreciate that man, I do man.

Jason:

Hey, listen, we ain't getting emotional on this show, man.

Erick:

Don't do that, just give y'all a few hours.

Jason:

Eric, I know you had a few drinks already. Man hey, calm down bro.

Erick:

Not a few, just one nice size one. Okay, okay, okay.

Jason:

I know I'm just speculating and you kind of just told me that you had a drink. Well, all right, nothing wrong with that. It's the holidays.

Erick:

Hey, I'm in the spirit man, there you go. He's in the spirit, rapping it on up. But yeah, I appreciate you guys. Man, I always enjoy.

Jason:

Jeff, thank you so much for the coverage on the track. That was good. The Long Beach track is dope. I mean, I would say for anyone new getting into iRacing, this is my round table and then I'll pass it on to you guys. Go over and I'll leave the link in the description to the iRacing Buyer's Guide, irbgnet, and there is a calculation. We just started a brand new season. They're going to tell you what tracks are being run the most. And remember, with road tracks they work on formula, eric. So if you have so, unless you're going over to NASCAR, then you're going to have to buy some different types of very different purchases. But road and formula they share almost the exact same tracks with very few exceptions. And even then you buy a Nurburgring and it comes with like six configurations for you to choose from. So you don't just buy one track, you're buying six tracks. So go on that website, check it out and then buy what you want to man, because I bought a 499P and I'm not racing that thing.

Jason:

But I wanted it just because of the way it sounds when you break.

Erick:

So over to you guys round table.

Jason:

I swear to God, that was the only reason why I bought the car.

Erick:

Hey, if you like it, man.

Jason:

I got some enjoyment out of it. It was $10 of enjoyment, yes sir.

Jeff:

Was it worth it.

Erick:

$10 don't go very far nowadays.

Jeff:

We spent $10 on stupider shit, right.

Jason:

I was waiting for the Starbucks comment.

Jeff:

No, I didn't say it, nope.

Jason:

Starbucks is bumping up the prices.

Erick:

That's the problem. They keeping up with everybody else. Everything expensive nowadays, man. As far as for me, for Roundtable I have nothing, Just happy holidays guys. It's been a fun ride so far. We appreciate y'all's support. Tuning in, listening, commenting.

Jason:

Yes.

Erick:

Subscribing, liking, sharing. It's an awesome community.

Jason:

It is, it is. It's one of the least toxic communities I've ever been in, honestly, and you know there's a lot of communities out there social media and sim racing is by far the most arms open Like, hey, you want to get into this, come here, let me talk to you.

Erick:

Having a YouTube channel for.

Jason:

I will never make you spend money Never.

Erick:

Hold on, you're doing good, jason. I never told Jeff to buy anything.

Jason:

I didn't tell him to buy nothing.

Erick:

I think Daniel will say differently than anybody else.

Jason:

Daniel's gonna come after me now. Thanks a lot, Eric.

Erick:

But yeah, man but yeah, Least. Toxic. Like I said, having a YouTube channel for almost, I guess, over 10 years now, Damn bro.

Jason:

When the hell did 10 years happen bro? Hey man, we's been that long man.

Erick:

When the hell did 10 years happen bro? Hey man, we having fun, Time flies.

Jason:

You know how much shit's changed in 10 years, Eric.

Erick:

Yeah, I looked at some of my old videos. A lot of stuff has changed, but yeah, man, Damn bro To your point Great community and. I'll pass it on to Jeff.

Jason:

All right, all right, all right.

Jeff:

Yeah, I just want to say happy holidays to everybody. Um, I think uh just to you know, as we kind of do a, you know save rounds and that alibis, uh, daniel Newman wrote some comments to help us uh set the record straight in our last video. Uh, please jump in there, check. But other than that, happy holidays. Everybody, drive fast and break late and spend some time with the family, your friends, et cetera. Take a minute, just appreciate everything we got this year and, gentlemen, it's been a pleasure doing this weekly with you guys, and thanks to our listeners for everything else and wish our listeners a happy new year, happy holidays, et cetera.

Jason:

Wow, that is a good point. Thanks, jeff and Eric, and thanks for bringing that save round, alibi, because we did get a fact checked a little bit and it's on me. I got overly excited, as I always do, but I just want everybody to try things. That's what I want you to do. I don't want you to just commit to something. I really want you to try them, because when I try something and I find enjoyment and it excites me. I want that same feeling for Eric and Jeff and I want you to see why. I want you to go in there and turn this button on and it does this, and I want you to use it so you can kind of see why I like this thing. And the reason why that's valuable is that's how we share, that's how we exchange information and that's how this community will grow and continue to grow. And it's because of that. Discord. You can ask Jeff. Jeff was like what the hell is Discord? I was like, bro, I don't know. I didn't know either. I'm not going to pretend I got it Now. Discord I can't be without Discord. I have a Discord here on the studio computer, the phone. It's everywhere, so and that's our link connection. So with that, guys, thank you so much.

Jason:

Merry Christmas, I don't want to say Happy New Year yet, I think that's a little early for that, but I mean we always say Merry Christmas, happy New Year. Maybe it's the last time you're tuning in for the holiday. I know people taking time off. Don't forget I highly stress, don't forget about making the time for the family. It's that time of year and it comes once a year. So sim racing will be there. Uh, unless there's an update on something, I might sneak away, you know to, to install it real quick and see what the hell is this thing about. But other than that, um, priorities, you know family movies. Don't forget about your movies, guys. I just watched Gremlins the other day. It's one of my favorites. So be careful with the kids. What the Gremlins do, you know? Killing and smashing. Anyway, with that guys, have a great Starview week. Thank you so much.

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

Co-host