The Chicane Podcast

Can Your PC Run AC EVO?

• Track Ghost Sim Racing • Episode 36

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Curious how sim racing might revolutionize real-world motorsports? We're kicking off the year with an electrifying episode, unraveling the seamless blend of virtual and actual racing realms. Our conversation begins with the game-changing integration of Solpec's spectra xr and spectra lt into our arsenal, thanks to Danny Newman's relentless efforts. Eric Kelly joins us to share his firsthand experiences diving into the global iRacing league, where the camaraderie and competitive spirit are palpable. We also explore the thrilling dynamics of multi-class racing with BMW M2s and MX5s, underscoring the vibrant community's unique appeal.

A new game is on the horizon, and while its lack of telemetry support on launch day has raised some eyebrows, we're ready to tackle the challenges head-on. From the intricacies of system requirements to the ever-essential network connectivity, we leave no stone unturned. Plus, we shine a light on the phenomenon of early game releases, delving into the financial pressures developers face and the stark contrasts between PC and console gaming experiences. It's all about setting realistic expectations and embracing an open-minded approach as we navigate the early stages of these gaming adventures.

Lastly, we steer into the fascinating intersection of sim racing and real-world motorsport, as highlighted by the Red Bull F1 team's "Game to Glory" series. The inspiring narrative of Sebastian Job's transition from virtual champion to real-life contender offers a riveting glimpse into this evolving space. Additionally, the evolution of track design and the selection of iconic GT3 cars at Laguna Seca add layers of intrigue. With listener feedback in tow, we share our enthusiastic take on the ever-evolving world of sim racing, ensuring an episode rich with insights and genuine passion.

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 the sim racing world. I'm your host, jason Rivera, and I'm joined here by Mr Eric Kelly and Jeff Smart. Happy New Year. How's everybody doing?

Erick:

Happy New Year. Man Doing good, how about yourself?

Jason:

Man. Happy New Year, gentlemen In the recovery phase bro.

Jeff:

It's like that you know the holidays come up and then you like just hang on and like, all right, get back into the normal swing of things, of life and stuff. So great as always to see you, gentlemen. That's what's up, man.

Jason:

So, first of all, it was a great end of 2024. We had a plethora of guests on the show throughout since the show started in May, so very grateful to be here and grateful to everybody that's following the show and listening and subscribing on the YouTube channel. So if you are a listener, please hit us up with a view and a subscribe over there to help out. Appreciate it a lot and awesome. We are in the same calendar year for AC Evo. I can't wait to get this going. But first a few announcements. So, yes, happy new year, welcome to 2025. Danny Newman from the last episode he spoke about the possibility of adding Solpec to the arsenal and that's a reality. If you're seeing this now, he's got the spectra xr and the spectra lt that you could download right now. Um on any of his basic uh membership uh options that he has. Um. But yeah, that's all. I have A few. Actually, I have a few.

Jeff:

Daniel, you're the man. You're the man, Thank you, thank you.

Jason:

I can't wait, daniel busted ass, bro, he did.

Jeff:

I saw the picture and I was like let's go, yeah, I'm pumped, I'm pumped, that's dope man.

Jason:

I have a quick little shout out to the Wheel here. It finally came back. I I have a quick little shout out to the wheel here. It finally came back. I've had almost a whole month with her and it's a solid wheel. Finally got all the labels done up and just wanted to show you guys that the wheel's here to stay. It's not going back via DHL and if anybody has any questions, email this at the Chicane Podcast, at Gmail, or comment down below and I'll get back to you. So let me pass this over to Eric. Eric, what's going on with you, man? Happy New Year.

Erick:

Oh, happy New Year, man. Merry Christmas to everybody. Look, I finally did it. Shout out to Vladlad I joined an iRacing league. I got my first race next week. Uh, the global iRacing league. Shout out to them. Um, jason mentioned it a while back, and just getting signed up and just the entire process, even before racing, has been mind-boggling. I mean it is when I say they have everything. They've thought of everything. The organization is top-notch, the discord is top-notch. Look, I haven't even raced yet and I'm already impressed. I'm looking forward to it.

Jason:

I know it's going to be fun and just looking forward to some clean racing with and and getting better yeah man You're going to see, bro, next week we'll Actually yeah, next week we'll be able to give an update on this and, without giving away too much, I'm planning on having at least one or two of the gentlemen that run this league come on the show and give us a full breakdown. That'd be great. A more in-depth view, because this show is not just the high profile uh vips that we have, that we've had on the show, but it's a pro, it's a, it's a podcast for sim racers, and I want just a sim, a regular sim racer. You know what I mean. Vlad, uh, he, he, we're talking, we're in talks about getting him on the show and giving us a full, in-depth guide. Uh, more than we can, right, because he's an admin over there and he actually runs the league that you joined, which is the m2.

Jason:

You didn't just join a league, bro, you joined the multi-class league. So we're having, we're racing with m2s on the road. The new bmw m2s and the uh mx5s are on track, which are the slower car. I gotta be careful of who I say that to, because a lot of people might get pissed off. I'm telling you, bro, they got so mad that we had to split chats. We had a split chat. We had to bmw chat. They didn't want to mess with us because we were telling them to move the hell out the way because they're too slow.

Jason:

So, yeah, you're going to see what you've been missing. And there's a lot of talented individuals in that league. They're faster than me, I'm telling you. Most of them I'm always mid-pack and mid-pack is fine with me, but the top-end people, man, they're, they're gunning. They're gunning for success, big time.

Erick:

So that's awesome, man, I'm excited.

Jason:

But they're, but they're not, they're. They're super friendly and welcoming. It's not. It's not about uh, you know, lap times where I'm faster. Everybody's just trying to improve and not, you know, ruin someone's race on the first lap, because that's-.

Erick:

The first turn, right On the first turn.

Jason:

They tell you to lock your wheels and keep them locked, and that seems to people crash and I was able to avoid them easily, instead of someone that just crashes and lets the wheel go and the car is just rolling backwards and they don't stop the car. They don't bother to stop the car and you don't know if he's going to stop, if he's going to pull forward, what's he going to do? So it's kind of cool to see the the uh discipline being laid down there and you know level of respect, so excited for you.

Jeff:

Eric, I can't wait to hear your uh experience, man, because it's uh, I'll tip my hat to you it's, it's a. It's a little intimidating signing up for, you know, a league and in those that's a squared away league, you know. So it's a. It's nice that it's squared away right and organized well and things like that, but it's also a little bit nerve-wracking, I bet, jumping into a league that's squared away and has tons of people like that. You know so, uh, dude, uh um, I can't wait to hear next week when we chat, uh, to see how your first race went, man yeah, man, I'm just trying to get some laughs in and, at a minimum, not be the guy that ruins everybody's race.

Erick:

I'm just trying to finish man aren't we all, aren't we all?

Jason:

just make sure you're practicing on that, on that track. A little bit, not a lot, yeah, I just need to.

Erick:

You know, obviously I'm not coming in here expecting to be on the podium or anything, but I just want to have fun and just find my groove and just do well.

Jason:

I believe you will. So we will definitely. I am going to try. I can't promise on the show, but I got my new PC and everything getting it set up and everything, and I thought that it would be seamless, but stuff always happens without saying shit, but shit always happens. So, getting the streaming thing back to where I had it. So I'm at an 80% chance that I might put that out live and, if we do, there'll be a link to the replay if you want to go back and check me and Eric out just banging it out on the track with each other. So it'll be cool. I think it'll be cool to see. So, yeah, all right. So what about you? Jeffff? Happy new year. What's going on, man?

Jeff:

2025 already dude, we, uh, christmas is coming gone, new year's is coming gone. My little dude was over the moon with his new little go-kart that he got from santa. So, uh, he has put like 15 miles on the go-kart already. You can like check it on the app and stuff.

Jeff:

Dude, like after school we're like doing laps around the neighborhood and stuff, and then we santa obviously bought some cones, uh. So we have a little area behind our house and we set up like cones and stuff and we make a little track and stuff. So he's got out of like beginner speed and he's got I forget what it's called sport mode so it goes up to like 19 miles an hour. So, uh, watch out, okay, little dudes on the net on the track to be the next. Uh, you know, have the seat in f1, um, but dude, like just to see his little progression of, uh, you know, I can't even step in yeah, man, it's just cool to see his progression of speed and like.

Jeff:

So I keep mine like at the race mode, if you will. So it goes the full pull. Oh, there's another level oh bro, this thing goes faster than it should. This thing's marketing for kids and there's no way kids should be going like 28 miles an hour in a go-kart.

Jeff:

Damn If we're going around the corner I need to be able to jump up ahead and make sure there's no cars coming the other way and all this other stuff right now, like the things dad's supposed to do, um, but he calls it like. Oh, hey, dad, dad, when am I getting new speed, the next speed boost, like you have the speed boost? I was a kid. We keep working on these little tracks and stuff and maybe we'll get it eventually before you wrap this thing around a telephone pole or something.

Jeff:

So he's, but it's cool it's, it's an absolute blast to go out there after school. Yeah, um, jump in there, um, for an hour or so, go for a ride and stop a little track and uh, you know, I chase him around the track, little tracks we make up, which is super fun. And then, uh, um, you know, sometimes I have him chase me and the higher thing to make him go just a little faster than he's comfortable going. But, dude, it's awesome, it's an absolute blast going out there with your kid and and ripping it up a little go-kart. So we've been having an absolute blast, um, and in the actual little, the physical go-kart, it's super fun yeah, you should take them to.

Jason:

You know what we have like some of those airfields that are like empty, that they don't, they don't use them yeah, there's no cars and stuff yeah, we, we're.

Jeff:

Massive straightaways you know, yeah, so we're looking. I have a couple that I've kind of been looking at for like abandoned parking lots and stuff that we can go and set some like long straightaways up and get them up in the speed and let them use that next speed boost, if you will Speed boost so he can get the full pull. But it's cool, yeah, he's got a full pull. Um, but it's cool, yeah, he's got a full. He's got a little helmet and his goggles and stuff and yeah, it's a trip, man, it's a trip.

Jason:

You gotta get him gloves. Man, you got gloves he's got gloves.

Jeff:

But like you're like hey, let's just jump in and go for a quick ride. He's got his helmet goggles now, if you want gloves. He's like god, we're just going for a rep around the neighborhood. You know like we don't need all this stuff, let's just go freaking fire retarded gloves.

Jason:

Yeah for an electric go-kart. Yeah, but it's super fun.

Jeff:

It really is. I don't know who's having more fun, him or me, um, or mom when she goes so um, but the little like we have a. We have a, you know, 15, 16 month old now and you know some. You know, when we're just going around the little track, I'll, he, the wife, hands the little baby to me and I just hold on to him. We, we go slow around the track and he has. He loves it too. So, yeah, it's fun, all fun, fun had by all. We had a couple of people over for Thanksgiving or for Thanksgiving, christmas, and obviously everybody had to jump in and everybody's face came back with a smile on it.

Jeff:

So yeah, it's, they're a, they're a blast.

Jason:

They're an absolute blast. I don't know who's out. Like I said, who have been more fun? Uh, me, him or mom? Probably. Yeah, man, I mean, that's the adrenaline on that alone, man. So I'm curious, man, can you get tires for it? You know how?

Jeff:

how long are these tires gonna last? Yeah, so I've, uh, I forget where I found, but I'm, you know, like reddit has a whole script, uh, a thread for these guys for this thing, and people will say they last about a couple months. Um, you know, and obviously I'm gonna have to probably replace mine quicker than his, um, because I'll just going faster and around corners and stuff, obviously you're gonna wear bigger tires and I weigh more right, yeah so I'm gonna wear through mine, but, um, yeah, so you can.

Jeff:

Can absolutely get some spare parts and stuff.

Jason:

Oh, that's cool, that's cool, it's not like one thing you buy and then it's done after.

Jeff:

So that's kind of cool that it's it better not be for the price we pay.

Erick:

I mean you told me how much it was.

Jason:

That's not bad, bro, to be for it to do 30 miles an hour, basically on a hill.

Jeff:

For a 200-pound adult to get in this thing and it squeezes together to have my little dude, who's just turned seven, be able to get in there. That's cool. It's like within a minute and a half you just undo some bolts, pull it apart, put the bolts back in, go Sweet, that's nice.

Jason:

Super cool, All right. Well, that's what's up. Man that's teaching.

Jeff:

Super cool All right.

Jason:

Well, that's what's up, man. That's teaching them young, right, getting them into racing. Who knows, you never know. Well, I'm glad that we all here, we're all safe and we all had fun and we did our thing and now we're back at the start of 25. It's an exciting time. A set of courses coming, you know, it's an exciting time.

Jason:

Aceto corsa is coming, and with that I just want to go over a brief little section about aceto corsa. So, if you guys notice, we've been covering track of the week and aceto corsa, I think just after christmas eric correct me if I'm wrong uh, they, they announced the actual tracks that are coming out. Um, on day one, launch day, and we have laguna seca, brands, hatch, imola circuit, mount panorama and the suzuka speedway circuit. We've covered what is that? Three of these? No, well, today spoiler, laguna Seca is up today. So, technically, three of those we're going to try and give you as much info as we can about the history and the changes, right, and all this history behind the track and everything.

Jason:

But prep wise, I would be practicing on these tracks right here just to get you a feel and that way you can compare too, right, from sim to sim. It's a new sim. So with that I'm just going to go in with the requirements here, for obviously the game's coming out on PC only for its early release. After that I think consoles will start getting it, maybe a year out. But the biggest thing to take from this is no telemetry on launch day. So what does that mean? That means no SimHub on launch day as of today, as of this recording. Hope that that changes. I know I know triple screen support is. Is um slated to launch at uh release day or early release day, which is the uh on the 16th of january, if I got that correct hey, jason.

Jeff:

yeah, I don't know if you're planning to cover it, but do you think they made a mistake by doing that? If they're releasing it just on PC with no telemetry, where I would be willing to bet, 90% of PC users are using SimHub and they're not giving data to SimHub, do you think that's a mistake on their end?

Jason:

I think, telemetry. I can't say it's a mistake or not. I mean it's.

Jeff:

It's necessary for us to have it to use everything like our peripherals leds, but our, our, uh, uh, the led bar rev lights gonna work and stuff like that. No, so red lights yeah, daniel.

Jason:

Daniel had mentioned that rev lights could be put in, but it's a lot more work on them. It's harder on them because they they don't have that data to. You know, look at or or match it, whatever, but lovely dashboard won't work, your lights won't work. Um, yeah, so anything sim, hub, simump, just won't see the game. You know what I mean. So I'm hoping that they just use. They have two games. They have ACC and they have AC. So why not just, but different games share telemetry from older games, like F1 games do it because they're basically the same every year. So might as well Project Cars 1 and 2 shares telemetry. Same thing. Lmu gets telemetry from what is it called RF2. So RF2, it borrows telemetry from them while they're building that telemetry.

Jason:

So hopefully the last thing we know is that it's not coming out, and Constantinos had covered that on the show, and I'm just reiterating that you need to come in here with some expectations on what's not, what's going to work and what's not going to work, and if you look at these requirements, they don't make any sense, and I'm going to tell you that right now. So I'm just going to go through and then I'm going to tell you why I think it'll make sense. So, minimum, right, I'm going to go over the minimum spec that you're going to need to run this game. It it's a Windows 10, right, 64 bit. You'll need an Intel i5-8700K or an AMD 1500X, which is pretty damn. If you're on a 1500X, damn, that's all I'm going to say. That's old, so memory is kind of steep. You see this 16 gigs of RAM. A lot of people's system is 16 gigs of RAM, which is not no longer the case. It's not the gold standard, no more. I think 32 should be like a bare minimum for a system now, 2025.

Jason:

Gtx 1070, that's an NVIDIA GTX, and RX 580, I'm assuming, amd DirectX 12. So here is where I'm going to call bullshit on this requirement, because DX12 is new. It's always been buggy. I've used DX12 on Flight simulator, uh 2020, and I've used it. I haven't tried it on the new one, but I've used it in another game and every time I switched it to dx12 it's been nothing but a frame rate mess. You know always. So that's why I'm worried about this. Uh, broadband internet connection, that's kind of obvious.

Jason:

Yeah, 100 gigabytes of available storage as a minimum 100 gigs.

Jeff:

Hey, Jason, back to your network piece.

Jason:

I didn't think that they were going to release their multiplayer. Oh well, the game requires to be connected right to the server, does?

Jeff:

it.

Jason:

Yeah, it does.

Jeff:

Okay, I don't know if you can download it. Totally Okay, fair.

Jason:

I hope that you can for those that can't be online all the time.

Erick:

But yeah, a lot of games are going to that, just for your license.

Jeff:

Yeah just for. Nah, that's true, yeah.

Jason:

Not only that, for license and for any anti-cheat or whatever. Needs to have an active internet connection to talk to the network and say, oh yeah, this is legit, Okay.

Jeff:

Fair enough.

Jason:

Sound card integrated. This is irrelevant. Steam VR, Oculus VR and OpenXR. Honestly, VR is supposed to come out launch day. I don't see that being smooth at all. Just letting you know, that's just going to be rough.

Jason:

Yeah, it's going to be rough, so that's the minimum right. Recommended. Same OS Windows 11 or 10, intel i5-10700K or an AMD 2600X. Same amount of memory 16 gigs of RAM. They're stressing that RTX 270 or an R or Radeon RX 5600,. Same thing DirectX 12, excuse me, yeah, directx 12, a hundred gigs of space is basically saying the same thing. So here's my thing. It's basically saying the same thing. So here's my thing.

Jason:

This game was run at a very early release version at the Expo and people were seeing some performance hits and those computers, I can almost guarantee you are some top of the line monsters. So just take this with a grain of salt. You know what I mean. When a game comes out for the first time, there's not going to be any drivers available for that title until we get them from either NVIDIA or AMD. So your game's going to run like it's not going to run the way you think it's going to run, hopefully. So it's best to keep an open mind and it's always, you know, I'm just saying prepare for the worst, because if it's better than that, then great, but prepare for the worst anyway. Those are the specs they're. They're available online. You can check on the steam page.

Jason:

Um did they have any questions guys. Yeah, what's up?

Erick:

uh, do they have, like they have like a target resolution to go along with those specs? Is this like 1080, 60 FPS, or do we know that at all?

Jason:

So on PC they don't really target resolution. There's so much variables with that. You know what I mean, eric. There's so many different processors. There's so much variables with that. You know what I mean, eric. There's so many different processors, there's so many different resolutions. Now we have so many video cards and mix and matching. I guess they're doing a generalization with these requirements. But a 1070, bro, good luck running this game with a 1070.

Erick:

You're going to get 30 frames a second, on a racing game. I was looking at that, the processor, the graphics card. I'm like what type of experience is that going to deliver?

Jason:

That's on low, with everything completely off, no effects. That's how they do it. They'll benchmark this so that way you're enticed to buy right, because they don't want to scare you off and say hey, yeah, you're going to need a 4090 or a 30. Yeah, you're going to need a $2,000, $3,000 video card just to run this game. Nobody will buy it right.

Erick:

So I have a question even oh, go ahead go ahead, eric, I'm sorry what's up, what's up? I was gonna, I was gonna say even with the recommended specs, though uh, I mean, I understand, you know, to your point, trying to market the game is, you know, being able to run on more hardware than it probably should. But even with the recommended, I mean they recommend a six-year-old GPU.

Jason:

Yeah, but still, bro, eric, the indicator here is the memory and the DirectX. Why does this game need 16 gigs of RAM? You know what I mean, on both Minimum and the recommended. Yeah, they're telling you, bro you need some RAM.

Erick:

You know what I mean, on both minimum and the recommended. They're telling you, bro you need some RAM.

Jason:

You're going to need some serious RAM, and they're not even telling us what kind of VRAM we need. They're giving us a video card that we can guess right. Eight gigs of video memory, but on what? On low, on medium, you, you know what?

Jeff:

I mean those are the questions yeah so I, um gentlemen, come be interested. I'm obviously the the the new one to the party here when it comes to, uh, like I, ultimately the gaming world here in the sim world, when it comes to the pc, this is kind of the first game that I've been, or the sim that I've been here when it like released besides lmu is this kind of like when it came out.

Jeff:

I'm just kind of explaining it from the way I've seen it is everybody got super hyped when this was announced and it just feels like it's been kind of whittled away a little bit over. What is it it's going to to actually be? How long does it usually take before it seems like now everybody's excited and now we're kind of maybe we should really curb our expectations for this. What's the timeframe for when other tracks are going to be released and the product as a whole? Lmu, for example, now not a I don't want to use that as the case. You know that we're comparing this to is like that's still not even totally finished, finished, right, and it's almost been what Eight months, yeah, are. Is this kind of how we should be looking at games from now on, or Sims when they're?

Jeff:

released or yeah, um, like this is this. These minimums and recommended are far lower than I honestly I thought they were going to be. Um, so to your point, jason, I guess it's curb your expectations. I guess it just seems a little weird when it first came out that you know, it's all this and all the graphics were incredible, and now we're looking at like who like those are?

Jason:

that's a fairly low bar well, yeah, I, yeah, I mean relatively this more speculation than anything. But to answer your question, I would definitely say eight months to a year.

Jeff:

Wow, ok, yeah.

Jason:

Before the, before the game really becomes stable enough to be to rely on it, on a sim, to use it every day.

Jeff:

Um, there's gonna be bugs like crazy when this thing comes out well, let me ask you, let me ask you this, and I'm sure hopefully maybe I'm not the absolute lowest one when all compared to all our listeners that are just as curious as I am. Why? Why do they release games that you know aren't fully fleshed out, if you will?

Jason:

that is a great question and I'm sure, eric, we can go. We can go on this forever. This is our. You know what it is. You know what it is, jeff, is that we pay the money and we pay the money, and they're trying to make a deadline and they know they can't make this deadline, but they still want you to buy this game. That's why this thing is on early release.

Jason:

Early release was never a thing 10 years ago, never you had a game come out and it was ready, it didn't need a patch, it didn't need anything, it was done, it was great. And then, maybe six months down the road, you saw DLC. These games, they come out early, release A week, two weeks into it they're announcing DLC that you can buy for the game that you just bought, which should have came with the game. But they're going to charge you again. It's just. It's a tough economy, bro.

Erick:

So I'll say this that's definitely a PC thing. Here we go. Well, I'll say this that's definitely a PC thing. Here we go. Well, I'll say this On console we'll get betas, which essentially be broken games. But, betas are free. But also and this is a perfect example I was going to say earlier that I'm thinking that in one of the interviews with the Assetto Corsa team, they mentioned targeting fall 2025 for the full release. So that eight-month timeframe that you mentioned, jason, is what they're already tracking, and that's the time.

Erick:

also they said that the console versions will come into play as well.

Jason:

I agree, you know so, console, not to take a stab at the consoles, but it's very, very locked in hardware. They want to test on a multitude and they want to add features. That's how I see it. With early releases on the PC, it's always been on the PC. You're correct, they do have betas on console. But again, I mean, how do you say this? A console is going to run a game. They tell you it runs at 4K, but it's not really 4K, it's checkerboard 4K, it's an upscaled version, it's a it's a end quote, fake 4K that you know. They, they, they have all this technology to to make you like. You know, if you're, if you're focused this way, then you can see a 4K image, check a board 4K, but anything on your sides or behind you blurry. You know stuff like little tricks like that to kind of make the console be able to run these games.

Jason:

I just hate that. These right here, these system requirements. It's going to be painful for most of us. Not everybody has a 4090. Not everybody has a freaking expensive ass computer like that. Some people are buying and budgeting and staying within. A lot of people build their PCs based off on the titles that we have today. They weren't really planning on something like this. Rob Markman and I'm just worried about DirectX 12. I'm telling you DirectX 12, and a custom engine they're not even using. They went away from the Unreal Engine that they were using, so they have their own engine and they're running that same engine on DX12.

Erick:

It's going to be interesting.

Jason:

It's going to be crazy. So I'm just saying, guys, don't uninstall AC, don't uninstall ACC, keep playing iRacing. When this comes out, you give it a test. It's only four tracks. What is it? Four right? Four tracks, five tracks, whatever yeah a crap ton of cars. Yeah, go ahead, it's gonna be more of a test you know what I mean than anything yeah, I don't agree with you, definitely setting expectations realistically.

Erick:

To your point, jeff, just the announcement of a new acetylchoracil product was exciting because it's like one of the newer, it's the new kid on the block. But then once people kind of start applying reality to it, it's probably not going to be a hundred percent. And then a little more time goes by and they're like well, it's probably really not going to be a hundred percent, especially since it's early access and not the full release. And then it's like well, it's early access and it's a very limited piece of the game we're getting, so it's probably really going to be more buggy than we're expecting, I think to be honest and if it isn't, if we're wrong, then go ahead and crucify us, man, but I hope we're wrong, right?

Jason:

I mean I hope yes, because that means everybody got a good quality product right, and we're not here to hype something up or to give out false expectations.

Jason:

I'm pointing out something that I'm seeing and telling you DX12 with 16 gigs of RAM just for that game. You know, if your system has 16 gigs of RAM, bro, you're going to need some RAM. You know the rest of your system needs to have RAM to run. Like Windows, I think, uses anywhere near from 8 to 12 gigs of RAM at any given point just to have the computer on. So add 16 to that and some cushion. 32 gigs of RAM is what you should be looking at. So that's what I mean about take these values and be realistic about them. You know what I mean.

Erick:

So yeah, I'm curious too. I know we're kind of dragging this on, but I'm curious if this is kind of the target for the um early access version of the game or something like that um has that ever been the case? You saying that this is the requirements now and then later it'll go up yeah, because I've never seen that, yeah, okay I was curious about that because just thinking, since we're not getting like the whole game, like the open world isn't going to be there, right, but it's just going to be these tracks.

Jason:

Once the uh content is content, the engine is the engine. The engine will run the game. If, if they can run nurburg ring and put 50 cars on track and your pc can handle it, I wouldn't worry about the game no more at that point. So you know what I mean that's it works you know we we got all this, yeah, so, um, and a custom engine, that's another thing.

Jason:

Custom engines that are not really tested by anybody, uh, other than the uh yeah, we're about to test we're about to test the guinea pigs, yeah, and we're paying to test it too, so uh 2025 get your credit cards ready, gents. Alright, so that's about it that I have. If anybody has any insight or would love to comment on this or have any questions, email us or drop a comment over to Eric.

Erick:

Yes, sir. So I had kind of a couple of things I was toying with. I missed you guys for the last recording, Bro Mike's pissed off, bro.

Jason:

Mike, you can hear me. Bro, can you tell him please? He's taking it personal. He's taking it personal. I got to hit up, mike.

Erick:

I promise you, I'm not ducking you, man. I promise you, that's not it.

Jason:

Mike was upset, bro. He's like bro, where's Eric?

Erick:

Shout out to Mike, Shout out to Daniel, Shout out to Konstantinos. Man, I wasn't there to express my appreciation for you guys and the support that you've given the podcast. I do want to extend that to you guys. We really appreciate it. It's been great especially me being newer to the community and to have guys of your stature in the community just kind of welcome us with open arms and support and just share your love with the hobby with us the way you have. I really appreciate that. But it's a new year and so I just wanted to get kind of your guys' expectations for this upcoming year with any hardware or software or mods, anything that you've already kind of got in your Amazon card or anything you're already looking to add to your rig for 2025.

Jeff:

You want to go, Jason? No, I want to hear jeff.

Jason:

I can't wait to hear jeff, I got two I got two.

Jeff:

The first one, not anything whiz, bang um. The wind simulator. I know mike, michael and jason have kind of gave their thoughts on it. Um, okay, but I drew, I do most formula racing right. So it's a little bit more applicable than like a, I guess, true gt3 or some type of car, sports car driving, right. So because you're uh open cockpit if you will, um, that's pretty straightforward.

Jason:

But then, uh, the one that I really want, ah, I'm gonna take a guess the one that's go ahead, the belt tension, you got it yeah, man like even before who's gonna do it first?

Jeff:

man, it was before it came out, you know before I saw michael's, uh uh, sim racing den's review, you know, I think I even reached out to jason was like hey, it can't be that difficult to like reach into the telemetry and value of the brake just actuates a motor. And I am probably way simplifying this right and from what I've read is you can build them fairly cheap. But then Jason brought up, was like are you going to plug something that you soldered into your couple thousand dollar PC? And I was like are you going to plug something that you soldered into your you know a couple thousand dollar PC? And I was like you make a very good point, my man.

Jason:

You know, I yeah. So I think, that's me, though Some people do it.

Jeff:

I just don't have the confidence in my abilities to voltage and amps and my soldering. You know, like all of the things, right, you know, like my little kid grabbed the wire as I was soldering at the thing or something. You know, like it just is. I need peace of mind. Right, I get in the rig to race. I don't tinker as much as I would like to. So, um, yeah, I would definitely love the seatbelt tensioner. Um, love the seatbelt tensioner. Um, yeah, some people think it's cheesy wearing the seatbelt in the rig. Um, to most people I don't give a shit what they say. If I like doing it, I'm gonna do it, because there's nobody taking pictures in my rig yeah, as I'm driving so, yeah, like it's my rig, I do it the way I want to do it.

Jeff:

Um, yeah, I think it's just like I'm all about like trying to make it as realistic as possible as me driving a race car.

Jason:

I'm never going to get to drive a race car. Don't you have seatbelts already? I do, yeah. I mean I don't use them very rarely you have them for like aesthetic you know, yeah, it just is there every once in a long while.

Jeff:

It's usually after a couple, so all right.

Jason:

But that's my thing.

Jeff:

Yeah, so long story real short. A seatbelt tensioner I would love Again we talked about this, though is it's such a high price to even test it? You know like you just jump in the pool Like there's no. You know like it's oh, send it to me and if I don't like it I'll send it back. It's just, that's it's. It's. It's a hard. It's not a cheap piece of gear to add, right, but, like I said, that's my goal would be to add that to the rig the seatbelt tensioner.

Jason:

So I will comment on the same thing. We're talking about the seatbelt tensioner, so I don't want to buy it because I want it, I want to test it, but I don't want to buy it. And I'm going to tell you why. Because that's a rabbit hole waiting to happen. You put the seat belt tensioner on right and it starts yanking on your shoulder right when you're driving. The next thing you want is the motion to go with that, let's go.

Jeff:

It's like the gateway drug yeah.

Jason:

And with motion comes bigger screens, bigger space. Now you're looking at 10, 15 dude, chill that for me. You chill that out, jason tgsr. Yo, I am laying low for now. I you know, I says jason never dude I. I just bought a new PC. I got the freaking active pedal and a steering wheel. I think I'm kind of good right now and you know I've heard from many different people about motion platforms that they don't really. It's more of a fun thing, it's not really a realism thing.

Jeff:

I got you dude but I would argue did you ever see somebody get off a motion rig?

Erick:

that wasn't smiling yeah, true, yeah, it was definitely.

Jeff:

It definitely looks fun it looks fun as shit but, it's wicked expensive yeah, it's crazy it needs to come down.

Jason:

If it came down, if it came down at a reasonable and when I say reasonable like 80 yeah, give me, give me half off a four thousand dollar setup. That way we can pay this monthly and not not have to do a freaking four thousand dollar payment to kind of make it all right. So you know what I'm saying. So, yeah, for me.

Jeff:

For me Constantinos made a point to that is like hey, like the more companies that make this stuff, the cheaper it gets. The longer it's out, the cheaper it gets. You know, it's kind of like any technology that you know the longer it's out, the more companies that are start making it. Hopefully we'll start to see some, you know, cheaper motion out there. But sorry, jason, go ahead and continue.

Jason:

No, I think Daniel had the. In my personal opinion, love you, constantinos, you the man. But I think Daniel had the. I got a good, how do you say feedback from him. He mentioned that shifters are not getting love or the love that he wants them to see Like, or the love that he wants them to see Like. Imagine a force feedback eight shifter where, when you miss a gear it, you know it that would be cool. So that would be something that I would be interested in. But as of right now, the 2nd of January 25, your boy is staying with what he got for now y'all heard it on the 2nd of July episode 36 the chicane podcast.

Jason:

I'll let you know. You'll see pictures first and then I'll. I'm waiting for Jeff to get that attention.

Jeff:

Jeff, let me know if you need like some work trips to save up for it. Okay, that's fair enough, though I mean, hey, if you need, like I've always got to go, you know, on some work trips to save up for it.

Jason:

Okay, All right, that's fair enough, though I mean, hey, that's the beauty of this hobby. Nothing has to be right right, right now, even though we want it right now. But you have a working simulator. You know, this is an addition, that's what it is. It's Okay, let me see what this is. And now I increased immersion, but you already have all the tools. I would still say don't sleep on the active pedal. The active pedal has been my favorite piece of gear ever In the history of my sim racing journey. The active pedal has done it for me big time. I can't, I'm going to stop, I'm going to stop. I can't, I'm going to stop, I'm going to stop. I can't stress it enough.

Jeff:

Because you're going to spit something out that you're going to want to jump into, but I got to save time. But I want to hear what Eric's got lined up in his Amazon.

Jason:

Okay, yeah, what you got, Eric.

Jeff:

His list, wish list.

Jason:

You can't ask the question and just hide behind the mic over there.

Erick:

Oh, no, no so for me obviously the world is my oyster right now I have the fewest amount of peripherals of everybody, so really, anything I can pick almost anything but things that I need the most for me personally a legit seat, which we already talked about I already got it in my Amazon cart and a better monitor mount, one that I can upgrade to triples eventually, because I already have a second monitor.

Jason:

You're doing it right, man, because that's priority, you know, getting the field of view right. Maybe monitors should be next too, if you want them, If you can squeeze that. But you know what I'm saying? This other shit that me and Jeff are talking about, the cool stuff, you know.

Erick:

Yeah, I'm going to be a cool kid one day.

Jason:

Yeah, you're talking foundation, you know. So I respect that. Get the foundation right first. Forget that.

Jeff:

Get the butt kicker, get the butt kicker. That's foundation you right first Forget that. Get the butt kicker, get the butt kicker.

Jason:

That's foundation. You're sitting on it.

Erick:

It's the floor. Here's the thing, the motivation for me getting the seat is the butt kicker I got to get a legit seat so I can get the butt kicker Out of everything that y'all have mentioned, out of every form I'm in, every group I'm in. Everybody has the butt kicker.

Jason:

It's like I can't race without the butt kicker, you know why you want this seat, man. You got this raggedy ass Honda Civic seat in the background there, hey you told me.

Jeff:

You didn't even tell me, race, what you're wrong.

Erick:

I got my $20 worth out of this seat.

Jason:

Hell yeah, hell yeah, you did I mean, so I time to upgrade it. It even got the guts too underneath. It's got all the.

Erick:

Joint on the side and everything. Look, if I could strap a butt kicker to it, I would have already done it. So I gotta buy a seat, so I can, we could probably engineer something, bro, definitely. You lose a lot of Feedback on it.

Jason:

Yeah, don't lie to me, bro. You know you want that clean ass seat in the background.

Erick:

So, it really, you lose a lot of feedback on it. Yeah, yeah, don't lie to me, bro.

Jason:

You know you want that clean ass seat in the background. You told me this man yeah.

Erick:

Hey, I'm looking at your picture, I'm looking at Jeff's, I'm trying to get like y'all man. Already, I already got some stickers, you know some vinyl stuff, so I got to.

Jason:

we'll talk later about that. I got to, so I got to. We'll talk later about that. Yeah, I want to say it, but I can't say it.

Erick:

And you mentioned the monitors, and that was something that I really had to put a lot of thought into, because I wanted a monitor that I can buy a single and replace mine and it works good as a single, but also I can just add triples, so I need to buy, yeah buy, yeah, but add those later. So I'm looking at the samsung g7 or the g8. Oh, one of those two, yes g7s right here, bro, welcome to the club yeah, like 240 giga megahertz or whatever 240

Erick:

yeah so so, and jason, you have the 2k or the 4k ones I have the 2k the 2k. See, that's you don't. That's what I'm thinking.

Jason:

The sweet spot is 32, 32 is you don't there's you're? Are you planning on being here with the monitor? Because if you are, then you can see 4k pixels. I mean it's a waste. Uh, yeah, that's what I was thinking. Va panels, then you can see 4K pixels. I mean it's a waste, yeah, that's what I was thinking. Va panels, bro, you can't go wrong. You see that That'll never get screen burn on it. Oh yeah, so I got this for Christmas. I'm holding it in my hands, anyway.

Erick:

Yeah, so for me, like I said, I got some of everything I can get in order. That's what I'm planning on getting.

Jason:

What I was going to tell you is and whoever's listening too if you're going to go that route, that's a smart way to do it, but just make sure it's a monitor that's not going to get discontinued. That's a monitor that's not going to go away, because you need the same panel, even though you could buy the identical panel and they will slightly be different from each other. No panel is the same panel, even though you could buy the identical panel and they will slightly be different from each other. No panel is the same. But the color wise, right, you know what I mean and the profile and the shape it needs to match it needs to stay the same. You know, some people do some crazy stuff, but I like unison, you know, like uniformity together. So that's a preference. I think it's a good way. I think it's a good way, bro. That's the way, so, and I can vouch for them.

Jason:

They've been here for four years almost and not a peep, you know, and I've used the living shit out of it. I'm telling you, I'm surprised that they're. You know, I hope nothing happens to them. They're all good, all out of these. I'm telling you, I'm surprised that they're. You know, I hope nothing happens to them. They're all good. All three of them.

Erick:

Hey look, that's a testimony that works for me, man, so that's my hit list.

Jason:

The hit list. All right, Jeff, what you got, what you got for us man.

Jeff:

All right. So I'm cruising, you know, with YouTube on our TV here and ran into a upload that the Red Bull F1 team pushed out on their YouTube page and it was called Game to Glory and it's a four-part episode, part c, episode. Um, they got this dude, sebastian job, that won the carrera cup tag or the carrera or the porsche carrera tag, heward cup, on iRacing. Um, it's crazy. Like they show this dude winning running outside and like a real racer opens his champagne outside and sprays it on his friends and family, whatever kind of weird, but anyways, um, so this dude wins it, right, and f1 or, excuse me, uh, red bull reaches out to him and said, hey, we kind of want to take you and push you basically as far as you and your ability can go into the real red bull cars. Like we're going to take you into red bull racing, you're're going to be part of a driver and they make a docu-series basically on this dude and his path through it. And they got four series. Each one's like 20 minutes, so it's super easy to watch. Just watch it at your leisure.

Jeff:

So they have like somebodies in Red Bull talking about sim racing and how they like Christian horner no, kidding is in the thing, talking about how they're starting to use sim racing to evaluate up-and-coming drivers um skill, because it is becoming to the point of so realistic that it's starting to translate to actual real world racing. So he's on there talking a bunch about it, but that's cool man. So they bring the dude out there and in the first car he gets into is a carrera um, and I don't know the track he was at, um, but he jumps into it and the funny part was, uh, it wasn't funny, it was kind of sad, but they had they brought a dude, one of the red bull drivers, in their carrera cup, whatever it was, uh, kind of coach him and the sim racer gets in there and like runs same times as the real driver and he's like shit, talking him behind his back, going yeah, but but there's nobody else out there. You know so or you know I'm like bro, like it's weird that people look down on sim racers that can make it in the real world. It was amazing, uh, that like.

Jeff:

It was just it wasn't amazing really, it was just like. Why is this like? Is it because, like, hey, like the dude and I'm gonna, you know, it's wicked expensive to become a motor professional motorsport driver, right, it's just very expensive and this dude found a way, kind of, to do it much cheaper, right, but he logged thousands of hours in iRacing and all of these series that you know he races in oh was iRacing yeah so he, yeah, excuse you.

Jeff:

So the cup that he won or the races, the series that he won was in iRacing yeah um so he gets in the Carrera but like, and he was like, oh, they're kind of walking him through the car and he's like, oh, this is yep, okay, yep, just like the game. Okay, yeah, just like the game. The you know, it's like it was like, wow, like the dash that they were showing him in front of in the screen was the same. It was exactly the same. Um, he did have to.

Jeff:

He did talk about some of the differences that you feel like. He was saying hey, when you're in the game, you feel the whole car through your hands, maybe a little bit in your butt If you have an active pedal, your foot, but when you're driving a car, you feel it all around you. Was the was the first thing he said when he jumped into that car. Um, and I think that's probably well, you're not telling us anything we don't already know. Right, you, when you're attached, strapped into the car, you can feel it a lot better than what you would do with a hand in your butt if you have butt kicker and things like that.

Erick:

So, um, so we got the career too.

Jeff:

Yeah, uh, the carrera um. And then they pushed them into like a fit that one of the episodes is like hey, like we want to see what your fitness is, because if you're going to put, we're going to put you in F1 car, we want to make sure that a you or your, your body, can withstand the G's of going around a corner. And it's exactly what you would think a sim racer going through a fitness thing would do. He like pulls a muscle on his neck and like they have to stop the training.

Erick:

You, they have to stop the training. You're like, oh bro, come on, you're going to have a bad day here.

Jeff:

I don't want to steal it all. I'm over-exaggerating what really happened, but give that portion to watch. You're like bro, come on, a lot of people are watching this stuff. Can you push some pain a little?

Jason:

bit, so they're on episode. What episode are they on? I haven't seen this yet. It's a four-part series.

Jeff:

I've watched them all and I think, uh, the first one is, uh, the carrera. The second one is like the fitness, um, the fitness portion of it, uh, but like they're doing the same thing, like deck exercises that you see verstappen and all the f1 guys doing uh, you know, like the torso twisting and stuff like that, um. So then, like uh, the third and fourth one, they actually go to the red bull ring and they throw this dude into a f4 car, so 200 horsepower, a little bit of downforce, um, and it's like 40 degrees you know super cold day and the dude's like it's driving on like ice out here uh so

Jeff:

he had a hard time adapting, uh, to the temp. It was colder, hard to warm up the tires. Uh, the coach they had for the formula car was much better than the other guy. That dude for the formula was super about getting this guy faster. They bring in after a session of going out there. He's like, yeah, feel these tires, they're still cold. You can't expect me going around the track with all the downforce on cold tires. It just is what it is today. Snap, and it's colder too, right, yeah, with you know, with all the down forces on cold tires, it just is what it is today. Uh, snap.

Jason:

So it's colder too, right? Yeah, you know, with wind and stuff, wind to, you know wind.

Jeff:

Yeah.

Jason:

And it was overcast.

Jeff:

It was a super crummy day but, they compare his F four times to like F fours going around the Red Bull ring. And this dude is right there for times. And then they're like, hey, go out there for a 10-lap and we'll see how consistent you are. And this dude is like all within a like a half a second, all those 10 laps. And people start to look at each other like boy, this boy can drive. Yeah, you're like. So then they put him in the F3.5. I didn't know they made an F3.5 car, so, excuse me, I know.

Jason:

I have no idea, what that means yeah.

Jeff:

So it's F3, f3.5, but it's 500 horsepower from 200. So there was a bit of a learning curve for there, because you can't just mash on the throttle, you got to lay it on, that's a big jump, bro, yeah, big jump, yeah.

Jeff:

So the big jump was him trusting the downforce around the corners. Right, because you're going in there faster than you probably are used to because you have so much downforce. So that took a little bit of learning curve, but the dude's times were still competitive. So long story short, the last episode they throw this dude in a Red Bull F1 car, probably two cars ago. It's the one with the shorter wing in the back.

Jeff:

But nonetheless, a thousand horsepower car downforce right and this dude does like one lap and he's like. Now. I know what you were talking about with neck muscles, you know, it's just like he's like you know, legit g's around the track, um, and he pulling very competitive lap times.

Jeff:

I don't want to give you know, give it all away and stuff, because people really should. It's a super interesting. You know, go spend an hour and a half your time on youtube. People have spent way worse times on youtube. Um, um, yeah, talking about this dude. Uh, he's a premier sim racer, right, but translating to an actual, no kidding race car and compared to people that have been doing this professionally for a living in a real race car, um, super interesting point. They have Christian Horner on there that was talking. Um, but, yeah, was. It was definitely worthwhile for you know, our listeners to go check that out well, it's interesting man yeah, I want to jump in and see how much it is to go get like.

Jeff:

There's got to be places around that you can like pay to go drive an f4 car around for a couple hours. Right, take a couple, take a class. Tell me that wouldn't be a freaking blast.

Jason:

Yeah, that would be awesome crazy yeah, I mean I would want the f 3.5, though yeah, I don't have.

Jeff:

Speaker. 2. Speaker, 3. Speaker, 4. Speaker, 5. Speaker 6.

Jason:

Speaker 7. Speaker, 8. Speaker, 9.

Jeff:

Speaker 10. Speaker. 11. Speaker. 12. Speaker. 13. Speaker. 14. Speaker 15.

Jason:

Speaker, 16. Speaker, 17. Speaker, 18. Speaker, 19. Speaker, 20. Speaker, 21. Speaker, 22. Speaker, 23. Speaker, 24. An opinion I don't want anybody to get offended, or whoever watches or listens, just hear me out. We're all human. We have two arms, two legs and a pair of eyes. If you have the drive to race, you have, so half of it is physical. You have to be somewhat physical, you have to be reactive, right, which is why they want young, because young drivers are everything. Everything works, everything's healthy, everything is there. You know, if there's a problem they can easily fix it, and when you get older it kind of gets harder. You know what I'm saying.

Jason:

But, it is like you said, it's a rich man's sport. You need to have money. But it is like you said, it's a rich man's sport, you need to have money. You need to basically dedicate your entire life as a cart driver and then move up to F1. You don't just jump in it after your 20s.

Jason:

If you're 20, the dream's kind of dead after that, you know if you're not there that ship has sailed yeah, you're, you're kind of, but that doesn't mean that because you drive in a simulator, you know that I love stories like this because it legitimizes sim racing and yeah, some people don't want to hear that because they worked their ass off. They stayed off of the video games and they've been on. You know real life, stuff spent gajillions of dollars too but here it is.

Jason:

I mean, I believe sim racers have more track time than real life drivers, straight up. If you look at, if you compare, you can drive anytime, any day, you know, provided you have the free time, of course. Uh, two or three hours a day these guys are driving. Only you know that one time, or they go there for practice and then they do a weekend there. You can drive the nurburgring every day and post thousands of laps versus their laps. You know what I'm trying to say. Yeah, and in a simulator that's super accurate, in an f1 car or in different f1 cars or what have you. So I mean, I believe that you know sim racing is important. It needs to be part of racing. It needs to be part of racing. It needs to be there, because that's how you get that more familiarity with the track. That's how you get faster. Right is practice and you know the rules. You can't practice outside of the calendar. You can't, yeah.

Erick:

I agree with you, jason, at a certain point the amount of lap time I mean track time you get plays a factor, but also, I think, just kind of, you know things change. So the traditional route is, you know, maybe you started on carts and then moved up you you were in a GT3 car or F1 car in a simulator your entire adolescence. So you're already getting used to that car and the speed and all of that stuff and then you move over to F4 and F3, that route and that's like a legitimate path.

Erick:

That's a lot more direct, because just driving carts is totally's totally different, mechanics wise, like everything 100 different about carts, so you don't develop muscles for something that you're not going to use granted you know your reaction time might be there and just like the endurance and all that stuff, but you know, I think there's a legitimate, um legitimate path for simulators and you know what's impressive, jeff?

Jason:

going back to the show the miniseries, I guess we're going to call it that is that. Think about how this sim racer must have felt. He's probably pressured, he's probably scared. There's all people talking shit about him behind his back. And it's not the same when you're in your house and you jump in your rig and there's nobody to bother you, like that, no one's judging your racing and you could focus more. But now you have all this pressure, you got these real life drivers and they're like look at this guy, you know, I'm just saying if he was fast on track those days, I believe he could be faster in a in a more mature way. You know what I mean.

Jeff:

Later, yeah the dude was given like one day with a carrera and throwing up respectable times. I come on, give the guy a weekend. I bet he'd be super competitive.

Jason:

Yeah, that's another thing, I mean, come on, let him feel out the car, let him feel the freaking car out real quick.

Erick:

Yeah, get those nerves out the way.

Jason:

Yeah, put him on the track, turn the radios off, turn the cameras off, just go, you'll see bro.

Jeff:

He did say when he was in the F1 car he was like that was the first time that acceleration was different, like in the Carrera that was okay. When you put your foot on the floor with that F1 car, he's like I need to go and watch this.

Jason:

I'll leave a link in the description to find this show. I think it's very relevant and interesting to our hobby. So thank you, jeff. And it's about that time again, so I kind of spoiled it, but I'm going to act like I don't know, eric. What is the track of the week, bro? What you?

Erick:

got for us, man, the track of the week. You guys will never guess what the track of the week bro. What you got for us, man, the track of the week. You guys will never guess what the track of the week is going to be. The track of the week is going to be Laguna Seca.

Jason:

Laguna Seca.

Erick:

Kind of. As we mentioned earlier, it's one of the tracks that's going to be featured in the upcoming it's a boot guys, it's a boot.

Jason:

Look at this, is it not a boot? The upcoming it's a boot guys, it's a boot. Look at this, is it not?

Erick:

a boot. We got some different iterations.

Jeff:

I don't know where you're seeing the boot.

Erick:

We'll start out with OG.

Jason:

Damn bro, that's a big change.

Erick:

Yeah, for some of the changes.

Erick:

That's pretty boring back in the day, one of the original designs, but just getting into the history of the track. So the entire reason why Laguna Seca was even thought of was because road racing had become very popular, but sadly it also become very dangerous and it literally was just the evolution of the cars. So they were doing road racing like in the 50s, and as cars got faster, more and more people started having wrecks and there were a couple of notable wrecks that spurred them to come up with a dedicated track and so literally like, listen to this, this timeframe right. So the idea that they need to come up with a new track started August 1956. They put a group together and the group was called the Sports Car Racing Association of the Monterey Peninsula, also known as SCRAMP. They put this organization together in August of 1956. Together in August of 1956, these guys got together and said we're going to go ahead and announce our first race for the track that has not even been built yet. For the track we don't even have the money for yet.

Jeff:

Oh my.

Erick:

God. So they announced this in August of 57 and the announcement was yeah, our first race is going to be in November, didn't? Have the money didn't have the track.

Jeff:

I miss those days when people just did stuff.

Erick:

In 60 days they raised $125,000 in the 50s. This is how many people were interested in racing. This is how off the cuff this was where is this again?

Jason:

Where is this again, laguna Seca?

Erick:

This is in the Monterey Peninsula. Let me get you the exact location.

Jason:

I'm just curious, man. 100k we're talking USD, right. I mean 100K in the 50s was like 500,000 equivalent now, Maybe more.

Erick:

Yeah, probably more. Uh, it's in uh, salinas, california oh, cali.

Erick:

So a lot of things happen in cali yep, so they were doing a lot of road racing out there and so just a little tidbit. Uh, laguna seca actually is spanish for dry lake, so it's in a lake bed. So that's one of the reasons why they're able to construct the track so quickly, because essentially the ground had already been prepped and they just kind of had to lay out the design. But the hilarious thing is the lead architect, a guy named Wallace home. He said the plans that I drew of the track weren't drawn until after the track was completed. He said we literally drew a rough diagram in the dirt, staked it out and the bulldozers moved in and went to work Like that's how, just fast my confidence was he probably showed up one day and was like what the hell is this?

Jason:

Hey?

Erick:

let me change my drawings to match the real world. Yeah, yeah, and so it was nine turns for the, the first course, as you can see here. Um, they had the corkscrew, which is crazy, and just the elevation and everything.

Jason:

But you know, laguna sega is a lot of you know bro, that course is sweeping deadly if you don't know what you're doing.

Erick:

Yeah it's that, that corkscrew. Uh, you know that'll be the end of everything.

Jason:

It's iconic I think it's known for that corkscrew.

Erick:

Yeah, and it was interesting when I was looking at it because you know, sometimes they add, you know, a little flair flavor to tracks over time. So you can see in 57, when they first started they had the corkscrew, but also they host a lot of different racing events here. But they also host a lot of motorcycle races here and a lot of the changes to the tracks were influenced by input from the motorcyclists. So that was one of the I thought, kind of unique things about this track. We think about a lot of these race courses and only think about cars, but they were actually pretty much going hand in hand with cars and motorcycles, so that influenced some of the changes that they made to the tracks. But let me get to the other sort of other just kind of interesting points. So for their inaugural race they had 35,000 paying spectators for their first race. Wow, and this is basically three months time that all this was announced. The race was announced, it was put together and 35,000 people paid to come see the first race.

Jeff:

Which lets you know how Would you say 60 days heads up?

Erick:

Yeah, and that just lets you know how important racing was even back then, especially in California. That was pretty cool. Well, we didn't have internet, man, we were kind of.

Jason:

Even back then, especially in california, that was pretty cool.

Erick:

Well, we didn't have internet man, we were kind of bored back then we needed something to do, eric bro that that's true, but also if you think about it, getting 35 000 people to show up to the first race with no internet, with no social media honestly, yeah, that's great, that's I think.

Jason:

I mean, I think, if they opened up a track here in hawaii, the entire island will be at this track.

Erick:

Bro, I promise you oh huge yeah, it'd be huge so I can see that happening still, even with you know, yep even this time, yeah uh.

Erick:

So one of the other other things I guess is kind of close, more closely related to us, I would like to mention the first game that it was featured in. So the first game to feature, uh, laguna seca was gran turismo. 2 was the first game to feature laguna seca, so gt. So so the first little. First, as they do, I just want to go through some of the changes here. So from the initial change, I mean initial track to the first change.

Erick:

Not much change looks like I added a pit lane here, after turn 9 looks like on the way to the final. That's part of the pit lane here. After turn nine looks like on the way to the front.

Jason:

Yeah, like a division that's probably a pit lane.

Erick:

Yeah.

Jason:

They didn't have a pit lane, bro, in the 50s.

Erick:

What for Look 60 days, you ain't got time to build. No pit lane. Yeah, you get what you get.

Jason:

They refill, you Pull over to the side Middle of the road. Hey, pull over, bro you need gas.

Erick:

Yeah, so you see the pit lane developed a little bit more, from 68 all the way to 85. Probably some crashes, bro. Still mostly the same shape. Then 86 and 87, they made like a little minor change.

Jason:

Oh, it stayed that shape for a long time huh.

Erick:

Look at that. Yep All the way through the 80s.

Jason:

It's 30 years. That's when they added the, the kink here.

Erick:

They did a major change here yeah, that's huge turns. Huge change for this track back in 89 and from 90 to 95. Looks like they kind of made the pit lane a little bit more elaborate to kind of, I guess, better flow with the new track design right.

Jason:

So that way you exit on a turn which is not high speed, not not so high speed as a straightaway, which for safety, yeah, I'm assuming yeah because you see here, uh, you come up the pit lane.

Erick:

Yeah, right Doing 100 miles Pulling yeah. And then. So the last change happened in 1996. And they have the Andretti hairpin named here. Okay, but as far as major changes, that's about it.

Jason:

It looks like one major change. No, right there, go to 90. You see, see turn 10. Look at turn 10. They made it wider. Let me see go again they did a little bit they cut it shorter, they slowed it down. They slowed it down.

Erick:

I wonder why dude you never. I think they also added um some safety precautions on these don't turn 11 and t2. Uh, yeah, run off on the sides of those as well, just for safety. But um, but yeah, man looks like a boot man.

Jason:

I don't know like you see the toe shape.

Erick:

So to me this looks like almost like an Egyptian kind of headpiece or mask. Think about this the neck, and then like this the face, this the nose, this the top.

Jeff:

Oh, I see it yeah yeah, if you're looking straight up.

Jason:

Like Pharaoh. Yeah, I don't know where the boot came in from. Yeah, I don't know. I see a boot man.

Erick:

Don't came in from. Yeah, I don't know. I see a boot man don't hate me once, you see the boot.

Jason:

You cannot see the boot.

Erick:

It's a boot to me, but yeah man, one of the most beloved tracks, most popular tracks, well-respected tracks. Um interesting history. And apparently when, when they came up it, it was the perfect time because the money was there, the people were there, I don't know.

Jason:

Yeah, man.

Erick:

Got me one of the dispensable laughs on Laguna.

Jason:

Seca. You should, man. Ac Evo is going to have Laguna Seca. No Assuming which is cool Game in 2025 is going to have the latest and greatest of track scans. Anyway, I hope yeah they better. I know it's not like F1 that they come out with an F1 2024 and they still got Spar from like 10 years ago Anyway.

Jeff:

Hey, can I show something real quick here, Jason? Yeah, what you got. Since we do this so often, I was looking at it overview, Since we do this all the time, look what they got. It's like a requirement that if you have a track, there's some type of go-kart track on the grounds of the track.

Jason:

That's in-depth dude. You see that. Imagine taking your son there, bro, with his electric go-kart.

Jeff:

Oh bro, that's going to be sweet.

Jason:

Ain't nobody there? Look, you just roll up Perfect timing, but it's cool.

Jeff:

It's like a requirement that they have that stuff. I don't know.

Erick:

It's cool they got the corkscrew name on there too.

Jason:

All right, so that's Laguna Seca for track of the week.

Jason:

If you guys want to see any suggestions, let us know. However, after AC Evil, we have our next two tracks that we revealed today, which is going to be Imola, and I forgot the other one. I don't have it at the top of my wait a minute, let me check my notes here. It's going to be Imola and it's going to going to be brands hatch to cover the two before the game launch. That way you guys have a little more on what you're going to be uh, racing on. So I think I'm a huge imala fan, so I'm going to take that one. Um, uh, for the next track of the week it'll be me. And uh, uh, yeah, famous track, famous driver died there. I'm not going to spoil, but uh, tha nk you so much, eric, for that track of the week is awesome, awesome. So that's going to conclude the main discussion track of the week.

Jason:

We have some questions or and remarks, comments that were sent to us during the holidays and we didn't cover those because we had a year close out and then we took kind of took a break. It didn't seem like we took a break, but we kind of did. So we kept the content flowing for you. Make sure you have your fix every Monday, so I'm going to go ahead and not disregard those who emailed the show while we were all on holiday and vacation slash break. So for the first one, let me go to it. It's going to be from a gentleman called Damien Caratacea. I hope I got that right.

Jeff:

I'm glad you said that, not me.

Jason:

Caratacea. He says hello guys, just wanted to start off with telling you guys how amazing the show is. Thank you very much. It's always good to hear that man it's telling you Humbling. It touches my heart. Yeah, humbly. Yes, I just started listening about two weeks ago and almost caught up on the back catalog. Yes, binge away, bro, binge away. We had it on all platforms. You can listen to it in your sleep, bro. You guys have great chemistry in the shows. Yep, we're all friends. I've never seen Eric before in real life.

Erick:

That's crazy.

Jason:

I've known him for almost 11 years and he might be a cyborg for all we know. He might be an AI from the future or some shit.

Jason:

I never know it says I've been racing on iRacing and I'm about to make the leap to GT3 series. I don't own a GT3 car yet, so I wanted to ask you guys if we could talk about choosing the process of choosing your first GT3 car. So here's the beauty there's a plethora of options. We just got the new Acura. A plethora of options. We just got the new Acura. The McLaren came out on the last, not this last update, but the one before that. Honestly, gt3 is a very healthy playlist. You can find races from rookie all the way up to A-class in iRacing.

Jason:

Now I'm going to suggest the Ferrari 296. Why? Because the Ferrari. Not only is it part of IMSA, not only is it part of the rookie series, it's also part of the Reign series and on top of that it has Ferrari has its own Ferrari GT3 club. So with that one car you can race all those series. So, and if you fancy, I would buy a second one, and for my second choice I would have to be the McLaren. So the McLaren. You've heard it from Daniel Moore here on the show he vouched for the car, said the car feels amazing, it feels realistic, and that just touched my heart. I'm a McLaren fan, just like Daniel Newman, but your first purchase, 100% the Ferrari 296. You can't go wrong, it's tried and true. It's a fast car, it's beautiful, it sounds good, it's easy to drive and you have nothing but options when you want to jump in and race. Does anybody have any other inputs on GT3?

Erick:

Yes, oh, let's hear it, I took your advice.

Jason:

You did?

Erick:

I bought the Ferrarii and it's a dream to drive. I mean you know, when you mess up, it's because you messed up. It's not anything weird with the car you know you don't mess that way, so that that's always something great. It's no, it's it, just it drives. If you take care of it, it'll take care of you. Like you said, I feel like I can drive fast in it. It's. It is GT3, which, you know, great braking.

Jason:

Yes.

Erick:

Good acceleration, good handling.

Jason:

You can slam her in the corner, bro, don't be scared, yep.

Erick:

You can, you can put you, you know, take it in the corners um decent downforce. It's just a great class to drive in and that's a great car to drive yeah, you have multi-class imsa.

Jason:

You could drive there with it, you know it's. It's open to you. So, jeff, you got any inputs? I know you don't do much gt3 man, but you should man.

Jeff:

I know I should and I do occasional sports car. I'm still a rookie, just because I just don't grind it a little bit. But ACC, I love the McLaren.

Jason:

Okay, there you go.

Jeff:

I'll leave it at that. It speaks to me. I feel like it handles well for ACC the McLaren.

Jason:

Okay, so we got McLaren fans here too. I mean it's a great car. I don't want to say easy, it's just a little more on the forgiving side, right?

Jeff:

let's be honest, it looks good it sounds good too.

Jason:

It's a little forgiving. It's not like a Porsche, which sounds amazing, but she will twist you around and you might not want to drive it no more. So, yeah, that's our take on the GT3. Selections Should be very simple, highly recommended. And I will add this If you have any questions on tracks or cars, you can go to IR. It's called IRacingBuyersGuide, irbgnet, and you can see for yourself how many times that Ferrari is being raced this season, and I'll leave that link in the description below for you to check out. So thank you so much, damien. I really appreciate it. Happy New Year, merry Christmas. And who's got the next question or the comment question, whatever? We'll go down the list real quick before we shut down today.

Erick:

All right, yeah, I can do the next one just real quick from Mr Kenneth. Shout out to Kenneth he says I enjoy listening to the podcast and just ask that you guys sell shirts. Or he says I enjoy listening to the podcast and just ask that you guys sell shirts or promote the podcast. Keep up the good work. And I know we were talking about a little bit before. We don't right now, but it might be in the works.

Jason:

We are looking into options on that and when we do, we'll definitely reveal it here on the show. But that's a great idea and I really thank you, kenneth, for providing us that feedback, and it sounds like you want to support us, so that would be kind of cool to have a bit of merch on the show, right? So bro?

Jeff:

Never thought the Chicane podcast would have some merch or some people asking for merch. It's awesome People asking for merch. It's awesome People asking for merch. Appreciate our listeners.

Jason:

Yeah, we're definitely going to sit down and bump heads together and see what we could pull off and see how we're going to work this out, but it's definitely in the works. I've been thinking about it for a while. I just want the show to grow more. Uh, I just want the show to grow more and I want you guys to continue to like our videos and share our videos and promote it, because that's going to bring more exposure and it's going to help later.

Jeff:

so yeah all right, jeff yeah, I'll knock off a lot. I'll knock off the last one here. Uh, so this individual asked to be, I wouldn't say anonymous, but uh just not kind of mentioned, so I'm going to paraphrase kind of their, what their email um, so this individual, you know, caught us on, uh, watches us or listens to us on youtube. Uh, he is on the east coast. Um, we'll just kind of leave it at that. He's a, a class driver, but quote. Unquote does not mean I'm fast, agreed, I'm a b-class driver and don't claim to be fast either, but he's got quite the rig from the reading of it.

Jeff:

But basically he is asking if we are interested or offering or would be willing to hold like a one hour a week practice session where basically anybody that listens to us or doesn't listen to us, for that matter uh wants to just jump in and, I guess, drive with us and you know, talk, shoot the shit, try to get faster.

Jeff:

You know, rub some, you know trade some, paint, um, and just have a good old time with the boys. You know basically what we do now just talk with the three of us, talk about sim racing and, uh, at the same time, just drive. I guess, if that is something that our listeners are interested in, make a comment, let us know and we'll kind of feel everybody out. It's not something I guess we thought anybody would be really interested in, but if that's something that you'd be interested in dropping in and one hour a week, super casual, not a race or anything like that just go out there and practice as we'll put together, we'll find a time that works, I guess the best. But if you're interested in that, put a comment and just let us know and we'll take that for feedback and see what we can do. It'd be pretty interesting to actually get on the track with some of our listeners if that's something you guys are interested in track with some of our listeners if that's something you guys are interested in, so um, yeah, I'm just paraphrasing here.

Jason:

Yeah, man, there's also the iRacing league option. I mean, two out of three of us are already signed up for it. Um, jeff can probably get into the euro side that's kind of the late, late nights if he wants to, if he has time. Um, I'm only saying that because their group is massive. It'll be us in there with you. It'll be not just us, it'll be a bigger group, all of us together. That's my take on that. If you want to host something private, then I'll be okay with that. I'll be totally down for that. And we have one more, and this one is kind of dear to me because he was one of the first ones to send us an email. Mr Bob Burke says hello, jason, eric and Jeff. A quick note to wish you all the best of the season and a happy, prosperous new year. I enjoy your show every week. Keep up the good work. So thank you so much, bob. I'm glad you stuck it out with us from the early days till now.

Jeff:

He's an OG man.

Jason:

Ye ah, man, he's an absolute OG.

Jason:

If the show blows up, we're definitely going to save this name man. There'll be some trinkets, oh yeah. Anyways, guys, I think that's going to be it today. Thank you so much for being here and for all you listeners and viewers. Please like our videos, subscribe and, yeah, send us notes, Send us emails we love getting these or comment below Same, you know I'm always there to respond. I get to them. Sometimes I get to them late, but I will definitely. I usually get to every single comment that, uh, that I could possibly get to if, if I have the answer, Um, but uh, yeah, anything else, guys, before we close, Nothing for me, nothing here, buddy.

Jeff:

But oh, shoot, shoot, shoot. I was jinxed the whole thing. Drive fast and break late.

Jason:

Okay.

Jeff:

Okay.

Erick:

Oh man.

Jason:

There it is Drive fast and break late and um, yeah, we'll see you guys next time and welcome to 2025. Hope you had a happy new year. Um and yeah, thank you so much and enjoy the 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

Co-host