The Chicane Podcast
Welcome to the Chicane Podcast, keeping you up to date on everything sim racing. As we venture into this dynamic realm of esports and virtual racing, we'll be exploring a variety of topics, from the cutting-edge gear that's transforming the way we race to the newest games, hardware and software that are pushing the boundaries of what's possible in this virtual sport. We'll also be giving you an inside look into the lives of some of the top virtual racers in the world, through in-depth interviews that will give you a unique perspective on what it's like to compete at the highest level in this rapidly evolving eSport. So, buckle up and get ready for an unforgettable ride as we take you right into the cockpit of this exciting digital racing world.
The Chicane Podcast
The Magic of Truck Sim
What if your favorite racing game suddenly had new twists and turns? We kick off with Eric's rollercoaster of a week, tackling internet gremlins while getting revved up over the big news that Forza Horizon 5 is racing to PS5 this spring. Jeff throws a curveball into the mix with the jaw-dropping $13 price tag on F1 24, sparking a heated debate on whether it's a steal or a snub. Our nostalgic hearts yearn for a refresh on iRacing’s Formula series, while sharing our personal highs and lows on the F1 virtual circuits.
Ever wondered what it's like to hit the open road in a big rig, cruising past iconic American landscapes? Get ready for a journey through the immersive world of American Truck Simulator, where the roaring engines and the camaraderie of Discord convoys make it a standout experience. We reminisce about epic hauls from Tulsa to Phoenix, all while jamming out to an '80s country playlist. From technical enhancements to a whopping 700,000 miles logged by dedicated players, the community’s passion for trucking simulations is nothing short of legendary.
Our celebration of 40 episodes takes a pitstop at the storied Nürburgring, the "Green Hell" itself. We relive historical moments from Niki Lauda's infamous crash to Schumacher’s final victory and trace the track's evolution from a motorsport mecca to a multifaceted venue. As we race towards our 50th episode, we extend our heartfelt thanks to you, our listeners. Whether you’re speeding through the latest gaming updates, trucking across virtual America, or reminiscing about motorsport history, we've got a seat for you in our sim racing community. Here's to breaking late and driving fast, both on the track and in life.
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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 Mr Jeff Smart. How's everybody doing today?
Erick:Doing good man.
Jeff:Team ready to get into it, Doing well over here.
Jason:Man, it's been a crazy month, crazy start of the year. We're just wrapping up January and there's been a lot of things. Yeah, it's been a lot of things. Nothing has slowed down whatsoever in the sim racing world. Things keep popping up. But before I get into my portion of announcements, I'm going to pass this on to Eric to check on him on his week. What's up, Eric? What's going on with you, brother?
Erick:have much time to race. This week, sadly, um been struggling with internet issues and all kind of stuff spectrum. I hope y'all get what's coming to y'all. Man, this is, this has been a rough week, um, but outside of that, you know, no real complaints, no snow storms, no, no, nothing like that.
Erick:So oh good good, yeah, so that's, that's been about it. I did want to just throw this out there, though I don't have much info on it, but if you ever wanted to play Forza and you didn't want to buy a PC or an Xbox, it is coming to PS5 this spring.
Jason:Oh, wow, yeah, this spring like April-ish.
Erick:When they say spring to me, I think about you know, I guess March, april, may technically somewhere in there, but they haven't dropped a date. But Forza 5 is coming. It's been a rumor for a while but apparently it's been this is Horizon right. Forza Whatever. Forza 5, is that Horizon?
Jason:I think that's Horizon, that's the one in Mexico. It's a good game. It's not really a sim, I mean, but it's a lot of fun. That's a lot of fun, rob Markman.
Erick:Yeah, yeah. To me it's interesting because PlayStation always has the crew game, which I always try to, in my mind, try to fill that void, that Forza Horizon void for us, and never quite-. Rob Markman, the sandbox racing yeah, and you know kind of less simulation, more kind of fun. You know kind of wild racing, not track racing, essentially well, that's good news. It's good you know more, more racing.
Jason:I like it so you're gonna pick it up then when it comes out Definitely. Ah, okay, I definitely support it yeah. We'll need a full report, yeah, yeah, I'll do it, for sure. Yeah, I'm pretty sure it'll handle it, though. Just fine, just fine, yeah, all right man. So what about you, jeff? What you got for us, man?
Jeff:I mean I had a couple of races but I'm going to get into it. My race is a little bit different, more non-traditional for me races, but I'll get into that a little later. It's kind of a related note to what Eric was saying. I saw for anybody that is wanted to get F124 that hasn't got it yet, it did go on sale today for like $13. All right, Is it worth it at $13? We don't need to get into it, Just letting everybody know. Rob Markman.
Jason:I mean, that's kind of.
Jeff:Rob Markman We've done this for a long time about it.
Jason:Rob Markman. I don't even think it was worth $13, man, just no miles to park Rob Markman.
Erick:Y'all have ruined me, man, y'all have ruined me. So, my, I told you guys about my uh, my co-worker who wanted to get into sim racing. I let him borrow my logitech uh g9 29 wheel or whatever, and I talked to him today about it. He's like, oh, I love it, like I'm like he's like really a novice. He was like I just found out that you need to use both feet when you're driving.
Erick:Oh wow, so he's super super green, but he's having fun, which is the most important thing, and he's driving exclusively F-124. And I had to restrain myself, I had to control my face because I didn't want to like you know kind of shit on anything any fun that he was having with it. If you're having fun, have fun with it. I used to play the.
Jason:F1 games. I mean the pretend right, the pretend to be in a race and you watch the actual F1 and then you go and you jump in your rig and you play the actual race. I think Jeff and I were doing that for a minute yeah, we kind of fell off it.
Jeff:They did have like a kind of a cool thing that like whatever the that race of the week was, you could get in there and race that week with real people. It it was cool and I guess, until it wasn't you know it's a cool concept, absolutely, but I think I racing does it if they have the track. There's like two or three races on saturday night in the w13.
Jason:Um that you can do and to close this right here, I mean I think I racing needs to give a little more love to the formula side. We haven't seen a formula car in a while. We've seen the Super Formula and the lights and all that, but I think we need a modern F1 car so people can jump in. The last car we had was the Mercedes W13, which is way generations behind. We already have a new generation and next year we're about to step into another F1 generation where the cars are totally different. So hopefully they'll get some more love, because I know Jeff, that's Jeff's thing is the F1 stuff.
Jeff:Yeah, there's no car that has DRS and push the pass. That kind of sucks.
Jason:Or ERS yeah or ERS.
Jeff:Yeah, I'm sorry. Yeah, it would be nice, and you can't even put your own paint on the Mercedes car. Yeah, it would be nice, and you can't even put your own paint on the Mercedes car. Yeah, let's go. Oh, you can't.
Jason:I didn't know that no.
Jeff:It was part of the agreement with Mercedes, letting them use the W13. Of course it was.
Jason:Who are we talking about here? That's something.
Jeff:Ferrari would do.
Jason:Yeah, ferrari too, but yeah, so my Porsche. What's up, eric?
Erick:I was saying I guess, beggars can't be choosers at this point.
Jason:Rob Markman. Nah, at least we have a one-to-one, almost a one-to-one replica which is kind of there's not a game out there, that there's not a SIM or game or anything like it. Having a car that's licensed by Mercedes, that was approved by Mercedes and probably tested by Mercedes, so I mean for $10, that's an easy buy. Oh, it does. It adds up real quick.
Erick:So what you?
Jason:got buddy.
Jason:Yeah, man, so really excited. I don't know if you could tell I'm kind of jumping in the seat here, kind of giddy up. So Danny Newman Racing again. The man has been working in the studio cooking up all kinds of stuff, was talking to him today and he just released his 5.1 version, which I'll go over the notes real quick. We have one-to-one LEDs for Automobilista 2.
Jason:So now you go in, you update your profiles for whatever wheel or DDU that you're using and you could put those on. He's added a 090 RPM profile to support many devices. Right Provided an option to eliminate the RPM red line on the final gear so you know when you're on the final gear instead of when you're maxed out, instead of the red line just going like that. You could just have it not do that. I don't care about that. I usually leave it flashing. I like to know that my engine is about to blow up and I need to stop, bro. I need to stop soon. So now the generic RPM now has a configurable starting percent so you can choose how early or late your RPMs take effect. So you have more control of your profiles. Native true dark mode is now optional. That means you can disable TDM activating with headlight stages, so in SIMs that don't support it, like ACC, or, excuse me, in supported SIMs like ACC or AMS2.
Jason:And a set of course of competizione had a host of performance optimizations and improvements. These improvements include adding the specific gaps in profiles where accurately appropriate, and adding to the DNR RPM database ensuring all peripherals devices OK. So massive update for ACC racers out there. And a low fuel warning is now optional during a practice session. So if you're practicing, usually the rig will just turn red when your fuel is low. You don't have to have that in a practice session. You can just have it activate, you know, at a quali or you can have it activate in a race. So that's kind of cool.
Jason:5.1 is out today. 5.2 is out today. 5.2, there's a very special thing coming to rally sim racers out there and I want to share a preview of his new dashboard. First time DNR is coming out with a dashboard and I'm honestly impressed because, honestly, for the support that you're getting and the price that you're paying, now you have more things that you can use with his product, with his subscription. So I'm just going to share out my Discord here and share out a preview and you can see the dashboard and testing very, very early stages, and it's a new rally dashboard specifically to those using racing and rally race that we don't have. There's currently not a dashboard like that. We have the lovely dashboard, yes, that captures telemetry and everything else, but a specific dashboard related and dedicated to Rally. It doesn't exist. And I can give kudos, I can give the honor and pleasure of sharing out something that's high-end, high quality. We do have dashboards out there, but something that is coming from a high-end studio such as DNR. I'm proud to present on the show here that we have something for you and it's kind of cool because the rally drivers are kind of they're sim racing. And then there's the niche in the niche right, which is rally, and I'm a big rally fan, you guys know.
Jason:And another project that has me excited is this invisible dashboard that he has here and it's like got a DDU that's blocking your screen, like you know, a DDU right in front of your screen. You can have x-ray vision and see the menus behind it. So it's like a tool, like, let's say, you're in the menus, right. This has happened to me before when I'm playing EAWRC and there's menus all the way across the bottom. You can't move them, you can't resize them. You would have to just reach around and look. The man is fixing the problem for you and he's already got instructions on how to install it already. So it's already a made product Again, the first one out there to do it. It's called the DNR Invisible Dash and ready for release immediately. That is crazy. I have to give it up to him. Dude, killing it, killing it Just last month. Just last month he released 5.0, revamped every single car in iRacing. There's a lot of cars in iRacing, bro.
Jason:Then he adds AMS2. Now he adds two more dashboards for one subscription, one price. You don't have to go and seek and find other places and I'm pretty sure when we see the final product there's going to have that special DNR touch to it, because I know how meticulous he is. And UI design I mean. Look at his plugin. That should say everything. Right there, it's clean. I'm telling you he's a good dude, yeah.
Jeff:DNR. Yeah, dnr, daniel's like bro daily.
Jason:I speak to this man. There's a good dude yeah, dnr. Yeah, dnr, daniel's like bro daily. I speak to this man. There's a challenge out there For all you Chicane podcasts. I'm going to add this challenge. He wants me to try a British tradition which is eating toast with butter and adding Heinz beans on it.
Erick:Oh yeah, beans on toast, that's all, oh yeah.
Jason:Bro, I haven't done it yet and I'm getting harassed messages every day. It's good. Oh, you've tried it.
Jeff:Yeah, my old man did it when I was a kid. We just put it on regular bread, though.
Jason:We didn't toast it. Oh, he's going to love this, Daniel we got a supporter.
Jeff:I'm Puerto Rican. Listen, there's a whole different meaning of beans with us. I meant stick to your bones.
Erick:food though, yeah. So what's the? I guess real quick, is it just like what beans?
Jason:Heinz. So the pork and beans, I think, is one of the ones.
Jeff:Yeah, the congee with a hamburger, right With the sauce, or a hot dog, yeah, like the baked ones. Yeah, the congee with a hamburger.
Erick:With the sauce or a hot dog? Yeah, like the baked beans.
Jason:Yeah, baked, beans Baked beans and check this. He's doing a raffle. I don't know if it's over yet, but check his Discord. If you send him a video or picture of you eating toast with the beans on, he's going to do a raffle to give you a year membership of DNR, at the highest level, I think. So come on, now it's time to eat some beans and toast you know what I'm saying.
Jeff:I'm telling you. I'll be right back.
Erick:I ain't even got to move. I just need to get my beans and toast right here at the camera. I'm ready.
Jason:And I want to say this guys, the man's been hard at work, but he finds a way to communicate with his community like that's a fun way to stay engaged and I told a good dude, right, yeah, you know, which is probably more important than all the other stuff, that he's just you know he loves he loves what he does you know what I mean he's he's in love with the studio and what he got to do and he's got so many ideas in his head and I I'm like Daniel, just release them, bro, Just go to sleep, and go to sleep too.
Jason:Make sure you get some rest, Daniel. But hey, DNR, if you want to come on the show again, let me know. We can have you on and you can walk us through on what's new. Up to you, brother. But anyways, main discussion time and, as promised and it's a very sensitive topic for me, man, because American Truck Simulator at one point in my life it was more important than water. Man, no, I'm just kidding.
Erick:Rob Markman. I was going to say I remember.
Jeff:This time I remember this Rob Markman, American Truck Simulator. Rob Markman, Dude, when I first met you and you sent me a video of I was going to say I remember this time. I remember this American Truck Simulator, Dude, when I first met you and you sent me a video.
Jason:I was like who is this guy?
Jeff:Yeah, that was the first thing. He's got the wooden wheel.
Jason:Yes, the cap yes. Yeah, he's got his 80s music playing.
Jeff:I don't mean to steal your thunder here, buddy.
Jason:No, I love hearing this because Rob Markman.
Jeff:Slinging gears. Yeah, man, floating, floating, get no clutch, and you do that finesse push. You know, I don't know Rob.
Jason:Markman oh yeah, I'd be slamming that, jake, bro, especially when it's like five in the morning and there's houses in the neighborhood, I'll be blah, blah, blah, blah, blah the whole way down. Play and pretend. But let me just cover what it is right. So, first off, it doesn't matter which one you choose. You want to choose a European truck simulator and American truck simulator. They share the same engine, they share the same development team and updates come out for both of them. So if one thing gets added to American Truck Sim, they add it to ETS. So I mean, the game goes on sale for like 10, 12 bucks. You can get both of them for the same price as the F-124 game, and the mouse works and trucks in. When did it come out? I'm just saying it came out in 2013-ish.
Jeff:Around there.
Jason:Enough said, I mean come on EA.
Jeff:It's like it came out from, like a garage I would love to talk to.
Jason:EA's development team. I just, oh man, one liner Mouse support Period. Thank you, garage. I would love to talk to ea's development team I just a one-liner mouse support period. Thank you, that's wild. So the presentation right. I'm mainly I'm gonna go over ats, because ats, american trucks in is the latest and greatest. It is the, the bread and butter. It has the loud ass trucks, the big trucks, the big rigs, that's what Americans love.
Jason:We love those big ass cat engines and making all this damn noise, because that's what we love to do. You know, that's that's kind of culture here. So, yeah, there you go. So it includes, like, various states, and their mission is to release two states every year, and the goal here is to create a scale of one of 20 of the United States of America, and I'm telling you, they're trying to make a one-to-one US map that's being added to you every single year to a year. I think we had Iowa this year and Ohio or something like that. Right now we got 16 states. The scale is 120. That's pretty damn, that's cool, that's pretty good. The game currently has 228 cities, including 34 in the base game and 194 added through dlc. Each city is part of a state, right, each city. So dlc adds. You know they, they always add two every year, and arkansas, too, just came out that that, that one I haven't. I haven't driven through arkansas yet, you know so the that's cool yeah, man, there'd be, there, was there was.
Jeff:there's nights that I get texts this is back a little bit, a little while ago and he's I'm like, hey man, what's up? And he's like on nothing, man, I'm just driving from tulsa to Phoenix Running a load to Tulsa to Phoenix.
Erick:Yeah, man, it's so fun man, I'm like what Just?
Jeff:sit there just listen to the music, check out his phone. I'm like this kid, it's got to be 80s music bro, I have a playlist, maybe I'll share it.
Jason:Let me know if you guys want it. It's called Country Ass Music.
Jeff:And it's on.
Jason:Spotify and it's on Spotify and it's nothing but 80s jam. I got the Kenny Rogers in there. I got all the American stuff in there. I don't know what came over me. I was like this just doesn't feel right with some hip hop. I need some country music. I need something that's going to relax me. Basically, rob Markman, and the rig too. I have it programmed. When I turned a switch on in the truck, the radio comes on and the AC, the vents on the rig too. When I turned the I have it programmed. When I turned the switch on in the truck, the radio comes on and the AC, the vents on the rig start blowing, rob.
Erick:Markman Jr. Hey man, you living the dream man.
Jason:I'm telling you, it's a very realistic experience. The suspension has been updated, the tire model there's a tire model in ATS and you feel the force Rob Markman Jr. It's a feel, the force, or, yeah, it is a sim it is definitely yeah, go ahead how many miles?
Jeff:I know the answer this, but I want to put this out there forever. How many miles in american truck simulator have you driven?
Jason:so I got 700 000000 on my Peterbilt 389. And about a total of about 700 hours played total on my Steam account alone. Now what's that say good?
Erick:700 hours isn't absurd.
Jason:Bro, that's a lot of ass time in this season. Let me tell you that, bro, you're just going down the highway.
Jeff:It's not like you're playing Call of Duty and you're on point all the time. Yeah, yeah, you're chilling.
Erick:That's why I say that a lot.
Jason:Eric, that's American Truck Sim. I still got Euro Truck Sim 2. That's got another 400, 500 miles.
Erick:I tried to give you an out man. I tried to give you an out man.
Jason:I'm telling you, man, I'm pretty sure those are rookie numbers. You know, like the Wolf of Wall Street, that's a rookie number. But according to other truck simmers, I've been doing this for a long time, and so the game has 40 models. That comes with it right Stock, and it's got all the popular brands Kenworth, peterbilt, freightliner. They have Volvo, they have the on the Euro side they have damn it, I forgot the names of those. They got Mercedes. There too, they got Mercedes trucks and those are the small, compact ones and those are tricky man because they can tip. They're easily upset on the suspension.
Jason:Anyway, so yeah, I covered the DLC immersion and sound in the game. So this is the thing. So there's sound in the game. The game has detailed sound. Engine it replaces engine noise, air brakes, weather windows it replaces engine noise, air brakes, weather windows.
Jason:But there's a step further. There's a guy called Z Mods and I'm going to share my screen and this right here, highly recommended for anyone that's getting into this, even if it's your first go, and this is their website go and this is their website. They started in 2021, which you know coincides with when I started around. Around that time I started trucking, and it's been dedicated to recording and producing top quality audio for euro trucks into an american truck sim. Our sound packs are meticulously crafted and enthusiastic, Jeez. So the guy to give you context, you see this right here he sticks a microphone inside of a real truck with some thousand dollar equipment, records that and creates a sound, an engine sounds that are one to one that. How come that, jake, that that you're hearing, jeff, that's, how come it sounds so freaking good? It's because of this. So look, he's using software. Dude, the guy is not playing around. So let's take a look at, let's take a look at his mods here, so you can get the horn, you can get some air fresheners for your truck, and they're free. So you know what I'm saying. Let's say you wanted a CAT 340, right? For example, look at this realistic FOV mod. That's free, $599. And that includes all the updates. Look at this Precision crafted engine sounds, full RPM spectrum. It includes the 310, the 350, the 400, 400, and so on 500 HP engines, all crafted by Dave Steele, with realistic torque curves. So compatibility, bro. That's crazy.
Jason:And then he made a thing. He's created this thing called Zaf, and I'm going to go over what that is real quick. And again, I don't know Zmods. We're not sponsored by him. He did not ask me to cover this. I own the entire store, just don't judge me but the entire store I have.
Jason:Look, master reverb, so you get the reverb in the tunnels. You know what I'm saying. So he created this thing called Zmods Audio Framework Plugin and what this thing does the outside magic air brake application, sound parking brake application, release, transmission range. This thing has. When you go to a gas station and trucks in and you put it in park, it has the seatbelt. Unclick the door and you can hear the guy pick up the thing and the gas going ding, ding. You know when you're putting, when you're gassing up. So listen, electrical self-test ignition engine fan that automatically turns on when the engine becomes too hot with it, bro.
Jason:So I don't want to kill you guys to death here, but this is free. You guys to death here, but this is free, free, zero dollars. Wow, dude, people are awesome. Look at this, I'm telling you, bro. And so I can go. I can, I can spend the entire chicane podcast hour ish on this, but I have 174 mods installed. Let that sink in. That's 40 gigs worth of content. That's 10 times bigger than the game. The game is only like eight gigs. That's hilarious. The game has I'll go over mods in a second Wrapping up radio stations. So it connects to real world radio stations and they have dedicated European radio stations. So it connects to real world radio stations and they have dedicated European radio stations and American stations that have commercials. I'm telling you, bro, it's hard to explain when you ask me trucks in, it's so deep. The modding community is ridiculous. I have a truck that is dear to my heart. It costs $90. Dang, rob Markman, it costs $90.
Jeff:I don't even know what to say.
Jason:But the man has made over 700 and different pieces for you to mod this truck so that truck becomes a hundred trucks. You know what I'm trying to say? That you can make and modify. So the way the game runs, I'll give you a quick synopsis. You start driving, you broke a shit. You ain't got no money, so you got to borrow some broke man's truck Make sure you don't crash it, because you got to pay the damages. And you drive the truck and you do a few jobs. And then you take out a loan with the bank and the bank charge you some stupid interest rates. So you got to make sure that you don't spend all your money upgrading the truck and go behind. Because I've been behind on my bills in the game and it messed me up, it put me in some serious debt in the game and it took me a long time to get out of that debt. So anyway, I took out a $100,000 loan.
Jason:I bought my first truck. It was a Kenworth, the W, something I forget the name. It's a Kenworth W, let's call it that. And W900, and W900, boom, just came in and I started doing some jobs. Right, and every time you do a job, you level up and you get to upgrade your skills and your licenses. So I got the Hazmat license so I could transport Hazmat.
Jason:And then I got my heavy cargo upgraded the engine and the transmission and the chassis so that way she could take the weight, and we drove down to Mexico, from California straight down into Mexico. I didn't pass the inspection because I was too heavy. I kept rolling. The thing was warning me to stop because they wanted to give me a fine. I just rolled through. I passed the border doing 80 miles an hour with a freaking 79,000 load. That's straight up illegal. And I went through, crossed the border. They delivered the Mexicans. They loved me, they gave me a hug. It was like, oh man, you got Anyway. So I discovered Mexico, started doing some jobs in Mexico and I bought a garage in Mexico and I started up my own company. This is wild yeah.
Jeff:We're talking about a video game, a sim Sim here.
Jason:A sim, video game, whatever you want to call it. And then my first worker. She was a dirtbag. She was always late for work.
Erick:I would get emails. Yeah, I'm not even kidding, bro. Sounds like a soap opera Bro.
Jason:And I had to hire her because she was the cheapest one. It was like $4 an hour or some shit, whatever it costs in Mexico, you know what I'm saying. And so from there I fired her ass and then I hired some other people. I gave her my trucks, I started buying trailers and then I became like a million. I got like 80 million, bro. I could buy any truck and hook it up and not worry about money no more. They're always on the road making money and depositing it into the account. So you know, that's kind of the game. The game is about driving. It's not about rushing to get the truck. It's about hooking up the truck, trying out different routes that are challenging, figuring out what's the best truck, what's the best engine, what's the best transmission to get through this particular route. And mexico is a mod, so it's not included in the game, but you can find it. Trust me, you can find all kinds of mods like it. If we into mods, bro, we're going to lose our time here, I promise you.
Jeff:I remember watching you. You pulled in. I can't remember if you were pulling in or pulling out. You had to back up. You're using your mirrors. You're making sure you don't hit nothing. I'm like this is crazy.
Jason:I upgraded that truck, jeff. You know what I did, instead of looking at the mirrors and looking back and stuff. When I first started sim racing, I had a single monitor and I used something called the track IR that I used to put it on my truck hat. And of course, I got my truck hat right here, which is from the movie Over the Top.
Jason:You know what I'm saying and then I got my GoPro, so you can see, and I had a sensor on the lid of the hat and whenever I would look left, the whole camera would shift left with my movement, with the movement of my head, because I didn't have a triple screen, I had a single screen and that was kind of what I was. I was limited to that. So, man, I know I had to get to over the top hat, I just had to do it.
Erick:So I'm jealous man.
Jason:Not only this, there is a shit ton Excuse my French, I do speak French of discord communities that do convoys. And one time we did 120 truck convoy in Columbia and we cruised down this big ass stretch and they had a Santa Maria little thing in the statue and everybody was on the comms and I wanted to get the CB radio radio because you can use cb radios and trucks in and it does the and the.
Erick:You know when you let it go bro, so non, yeah, yeah, break a break an hour, yeah man.
Jason:And then you're on a convoy and everybody's playing music, and and and and. When we're down a hill you can hear just a train of freaking. Jake brakes and then you got your hand like this your hand goes stiff after a while.
Jason:You know you're flipping up and down and stuff and you know I talked about the shifter. So you guys already know there's a lot, there's a lot to it. There's a lot of support. American Trucks in the developers do a live stream almost every week, so they're very active Multiplayer support. We covered mods and, yeah, the game has not seen an engine update a major one since launch. So they're working on adding DX12 because right now it's running on one thread.
Jason:And what does that mean? I'm running a top-end machine here and I can barely get 60 FPS, and it's because it's only using one thread on my CPU. It's not using the full power. So stay tuned for that, I mean. But honestly, bro, it's a truck, it's a truck game. You don't need anything higher than 60, I don't think, because you're not speeding, you're stopping at the lights, you're following traffic, there's cops everywhere. There's always accidents, too Spontaneous accident on the road that you have to deviate. One time there was a helicopter crash in the middle of the road and I had to deviate. There was lights everywhere and the guy was signaling to get off the road and my character was tired, so he fell asleep and the sim went dark and I freaking ran the truck I'm not even kidding, it went dark and I freaking ran the truck I'm not even kidding it went dark and I was like oh shit, and I lost control of the truck and the game came on and I was in the wall. So I had to, I had to call to get the truck.
Jeff:Yeah.
Jason:And get her fixed. And you know, I was waiting for a while, ran out of gas but yeah it's a lot of fun. It's deeper than you think.
Erick:That's like a life simulator and you just so happen to be driving trucks in it. There's so much going on.
Jason:Yeah, there's a lot going on. It's a lot of fun. And again, it's not a game that's going to take up all your time. You know what I mean. It's a game that you going to take up all your time. You know what I mean. It's a game that you could play, you know, sporadically you could play 15 minutes, 20 minutes, get in the truck, drive to the next city, have your cocktail, get a cocktail, get some Kenny Rogers, you know, get some what you call it some Johnny Cash and just, you know, have some fun anyway. But that's American Truck and Euro Truck, sim Euro Truck.
Jason:There's more to this, I promise you, but I don't want to go over my time because there's a very special thing, there's a very special track of the week. I know Jeff has some things to cover, but if you have any more questions on anything, even optimized settings, I've helped a few people from the SimRacingDens community asking me questions on optimizations for triple screens, let me know I've been doing this for quite a while and I have a formula and I have like three backups of that configuration file because I can't lose that thing. There's so many settings in that. But yeah, truxim has a special place in my heart. I'll leave the link for Zmods here.
Jason:No affiliates, no connection to him, but if he's watching which I doubt I just want to give him a shout out. Thank you for being part of the community and continuing to work on. I know he just became a father a few years ago and he still goes out with his microphone and all his laptop equipment and recording sounds. For a simulator, you know, I mean five bucks and then you get unlimited updates years after, like that $90 truck. It's odd it like, once you're in, I get updates and updates and additions, and additions. And I was going to tell Jeff real quick before I stop. You know I was looking back at I kind of fell off here. I added rear view cameras to the truck, so now they're.
Jeff:Why am I not?
Jason:surprised.
Jason:Yeah man and all the gauges in ATS are real. There is no fluff, Air pressure, everything you have to monitor. There's a lot going on with the truck. It's not just drive and go. There's a finesse too with the clutch and how to float gears and driving an 18 speed. If you haven't done it, I had to watch real life videos on YouTube on how to drive an 18 speed. I had to watch real life training truck videos to learn how to park the truck and they just came out with the Truckers Academy Free and they teach you how to drive now, which we didn't have, which is unfortunate, but 700,000 miles later they added. So anyways, over to Eric. I hope you guys enjoyed that. Let me know if you have any questions, Email us at the Chicane Podcast or drop a comment questions, email us at the chicane podcast or drop a comment.
Erick:Oh, this sounds, that sounds fun. I could do that, for I already know I could do that for hours for real, it's so good question, a quick question um, if you don't have like a truck wheel or, you know, maybe a sim setup, like, would you how? Um, non, you know, how friendly is it if you don't have like all the equipment?
Jason:oh, it's very friendly. Very friendly because, think about it this way if you have a wheelbase, even if you had a g, even if you had a logitech, you know it's, it's an immersion thing. It impacts your immersion. The more you you add, the more immersion. So, for example, my wheel. I started with the Logitech, remember, and I started driving SnowRunner and that's how I got into trucks and as soon as I got a PC, American Truck Sim was the first sim that I bought, NF1.
Jason:Giggity. So when I went to a direct drive I added a truck wheel. Why did I do that? Because of immersion, and I added 1800 degrees of rotation. So that's 900 this way and 900 that way. And what does that do? It simulates what a truck should feel like. You know what I mean.
Jeff:You got your little ball on there.
Jason:Yeah, because the truck is stiff when it's stopped because it's got power steering, but it'll take some finesse. So sometimes I give it a little gas and it'll lighten up. Yeah, but it's a lot of fun. Man, it's a game that will never be uninstalled. Let's just say that I don't care what comes out.
Jason:If I'm having a bad day, if I want some relax and not sweat to death like I was a few minutes ago in the Porsche race that I just did, Truck Sim. Truck Sim is there for you. It's a way to drive in your rig and relax and have a good time, and you could do that for five, 10, 15, an hour. Three, five, 10 hours you could be in that truck and everything is customizable. If you don't like the fact that you have to go to sleep, you could turn that off. If you don't like the fact that you have to go to sleep, you can turn that off. If you don't like the fact that you have to refuel the truck, you can turn that off. But if you want the full immersion, they got you, and they got cruise control too, so you can put the cruise control on and grab your drink and listen to the radio real-life radio with real people speaking, or your own playlist or whatever.
Jason:That's cool man radio real life radio with real people speaking or your own playlists or whatever. And yeah, so I got a Spotify little window and I shape it and I put it inside the dash of the truck. So it's kind of cool. But anyway, enough about ATS and ETS. Like I said, I can go forever, Eric. I'm telling you I can go forever.
Erick:Yeah, man, I'm going to pick your brain later.
Jason:Maybe I'll do a live stream or something. Do some trucks here, yeah, man, yeah, and not care about the copyright strikes and just play the jams I usually play. I got 18-hour playlist and it's called 80s Trucker FM. If you want to find my playlist, there's a big Peterbilt truck that was a screenshot of my actual truck and ATS Jason Rivera on Spotify. Go ahead and check it out. It's got all the 80s jams, pop music, rob Markman, oh yeah, you ready to go?
Erick:then man.
Jason:Rob Markman yeah, so that's about it for trucks.
Erick:Then, rob Markman, that's cool man, you're ready to go, man? Yeah, so that's about it for trucks, then. That's cool, man. Thanks for sharing. Yeah, man, I appreciate it.
Erick:So for mine it's going to be some more GT7 news. Gt7 just had an update and, if possible, show you guys just a little bit of what they did. I kind of predicted this, just a little bit of what they did. I kind of predicted this GT7 has been having regular updates, but I felt, like you know, with the Assetto, corsa, evo coming out, that everybody's kind of going to be feeling that pressure and might be saving some stuff, some changes and updates. And with GT7, they did just that. So I'll start with the bad news first. There are no new tracks, that. So, um, I'll start the bad news first. There are no new tracks, um, but we did get four new cars which you know, depending on what you like, um, one of these might float your, you know, might get you there. Uh, they introduced the gran turismo f35a, which is a kind of formula style cars here in the back oh, I like those hatchbacks, bro, yeah they hit us off with the hatchbacks.
Erick:So we've got another Honda Civic. This is the EF SI Extra the 1987.
Jason:87?.
Erick:Yeah, which is this black joint right? Here, and we have the Hyundai Ioniq 5 N 2024.
Jason:Hey, nobody care about those.
Erick:It's an EV. They keep those, this one and the one you guys have all been waiting for the Toyota CHRS 2018, which sent it back in the very back for a reason.
Jason:Who's been waiting for that? I don't know who's been waiting for that.
Erick:Nobody, nobody's been waiting on that one wait for that? I don't know nobody, nobody, but yeah, so uh got cars, uh. But here are some of the more interesting and things that apply to everybody.
Erick:So we got some new physics that they've added um, specifically they've changed the uh suspension model. They also have changed some of the steering geometry, specifically addressing traction control and ABS strength. So apparently it's supposed to be not as intense when you turn it on, I guess to make it to where you can be a little faster and kind of have more granularity with how much of your driving impacts. They also made some changes to the steering which I didn't see it in this.
Jason:Well, this is good man yeah.
Erick:Yeah, I didn't see it in here, but specifically what they mentioned about the steering was uh it. They changed the force feedback, so it's supposed to be more detailed force feedback and I can. I did a little test run earlier in a hurricane which I run a lot of, and oh, so this is out.
Jason:This is out, yeah this.
Erick:Yeah, this is out right now and I had to. It took me minute. I had to turn down the force. Feedback on everything.
Jason:Which is good right, Because that means that you got more gain.
Erick:It's significantly more like in the game. So in the game I had to turn it down to like six in the game.
Jason:Damn bro.
Erick:Wait, wait, wait.
Jason:It's like what is it? 10 steps in the game.
Erick:Okay, it was 10. I had it on eight before I turned it down to six.
Jason:And you're on a 15 too. You're on a 15.
Erick:I'm on a 15, but that was after.
Jason:on my little converter I'm running 80% max force and right now I'm at about 75 percent um max torque so, eric, I have a quick question for you, and this might be a question for a lot of people that have the same situation that you have. Like you have a pc and you have a PlayStation nearby. What, what do you? How do you get away with? Because right now you only have a few devices. I mean, you just got your new DDU, which is another, another piece of gear right, which is cool, but do you just physically unplug the USBs from the PC and plug them into the PS5? Or did you? Did you ever get around getting a switcher or like a, a USB switch? Cause I need to try, I need to get in and test this with my gear.
Erick:So so right now I'm lucky right I only have one USB cable that I move and that is for my alpha. My wheels, my, my pedals are going into the wheelbase and I'm switching the Alpha between the PC and the Sigma Cortex converter. So I'm not even plugging anything in or out of the PS5. The Cortex converter stays plugged into there, even with the haptics. The haptics stay plugged into the PC because they're getting telemetry from SimHub.
Jeff:Oh, wow, okay.
Erick:Even the DDU it's getting. I have a lovely dashboard on there. It's getting telemetry from SimHub, so I don't have to plug it into the PS5. It stays plugged into the PC. So literally I just plug in my alpha into the Cortex converter and I'm fired up on. Yeah.
Jason:I was thinking about picking up a PSVR2 again. Oh yeah, Pick it up on sale or something, because I already have a PS5.
Jason:You can find them5 cheap you can find them pretty cheap, um and test just for testing, because I, you know, I'm seeing a lot of changes here. Like every almost every other month, we're seeing a change with tire model and physics, which is, which is a good thing, right? I mean, we we joke around about gt7, but they're trying still working on it, right? Yeah, they're trying. Yeah, they're pushing, they're trying to get their. They can hear players loud and clear that some things need to be worked on right, some things need improving and on top of adding new content which is sorry to steal your thunder there, eric I Eric, what do you plan for percentages for PC versus console nowadays?
Jason:I think console's higher, but sim racers are more on PC in my opinion.
Jeff:No, Eric, just him in general.
Erick:So for me, especially with Assetto Corsa coming out, I've been on PC mostly. I literally until this update came out. I hadn't plugged in my PS5 in weeks.
Jason:Atta boy, I love it. But, still, but you know, but this is cool because, let me tell you something, bro, and the VR experience in Gran Turismo is unbelievable, unbelievable, it's unbelievable, unbelievable, it's unbelievable. I don't understand how a $500 console can push the graphics like that.
Jeff:I remember that video you sent when you were Close to a $5,000 machine back here.
Jason:but nobody wants to bring the damn game to PC, Just bring it over.
Erick:So you want to hear something funny? Um, it's been. It's been a while since I raced in vr. I've been just racing flat screen ah yeah, recently, and it's the biggest reason is I need the data, I need the info yes vr, specifically on grand turismo. I don't know why they don't allow you to do it, but you just don't get as much information Like for me, like being able to-.
Jason:I didn't know that as an indicator of your breaks.
Erick:well, that doesn't show up in VR. Being able to see the gap between people ahead of me and behind. If I had a crew chief that was running then it wouldn't be as big of a deal. I could ask him or get some information from him, but when I'm in VR, it's just me.
Jason:Or the new AI software that you're using.
Erick:Yeah, the Trophy AI. Trophy AI One of those guys. If I could have them working in DT7, that'd be great. But you just lose that information specifically about, like, what's going on all around you. So it's like you kind of sacrifice immersion for data.
Jason:But again, it's like put it this way, you're doing this and I'm just going to assume here, assume here, right, I don't want to speak for you, but I think that because you're on iRacing now and you're actually competing with us every week, you're you're finding the tools useful, you're finding them, that they actually help and they don't. It's not a flex thing. You know, we have these rigs and we have all this shit on there, but it's not. It's, those are tools that we're actually using. You know those buttons that mean something. They work, you know, and when we change something, you definitely feel it in the so yeah, but but then you have the option to jump back into gt7 and drive a mazda or something and strap in and kind of immerse yourself in that vr world, which is kind of cool.
Erick:I I mean it's kind of, it's nice to have I mean yeah, for for road cars and quick races. Like I said last night, when I hopped on to try out the new changes, yeah, that was kind of a refresher. It was like, oh, I hopped in, the next race is in 10 minutes. Okay, let me do a couple of little practice laps and I'm racing Like there's no, you know, there's nothing to it. It's really kind of plug and play.
Jason:Yes.
Erick:Which was nice. Which is what they wanted because yeah, and that's their target audience too.
Jason:The game is designed to be picked up with a remote controller and go. You know, there's not much prep, you know.
Erick:And they actually made some changes, some updates to the controllers too. So they made um, if you're using the steering wheel, they made changes to the steering geometry and also made changes updates to the steering if you're using controllers. So, like how the analogs the algorithm for the analogs work, stuff like that. So they're they're still still working on it that's what I'm saying.
Jason:My take is you bought a game that cost 60 bucks and you're getting all this support years later, which is great that's super cool you know, it's not like ea that they say well, this one's messed up, I'll just drop another one and don't change anything, just add the wallpaper. You know, a new wallpaper, a new schematic, no mouse support, zero.
Jeff:But we have a new game Smack the lipstick on the pig and call it a day.
Jason:WRC, ea. Wrc just dropped DLC two days ago and that's another game. It's EA, but they're finally learning their lesson. On release a title, support it. Release a title support, release the title, support it. If you want to charge for dlc, fine, but don't make me buy a whole nother game, a whole another game, just to have the latest and greatest or whatever. You know, I like games that we can go to and they improve over time, or you know my opinion and people will buy the DLC. If you have active players, they'll buy the DLC.
Erick:Definitely, and to me that's a better business model because you're not trying to figure out how to convince people to spend another $60. You can just come out with the base game. Of course you got to deal with performance issues and bugs and stuff like that, but once you get that to a certain point, you're not having to recreate the wheel every time. You can focus on coming out with meaningful content and people will pay for it if it's worth it.
Jason:And when there's a generation jump in hardware, then you release a new game. Because that's the thing with consoles Consoles are limited to their generation. So if you want the better games, you need to upgrade to the newer console. That's the difference. And then the games that you can't upgrade your console, you have to buy a whole new system. Right, yeah, and the changes are, they're slower than the PC side, but there's some pretty nice titles out there for you to enjoy. So I mean, but yeah, so those are pretty good. I'm going to try those, even on controller. I still pop in there to see what's new and stuff.
Erick:Yeah, that might be worth a glance, I guess.
Jason:Yeah, it may be worth a, you know, worth a glance, I guess yeah, I might wait for a sale and pick up, pick up a headset and and just to, yeah, I know, you know me, I'm going to that Tokyo highway with my RX7.
Erick:Oh, yeah, I love when they had those races.
Jeff:You only still had a headset. Huh, that's it. Alright, man. So.
Jason:Jeff, I think you're up next. Yeah, if you only still had a headset. Huh, that's it All right, man. So, jeff, I think you're up next. Thank you, eric, for the update on GT7. It's out now, so go ahead and download the update.
Erick:Yes, sir.
Jeff:Yeah, so for my portion I just wanted. So I was in my rig the other day earlier this week and I was kind of like, stuck between races, know, races, you kind of get to that window, you're like, oh it's, it's not like close enough where I can get in and rip a couple laps, but it's not long enough that you know get out and do something else. And I was like you know what? We've had a lot of comments on videos about oval race and oval tracks in the oval series is that they have uh, I don't know what made me do it, but I was like, let me see what I can get into, you know, with basically a rookie or rookie license in oval. So I jumped in there and turns out, this week I did one, two, three, four races or practice on the oval and what an experience I got really over here, which was incredible it is it's intense, so that's probably the right, correct word for it.
Jeff:But let me paint the picture of here how my experience for the week went all right, all right, all right. So over here, which was incredible, like just totally different than you know kind of the formula experience I got, and then over here was like what are we doing?
Jason:Like this is the wild wild West out here. So let me start with.
Jeff:I'll give you a quick rundown of what I, where I, um, where I started in in kind of the last couple. So, um, I drove a uh, these are the rookie ones that you need to start on our uh street stock, um, and then the mini stock, um. So, yeah, take a guess on how long these tracks are that you're driving these rookie ovals on.
Jason:About 25 seconds a lap, maybe.
Jeff:Bro 0.3 miles, 15 to 16 seconds a lap.
Jason:Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is a giant circle, man, bro, I was getting dizzy.
Jeff:I'm not lying to you. I'm like oh bro, this is and it's chaos. It's chaos out there driving around Cause everybody's, you know, basically it's the rookie, right, so they're just out there trying to figure out what's going on. You know, just like you are. I'm not saying I was any good by any stretch of the imagination, but it's kind of cool, like you find different lines, you just try to stay out of trouble. So that's one side of the spectrum, like the wild, wild west. Then I drove the W12 Dash, which is very IndyCar-looking-esque. For those people that don't know, I didn't know. On Phoenix, that is a mile-long track. It's much more of your traditional IndyCar.
Jason:Is that the one I was talking about? Maybe that one that looks like a damn Chevy Nova or something like that?
Jeff:Which one? The W12 dash, I think so. No, I mean, it looks like a Indy car. It's very Indy car. Open wheel, um, no, there's no halo. Um, it's downforce, and that's when I was like, and there wasn't so the, the crummy part about that. That's an awesome car and an awesome track, but it I've done it two times now and there's not a lot of people in that race or in those practices, so there's like three people, which kind of sucks. But let me tell you, when you are wheel to wheel, you're wheel to wheel with them for the whole race or the whole practice. It just is like. It's not like formula where you get your pass and you pull away. It's just very.
Jeff:I found it to be a lot more wheel to wheel, racing for longer than in your formula traditional classes. Maybe that's because of the. I don't know if drifting makes a difference in those indie cars, um, but, gentlemen, it it was. I don't know if drifting makes a difference in those indie cars, um, but gentlemen, it it was. I dare I say I had more fun than I thought I was going to have, driving ovals. And then I did last night, um, I did a, uh, the NASCAR pickup series.
Jason:Yo, the pickups are dope man At Daytonaa they're light.
Jeff:So this is like not that car. Those cars are like nothing I've ever done before, because you're driving and obviously like you're going down a straightaway or in a turn and you're like driving like a 45 right and the car's straight, nothing happens and you just start moving up and around crossing lanes and stuff dude, it's like um, and they're, they sound good too.
Jeff:Yeah, so I did a race on that one, Um, which is like your. I was running laps practicing and you're like door to door, everything like super close, tight racing. Um. So here's a funny story. So we're on the uh, uh, we're on the starting grid waiting for everybody to grid up and then you do like a half a lap and then the pit car comes in and then you're racing right Like they do on I don't know, and this is like when I knew I was like man. This is so stereotypical of NASCAR. One of the dudes is like he goes hot mic with the radio on, it's like down in the corner and he unmutes it and everybody else jumps in. He goes out in the streets bro, I can't, I can't.
Jason:And then, somebody else stops, and they went for like 30 seconds and I was like this is that?
Jeff:this is, this is nascar over is awesome. This makes me like I got the whole experience in one go. Oh yeah, oh, dude, I couldn't. My dad was over here watching and he was like, is it like this all the time? I'm like I have no idea. But uh, so dude, that racing and this is where I think the net code I got one race right, so take it for what it's worth. Not a lot of experience.
Jeff:Um, I think it was in practice where I was involved in an incident and I was like I don't think I hit him or he hit me. So we watched it and because you're so close, bumper to bumper, when you're drafting that sometime, I think the net code, if you will, cause we're watching it and there's no contact and we both, you know, kind of do the slide out and you, you know, you're doing donuts down the track for the whole straightaway and we're like, okay, you know, okay, maybe it got me. But uh, let me tell you, a d-class nascar at daytona is survival of the fittest, bro. With the d class, I mean, it was, I think there was like 28 cars that started, something like that, and when it, and it's only 10 laps. I think that there was like seven cars on the lead lap, but the cool part is is there's cars all over the place and there's. I didn't see if I wasn't I'll be honest, I was not on the lead lap, but uh, I didn't see a blue flag at all.
Jeff:I don't know if they get them or not, so I'll come back and report when I get more interesting, huh I don't think I've ever seen that either, because I now that I'm what my brother used to be like decade, decade or decade and a half ago. He was big in the nascar and I don't think they move out of the way for like if they're getting lapped or not they do bump, draft you hard though right, but if the leader is behind you it's not like formula one, where they're going to move out of the way. They get the blue flag and let them go past.
Jeff:I don't oh yeah you have to fight him too. Yeah, and, by the way, I've learned like if you just just graze the wall that screws up a whole lap because it's all, it's all momentum, you know.
Jason:Yeah, you lose a crap ton of time and to make that up.
Jeff:It's almost impossible. Yeah, it is depth, absolutely. Just avoid crashes. Very different, yeah. So I'm going to keep digging, I'm still going to race my formula, but I'm going to work out of my rookie. Um, I, after I ran a couple of miles, like why am I not, you know, making any headway, and I realized that they were on uh, what are they Unranked races? So I was like, oh crap, I got to get, you know, do the rookie ones with their, you know, the ranked graces and back to demolition derby on the 0.3 mile tracks and stuff. But it was fun. It was just different, right? Because normally I'm just used to one little bar in my little screen as the halo, but it was odd to get back in and there's the whole car, the dash, the roll cage the netting and I was like man what?
Jeff:you need is what wheel did you use so? And there these are kind of some of the notes I took down is uh, it is hard, so I definitely need to. The indy car. I can get away with my soul pack because it's, you know, very, it's same, same right. But you get into the nascar and it definitely loses the, the immersion you need when I have the soul pack.
Jeff:I need to get around also. I do so. I when I sold my shifter when I showed all my uh fanatec stuff, so I need to get a. Um, I need to get a shifter again and put it in there, if I'm gonna, because it just it just takes a little bit away when you're driving now, uh, you know nascar or stock car or one of them, and you're, you know, paddle shifting at least the sequential, because I know, yeah, the next gen used to be five speed or six speed for a long time and they finally went to the sequential.
Jeff:That's what I've read online, just so you know well, yeah, so the nascars are four, four gears and they're four.
Jason:Oh yeah, it makes sense, you know, to have that long drive, you know yeah you know, an indy car was was interesting too.
Jeff:Or like you're bouncing, riding that rev limiter the whole race but you know switching gears and just they're super tight, um keep it was fun, guys, I'll keep you posted um, but don't be afraid to jump in there and give it a go. I want to get more into the indie. I wish there were more and more people. There's a lot more races when you get a C and DB license, so there's probably a reason for that, I'd imagine.
Erick:Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.
Jason:That's cool, though, man.
Erick:It looks chaotic, but also fun.
Jason:Well, yeah, and this adds to the value right of our subscription. I have to mention it because a lot of people say that iRacing is expensive. But look at it like this you got F Formula Sim and then GT Sim and now Indy, all in one package. So, theoretically speaking, you can have one sim and it could be iRacing.
Jeff:Yeah, I am finding that I am probably going to have to purchase probably maybe two more cars a stock car and a Indy, some type of Indy.
Jason:That's the best thing, bro. That's like the most exciting thing when you have to buy a car and you got to do research and choose your weapon. It's fun.
Jeff:Honestly, it was chaos at first, but then it was fun. Those short tracks A you can't stay on the racing line, but B you're dodging cars, so you're fine. Sometimes going the long way around the corners the fastest way.
Jason:Yeah, you got to do what you got to do, man.
Jeff:Got to do what you got to do. Man Got to do what you got to do hey.
Jason:So, jeff, I guess, yeah, if you could man try to move up the ranks and let me know what it's like, man, Let us know, let the show know, let everybody know how you feel, because I know there's a bunch. Oval is a big thing in iRacing. It is a big part of it, like a massive part of it, a massive part of it. Probably the majority of players, I think, are on Oval now, or at least half of them are on NASCAR.
Jeff:Rob Markman. Yeah, and I think that's the NASCAR fans and supporters.
Jason:Rob Markman. Yeah, because the NASCAR game is trash. There's no other NASCAR, anything other than iRacing, Rob Markman.
Jeff:So here's one more thing, right, rob Markman.
Jason:They go.
Jeff:EA again, I don't know, so in the race last night we're gritting up right In the truck series for the NASCAR. If I'm butchering the series name, I apologize, but it was the truck series that is kind of associated with NASCAR. The car in front of me, in the back of it is FarmersOnlycom. Oh my.
Jason:God See, that's where you find them. That's where you find them. But anyways, guys, I would love to continue, but we have a very special segment, for it's that time of the week track of the week and there was no hint to what it was and I still don't know. So Eric Kelly has the honor and pleasure. And there he is, he's warming up. You can't see him right now, but he's, he's, you know, he's loosening up the muscles yeah, so I'm gonna go ahead and pass it over to you, brother.
Jason:Let us know what's what's going on this week track of the week.
Erick:So so this week, um, we got a a little track. You might have heard of it. Uh, it's called the number green. Oh, yeah so green the green hell, huh the, the, the green hill and the, the history, the, I don't know what is, oh, I can imagine, probably more prolific about this track the racing or just the stories. So I'm gonna try to cover a good bit of both here, but I'm gonna go ahead and share my screen strap in, fellas.
Erick:This is gonna be a ride right here, yeah so I'm gonna start out with kind of the uh, just like the facts, some of the just interesting, you know information. So, uh, the nürburgring, oh my god was look at. Basically you can't even see the idea to come up with the nürburgring started in 1925 and it took them two years and 14 million marks that's a german uh currency to okay, the track.
Erick:So for for a translation, that is 7 million 465. No, I'm sorry, that is yeah, 7 million 465 dollars. Basically, that was in 1925. That's a shit ton of money. Adjusted for inflation, that is $129 million that they spent to build this track.
Jason:Oh, my God.
Erick:That is the green hill.
Jeff:That's why it's called the green hill.
Erick:Look At one point there were up to 2,500 workers working to build this track. Like I said, it took two years. It is 28 kilometers or 17 miles long and this track has obviously some of everything in it. You know beautiful views, it has long straights, it has tight turns, canes, slow corners, fast corners, but also it has a freaking castle in the middle of the north loop. No way, there's some, there's some of everything there. It's called a nurburk castle.
Erick:That's located in the north loop road trip or flutcher, so it so, and just some of the interesting things about the track. It's like I said it's there for racing, but also it has become just a place for entertainment. So there are concerts there. People even get married at the.
Jason:Nürburgring. Jeff would be the one to propose at the Nürburgring. I'm cool In the middle ofburgring. I'm cool In the middle of the chicane.
Erick:Look, yeah, the, the Nürburgring man is just such a just in Germany and really to the, the sport of racing, it is such a iconic track and really, I think, deserves the kind of the well-agreed-upon title of one of the greatest tracks in the world. But there's some upsides and downsides, so we'll kind of go through some of the technical history. So, like I said, 1927, they started racing and the first race there was actually a motorbike race. It took place on June 18th and on the 19th was the first sports car race. The first winner of the motorbike race was a man by the name of Tony Ullman and the first sports car winner was Rudolph Carcolia and he happened to be driving a model Mercedes Benz Model S, and he happened to be driving a Mercedes-Benz Model S.
Erick:The next kind of milestone for them and I'll go over to this guy here because the track pretty much stayed the same until some major events you guys might be familiar with them, might have heard of them. Yeah, so in 1934, there's a kind of a story right, several stories with the nurburg. There's a story in 1934. It says that the w25 grand prix racing car was still painted in white german racing colors the day before the big, uh eiffel rennen race. This made it one kilogram too heavy. So the mechanics worked overnight, they scraped all the paint off and back then, you know, paint was lead and all kinds of stuff in it and they, they and they got it down under the 750 kilogram limit the next day and he ended up winning the race in a shiny silver mercedes that star iconic silver wow, yeah that's
Erick:awesome. Yeah, so that was 1934, um, but in 1940, because of world war ii, they had no racing from 1940 to 1946. And it took them a minute to kind of get back into things. After the war they had a couple of little kind of offshoot races, but one of these you know little cars decided to have a race there. The first Formula race took place on the Nürburgring in 1951, on July 29th, and the winner of that race was Alberto Ascari, and this was the Grand Prix of Germany, and he won in a Ferrari. Oh, oh, oh, yeah, the disrespect, the disrespect, right.
Erick:So another race, yeah, the disrespect the disrespect right so, uh, you know he left right after that race he's gone he got escorted out.
Jason:Pack this shit up, we're out of here. Hey, hey, uh, we gotta go, so that was the end for him.
Erick:But uh, but in.
Erick:Uh, let me find my place there so yeah, so 1951 the first formula race took place and then 1953 they established the world sports car championship and this was the first, uh, thousand kilometer race and this took place, like I said, 1953, on August 30th. So that's one of the kind of signature races for the Nürburgring that takes place there. They have several other ones, but in 1953, that was kind of the beginning of one that still goes on to this day. So in 1954, they actually you know, mercedes Benz is showing out, this is when they entered into formula one and they entered into formula one at the Nürburgring in the W one nine six and there were about 400,000 people watching there. It was Juan Manuel fan Fangio. It's called revenge. Was Juan Manuel Fangio. It's called revenge, bro. He won both the Grand Prix at the Nürburgring and the Drivers' Championship.
Jason:That year Dang.
Erick:Yeah, he did, murdered him that year. So I'm going to go to my history here. And 1968 was a special year. And the reason why this year was special is because up until now it had been known, as you know, the Nurburgring Nordschleife. Well, a guy by a well, not just a guy, but a racer by the name of Jackie Stewart, was getting ready for a race and he told his fellow driver, graham Hill, they were looking at the Nurburgring from the plane on their way to the Grand Prix of Germany and he said it's going to be the green hell this weekend.
Erick:Because it was raining, it was foggy, it's just going to be a rough, terrible race. And that is where the green hell came from in 1968 from Jackie Stewart. The Green Hill came from in 1968 from Jackie Stewart and obviously to this day the North Slash still has that moniker and it is well-earned and well-deserved.
Jason:It's a treacherous tack man.
Erick:It can be. Look, I've never been so bad at something that I love so much. I can't explain it. You know I appreciate the honesty here. Uh eric, oh look hey, what do we say? Straight, no chaser, straight, that's.
Jason:I am terrible hey, I'm gonna put that on the merch, bro straight.
Jeff:No chase I gotta I gotta question here, since we're being on. Uh, you're talking about our driving on this track. Do you guys memorize this track, or do people in general memorize this track? I have, or they, you do I have.
Jason:Yeah, I learned it the hard way just drive it, just drive it yep you get a feel yeah so sorry to steal your thunder. Eric, just hear me out this. This is how I feel. The Nuremberg ring does not let you rest. There is no rest up until the last straightaway, which lasts forever.
Jeff:But then you're going so fast, you ain't resting. Yeah, exactly, you can die.
Jason:still In the Nuremberg. If you're taking a left, you have a right. If you're taking a right, you have a. It's constant, it doesn't stop. It's like doing this, but in a longer fashion. You know what I mean, in a cleaner fashion. So you kind of learn a hill. You're like, oh okay, this hill, I got to go way off here and come into here, and that's how you learn it. I don't know the term names. Hell, no, I'll be lying to you.
Erick:Oh yeah. I mean there's so many, but I can drive to.
Jason:Nuremberg and be comfortable and know where the breaking points are.
Erick:Yes, yeah. So for me I definitely concur. Just drive it, you learn little markers. Yeah, you learn markers, but it's so different. Most tracks will have a couple of things right. They might have like okay, you got to remember, you got this hairpin in this track or you got this elevation change in this track S's yeah, you might have an S, you might have a chicane or two.
Erick:This thing has has everything. Like you were going uphills, you're going downhills, you're doing chicane, you're doing long, sloping, banking turns, you're doing hairpins, you're doing I mean it's, it's some of literally every kind of turn. Yeah, probably exists on this track, yeah, like it and, and not even just flat. But okay, you got a banking hairpin, you have an uphill, you know slope and turn. You have a, you know a sharp turn after a long straight or a high speed turn. I mean, I don't know, I don't know what miserable person came up with the desire. I don't know if the fact that is they literally built it in the side of a mountain has anything to do with it. They were literally just like. These are the only routes we can take around here.
Jason:How do you keep this track clean. I'm telling you In a mid-race, yeah, we're going to get to that.
Jeff:Let me let.
Jason:Eric, sorry man yeah let's keep it moving on.
Erick:I'm attracted. We're going to get to that man. Yeah, okay, but I guess keep going. Were there ups? No, we still got warmer ups. So in 1970, right, so we just found out it's called the Green Hill in 1968. In 1970, they started another iconic race, and it is the 24-hour at Nürburgring, and that was when the first one took place. And you have a guy by the name of Stritzel Stuck and Clemens Schickentatz in a BMW. They worked together to win the first Nürburgring 24-hour. Two dudes, yeah, two guys. It's crazy.
Jason:So a 12-hour shift basically.
Erick:Yeah, I don't know if they did 12-hour or 6-6 or how they managed to make it up, but that race still goes on to this day. You know how they probably yeah to make it up, but, um, yeah, it's still. You know that race still, um, goes on to this day and they say they have an average of about 200,000 people that come and spectate that race.
Erick:Damn, damn, yeah, it's still still a stadium size of people bro I mean it does cover, you know, 100, something acres probably more than that, bro, and it's, and it's, you know, kind of almost like a resort there. So they definitely have the facilities to support that. Um. But like I was saying before, or I was alluding to, you have ups and you have some downs. So in 1976 the last f1 race on the norse life took place. Up until then there have been a lot of, you know, tragic accidents, people dying, people coming close to death. One of the most notable ones was Niki Lauda.
Jason:Niki Lauda.
Erick:Yeah, he had a terrible accident between he was at the uh burgwork turn and a crazy accident car caught on fire and you know slid and all this stuff. Luckily he survived. But after that they pretty much nixed the f1 on the norwich life. Um, he was in a, in a ferrari. For anybody that that didn't know and he didn't want to race.
Jason:He was telling the FIA not to do the race because of the rain, it was too dangerous and all the drivers back then they voted, and basically they voted against it, like they voted for the race to continue and that's when the accident happened. You can watch a movie called Rush.
Jeff:That's it, yep Rush, just thinking about it.
Jason:If you haven't seen that, eric or anybody, I highly recommend this movie and it's about Niki Lauda's story and they cover this accident at the Nürburgring. It's a really great movie.
Erick:Yeah, you have to watch it because just the crash we got some more details here, so yeah, you have to watch it because, that just the crash yeah, more details. They say he like hit a rock face on the right side of the road, caught fire, skid across the track. Yeah, and he was hit by like three other cars.
Jason:Yeah, they kept hitting him and the track is so big that how are you going to get him out in time? You know what I mean?
Erick:That was my thing so big that how are you going to get?
Jason:them out in time. You know what I mean.
Erick:That was my thing like yeah how you cover this much like, yeah, without a helicopter or something like that. Um, but you know where there's, you know rain is always, you know some sunshine afterwards. So in 1984 we had the debut of the gp track all right okay.
Erick:So they started building this track in 1981. They wanted a track that you know obviously was safer and, you know, not as treacherous and shorter, and so after three years, they had their first debut race on the GP track, which was the European Grand Prix, and this was won by Elaine Prost in a McLaren. Nice, yeah, so F1 is back. So the British took it then, Shout out, danny.
Jason:Newman, danny Newman, yeah, yeah.
Erick:So since then there have been some, you know, some uh upgrades to the track and they have a bunch of different track layouts with the, you know, they have the nerve green nordschleife, the nordschleife plus the gp track. They have a circuit layout and a couple other layouts as well and I'm sorry I should be updating you guys on the visuals here, oh so that's the GP track. So this is the GP track here.
Jason:Oh, yes, yes yeah.
Erick:And so if you're looking at the Norwich Life, you have the Green Hill and then down here in gray they have the GP track. But you can see them added Combined. But you can see them added Combined because you can race them combined and that combined bro. It's crazy.
Jason:It makes them way longer.
Jeff:It's a long track.
Erick:Yeah, and, like I say, they added some other different configurations, but essentially they're all using just either the Norse Life or the GP track, kind of layout Look at all of those man Good night, yeah. So this I mean the amount of just mileage they get out of this. This track is crazy. I mean now they have so many different configurations of tracks.
Jason:It's beautiful, I love it.
Jeff:Imagine going there as a spectator and seeing them come by and be like, well, might as well go to the bathroom, go get some food, bro, I was thinking about that just now.
Jason:And then come back and they're like I'm like all right, jeff, we got about 10 minutes before the next car comes around.
Erick:I'm telling you, man, some people, camp out there.
Jason:I heard stories like that. Some people camp there. That'd be cool.
Erick:So in 2001, they actually upgraded all the start-finish houses, the pit buildings, and they put in a long stretch of just lounges and conference rooms and suites and all that stuff, making it, you know, just really friendly to people that are coming to visit and watch the games and making it very comfortable.
Jason:Yeah, we need to take a road trip, fellas, and jump over there and stay in the castle you know, hey, that sounds like something to do, man, it really does.
Erick:And so, jason, I think this will be this next little tidbit will be something near and dear to your heart. Let me share my yeah Deal here. Boom, so 2006 had a guy by the name of Michael Schumacher, celebrating his last victory at the Nurburgring at the Grand Prix of Europe in 2006. Wow, wow, yep, so this is the last place that he won.
Jason:I didn't know this Wow, yep.
Erick:And so to commemorate him and honor him, in 2007, they actually renamed one of the chicanes and they named it Michael Schumacher S.
Jason:Wow, yeah, dang, and they named it, uh, michael schumacher s wow, yeah, he's got a, he's got history written on the freaking road forever. Wow, yep, that's crazy bro, that's crazy.
Erick:Yep, and there was a couple of other just kind of cool facts. Uh, where is it at? Uh, yeah, so the first game to feature nurburgring. So I'm gonna try to find this and bring it back to sim or or racing. The first game was featured in was in 1976 whoa, the name of the game was nurburgring 76, 76?.
Jason:That was it. What was the platform on? What was that Atari? What is that?
Jeff:Chalk in the sidewalk.
Erick:It was a very simple game, Probably some blocks around a shape shaped like the Nurburgring or whatever they call it. You're playing.
Jason:Snake on a Nokia phone Nurburgring.
Erick:Hey, nurburgring, that definitely could have cut the mustard back then. You're playing Snake on a Nokia phone, nerva Green. Hey, nerva Green, that definitely could have cut the mustard back then.
Jason:That's cool though.
Erick:I looked that up about three or four different times. I was like, let me try Bing, let me try Google, let me try something else. This can't be right. And everything came back. It was a very simple game called Nerva Green in 1976. So, oh you know. And right now I saw something else we might be interested in. This would be my last little nugget on the uh, the number green. Right now, the uh, fastest lap completed on the number green norwich life was in five minutes and 19 seconds, and it was set by Timo Bernhard in a Porsche 919 Hybrid Evo, and this was in 2018. Damn bro, so he was moving.
Jason:Bro, for you to cover almost 18 miles in 5 minutes is insane bro, and this ain't a straight line, this is oh my God, bro, and this ain't a straight line.
Erick:This is.
Jason:Oh, my God bro.
Erick:Every way but straight. I'll see you in five minutes.
Jason:Yeah, look, wow. Hey, eric, I just wanted to thank you so much, yeah great job dude. Yeah, dude, we got to give these tracks the honor and glory that they deserve. That's how come we took time here. So thank you very much for respecting the track. Essentially, this is a track that's a legend. It's a legendary track. A lot of bad things happen, but a lot of good things happen too there.
Erick:Yeah, definitely.
Jason:Yeah, check out the movie Rush. You can see the Nord's life back in the 70s, I believe, or 60s, with Niki Lauda. It's a movie I recommend for any sim racer or F1 enthusiast.
Jeff:I don't even think you really need to be into racing. It's just a good story Story, right, yeah?
Jason:absolutely Good acting. It's got the guy from Thor. Forget his name. His name, that's James Hunt, which is a legendary driver. So you can. It sometimes is on Netflix, sometimes on Amazon Prime, but I'm sure you can find it if you know what I mean.
Erick:So yeah, I'll watch that for sure.
Jason:Yeah, I'll leave links to the trailer so that motivates you to watch. But thank you so much, eric, for for covering North's life that's. That's kind of that's like one of my top five tracks. You know Suzuka is number one, but you know Norberg ring is definitely in that five top five.
Erick:So, yeah, that's definitely one of my favorites. Now too, for real.
Jason:All right. So that covers track of the week and we're down to our final round table here. I don't really have anything to cover. I think this was a great episode. It's good to come back here. We've had a great start of the 2025. This is our 40th episode, 600 subscribers on the YouTube channel. The metrics on the audio side are still good and improving, so thank you so much for your support. If you want to support us, it's free. Just subscribe and like and merch. I still don't have a date. I'm still working on getting that together and presenting out a prototype, and then I have a. I have a alpha, I guess an alpha version, but I want to add all the the funny things that we say here. You know our slogan, which is straight, no chaser. And you know jeff's finest is uh, um, drive fast and break late. Drive fastaser. And you know Jeff's finest is uh, uh, um drive fast and break late drive fast and break late.
Jason:You know it's going to have a signature underneath. I have a lot of ideas uh for him, and I hear that Jeff is starting up a YouTube channel and we'll give the details out when that's ready.
Jeff:Uh, with his permission to do with sim racing.
Jason:My other, some of my other passions will be involved but yeah, and I mean jeff's, we live in hawaii so it'll be kind of cool to see a different side of content. Um, and uh, yeah, just a way to connect with him, another way to connect with jeff also, the tech gent has his, of course. You know he has the tech gentleman, which I just called him tech channel, which is, you know, a great, you know phone device, you know electronics, you know tech channel. And I know he's in the works with his sim racing channel and streaming and stuff like that. So yes, yeah.
Jason:I want this to be a community. If you're a fan of either or if you're a fan of the show, let's show them some love too. So it's not just TGSR. So anybody got anything to say Round table I'll start with Eric. That was my round table. It was just just happy, Happy, snappy, no man.
Erick:No great episode, man. Like I said, the track of the week. I always like learning about the tracks and that's one of the big ones most historical tracks and just great stories.
Jason:It's the highlight for me, bro, because you all three of us know what we're going to talk about, but we don't really reveal details about track of the week to each other.
Jeff:I think it's super cool.
Jason:And we all learn together. Yeah.
Jeff:Yeah, I think it's interesting hearing about the tracks, especially the ones that in Europe of how they like evolve around, like the history that's like the world, the two wars. Yeah, I think that's super interesting.
Jason:Yeah, and then it gives you a sense of appreciation when you actually drive it in the sim or if you watch it on TV. You have some foundation about what's this thing about and that's how this falls into the show. And I think everybody I haven't heard, I haven't seen a single dislike or anything about Track of the Week. So of course it can be better with video, but I'm trying to keep us out of the copyright eye, you know, and try to just have a conversation about it. But but yeah, so over to Jeff for his roundtable.
Jeff:All I got is an update. We are looking at 26 days till practice for F1.
Jason:But why would you do that?
Jeff:See, now I got to wait 26 days.
Jason:I didn't want to know the dates.
Jeff:Really, here's the kick in the jimmy.
Jason:No spoiler.
Jeff:It's 44 days to Australia.
Jason:Oh, my God.
Jeff:Week one, 44 days. Why would you do this, Jeff? I feel like I'm that. Was it that Pablo Escobar meme On the swing in the pool waiting till F1 comes by For real man. So, yeah, I can't wait.
Jason:I heard that Lewis Hamilton lost control of the car this weekend.
Jeff:He what.
Jason:What happened? Oh, yes, he did.
Jeff:Oh, I heard it. Of course I heard it. I just wanted to hear you say it.
Jason:Yeah, I just wanted to hear it again.
Jeff:That the Ferrari went into the wall.
Jason:It's the Ferrari's fault, bro.
Jeff:Yeah, charles Leclerc couldn't even get his practice session in.
Jason:Oh, what a shame, it's not looking good. Let's just say that. So anyways, guys, thank you so much again. Oh, and Jeff, please, here we go, yeah yeah, yeah, officially, drive fast, break late people.
Jeff:Okay, there you go, see, I can't we love you light people.
Jason:Okay, there you go, see, I can't, I can't, I can't end the show without the slogan.
Jason:It's a slogan that applies to everything, but anyways, guys always appreciate everyone. We're 40 episodes in, we're reaching for that 50 marker and this is just hours of entertainment and hours of information that we all share with the community together. So check out the GRL. We're still racing on there twice a week. Eric jumps in whenever he can and that's fine. We got Mike from the Sim Racing Den racing twice a week with us now. So if you're looking to race with the Chicane.
Jason:Podcast, or with your favorite content creator, mike uh, michael pagliaro. It's your chance to be door-to-door with him and check out my live streams if you want to see the replays. Uh and yeah, thank you so much for being here, thank you so much for supporting the channel and, with that, have a great start of your week. Thank you.
