The Chicane Podcast

Why Every Sim Racer Needs a 3D Printer

• Track Ghost Sim Racing • Episode 44

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Dive into the exhilarating world of sim racing and the revolutionary impact of 3D printing in our latest episode! Join hosts Jason Rivera, Eric Kelly, and Jeff Smart as they explore how 3D printing is becoming a game-changer for racers everywhere. From crafting personalized dashboards to fabricating hard-to-find components, this episode reveals the secrets to harnessing the power of 3D printers to elevate your racing experience.

We unpack the endless possibilities offered by 3D printing technology while highlighting the fast-growing community of creators within the sim racing world. Listen in as our hosts share their own journeys into 3D printing, explore popular models like the Bamboo Lab series, and provide comprehensive tips on selecting the right software. With practical advice for maximizing efficiency and creativity, you'll be inspired by our discussion on how technology is reshaping the racing landscape.

Whether you’re a seasoned driver or just starting, you’ll discover valuable insights on utilizing 3D printing to enhance your racing rig and build connections within the community. We also discuss various resources and opportunities for learning, showcasing an array of designs that you can bring to life with your printer. 

Don’t miss this chance to spark your imagination and transform your approach to sim racing! Engage with our conversation, and if you’re curious to learn more, subscribe, share this episode with fellow racing enthusiasts, and join us on this exciting journey into the future of racing!

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

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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. How's everybody doing today?

Jeff:

Doing good man Dude, gentlemen, awesome seeing you guys Ready to get into it today.

Jason:

Hell yeah, man. So there's been a lot of things happening in the community, a lot of great things, and we brought up 3D printers and they have changed my life the same way. Eric can kind of back me up on this.

Jeff:

And yeah, so a lot of go ahead. Jeff, I was going to say I think a lot of our listeners too are in the 3D printing game or ready to jump into it, because, boy, that monopolized the topics for all the comments, oh yeah.

Erick:

I'm telling you, man, it took over man. I understand now I understand why, though, for real, Right.

Jason:

I mean to be honest with you. 3d printing is a community of itself. It's not just the thought started with. I'm going to buy this for sim racing because I'm a sim racer and I want to save money on Etsy and giving Etsy the middle finger even though we like Etsy, etsy don't get mad at us. And then I found out that oh, I have these files. And then this person hits me up and they have that file. And then we have somebody in the comments that's building an A86 entire dashboard, a Corolla 86 dashboard that's wild yeah, using a printer that's being.

Jason:

It's being made in your face. Take a few hours.

Erick:

It's like Christmas you go to sleep and wake up, and the thing that you were wanting before you went to sleep is there no shipping, no delay, like in my mind. It's even more of hey if we have another pandemic.

Jason:

I'm ready.

Erick:

Listen bro To the next level.

Jason:

And guys, I mean I know we touched a little or I mean I guess we had kind of a deep dive with Eric about bamboo devices and we went in detail on pricing and what you can do and the capabilities. I think it's fair to do a part two and show the software, because the software at first right, it's a little intimidating. You open this thing and it has a thousand tools, but then when you learn how to use it which took about 15 minutes to learn how and what buttons do and what have you.

Jeff:

Oh, jason, did you get one. Oh, yes, oh, you got one.

Jason:

While we were recording the podcast.

Jeff:

It's so true, yes, because you know, we do a full screen layout, so I have a little time to hide, you know what I'm saying.

Jason:

So I had another window and I was adding it to the car and I hit buy, so you know that's great.

Jeff:

You got a hell of a deal though man, dude, people don't know, we do a little hang around session after we record. But Jason was like hey, everybody check this screen out, I'm going to share, and no kidding. The echoes had barely gone away from the session and my boy over here was hitting click, click, click, click, click. Credit card buy.

Jason:

Within seconds it was there's my first print right here.

Erick:

There's, I got my I got my benchy over there I have hold on, I'll do.

Jason:

I'll do a, mr kelly. Wow, this is gonna be difficult to get out.

Jeff:

I have got no lie, maybe 300 text messages from you knuckleheads strictly about 3d oh, we're doing that on purpose. Oh, we are overwhelming the chat, like, like I said, like you guys give me a hard time laying it on thick on me oh yeah I I recorded a clip of our own episode and was dying, laughing when he was like, laying it on thick, I was just, I couldn't.

Jason:

I couldn't breathe. I was like Jeff, you killed me with this. So you know, oh man, and this right here right is kind of like what Eric displayed. He had it in like this, I guess, what do you call that?

Erick:

Yeah, like little palettes Right.

Jason:

And that's the thing it's like. It's not just one thing Like oh, I need to go and print what Eric printed. No, there's like a hundred thousand variations of it. There's remixes, there's colors, there's all kinds of stuff. And I just printed a riser. And it was cool, because when I want to pick out a color and I want to color match it, you see, eric, eric, my man is motivated, bro, I'm telling you he is motivated. Hey, look, see, he grabs something.

Jeff:

Y'all bro. You guys are bad influencers on me Bad influencers.

Erick:

It's the beginning of the concept of you don't have to do anything one way. You don't have to just take whatever you find With Jason printing out. I thought these were cool because I printed these out with the black filament and just snapped these on. I thought this was cool because you flip them over, you got the colors, you got the name of them, you can, you know, fill them or whatever. Jason's printing out this thing and it looks like a freaking Rolodex. He's like hold my beer, watch this. Yeah, man, I'm like that looks smooth man, this looks rinky Jake man.

Jason:

Right. So I mean, there's many different tools I'm going to show off, but I first want to show you guys the Bamboo Lab Studio app. So let me go ahead and share my screen and show you how Well. First of all, before I begin, I did buy an A1 combo and it was here for two days.

Erick:

Yes.

Jason:

And then I boxed it up, put it in the trunk and sped off to Best Buy and returned it. And you think I'm crazy after saying all these great things. Like I said, we bought this with the intent of sim racing. Now I'm thinking about the garage, woodwork, the backyard, all kinds of stuff. So I went and I upgraded to a bigger machine, the one where you can control the temperature more for more. What do you call that?

Jeff:

Different materials.

Jason:

Different types of filaments. Yes, yeah, that are abrasive, and I just wanted a machine. Nothing wrong with that A1 or A1 Mini, because A1 Mini I'm still considering adding that to the arsenal just for PLA, just for PLA prints, and 90% of sim racing gear is printed on PETG or PLA, so that's just a disclaimer. Nothing wrong with that machine, I had zero issues with it. I just wanted something more capable, because I'm thinking way beyond sim racing now I'm thinking about you know, I know Jeff has got his boat.

Jeff:

You were showing me stuff for the boat and I was like, oh, I showed him the drink holders.

Erick:

bro for the rods it's getting really difficult, oh nice.

Jason:

Yeah, I'm trying to get him, I'm trying to hit him. There's got to be something where he's like, all right, damn it.

Jeff:

What I'm thinking is I sell it to the wife as like get the kid to learn how to print, and sell it as like STEM development and all this other stuff.

Erick:

Well, I need to print stuff around the house. Stop buying those 3M hooks. Print out whatever you want. Listen. Two words, jeff. Two words I'm going to tell you right now.

Jason:

Two words Quality time, that's it. You are spending time and this is a good segue to show off the software that you can learn together and you can explain how it works. And all you need is your brain. Yeah, all you need is your brain and imagination.

Jeff:

Engineering for the little squirt, yeah, yeah.

Jason:

I like how he put that. That's awesome. I like how he put that, that's awesome, I like that. So here is the Bamboo Lab and it has my profile in there. You know, ghostface is up there and you can see the there it is, yeah, the fishing stuff.

Jason:

There's the fishing rod that we recently opened, and here you can see my print history, which has been involved, as you can see, and this is on a single roll of filament. Um, and this app is like it's free you, they update it, it's free, you get a small version on the phone side. It's called the handy app. It doesn't, it's not as involved, but it has the controls you need as well if you want to keep things simple, but if you want full control, like, let's say, look, I'm already looking at I'm a big RX-7 guy, so I'm looking at rotary engines and how to make them you know, yeah, and how to make them rolls.

Erick:

That's going to be cool. So I mean that them rolls.

Jason:

That's going to be cool, that's dope, that's cool.

Jason:

So I mean, if you guys look at CAD Autodesk software that costs hundreds of dollars over time, because now everything is a subscription, everything has a subscription model. These guys are releasing a software that you can manipulate and view from multiple angles Oops, from multiple angles and see the height and see how it touches the bed, and then you can go in here and you can see the preview and it does all the magic for you and it tells you how much this is going to cost me this is in dollars, I'm assuming Right and how fast it is. You have a profile for X1 Carbon, which is what I purchased. But again, you can go here, you can go into let me show off that real quick. You can select. The A1 is right there. You can select that and then pick it from here and it'll automatically, if I go back to prepare and preview, it'll automatically calculate the time that it would take and it's actually a shorter time because I use a 0.4 nozzle. I think, um and yeah, and these, yeah, go ahead.

Erick:

Seamless man like just even thinking about using cad. Like cad didn't know, you're about to put this through a 3d printer and you're about to use pla filament and you're about to print it on a bamboo or whatever. Like having all that be taken into consideration and then, when you hit preview, it'll tell you hey, the way you have this lying on there, you need a support here that you are going to have a trees, yes, something here, or like it's, it's I, I.

Erick:

I feel kind of, you know, like I'm behind the times Me too, To be so impressed. Yes, Because this is so. It feels like they've thought of so much in this free application.

Jeff:

Eric, you almost sound like you were ready to say it almost feels like it's made by Apple.

Erick:

No, this is the Apple of 3D printing. Okay, all right, but that is what it is. I don't know of a situation where this software, I haven't got to a point where this isn't enough yet.

Jason:

No, not at all. Not at all.

Erick:

But as far as what, they kind of just give you out the box, like Jason said, a couple of 15, 20 minutes of just figuring this out. Watch a video, maybe. A couple of 15, 20 minutes of just like figuring this out. Watch a video maybe, and you're already like taking something and modifying it and customizing it in the. You know, the world is your oyster at this point.

Jason:

Well, yeah, I mean, and you can also, for example, right, this thing has six plates and let's say I want this done quicker. And let's say I want this done quicker, so I go into prepare and I can move parts from one plate to the next plate. Now watch this. Now I eliminated a plate already and this is no video training. This is no YouTube. This is straight tinker, just tinkering, moving, seeing how how things are placed. I could put this here now.

Jason:

I saved a crap ton of time and if I want to make this efficient for and we're using an a1, we're using an a1, we're not using no top end machine like I like, like I showed you guys, any, any printer can print this type of stuff. If I right-click this and I click on arrange, it will automatically group pieces together to save you filament and time. Well, filament is always going to be the same, but at least time right, because the longer like, for example, if I click on preview now it's going to go through the motion, it's going to detect that it's going to take five minutes to print this one plate, right, five minutes. However, if I started doing this and moving pieces around, then that means the nozzle has to travel longer, right, it has to move over here and travel down over here. Now, if I click on preview, it's well wait a minute.

Jeff:

You were looking at prepare time.

Jason:

So let's look at it again. Five hours and 28 minutes, right, I was like five minutes I was like damn. I was like damn, what did I do to this Five hours and 28 minutes? Let's see if it makes a difference.

Erick:

It should yeah when you hit a range.

Jason:

Yeah, If it doesn't, then I'm going to look dumb on the Chicane Podcast right now. So it's okay, I guess, same time, same time 528.

Erick:

So maybe they're moving and these are very similar shaped pieces.

Jason:

Maybe because of height.

Erick:

Yeah, so that might just be the case where, no matter where you put these pieces, it doesn't impact the time that much.

Jason:

I mean the simple fact that I saved you two plates. So what does that mean? These printers have one plate and you have to give them time to cool down and you have to be there physically to remove them off the plate. So if I can save you, yeah. So if you can save time by putting stuff on the same plate, as long as it doesn't affect the quality, I mean, you're good to go.

Jeff:

You need a little automated arm you can press and it just goes. Oh, that's the only thing that's missing.

Jason:

Yeah. So another good example is this bar right here and this is the. I think it was two hours that we saved. Right, it was two hours per plate, so we saved a lot of time. I'm pretty sure already. So let's say this wasn't a rotary. Let's just imagine that this wasn't a rotary little engine thing and you wanted to put a tool inside of the print. You can see the progression here from the start to the finish.

Jeff:

Yo, that is cool.

Jason:

And if I want to add, if I want to add a pause, so I tell the printer to stop at 49, whatever at the height or whatever, I can put something in the tool and then have it resume, or you resume when you're ready and it'll seal that item inside. So I mean this doesn't just like little examples of this software. You can control your device from here, the same way Eric explained on his on his coverage on this. Here you can see the project that we're working on, you can see the preview, you can see the instructions, you can see well, I got like straight up PDF instructions here and your calibration, right, just some tips for calibration. And there I mean there you have it. I mean it's.

Jeff:

You know, jason, you me, um, some of the plates that they have where it's got the carbon fiber texture. Yes, like that was. You want to talk about that a little bit because I think that is super cool and super relevant for, you know, sim racing community that would yes, you are correct cool having go ahead so let me.

Erick:

I got to give you a plate too.

Jason:

Let's open up the Bamboo website. We are not sponsored by Bamboo. We would love to. I would absolutely love to. I would put a tattoo of Bamboo on my arm if they sponsored us. Just kidding.

Erick:

It's reserved right here. I have another spot picked out for my second prayer already.

Jason:

Right here, bro. Yeah, so let me open up the website here.

Jeff:

It's cool. I bet you think they have like wood grain ones that give it a wood texture and stuff like that.

Erick:

I bet there's Well, you got wood filament bro, you got wood. Wood, glass, metal, carbon fiber. Like yeah, man, it's crazy.

Jason:

So here's the website. We're gonna click on accessories. You're gonna go to build plates and let's look at those. Here is your carbon fiber build plate, meaning, whatever you print on this plate, it's going to have a carbon fiber. Look to it, no matter what.

Jeff:

And then you have different.

Jason:

You have a diamond, you have a diamond pattern, which I also purchased. I didn't get the starry one, you know, I don't get down like that, or the Galaxy, but the carbon fiber man, and then you can see like different examples of the texture yeah being applied. Look at sim racing guys. Gear shift simulator. You can have this in your house the day of and you can get a, a, a a mag safe charger, of course, iphone.

Erick:

And just.

Jason:

I mean, and then you can see the sparkle which kind of you know, yeah, that's cool.

Erick:

the the color transfer one really tripped me out when I first saw it, because the texture, sure that makes sense. But when I saw the color being transferred and normally to get that you'd have to buy like a film or vinyl or something like that, right, and you just print it and you pick it up and it's on there.

Jeff:

Can you reprint on that spot on the plate, or is it? It's got to eventually wear away, right, yeah, eventually.

Jason:

It'll eventually wear away and it comes-.

Jeff:

But for 20 bucks or what's that? $12?

Jason:

$12.

Erick:

Yep, and then you can do both sides. Oh, that's right.

Jason:

Yeah, yeah. So this is for the. If I look at for the A1, it's a little more. Yeah, 20 bucks because of the size right.

Jeff:

Just to have that capability. That's wild Right Carbon fiber and it's perfect every time.

Erick:

You don't have to worry about trimming it up and all this stuff. Jeez, good night.

Jason:

Yeah, and you can kind of see the texture blocks and what you know. It tells you how to install it, so you can.

Jeff:

Almost looks like a forge.

Jason:

So you buy the plate right. So you buy the plate and let's say you just need spare sheets. You can buy spare sheets for 12 bucks and you could probably get. I don't know I got to really test that but I've heard somewhere around 50 or maybe 80 prints on a single page. It all depends on the temperature, what kind of material.

Jeff:

There's a lot of variables with that, yeah, but you don't use it on what you want, like if you didn't care about the texture, right, you just put down a flat one yeah, that's how you do it yeah, flat or textured or whatever that's that's a good point too.

Erick:

You wouldn't necessarily want this particular pattern on every single thing. You print exactly for the stuff you don't. It comes with a plate. It comes with a texture plate If you find the texture pop off your carbon or whatever, pop on the normal texture one and you just save it for those applications.

Jason:

Or those special prints that show right, yeah, because I don't need the entire. I was thinking about that. I was like man, can I just buy carbon fiber instead of wrapping it? Because I'm lazy, I don't like wrapping, I mess it up.

Jeff:

It's not easy.

Jason:

Yeah, I wrap a lot of my stuff and it takes time and if you mess it up or if you get a bubble, then you got to use a needle to get it out, but it never looks right, never looks good.

Jeff:

Yeah, then you got to use a needle to get it out, but it never looks right, never looks good, yeah, 100%.

Jason:

So here you can see a nice. You know you can use TPU or PLA, which PLA I just mentioned is the most common filament and it's the easiest to work with and it's pretty damn strong. It surprised me how strong it is. You know for the price. You know what I mean. Yeah, surprised me how strong it is. You know for the price, you know what I mean. So so these are the plates, um that that you can buy. If you add like two or three of them, you can give them for even cheaper. So they always try to hook you up with a deal. But you know, I mean just a small, I guess, second part to Eric's topic. That was so good and it woken me up to again. I'm new to this, eric's new to this. I'm not new to the tech. I knew that they existed, but having the printer in the house is a completely different conversation, completely different house is a completely different conversation, completely different.

Erick:

I think the sale that you guys talked about too is like the technology, that your capability, that you're getting for that price is ridiculous yeah, and it's, and, to be honest, the like, the one that jason moved up to, the biggest difference is the enclosure and the other piece to the vertical height that you can print on, because the bamboo and um, I mean not the bamboo but the a1 and a1 mini, they're kind of like a fixed height as far as like how high they can go. The ones that have the enclosure, they have a higher vertical height that you can print. So if you want to print taller prints, um, and then, like this was saying, with the different materials, to have the enclosure to be able to maintain the heat or maintain higher temperature, that's really, yes, those are really the biggest benefits, but the, the nozzle, the print quality the xy as well.

Erick:

Eric um the xy because Well, eric the XY because the bed slingers is what they call them.

Jason:

They move back and forth. So the nozzle just moves side to side and the bed moves back and forth. It depends on how big the print, but an XY nozzle will do the moving for you and it keeps the bed still. So it's a lot more stability on that. You know I'm not bad mouthing the a1 again.

Erick:

Again, it's a great yeah, that's one thing I forgot, you can see how many prints I made with it.

Jason:

I I really tested it out, you know hey you.

Erick:

You know how many prints I've made. Has it stopped yet? Only for the podcast.

Jason:

I'm pretty sure Eric had something going on tonight and he's like yeah, I'm pretty sure that printer was in the house making noise, the only reason it wasn't going was because I got to pick up some white filament.

Erick:

The wifey asked for something to be printed in white and I didn't have a chance to pick it up. So as soon as I pick it up, it's back to work okay, back to it.

Jason:

Well, that that covers, um, I guess, my portion. My take right. This is it's only been a week and I've moved that fast with 3d printing and what does that? That means that any viewers out there, any listeners out there, can do this. Anybody can install this software. It's easy, it's taken care of. When you see something that's available, the settings are pre-done for you. They're there for you. If you want to tinker with it, you can. If you want a 3D model and import it into that software, if you want a 3D model and import it into that software Bamboo Studio, you can. I do have one announcement that I failed to mention.

Jeff:

Oh, we skipped over those. Huh, yes, we did. We'll catch them, we'll get them.

Jason:

And it's an exciting time, man, because we are reaching the end of season five in the Global iRacing League and a gentleman that I will keep his name anonymous reached out to me and said that he wanted to create a skin for the Chicane Podcast for the BMW specific.

Jeff:

Delivery.

Jason:

Yes, because we don't care about the MX-5. What car If you're an MX-5.?

Erick:

What car?

Jason:

If you're an MX-5, keep gunning. You will get up to the BMW side, or that might be your preference. I had to. But I will say this I want to keep it a secret. I want you guys to find it, and the way you'll find it is this Please email the show at the chicane podcast and let me know that you have joined the global iRacing league, and I will send this skin, this Libri skin, to you for free. So that was supposed to be part of the announcements, but the 3D printing just kind of took over my life again.

Erick:

You see, we jumped right in there with you, man, we understand.

Jason:

And for those that have joined the league, or if you want to show support for the show, I would love to see liveries out there with the show's name on, at least for a race. I mean, I'm not telling you to abandon your skin or liver, I call it skin, livery, skin.

Jason:

What have you. You know, if, if you feel like you know giving us a shout out, or if you want to race it in a in a, in a what you call this, uh official race, then by all means, uh, we would definitely appreciate that. So, thank you so much. You know who you are, that you reached out. I, I really appreciate you. Good stuff, man. And he joins the league, right. So he joins the league and he's like, yeah, my mic is kind of not too great, so I wasn't on the mic because I'm in the garage with no AC. So he's racing in the garage and I'm complaining about heat. So I mean, I feel for you. And on top of that, I was like, well, I didn't see you on track. Are you in a BMW? He's like, yeah, I'm in a BMW. And I was like, well, what place did you place? He's like no, I placed P1 in the pro series, no big deal.

Erick:

This guy is killing it. That's why you didn't see me. Oh yeah, that's why you didn't see me.

Jason:

Oh yeah, that's why you didn't see me.

Jason:

I slowly backed away. All right, so that's a quick appreciation. We do have something cooking up for the end of the season, so stay tuned for that. A lot of great things happening, a lot of updates happening and, yeah, we're trying to grow a community. It's a healthy place to practice your skills, learn some skills and to hang out with us. If you want to hang out with us and chat for a while and jump on track, that's where we do it, and we do it every Tuesday and every Thursday. Well, we try. Unless it's raining on track, then we kind of Rob Markman Jr.

Jason:

I'm just kidding Rob Markman Jr. Then we have technical difficulties, Rob. Markman, you know yeah, unless it's raining on track, then we kind of just kidding working and if you can see the back, it's kind of blurred out, but the. I was racing on the skin and and and. Yeah, this guy behind me is about to get me, so let me uh switch cameras cameras and

Erick:

over to eric, I believe yeah, um, and I had an announcement too. It was real quick, uh. So you know, I'm the resident gt7, uh, representative yes, yes, yes, uh, so they didn't have a update patch, uh 1.56, and it was a modest patch.

Erick:

Uh, they added new cars. They added the bmw z4 three liter, which is a road car convertible. You know, that's kind of gt7 thing you get race cars and you also get road cars. Uh, they added a pergo um 205, gti, um, hot hatch. So in, I guess, europe and the uk this car is like a classic, you know, highly sought after car. So there, I know a lot of guys across the pond were pretty excited about that and something that I don't know anybody who's excited for the mercedes-benz, uh, unimog type 411 1962. It's essentially just like a big, like military truck if you want to drive something weird.

Erick:

I assume that they'll let you do an engine swap at one point so you can pop wheelies in the this with this big truck. I don't know, dude, if they make it, people race it.

Jeff:

That's what I've learned. I saw a full lobby of people racing, nothing but Big truck. I don't know, dude, if they make it, people will race it.

Erick:

That's what I've learned. Yeah, I saw a full lobby of people racing nothing but these guys. Yeah, they were at Imola and it was-.

Jason:

Why Imola? The most boring it can take forever to go around that. It's a long ass track.

Erick:

I know, Going up that hill before the, I'm like you guys just love torturing yourselves. I don't have time. Maybe if I had more time I'd be into that, but nah, Nah, nothing's going around man.

Jason:

All right man. So today? Oh, actually, it's over to Jeff. Now Over to Jack Day. Thank you, eric, for that. Appreciate it.

Jeff:

Yeah, no worries. So my quick announcement is I did the Q1 shifter that I ordered, was delivered and I have used the hell out of it. So I was worried about if you listened last week I was worried about it's got a good solid clunk to it with every shift. It's not bad. It's really not nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be. Um, okay, so that's.

Jason:

I was like, oh geez, like how's the feel you like the feel of the shift bro very, very nice.

Jeff:

Um, yeah, it's so. I've been driving a lot of rallycross lately, lately, which is like totally different, because you go off track is there's no, you don't get any points for it. Or or, uh, there's no, plus twos or two x's with it. Uh, the only time you get, uh, you know incidents is when you make contact with another car and it's rallycross. You're gonna hit the other car occasionally. Oh yeah, but it is cool and I'm my new wheels on the way to um a round wheel. But when you're driving you gotta leave a little bit out there for people. Next episode hey, I ain't doing it All right, they're going to chew you up in the comments.

Jeff:

I'm just going to let it happen? The vultures are out there, it is what it is All right, you guys heard him it might take a minute to get here, but it'll be worth it. Okay, dude, rally driving, uh, clicking through the gears and stuff is awesome. It just is told it. It doesn't. I don't know if it makes me faster, but it makes me feel a hell of a lot cooler as I'm clicking through gears, you know it changes the experience oh absolutely, especially like straight going in.

Jeff:

You know it's, it's just awesome. It really adds a definitely, definitely, uh you to the immersion of rally cross. Did a couple um stock car racing with it. You know it's not an age pattern, but it it fills the gap pretty well for not an age pattern. You know what I mean, at least you're. You know clicking gears and stuff. Um, I don't know NASCAR I'm not super familiar with whether it is a sequential or if they have a four speed there is now the latest generation car switched over to sequential. They did, oh interesting.

Jason:

Okay, but that's if you're racing the latest gen. But if you're in the older car, then yes, the H pattern. But I mean, it's fine dude, you know.

Erick:

It's not like you're shifting a lot, bro.

Jason:

You shift it in high gear gear. You hold it in tight, maybe one down, maybe maybe yeah, like you. It's not like you're doing a whole lot. It's already in fourth gear and you're done.

Jeff:

Oh yeah, you let go. You just disconnect it. Put a usb in something else for crying that's it uh, but no, it's awesome. I'm super pumped. Um, it definitely, uh, you know, gets me broadening my horizon out of the Formula which I've been crushing Formula. That F2 racing is super fast car and it's a C-Class or B-Class, clean driving. Just been having a lot of fun in that car in that class lately. That's what's up, man.

Jason:

I miss Formula. I need to jump back into formula. I've been doing a lot of GT uh, strictly GT and I am a formula person too. I love formula. It's a totally different beast. It's a totally different approach, completely different.

Jeff:

So yeah, I mean going from open wheel formula to the rally, rally cross. I mean, you're talking, talking. You couldn't go from different sides of the spectrum, um, where your wheels are spinning more than you have traction in rally cross and jumps and going technically off. You know the dirt and no big deal. Um, you did that in a formula car, open wheel, you know, and it, your race is pretty much done it's over, yeah so it just, it just I don't know.

Jeff:

it just I don't know. It's like, I don't, like I was doing a lot of formula, but now I'm almost like driving anything is super, it's just, it's a breath of fresh air to get outside of just formula.

Jason:

So I think and to close right, I think that that's how we all end up, Right. So the niche starts with one thing and it's the same concept that I just mentioned about 3D printing Is your mindset is going to focus and hone in onto one thing and then, once you're able to do that, you're like well, what else is out there? You know, I can do this now, I can do that now. So I think it's great, I think you get more value out of your rig yeah, your rig, the, the, the stuff, the thing that you built. You know you built it yourself. And I think it's great to find something new, uh, while using the same hardware or adding just a one piece, you know, maybe.

Jeff:

And the cool part is not to, you know, continue going down the road, but you see the gains, a lot bigger chunks. You know I've been driving formula now for you know, I don't know how many seasons where I have to really grind to shave a 10th or two 10ths off. Um, when I jump on the rally or stock car or whatever I go around, a lap it's new, fastest lap, new fastest lap lap it's like. So it's super fun, like you can. You're seeing your, your increase in uh uh speed and and pace a lot faster.

Jeff:

You're shaving. You know tense every lap you go around, so and learning, like I think it was, chatter nine gave me a you know some tip about. You know the scandinavian flick about the rally cross. I'm working on that getting the car turning, you know, with the gear shift and the weight transfer cross. I'm working on that, getting the car turning, you know, with the gear shift and the weight transfer, et cetera. So, um, working on that, it's just different. Yeah, like you said, it just is adds more use to the rig. I mean, I still love formula. It's still my pride, you know my pride. You know my pride if I'm going to get in. I got one race, that's what I'm doing, but, um, rallycross or something else, so, um, so I'm gonna jump into my quick topic here, okay, and we'll move on if you guys are uh cool with that ready, so I racing has come out with their season two updates.

Jeff:

Um, so when the new season is over, they're gonna push the update, and one of those, I think, is we'll cover them in a future episode. We got. Oh, I can't wait, bro, a couple weeks till it comes out, but but they kind of released it. Tell me it's the.

Jason:

UI bro Tell me, Dude.

Jeff:

I thought they were doing that on the last one.

Jason:

I know.

Erick:

Yeah, they kind of previewed it a little bit. Yeah, yeah.

Jeff:

A couple of them got pushed in, but here's one that I wanted. It's going to hit home to a lot of people. Here is so they're going to have add a connection flag. So this kind of like.

Jeff:

I'm sure everybody's had the problem in iRacing when you're driving and the car in front of you is blinking, like it disappears and it appears, disappears and appears, um, you know.

Jeff:

Or the car in front of you, like, goes into the car to the right of you and you're like, how did they not crash? You know, so, um. So what iRacing is going to do is flash a connection flag in that cars. You know that that is flashing, that you can't see right, that their network connection is dropped below the standard threshold for what they deem as an acceptable connection rate. What that is to be determined probably depends on a lot of variables, right, um? But what it's going to do is just drop you into the pits and you can either wait there until your connection um establishes a rate that is, you know, conducive to racing, um, or you can go out on the track as just a ghost car. You'll see all the other cars, the cars won't see you, which is kind of cool, so you're not wasting the race, at least you go out and go against I think that's absolutely awesome.

Jason:

I think that's great because fresh air right.

Jeff:

There's nothing worse definitely yes we see that go ahead.

Jason:

We, we all have something to say about this man yeah, for real go ahead I get super nervous when I see that, bro. It's like I can't push. I can't. I have an obstacle in my way and I don't know what's going to happen. I can't predict anything. It's unpredictable.

Jeff:

It's. Iracing prides themselves on the net code, but when you don't have a network connection for the net code to kind of guess where you're going, it's a crap shoot, you know, and it's it sucks for everybody, because not only for the person that has a crummy internet connection, but like the cars in front of them, behind them as a side, like they're suffering too, for which they don't deserve that stuff. So it's kind of about time, I guess, that we did something that I racing finally pushed something like this. But uh, I think it's going to be hopefully well received, um this is not everybody.

Jeff:

This has never been done, dude I've never seen a game do this. Yeah, it's always one person in each race.

Jason:

I feel like yeah, that'll be dope I think that's great and that will actually, because when you're blinking you don't know that you're blinking, unless you're really bad. You have to rely on someone else telling you hey, you, you're kind of yeah, I try to get on the mic and be like Wait till you get cussed out.

Jason:

Yeah Right, but at least they're trying to say hey, you have a problem and we're going to put you in the pits, which sucks. But I hope that they take the right approach. Don't penalize someone for having a bad connection. Give them a chance to fix it. For having a bad connection, let them give them a chance to fix it, because not everybody you know, not everybody has a stable, high speed internet connection like they want you to. At least give them a chance to see what they can do about it. Is there something technical? Is it a hardware issue? Is there a service issue?

Jeff:

Yeah, I think it said they were going to give them the option to be able to withdraw, too, without penalty.

Jason:

Without a penalty, great We'll see how that goes, that's perfect.

Jeff:

Yeah, because you don't want somebody jumping in just because they don't want to get withdrawn and have that hurt their safety rating, right, so that's probably the right answer is let them withdraw without.

Jason:

Yeah, and it doesn't ruin anybody else's race either, because that can be terrible. What either? Because that can be terrible, but a novel idea, huh yeah, I think that's great. I've never seen a sim or game straight up kick you out because of a bag. I mean there's servers that will drop you in shooter games, but they're usually custom server. It's not a server like that you pay for. So I mean you know what I mean. Uh, yeah, if you got a high so I mean you know what I mean If you got a high, super high ping, then you might get booted from the server, but that's automatic. It's a bot that will do it, but that's a straight get out, like they don't throw you the pin.

Erick:

You have a spike or something like that You're getting off.

Jason:

Yeah, but it's usually private. It's not usually proprietary. That that I know of. Correct me if I'm wrong, please, but that's a good find, Jeff.

Erick:

I've never seen that before. That'll be nice for everybody.

Jason:

Right. I mean, it's not always the Sims fault. There's always two sides to a story man. You know how it goes.

Erick:

Yeah, things happen.

Jason:

All right. Well, thank you, jeff. I appreciate that that's a good find. I mean the UI is-.

Jeff:

It is what it is.

Jason:

What I'm excited for, but that's a tool that's actually going to help you and help everybody to make sure we have even cleaner racing. Now we have another layer of security on track, which is kind of cool. I like it. And with that it's that time.

Jason:

And it's time for Track of the Week, and this this week, mr Kelly. Eric, aka the tech gentleman, has the track of the week, and I don't know what it is. I never do. That's a rule here. So over to Eric. What's up, man? Talk to me. What do we got up? What are we cooking up this week?

Erick:

hey man, we got a oldie but a goodie. This is another one share with you guys here. Real quick, we've got watkins, glenn watkins classic yeah it's a wonderful track.

Jason:

It's one up. Yeah, it's so fast bro. I love this track.

Erick:

Yeah, it's got a good flow, yeah yeah, yeah, ironically, um, it's been one of the ones that we've been racing on uh, gt7 this week, uh, for some of the daily races, and I wasn't super familiar with it, but and we have a it's.

Erick:

It's kind of the trend, yeah, these, these ads, man, they're going crazy. But but it's kind of the trend where the more I learn a track, the more I kind of appreciate it, the more I kind of like it and, like you're saying, this track kind of has some everything. It has some, you know, some sweeping turns, has cane, has some you know, kind of high speed straights dude high speed corners, supervation changes.

Erick:

Yeah, it's got some everything man, so yeah, but but yeah, just kind of getting into some of the history, the original layout, as you guys can see here, the chicane and a lot of the just general shape of the track is not there, and it's for good reason, because this track basically was put together to take the place of some road course races that they were having in New York where the track currently lives. Where the track currently lives and this track is put together in an attempt to obviously increase safety, give people a structured place to go and host more official races. As you guys know, they host a lot of NASCAR races here and they had some formula races here for over 20 years as well. The general shape of the track hasn't changed much. Like, if we kind of move, uh, they originally started in 1956 and when we get to seven we see the track changed and you know it's got some of the you know kind of character that you guys see or that you that you're really used to seeing with this track, and they have some of the other forms of the track.

Erick:

They got the short circuit, they got the six hour, but generally this is, you know, back in 71 they put together the general shape of the track that we kind of know and love today, and 75, you know, they pretty much didn't change much. I mean I guess they, you know, thought they had a good thing and it wasn't until 92 that they added the. They call it the inner loop, but that kind of high speed chicane, right.

Jeff:

Had to slow them down.

Erick:

Usually is what we've been seeing in the uh yeah, yeah, that definitely was one of the motivations there. But just kind of going back to the history of of the track, um, I could say, um, first races were in 1954 and they were a combination of formula one races that started, you know, in the 60s and ran for 20 years. But they also did some world sports, car championship races, trans am, uh, nascar cup series.

Jason:

They pretty much, if it's got wheels, they've pretty much been I wish we had this in the formula one still, and be nice, oh yeah that that'd be, that'd be dope, especially taking those long, that long kind of s into the street going uphill.

Erick:

That'd be yeah that'd be cool.

Jason:

That's another track right in the us that we would have.

Erick:

Yeah, yeah, that would. We need to put that bug out there, man. But yeah, but speaking to some of the motivations for track changes, like I said, the track, the first races were hosted in 1956, but in 71, some of the changes to the track happened due to some fatalities, due to some fatalities. A couple of the major ones were Francois Savert and JD McDuffie. Those were some of the races that kind of sparked some of the fatalities that motivated them to make some safety changes and improvements to the track, to make some safety changes and improvements to the track.

Erick:

And, like I say, they have several layouts which we kind of know, that they kind of came to different cars and they have the Grand Prix course, the short course, the long course. This is the one I was going to tell you about, jason. You know we always talk about what you see when you see the race course, like the shape of it. And the long course here that you guys are seeing is actually called the boot and that's the name of the course. That design came out in 1971 for and they did a formula race for the debut.

Jason:

Trying to find to see if I can see it. I haven't seen it.

Erick:

I haven't seen the boot, but that's what they call it, so you know. Sure I mean I yeah, I mean they see kind of in this area right here they have a little area called the boot, oh, and they added it to it Toe, heel Okay.

Jason:

That reminds me of das boot, remember, uh, from beer fest.

Erick:

Sorry, I just had a flashback, yeah, but um, let's see, but essentially um, ever since 91 they've made some cosmetic changes.

Jason:

Oh, I do see that. Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. I do see the boot. It's kind of like a shoe. You see it there. It's like someone's foot in there, but that's about it Like the back half. Yeah, like the toe. This is the heel. There it is.

Erick:

I can see that I was trying to see the whole track as the boot.

Jason:

I just had a brain fart. I'm sorry If it's just that area. I had a malfunction. I was just loading A little buffering man. Yeah, for real.

Erick:

I see the boot now, man. But yeah, this is one of those tracks where they do a lot of NASCAR races here now One of the American tracks. Would be great if we got some F1.

Jason:

I would love to see a NASCAR racing here. I thought NASCAR, no offense. I thought it was just left-hand turns, I don't know.

Jeff:

No, they got a couple road courses.

Jason:

I would like to watch those right, Because the oval ones I don't know. They got a couple road courses. I would like to watch those. The oval ones I don't know, it's hard to watch.

Erick:

They drive Circuit of America too, kota, we got to look at some NASCAR races, man.

Jason:

I know I need to get I heard a statistic.

Jeff:

If you want to hear it it might hurt some NASCAR feelings the F1 at Kota, the F1 cars could do two laps and be on the bumper coming across the finish line. The first lap for the NASCAR, yeah.

Jason:

I mean, yeah, I mean I think it'll be cool to go to an event, right?

Jeff:

Oh culture, yeah, that's what you're yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think it'll be cool to go to an event, right? Oh culture, yeah, that's what you're yeah.

Jason:

Yeah, it's part of our American culture. Of course, we all know that the F1 cars, even the Williams, will fly by.

Erick:

All right.

Jason:

All right, All right. Enough of the NASCAR. We love you guys. We love open all racing on the K-Podcast. All racing, all of it.

Erick:

All racing and to support that, they actually had an event in 2011 where they had it's called the Mobile One Seat Swap, where Tony Stewart and Lewis Hamilton actually swapped.

Jeff:

Oh, this is the one they did that yeah.

Erick:

So Stewart drove his Chevy for four laps around the circuit, while Hamilton drove the MP4 23.

Jeff:

Is that the one where they said all right, lewis, time to come in, and he was like nope he just kept going.

Jason:

I think it was.

Erick:

Oh, he wasn't coming in. He was like nope. Hey look, I'm telling you, man, that'd be dope in a F1 game. But right now we have to settle for GT cars, road cars, that kind of stuff and missing in games. The first game to feature this track was Gran Turismo.

Jason:

Oh, look at that, the first GT. That's what's up.

Erick:

Yep, so it's been out there for a while and got some love from GT. But, yeah, beautiful track, fun, a lot of character and, with that being said, that is the track of the week.

Jason:

Awesome, eric. Thank you so much, dude. Fun track. Yeah, it's a great track. It's home in the USA. It's a great. Anytime Watkins Glam show up, I'm excited. Yeah, I'm excited to race it. I don't know what it is. It's a track that resonates well with my style. Right, I love the bend, the bending turns, the S's and that chicane that they added could be treacherous if you don't know the track, because there's just a bunch of cones and there's a left and then a right. And if you ain't got it, man, you're just going to go right through.

Erick:

Your race is over right man.

Jason:

So yeah, I meant what I said. Guys, I really need to branch out a little more with nascar, because I know nascar has like their own drive to survive version on netflix. I thought about giving that a watch and speaking of a drive to survive I was gonna save it for the roundtable but send it dude.

Jeff:

But roundtable, Since we're there, Roundtable.

Jason:

Jeff has something to say. I'll give that to Jeff.

Jeff:

Yeah, I'll start it off. Yeah, we just finished up practice for F1 at Bahrain. Oh bro, practice was awesome. Practice was awesome, dude.

Jason:

I'm wearing Mercedes a little prouder today. Dude, I'm wearing a Mercedes a little prouder today.

Jeff:

So no race this week. But we do have Drive to Survive. It gets released on the 7th of March and then the following weekend we got round one in Australia. So Drive to Survive this weekend to get your F1 fill.

Jason:

Right yeah.

Jeff:

And drive fast and brake late. There you go.

Jason:

Perfectly Perfect, perfectly executed. I will back and brake late. There you go. Perfectly, perfect, perfectly executed. I will back up Jeff with Drive to Survive. If you don't like F1, or you find it boring or you've never watched it before. Yeah, you are wrong. First of all, and two. Drive to Survive will take a non-racing fan and turn him into a racing fan. Rob Markman.

Jeff:

So it got me into it, rob Markman. Yeah, rob Markman, I thought F1 was silly.

Erick:

Rob Markman. I never watched racing at all before Drive to Survive.

Jason:

Rob Markman. So I created a monster because Rob.

Jeff:

Markman yeah, but there's an asterisk for your brother, rob Markman.

Jason:

I showed it to my brother and he became a Verstappen fan.

Jeff:

Yeah, he was a cool guy, and then he told me he was a Verstappen fan.

Jason:

Now we ignore his text, we don't pick up the phone. I'm telling you, man, I'm telling you, my brother now is a Verstappen. I'm like you have to go back and watch the whole season, man, you can't you know what I mean.

Jeff:

It's like watching Tom Brady in the last Super Bowl was like I'm a Tom Brady fan. No, no, no, no, no. I'm telling you.

Jason:

And the best seasons of Drive to Survive are the first ones.

Jeff:

Yeah, I agree with it.

Jason:

Yeah, the first ones are still relevant. They're still watchable. It'll get you up to speed in like a few weeks' time, depending how hard you want to binge it.

Erick:

Binge it, excuse me.

Jeff:

One weekend. There's like eight episodes yeah, you can knock them out. They're like 40 minutes.

Jason:

Oh, you're going to be hooked. Yeah, I'm telling you You're going to be your back's going to hurt because you're going to be on your seat the whole time.

Erick:

Yeah, and I think as somebody who never was racing, I think it's interesting because you get to see behind the scenes of the racing as well. You get to learn more about what goes into designing the cars, the pressure of owning a team, the drama.

Jeff:

It's like the perfect introduction to F1 for somebody who has seen no racing, because everything is new to you, even the pressure of the qualifying and the practice laps and the off time and all that stuff, eric, I think it's awesome show man, you hit the pat, the nail on the head when it came to say, like the demand for these guys to perform every week, like the demand for you to be in the points as a you know, a new driver is incredible and you don't get that just watching the TV show. And they really show the team managers grill and drivers to produce, so they're gonna lose their seat.

Jason:

Yeah, and you don't just see that, you see pressure from above, you see the owner chewing out the engineers. Team owners yeah, or these, yeah, I don't wanna spoil anything, but there's a lot of stuff in there.

Erick:

man that's freaking awesome, you learn a lot.

Jason:

You learn a lot and it's exciting the way they filmed that. It was exciting. But again, when you're watching this show, if you listened, if you got this far, hope you did check out Drive to Survive. If you haven't, Just give it a shot. Um yeah, drive to survive is what got jeff into sim racing it is it it?

Jason:

it sparked the idea of wanting to drive a formula one car. And how do I do it? How do I, how can I do that, how can I simulate that? And I said I'm gonna show you, brother. And we've come a long and we've come a long way.

Jeff:

We've come a long way since then. Something like hey, what's your credit limit on your credit card?

Erick:

Oh no, sounds about right. Come on, man Love you brother.

Jason:

I love you too man so hey thank you guys so much. I really appreciate it. It's been another great one and I can't wait. March is here and my F1 withdrawals are settling. I need F1 in my life it's been 80 something days without. F1 and I'm just, I'm rocking in a chair like this.

Erick:

I can't stay. Still, y'all got any more to F1?. Pablo Escobar in a chair like this.

Jeff:

I can't stay still, yeah, like Pablo Escobar in the pool standing there.

Jason:

That's it. Just staring at what am I going to do. Anyways, guys, please, if you have any questions about anything, oh, excuse me, we do have a question that came in this week. It's a rather short one, so we have a Mark Fleming that emailed us and his question or his comments in question. Thank you so much for emailing us. By the way, I'm loving the podcast Great content and entertainment, entertaining too. I was wondering what monitors we're using as triple monitors, so that'll be a question for me and Jeff and I, and I will tell you. I'm running Samsung G7 32-inch 1000R, I believe. Yeah, you got the 1000.

Jason:

Curve monitors 240 hertz. And Jeff, what do you got running back there?

Jeff:

I got Acer 32, 1500r, so not as sharp bent as yours, 165 on the refresh. What else is important?

Jason:

That's about it. The panel is a VA panel, I believe right. Or is it an IPS panel? You're killing me? Okay, I think it's a VA. I've owned them for a minute.

Jeff:

I'm right, or is it a ips panel? Yeah, you're killing me. Okay, I think it's a va. I've owned them for a minute. I'm pretty sure it's a va are those 2k monitors 4k?

Jason:

2k, 2k 2k cool. So they're 2k um and that's really all you need for that size dude, costco hooked it up oh yeah. And costco, oh man, that's a good one. If you're in the US, can't? Beat the Costco warranty.

Jeff:

I had a problem. Brought it back. Lady just threw it in the cart. I got a new one.

Erick:

Damn, you didn't even try, bro.

Jason:

I would cringe if somebody and they do it face down too, like boom. It's not that bad, damn.

Erick:

Somebody could have used that.

Jason:

Oh, they ain't worried about it, man. So hey, thank you so much, uh for emailing us on the show, appreciate it, and to all you uh, viewers and listeners, please have a great start of your week, thank you.

People on this episode

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Jason Rivera

Host
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Erick Kelly

Co-host
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Jeff Smart

Co-host