Black Friday Sim Racing Deals You Shouldn’t Miss

Two minutes of repair can change your whole 24-hour race plan. We kick off with a gritty Monza debrief: late to qualifying, a sausage curb roll that tagged the engine, triple stints through the night, and the math of half-tenths adding up until an hour later you’re on someone’s bumper. We explain how we stabilized, why consistency beat heroics, what team iRating and safety looked like, and how we’re carrying those lessons into Daytona.

From there, we pivot to gear news that actually matters. SimLab opened a US warehouse, which should slash shipping pain for American racers, and early Black Friday discounts are popping across rigs, mounts, and accessories. Simucube laid out its Tuner 3 roadmap—visual redesign, deeper sim integration, telemetry effects, and long-awaited quality-of-life features. If telemetry effects land on Simucube 2, a lot of folks will rethink upgrades. We also touch on fresh releases—NASCAR 25 and Assetto Corsa Rally—flagging early issues and why waiting a week can save headaches.

We also tackle the blue flag debate with a stance built on endurance reality. For multiclass, yield decisively. For same-class, a blue flag is information, not a command—leave space when the move is on, don’t brake for a car that isn’t closing, and avoid blocks. It’s about predictable cooperation, not surrender. Rounding it out, we share a Black Friday buying order that keeps you sane: invest in the chassis first, then wheelbase and pedals, and watch out for duties and VAT that erase “deals.” On reviews, we push for trust signals: long sessions, telemetry, real races, and creators who show the ugly as well as the polished.

If you’re gearing up for holiday upgrades or planning your next endurance, this one’s packed with practical takeaways, credible deals, and a clear code for racing fair. Enjoy the ride, and if it helped, follow, share with your team, and drop a quick review to help others find the show.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction
• 1:00 Announcements
• 17:30 Main Discussion
• 57:00 Closing Remarks

Transcript

Jason: 0:00

This episode is brought to you by Trophy AI, the ultimate performance coach tool for simracers. 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 the Almighty Jeff Smart. The man, the myth, the legend. The man that's on terminal. The man that is.

Jeff: 0:51

Yeah, I it's not supposed to be at work. Find some find myself at work. But you know, it's kind of is what it is. But uh yeah, buddy. Good seeing you again. Good seeing you again. Um dude, I did not, you know, like there's a saying, like always, bro. Some days you're the nail, some uh some days you're the hammer. Dude, I feel like I've been the nail for for for a solid week now. I just haven't got up much racing, gotten in the rig much this week. Just you know, you know how it is. Life, life in general. I'm sure everybody knows. Oh, okay, Scott.

Jason: 1:19

This week was a different week then. I see.

Jeff: 1:21

Yeah, I mean, it just every week can't be every night, you know, every every week can't be every night in the rig driving. You know, you got responsibilities with life, you know.

Jason: 1:30

A hundred percent, man.

Jeff: 1:31

Husband, dad, whatever you got going on in your life. So yeah, next week maybe it'll be different. Uh we shall see. We shall see. But we're coming down to like the gritty time here, where it's coming down to like a scary time where we're gonna have to like dismantle the rig and start this journey. I'm always here. We will talk about that, get closer.

Jason: 1:51

I mean that from the bottom of my heart. I'm here, so if you need help, I have tools. I you have a shit ton of tools, but they might get packed. You know what I'm saying? That's true, yeah.

Jeff: 2:00

All my shoulder, a shoulder to cry on.

Jason: 2:02

Yeah, I got some brand new stuff I've been begging to try out, so no worries. I'll be over there with my shiny, shiny. Let's go. Um, yeah. Uh how about you? That is that is a scary sight, you know. That is a scary. I don't I don't ever imagine taking the shit apart.

Jeff: 2:19

Like I know, it's like I makes my screen fall.

Jason: 2:22

I don't even know where to begin. Where do I begin? So no, I had an excellent week. Um, I know you were alluding to that, so I'll just go ahead and say it. Uh, we had a 24-hour race, that I'm still here and alive and well.

Jeff: 2:41

I don't even know how it ended, so I'm anxious to hear your debrief of how it went.

Jason: 2:46

Okay, so we had a great start to the race, which is already off the wrong foot, right? You already know that that that's when you can you lead with that, yeah. That's how we're leading, that's how we're going we're going about this. So we qualified, we qualified P16. And the reason why is because we were late to the quality. We literally only did our our our fastest driver. Uh shout out to John, uh, the man from PR. That's the man. Uh he was able to get one outlap and a single push lap after that. And the tires weren't really all the way there. So I think P16 was damn near good enough for what it was. Um, so then we start the race.

Jeff: 3:33

What is I don't mean to, you know, uh yeah, sure. What does qualifying look like for an event like that? Is it like your standard official where it's two laps, and you that's it?

Jason: 3:44

I think you get uh five minutes to quality. Okay, but we were we were freaking late, bro. We were late. You know, our our lap times were pretty damn consistent. We were in the 47s, and when I looked up at the board, the fastest were in the 46s, but the very high 46s. I think it was only like one or two drivers that were up there, at least in our split. And that was it, we were in the third split, bro. It was pretty damn high of a split, um, which I'm proud of, right? Uh, anyway, so uh a lot of problems with the scheduling, and we're working to fix that. And I ended up doing like a triple stint, you know. Um, I think uh John did a triple stint or almost a triple stint, waking up at different.

Jeff: 4:34

How long is a triple stint?

Jason: 4:35

It's not that long, it's just that well, us each stint was around 51 minutes, so you do that three hours three times. Yeah, we call a stint like just empty tank. Technically, yeah, a tank of gas. So I burned three tanks of gas, and get this, I kept the same set of tires on to try and make up time for a reason. So I'll get into that. So we we uh um we started off good. We made it up to like John made up like four places after he started, so he did really good at that, gave me the car, and I was chasing down P got got to P11, then I was chasing P10. P10 was I I looked at the deltas, I was killing him on every corner. And I took a sausage, bro. You know how it is. You know the bumps on the road, we call them sausage. I took a sausage, it it rolled the car literally like this, and she spun around. She spun around, buddy, she spun around in a perfect angle to hit the very rear, which is where the engine's at. So I thought it was gonna be catastrophic. I was like, I spun the card. I got back on track, pulled it into the pits, and I think it was up two minutes of damage. I was like, okay, two minutes of damage. That's not bad. Yeah, that's not bad. It's throw two tires on fuel and it's kind of manageable, kind of reset, yeah, kind of reset and and wait it out because these events are our uh waiting game. Uh you you do lap times, you keep them consistent, but we're we're waiting for things to develop or for us to get a chance to catch people. Even if you're like half a tenth uh faster than the guy in front of you, he could be 20 seconds, but that can mean that you're gonna see that car in an hour. In an hour's time, you'll be on his bumper. Does that make sense in an event like this? That's you know, so it is that much of a difference. Yeah, yeah. It's like half a tenth. Okay, next lap, half a tent. It adds up, right? Yeah, it keeps adding up and adding up and adding up. And then when you you're like, oh shit, we're like 10 seconds away, we're like five seconds away. Then you can actually see them. You know, it's kind of like that. So I drove my ass off after that spin-off. I felt really terrible about it. And I made up for it. I did excellent. I was I was busting down lap times, consistent. They were fast. It was uh one o'clock in the morning. Gave the car to the top shata, Neil. I'm gonna have these guys, I'm gonna have this the team on the show one day. Just just just round them all up and just grill them with questions or something. But uh just to recap real quick, another uh another one of my drivers that I'm not gonna mention his name because I don't want to put him on blast because I don't know what happened. I haven't got the fact to see what happened, but he got into a nasty wreck, and I heard that the car had 20 minutes worth of damage when I woke up in the morning. So after that, it was kind of like you know, but get this we ended the race and we ended in P16, still managed to end up where we started, uh, which wasn't all all the way bad, but um, we got like a minus one our i rating for everything, which was I'll take that man with a 24-hour race. I was fine with that. Take my one I rating, take that away.

Jeff: 8:17

So, like a solid one, huh? So does if if what your co what your other drivers do affects your rate, I rating too?

Jason: 8:28

No. So okay, uh well, yes, the I rating as a team, yes, because positional uh position applies to everyone, but safety applies to each individual driver. So some of our drivers um got promoted. One of them was a B and he got promoted to A. Um cool. Some of them didn't get as much points, so it depends how well you do when you're driving the car, but it but i rating is calculated as from how you qualify to where you ended up with, you know, how you finished the race. So uh minus one, it means that the gate the sim was expecting us to be way higher because we were faster and it made sense, you know what I mean? But shit happens, you know what I mean, and we're we're gearing up for Daytona, so Daytona's coming.

Jeff: 9:20

I'm sorry, I misunderstood. You went up one I so you finished where okay, I understand now. I'm sorry, I thought you uh said uh went down one in one total in safety. You went down in I rating. I'm sorry, I misunderstood.

Jason: 9:31

Just I rating, literally, one point, one point was taken from us, which is for all the shit that happened. I was like, okay. Um, but yeah, we're we're trying to find. I I mean, it's my dream to do a race with with no wrecks, no incidents, no, I mean, incidents are fine going off track. Um one of our guys had a black flag, then on his, you know, he got a black flag, but it technically wasn't his fault. He he got handed the car with I don't know, like something like 70 incidents, and them things rack up, man. You know, after a while, those incidents in 24 hours, you're gonna have an off-track here and there. What if you have to avoid a car? You know, it's a 1x, it's a 1x, or if you're going down a straight and somebody hits you in the back, even if it's a little bit 4x, you know, those things add up. So you get 100 for the whole entire group, and that's shared. So if I gave the car to you and you only had 10 incidents left, I gave it to you at 90. You're gonna get a black flag if you somebody's gonna catch it. Yeah, somebody's gonna get it. So, yeah, it was the top shata. Yeah, we'll give that to him, and we gave him so much shit. We gave it to him. I bet you we were giving him shit all night. And it was still fun, though. It was still fun, but that was Monza. First time ever doing a 24 Monza, and Daytona is gonna be a first time ever for me. And still, this year uh is the first year that I actually learned Daytona. I didn't know Daytona as a track on a GT3, did not know it. And I wasn't a fan of it looking at it from the outside, which is blasphemy for a lot of people, especially us Americans. That's American Pride, Daytona, right? Fair. And I actually love the damn track. I freaking love it now. It's it's one of my if Daytona's racing right now on the on the GTs, I will be there. I will be there all day. It's so much fun to race on that track. I love it. Um, but anyways, guys, today we have a lot to cover. Um and not enough time to cover it, but I'm gonna do my best here. We're gonna do our best here. We might have to have a part two of this, but Black Friday deals are now live. Right now, by the time you see this, there might be more deals, you know. And I'm gonna try and keep you guys up to date. The Shicane podcast will do its best to feed you week by week up until the event, right? Um, but I need to get you going first. So, oh, this was uh sorry, Jeff. That's fine. I had I had this marked down for Jeff. So go ahead, Jeff. But what else we got this week, man?

Jeff: 12:31

Fair enough. Yeah, so uh big news uh for those SimRacers in the United States. Uh big announcement out of SimLab today, which uh, you know, Jason and I are big uh you know um fans of SimLab. Uh we don't get a nickel from them, but we believe that they have a solid product. But nonetheless, uh they have announced that they are opening their US-based warehouse. So big uh reason that we're a big fan of that is shipping should be significantly cheaper for those in the United States. Um I wanted I was looking to try to get a floor.

Jason: 13:03

Um Bro, didn't you tell me let's buy this used rig for 500 bucks and you split it with me just to get profile? That's how bad. That's how bad we wanted profile. Sorry.

Jeff: 13:16

Yeah, it was a ton of it, but uh, anyways, yeah, so and it was like the the floor and like the uh you know, like the the mat that a rig goes on, it just looks nice with that simlab, and then some odd num hardware, right? And it was like $80, or I think it was like $120 in um for the products, and it was like $130 for shipping. And it was like at that point, it it ain't happening. Um, so this should hopefully alleviate that. Um, it might be you know still a little steep for some of us, you know, out here in Hawaii, but nonetheless, it should be a lot cheaper than from Europe. So that's good news. Also, they have a they they released, I think it was Jason, uh 15% store wide for Black Friday. Um I'd have to take a look again, but it was it was a good one that they were pushing.

Jason: 14:00

Um, we're gonna get into that. We're gonna get into Black Friday deals 100%.

Jeff: 14:05

We'll get there. Um, yeah, other than that, we uh what else is going on? I there's there's a lot of stuff, a lot of things going on, Jason. If you want to pile up.

Jason: 14:14

Yeah, I got I got the next one. Simicube uh tuner three has a new roadmap um that they're I'm gonna show you here real quick. Um let me go ahead and share my screen. Alright, guys, so this is the um roadmap for Simicube. I got the order all wrong, but here it is. The tuner software 3.0 visual redesign, uh telemetry effects for simicube three, sim racing integration, uh new sim support, right? So improved UX and communication between devices. This is stage one. This I am very excited for. They seem to be investigating simicube 2 telemetry effects. So if they're able to add telemetry effects to my Simicube 2 Pro, what do you mean?

Jeff: 15:12

What do you mean by that?

Jason: 15:13

That's gonna weigh off a very, very hard decision on whether I want to upgrade to the three or not. You know what I mean? So anyway, stage two uh undo and redo functionality, automatic updater, which it took a while. Come on, let's get that together. The online paddock steering wheel profiles for the love of God. Thank you. For the love of God, thank you. And I have one more is a stage three first time onboarding flow functionality, okay. Additional language support and various fixes. That's what they have so far. Um, they're saying that things may change, it's not a hundred percent, but um, yeah, that's that's about that's about it, other than um NASCAR 25 is out. And at the time of this recording, a set of corsa rally has been released, and we'll we'll cover that in a future episode. I really want to get my hands on that first. NASCAR. I don't know. I was like, Jeff, are you getting NASCAR? Because I'm not really a NASCAR kind of guy, but you know, we're we're speculating. It it it it looks like a console game, you know, it drives like a console game from from what I've seen. What are your just light thoughts on it, Jeff? Real quick.

Jeff: 16:40

Yeah, I heard, you know, it's tough because there's a full spectrum of responses from the community, with you know, being at the time recording, like out for 48 hours. Um, some people really liked it. Some people called it the SimKid, others, you know, said it had issues um mapping and reading uh wheel inputs from certain manufacturers. So uh, yeah, let's give it a fair shake, let it sit out there, you know, marinate on the on the on the market for you know a week or so and let you know kind of people figure it out and we'll kind of I guess go from there. Um, but like you, Jason, not a NAS guy per se. Um so I I I I don't know. It we'll see.

Jason: 17:20

It's it's it's cool, right? It's cool to have a career NASCAR thing. I don't know. I'm trying to wait for a sale. If not, I'll probably just pick it up. I don't know, maybe we'll see. I'll let you know. But I'm gonna get right into the main discussion now.

Jeff: 17:37

Let's get in.

Jason: 17:38

Uh Black Friday deal. That's it, man. Black Friday's here, the start of Black Friday. Officially, the 14th is when a lot of them are gearing up for for this event. And I'm just gonna keep it short and sweet here. We're gonna start with TrackRacer. I'm going to share my screen, and we're gonna go to TrackRacers website, which has the what is this? Okay, um, they have their sale. There it is. 15% off. Says 15% off everything throughout November. So Track Racer has kicked off one of the strongest rig promos, about 15% off their simulator, seats, monitors, balance, and accessories for the whole month of November. Yeah. So if you guys are eyeing a rig or a seat or monitor mount, I don't see the need to go through. Just know that everything has a 15% off. Okay. So for the next, for the next, um, for the next go is some exciting news as Jeff shared earlier, as we all touch based earlier with was SimLab. And Simlab now has a it used to be a sim-lab.eu, but now we actually have a simlab.us and it's brand new, and you get an 11% discount um on their stuff site-wide. So we are not going to sugarcoat this, but Jeff checked earlier for the website, and there doesn't seem to be anything in stock just yet. This could be a website inventory problem that they're trying to resolve. I'm pretty sure that they're gonna want to have this up, right, for Black Friday, so that way people can do their shopping. So I I'm very I'm very disappointed and I'm very excited at the same time because this is something that we both wanted, and it's not just for Hawaii, it's for everybody. All all US patrons, all US citizens that live in the United States, um can now have another option, which is, in my opinion, these are my preferred choice of rigs, and so is and so and Jeff followed suit. Um and Jeff has some plans too with SimLab. If you want to share those real quick, bud.

Jeff: 20:05

Yeah, I'm looking to pick up uh I have the P the Evo rig, and I am trying to put together a much more basic rig. Um, it's uh I've been you know, I've been I've been you know telling the the listeners that uh I've been flying a bunch, and it's just a huge pain in the ass, and it's becoming almost impossible to go back and forth. Um, I have to take off my wheel. I have this little like adapter I need to put on and put a stick on there. So what I'm trying to do is find a uh another rig that I can build and have my pedals on, my throttle and stick, and just put them basically next to each other, or you know, as I'm moving to a house that's a little bigger than the one here in Hawaii, I'll have a little bit more room. So I'll have two separate rigs. It'll all be running off the same PC, but this is a perfect opportunity for me, and timing couldn't have been any better. Um, that SimLab is a having a US-based um warehouse and some decent sales. But yeah, it's just kind of disappointing that there's very limited stock on the website. Looks like you maybe have found one there that they have. But yeah, it's very limited. Yeah, I think like from my perspective, like if you're gonna drop this onto oh, they they added it, Jeff.

Jason: 21:21

They did, okay. Uh the GT1 evil.

Jeff: 21:24

Oh, they did. I was in here earlier today, and it was and a lot of people were saying that they couldn't get it. So that's great. That's good. Maybe they fixed it.

Jason: 21:32

By the time you're watching this, it it it it's it's probably being uploaded as we speak, you know, because you can select without a seat, and there you go, 674. Yeah, it had sold out a couple hours ago. This will be this will be perfect for you, bro. Yeah, 100% for for a flight VR, I would go a triple wide, um, modest triple wide, doesn't have to be the craziest top of the line, and just strap a VR headset there, put the PC right dead smack in the middle of them and share ports. That's what I would do.

Jeff: 22:08

That's the plan.

Jason: 22:09

Um, but yeah, SimLab, congrats, SimLab, for bringing it to the US. That's the best move you could possibly do. You get away with uh no tariffs. You can have people will buy more because it's available here locally. Um we have ASR, but that's in Canada, so we have to pay duties and and and it it doesn't it doesn't make sense anymore uh to buy from them. Um but, anyways, next up on the list is uh Six Sigma, and these are the usual suspects of every year they have uh sales, right? Um here we go. Here's their website right here. They do. They do. The problem is that they're uh they're overseas, I think. Um but here's their Black Friday sales, you know. It it ranges. They also have Moza gear, acetate gear. Look, they have um R5 on, yeah. All this they even have that new um MH16 flight stick, Jeff. Uh no, no. For decent little discounts. Yeah, yeah, I know. He's like, don't tell me no more, dude. Um, just built a new PC too. Yeah, you you're you're you're balling out there, son.

Jeff: 23:30

Hang on, we got Christmas coming up and traveling, and yeah, we gotta cool off a little bit.

Jason: 23:36

Just just chill, just chill, yeah. So we're gonna share also. Um, I think uh Moza Racing, I think this is their website here, and no, excuse me. Well, I'll skip over to Apex. So Apex is your guide to um basically they sell hardware, they sell wheelbases and everything, but there's a countdown right here. And at the time of this recording, this is live, a live countdown. So by the time you guys uh watch this episode, it should be live. So I got one more to share um for early access, I guess. Um I hope this is I hope this is the right. No, that's Six Sigma. Thought I had the website up here. Sorry guys.

Jeff: 24:27

I'll skip over to um and I think we'll be hearing more as they come along because I remember, you know, last year we did it, you know, even um like uh Micro Center had some packages that were like smoking deals when it came with a rig, pedals, um, direct drive base and a wheel, you know, everything you really need to do to get into it that was pretty spot on.

Jason: 24:49

Yeah, yeah, 100%. I mean, the see the the choices now are just insane, bro. It's like you can go all kinds of routes now, and we're gonna try to help you navigate through as we go. We'll we'll go over and we'll look at the best deals. Um, if we could time it right, because that's that's the challenge with the podcast is timing everything right. That's how come we delayed this this very episode was delayed on purpose, and it doesn't matter how much I delay it, I'm looking at, oh, we're gonna announce this. Oh, we have a clock timer, a timer that I didn't know about. Um, but anyways, so Fanatech, right now, Fanatech does not have sales live yet, but they do have sales, but they're just not calling them Black Friday sales for for whatever reason. I just want to be clear here. And the reason why I couldn't find the Mozilla link is because I don't have a Mozilla link because Mosa has officially announced its 2025 Black Friday sale with about 29% off selected products. Their sale kicks off on November 14th, and it, you know, they mentioned discounts on everything wheels, uh bases, bundles, you name it. So again, uh limitations of this media style recording. Um November 14th seems to be the day where it was decided that they're gonna cover all of this stuff. Want to have a live coach available on demand? With Trophy AI, you'll be able to practice with Manso AI at your convenience, a real-time coach in your headphones to navigate and guide you through the track, helping you achieve race pace. This tool is awesome as it provides full brake, throttle, and steering telemetry on screen with a live review getting you ready for your next big race. Check links to Trophy AI in the description and also use Chicane12 in all caps for a 12% discount. And with that, guys, that covers the segment for basically for Black Friday. And I have some tips for you. So if you guys are shopping, just make sure you have a priorities, right? Right, make sure you have your priorities straight, make sure you know, you know, if if there's a there's a ladder to this. And step one on the ladder is the rig chassis, step two on the ladder is your wheelbase, and then step three is your pedals. Actually, step three, step two and three are kind of like at the same time. But before you buy anything, it starts with the chassis, bro. It starts there. That's where that's where um all your upgrades are gonna be installed. And if if you ask me, I would get the best one that you could possibly get because in the future, again, like I don't see myself ever getting rid of this SimLab, you know, P1X. I I don't see myself ever doing that because it's built to last. Um, Jeff's Evo is built to last, you know what I mean? It's it's all good to go. So check the return policy and the region. Some of these distributors, you know, it it depends. It could be region locked, it could be some shipping, now duties, now tariffs, and VAT, and it can just completely uh erase your discount, you know. Basically, that's that's that's a pain in the ass, but you know, it kind of is what it is with today's world. Yeah, that's what we're living through right now. Um I think that's about it. Just you know, just keep on the lookout. November 14th through December 2nd are the hot dates for Black Friday, and those are the dates that we're trying to work the podcast around to give you to keep you guys up to date. We where we will be slightly late, but I feel like Cyber Monday, I feel like a last minute deal sometimes happen and they're even better. You know, sometimes the early deals are not the best deals, you know. We'll see. Remains to be seen. And then I have one more topic, man. And this is a topic that's gonna, I'm gonna keep it short and sweet. And it is a topic that I've been wanting to discuss for a long time.

Jeff: 29:21

There's there'll be a test at the end. There, there is a test on this before you go on iRacing. We should make you take a test on this before you're should be, right?

Jason: 29:32

Like a like a written test.

Jeff: 29:33

Yeah, so without further ado, Jason, go ahead.

Jason: 29:37

Okay, so guys, the meaning of racing flags, they're almost they're pretty much the same across the board. Um, and I'm gonna go through very briefly, I'm gonna display a graphic, I'm gonna let you guys look at it, and I'm going to read some some some notes that I I took so that way you know we're all good to go. So let me just get this open if I can if I can figure this thing out. Uh here we go. Here we go. So here's um flags and their meanings. We'll start with the green flag. What does it mean? Track is clear. Session or race start, excuse me, race start, restart, normal racing conditions. That means the race started, green flag. The race had an incident and they waved the green flag. That means resume, full throttle, backup. You know, you show it at the start of the race after a safety car or when hazard is clear. So the yellow flag, solid yellow, meaning caution, danger ahead, slow down, no overtaking in that sector in some cases, right? Formula One specifically is very strict on this. So a single yellow hazard, single yellow stationary hazard off the racing line is a minor incident. A single yellow waved is a bigger hazard, be ready to slow down significantly. And a double yellow is a major hazard, Marshall's on track, be prepared to stop. The red flag, which is the worst one when you're watching Formula One or when you're racing, is the session is put down to a halt. Everybody goes back in the pit lane. It's something happened. Seriously, it's always it.

Jeff: 31:28

It's always your guy that's leading when the red flag comes out. I always feel like when the red flag comes out, the Mercedes is always at front. You're like, oh, we're gonna start this all over again. Yeah, but anyways, I'm sorry. Continue.

Jason: 31:42

Yeah. Restart. No, okay, no, good. You know, weather can be too dangerous, but that's rare these days. So the checker flag, everybody loves the checker flag, it means the end, you know, shown at the finish time, or when the time or lapse are complete. The blue flag, which is this is the one. This is the one it is the blue flag that I'm going to there's a blue flag, uh, lean heavy on. So the meaning of a blue flag, gentlemen, ladies, everyone across every everybody, it means a faster car is approaching to lap you, and you need to let them buy safely, right? So the variance, it can be stationary, faster car is coming up behind, and the wave faster car is very close. Move aside soon. However, here's where I have the problem with the black with the blue flag. If if I have blue flags waving, and in the sim, they wave way before you know the car's even there. And I'm on a straight line of speed, and you cannot keep up with my pace, I will not put my foot on the brake for you. We are still racing, we are still fighting for a championship. Now, if you roll up behind me and you're approaching and you're coming faster, as the rule says, faster car, faster car, that means I will give you the space to move, to move over and let you go. I will lift to let you go. But in order for me to lift to let you go, you need to keep up. You cannot be uh a car, three car lengths behind me and and flash your lights and demand to pass. This was a major problem at the uh Monza event. People sending us comments and everything, and I'm like, dude, if you you have to earn that spot. I don't I don't believe in this. You have to earn that spot. You need to be, you need to approach me, be at least the car length, at least the car length for me to give it to you, be for me to give you the space. But if the delta's telling me that I'm pulling away from you, and even with draft, because you're behind me and you're getting all the draft, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna slow down to let you go. How do you feel about this, Jeff?

Jeff: 34:24

Same way. So if I get a blue flag, you know, it the first one, you know, that letting you know that they're hey, there's somebody faster than you behind you. Um, okay. I will keep an eye on the delta because like you said, some I think they give it to you way early in eye racing. Um, but they're gonna have to, like you said, uh maybe not a car length for me. Um, and I'll tend to just get off the racing line on a straight, I try to do on a straightaway um or just take a wider turn um to try to minimize my time loss. Um but yeah, like you can't expect just because somebody's you're getting the blue flag, or somebody in front of you is getting the blue flag that they should just jump immediately off the racing line and get off. There needs to be some expectation that you are in the same zip code for me to lift or get off the racing line for you to pass.

Jason: 35:15

Yeah, I mean, think about it this way. If I was the blue flag chasing you and the blue flags are waving for you, and you got off the racing line prematurely, I lose speed. Because now I have to chase you to get that draft back. You see what I mean? So I'm gonna hold steady. But what I'm not gonna do, let's say I'm approaching a right-hand turn, right? We're in a straight, right-hand turn comes up. If it wasn't blue flag, my car is in the middle. It is not on the side because I'm in the defensive position. I can't let you have that inside so you can pass me. But if I'm blue flagged, I will not move the car towards the middle. I will keep it, I will keep it on the line and I will let enough space for you to creep by if you're faster. If you're faster, I will not lift though. I will not lift, I will not break. So in the comments, I'm pretty sure there's gonna be a few. So I'm ready for you. I'm ready.

Jeff: 36:18

It's always nice when you let the person go, or you know, I try to do it if the person gives me, you know, goes out of the way to get off the line. You know, it's like, hey, buddy, thanks, you know, just to say hey, you know, it nobody likes doing it. Yeah, you know, so you try to get the little, you know, tip of the house. We appreciate it.

Jason: 36:33

We were doing it all day. We were doing it literally all day for 24 hours with GTPs. We had GTPs on track, which is significantly faster. That that was part of the stress. We had these GTPs that were passing us every other lap because the Monza is like small and you we run into a lot of traffic in between them. So a blue flag will come up for a GTP. I'm getting out the way. That's a GTP. That there's no point of staying there. But my own class, and there's a blue flag ringing, and he can't, he doesn't have the speed to pass me. That's where I have a problem with slowing down my pace to give you the spot. That's not how this goes. Um, you need you need to earn that spot. Um now I need to be a good racing steward and give you room and let you pass when you attempt to pass. If I'm swerving or blocking, then I'm in the wrong then at that point. Um, but yeah, so moving on, that that was kind of the highlight of of this discussion. I'll just move on real quick. That was the rant. So white flag means circuit, uh, meaning in circuit racing, slow vehicle head on track, uh, recovery truck or very slow car. And in some instances, a waving white flag can mean the final lap, right? So the final lap. Or it could also mean a slow vehicle. So red and striped flag, surface flag, right? Means there's shit on the road, you know, uh slippery surface, debris, oil, gravel, or changing grip conditions.

Jeff: 38:07

Uh that's i racing flag.

Jason: 38:11

Oh, yeah.

Jeff: 38:12

It's all the time.

Jason: 38:13

I love all the time. All the time. That's like every crew chief, yellow flag, debris on the debris, yeah. It's just all the time. All the time. So now black flag and black flag is pretty, you know, standard. If you come into the pits, you you know, uh immediately, disqualification or serious, you know, a basically any really uh how do you say this? Major violation, speeding in the pent lane, or not slowing down for a time penalty in the iRacing's case.

Jeff: 38:49

Yeah, just an egregious violation of some type of safety or protocol.

Jason: 38:56

Or disqualification. Could be that too. Could be straight up disqualified. Um, the meatball flag, the orange flag, black flag with an orange disc in the center. Mechanical problem to the car. You must pit and fix it. Uh, and the black and white flag is um black and white split diagonally, and unsportsman's. This is like Max Verstappen's flag right here. Yeah, I said it. Uh, behavior warning, final warning before penalties.

Jeff: 39:28

Uh guilty. It is what it is, you know. It's not the first time.

Jason: 39:34

Yeah. So then the blue, the blue flag with orange and yellow diagonal stripes, um, waved alongside others to indicate specific situations. I've personally I've never seen this in sim racing. And the safety car. So you have the the safety car is like an ar it looks like an orange flag, like a red, like an like a yeah, it looks like an orange flag, I think. The safety car. Uh I've never seen it. And that's about it. Oh no, it's not orange. My bad. It's it's actually, I think it's white. I'm not sure. This graphic failed me. But I've never, again, I've never seen a safety car. You know, we see the safety car in iRacing, but only to lead us out to the race.

Jeff: 40:19

Yeah, I feel like they don't do a safety car, but you know, when we see it in F1, it's usually from a double yellow or a some type of red flag, you know, or those type of things. Yeah, I don't see that they don't give it its own flag, right? They declare it just a safety car or sometimes virtual safety car, etc.

Jason: 40:42

But yeah, that's that's the uh the end of my talking points here for racing flags and uh it's you know, just make make the best judgment, but don't get on the microphone or send people dirty messages when you can't keep up. You know, if you can't keep up, I can't help you there. I can't that this is the the mentality of it's my race and my track. And no, a racetrack is shared, and everybody out there has a place on this track, regardless of what happened to you, regardless of the situation. But, you know, respectfully, spots need to be earned, you know. I in our racing league that we race in, the GRL, those rules are very specific, they're very different rules, but there's no penalty in iracing for blue flag. There isn't, it's just a warning flag.

Jeff: 41:36

So interesting.

Jason: 41:38

There we go. That's that's yeah, that's what I have um this week. Uh I'll hand it over to you, Bo.

Jeff: 41:46

No, yeah, interesting thing. It's always like it's always contentious the blue flag, and it people are gonna be people. So all right, so mine is more of a discussion here, Jason, because uh, you know, people where we have discussions about Black Friday, people are looking for new gear. Um, and I found myself watching a ton of YouTube reviews on whatever products, right? From whatever you're looking for, there's reviews out there. Um but the all the ones that I'm watching, they have a statement, I guess is the best way to put it, that hey, uh XYZ manufacturer sent me this piece of gear to use, you know, see what it how it feels, and then give a review for the purpose of this review. The purpose of the review, right? Is um then they say that hey, they they don't get a say in what I have to say or my review of the product, um, other than I will give a review of the product. Um and uh it just uh it doesn't necessarily sit well with me um uh because I feel like there might be a conflict of interest in trying to get an honest review, and I'm just gonna be blunt here, right? I don't is if you are getting gear, are you gonna be honest about that gear for the review? And I just feel like we need to be a little bit more genuine with the community. I don't, you know, on are you gonna honestly are you gonna give a good review, an honest review? Would you give a negative review to a product that you got for free, knowing that obviously that manufacturer is never gonna send you another piece of gear to review because of the the review gave it? So I now watch the review knowing that I'm not gonna get a negative review. I am basically, unless you show facts with like, hey, we ran benchmarks and here's the frames per second from software that is, you know, you know, and you are straight across the board with your um variables, when you start talking about your opinion and how things feel and perceived and things like that, it's just hard to um I guess put a lot of weight in that opinion. And I just feel like the vast majority of things on YouTube, the reviews on YouTube are of this, and I don't have a solution to these things on how we as a community can get around it. But I I mean I've talked, I think I've explained my frustrations with this, and something I see that the community we need to kind of figure out and sort out. Which what are your thoughts on this, Jason, when it comes to watching a review on YouTube, and it's like, hey, you know, XYZ company sent this, they don't get to say what I they don't get to say in my review, and you're like, come on, buddy. Like they might not, but you're not gonna give them a shitty review. Come on. So I'm curious to hear what you have to say about this from our our industry.

Jason: 44:49

So uh, you know, as a new solo creator as well, because I'm getting into that round two on the side of the podcasting. I had some discussions about this during the live event, which is crazy that you mentioned that. Um and I have some thoughts, you know. Uh first of all, the timing of reviews. There's reviews that there's products, there's there's two different categories. Category number one, there's the YouTuber that's a big YouTuber that gets sent products that are unreleased, and then they have something called an embargo date. And the reviews ready, made, good to go, and wrapped up, and whatever they had to do with the wheel, send it back, or in some cases they keep the wheel, or in some cases they get it for a massive discount to keep it. See, my problem with those is that sometimes things in the manufacturing change, right? From the point where they sent out pretest to the point where they sent out the final product. That doesn't necessarily mean that the final is going to be a better product. You know what I mean? So there's number one. Number two is those review correct. And then there's exactly even the same quality, the same materials. You don't know, we don't know this. I don't care. They'll probably come out. Anybody will probably come out and say, Oh, our products trust me, you can trust us, but you know, can I really trust you? You know what I mean? Um, and I think the best way to go about this, uh, the Porsche wheel that I'm that I purchased that I'm working on a review of, there's literally 24 hours of footage of me using this wheel live on camera. And those are the types of reviews that I appreciate the most because I can see hardware in use. I can appreciate that you're a sim racer before anything else. Because if you just made videos and I never see a race other than some BS AI race, anybody could do that, put their AI to like level one and you crushing the competition, take a few shots of you doing this and doing that, and and that's it. Rap. Um, there's really no way for me to prove that that was that that happened, that that was real. So there's creators out there that'll get on camera and test things, you know, to mention a few. Lawrence de Souza is live streamer, he'll live stream with brand new hardware, whether it works, whether it doesn't work. Um, Dan Suzuki, to name, just to name a few. And I think that that's the best way to go about it is to excuse me, is to find somebody that does both. Because reviews can't be it, not everything is good. You know what I mean? If if every single review you put out and you say that this is the best or this is awesome or this is great, yes, you're gonna appease the manufacturer, but your credibility goes down. And credibility is everything to a creator, everything, even to our show. The Chicane Podcast credibility means the world to me. Because I want you guys to trust us. I want you guys, or listeners, followers all over the world, I want you guys to understand that the conversations that Jeff and I have every week are legitimate conversations. You know, we have some talking points for things like Black Friday. Okay, those need to be written down. But this entire conversation from when it started just now is all up here. And I think those are the types of creators that that I would latch on to. And when they make a review of a product, then you have a just a little bit more trust in those people. That's how I feel about it. You know, that there's there's no real way to know, honestly. There's no real way to know 100%. And I also agree, and really a strong believer in putting your hands on the thing before you can buy it if you have the chance to do it, you know, and that's how come we stress so much about going to the expos with an S. Because there's many of them out there, and those give you the idea the real experience, right? Like, I want to try the belt tensioner, you know. We tried the belt tensioner, we bought the belt tensioner, I reviewed the belt tensioner, people bought the belt tensioner, and they love it. So, I mean, that's kind of how it should work, right?

Jeff: 49:33

Yeah, I'm gonna pile on pile on real quick to your the expo point because you bring up a great point. But I think another point to to reason to go to these expos is you can meet a lot of these content creators. Um, like we I had the opportunity to meet Mikey from the Sim Racing Den. Um, when you interact with them, you can kind of get a feel for how authentic these people are, right? Um, after talking with Mikey and Mike and got to spend basically weekend with him, you know, I I know him as a person. You know, he's just not a face online. Like my level in trust of him and what he is he's saying on uh on his reviews carries a lot more weight now than I don't want to say anybody else, but I have met I met him, you know. I I you know had conversations with him. I feel like I got to you know know a little bit know who he is as a person, you know. Now he's just not a face on YouTube, you know, and I think that's another thing that kind of maybe we don't articulate enough about these expos is you get to meet people in the industry and you know see a little bit about them and you know who they are as people and things like that. So I you brought up a great point. I just thought I just wanted to pile on there. Yeah.

Jason: 50:41

Yeah, 100%. I mean, uh, we always praise Michael on here for a reason. Michael doesn't pay us a single dime, and I don't expect him to. It's just a creator that we trust. You know what I mean? It's a creator that I trusted before I met Jeff, you know, before Jeff got a rig. I used to watch his videos um when I was buying something. You know, there's other creators out there, which I'm not gonna mention their name because it's not in my place to do that, but there's other creators that will just bang out videos, just back to back. And that's how come you don't see any bank back-to-back videos from Track Go Simracing. It's because if I'm going to review something, I'm going to give you the reality facts. And to answer your question from before about the fear of somebody gave, for example, they sent me a product and I straight up lied just to keep them happy, I wouldn't be able to live with myself. Just knowing that people are spending money or time investing on something that's false. You know, that it just would be a terrible, horrific thing to do. You know, it'll be just terrible, terrible to do, especially you know, with all the competition now, you have nothing but option out there, and things are getting harder to compare now because they're so good. Everything is pretty damn decent, right? When you buy something, and to find those nitpicks to give you perspective is a challenge to do. Um, but that's how come I believe personally, I believe in the sim racer. I believe that being a sim racer should come first, and not just saying that you're a sim racer, not just looking into that and telling you, hey, I'm a sim racer and I do zero racing. You see me, you don't ever see me. Yeah, yeah. I'm just a a product commercial guy that just they send me a shit ton of stuff. I have no time for racing, and I'm reviewing products. So how are you reviewing this products? You know, you can get in it, you can you can say whatever you want to say, but nothing beats hard lap time with humans. Period. That that's just the way it goes. That's just the way it goes. That's my opinion, though. Everybody has an opinion. Jeff has an opinion, everybody has an opinion, but this is my professional opinion as a creator to to you know to everybody. If Thrustmaster sends me a wheel and I put it on this rig, I can't compare that wheel to a sim Semicube 2 Pro, but I can review it in its price range, if that makes sense. I can review it for what it is and the package that you get, you know, as a whole in its price range, and for who these these wheels are for, or this types of products, or who are they for? You know what I'm saying? There's a way, there's ways of being fair, you know what I mean, in comparison. That's like comparing a Ferrari to uh to uh a Hyundai. The Hyundai might be super reliable and a good car to bring you to A and B. It's not gonna smoke a Ferrari ever in its life. You know what I mean?

Jeff: 54:06

One would one's a great one to get into sim racing with, the other one's, you know, your end game sim racing. Yeah, it just is uh it's just different markets sit right with me when you're when you're sitting here. Oh, I'd love to see, you know, what this person thinks of this. And they're like, well, they sent it to me for free, but you know, I'll give you my review and they can't tell me what to say. And you're like, all right, well, okay, I'll take that worth a grain of salt. Now I appreciate everybody being open and honest about it, but I am very curious, you know, some of our listeners, tell us what you think about some of these reviews and what your um what your thoughts are when you're watching a YouTube review on whatever product you're looking at, um, and they say that they've received it for free to give a review. Uh, you know, tell us what you do you trust them, or you know, hey, like it's the best I got, so I go with it. Or if you have a better solution to how we can get this information that's hard, like we're very niche community. Um, you just can't go to Best Buy to test out a CimeCube 2, you know, or uh a Sol Pec wheel. Um back to the to the to the um to the expos. But uh YouTube's a huge way I re research gear that I'm looking at. Um, you know, it's hard to find a Pi Max super. It's the only way.

Jason: 55:17

Um there's really no other way, you know.

Jeff: 55:19

VR headset, you know, that I you can't go to the store and try one out. So you're taking people's word for it. It just is hard to put a lot of faith in something that somebody got it for free. Um, I see.

Jason: 55:29

Yeah.

Jeff: 55:29

Yeah. So I it just is um, yeah, I'm just curious to see what you know. If you're a listener and you got some thoughts on this, drop it in the comment. We'd love to hear about it. We'll comment back. Um, but yeah, so that was my discussion point here. I just it just is uh something that I've been bothering me, not bothering me, but just kind of nitpicking at the back of my head every time I watch review and somebody, I got it for free. No, you're in the stage.

Jason: 55:52

So you're in the stage. You build a brand new PC, you're trying to build a flight sim, uh you're shopping for a headset, and you're trying to see what the differences are. And we've done research on what the differences are, but still you you still wanna you wanna know as much as you can, right? Because it it's a lot of money.

Jeff: 56:11

It's a lot of money that you're you're you're investing in something that you can't hold in touch, and you're trusting somebody to tell you straight up, straight no tracer about the gear. And they got it not in the most as long as they're being genuine about it, that they got it review. Okay. Um, yeah, anyways, I don't I don't know if we need to keep piling on, but uh I mean I'll just say one more thing is sure uh always trust, always look at the history of the manufacturer and where they come from and what they stand for.

Jason: 56:42

And that's how I judge a good guess if something's gonna be pretty decent, or something's gonna be trash, you know, or maybe they changed everything and they become and they became great. But you know, always look at the history and trust me, there's subreddits upon subreddits upon subreddits about issues that you could find. Uh that these guys are not praising the good because they don't get paid to praise nothing. They they're there seeking help, you know what I mean? So that's another way you can scounder the internet. But again, um I believe in the sim racer, and I believe in the sim racers that really race and really push. Because when you give them gear, they actually use the gear, you know, and that's how I'll end it. But uh that's gonna be it for this week, man. Um, do you have any round tables before we wrap it up today?

Jeff: 57:43

No, man, I don't.

Jason: 57:44

Um, we're about almost an hour in.

Jeff: 57:48

I know. Get uh get in the rig more than I did this week. I'll I'll promise to uh do better this upcoming week and uh drive fast and break late, everybody.

Jason: 57:59

All right, Jeff. Thank you so much again. Uh, it did go by really fast, bro. It did super fast, but uh yeah, we're counting down the days uh to uh holiday season approaching. So my you know, we'll keep you up to date as time progresses. Um and we'll probably end up making another Black Friday episode, but this will be the start of it. So thank you so much. Yeah, a little a little sprinkle, you know, to get you going to get the engines uh cooking. So, anyways, guys, thank you so much uh to all you viewers and listeners out there. If you have any questions of anything that we spoke about, drop a comment or send us an email to shakeanepodcast at gmail.com. And with that, have a great start of your week. Thank you.