Rev up your engines, iRacing is about to hit the market

Get excited folks, because for the LOW price of twenty dollars a month, you can enjoy unlimited track time and competition in the (hopefully) soon to be released iRacing! Twenty dollars will give you everything you need to experience a new way to train and to compete…well, almost everything.

Except for a wheel-and-pedal set, which you must supply on your own. And there’s the small fact that you don’t actually own the system, but can only play it when you have an internet connection. And um, if you want to drive in a Formula Mazda around the Atlanta Motor Speedway, be prepared to fork over some (as yet unspecified) additional cash. These hidden additional fees have to leave you asking: with only two cars available for the original subscription fee, is iRacing really worth its price?

Jens Lindblad, who has been testing the iRacing simulation for almost four years, would have us believe that it is indeed worth it. Since the beta test is almost completed, Jens is finally allowed to share his experience on the simulation with the public. From what I’ve seen, it definitely lives up to its claim as the most realistic racing simulation out there. Though Jens hypes up various aspects of the new simulation, most of his time is spent on improvements to the actual racing, which let’s be honest, is the part that makes committing such a large portion of my allowance to the service worthwhile.

For those of us who aren’t proud drivers of real NASCAR machines, iRacing is the closet we’re going to get to actually being on the track. By pioneering the use of laser scanning, the graphics of the simulation have taken a major step forward and the actual tracks are more realistic than ever before. While the casual fan might not care that every bump in the road is faithfully reproduced…you’ve got to admit the fact that they can do it is pretty sweet! So be prepared for a game that is attempting to be as faithful to the reality of racing as possible. Bumps between cars will actually have an effect (so no more ghost cars going through one another) and intentional taps will be punished with incident points being docked against your license (if you drive recklessly, you can kiss that upgrade from rookie license goodbye). So please, drive carefully!

Looks like I’m going to have to invest my monthly allowance in iRacing: though parts of it are fairly labeled as old fashioned, the graphics more than make up for the program’s faults. And let’s face it…this is as close to Dale Earnhardt Jr. as I’m going to get. Hope to see the rest of you on the road!