Good’day maniacs! In my last post, I’ve talked about rFactor, and how used still today, this simulator is. Today I want to talk about another very important aspect when we talk about simulators, but that often it’s not given the right weight, I’m talking about tracks. Yes, the track is where, you driver, have to practice, the track is something that you must to know precisely, every bump, every corner, every breaking point. The most important aspect for choose a good version of that track or another to me is the layout. I don’t care about billboards. If the billboards are in the same color as the real track, that’s bullshit. I’m not talking about graphics, I’m talking about the right layout.
Where I’m practicing and pushing hard, there’s must be a true virtual reproduction of the real circuit. I have to be sure that that corner as the same angle as the real one, that that curb is in the right place, and the spaces are right, pit exit, etc.. Not the billboards on the side of the track. I use rFactor as you may know, but not for a long time, unfortunately. I always wanted to have a rig and a good PC to run this simulator but for a reason or another, I never had space or time. Two years ago I had to buy a new PC for my job, and I took advantage of getting a good and fast one for run rFactor, and do my work stuff. Since I’m a fan of Formula 1, I watched tons of simulators videos on youtube, especially the ones from the teams such as Red Bull, in which Webber and Vettel were showing a hot lap before each GP.
I knew that they were running rFactor and I start to look at those videos trying to find the exact same versions of the track that they were using. Yes, I know, this is real maniac stuff. What I found out is that they are using specific versions of the tracks and that are updated in time. So I went to study each track of their videos and look at specific reference points, billboards, and buildings and other details, so that I could go on the various rFactor community and get what I was looking for. And I found many of their tracks, that I use today in my personal folder. If you watch my videos in my youtube channel here, all the hot laps of my videos are on a specific track version that I call correct, after I checked them from videos and other pictures available.
I checked all of the track in the calendar, and I found out that Monaco is one of the tracks most difficult to find correct and updated. There are many versions of this circuit out there such in Rfactor Central (God bless these guys) but just one of them is the right one. The others have mistakes here and there and believe me I did a very deep job on this. So today I’ve downloaded few Monaco track version and tried them all, and I can confirm you that all of them have incorrect parts, except one, which is the same one that the guys from Red Bull are using on their simulator, simply updated in years.
I want to take advantage of this blog post, to thank publicly all the modders, the communities, the modding groups that still today work on rFactor, and keep it alive and well. I also want to thank my friend Jose’ from Spain Racers, Patrick for his efforts, WCP, Euro racers, and many more! forgive me if I didn’t mention you but this is for all of you. Also if there is a track modder out there I have a job for you for Monaco! Write to me!
As always ask me anything you want, comment, share, and see you on the next maniac episode!