Like quarterly clockwork iRacing has published the release notes for the upcoming week 13 end of season update, and just like tradition, the love hate relationship between fixing bugs and new content is alive and well.
As we drain out those that just want the new tire model, new damage model and the day to night transitions, lets look at what we can expect out of the iRacing platform in their next update.
Two new LMP1 cars: The Porsche 919 Hybrid and the Audi R18 etron Quatrro.
It will come as no surprise to some, but I am super keen that these two cars are finally getting released. I will buy both as soon as I can and then my expectations will be met with a harsh reality. I won't be fast, I wont have enough buttons on my wheel for all the hybrid boost options and these wont be popular.
These two new cars will run in two new Lemans Series, an individual series and a team series with an LMP2 and a GTE Class.
Who are you and what have you done with the regular iRacing folk? OK, iRacing, you now have my attention. I have raced the HPD LMP2 class numerous times in endurance events and love the car. If I get 1/16th the enjoyment out of one of the two LMP1 cars, I am gonna have a good time. The problem with high speed, complex aero cars that are hard to drive is that they find a limited audience on the iRacing service. Sales from the outside always appear to be good, but after a season or so everyone starts heading back towards good ol' reliable GT3. My real expectation is that these cars will find a home in multi-class endurance leagues all around the world. Races up to 24 hours in length that happen once a month is what I want, and I am hoping that someone is my region will start up this type of league.
iRacing LeMans Series and iRacing Lemans Endurance Series. The Lemans Series will run every two hours with a 12-week schedule. 60-90 minute races as a regular official series. Then, every other week we will run the iRacing Lemans Endurance Series with 2-time slots. Saturday at 7:00GMT and Saturday at 19:00GMT. These are 6-hour sessions, and they are team events.
6 hour sessions... Awesome! Every Saturday... My wife is going to kill me. I love the idea of team events and especially longer endurance races, but the idea of racing these types of events every weekend is where this falls down for me. Sure, these will be popular, but this will be hard to do every weekend for a lot of people. Finding the balance between race length and how often they run is challenging, but after a few seasons, this should all be worked out. I hope the cars are still popular when this all happens.
A new Indycar: The Indycar IR-18! We think you will really enjoy this car; our testers definitely are enjoying it.
Talk about an out of left field announcement. A brand new unknown car released to the community that aligns with a current season, this is something new for iRacing. I am sure they worked extremely hard to get this across the line and to have the car before the start of the real life series is amazing. We had this once with the McLaren F1 car but the regulations changed and the car was out of date within a year.
If you purchased the existing DW12 Indy car in the last six months, we would grant you full credit of $11.95. We also will be granting the existing DW12 Indycar free to all members.
Now we are talking. I am an owner of both the Indycars and I am still happy that this has happened. The more free content iRacing can give, the more value a new subscriber will see and feel when they log in.
New Dirt Track: Limaland Motorsports Park! This Quarter-Mile track is located in Northwest Ohio, and we also will include a night version.
Is dirt even popular? I know they are doing a Pro series, but is it a regional series only or do people in Europe and Australia also drive these types of cars? I am sure I can find out, but that sounds like work.
New Dirt Track at Charlotte! A 4/10 mile Dirt Track located across the street from the Charlotte Motor Speedway and will include a night version.
See above...
New GRC Circuit: Sonoma
I don't mind GRC, but I haven't raced an official race for some time. But this release is just in time for the announcement that the Beetle and Fiesta GRC cars will not be a part of the real world series any mroe.
A rescanned and revised version of Pocono: If you own the existing Pocono track, you will get this for free. The old Pocono will be granted to every member for free.
Yay free content.
Overall, I liked these release notes. Plently of new content for oval, dirt and road going folk and even a rescan of an existing track. I will be buying most of this content, but I really hope for significant amounts of non-content related updates in the next update in 3 months time.