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[Ed. note: More and more people are staying home as a result of quarantines and social distancing. Car customization was the high-tech platform for many years. Then came computers where nerds had a different target for things to tweak and optimize. Car racing has perhaps even more followers today than ever before. Given the technical background and underpinnings, and realizing people may be looking for something to do this weekend, I thought to give this story a try. Are there any Soylentils who have any racing experience? --martyb]
Shortly after the US entry into World War 2, President Roosevelt requested that professional baseball continue to be played during the war because of its importance to maintain the morale of the nation. NBA commissioner Adam Silver expressed similar sentiment after the almost complete shutdown of professional sports due to the coronavirus outbreak. Formula 1 and NASCAR are already taking steps to resume, though with virtual races instead of cars physically on track.
Last weekend, iRacing and Podium organized the Replacements 100, which was streamed on multiple platforms including YouTube. The drivers included William Byron, whose success in iRacing helped him find the opportunity to drive real race cars, retired fan favorite Dale Earnhardt Jr., and current cup series drivers Bubba Wallace and Alex Bowman. The race was 100 laps at Atlanta Motor Speedway, which was set to host all three of NASCAR's national series last weekend before being postponed.
This weekend, NASCAR's national series were scheduled to race at Homestead-Miami Speedway, but these races have also been postponed. Instead, NASCAR has started the eNASCAR iRacing Pro Invitational Series, a series of virtual races using iRacing that will include current drivers from all three of the national series. This weekend, the race will be at Homestead and will be televised by FOX Sports 1. The race will include 35 drivers including current Cup Series champion Kyle Busch and many other drivers from NASCAR's top series. The race commentators will be Mike Joy, Jeff Gordon, and Larry McReynolds, all of whom are commentators for Fox's regular NASCAR Cup Series broadcasts.
Formula 1 will also be live streaming a virtual Bahrain Grand Prix this weekend with two drivers representing each of F1's ten teams. This race will be run using the F1 2019 game and the level of difficulty for each driver will be adjusted based on their skill in virtual racing in order to produce a competitive race. This is in lieu of the postponed Bahrain Grand Prix, originally scheduled for this weekend. Although many of the regular F1 drivers will not be competing in this race, Nicholas Latifi will drive for Williams and Nico Hulkenberg will be returning to F1.
None of these races are points races in their respective series. And professional esports races are not new at all. However, it is novel that they are being used as stand-in events in the absence of being able to have teams physically present at the tracks. However, the use of commentators from the regular broadcasts, the number of drivers from NASCAR's top series, and the expectation that each of F1's teams will select two drivers will certainly draw the interest of fans who might not otherwise want to watch esports. In particular, Dale Jr. has a large following among NASCAR fans and his participation will likely increase fan interest in these virtual races.
As a fan, if NASCAR races continue to be postponed for an extended period of time, I'd like to see North Wilkesboro Speedway return in virtual races. The North Carolina short track last hosted a Cup Series race in 1996 and is now in deteriorating condition, much to the chagrin of many of NASCAR's older fans. It was one of NASCAR's oldest tracks and a part of the schedule for many decades, with the unique feature of the track being on a small incline. With the backing of Dale Jr., the track was cleaned and scanned for its addition to iRacing. Hopefully this historic track will return to NASCAR's schedule, even if only virtually.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 22 2020, @11:17PM
> The constraints on engineering cut costs with the goal of allowing smaller teams with less resources to be more competitive.
Yes and no. Sometimes this works, but coil binding is an example from a few years back where it didn't. NASCAR mandated a fairly high ride height for tech inspection, but the teams slowly worked out how to get the cars lower, for better aero (drag and/or downforce). The easy way to do this is with soft springs and rubber bump stops to keep the car from crashing metal to metal (or car-to-track). Most other kinds of racing allow rubber bump stops. However, NASCAR didn't allow rubber, and also required constant rate springs (constant spacing between coils). I believe NASCAR saw this as an area for development that would be difficult for smaller teams--it does require some knowledge of rubber properties (which are not stable like steel springs) and a fair bit of testing to get the car settled correctly on the stiff rubber "springs".
The top teams still knew they wanted soft springs that would let the downforce (aero and banking) pull the car down close to the track. They also knew that when the coil springs bound (all the coils touch) this near-instant change to a *much* higher spring rate really upsets the car. So they invented springs that had constant coil spacing and were bent, like a banana (top and bottom ends of the coil not parallel). As the coils closed they touched on one side first, then there was a short distance of very steeply rising spring rate before the final coil binding. To make this work required springs made out of very fancy steel, like valve spring material, and the springs didn't last very long. The whole exercise (across the top teams) must have wasted millions of bucks.
Eventually NASCAR found out that the springs were so expensive, so they changed the rules and allowed bump stops. Since it's a dumb way to make a variable rate spring I don't think anyone sells these "banana" springs anymore.
> Would it be feasible to institute larger technical alliances,
I can't speak for the different manufacturers, but one basic problem with this is that the low bucks teams only have a few engineers. If they were given all the tools and data used by the big teams with 25-50 engineers (or maybe more, I haven't kept up) they would be drinking from a firehose. I think it's more common for the manufacturers to work closely with a couple of big teams and then pass along the most important stuff to the smaller teams.