Paul Jeffrey
Premium
iRacing.com President Tony Gardner yesterday revealed the inclusion of dirt oval racing should be added to the simulation by the end of Q1 2017, as development nears its conclusion on the new racing style for the title. To further build up the hype for dirt the developers have released a series of preview images of three different classes of car in game at the Williams Grove Speedway.
Since the addition of a loose surface racing discipline was announced back on the 1st April this year, details of what fans can expect to find have been pretty thin on the ground from iRacing. Despite the initial concern that any major announcements of this kind on April Fools Day is probably a hoax, iRacing have since gone on to confirm development is indeed real and have already confirmed the Dirt Late Model, Dirt Sprint Car, Dirt Street Car and a Ford Fiesta Rally Cross machine are due to be added to the sim, alongside the Williams Grove Speedway and Eldora Speedway amongst other yet to be announced locations.
With a brand new type of racing vastly different to the usual tarmac based racing in the sim, it has been a major undertaking by the developers to simulate a loose surface in iRacing. With Gardner now confirming the title plans to launch dirt racing prior to the March 2017 build, it has been seen as an ideal time to release the largest batch of preview images for the new content to date. Below and attached you can see the Late Model, Sprint and Street cars in action at Williams Grove Speedway. For those of us in Europe perhaps less experienced with the world of short oval racing, I have attempted to provide a bit of background on what each class is all about...
Dirt Late Model
Late model race cars are the highest class of local stock car racing vehicles at many race tracks in the United States and Canada. Some regional and lower national-level series race in late models.
Late model stock cars are a product of the Carolinas and are the premier class raced at local and regional tracks in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. These purpose-built racecars weigh around 3,100 pounds and utilize both factory-designed crate and custom-built racing engines. The power plants produce over 400 horsepower underneath a fiberglass body built to withstand the rigors of short track racing without the weight of stock body panels.*
Dirt Sprint Car
Sprint cars are high-powered race cars designed primarily for the purpose of running on short oval or circular dirt or paved tracks. Sprint car racing is popular in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa.
Sprint cars have a very high power-to-weight ratio, at a weight of approximately 1,400 pounds (640 kg) (including the driver) for a 410 Sprint car, power outputs of 900 horsepower (670 kW) to 1,100 horsepower (820 kW) are commonplace for these machines, which is around 140-340 more horsepower than a 2014 Formula One engine. Typically they are powered by a naturally aspirated American V8 with an engine displacement of 410 cubic inches (6.7L) capable of engine speeds of 9000 rpm. Depending on the mechanical setup (engine, gearing, shocks, etc.) and the track layout these cars achieve speeds in excess of 160 mph.*
Dirt Street Car
"True" stock car racing, which consists of only street vehicles that can be bought by general public, is sometimes now called "street stock", "pure stock", "hobby stock", "showroom stock", or "U-car" racing. In 1972, SCCA started its first showroom stock racing series, with a price ceiling on the cars of $3,000. Some modern showroom stock racing allows safety modifications done on showroom stock cars.*
* All descriptions of the three dirt racing classes have been taken courtesy of Wikipedia, because I'm British and know very little of these things! Sorry!
iRacing dirt is due for release before the end of March 2017.
Check out the iRacing sub forum here at RaceDepartment for all the latest news and discussions regarding the sim. Share a setup or two with your fellow competitors and join in the community today!
For the first time iRacing will support dirt oval racing within the simulation - are you looking forward to trying the new content? Would the inclusion of dirt encourage you to sign up to the service? Let us know in the comments section below!
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