About a week ago, iOpener announced that they were able to sign a world-wide known race driver to join their Real-Time Racing beta test. Ever since the announcement, the community played guessing games which driver the RTR beta testers will be able to face.

Pretty much everyone has been mentioned, including past F1 drivers and other high-profile motorsport persons. iOpener is still not able to reveal the identity of the driver, they´re giving everyone a little hint to the right direction though.

The driver won’t be driving a modern-spec racing car but a more classical vehicle that made him “fly” for years. Who can piece the evidence together?

RTR beta testers will be able to race the legend at Zolder soon. If you don’t want to miss your chance to race against the mysterious pro, make sure to pre-register for a RTR beta key here.

From Ostendo comes a new display that could very well become very interesting for sim racers, providing an alternative to the traditional three-monitor setup used in many simulators.

The Ostendo CRVD is a 43-inch curved gaming display, using a 32:10 aspect ratio with a 2880×900 pixel resolution. The result is very interesting for racing simulations as the display shows what’s happening left and right of the car without any distracting frames or seams.

The only problem is the price tag as the CRVD currently sells for more than $6000. More info on the display can be found on the Ostendo website, this type of screen may very well be the future of gaming in general and racing simulations in particular.

Of course, even the Ostendo-concept can be taken to extremes as the video below shows a three-CRVD setup in action with Need for Speed Shift.

Team CTDP keeps on making impressive progress with their Formula One 1994 mod for rFactor, showing us more previews of the Lotus 107C/109 liveries, including a special livery that has been used during the 1994 Brazil Grand Prix

Powered by a Mugen Honda V10 engine, Lotus used no less than two different chassis and six drivers during the 1994 season – Including some well-known names such as Alex Zanardi, Pedro Lamy, Johnny Herbert & Mika Salo.

F1 1994 for rFactor will let you relive one of the most remarkable seasons in Formula One history, a year that provided both thrilling racing and heartbreaking drama – From Interlagos all the way to Adelaide.

 

Via CTDP Devblog

Two weeks ago, a new version of the 3DSimED tool was released, allowing to add new cars to Need for Speed Shift.

Now, first moving footage of the first ever modding car is available as SETH Alpine is working on the Alpine A410 concept car for Slightly Mad Studios’ popular title.

Below is a first preview video of the car on the Nürburgring Nordschleife, hopefully just the start of lots of modding content coming to Shift.

Jessica, Darin & Shaun of Insidesimracing.tv have released a new episode of InsideSimRacing, bringing us a bunch of very interesting topics.

The guys compare five different steering wheels in their Sim Racing Wheel Shootout, Jessica visits iRacing’s headquaters and talks to Dave Kaemmer and a new leading car is introduced to the list of top sim cars. Enjoy the show!

A little side note: The guys claim that the new leader of the top sim car list can be downloaded off their sponsor’s website Simraceway, even though the modding team who created this car has strictly pointed out they want their content to be removed from the mentioned website.

Even though the mod has partly been removed and hidden on the site, it is still accessible and has been modified by the site to support their install system – All without permission from the content creators.

To completely ignore the content creators is very questionable to begin with, using it to advertise their service is straight up rude though….

After showing us a first set of previews of the Mercedes CLK GTR cockpit, Team RMT has now released new previews showing the World Super GT 2 car’s cockpit in game.

Powered by a six-liter V12 engine, the CLK-GTR was Mercedes’ weapon of choice during the 1997 FIA GT championship, the German manufacturer managed to clinch both the drivers and manufacturers title.

Successor to World Super GT for GTR 2, World Super GT 2 will bring some of of the most legendary GT cars of the 90s as well as Super GT GT500 class machinery to rFactor 2.

 

Via BSR

The Lonely and SLN have released Jerez de la Frontera for rFactor, bringing a modern-day version of the Spanish track to the simulation.

Based on Virtua_LM’s Jerez for F1C, this is just a conversion by name as new textures, shaders, track objects and plenty of other changes have been added, resulting in the high quality these two track makers stand for.

Features:

• Conversion with permission from VLM F1C Jerez
• Overhauled Textures and Shaders for entire terrain
• Remapped all the terrain
• Relofted the road for better bumps
• Completely new thinking for road shader
• Remodelled many objects from scratch
• Used Ambient Occlusion on many new objects
• Custom skies
• Overhauled lighting values

Located in the Sherry-producing region in south Spain, Jerez has hosted a wide variety of motorsport events since the circuit’s opening in 1985. Hosted events include several Formula One Grand Prix as well as an annual MotoGP round.

 

Download Jerez de la Frontera 1.0 Mirror 1 Here

Download Jerez de la Frontera 1.0 Mirror 2 Here

Via Alex Sawczuk’s Blog

From Sym Project comes something very interesting for those of you building their own cockpits as their Rev Burner module now allows to use a rev meter from a real car with any popular simulation.

The Rev Burner is connected via USB, it supports all Simbin simulations, rFactor, Live for Speed, Richard Burns Rally and iRacing. The module sells for 32 British pounds, more info can be found on the Sym Project website.

Below is a demonstration video, showing a real rev meter used with the Rev Burner in Richard Burns Rally.

XXX Team has released a new preview video of their Peugeot 207 S2000 rally car mod for rFactor, made by Addydus, runner up in the last rFactorcentral video competition.

The video shows the car both on gravel and tarmac, the mod will contain Peugeot’s popular rally car in 40 different liveries, coming with two sets of physics.

Powered by a two-liter engine that puts out more than 250hp, the 207 is a popular competition vehicle in many national championships and the Intercontinental Rally Challenge.

Stabiz has put together a new preview video of HistorX’s Historic GT & Touring Car 2.0 mod for rFactor, showing the Ford Mustang Boss 302 in nightly action.

Built between 1969 and 1970, the Boss 302 was a Ford Mustang model designed with Trans-Am competition in mind. The car was powered by a five-liter V8 engine, less than 10.000 examples were built.

Using GT Legends as a base, the Historic GT & Touring Car mod for rFactor proved to be one of the most popular releases for the simulation. The second version of the mod will be made up completely of scratch-made material, bringing several famous historic racing cars to rFactor.

Drees has released his Formula One 1993 carpack for GTR Evolution, turning the Formula 3000 class into a vintage Formula One season.

The pack includes all cars of the 1993 F1 season painted on the F3000 chassis, it comes with talent files and its own class so it won’t mix with GTR Evolution’s standard F3000 class.

 

Download F1 1993 F3000 Carpack for GTR Evolution Here

The Live for Speed development team has released patch Z28 for their racing simulation, introducing various small changes as listed below.

Changelog:

Reduced minimum view height in SHIFT+U mode
Reduced minimum speed in SHIFT+U mode to 0.1 m/s
Multiple host passwords are now stored (Join Specific Host screen)
Added support for lfs:// (start LFS with command line from web page)
FIX : Could not join S1 or S2 host after unlocking in Multiplayer screen
FIX : Clicking SPR / MPR did not work with “Load track when starting”
FIX : Two or more dedicated hosts could be started with same port
FIX : It was possible to reset the car while a vote was in progress
FIX : Help buttons sometimes translated after returning to English

Furthermore, the developers have released an extensive status report on their current tire model developments. Once their work on the physics is complete, all LfS users will be able to enjoy it for free.

Download Live for Speed Patch Z28 Here

Yesterday’s iRacing Black Friday offer proved to be rather popular and here a few other offers for those of you looking to make a bargain with some simulations.

EA has lowered the price for the PC version of Need for Speed Shift by 30% to $34.95 until November 30th. This offer is only valid for the digital download version of Shift, click here for more info.

If you´re more into oval racing, The Sim Factory’s offer could interest you as their ARCA RE/MAX simulation sells for $39.99 (one license) or $49.99 (two licenses) until the end of December – More info here.

And finally, even though it’s no simulation by any means, Codemasters has lowered the price for Race Driver GRID on Steam, the title now sells for less than five Euros. If you enjoy fancy graphics and crashes or want to complete your collection, the offer can be found here.

Update: The price for GRID on Steam is back to 19,99€, looks like it was only a very short sale.

If you ever wanted to try Kunos Simulazioni’s netKar Pro simulation, this is your chance as two free simulations based on their engine have been released.

The first, made by Italian tire company Marangoni, includes the Osella hillclimb prototype and the Trento Bendone hillclimb track. Please note that this title has driving aids activated by default, pay attention to the manual which describes how to turn off the aids.

The second is a free netKar Pro demo by MTV.it, including the recently-released Abarth 500 which can be tried for free.  This one is only available in Italian though so it might require some trial and error to make it work for non-Italian speakers.

Download Marangoni netKar Hillclimb Simulation Here

Download netKar Abarth 500 Demo Here