With only a few hours of 2009 left, it’s once again time to take a short look back at the passing year and at what’s coming up in the next 12 months.
The past year has proven to be an eventful year for sim racers as there was no shortage of exciting news. The rFactor community has continued to release stunning mods such as Enduracer’s Endurance Series mod, Simbin has brought us RACE On and many other projects have been released or progressed very well. Once again, it’s nice to see that the community is quite healthy as sim racers have been given countless options to pursue their hobby this year.
Alongside the established simulations such as rFactor and Simbin’s sims, iRacing has been progressing in full force, adding lots of content and features to their online racing sim. 2009 was also the year of old faithfuls that are still going strong. Grand Prix Legends is still very much kicking, Live for Speed is working on fresh content too and netKar Pro has gained many new fans with a much improved new version and the Fiat Abarth 500.
The most-discussed title of 2009 was definitely Need for Speed Shift though. Slightly Mad Studios’ first title has caused a lot of buzz in the community and once again proven that clever modders can improve even high-polished mainstream racing titles. And last but definitely not least, 2009 was also the year we learned first facts about ISI’s upcoming rFactor 2 simulation.
For VirtualR, 2009 was once again a record-breaking year. Combining all visitors, the site has been read by over 4 million readers in 2009 (!), who left more than 20.000 comments. The success proved to be hard to manage as last March saw the first major downtime of the site when the first rFactor 2 previews caused the shared server to collapse.
Since then, much has been changed behind the scenes as the site is now running on powerful hardware that is badly needed to keep up with the still-rising demand. The front-end of VirtualR also changed in 2009 when the new design was introduced in July, I´m (surprisingly) still happy with the current layout so don’t expect it to change anytime soon.
So, what’s coming up in 2010? The new year is already shaping up to be very exciting as several great titles are on the horizon. With rFactor 2, Gran Turismo 5, Codemaster’s first Formula One PC game, Real-Time Racing and all the other usual suspects from the modding community coming up with new material, there will be no shortage of reasons to visit VirtualR in 2010.
With that being said, I`d like to thank all of you who have visited VirtualR in 2009 and supported me in one way or another. Thanks a lot to all modders, developers, commenters and everyone else who has taken an active role in our community – This site wouldn’t work without you! I´d also like to thank my past and current advertisers as I wouldn’t be able to keep the site up without them.
Happy 2010 everyone – Keep On Sim Racing!
mike84
December 31st, 2009 at 21:34
thanks montoya for hosting such a great website. this is by far the best sim website. i check this site daily.
look forward to 2010.
thx again.
Mitos
December 31st, 2009 at 21:39
Go to new heights in 2010 year! THX1138! HNY!
Mr. A
December 31st, 2009 at 21:43
Happy New Year to you too Montoya!
Manddrakke
December 31st, 2009 at 23:44
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
fpol
December 31st, 2009 at 23:55
I greatly appreciate what you do. Oddly, you still have no request for donations on your “support VirtualIR link, impressive.
Keep up the good work as what is now perhaps the center of all news for this genre.
UncleChuckle
January 1st, 2010 at 00:19
Has there actually been any concrete confirmation RF2 will be out in 2010?
Was an interesting year for sure.
I would buy Netkar in a heartbeat if they added AI.
Been considering getting LFS for a while now too.
And I quit my one online racing league due to piss poor driving standards.
carbonfibre
January 1st, 2010 at 00:40
Happy new year!
If we have a modding community as strong in 2010 as it was in 2009 it will be very good because I don’t think things will be growing anymore, not until rF2 is released that is. But we’ve still got FSONE09 and HistoricGT 2.0 to look forward too, maybe even WSGT at some point too.
gtrNL
January 1st, 2010 at 01:18
Happy new year to all 4 million people…
Still loving the site, visiting it every day.
May the community keep producing great mods and feedback on our beloved hobby, sim racing.
eddiespag
January 1st, 2010 at 01:47
Happy New Decade to our sim community family!
kingsti
January 1st, 2010 at 03:07
Happy new year and thank you for all your great articles of 2009! This is the first place I come to for news! I know you work very hard at this and it is really appreciated.
ZombieJim
January 1st, 2010 at 03:08
Thanks for an amazing site. One I visit more than daily now.
Nothing to do? Check virtualr! Something to do but don’t want to do it? Check virtualr anyway!
Happy new year to everyone.
Ghoults
January 1st, 2010 at 04:20
Thanks for an amazing site as well from here :)
Keep up the good work.
Paul Kelly
January 1st, 2010 at 04:35
Many thanks, as always, Montoya! You do fantastic work. VirtualR is fantastic, and I really appreciate it.
Pandamasque
January 1st, 2010 at 05:00
Happy new year to you Rob. I hope the SimSanta brings you what you wished, as you’ve been a good boy.
paupau
January 1st, 2010 at 06:08
Happy new year guys, and yes, thank you for this wonderful wonderful website. Its been a real pleasure having to check news on virtualr.
amgsport
January 1st, 2010 at 08:31
Thanks for all the effort Montoya. Keep up the great work!
FooAtari
January 1st, 2010 at 10:19
Thanks for the great site Montoya, I too visit it daily.
Happy New Year!
sigmatc24
January 1st, 2010 at 10:58
And you forgot to say Happy New Year
Great work, I visit the site every day, thanks for your efforts
commodore
January 1st, 2010 at 11:04
Enduracers is not stunning, CARTFactor is.
hoover
January 1st, 2010 at 12:33
Happy new year to you too Montoya, keep up the good work! This site has become my main news source simracing wise. Have a happy & healthy 2010!
6e66o
January 1st, 2010 at 12:35
Happy New Year everybody! :)
BSR-WiX
January 1st, 2010 at 12:58
Happy Newyear all .. lets make in an even better VirtualR 2010.
Thanks for keeping this haven alive Montoya.
krivjur
January 1st, 2010 at 13:04
Happy New Year all, just registered after reading the news here quite often. Waiting to see how rF2 and new WRC title will shape up to be in 2010. Keep the news rolling Montoya.
prenthouse
January 1st, 2010 at 13:40
Thank you for this wonderful site! Really a must for a sim racer! I check it daily! Happy new year everybody!
Jos
January 1st, 2010 at 14:02
should a good sim year for me, gran turismo finnally! rfactor2 should be interesting allthough is probably will have limited content at the beginning…
a good wrc title would be great too, but see-ing the developers I doubt the mighty RBR will be beat.
happy new year.
michael
January 1st, 2010 at 14:06
Yep. Maybe you’d have improved them if you’d practised a bit…
Klaas Jan
January 1st, 2010 at 15:03
Happy New Year to you all and a big thank you to Montoya for all your work on this great site!!!1
ric
January 1st, 2010 at 16:38
Happy new year sim-racing fellows!!! Specially for Montoya, for giving us such amazing web. Thanks!
stabiz
January 1st, 2010 at 17:35
Happy new year, peeps!
2010 will be great, considering rFactor 2 and some great mods, but other than that I dont see any new titles that wets my appetite.
My list of goodies for 2010:
- rFactor 2
- HistorX 2.0
- WSGT 2
- VLN 2009
- Whatever Virtua_LM and Com 8 is up to
- CTDP 94 and the other historic F1 mods
- Enduracers SP1
- Reiza Studios (maybe 2011?)
- Silent Hunter 5
Probably lots more that I cant reember right now. Actually, looking at that list 2010 will be awesome.
stabiz
January 1st, 2010 at 17:36
And of course congrats to Montoya for this site and its success!
stabiz
January 1st, 2010 at 17:37
Damn it, forgot Targa Florio!
UncleChuckle
January 2nd, 2010 at 01:12
Sarcasm. That’s original. There is nothing wrong with my driving standards. You can ask anyone who has ever raced me. What I got sick of was people going off on the grass then just blindly taking their line back again, but because there wasn’t a definitive “accident” as such, despite said muppets causing multiple drivers to lose places, the league did nothing. Now once in a while is okay but this was happening multiple times every single week. And always with the same drivers.
But I realise you’re just baiting me because you’re a jackass.
Uff
January 2nd, 2010 at 02:03
Happy new year to all of you too!
spliff
January 2nd, 2010 at 12:34
Happy new year to all of you! Race on!
GeraArg
January 2nd, 2010 at 20:08
Happy new year Rob!!!!!!
Chris_CXC_Simulations
January 6th, 2010 at 04:08
Just looked this up for the site: http://www.protrackr.com/www.virtualr.net/
I hope for your sake Montoya that it is true!! You deserve it :)
Montoya
January 6th, 2010 at 04:17
Haha those “we guess your website’s revenue” sites are awesome, I have no idea how they come up with these numbers.
No, it’s not true at all. The site makes a couple of hundred dollars each month, all of which is needed to cover the costs. I don’t make a dime of profit running VirtualR and that wasn’t my intend either.
Like I said above, this site is only staying up thanks to the advertisers who keep this place afloat. Right now, this works out and I don’t have to ask for donations or anything else.
If the advertising revenue would go down one day, I would have to aks for donations even though I´m highly uncomfortable with that. I would do it of course if it’s the last resort to keep the site up.
Let’s hope it never comes to that
But that site is really great.. 300 dollars revenue each day. You can get two months of banner advertising for that around here
If some company out there is willing to pay this kind of money, please don’t hesitate to contact me though