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It might be worth mentioning that this is for new subscribers only, existing or past subscribers will not be able to add/re-subscribe using the code being provided.

It’s actually me who gets the emails. ;)

woo hoo lets try IR than waiting for my code

Oops, sorry Tim, didn’t knew that. I bet you´ll be getting quite a few mails now

lets hope they will make a mistake and give us lifitime membership

how long does it take for the code to be sent out

quote – “how long does it take for the code to be sent out?”

All of about 3min – if that. I had to take advantage of the offer to give iRacing a proper try. I’m impressed. I’ve turned thousands of real laps at real Laguna Seca so goal was to check track accuracy more then anything else.

Tim – if you’re listening/reading – please know you guys got it right. Very impressive. I’m working on advancing my license level now – lol….

Submitted one hours ago and still haven’t received the code?

@Peter:

I’m assuming Tim’s asleep right now–I haven’t gotten mine either :)

submited 3 hours ago and nothing …

Maybe they should get the paypal option set first before the free trial, so peeps who dont use cards can sign up, they have being say they will for bloody months, how long does it take.

Excelent this is wahat I and I expect many others have been waiting for,
I have always wanted to try iRacing but didn’t want to pay for it and find it’s all hype (Always quite a debate about it),it may just be it suits some people more than others.
Hopefully now I get the chance to make my own mind up if its worth it,un-biased,though might wait until I have some time off to really give it a shakdown.
Looking forward to meeting you on there

Yes I was asleep. ;)

Also, I was at SpeedwayEXPO this past weekend, so have a backlog from Friday. I should have caught up by mid-morning (U.S.)

This is how I got my start in iRacing some weeks ago now, as I never really liked the idea of paying for a trial. If I had a time machine I’d go back and slap myself for being so stupid though, it really is fantastic and I’m enjoying the lower class stuff far more than I thought I would It’s not for everyone, sure, but in many ways it makes it hard to take certain aspects of other sims seriously after sampling them in iRacing. I’m finding it difficult to go back to anything else (and that’s coming from a long-time modder!). It’s exciting to think where the service will be in a few years’ time.

Over 12hrs and counting.

13 hours.

C’mon, Tim!

I can’t validate them when the members site is in maintenance mode. :) Also, you wouldn’t be able to use your code when it’s in maintenance mode either, so be patient. :)

We’re releasing Texas and doing a few Web updates.

Thanks for the info–didn’t know!

Eagerly awaiting this!

Just an fyi to those yet to email: The fake names and those who didn’t provide a full name are being replied to being asked for their full name, so if you want to save time, provide your full name the first time around. :)

Sorry, but I don’t have a credit card; thanks, but no thanks.

The product requires a credit/debit card, so it makes sense the trial does also otherwise there would be little point in offering a trial for a business.

Also, if it helps, Paypal is coming… (It required a whole new checkout system to be programmed).

Ohooo

Credit card asked… for a free trial?

I’m going to step out of this right now.

It really looks like those things where you end up paying because “sorry but we did not receive a word by fax from you to cancel the membership”…

Or what are they doing with our names and adresses anyway?

Damn I’m disappointed.

(and no, I don’t have a credit card, I use Paypal and I put money on my paypal account via bank transfer)

Credit card for a ‘free’ trial. Bah !
I really wanted to approach this with an open mind and even some anticipation.

Now, over above names, addresses and telephone numbers (yeah another database you’ll be burned onto) they want peoples credit card details when theres not even any money changing hands. What is going on in this world that people think its ok to share this info here, there and everywhere. Would you give it to a stranger in the street ??

This is so they can take your money if you don’t cancel after the trial month I suppose.

Well I don’t have a credit card and quite why they don’t offer PayPal in this day and age is beyond me.
Looks like another potential customer lost.

Jeez, make the sign up simple. Enter the code, play the trial. THEN if we like it and want it, you can ask for the details.

The amount of paranoia presented by some of the posts here is astounding. Comparing iRacing to a stranger on the street is totally absurd. I presume you’ll give your personal details and credit card number to online retailers such as Amazon, why not iRacing?

It’s pretty much the same as a generic magazine promotion, for example. You get a month free and need to cancel the service or otherwise it will continue indefinitely.

Its not paranoia jux. Call it caution or just not being duped into giving out info for the sake of it or because someone wants you in their database (to do with in the future, we know not what).

Its just that it seems to be all to easy to just request personal details from people these days, even credit card info when its not needed. Some people are so used to it that now that the just aimlessly go ahead and fill stuff in without even thinking.
I’m sure most of the time its all fine but it only really takes one time for you to screw up and give your details to someone who might not be 100% honest (and NO I’m not saying IRacing, I’m talking in general).

Its the same with software trials where they ask you for your name, address, date of birth, telephone number etc. just to download their demo.
Why do you suppose they would need that ? Harmless right ? Hmmmm, well pardon me for being cynical. But I dont automatically trust what these companies do with my details.
Trust is earned.

I only sign up for things that I know I’m going to stay with and also with reputable companies such as Amazon.

Why not IRacing ? Because they DON’T NEED MY DETAILS !
Not for a trial version.

The internet has brought some bad habits out of people and companies and constantly asking for your private info seems to be all too easy. I`ll bet some of these same people even moan about big brother and conspiracy theories.

Opt-out:- Sign up now, give all your details and credit card, pay nothing for the first month, if you cancel then fine (but we now still have all your details – no promise that we’ll delete them).

Opt-in:- Try for free, if you like it, then sign up.

Even you yourself jux finds it acceptable to take the opt-out route rather than the opt-in one.

Not me mate. Sue me for having a different opinion.
The internet is a breeding ground for the corrupt so I choose to be a little more careful where my info goes.

IMO they need the details of even the trial users to minimize the amount of wreckers, people signing up with several fake names, etc. Checking each customer’s name against the name on their credit/debit card is an effective way of doing that.

Probably there at least as compelling technical reasons behind the decision, but as a customer I think treating trial users the same way as regular subscribers is definitely the way to go.

iRacing is nothing but BullS*&^t this was the first time i was ganna try it online and say something good about it but look what the did ask or your Full name number and Email!! then drop the paying Bull again Why O why did i click on this link again

I was going to try it out to compare to GTR EVO, but after reading about need for credit card, FORGET IT

Yeah wow, how dare they ask for your name and email…

Hey Tim – thanks for the trial offer. Now that I’ve tried your service I wish I would’ve done it sooner. I’m no expert – I’m sure 25+ years of biz experience & ownership of three companies accounts for nothing in the presence of so many qualified professionals around here – but I like the way you guys do business. The quality of your product is outstanding.

Keep up the great work!

i tell you one thing : BULLSHIT go and play your iracing Tom you never get even close to RF

credit card for FREE trial ? r u kiddin me ? maaannnn ……….

timwheatleyMarch 3rd, 2009 at 10:02 pm

The product requires a credit/debit card, so it makes sense the trial does also otherwise there would be little point in offering a trial for a business.

Tim this makes sense to you ? you are talking like a child if business want it they will reply like we are – this makes sense to you , omg ….

i am happy to announce
rFactor : iRacing
10 : 0
man this politics you are using , where did you get this porn sites ? i am pissed like hell so forgive me guys :/

maxs, yes. Why would a business offer a trial of their product to someone unable to purchase it even if they liked it?

jux, yes, users are using their real name from their credit card. Bad drivers who are not allowed to race are also banned by their real name and details, not their ‘nickname’ (which going on the emails I get from the Radical form, everyone seems to think is their ‘name’). Getting real info is the only way to make banning of bad drivers effective.

maxs, this method is used by every subscription service I have ever used and most that I have tried. I am sorry that you have never experienced it before, but this makes it no less of a method…

amgsport, really pleased to hear it. If you have any questions about anything you can PM me on the members forums (though my inbox is probably full right now, I haven’t caught up yet after attending SpeedwayEXPO this past weekend!)

F1Racer: Why not IRacing ? Because they DON’T NEED MY DETAILS !
Not for a trial version.

F1Racer: your trial puts you on the same servers as paying members, in the same cars, same track, same series, same championship. Your details are taken and vitally important if you decide to take it seriously, not maybe for you, but for the other person who got a trial and decided to drive backwards. They’ll be banned: By their REAL name, REAL address, REAL payment details.

Lensflare: It really looks like those things where you end up paying because “sorry but we did not receive a word by fax from you to cancel the membership”…

Actually, you simply go to the top of the members site, click My Account and set the account not to auto renew. I don’t trust faxes either, luckily you don’t have to.

jux and timwheatley: Didnt think of that :)
Of course, if you are on their servers you have to have some proper credentials. So yes, that makes sense.
Still not convinced about them needing the credit card though.
But I suppose that’s because they cannot make the thing just stop working for you after the trial period is up. In other words rather than the propgram just expiring, your credit has to.
Would have been better if they had an actual date-triggered demo instead. But, regardless, I do not possess a credit card so I cannot join up. Again, a shame there is no PayPal option, I’m sure that would get them a lot more customers.
Back to rF for me then….

holy crap i was about completing the registration form for the so called “free trial”, and have been asked for my credit card. it is not free i have to give away such personal details.

better driving RF, where i can have some unrestricted online fun. there i can race against MY friends, at any time I want.

markus

im 16 years old what the hell am i meant to do

Gave this trial a try and I like the sim but one thing bugs me bad about it and it’s the rating system. Everyrace I am being taken out by someone else and I get punished aswell.

It seems to punish anyone invovled in an accident even those not at fault.

Still unshore if going to get 1 year subscription because i can’t handle that every race I have been in so far I have been punished for others peoples mistakes.

36 hrs and counting…
no longer interested…
THANKS, TIMMY

Gregerson888> they apparently don’t want you in iRacing. I guess you must be grown up to be allowed…

The problem of this is that the automatic membership renewal is set on “ON” by default. Obviously they want people to forget to set it off… I hate that kind of US marketing.

Visa Electron works with iRacing, and those are given to 10-year-olds.

I will leave the trial alone, but once paypal is implemented then i’ll give it a go on the full jobbie..

timwheatley, will they annouce when paypal is up and running???

Many thanks Tim, for the opportunity to sample iRacing.
Boy is it a steep learning curve! Hardly touched my G25 for weeks, GTA 4, lol
Its had a good 5 hours thrashing this evening tho!

Applied 4 days ago, but got no code until now
Used my full name
Really want to give it a try

Trox, you most likely mailed after I went off sick. Been feeling terrible all week, sorry it affected you. I guess I shook one too many hands at the SpeedwayEXPO… lol

Gopher04, yes I would think so, we have had so many requests for it that it is worth announcing. You’ll probably find out here at VirtualR though also.

Ok, get well soon.
I try to be patient

Ok, I processed about 400 emails today, so if you have not received a code today, you should do tomorrow as only 200 remain.

I am willing to bet I’m in that last 200 somewhere.
I’m cool with using my credit card.
Tomorrow will be good day.
Thank Tim,

JayO

It’s getting a bit slower now as I have more duplicates to weed out, as everyone registers multiple emails or multiple times. :(

Tim,

I have an idea to speed you along.
Search your mail lastname = odom j/k

I know you will get to it. only one submit from me. I tried to nix the OCD on this one.

Thanks Again!

Jay

I know that driver with nickname T-I-G-E-R with identical email that ends with inbox.lv have also registered only one time few days ago :D And he have some serious intentions to buy this game afterwards :)

Just tried it and it’s amazing. I still wouldn’t pay for it but I guess it’s a matter of principle, as I can afford it but it’s an outrageous sum of money by any product standards I’ve seen so far in my life. Not to say how lame it is to pay for content when you’re allready paying monthly subscription. 1 month, 20 bucks or so, I want a track, 20 bucks, it’s a big time ripoff when you think of it in terms of how much for a year. Make it a 100 for 12 with free content and I would think about it.
And I understand that many people in simracing are americans who find it amusing to go round in circles, but the proportion of ovals is slightly overwhelming. Come on, they’re all round.

In my opinion, the main thing for us to wonder is, can the same level of quality be accomplished in rfactor? The answer is almost definitely yes, but even the best mods like historicx would need a tad of work to get there. For example, Neils’s cars, the caterhams, scgt and EOAA’s work, to name a few others that are doing good, have minimized the weird spin-outs (or rather -ins) due to huge loss of grip after past the peak slip angle, but even those feel less progressive and further from real life compared to iracing, so maybe this has to do with rfactor’s engine and let’s hope to see some improvement in rf2. Also once you feel the feedback on iracing, you’ll get double frustrated with all the in-out, in-out of rfactor, trying and failing to type a good realfeel setting, since the recommended, if any, almost always don’t work. A good feedback that would work universally without the need for independent adjustments would save us all. Back to iracing, the tracks are very good, they sure may lack that brilliant creativity element that you can find in V_LM’s work for example, but the increased accuracy make the driving experience far better than 99% of rfactor tracks.

So people will keep insulting other people just for saying iracing is good, replying that “it is bullshit” without having driven it, until we see that kind of quality in rfactor

That’s pretty good feedback on pricing CrippleHorse. Unfortunately though, the costs involved for us are directly related to the cost. I understand people have differing opinions on how much they think it should cost, but only we know how much it truly does when scanned and built to our standards.

I personally don’t like the anti any simulation attitude. There should be room for everything. We’re fully aware that there will be people who love our sim, don’t like our sim or like you just don’t like our prices, but as Scott McKee said in an interview way before we even launched, there are other solutions for you and frankly I think that’s great.

Should be: “prices involved for us are directly related to the cost”.

I can believe that, I just think that after some people gave it a try and stopped bashing it senselessly as a simulation when their problem is that they find it expensive, there would be far more people willing to subscribe for a lower price. For example, if half the price could bring double the subscribers (daring speculation?), it would be very good for you.

I can get some of the anti-that simulation but it usually has nothing to do with whether people like the sim itself, even if people pretend that it has, criticism to iracing is full of that, only rarely do I see people criticizing the sim itself. It’s just that people would like all the simracing community to turn to one sim and stick to giving their work for that for free. I would like that too, doesn’t mean I have the right to ask for it or find it fair to bash a sim because it spoils the uniform.

The iRacing community is different from some others. Everyone has a credit card. Everyone uses their real names in races and on forums, including people like Dale Earnhardt Jr., Justin Wilson, Bobby LaBonte, Alex Ardoin, Jacques Villenauve, Martin Truex Jr, AJ Almendinger, Marcos Ambrose, Eric Foss, etc. etc.

iRacing is owned by John Henry, who owns the Boston Red Sox and 1/2 of Rousch/Fenway Racing in Nascar. It’s a very professionally run and highly customer centric organization. John Henry has over 500 post on the forums. Dale Earnhardt Jr. has over 400.

Some of these “This is Bullshit” posts ranting about credit cards is embarassing. Who are you guys?

I find it logical as a first reaction when asked to give your credit card number for a trial. I can understand that there may be practical reasons behind that procedure, but that “the iRacing type of guy has a credit card” sounds a bit lame, next thing you’re gonna tell us is they wear ties and work as executives.

Every iRacer has a credit card. There are a handful of well behaved teenagers that don’t, but use their parents. Peter Read is 14 and lives in Australia. Top 20 driver. Very respectful. Not all kids are.

iRacing does not require ties, but the community isn’t an “rFactor = 10, iRacing = 0″ type community. Many of these posts sound like they’re written by kids, who aren’t the demographic for iRacing. My guess is 9 out of 10 of the “This is Bullshit” posters wouldn’t subscribe after the trial anyway.

So tim is busy with tons of emails again? or is he just asleep

Well I have to give it to iRacing, the simulation is unsurpassed, so far at least. There are many areas that make it the most rewarding experience I have had & id say iv become a better driver over the last 10 days than I have in 2 years with pc sim racing.

But, im not going to be continuing my sub, well not in the near future anyway. The biggest reason is the price, $20 PM or even $200 a year I could justify, but the extra cost to proceed higher up the ranks is not for me. For example, for me the next step would defo be the skippy. But that would be another $80+ to do the full season, yes if you join for a year you get $60 credit but I am away for 2 months in the summer & 1 month in december so that is a waste. I dont know what the cost higher up is but I guess you would need another $50+ for another category & so on.

Then & I know its a low chance but if the business went bust thats a lot of property you own with no way to use it, or sell it on Cragslist!

There is the euro problem too, not the cars or tracks. But id love some euro tintops & tracks! Its the time difference, Iv won a few road races now, but I haven’t because there aren’t enough people in the races for it to be official. there just aren,t the numbers people on during the afternoon/early evening in the UK which is when I get the chance to race mainly.

Oh & there are wreckers on there, & not all of them are rookies, Iv bin crunched by D & C class drivers who (somehow) manage to type insults & blame you (me) for being a rookie at the same time as piling out of the pitlane & right into the path of the leader! Then send “threatening” PMs after the race! So having a credit card doesn’t mean your not a childish moron at all. There is also a lot of “f*** off back to rFactor” comments to drivers during races too so its still no change from “f*** off back to gran turismo” you get in any other sim.

But I wouldn’t mind these things if the price structure was different, but thats not going to change because if it does there will be many angry iRacer’s who paid full price demanding refunds/free content to make up for it.

I think you’re a little confused on the pricing structure. We schedule things so that some tracks are re-used in higher levels. We also have a 10% discount on 3 items, 20% on 6. Additionally, we have drop weeks, you don’t need to own all the tracks in the schedule to compete for the championship. If you buy what you need, you will only possible spend a maximum of $18 per month when you’re signed up for the 1 year ($13 will go to the subscription and an average of $5 or so will go to content when spaced out over the year).

We are shortly going to be cracking down on some of the attitudes amongst the membership and making some changes. There should be room for people and the attitude of some members does not fit with where we want the social interaction to be.

soon 18h, man I hope i get the code before the weekend… anyone else got their code lately?

hey, guys :) Please stop blaming iracing that they are too expensive, or that there are some wreckers on tracks.

1) Money
To my mind project is really a bit expensive, but it doesnt mean that you can blame for that iracng and their developers – that is their plolitics and you can choose whether to buy it or not – so far they have prooven for me (I am a demo driver too) that sim is great, they have best service and this product have proven that it is worth the money it costs.
2) Wreckers
The iracing have build up community with drivers who respect each other on the track. Incidents that you have described above are only exceptions but in rfactor they are very ordinary (I am talking about public server). + Dont forget that this is game and some drivers can make some errors because of carelenes or smth. (it have happened to me too).

3)It is worth to mention that you will always have a chance to race against drivers who are very similar to your driving abilities and they will respect you on track which means that you will have very close fights.

I am pretty sure that after the end of demo license I will become one of the memebers of this community.

Dont blame iracing that you cannot afford to buy this game.

Hey, at no point did I blame iRacing for their price structure. I understand their reasons for it & im sure its a very costly project. I think its a fantastic product & have enjoyed it hugely. I do feel though that for me personally in my current situation that it doesn’t offer enough for the minimum possible monthly outlay.

I understand the concept of drop weeks, its great that you have that option. I know that you dont need new tracks for a new series but I guess I just dont feel that for $20 a month you should have to miss out on races in a series for a whole week. When you can but a new on the market game like GTA 4 for example, for the same price a 1 track in iRacing I just think thats too much.

Maybe in the future things will change tho.