Have you ever dreamt of facing your favorite drivers on track, check out how your sim racing skills stack up against professional drivers?
Soon you can, thanks to iOpener Media and their innovative new system. Using GPS and other modern technology, their system transmits the location and telemetry data of real race cars on the track into your simulation, letting you race these drivers right at home.
Their project has already gained major recognition, winning several prizes and securing the involvement of the European Space Agency. Watch the preview video below to find out more.
And the best thing is: iOpener is giving you the chance to join their beta test programme, simply follow the link below to sign up. 5000 testers will be picked and will be the first to experience their innovative system that could add a major new touch to sim racing.
Siggs
April 16th, 2009 at 00:01
sign me up
Actually, I’ll do it myself 
.
UncleChuckle
April 16th, 2009 at 00:20
If I recall, didn’t a similar thing to this exist maybe 10 or so years ago? Remember seeing ads in magazines for it where you could race against the pros using data from races.
GeraArg
April 16th, 2009 at 00:40
rFactor?!?!?!?!
http://img18.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dibujohbm.jpg
paupau
April 16th, 2009 at 00:53
sounds good, really good
JasonSix
April 16th, 2009 at 01:25
Thanks, I signed up.
Siggs
April 16th, 2009 at 02:11
As far as I can tell, all of the screens that can be seen, are running rFactor. But when you sign up, it gives the full plethoria of available sims in the questionaire, including console racers. But not RacePro, now I come to think about it….
.
F1Racer
April 16th, 2009 at 02:18
Signed up. This will be amazing. Im glad they will have stored race data though as doing it live means you will miss the actual race (doesn’t it?) :)
ermax18
April 16th, 2009 at 03:46
rFactor is so old yet they just continue to get more and more creative with it.
ForzaBarca88
April 16th, 2009 at 06:11
To be fair we dont have many options outside of rfactor/gmotor2 currently as far as addons go. Although I’d be surprised if iRacing didnt get involved with this somehow.
Diswanio
April 16th, 2009 at 10:50
@ForzaBarca88, Dont think so!
bab0oN
April 16th, 2009 at 11:02
I really like the idea of this project and just hope they mainly use it within a proper simulation.. already signed up, so let’s wait and see what it will bring :)
Stream
April 16th, 2009 at 12:31
I saw a longer report about this on Norwegian television a couple of weeks ago. They were at Monza testing this and interviewed a few people etc. They definately used some version of rFactor for the sim-part as they showed several shots of the gameplay.
DRat
April 16th, 2009 at 13:11
Worth a tryout. I do very little online racing, but mostly because of the prevalence of aliens and wreckers and first-turn race winners. This might be a very nice change! Of course, it will be somewhat like racing against ghost-cars, and we may need to stay out of their way. Overtaking in corners could be problematic.
Siggs
April 16th, 2009 at 13:23
Just 2 things:
1. I reckon I’d be rFactor Pro in the screenshots, but I’m certain it’ll be available for normal rF too.
2. Surely the tracks ingame will have to be made to match the ones in real life? At the moment, SimBin’s Zandvoort is too bumpy, other tracks are too long, etc. Maybe laser scanned tracks will be supported, maybe even released with the service?
.
Jos
April 16th, 2009 at 13:32
good point there siggs, circuits need to be accurate to make it work right…
also this will prove that sim-racers will go faster then real-life racers…
stabiz
April 16th, 2009 at 13:48
Sounds like fun, but whats up with the “i” stuff these days? It seems companies believe they cant be successful unless they put a small “i” in front of their product. iPod, iRacing, iDrive, iOpener, etc, etc.
unklepepper
April 16th, 2009 at 14:00
Signed up for this. Should be interesting!
iCe Cream is the original, & bestest.
Or… i balls
lasercutter
April 16th, 2009 at 15:43
More here:-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTlsGWfEp4I
Paul Kelly
April 16th, 2009 at 16:53
I signed up. The thought of racing against current racers real-time doesn’t move me that much. But when I saw the option of competing in races of historical significance, I freaked.
It would be insane to run against some of the F1 and sports car greats of the past, seeing their lines, etc.