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Ohhhhh Giggidy!
Awesome track Donington, I screamed like a little girl when i read Silverstone rescan.

I have already preemptively creamed myself over a FWD touring car, and a proper one with tuning options unlike the Jetta.

Not too familiar with Donnington, but it looks interesting. Hopefully we keep the old Silverstone like the old Daytona. The bridge corner is one of my favorites.

 Pretty unlikely. They like to laser scan things so the old layout with bridge corner doesn’t exist anymore. It’s really too bad because I think that layout is better than the current one. The current layout is less interesting for touring cars. :(

Didn’t they leave the old version of Daytona before it was resurfaced?

Right. But they rescanned Daytona and left both versions available, the scan from 2007 and the one from 2011. I hope they leave the current 2007-ish version with Bridge available when they add the 2012 version with Arena.

Jetta is not a touring car remember?

Amazing news!!! Donington is epic!! Maybe a little trip to Rockingham, Croft,  Cadwelll, Snetterton, Thruxton, Knockhill and Castle Combe as well while they are here!?

Not a ‘proper’ one, no, but in the US we call most production derived cars slower than a GT a touring car.

And the US has how many Touring car series?

Grand Am Continental Tire Series, SCCA Pro World Challenge, MX-5 Cup, USTCC, SCCA Improved Touring, Grand Am and WC B-Spec Touring, and the WTCC visit to Infineon this year. None as popular as WTCC/BTCC in Europe, of course.

Some of those club circuits would be great to show off laser scanning too, with all their bumps, crown, camber and in some cases elevation changes.

It would surprise me massively if the full BTCC licence was given to iRacing. I know Codemasters had the licence for a while, as far as I know they had it until very recently (perhaps its now expired – I don’t know). From what I gather, the BTCC licence isn’t cheap either.

I doubt it would be a full license either. As with every other series, probably just a single representative car.

I hope that if they are going to scan a BTCC car they don;t stop at just one. Quite frankly, the BTCC would look silly with just one model car. To properly represent the BTTC iracing would need to scan at least 3 cars, but then the issue would be that in no time the quickest car overall would increase in popularity and the other two would disappear from use.

Maybe the solution would be to use one set of physics on 3 different bodies, making the race effectively a spec series but without the visual boredom of entire fields racing the same car.

I never said I had the solution, I just grow tired of racing the same car over and over and seeing the same body shape.

Maybe one car can be good on high-speed tracks, the other on twisty tracks and the third in between. That way spread over a season drivers will face different challenges, provided the organizers are clever enough to select the right type of tracks.

However realism do come into question then.

Why doesn´t anyone ever consider that in a virtual world, you can equalize cars much easier then in the real world? 

They do it in real life, so doing it virtual is 100 times easier. 

Add weight, restrictor plates, aero etc. It´s all possible and would take hours to find out which car is quickest. 

They cannot even licence the other half of the V8 supercars, Half of Australia supports Holden and would not be seen dead in a Ford, scanning a single car is likely to be as good as it gets. But calling it the BTCC is a little misleading to be honest. iRacing is spec racing pure and simple… no championship has a range of cars.

Would be much better if iRacing focuses on bringing GT road classes in the same category.

Not, GT1, GT2, GT3 and making a GT4 or introduce another family car with some modifications like BTCC.
Better to get the exciting cars together, so we can actually race against each other instead of having only a few cars of each class doing endurance races.
So basically ending up driving on your own after half an hour.
NTM is still a bit awkward in behavior too.
But they just keep putting out new content, so fixing things gets more difficult with every release.
Basically all cars drive the same tires now.
Those from the Nascar series….. 

Luckily the tracks and some of the cars make up for it.

I can’t think of another sim that has multiple cars per specification without focusing purely on those series, can you? Either it’s something like WTCC, F1, NASCAR, etc only, or it’s something like Forza or GT and you have a semi-sim with hundreds of cars. I could be missing something, but that seems standard. I mean, that’s how pCARS and rFactor are pre-mods, right?

See, I would rather they do multiple makes in the lower class series. They’re much more popular, and more fun IMO. Of course, the four most popular cars are from spec series already (spec miata, skip barber, star mazda, mustang). The GT1 and GT2 only get a couple dozen drivers per week, there isn’t the population to justify multiple makes, IMO, they’re too difficult to drive competitively to be worth adding an Aston GT1, for example.

Which cars on NTM are you driving? The SRF and Skippy definitely don’t drive like they have NASCAR tires on them, aside from being fastest cold. But if you don’t notice the difference between treaded, DOT, and slick tires on the NTM, you must not be paying attention.

 The only reason for not having the Holden is that they wanted too much money for the license so iRacing didn’t go any further with it. I’d have thought there would be a similar issue with getting more than one BTCC car, unless they could license the series in a way that means they can do any of the cars they want.

I’m still waiting for the ability to change restrictors and balast on iRacing cars for hosted to balance cars.

It was the same story with the NASCAR license, Ford wanted significantly more than GM. It’s that extra cost for buying licenses one at a time that means no multiple manufacturers.

Yes i noticed they have different tires (grip levels)…

But somehow they feel more alike in handling than with the OTM.
Can’t really put my finger on it….. just a feeling i get.
I really like the SRF and Mazda, DP is kinda nice too.
For the rest im not so impressed, compared to all the fuzz they made about it before.
Still not getting the feedback i experience with nkPro.

Grand Am Continental Tire Series = Not touring cars.
SCCA Pro World Challenge = Not touring cars.
MX-5 Cup = Not touring cars.
USTCC = Touring cars.
SCCA Improved Touring = Not touring cars.
Grand Am =  Not touring cars. 
WC B-Spec Touring = Not really touring cars.

so one series is actually a true Touring car series. 

Great news as Donnie has always been one of my favourite tracks. The chance of also getting a BTCC car as well would be great, this is just what the sim needs IMO.

 Yeah, I’m getting the feeling that it’s less an issue with the model itself, and more with the individual tire design being off.

I tend to find the NTM feels like a tire, just a bad one, while the OTM felt like hovercrafts on casters. I have a feeling they need someone who is an actual tire engineer to build the tires wile Dave works on the model.

USTCC probably allows some of the fewest upgrades of all of them. It isn’t S2000 or NGTC, it’s safety improvements and OEM upgrades, plus whatever is on this list:
http://www.ustcc.com/pdf_doc/2012_VSS.pdf

IMO, mildly improved hatchbacks and sedans is much more a touring car than purpose built non-production cars like V8SC or DTM (both of which call themselves touring cars, too).

 Care to provide documentation of what a “real” touring car is?  I was unable to find a definition that meets what you have documented…  Thanks.

Apparently, the definition of a touring car is anything that runs a series with the name [region] Touring Car Championship ;)

Search for touring car. 

You forgot already when i sent you a quote saying what a touring car was?

DTM cars are prototypes. It was 20+ years ago DTM had touring cars.

No, I forgot that once you think you’re right you’ll defend it to the death ;)

Look at the USTCC rules and tell me why they match your definition of highly improved production?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touring_car_racing#The_Americas

Hmm, I see two more series on there that aren’t on the list of touring cars pre-approved by the General ;) Since you definition involves cars being heavily modified enough, I find it interesting the only series you say qualifies is the one with the fewest upgrades allowed…

 According to Merriam-Webster:
”
: an automobile suitable for distance driving: as
  a : a vintage automobile with two cross seats, usually four doors, and a folding top
  b : a modern usually 2-door sedan as distinguished from a sports car
”
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/touring%20car

So….?  My point was that there is no standard accepted definition of a touring car with respect to auto racing.  Similar to the often debated “hatchback” or “wagon”.  I see a TC as a purpose built race car that resembles a street driven (non-sports) car.  Aligns reasonably well with the definition above…but again, that is MY take and I am not trying to state it as fact.

I mentioned this above, but most other racing sims which don’t focus on just one series do the same thing, pick one car from each specification. I can’t think of a sim that doesn’t, can you?

I wish sims would not focus SOOOOO much on the fact that its content is “Licensed” 

To me i dont give a rats a$s if the brands on the car or the names on the track are this or that.  Just give us the “look and feel” of what we are after and screw the “real life” politics. they should be flattered that we want to drive a “digital “version of there real life products.

When i hear the word License….all I can think of is a bunch of suits sitting in a room, drinking expensive booze and laughing about how their making money in the “digital world” for doing nothing.

leave the drama at the real life track…….im here to enjoy myself.

i couldn’t agree more! like i’ve always said do artists have to get licences to paint a track? do they have to pay ferrari to draw or photograph their cars?  its bull!!

everyone knows you can’t reference wikipedia ;)