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Racesimcentral.com Changing Owners

Posted on February 5th, 2010 in Other Sim Racing – 16 Comments

Back in late December, the sim racing community was saddened to hear that the RaceSimCentral staff decided to close their hugelly popular forums following the latest data loss with their hoster.

Now, an important chapter of the community is definitely closing as the site’s domains racesimcentral.com and rscnet.org will be changing owners soon. This irrevocably ends the era of RaceSimCentral as we knew and enjoyed it as whatever will be coming up under these domains in the future will not be affiliated with the people that ran sim racing’s most popular forum for almost ten years.

That being said, the former RSC staff hasn’t given up on rescuing what’s left of the data yet as the rich archive of knowledge posted at RSC might be accessible in one form or another in the future – Just not under the familiar domain names.


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  • felipe

    no one would buy these domains if they are not intending to use them! A new racecimcentral will be born and just because it’s not the same old folks doesn’t mean it will have no quality!

  • Uff

    This is a good news! Let’s wait and see what the new owners will bring.

  • eddiespag

    The infrastructure, philosophy, and purpose of this place was just too good to let it go to waste. The question is, how commercialized will the rescued/revamped site become in the interests of viability? This is good news though for our sim racing community.

  • AeroMechanical

    I’m guessing that we’re just going to get those domain parking type sites from whoever bought it.

    Hopefully something more, of course.

  • 19Kilo

    So where has everyone migrated to?

  • FooAtari

    19Kilo: So where has everyone migrated to?

    I have been thinking that. Doesn’t seem to be NoGripRacing as I thought it may have been.

  • fpol

    The vast stores of knowledge there are totally missed. Having been away from many of the other sims since June 08, I keep wanting a spot to go to search archives for various tweaks etc. While some can be found elsewhere, RSC really had an amazing amount of data esp for anything ISI and GPL based. …and IMHO, among freely accessable sites, their hardware section was unmatched for tweakers, pit builders, etc.

  • drapin

    19Kilo: So where has everyone migrated to?

    Personally, I haven’t migrated anywhere for now. Partly because I really don’t know where, partly because I still wait to see what will happen with RSC, or with whatever will succeed RSC.

    Some may remember me, after being an ordinary member of RSC, I became a moderator and finally a Forum Team member (which was kind of a super-mod or semi-admin). Unfortunately, I’m not in touch with neither of the “last two men standing” (meaning the last two admins who were in charge of RSC before the end) so I know nothing more than the next guy about what is going on or what is going to happen.

    Starting all over from the beginning is really hard, and with no RSC to hang on, my interest in sim racing in general dropped substantially. I really had to be in touch with everything that was going on on the sim racing scene while moderating RSC. Without RSC, I now just occasionally and without much engagement take a glance at this site or another to see if something really big and important is released. I think that speak much about the importance RSC had on the sim racing scene, for me at least, but I think for many others too !

    As alternatives goes, NoGrip is IMHO more a mod release site. The forum part, when you disregard all the “thanks you” and “great” messages, there is not much left, nothing really substantail and informational.

    RaceDepartment is good, but is more geared toward leagues and races organization, again IMHO. The forum part is closer than NoGrip to what RSC was, but not enough. For now at least. Some smaller developpers had moved from RSC ro RaceDepartment even prior to the final demise of RSC.

    It must be noted that companies like SimBin and ISI had their official forums at RSC. AFAIK (as I wrote, I’m a little off sim racing these days…), those companies haven’t switched their official support nowhere else. So there certainly is a space for someone new to really inherit RSC, or for RSC to be resuscitated in another form.

  • Jordan

    I’m really interested to find out who bought it. I started GTPlanet 9 years ago, and I offered to buy the site from them and get it back on its feet. My emails were never returned, though, so I’m not sure if they were genuinely looking for someone with experience to rebuild the community there, or if they just wanted to get rid of it.

  • michael

    The current owner of rscnet.org is listed as

    http://www.roystonsimpson.co.uk/

    Which is “royston simpson creative” – some marketing firm based in Hertfordshire.

    So I imagine it should now be obvious why they want that particular name – the letters RSC, and means they are not likely run “race sim central” or anything like it there.

    As for the other, if anyone buys it I suspect it’d just be to catch whatever traffic goes there (although that’s probably not much) that doesn’t look like it’s been bought yet.

    I can’t imagine anyone wanting to start a similar sim site would bother giving them money, unless it included the old data et al, lock stock and barrel. That’s the only asset.

    Anyone wanting to create a replacement sim site, from scratch, would be just as well coming up with a new name including the word sim somewhere in it is all that is necessary. Sites like this one would break the news about a new site in anycase whatever the url was.

    So, paying next to nothing for a new domain would make far more sense than paying through the nose for a name the current owners made synonymous with a broken site. Broken not just once (putting it out of action for months and months) but twice.

    Perhaps a data recovery firm will buy it, for a case study / marketing thing? :D A “Here’s how not to run your site…” kind of thing?

  • hoover

    Over at gplrank & friends, we’ve set up our “own” forum for the rank related stuff, but so far we only have a couple of users so I guess everything is well an there’s not a lot to complain about ;-)

  • FooAtari

    Jordan: I’m really interested to find out who bought it.I started GTPlanet 9 years ago, and I offered to buy the site from them and get it back on its feet.My emails were never returned, though, so I’m not sure if they were genuinely looking for someone with experience to rebuild the community there, or if they just wanted to get rid of it.

    That interesting. I often found the attitude of the forum owners a little draconian and rude at times towards the end of the sites life. That, along with what you have just said makes me wonder if the owners lost interest in the community. What I find strange is why they didn’t let someone else run it.

    michael: The current owner of rscnet.org is listed ashttp://www.roystonsimpson.co.uk/Which is “royston simpson creative” – some marketing firm based in Hertfordshire.So I imagine it should now be obvious why they want that particular name – the letters RSC, and means they are not likely run “race sim central” or anything like it there.As for the other, if anyone buys it I suspect it’d just be to catch whatever traffic goes there (although that’s probably not much) that doesn’t look like it’s been bought yet.I can’t imagine anyone wanting to start a similar sim site would bother giving them money, unless it included the old data et al, lock stock and barrel. That’s the only asset.Anyone wanting to create a replacement sim site, from scratch, would be just as well coming up with a new name including the word sim somewhere in it is all that is necessary. Sites like this one would break the news about a new site in anycase whatever the url was.So, paying next to nothing for a new domain would make far more sense than paying through the nose for a name the current owners made synonymous with a broken site. Broken not just once (putting it out of action for months and months) but twice.Perhaps a data recovery firm will buy it, for a case study / marketing thing? :DA “Here’s how not to run your site…” kind of thing?

    I think the forum lost something after the first major down time. Many members did not return. It was still a fantastic resource but I believe RSC was a shadow of its former self before it finally went down for good and was more of an archive than the active community it once was.

  • UncleChuckle

    The way the site ended sucked. I was one of the volunteers and as I said at the time, the first I knew of it closing down was via VirtualR’s Twitter feed.

    Didn’t receive so much as a “Thanks for your help but it’s over” or anything.

    Not relocated to any other site as the community is pretty fragmented and I’ve been pretty down on simming since the whole thing went down.

  • rFactorModsAreVaporware

    as long is vince klortho ( among others) isnt a mod ever again hopefully the place returns

  • phil_l

    Ignite Skill Gaming?! You have to be kiddin me!!

    Classy move for RSC to sell out to the devil as their last act…

    http://whois.domaintools.com/racesimcentral.com

    uughhh!!

  • T_Adams

    I’ll see if said participants are willing to let me restore Race Sim Central to its former state.

    While i havent Sim Raced in some time i still plan on doing so in the future. Absence of a place such as RSC can virtually kill the community.

    If Tim and or Mikkel could contact me on acquiring the corrupted drives. Current career path im in is IT based. Our staff is more then capable of recovering said data.

    Nim or Shannon should be able to give you my email address over at iRacing. Dont wish to post it here on the board.

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