The Pits

THE PITS NEWS

O.K, so there isn't much here. We'll if you had as much work to do as me you'd have difficulty keeping this site together! ;-)

As part of the News section, we are putting together a FAQ of constantly asked questions about Indycar and Nascar Racing. To ensure we cover all of your niggling questions, we'd like you to send them to us. If theres something you've always wanted to know or aren't sure how something works or how to do it, drop us an e-mail and we'll try to help you, and others, by including it in the FAQ.

Questions for the FAQ should be sent to either me, Jed, or Jan Kohl.

THE FAQ

NASCAR RACING

TRACK CONVERTERS

NASCAR RACING

How do I get started? - To really do well at NASCAR, forget the keyboard driving. You really need to have, at the least, a decent joystick. Much better is a yoke or steering wheel with buttons on the grips. A joystick can be very hard to use, and will most probably give you inconsistent results. A wheel or yoke will give you the consistency you need to be able to tell what your car is doing. You don't really need an expensive one, the one I use is the G-Force yoke by Suncom Tech. It cost me about $50, and has given me great results...4 wins in '95 in the NASSCAR Racing Series. When you first start, you may want to set the competition down to about 80% and try to follow them through the corners. Don't overdrive the car...use easy braking, and try not to throw the car into the corners. Accellerate evenly out of the corners. You are going to crash, figure on it, because this takes practice. If you are having problems figuring out where to brake, pick an object, then practice hitting the brakes each time you pass it. If the object is too far or near where you should be braking, pick another one. You want to find a spot where you can brake into the corner, but not slow to much to be able to accellerate smoothly back out.

How do I learn the tracks? - If you are finding that you are having problems navigating certain tracks without remodeling your car, try setting the car damage to "off" (Options Menu, then Realism). That way you can do alot of practice laps, get the tires heated up, and get plenty of sticky tire track time without wasting time crashing and restarting. You'll find you progress alot faster this way. Then you can set car damage back to "on" after you've got a feel for the track.

How do I keep from breaking the pit road speed limit? - If you have a problem keeping below pit road speed, while your car is on the jacks, type "alt-b". This will enable auto-braking, and keep your car from going over the speed limit of pit road. Remember to type "alt-b" again before you start racing. Word of caution...some people have reported that they got a black flag at certain tracks anyway...you may want to test each track before you try it. Do not use auto-braking to race, as each time you let off the gas, the brakes are applied...can you say "slow as molasses"?

What's the best setting for the graphics? - Auto is the best setting for the game, as it allows the computer to control the graphics when computer resources are being overworked. You will notice items and textures disappear from the screen when the computer needs to free up memory, but the cars, walls, and track will all stay on. However, make sure that you set skid marks to on, as you will need to see them if you want to learn the correct racing line for the track.

How do I set up my car? - Keep the setups that come with the game, (ace, qual, ect). Load whichever setting you want to use, make the necessary changes, then save it to another name; "racetall" for Talladega, ect. Some people even have a 2nd version saved, so then they can go out, make a change to the race car, save it, try it, and then update the main one if they like the changes. The MAIN thing to remember is to make ONLY ONE CHANGE AT A TIME! If you change several things at once, you may find that the car works better or worse, but you won't know which changes affected the car. Take special care of your tires, remember, the tire temp is the telltale clue as to how your car is set up, and how you are driving it. Attempt to make all tires as equal in temp as possible, and slightly over 200 when hot. This can vary alot, and is not always possible, but is a general rule of thumb. Use my Qwikfix Guide if you are having problems setting up the car.

How do I find the best line around the track? - Every driver has a different style...some push hard, some are very smooth, some back out at the first sign of trouble. How you drive is up to you...there is no wrong way. The Winston Cup drivers all have many different styles, but no matter what, they win! Here is some good solid advice, though... Beginners (and even pros) alot of times push the car too hard thru the corner. This usually results in a hot right front or rear tire, and a severe push or loose condition. Before you go adjusting away on your car, try slowing in the corner a bit more.. you may be surprised to find your lap times actually pick up, not drop off! This is a result of your car actually going smoother and faster through the turns, because if you push it too hard, you actually lose more time trying to gather it up coming out of the corner than you gained going in. Follow the other cars...they will usually take the best line around the track. Follow the skid marks...same thing. On most corners, you want to roll in smooth, then pour on the power about halfway through the corner. On certain tracks, you may find it benificial to "trail-brake". This maneuver involves hitting the brakes while still keeping the accellerator down. It is benifical when you are losing too much speed while braking in the turns...you slow down, but not at near the rate you would if you just hit the brakes.

How do I get restarted? - Any time you have a problem during the race or qualifying, you can type "shift-r" to restart. It will throw you back in at the beginning of whatever session you are doing. If you have qualified, but don't like your speed, you don't have to restart the whole race session, just use "shift-r". Your previous time will still stand, until you can better it. Winston Cup drivers wish they could do this...

How do I keep from crashing? - Unfortunately, at this point in time, you don't have a "spotter" to tell you what is going on around you on the track. Hopefully, later versions of "NASCAR Racing" will have this feature. Until then, while you are racing, you will see a "Pit Closed" flash in front of you if a wreck happens somewhere on the track. Hit "p" to pause the game, then from the race, go into the Replay menu, and look around the track by viewing the different cars on the track. When you find the car/s that are involved in the accident, you will know where on the track it is, and will be able to slow down in time to avoid hitting the wrecked cars. Go slowly. Try to stay to the inside and you may even be able to pass cars waiting for the wreckage to clear.

How do I pit? -This is an art in itself. You need to have a clear idea of what your car needs way before you enter pit road. Keep constantly abreast of how your car is doing during the race...are the tires getting worn? Does the spoiler need to be bumped up a bit? How far to the end of the race? How many laps can you run with the fuel left? Constant monitoring of these things makes the difference between a winner and a loser. Right prior to entering pit road, hit "p" to pause the game, then make sure you have all your adjustments in order...do you need to change only right side tires? Can you get by with only 4 gallons to finish the race? Does the air pressure need to be added to some tires? How about damage? Does your car run just fine with whatever damage it has now? Don't fix it then. The faster your pit stop, the better track position you have. Use pit stops to your full advantage. Practice pitting. Find out where you can slam on the brakes to slide right into your pit stall without having to back up or pull forwards. Try to get your nose pointed out so you don't have the car in front of you blocking you in.

What's the best way to save the game? - If you find that you want to practice racing at a track, first get the qualifying done, then go to the garage, get your race car, hit Next Session until "Warmup" is displayed, then exit and save the game. This way, you can come back in, do warmup laps if you need to, and start the race right away. If you save it with "Race" displayed, you won't get any warmup time if you have to come back later.

How do I remove the restrictor plates? - If you want to go really fast, remove the restrictor plates. This is can only be done at Talladega. Go into the /nascar/tracks/taladega directory, and use an editor to edit the taladega.txt file. Where it says "SPDWY 1 42 45", change the "1" to a "0". This tells the game that this is NOT a superspeedway, so allow full power. Also edit the "RELS" line so that the other cars will be able to keep up. Set this value somewhere near 115 to 120. Enjoy the results!

What does the drivers2.txt file do? - The drivers2.txt file changes the way the other drivers drive...here are the values for the drivers2.txt file... remember to make a backup! You can use any editor to change values. Here's what the editable lines look like:

DINFO 94 1 0 500 562 500 562 100 150 500 562 John_Smith John Somerville,_MA USA USA NASCAR_Team_USA
Here's what the values of the series of numbers after the "DINFO" mean...

The car number, chassis, style and tire numbers are self explanatory. The minimum/maximum numbers require a bit more explanation. Each number can be between 000 and 999. The higher the number, the more power, etc. the driver will have, except for drag...this must be low. Drivers names may also be changed in this file. Always remember to place an underscore (_) between the first and last name. You can also download a driver editor to make this easier!

How do I use Nascar over a Network? - Version 1.20 and later of Nascar has an undocumented feature which allows you to play another person over a Novell Network. To use this feature, both users need to be logged in and have NETBIOS loaded. Nascar should be loaded with the -N:UserId option. The UserId should be replaced with the login name of your opponent.
With this done, you should both select multiplayer game and switch to Direct Connect mode. You should see the words IPX and your oppnents name in the right hand box. The user which is to take the lead should switch to answer mode and the other user should select Dial.

TRACK CONVERTERS

What are the converters? - The track converters are a set of utilities that allow tracks from Nascar Racing to be used in Indycar 2 and vice versa. This means that those of you fed up with going left in a Nascar can convert the road courses and use them instead.

Who wrote the track converters? - They were written by Gerhard Lingengberg from Germany. He's a member of Compuserve and has been known to compete in Internet racing leagues. He's a fairly quiet chap who likes to stay out of the limelight.

How do they work? - There is no real difference between the DAT files in Nascar and ICR2 apart from some naming conventions as colour pallettes. The converters work by breaking a DAT file down into it elements, making pallette changes and renaming certain files, and then recompiles them. It also creates new TXT files and AI driving files for the various tracks.

How do I use the Nascar to Indycar2 and Indycar2 to Nascar track converters - Simple. Download the required program and make a new directory to put it into. Place the file into this directory and expand it (files from The Pits are self extracting EXE's). Simply run the program, give it the paths to your various games and select the track you want to convert. Once it's done, run the game and try it out.

How do I stop Indycars from driving like Nascars? - You need to download the AI patch file from The Pits with updated AI files in it. Install it as per the converters and it will change the AI for that track.

What is the Indy500 converter? - The Indy500 converter converts the Indianapolis 500 track from the Indycar 1 Indy500 track pack for use in Nascar or ICR2. It does not convert the track from the original Indy500 game made by Papyrus around 1988.
There are two utilities, one to convert it to Nascar and one to convert it to Indycar 2

Where can I get the Indy500 track pack? - Not from us for a start! If you download a copy off of the Internet it is illegal. If you can't get it from your local software store, in the US try Papyrus Direct at:

1 800 836 1829.

Outside America all distribution is handled through Virgin; in the UK you should contact

Virgin Interactive Ent., Inc.
2 Kensington Square
London W8 5RB

telephone: (44) 171 368 2255
fax: (44) 171 468 2001

How do I use the Indy500 converters? - In the same way as the other converters. Just tell it your Indycar 1 directory.

I've got the track pack but not Indycar 1. How do I convert it? - Simple. Make a directory (folder Win'95) on your hard disk called INDYCAR and create a subdirectory called TRACKS and a subdirectory of that called INDY. You should end up with:

INDYCAR
  |_TRACKS
     |_INDY

On one of the disks you will find a file called INDY.EXE. Copy this to the INDY directory and expand it by running the EXE file.
Once you've done this, run the converter and point it to your INDYCAR directory.

Why do my tyres overheat when I go off line? - This was a bug in version 1 of the converters. It is fixed in version 2, now available for download. The AI cars have also been improved.

Why are the colours wrong? - Two reasons. Either you got my very early, crude, converter which was a swine to install, or you've not installed version 2 properly. Either get the latest version of the converter (v2.0) or - and I'm told this by visitors to The Pits - run it again, it should short it out.

Is there a Daytona track available? - Yes, but at the moment we're not releasing it into the Public Domain until we can find a wangle to stop Sega or Daytona Speedway putting us in prison for breaking licensing laws and copyright.

Can I convert my Indycar 1 tracks? - Not at the moment. We haven't looked too hard at converting them and anyway, the ICR2 tracks are better and more accurate. You can't, at the moment convert Nascar tracks to ICR 1 either. We're not saying its impossible, but the work and effort involved don't warrant it.

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