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THE PITS NEWS
![[Sim Racing News]](pics/srn.jpg)
NRO is postponed again.
NRO has been postponed again, with possible opening in June-July, but some rumors have it that it won't be opened until next year. Hope you are enjoying Kali...
Ujj has already won 2 races this year, and I've managed to finish all the events with 2 top tens to make an excellent charge for the championship this year.
The Pits will be totally revamped with a scheduled opening of the end of this month...changes will include reorganization for easier access, and some nifty new technology on the webpage front...believe me, it's going to be a blast!
Goy's The Pits mirror in Norway has had a few problems, and we apologise for the lack of updates. However, Goy is working on it, and he wants to assure you that he'll be up and running again shortly!Cheers!
Jan Kohl
April 1997
THE PITS HISTORY
19 Nov 1995 - Jed wrote a utility to fix the damage and other options for the Indycar II demo. Shortly thereafter, he started "The Pits" for this utility and others that he wrote. Meanwhile, over here, I had the "Castle Graphics" site, dedicated to real and simulator racing, and wrote the Quikfix Guide, to aid people in setting up their NASCAR Racing cars.
December 1995 - I had been in conversation with Jed, and on a visit to the UK over Christmas, we met briefly in a pub in his local villiage and had a few beers. Much about racing was discussed, and many beers consumed. All in all, an enjoyable afternoon...
January 1996 - Jed wrote me an email about setting up a mirror site over here, as the transmission band of his site was rather slow from the US. I quickly agreed, and The Pits US Mirror was born. Meanwhile, Gerhard Lingenberg was creating the track coverters, and Jed began working with him to make other excellent patches.
February 1996 - Work began on the "Daytona Project". This was and idea of Jed's to take the Talladega track, and modify it so that it resembled the Daytona Motor Speedway. The AI would be fixed as well, so that they would take more realistic lines through the corners.
late March 1996 - The Pits was growing by leaps and bounds. I combined my simulator racing side of Castle Graphics with The Pits. The Daytona Project was nearing completion. Things were looking great... rather like the calm before the storm...
April 1996 - On a fateful day in April...I recieved a phone call. The caller was Andrew from ISC...International Speedways Corp. "So what?" ..you may say. ICS owns the REAL Daytona and Talladega tracks...and they were calling me personally to let me know that their next move would be to call a lawyer to deliver a letter to "cease and desist" all efforts on the Daytona Project. Why? Their copyright laws were being violated. If Sega, who had the rights to use the Daytona name for their arcade racing game were to be informed that our Daytona Project was being made for NASCAR Racing...they would be a bit upset. As well, ISC and any other company is bound by US copyright laws to use all legal effort to protect those copyrights, or risk losing them. So we had no leg to stand on. Jed and I spoke, and we decided it was best to drop the Daytona Project. That triggered one of the biggest newsgroup/email wars in Rec.autos.simulators short little history. People were incensed...who does ISC think they are to bully two small non-profit programmers and not let them modify some tracks in a racing simulator? But ISC was right...and Jed and I cancelled the Daytona Project before a working copy ever made the Internet.
May-July 1996 - The Pits was thrown into the doldrums...having played our biggest card, and the opponents holding a Royal Flush, we folded. No new utilities were released, and very little was done except answer email. Jed continued contact with ISC, and spoke of options for Daytona and for the track being released in future simulators. However, people had other ideas. Many tried to copy our lead, and create a Daytona, but all fell short, and not only that, but put ISC in a further bind. It would be possible if Sega and NASCAR became incensed at the at the amount of copyright violations on the 'net, that Daytona would not be seen in any simulator for a long, long time. But meanwhile, other things were happening...Ed of Papyrus had finished his project, Hawaii, and that threw a whole new monkeywrench into the equation. To be able to race 30 other people, in a simulator, REAL TIME! What a concept, and a racer's dream come true! Hawaii was put into beta-test stage, and a select few were competing on Hawaii to clear the bugs. Finally, it was opened to the public, and announced that next year NASCAR would sanction it as their new racing league...the NRL.
August 1996 - So opened a new chapter in The Pits. Papyrus had asked us to distribute the Hawaii software over the 'net via The Pits. Now we had a mission. Grand Prix II was released, and therefore more utilities were required. We obliged. The US Mirror gained it's own domain, the one you are sitting on right now...theuspits.com. Then...another swing and a miss. Jed, tired of the constant barrage of email and flames, decided that he had had enough. So on one fateful weekend, the original Pits disappeared from the 'net without a trace. I duly informed the public of what had transpired...and quickly became overwhelmed with letters of dismay over the loss of The Pits UK. Now the mirror became the primary...and we turn another page...
September 1996 - The long awaited arrival of the NASCAR II demo. It was unprecedented in the amount of people who attempted to get the sim on it's arrival at another site. The site went down under the heavy load of 100,000 hits in 12 hours!
November 1996 - The Pits finally made it to it's first birthday! Things have certainly changed over the last year for The Pits, and we sincerely thank all our supporters who have made it what it is today.
December 1996 - NASCAR Racing II, Kahn, and Kali...what an addition to the racing arena. Now sim racers can enjoy multiplayer racing, free, anytime you want. This should add a whole new spectrum to the online racing scene.
