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SITE OF THE MONTH Shane Pitkin has been racing sims for awhile, and the content of his site shows it. He's been crowned champion of ICR2 racing leagues, and has plenty of info and files for Indycar drivers. Check out Velocity Motorsports on our Links page.
We've got the info that Tantrum Entertainment led by Tony Simerman will have the NHRA Drag Racing sim done by the end of May...one month from now! We're looking forwards to getting a chance to have a crack at this, and to whet your appetite, here are some images that Tony nicely allowed us to post, courtesy of NHRA Online. Thanks, Tony!IMAGE1 IMAGE2
If you've not got Speedvision on your cable channel, you are really missing out. Every week, they do ALOT of racing, but also the best NASCAR driver shows on the air. Inside Winston Cup Racing, which airs several times a week, has a cast of the NASCAR drivers Johnny Benson, Michael Waltrip, and Kenny Schrader reviewing the NASCAR racing. And if you know anything about those drivers, putting them all together in one room can be a pretty horrendous mixture! If you don't have Speedvision, call your cable company and complain. Alot. If you want to see what's coming up on Speedvision, go to Speedvision.com and find out. Don't forget that the only US showing of the BTCC, STW, and ASTC are on Speedvision, as well as Formula 1.
We've got some new info up on the multiplayer page, to help you keep from getting booted and in the race. We've taken the best tips from the drivers and put them all together to help you, the racer, stay in the race.
Marc Nelson, who runs SimRacing Online, SimRacing News, and The Sim Project, just gave us a nice pressie by putting The Pits up as the Site of the Week! Hey, thanks Marc! You can check out SimRacing News, we keep a link to it at the top of our page always as another place to get good sim info. One note that Marc mentions this week, which I've not heard about (yet) is the fact that Papy has apparently dropped all plans for CART II/III/whatever. This is not good news, make sure that you let Papy know we don't want only stock car racing...
21 APR - MacAttack on the Track!
I've felt sorry for all the racers using Macs over the last couple of years, seems they always get left behind (no pun intended). They are still stuck on NASCAR 1, as no one has bothered to try to port NASCAR II to the Mac. However, a group of Mac racers are trying to get something done about that, they have formed a group and are trying to get a petition signed to get the software manufacturers to see that Mac racers like to have fun too! Their petition is at Macracing, and I urge you, even if you are a PC racer, to go sign the petition and put up the links on your website. I'll be doing that myself, because having more racers, (even MacRacers) ;] cannot be bad!
Leonardo Vidal, our very good car paint contributer, has been working on something in secret with Roberto Arosteguy that he's just unveiled to me...the TOP Driver's Challenge. Roberto's put together his own touring car patch, with the new bodies, but with nice new twist...want to compete against ALL the best drivers in the world? Well, now you can, everyone gets identical E-class Mercedes (sort of a German IROC, I guess), and go out to trash the track! Great job..new menus, new sounds, new cockpit...great job Roberto and Leonardo! Anyhow, you can check it out at the TOP Driver's Challenge. Note that this will replace all your current install of TPTCC or whatever...you may want to make ANOTHER backup before running this one. Warning, his site is right now in it's native Portuguese, but he'll have the English version up shortly...I'm sure that everyone can figure out what "download" means...
I should never go out surfing sim sites, except for the few good ones that I know...Simulator Cyberworld comes to mind as a good one. Because every time I venture out to other sites...I usually get annoyed at stupid messages on message boards, or pirated utilities...or this big no-no. Several sites I found today were showing their new-found wares, and the link on the file pointed to http://www.theuspits.com. That's weird...I know that site from somewhere?? But was there a mention that they were using The Pits as a backdrop for their utilities? Nosiree! Not a one. Not to mention, they pinched our exact description of the file from The Pits page! Folks, if you see sites doing that, inform them...we have to support our bandwidth like any other, and when people use us as a front for their utilities section, but don't bother to even acknowledge where it's coming from...that's pretty crude. However, some sites have emailed us to ask if they can link to some of our stuff, or post some of our stuff, and that's fine. I'm more than happy to have people spread around the wealth, and I try and do that for any utility that we put on the net. Some of the "cool" sites who have asked us are Matt's N2 Page, The Green Flag, and The Brickyard. At least they take the time to do things right...
For all the people despairing over Diamond's crappy Stealth drivers, they have a new set on their site at Diamond Multimedia. I've tried them and they seem a bit more stable, but still have lockup problems.
Both Klaus Horbrand and Chris Lund have come out with new versions of their software, Winmip and Telemetry respectively. Go to the stockcar page to check them out. Winmip supports GPL now, and Telemetry supports the ICR2 converted tracks for N2. AS WELL, The Pits in conjunction with Late Apex Racing has come up with a new touring car patch for N1, this version has a newer 3do shape that allows you to paint the bumpers, new engine graphics, new dash and new wheels. You can find it on the archives page.
Man, our own Dave "Trackman" Turman has been a busy camper...check out these new excellent Win95 backgrounds with a distinctly Grand Prix Legends flavor...
The original Nurburgring Circuit in Germany, a 14.2 mile long permanent track used for many years in Germany for racing, will be in the full verion of Grand Prix Legends, according to a press release by Papyrus. Great news! The original Grand Prix racers took 8 minutes or more to complete one lap of the track, which was discontinued in 1976 due to it being very dangerous. Nurburgring was opened again in the last few years, but no longer in it's original configuration.
The N2Rumorboy, who had a daily newspage on NASCAR2 rumors and info, decided to pack it in due to his "real life" workload. Real shame, as we enjoyed reading his rumors and slams on the idiots of simracing. Come back, Rumorboy...what, you think you should get time off to work on N2 stuff? ;]
As per usual, the first release had a few problems...you think we'd payed our troubleshooters enough! However, v.2.01 is out, and runs very smooth...get it from the TPTCC page
Wondering about the Ferrari in the pic? Wanna drive it? Well, go for it, as our Dave "Trackman" Turman decided he wanted a Ferrari as well...click HERE to get it. Enjoy!
Practice Race for ATCA!
Berle Smith just informed me that the American Touring Car Association will be conducting a practice race at Laguna Seca in a few weeks, with the FIA spec tourers and the new National Saloon cars. A field of 20 cars is expected, and should be a good test race. As well, an unnamed female driver (my guess was Kat Teasdale) will be driving the Fasttech Ford Mondeo. Manufacturers are showing interest in the new National Saloon class, this could be big. If you're interested in taking on real touring car racing, check out ATCA for the full info in getting started. Hope they start doing some east coast racing, I'll be buying a new family car for my wife...(wonder if she would mind if it came home with a few dents every weekend)...GRIN!
Yes, Of course...we are! The first 3rd party utility for GPL is here...by Dave Noonan, the GPL mip-bmp converter. Enjoy!
Yes, we investigated the post about using the track.txt files to be able to run better on NROS. Can't be done. You cannot race with a changed track.txt file, as it will give you a "bad connection" notification, then dump you from the race. If you seem to have this problem alot...try using the original .txt files for your track.
is out! You can get it by clicking HERE! Note, you will probably need a P160 or better plus video card to run this. Initial review of this demo will be out shortly...in the meantime...GET IT! By far, it's the most rewarding experience driving a sim car any of us has had...
is OUT! Yes, it's finally here! You can get it by going to the TPTCC page.
of you sim racing fans have visited The Pits since it's inception, and we just took that number this week...half a million visits! Wow! We at The Pits want to take this time right now to thank each and every one of you for helping make The Pits what it is today! Thanks to all our loyal fans, sim racing drivers, and contributors who have been going to The Pits for all their racing needs. We'll continue to do the best job in the sim world at getting you the most info, sim utilities, and at a great price...FREEEEEEEEE!
many of you all logged in to The Pits to find this. Some of you more energetic surfers noticed the "april.html" that showed up on the status bar when you moved your mouse over it, or maybe they were planning on slamming the poor "Edison Inc." for blaspheming the US Pits webspace with their presence. Sorry, sorry, all in good fun, after all, it was April Fools Day! And, yes, I'm still chuckling over the responses on email and the newsgroups! And I promise never to do it again...
Yeah, right! ;]
The Pits has changed it's look, mysteriously in the middle of the year this time! Why? Well, we weren't quite happy with our last look, and wanted to make it a bit easier to find stuff on The Pits. Now, all news will appear on this page, and we'll update it more than once a month to get out all the latest news to you folks in simland.
Someone, who shall remain nameless, sent me this post while I was gone this week. "THERE ARE ALOT OF TOP RANKED GUYS IN THE NROS CHEATTING BY EDITTING THE TIRE FILE LIKE U TAKE THE PLATE OFF AT DEGA TEN HAS FIXED THE PLAT TROUBLE BUT NOT THE TIRE DEAL". Suffice it to say, we'll be investigating this thoroughly. The Pits has never condoned cheating on any form, and we'll do everything in our power to stop this if it is occurring. We will be investigating this to see if it's true as stated, and I've asked the poster to submit to me a list of names of drivers who are using this cheat. If it is true, your names will appear on here in black and white for everyone to know who NOT to race. If you can't beat someone in legal trim, your name isn't worth the paper to print it. 'Nuff said.
Bethesda has finally released Burnout!, their new drag racing sim. We'll be doing a review of it shortly. As well, Tantrum Entertainment will be releasing NHRA Drag Racing later this year, as we mentioned before. We'll have more info on that very shortly.
The beta 3dfx patch is out, we've got it on our site on the Stockcar page.
1998 NASCAR Schedules Want a pocket copy of the schedule for the Winston Cup, BGN, and Craftsman Trucks? Click on the picture! Excel V.4 format.
Link to us? Here's a banner or a button! Cheers!
Jan Kohl
Apr 1998
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 and had it's first 100,000 visitors at the same time! 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.
May 1997 - Things are progressing smoothly in the racing sim world, the patches for NASCAR II were finally released, and the NASCAR Racing Organization seems to be on track to be released shortly. Track converters for NASCAR II have been released, so now stock car drivers can turn left and right again! 3D work has been going on by several members of the sim racing community, with lots of progress...new Indycar car shapes are being released right and left!
July 1997 - The Pits made history again with the release of the first package designed for NASCAR II racing, The Pits Touring Car Championship. This used a completely redesigned platform for N2 with different tracks, car bodies, and cockpit graphics.
Nov-Dec 1997 - Papyrus has finally come through in November, with both the BGN Track Pack and the NASCAR Racing Online Series...great time to be in Sim Racing. As well, CART Precision Racing has been released in December, along with Codemaster's TOCA Touring Car Championship. And we made three years on the net!
Mar 1998 - The Pits starts it's own online racing league, SuperCars! Online. This new series introduced a few new twists to the online racing world, with competition modeled after the Australian V8 Supercars, pitting many V8 performance sedans against each other in head-to-head racing.
Apr 1998 - The Pits went over half a million visits the first week of April...thanks to all our visitors and contributors!
