iRacing : A Proper Send-off... (Indycar Fixed @ New Hampshire)
0What a fitting race, well and truly captures the car and the races. How I won't miss this heap. Actually, that is slightly unfair. Empty Box description story time! Yay!
This is a strange car for me. On one hand as a fan of Indycar racing, iRacing is the only place this car is still present in my mind. I haven't seen a picture of this car for a while, I haven't seen clips with it for a couple years - only because of iRacing is this car still in my mind. But that is both good and bad.
Yes, this is the last time I'm racing this car unless something drastic happens. I don't plan on it though. I don't race the Indycar much, so it's not like I was really expecting to drive it much. But, there is a strong chance the DW12 will end up my main car the season it's released - this is the right level of open wheel performance for me. Truth be told, I do enjoy racing the current (one in the vid) car.
It is so terrible to drive it's fun. It's never "happy", it has no feel, restarts on ovals are always "adventurous" they are exciting to do, and on the road courses it's kind of a pig, that again is not happy. It's a challenge to drive, and honestly, I do like that. The low speed grip is nil in this car, but I love it! More people failing to keep it on the track, more positions for me. :)
But then I come to the fact that this car is from the worst era of North American open wheel racing, the dark days during the split / after the merger. It just sucks - I want to forget this car. Really, I do. For that reason alone, I do not like this car. That is the reason I never fully committed to it - even while it was the current car, it was still a hunk of crap.
It sounds strange to like a car, but hate it for a reason that doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things. iRacing isn't Indycar, the only "split" was between Oval and Road ;) but... as a fan... ugh. Really, I hate this car. I hate seeing it. It's just a reminder of my favorite flavor of racing - at it's worst. In the mid/late 00s, there was no redeeming quality on either the CCWS or IRL sides - one side had Bourdais destroying a depleted field, one side was oval only in cars that weren't nearly as cool. It just sucked. I can't like it, especially now that it is horribly outdated.
But the confusion goes deeper. On a personal note, within iRacing this car means a good bit to me. When iRacing first allowed custom paints, I jumped on painting this car - and promptly enabled me to paint some cars for a couple of teams that ran in the pro series (this was the pro series car at the time!) - which was really cool for me then. Painting cars for me started as fun in NR03, but it's since evolved to the point where I have started out on the career path I'm on. Having cars in the top level series was cool - it was justification.
Then there is the youtube side of things - Indycar videos have seemingly always been popular here. In my top 5 most viewed videos, 3 of them are iRacing Indycar videos. They really helped this channel grow, which has provided me with other opportunities and a lot of fun. This channel would not be the same without the Iowa race (You drive like a dick), Phillip Island (I just have to save fuel and pass everyone? Psht, easy!) or Pocono (Wrecked half the field like an idiot). Not even close to the same. I don't know how, I don't know why, but it's there.
Maybe I was too harsh in saying I won't miss it. As far as a pixel car goes, it's provided a lot of entertainment, it's been a ton of fun, it's provided some cool opportunities outside of the racing - but no... I won't miss it. It's old, it's outdated, and iRacing serves as the one and only reminder of that car.
This race really was a near perfect summation of this car from my view. Absolutely terrible, but absolutely awesome.
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