rFactor qualifying at Edmonton

Lately, there's been nothing really interesting happening in auto racing, at least not to me. So, I've been playing a lot of video games. I bought this one called rFactor, which is pretty cool because it's like having hundreds of racing games in one. There is a large modding community which produces everything from Formula 1 cars to Mini Coopers, and many of the world's racing circuits.

Unfortunately, tinkering with the game does require some skill and patience. As I mentioned some time ago, I used to be a modder of IndyCar Racing 2 and a horrible game called CART Precision Racing. But even I am blown away by the kinds of modding that is taking place today. If you want to produce a quality mod today, even a repaint of a car, you need to have some skills at Photoshop and perhaps 3ds Max. Unfortunately for me, I don't have 3ds Max and I only know the basics of GIMP, the free image editor.

I think game developers should try to make it easier, not harder, to customize a game. IndyCar 2 had an easy-to-use Paintkit that anybody could use. Back in the day, ICR2 web sites would feature hundreds of skins and dozens of carsets, and I am convinced that the easy modding helped grow the ICR2 community and the CART fan community in general. Later in the 1990s, CART PR had an official track editor that even I knew how to use, and allowed me to extend the life span of the game way longer than it deserved.

Anyway, I made a new video with rFactor. It's me trying to qualify for the Edmonton Grand Prix in a Team Lotus Lola (skinned by saultenian, look for it at rFactor Central). No commentary on the state of auto racing this time, just me babbling semi-coherently. Yes, both my driving and speaking were recorded simultaneously!! I'm quite proud of that.