A couple of months ago through word of mouth (well, a retweet on Twitter actually), an organisation called PureTech Racing came to my attention. The news piece reported that Mike Conway, who suffered a broken leg and back injuries after his huge crash at the Indy 500 in May, visited PureTech Racing to help him with the recovery process.

PureTech Racing offer members of the public the chance to use advanced computer driving simulators, which aim to deliver the feel and thrill of real life motorsport. The organisation has an emphasis on making motorsport more engaging to a new and wider audience. This it may well do, but sim-racing aficionados and motor racing drivers will also want to be satisfied and feel engaged.

Based in Surrey, the Pure Tech Racing racing centre is home to 10 full motion simulators. The simulators were made by Ball Racing Developments, whose clients include iSport and Carlin.

Paying a visit

A stressful day at work made me want to do something and take my mind off things after work. A quick call to PureTech Racing and I was booked in to do a ‘test session’ that same day at 9pm. The centre is open until 22:30 which on a personal level is good as it allows you to get home from work and get sorted, before going out.

On arrival at the centre, I got signed in and ticked the box of ‘first time visit’. The building, a former showroom, is light and airy giving a good sense of space. At the time of my visit a 1988 Tyrrell Formula One car and a 2008 McLaren model adorned the centre area of the building. A number of motor racing pieces including spare wings, fuel hoses, and framed photos are also on show and add to the environment. Once signed in, I sat in PureTech Racing’s cafe while I waited to be called to the briefing room. There were to be 10 of us taking part in the session, 3 (including me) using it as a test session, and the remaining 7 using it as a qualifying session for a race. Our names were called and we were lead into a room to be briefed by Nick Dunn, PureTech Racing’s centre manager.

Nick gave us an informal and friendly briefing and introduced us to the concept of PureTech Racing and what is involved in using the simulators. We would be racing on a fictional circuit called Aviano, a circuit initially developed in NetKar Pro. After the briefing we moved into the simulator area. Once assigned our own simulator, I got in the ‘car’ and found out the ‘lie down driving like an F1 driver’ line proved to be true. It was a bit strange getting comfortable at first but then it became quite natural. A quick adjustment of the pedals later, I was strapped in (4 point race harness), and ready to go.

The simulators are set to manual gears with paddle shift on the back of the steering wheel, so just two pedals, no clutch. Fine with me! We all started the session in the pitlane and proceeded to go out on track. The feeling of movement (and force feedback if not experienced before) is initially quite surprising and unusual but after a couple of laps, it felt natural. For your first test session, there’s a lot to take in, the simulators, the track, the experience. After 3 or 4 laps of the Aviano circuit, I felt I was able to push further, brake later and enjoy myself more. I have to say that a personal favourite was driving turn 10, a slightly uphill left hander, where you really feel the feedback in the wheel, your arms needing to be strong to keep on the racing line. Great stuff.

Naturally the 15 minute test session flew by and as a group, we sat down together in the cafe area to chat about our thoughts and to share notes. Nick provided everyone with a print off as part of the debrief. The paper displayed laptimes and a potential optimum laptime. Along with that was some telemetry information. Nick spent time going through the telemetry with each driver and giving advice on where they could improve. It was a nice touch and a good idea, as i’m sure that it encourages continual custom. Owners of kart tracks take note!

The test session was an enjoyable experience made by the fact that it is a friendly and professional setup. To me it appears that PureTech Racing can deliver whatever you want it to. From a one-off visitor looking for a bit of fun, to those who regularly take part in motorsport and wish to spend some time in a simulator.

Links

• PureTech Racing (link)

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It has been a fair while since the last official F1 game was released, the last being Formula One Championship Edition which was released in 2007 but based on the 2006 season. That title received mixed reviews, and while there are plenty of Formula One mods in games like rFactor and SimBin studio titles, it has been a while since the average gamer received a game that warranted the F1 license.

Last Friday, Codemasters released F1 2010. The game was developed at their studio in Birmingham and during the development process, advice was sought from Anthony Davidson. Released on the three main formats, PC/Xbox360/PS3, it has reached top of the charts status. Impressive, given that on the XBox 360, the latest carnation of the Halo series was also released on Friday. So in F1 2010, Codemasters needs to appeal to a wide audience, which includes both the average gamer and the keen motorsports fan with prior experience in racing sims.

I received my copy of the game on Friday (it  arrived while I was at work, so I was counting down til 5pm!). During the day, I read about various forum postings regarding problems people experienced with the game. Problems from critical glitches to an odd pitstop bug whereby if you pitted along with a number of other drivers, your lollypop man would wait until all the other drivers had gone, before letting you go. A little overcautious on the lollypop mans behalf I think..

Despite the gloom, I was looking forward to getting home and playing it. I went for the Playstation version of the game. Once home, I unpacked it, installed it, went to control options and wham. No configuration settings for my Logitech G25 steering wheel. Not a good start.  I knew that the wheel was supported (one on the official list provided by Codemasters), so wondered why the hell it wasn’t picking it up. A quick internet search displayed a number of other people experiencing the problem. I solved the problem in the end after I ran a system update, uninstalled the game data and reinstalled the game.

For the game’s career mode, I chose a 7 year career, starting with the Virgin team and selected the full weekend and expert level option. So, first race up, Bahrain.

I have already come to appreciate the practice sessions in the game. In the past I have not particularly bothered with them, but in this game, it helps you develop your setup, get used to varying weather conditions and also give you enough on track time, so that you don’t bin your car in Q1! The game gives you a good sense of how the current F1 weekend works. I particularly enjoyed my Q1 session at Sepang, where it started wet and then dried out towards the end. It was good to see some of the AI drivers judging a good time to change to intermediates.

I’ve played out three rounds of the season so far. At the beloved Bahrain track I managed to qualify 12th and finish 8th, then I was brought down to earth by qualifying 24th at Melbourne, fortunately finishing 17th above team mate Di Grassi. Last time out, at a cyclone infested Sepang I finished 17th. Generally, the race results are pretty accurate. However I have noticed that you always seem to get one driver who finishes higher than they should (Senna 12th). Another small issue I have with the game are the mirrors on the cars. With the size that they are, it’s hard to see what is in them. Added to that though is that the image in the mirrors are unclear and it makes it hard to tell what is behind you unless a driver is attached to your rear wing.

In the three days I have had the game, it’s been enjoyable to play. Spa in the wet is a challenge, and the spray and lack of visibility adds to the enjoyment. Some people have mentioned the accuracy on some of the tracks, but I haven’t found this to be too much of an issue. F1 2010 by Codemasters is a good game. It isn’t without its flaws but with a F1 2011 game confirmed, this game is a solid base on which to grow.

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Outside of race weekends, motorsport fans will try and get their kicks in some way, shape or form. Some go to track days, others play the latest racing game on the PC or console. There are some dedicated people that create content for racing games and give to others for free. Dave Waters is an example of such a person.

Buckmore Park kart circuit in Kent is one of the busiest kart tracks in the country. Based near Chatham in Kent, the circuit has seen talents such as Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button partcipate in race events and the circuit is a regular fixture on the calendar for national championships and arrive ‘n’ drive championships like Club 100. In its current form, the track is 1200m.

rFactor, a game created by developer Image Space Incorporated is one of the main driving games/simulators available on the PC format. Backed by a large fanbase, the modding community has been creating content for the game since its release in 2005.

Dave Waters, an a-level student from Essex decided to recreate Buckmore Park (his local circuit) for the rFactor game. Back in 2007 Dave won a copy of BTB in a competition. BTB is a piece of software which allows the creation and modification of motor-racing circuits in rFactor. As BTB developed into a fully functional product, in January 2010, Dave decided to sit down and use it to create a virtual Buckmore. Dave posted a topic about it on the kart circuit’s forum, to gauge enthusiasm from fellow karters and sim-racers.

A couple of months later  he arrived at the circuit to participate in a race and race director Alan Wood came up to him.

“I turned up for a race at Buckmore and was taken aback when Alan Wood – race director and general good guy – told me that Buckmore would be willing to pay for my racing if I completed the work on the track for them! It turns out they had been looking for someone to make a version of the track for them to use in a simulator. My version of the track – I’m told – is more realistic than anything they could have had done for them professionally. This is basically a dream come true for me – I had been struggling to pay for my racing, so to have someone pay for for my racing in return for doing something I enjoy anyway was perfect!”

Recreating the track was time consuming for the 18yr student. To get a base to build the circuit layout upon, Dave used Google earth for an aerial photo of the track, taking close-up screenshots and importing them into Adobe’s Photoshop software. Once the images were merged, they were brought in to the BTB software and he could then trace the layout of the circuit. Once the layout was constructed, elevation changes were added. Elevation changes are key in the real life track, so despite lack of elevation data available, David spent hours of testing and fine tuning to get the track to resemble the differing heights of the track.

Progress of the track modelling was aided by Buckmore Park sending hundreds of high-resolution photographs to David. Each texture, including the tarmac, curbs, tyre barriers, buildings and trees was created and edited from scratch in Photoshop. Further help came from Ginetta Junior driver Jody Fannin and Chris Hanson who tested the virtual Buckmore and gave their feedback on curb height, bumps, and the amount of grip available.

Once the track was completed, an AIW needed to be made. An AIW affects how the computer cars drive around the track. Camera positions were also added for effect.

Released to positive reviews, David Waters’ Buckmore Park received 700 downloads in its first week. He intends to create more kart circuits for the rFactor series. I myself, would like to see my local circuit modelled into the game and believe it would be a good marketing tool for any kart track.

If you are a track owner and wish to recreate your circuit please get in touch.

Buckmore Park screenshot collection

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