Frosty's OpinionNation

[Dad Dog]

Some interesting topics and as always in sights into Sim racing, 13 episodes so far.

http://radio.psrtv.com/

[frostystclair]

Wow thanks WIlliam and MNRL for the thread. I know right now we talk mostly iRacing but hope you check out the show, especially the Dale Earnhardt JR interview, that was pretty cool. If anyone has any topics please let me know, we wouldnt mind branching out into other sims from time to time.

[Niles Anders]

Wow thanks WIlliam and MNRL for the thread. I know right now we talk mostly iRacing but hope you check out the show, especially the Dale Earnhardt JR interview, that was pretty cool. If anyone has any topics please let me know, we wouldnt mind branching out into other sims from time to time.

That Frosty is looking mighty good in those jeans!

[frostystclair]

Hello everybody,

It's been awhile but, we have another show tonight if you are around the PC and not racing here at MNRL If you are busy, you can always stream it later from PSR.

Remember to keep your ears listening tonight!

- Tonight we will discuss the new build @ iRacing, the new cars, the TDI Cup announcement (and the huge implications it can have on sim racing crossing over to real racing), and fix any problems associated with those things.

- We will have a special guest, Eric Alexander. Eric is one of the main people behind RACER Online Motorsports, and they over the years have hosted several very successful leagues and big sim events. He will tell us about the upcoming Simdianapolis 500 and,

- We will talk to him about big events in sim racing, the lack of them in iRacing atm, what it takes to run a successful event and how iRacing can implement some of these things. Then we will fix that problem.

- John, Eric, and myself also will probably touch on the 'motivation' issue, but this will likely carry over to the next show as this is a huge sim issue and while we fix all sim issues, this one may need a show of its own.

We would also LOVE to hear any ideas you guys would like us to talk about, ESPECIALLY the motivation topic for the next show!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Please let us hear from you via email or PM's on how you feel about motivation in regards to iRacing or sim racing in general, and we will fix you too.

Email us at theopinionnation@gmail.com

Also we plan on going to an every other week format from now on, and we will talk a little bit about why on the show. (We missed a week, blame John for making it rain in Vegas for 2 weeks)

Hope to hear you listening (I don't think that makes sense).



Launch PSR Radio

[frostystclair]

Hi all,

We are having a motivation special on Monday night, talking about all things motivation that is related to sim racing. Please write in or post here some things that motivate you in sim racing. Talk about whatever you like, from what motivates you to race, to what motivates you to race at MNRL, or even what motivates you not to race a sim, or league, or something like iRacing or Race2Play.

Whatever you like, we would love to hear from you, well not, but the guy behind you, ya that one

theopinionnation@gmail.com

Frosty

[Sam A.]

Yo Fro!

I'm motivated by a number of things:

1. The competition. It's just fun to race. I find racing to not be tedious like a lot of other games. You don't have to do goofy things with joysticks and buttons. You just try to drive cars as fast as you can. Everyone can drive a car, so it's neat to take something that you do every day and move it to a higher level.
2. The cars and paints. They are just cool. I've always liked sports uniforms, cars, paint schemes, etc... They look purdy.
3. The guys. I have grown attached to a lot of the guys here that I've raced with a long time. I trust them on the track, and enjoy their company. Even William.
4. The league. I do enjoy the admin perspective of building a series and running it. Maybe it's control that I like, and even though just about every week I wonder why I'm doing it, after about every race I'm glad that I do. Being league President has not been a big job, so I'm mainly taking about adminning MIRL on Wednesdays, and pitching in with CARS on Sundays.
5. Fantasy. It's neat for just a short period to imagine you are really racing (even though I'm WAYYY too chicken to do this for real) in real cars, etc...

Why I don't race anywhere else:

1. Time. I just don't have enough time to practice and prepare properly to race other than Sundays and Wednesdays like I do here. I'd love to do more, but I am unwilling to take more time away from my family.
2. Money. After not having the time, money is a main reason I am not on iRacing. I can't see dropping 20 bucks here and there just to pick up a track or a car, etc... Not when I can have whatever car I want for free (and race it without restrictions) via rFactor. While the license thing has some appeal, I can't get past the time aspect or the money. Maybe someday I will, but not now or the forseeable future.

Number 1 is the reason I have not tried Race2Play. My docket is full with MNRL activity. It's not that I'm opposed to racing elsewhere, it's just I don't have time.

Speaking of time - a comment about your show - I don't have time to listen for that long. I'd love to see a table of contents for each show that just list at what time marker major topics are discussed, so guys like me can jump to a particular time to hear that topic. Just a suggestion.

[frostystclair]

Thanks Sam, I will probably read that or parts of it on the air. Hope to hear from some more people as well!

Just a note, you may have known this was here, but I think the vast majority of people who listen to our show don't do it live. A lot of them listen later or even download it to their iPod and listen to it on the way to work or school etc..

You can download past episodes or stream them live from here http://radio.psrtv.com/ and there is a brief description from each show, that way you don't waste time on a topic listed that doesn't sound interesting to you

[Sam A.]

Thanks Fro. What I was getting at WR2 the replays, is some table of contents of time markers for when each major topic is discussed so if there's something specific I want to listen to I can jump right to that time. I personally am not interested in the iRacing stuff, so I'd like to be able to skip over that. Just a suggestion.

[Dad Dog]

My motivations for racing online:

1. The cost of racing for real, even at your local dirt track any more is very prohibitive. Entry fees, the cost of getting your equipment to and from the track and you could just get killed to just name a couple of things. When people start talking about the costs of the boxed racing games, league racing (ie The MNRL) or an online simulator like iRacing the first thing I think is "You've never done this for real have you?' because back when I done real racing what I contribute to the MNRL per year and what I pay for over at iRacing per year for the service, the cars and the tracks don't even come to the total in the TAXES I paid for material in 6 months of real racing and that was back over 25 years ago.

2. The people and friendships that can be built. Yeah even Sam. (You didn't think I'd let you get away with that did you?)
If guys could look at the stats over at iRacing they would see many of the guys who have done well here racing at the MNRL over the years are at the top of the stats over at iRacing too and it should make guys who race here pretty proud of being here at the MNRL because if you can do well here you can do well any where. Now that league racing is coming to iRacing I would venture to say that you could easily fill up an iRacing league with drivers who have ran and are still running at the MNRL. The MNRL is just that predominate over at iRacing.

3. This league. This is the best damn league there is or ever was.

Being I Admin the Cup Series on Monday nights and I can't get to the radio show I download it and listen to it while I'm practicing for the DP race of the week. You can tell your listeners if they do that it can improve their lap times

[Sam A.]

Being I Admin the Cup Series on Monday nights and I can't get to the radio show I download it and listen to it while I'm practicing for the DP race of the week. You can tell your listeners if they do that it can improve their lap times

Must be the soothing affect of Frosty's voice?

[Niles Anders]

Dear Opinion Nation,

My motivation for SIM racing is first I'm a competition junkie. Secondly to hang out with my friends, especially Joe Hassel and Norm Graf. I pick the leagues I run in by the how well they are ran, level of competition, guys in the league and which car the league offers for competition. The reason I came back to MNRL's MIRL division is they are running North American Open Wheel and a balanced schedule of Ovals and Roadies. There are very few situation where you can demonstrate the wide variety of skill necessary win the drivers championship then in a NAOW style championship. MIRL offers it.

My motivation to stick with rFactor is first, there are North American Open Wheel cars and secondly there are many mods that I can race at the drop of a hat. rFactor mods can be as good as the mod maker can make them and they have gotten better within the rFactor structure. There are many tracks that have been created for rFactor that are works of art and labors of love by the modder. The same for the cars that are created and the fact that someone has to sweat blood over these things make me want to continue to support them.

The choice of leagues are almost endless. There are leagues like MNRL that are so highly organized that they can compete with any proprietary league format out there. Race2Play has a league organizational management system that anyone can use to run their league plus a large group of members to promote their league to.

Why I'm not motivated to go iRacing is:

First I tried it and the driving school format has no appeal to me. But over-all when iRacing got going, many of the arrogant and reckless racers went there and it cleaned up the leagues in rfactor. So iRacing really made rFactor better by absorbing the marginal people and racers.

Secondly, I can't offer my support to the people that run iRacing because of the hatefulness they demonstrated in 2004 and 05 to the SIM Racing community in general, over the NR2003 "code gate" scandal. Also when they made Redline withdraw their kickass version of GTP and reissued that dumbed down version it also broke any support I would ever want to give them. 1.0 GTP rocked.

Thirdly, the iRacing zealots turn me off. iRacing is good but it ain't that good. Not good enough to be around their zealots. iRacing would do itself a favor by keeping their a-holes out of the SRC forums attempting to do PR for them because it turns potential recruits off. There is too much "our stuff is hot and your stuff's not." "Come to iRacing Jesus, the only way to SIM enlightenment."

Fourthly, There is too much game. What they call their licensing procedure is too much ... I'm not tuned into it. I like league racing not that glorified pick-up racing that demands too much time, under stress, to play their silly "driving school" ratings game that's built into it. In my SIM Racing world that is totally unnecessary. I can race 10 minutes with a guy and know if he's good enough to race with.

Fifthly, The money. Not for me because I'd buy everything they had in one fell swoop just so I wouldn't have to do it over and over. But they wear their membership out by constantly keeping them in a negative upgrade cycle. When people bitch about a single item as much as they bitch about that, then a smart business person would need to look at it as a problem.

OK they got their NASCAR deal finally done, which I predicted it would happen as soon as the EA exclusive ran it's course. Times up. Now if they get a kick ass Indy Car thing done then I might back track on everything I just said above.

Note: SIM Racing is still a game. I'll tell you when it's a real SIM or a new kind of sport. SIM Racing doesn't have to have Lazer scanned tracks to be a SIM either, but it will need properly modeled tires and brakes, Computational Fluid Dynamics and Dynamic Fluid Weather for aero effect. Also it will need a standardized criteria for force feed back wheel and cockpits. And I can't see how the g-forces of the cockpit will ever be properly simulated. Of course iRacing's Lazar scanned cars and attempt at weighing components for proper weight distribution is the right direction to go, but not enough to play their game.

I would like to say that Frosty has in the past been an excellent series administrator and I believe a pioneer in event organization. His 79F1 league was one of the best and I still run into people who reflect back to that series with fond regard.

[frostystclair]

Just wanted to say thanks guys I meant to get to all of your posts I really did. Sometimes it is tricky to try and fit it all in when the timing is right, depending on how the conversation between John and I is flowing. But I appreciate the feedback and hope you keep it coming, I promise to not always leave you out

A lot of Sam and Niles' comments can still fit into the why do people do or not do iRacing show, which we do plan to do sometime soon. Will races everything on the planet so he doesn't count (btw I have no idea how he does it, he is amazing).

[Sam A.]

Great show Frosty. Definitely an interesting topic. I am envious of the guys who have been able to use Sim Racing to connect with their Dads. Even if my Dad was still around, he would not be interested in doing this (not enough patience), so it's cool to have that connection. My son is not interested either, so I'm on my own with that regard. The friendship part of it is definitely big, as I really like the guys I race with here, so going to race with a bunch of strangers does not have that much appeal.

[Dad Dog]

Believe me Sam if you ever raced over there you would be suprised to find that you would not be among a bunch of strangers. I could show you quite afew races where the names in the line up are the same names you would find here now and through out the history of the MNRL, you can ask Barry about that. I've seen a few guys over there that have signed up here for membership recently. I'm not the least bit shy at promoting the MNRL over there.

[frostystclair]

Thanks again as always guys! Here is a quick post about tonight's topics!

Hi !!!

Remember to keep your ears listening tonight!

- We have had a lot of great emails this week, and we will help fix some of those problems tonight including the debate about hardware (steering wheel and pedals) and if it really makes you faster or not.

- We will also go over and fix the problem regarding the disconnect between oval and road within the community and what is valid and what isn't.

- We will also talk about and fix iRacing's lack of being able to attract a big road course following like they have on the oval side.

- Lastly, why are Euro's so cocky? We will fix them too

We will also be taking calls tonight, so make sure to join the TeamSpeak channel and be in the caller screening room. Try and use your real name when joining.

We would also LOVE to hear any ideas you guys would like us to talk about. Please let us hear from you (or see from you) via email or PM's on how you feel about stuff in regards to iRacing or sim racing in general, and we will fix you too.

Email us at theopinionnation@gmail.com

Also we plan on going to an every other week format from now on, and we will talk a little bit about why on the show. (We missed a week, blame John for making it rain in Vegas for 2 weeks)

Hope to hear you listening (I don't think that makes sense).



mms://stream.psrtv.com/PSRradio

[frostystclair]

Our latest show is up http://radio.psrtv.com/ and there is a contest that is still waiting for the correct answer for a free pair of SimBoots!

[frostystclair]

Hi !!!

We have a show on tonight at 10PM EST.

Here is some of what we have planned!

- We will have professional racing driver John Prather on the show to talk about his experiences this past weekend in the VW TDI Cup (in case you haven't heard and live in a cave, btw, what kind of internet speed do you get in your cave?)

- We take calls and emails with questions for what it feels like to be a Pro Driver in the real world (VS Sim).

- We encourage you to get your emails in early!

- We will have another contest to give away another free pair of simboots, so make sure to tune in for that!

- And we will ask John what it feels like to ruin a great radio show, since he can no longer ever be critical of iRacing after the awesome opportunity they gave him this past weekend

We would also LOVE to hear any ideas you guys would like us to talk about, or if you have an email you would like us to read, or even if you want to be on the show please let us know.

Email us at theopinionnation@gmail.com

Also we plan on going to an every other week format from now on, and we will talk a little bit about why on the show.

Hope to hear you listening (I don't think that makes sense).



Launch PSR Radio

[frostystclair]

Hey guys,

Just a heads up, the show tonight will have Dave Kaemmer on and will be at 9PM EST

Hope you can check it out!