Just a day after teasing the circuit of Jerez on their Twitter account, iRacing came out with more juicy informations in an open letter to the community. The publication is quite lengthy and goes into extensive details about physics, so we'll focus on key points here.
First, they claim the dev team has been expanded, with some of the new hires coming from the competition: several people previously working at Slightly Mad Studios and a high level engineer from " a different sim" are mentioned.
The team is apparently working on a "full review and full refresh" of dirt oval racing in the game, with dynamic track surface, tyre model and car tuning tools all being worked on. Public release of these improvements could happen in March but the studio sets June as the more realistic expectation. Of course, those improvements should have some influence over the other types of dirt racing in the game. In a similar way, a dedicated team is apparently working on improvements for paved surface oval racing, although the changes shouldn't be as drastic on that side of things.
Rain is also being talked about and is regarded as a "massive project" requiring a tremendous amount of work, and the team is too shy about that to provide with a target release date so far.
The letter goes on into very technical details about tyre model simulation, before switching the focus to planned content - and there's a lot of it apparently. Currently under development tracks include Algarve, Aragon, Jerez, Misano, Pukekohe, and Lédenon. Zandvoort is also being updated, as the team scanned the track a week ago. Deals have also been signed with other "great international tracks", but these names are being kept secret for the moment being. The sim is also still working in collaboration with NASCAR, with a team being on their way to capture data from a dirt oval and a short paved oval in California.
The full development update statement is available on the next page.
First, they claim the dev team has been expanded, with some of the new hires coming from the competition: several people previously working at Slightly Mad Studios and a high level engineer from " a different sim" are mentioned.
The team is apparently working on a "full review and full refresh" of dirt oval racing in the game, with dynamic track surface, tyre model and car tuning tools all being worked on. Public release of these improvements could happen in March but the studio sets June as the more realistic expectation. Of course, those improvements should have some influence over the other types of dirt racing in the game. In a similar way, a dedicated team is apparently working on improvements for paved surface oval racing, although the changes shouldn't be as drastic on that side of things.
Rain is also being talked about and is regarded as a "massive project" requiring a tremendous amount of work, and the team is too shy about that to provide with a target release date so far.
The letter goes on into very technical details about tyre model simulation, before switching the focus to planned content - and there's a lot of it apparently. Currently under development tracks include Algarve, Aragon, Jerez, Misano, Pukekohe, and Lédenon. Zandvoort is also being updated, as the team scanned the track a week ago. Deals have also been signed with other "great international tracks", but these names are being kept secret for the moment being. The sim is also still working in collaboration with NASCAR, with a team being on their way to capture data from a dirt oval and a short paved oval in California.
The full development update statement is available on the next page.