rFactor Car and Track Recommendations

I've spent a lot of time wading through the hundreds of cars and tracks out there in rFactor-land. Some are conversions from existing commercial titles, and some are painstaking scratch-built works. The quality of the work varies widely, from crude to sublime. In case you're thinking about jumping into rFactor, here are suggestions of some of my favorites, and why:

TRACKS (in no particular order)

Virginia International Raceway - Never been to the real track, but it's a blast. I've driven different model of this in different sim titles, and the esses from turns 7 to 10 is pretty different in different models. Since most of you live close enough to eventually drive here, and it's just a fun track, I recommend this first.

Road Atlanta (contemporary) - This is the track that most of you have either driven or visited, so it's also a natch. This particular model is buggy, and will report three errors while loading. Simply hit the Escape or Enter key three times and it'll load. I've seen comments about what's not rendering correctly, but it's nothing to do with the track, so I've never noticed it.

Top Gear Test Track - If you're a fan of the BBC show, you have to have this. Note that the track crosses itself in the middle, and AI cars don't get this, so you might not really want race here.

Nurburgring Nordschleife - Not surprisingly, there are several groups of hobbyists out there continually improving their models of The Ring. This isn't necessarily the best, and it also represents only the modern tourist circuit and the adjacent F1 Nurburgring course - not the original layout. Lovingly detailed, down to the contemporary graffiti-like markings on the asphalt itself.

Circuite de la Sarthe - This is the 2004 incarnation of the 24 Heures du Mans race. Sometimes I like to do this as a kind of meditative activity - there are so many long stretches (even with the two chicanes on the Mulsanne Straight) during which to relax, then tense up and start to look for visual references for braking points. For added realism, consider driving this is one of the LeMans or ALMS vehicles.

Willow Springs Raceway - For me, this is kind of a local track. It's also a lot of fun, with some spooky high-speed turns and constant elevation changes.

Birmingham Motorplex - An immaculate model of the Alabama road course, this is a very cool track. Lots of blind turns and elevation changes challenge the driver to create a non-visual model of ideal lines and apices in their head. Good fun.

Mosport - A track I've always liked, full of scary, fast, blind, and off-camber turns - sometimes all at once. It's interesting to swtich between different kinds of vehicles on this course and see how radically your braking points and lines have to change.

Sears Point 1990 - When I went to Bondurant, this is what "Infineon Raceway" looked and felt like. In the rFactor r1600 trainer, it really takes me back. The track has a bunch of "gotcha's" that are rewarding to avoid.

Brianza - This rFactor Hall of Famer of the old Monza circuit is complete with the monster banked oval. The oval is rough as heck, I'd hope unrealistically so. For some realism, try lapping in the 1955 Mercedes W196 F1 car.

Silverstone - The classic Northamptionshire course is worthy of its legendary status - it's a very interesting course to drive. I'm sorry to hear it's leaving the F1 calendar in 2010.

Laguna Seca - One of our country's most famous road-racing circuits, I find Laguna Seca difficult to master in the virtual world, particularly at the Corkscrew, where it's hard to actually sense how the corners are loading and unloading while dropping through a hundred feet of altitude with only steering feedback, tire noise and visual cues. Still, it's worthy of its cult status.

Lime Rock Park - I just like Lime Rock. This place would be freakin' terrifying in real-life. There are only a few of its turns of this course where you don't pucker up.

Falkenberg - I think I discovered this track in another sim title. It's a super-short (8.33KM) track with maybe 7 or 8 turns, but requires a bit of finesse. For a short track, you really feel like you're flying when you get it wired. A super-short lap means lots of practice in less time. Really fun for racing, with a surprising number of overtaking opportunities per lap.

VEHICLES (in no particular order)

BMW 1 Challenge 2006 - OK, so the 1-series isn't the best-looking car in the semi-homely BMW stable, but this is a lovingly crafted model that - most importantly to me - feels like a real sedan. Not too powerful, not too much tire, and a good default suspension setup (which is not user adjustable in this model) make for a nice baseline sporty/racer car. When I'm not in the mood for something arcane or exotic, this is right in the middle. I find taking a few PSI off the rear tires makes the car much more pointable.

Formula BMW - The taughtness of a contemporary formula car without the violence of modern F1, and more aero downforce and somewhat more punch than rFactor's R1600 trainer, the Formula BMW is a safe way to scout a new track at pretty high first-lap speeds. Be warned that those tires are pretty skinny, so you can get in over your head.

Corvette C6 - Monster tire grip, serious brakes and excellent damping make the C6 seem easy to drive fast - until you forget yourself with the throttle. This thing makes scary power for something that weighs 3200 pounds - and even its giant rear tires can't contain it. I've driven a couple of real C5s, and they kind of felt like the C5 rFactor model. If the real C6 is like this model, Yikes!

• Actually, I've had troubles with this release of this model rendering, producing crazy flashing surface textures. The previous C5 model never had this problem, but is no longer on rFactor Central's database.

Lexus IS F - The rFactor Central info on this model includes this quote: "The Lexus IS F was produced by ISI as a part of a Lexus promotion and distributed freely at SEMA on CD." It was a pretty hip thing for Lexus to do. The chassis of this model behaves very nicely, encouraging pretty daring exploits at the limit of adhesion in a car only 300 pounds lighter than our Grand Caravan. Disappointing is the transmission's gear ratios - with eight foward gears, it's pretty dumb that I'm wishing for some shorter lower gears. This is one of the few rFactor vehicle models out there of a contemporary sedan which feels somewhat like a road vehicle. Too bad more manufacturer's don't see this as a way-cool way to sell cars.

FSONE (Formula One) - For years, I ran a Formula One "mod" of Electronic Arts' F1 Challenge '99-02. I even ended up buying an eBay copy of the title directly from China (sending my payment to Australia?!) long after it was out of print. The first time I drove this vehicle model in rFactor, I knew I'd probably never go back to F1 Challenge. I never did. The rFactor community continues to generate models of the ever-changing pallette of tracks in the F1 calendar, and community hobbyists continue to update the winglet-festooned bodies and team liveries, albeit a little behind the real-world changes. (There were screenshots of cars bearing the green-striped FIA "Make Cars Green" (!?!) Bridgestones seen at the Grand Prix of Japan at Fuji on rFactor Central on race weekend this year - geeky.)

CSGT Holiday Preview (Porsche 911/914/906/910) - I have no idea what this car model name means, but these model feel very realisitc. I never really had the opportunity to explore the limits of my own 914 enough to feel as daring as I do in the virtual world, but I believe the dynamics of the model. I've discovered that I enjoy driving the 911 with the rear end, with trailing-throttle oversteer much as I did the 1967/8 F1 cars in Grand Prix Legends. If real 911s of the late '60s really drove like this, they'd make great track cars. Street driving, with unknown corner profiles, maybe not so much.

Spirit of 76 - Racing Fiat X1/9 Dallaras and Lotus Europas - what's not to like? After bashing around in a full-sized race sedan, carving up a track in the Europa makes every corner half again as wide. As with with fruit sorbets in fine dining, I'll load up this series to "cleanse my palate."

American Muscle - Many of you have owned the vehicles in the series: 1968 Cuda, 1969 Camaro SS, 1970 Boss Mustang, 1970 Challenger R/T ,1970 Nova SS,1961 Ford Falcon,1970 Ford Torino,1969 Dodge Charger,1970 Dodge Daytona. I'm dubious that the vehicle designers represented the suspension characteristics of these models carefully, but they certainly seem to have modeled the vehicle weights and brake capacity (or lack therof) within believable range.

BMW M1 ProCar 1979-1980 - I mention this because Tom and Tim used to comment that these were the best-sounding race engines ever. I don't recall why I haven't gravitated toward driving this model often - my recollection is that it's got nice chassis, but low engine torque, and some kind of sneaky/spooky limit of adhesion behavior. Still, sometimes I just pick a model for nostalgia.

Caterham - I'm not sure if this link is the series I have, but there are obviously a lot of Caterham/Lotus 7 fans out there. There are a bewildering array of engine series and body liveries available. I haven't found this rewarding to drive just doing practice laps or racing against AI opponents, but I think it'd be a blast against live opponents.

Historic Rally Cars - These are kind of crude models of monstrous Group B rally cars of the early 1980s. The transmission/clutch (I use a clutch pedal) behavior is kind of strange - requiring a kind of sluggish clutch in-shift-clutch out cadence, or the tranny stays in the previous gear. Fun, though, especially on some of the rally specials tracks available, such as the Long Course of the Lienz Festival of Speed

Grand Prix 1979 - If the behavior of the car models in this collection is anything like the real car - holy crap. That's not holy crap good, but holy crap this thing is trying to kill me. I hope this is just a matter of poor design/configuration by the author of the model, but I wouldn't be surprised to find that this is what was really being driven in anger 30 years ago. Twitchy, ungodly powerful and with the driver so far forward that yaw cues are at a minimum make for really ginger low-speed exits, especially in the virtual world where yaw is poorly teletraphed. I've never really gotten a comfortable, fast, and "wired" lap in this series. (Hmm. I usually leave the "Exaggerate Yaw" setting at 0 - maybe this is worth exploring to compensate for the serious "cab-forward" nature of the Tunnel Cars.) Still, you won't find any commerical motorsports title featuring this time in history - when many of you were there.

Gasoline Alley - This 1955-1962 front-engined Indy racecars. Skinny tires, two tall gears and a 4-liter Offy-four blatting away make for exciting times around the Indy Oval. As David Hobbs would say, those fellows "had huge... attachments."

BMW 320 E21 - When I crave nerve-tingling sedan racing, this is the car for me. Great sounds and sharp chassis response make this a timeless and raw road-racing experience. Big, slightly greasy rubber and a surprisingly powerful (maybe too powerful for realism?) engine make for a somewhat-forgiving race machine.

1955 F1 (Mercedes Benz W196) - If this model is even remotely like the real thing, it gives me a lot more respect for the state of the art of automotive technology (at least in Germany) in the mid-1950s. OK, so the lap times aren't that great compared to even a modern street sedan (at least on shorter courses), but this thing is powerful, fast, and pretty well-behaved on its too-narrow tires.

WHEEL/PEDAL/SHIFTER CONTROLLER

Finally, a review I wrote of the Logitech G25 wheel controller. I'm still very pleased after 22 months of very regular use. It's pricey at something over $200 (retail $300), but a lot of value for money. I particularly appreciate up to 900 degrees of lock, long throw three-pedal cluster and three shifter configurations: wheel paddle; slap-shifter and six-gate "H" pattern. I configure it and rFactor vehicle-appropriate (though 2.5 turns is obviously less than many sedans).