iRacing – New KIA Optima, Ford Fusion and Chevy SS in the works.

Tony Gardner and Kevin Bobbitt just about confirmed the work in progress on the KIA Optima and two new Nascar heavyweights. The Ford Fusion and the Chevy SS.

iRacing is working on a World Tour NASCAR iRacing 2013 Series. It will follow the Sprint Cup every week as an event series. 36 races, with 6 drop weeks open to all members. Look for an official announcement next week.

A picture of the WIP version of the KIA was posted on the iRacing Forums.

iracerstuff.com posted the following news on their forums.

Physics Updates:

Eric Hudec posted in the forum about a few changes in the upcoming build. Possible general drafting/slipstream aero changes to all cars which should help side drafting. This will impact how the cars drive at Superspeedways and intermediates. Possible tire carcass and compound changes to the Impala A, Impala B and Silverado. Possible steering model updates to all or most cars, including the stockcars. Track bar will have a max rake rule like was introduced past halfway this past NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season at all tracks, no just the superspeedways. They are working on 2013 cars, no eta on those. Eric said they are out of time to get any other changes in this next build, but hopefully they will have some of the above and maybe a few more minor things.

Car Graphics Updates:

iRacing has confirmed in the next build all cars will receive an update that will make all of the cars a little more bright and shiny. A member posted in the iRacing forum that it appeared they “changed the reflectiveness of the bodywork – it’s definitely more shiny around the edges… In a multi-class session a dark color McLaren looked amazing whereas a simply dark color Corvette just looked matte and dull.” Grant Hill responded that “All the rest of the cars will get similarly waxed paint next season.”

2013 Season 1 Schedules:

Tony Gardner posted in the iRacing forum that next season, every series will run every day (7 days per week). A given series will go off either every hour, every 2 hours or every 4 hours depending on popularity. The schedule will be the same every day. Every car at this point is included and running 7 days per week, and several of them are in multiple series because of either mixed class or open and fixed setup series. Some other scheduling notes:

• iRacing is working on a World Tour NASCAR iRacing 2013 Series. It will follow the Sprint Cup every week as an event series. 36 races, with 6 drop weeks open to all members. Look for an official announcement next week.

• Current plans have Tour Modified every 4 hours, SK Modified every 2 hours.

• McLaren will likely be teamed with the DP instead of the Mustang just for Season 1. Mustang will still have a stand-alone series and will likely rejoin the DP in Season 2 in addition to the Cadillac. The Cadillac cannot be added to any other series until their current contract ends in 3 months.

Kevin Bobbitt Quote

:Here is a pic of what we have been working on for Kia. Just to be clear, the car is not ready for release. We built it specifically for the trade show application. We will release the car once it is done, but we are a ways away from that. Sorry, I don’t have an expected date to announce but it will definitely not be this build. 

The track on the other hand is much closer to completion. It is looking good for making the build but again, no guarantees

iRacing Quote:

As you may have heard, we are happy to let members know that we are busy working on the new Sprint cup car that is coming to NASCAR in 2013. In fact, the car is so new; we are basically building them in lock-step as the data becomes available to real-world teams for testing. 

We can’t go any faster than we are going but our goal is to have the car available for the iRacing race week starting March 5th, which is 4 weeks into iRacing season 1. We are also in the unique position of needing to swap out the existing cup car for a new car, while keeping the existing series, actually multiple series since the “Cup” Car races in several different series. The problem is we can’t just swap the car in the middle of a season because of the way our system works. 

Thereforewe have a couple of options and, at the end of the day, opted to just start the season late with the new G6 car for our class A fixed and open series, and do an 8 week season rather than our normal 12 weeks. Guessing will have 2 drop weeks for that 8 week season. Although plenty of other NASCAR vehicles to drive, especially with our new expanded schedule that is coming this season, if you are looking for a Cup Car fix during those 4 weeks, we still will run the old cup car for a full twelve weeks in the unofficial Carb Cup Series running next season. Additionally, we also will be doing the Daytona 500 World Tour event with the old car during the week of the real-world 500 and may also add some other racing with the current cup car during those first four weeks of the season. 

We are also going to delay the start of the NASCAR iRacing Drivers World Championship Series a couple weeks so we can start it with the new car. Also of note to some, the top 10 drivers from the open class A series using the new G6 car in season 1 will still receive their pro license, just like last year. Although we may reduce it from top 10 to something like 8, more to follow soon on that. Lastly, we are going to delay our new NASCAR event series featuring the cup car that mirrors the real-world cup series for the entire season. Instead we are going to start it with this new car in the beginning of March so will only miss a couple races most likely. Again we will still have the Daytona 500 World Tour Event with the old car. 

To answer some other likely questions, you probably heard that this will be a single class but multi-car series. That is true. That means it will have multiple manufacturers with identical physics racing in the same series for the same points, Ford and Chevy! The new cars are the Ford Fusion and Chevy SS. The Chevy SS will release first, hopefully during the last week of February, with the Ford Fusion to follow shortly thereafter. Right now we estimate the Ford will release two weeks after the Chevy. 

As far as price of the cars, we want to be as fair as possible, but we still have licenses to honor with the manufacturers along with the costs associated with cars that we need to recoup. Our plan is to sell both cars at normal prices of $11.95. However, if you own the existing Chevy class A cup car, on or before February 25th, we will give you $6 of credit (basically 50%). If we release the new car before the 25th, we will also move the date up to the day before the car releases for getting the credit. Additionally, if you bought the car in the last 90 days from February 25th or the date we end up with, we will give you full credit, $11.95 instead of the $6 (so you essentially received the old cup car for free if purchased in last 90 days). Again, the Ford Fusion will simply be a new car at normal price of $11.95but you don’t need it to drive in the series or own it to still see it out on track if you own only the Chevy and vice versa. If you want the Ford instead of the Chevy, you can wait and use the credit and put towards that. We will try and get the Ford car out as soon as possible in that regard and a very slight chance it may even release with the Chevy. You also will still have the COT car (Chevy Impala Class A )that you previously purchased, but that car will likely not be used in official racing, although that could change if we want to do a retro series or event now and again. At any rate it could still be used for leagues, special events and private racing. Might even rename the Class A Chevy Impala or add circa 2012 to the name at some point. 

Lastly, to help with price, for you folks that like to drive in leagues or in hosted, we are working on a development project that will allow you to race with other cars in multi-class without needing to own them in hosted. For hosted & league racing now, you need to own all the cars in race to be able to race with them. Across the board for all cars, that will change. We hope project is complete for this build. While we are at it, also moving number of allowed cars in multi-class up from 3 to 4 cars. Again neither of those projects are 100% for this buildbut relatively optimistic will be in build. 

The new G6 Cup cars look very cool on their own, but I think having the two cars, although will be identical physics, will add plenty to the look and immersion of the racing. 

Plans are subject to changebut that is the current plan.