Drag Racing in SL.

[jaq Seriman]

If you love racing and have wondered about racing in SecondLife let me inform you. There are as many forms of racing in SL as in RL. I have been drag racing for about ten years in SL. It's come a long way over the years and the cars are extremely detailed with smoke from the tires during burnouts, belts and pulleys running and even wheel stands on some classes.

There are several drag tracks at this point but I can only speak about the track where I'm race director. Phoenix International Speedway was created a couple of years ago by a couple of dedicated racers. I won't go into details about why but suffice it to say we saw a need for a drag track that was inclusive of anyone and drama free. Phoenix sits on a full sim with now stores or clubs to interfere with the racing experience. We only ask our racers or visitors to limit avatar scripts to 50 or less. 

Over the years we've leaned of ways to limit lag as the cars race down the track. It's amazing how hard your graphics card has to work to redraw all the pixels of moving objects even though they are standing still but you are moving past them. The cars themselves are varied as well running several different racing scripts. We allow all types of racing scripts but some are more popular than others. In the end it is what script you become used to and are comfortable tuning.

Yes, tuning. This is somewhat similar to real life tuning of cars. There are menus with the cars, some in a notecard and some from an onscreen menu. You control two main settings for Power and Acceleration. These two main settings are used to set up the car or Tune it for whatever class the track is running. By using power and acceleration you tune for the class ET or Elapsed Time. These settings allow very fine tuning of your car up to 1/1000th or three decimal places. I know this all sounds Greek to many of you but it's not really that hard once you work with it and there are many veteran racers that are more than willing to help you out if needed. I watched several races before I became brave enough to enter a race. Surprisingly I won that race and was hooked.

Drag racing in SL is fun, fast and exciting. We've have many races decided by one one millionth of a second. And yes, just like real life you can red light at the line. At Phoenix we pride our track at keeping almost all races to two hours or less which includes qualifying rounds and the main race. We know everyone has other things to do in SL and keep things moving along and not keeping you waiting.

If you'd like to experience drag racing in SL come over to Phoenix International Speedway and watch the fun with a great group of people from all over the world. We race three nights a week, Wed, Sat, and Sunday. Qualifications begin at 6:30 pm SLT when we lock the sim and start our fun. Or contact me inward for more information or a tour of our track.

Jaq Seriman

[animats]

Aspect ratio!

[bigmoe Whitfield]

Problem is too, depends on the persons machine too and their connection, if I've got a 10gbe connection and some one is trying to do it on a slow connection, I'm going to get green lit before they will as the tree will be slower for them (yes I've been around long enough to know about SL and latency between the hosts (aws) and people all over the world.  

So while I love hitting the 1320,  i'll stick to it outside SL.

[jaq Seriman]

Hello bigmoe.  We've been racing in SL for many years and have seen great changes to how drag racing has evolved. We at Phoenix understands frustrations with not only SL but each persons ISP. What we've tried to do is give all racers a chance to win no matter if they are on a $3,000 gaming computer with a 200Mbps connection, or like some of our Brazilian racers on a very poor connection. Many scripted tracks place emphasis on Reaction Time off the line which gives people with faster connections an advantage. At Phoenix we have allowed anyone to be competitive by tuning according to their connections capabilities. We've had many podium winners where their RT was much slower than others but tuned to compensate. We feel we have created one of the most competitive drag tracks for anyone to enjoy and win. We've had races in many of our classes decided by 1/100,000 of a second or less time after time. True, SL and RL can affect anyones experience in a timed sport but we feel we've done as much as we can to allow anyone to be competitive.  Come by sometime and watch a race or talk to some of our racers if they are at the track. You'll find many things have changed in the sport.