As 2008 is in its closing stages, it’s time to take a short look back at what this year brought the sim racing community. It’s safe to say that 2008 was a good year for virtual racing as our favorite hobby provided to be alive and well.
Especially the modding community can take lots of respect for making 2008 a great year for sim racers. Many long-awaited mods like CTDP’s F1 2006 or the Historic Touring Car & GT mod? for rFactor saw the light of day and took the community by storm. Aside from rFactor, the modding scene proved to be healthy too as great mods like the World Super GT mod for GTR2 helped to bring much focus to Simbin simulations.
Speaking of Simbin, the Swedish developers granted a big wish of many sim racers this year by bringing us GTR Evolution and the first professionally-made N??rburgring Nordschleife for the PC since GP Legends. GTR Evolution has also attracted some modding attention as countless cars have already been painted and many mods are currently being converted to Simbin’s newest product.
But modding wasn’t just about adding cars and tracks these year as clever modders proved that every aspect of the simulations can be improved. The HDR plugin and 6e66o’s new cubemaps are two examples how clever tweaks can improve the experience for everyone.
Outside of the popular gMotor-based simulations, the launch of iRacing has added some fresh blood to the community. Although controversial discussed, the online-simulation has helped bringing high-profile media attention and known drivers to sim racing. Furthermore, Simbin launched the V-WTCC which gave sim racers a professional base to compete against each other in a tournament that was even featured on Eurosport TV.
Keeping all this exciting stuff in mind, the question is will 2009 be equally good in terms of sim racing? Even though nobody knows what will happen in the next 12 months, some very interesting things are lining up as countless new mods & tracks are due to be released. Furthermore, Simbin has another PC title for us and quite some people predict that rFactor 2 isn’t as far away as many of you might think.
Whatever happens, you??ll find it all on VirtualR. Even though it has been stressful at times, I very much enjoyed covering all events in the past 12 months for you. Thanks a bunch to everyone out there, especially those of you who supported VirtualR one way or another.
Have a pleasant 2009 – Keep On Sim Racing!
