ARCA (Automobile Racing Club of America), based out of Toledo Ohio is the second oldest stock car racing series in the United States and has been running for over 50 years.  Visit their website here: http://www.arcaracing.com

WHAT CARS ARE RACED IN ARCA?

• 4 cylinder class 
• Figure 8 Bus, cars, etc
• Late models
• Lincoln Welder Trucks - 6 cyclinder trucks
• ARCA Racing Series presented by RE/MAX and Menards races the identical cars that NASCAR raced before moving to the COT. The only difference is they run Hoosier tires and have a 1/2 inch taller rear spoiler.

Aboslutey yes! From what we have seen, race car drivers will race anything with wheels for fun and enjoyment and can be foind in many sims. In most sims there is an element of training protocols in place and every protocol helps a driver in a training scenario. In ASR, drivers simply have access to far more training based protocols, as ASR has the most in variable quantity (16 deg of freedom) and realistic vehicle physics/aerodynamics of any sim on the market and the result is a more effective training solution for them or their teams. ARCA SIM RACING is currently used by may amateur drivers as well as top drivers in the ARCA RE/MAX, Nascar Nationwide, Camping World Truck and Sprint Cup Series.

The Sim Factory Development team works hand in hand with drivers in teams both for their purpose as well as the continued development of ASR.  Gorilla Customs, a cockpit and simulation hardware development company, which is owned and operated by the same owners of the Sim Factory, have sold and setup cockpits in many race shops, driver and owners homes as well as other facilities accross the United States.

DEFINITIONS: (from Wikipedia) 

Degrees of freedom is a general term used in explaining dependence on parameters and implying the possibility of counting the number of those parameters. In mathematical terms, the degrees of freedom are the dimensions of a phase space.

Physics Engine is a computer program that simulates physics models, using variables such as mass, velocity, friction, and wind resistance. It can simulate and predict effects under different conditions that would approximate what happens in real life or in a fantasy world. Its main uses are in scientific simulation and in video games.

There are generally two classes of physics engines, real-time and high-precision. High-precision physics engines require more processing power to calculate very precise physics and are usually used by scientists, commercial simulation software and computer animated movies. In video games, consumer level simuation or other forms of interactive computing, the physics engine simplifies its calculations and lowers its accuracy so that they can be performed in time for the game to respond at an appropriate rate for gameplay. This is referred to as real-time physics. Computer games use physics engines to improve realism.

DEGREES OF FREEDOM PHYSICS ENGINE (Developers Description of term)

All racing simulation software is powered by a hardware or software based engine. In our case we use a software based engine as is common in all PC racing software. The software engine contains the needed code for real-time features such as video, sound, net-code, user interface, graphics, animations and ultimately a physics engine.  One of the most important features of the racing simulation physics engine is the amount of degrees of freedom it is able to calculate and also the amount of dynamic physics calculations it is processing. So the term Degrees of Freedom Physics Engine ultimately is describing a feature of the physics engine.

What does the amount of degrees of freedom mean for consumer PC racing simulation?
When simulating a race car on one PC the amount of degrees of freedom combined with the dynamic physics calculations available in the physics engine are key factors in determining the amount of realism that can be achieved.  

So many factors go into creating realism when simulating a race car and each has great value to the end result or experience. There are the visual and audio experiences, mainly the visuals of the track, graphics quality, sound and animations, all of which are limited by the amount of hardware and processing power used to create these elements. When simulating the physical experience, anything that moves or is dynamic is only possible based on the physics engine and again on the hardware powering it. The more realism we push out of the physics engine, the more physics calculations there are that need to be processed to create a real-time experience. For that matter, the power of the physics engine is the basis of everything we do and the backbone of the entire simulated experience if realism is the objective.

How many degrees of freedom does a real stock car have?
A real stock car has seventy two degrees of freedom. For every possible movement, two degrees of freedom are defined.

How many degrees of freedom does the Sim Factory software have?
Currently the consumer lSim Factory software powered by a modified Gmotor engine simulates 16 degrees of freedom and runs on one computer. 

The professional DH Pro simulation engine, combined with Simulink, has no limitation in the amount of degrees of freedom it is capable of calculating as it is powered by multiple computers that can handle the load of calculations. This means that it can calculate and accurately simulate, in real-time and with the Driver-In-The-Loop, 100% of the suspension, aero, engine and other used data. 

Around 95 percent of all data used in the software derives from many top teams real world vehicle, suspension and aero data of the car in question. The suspensions and engines were created in-house by a top cup teams group of engineers and the TSF physics department. Aerodynamic and drafting work was done in conjunction with aero facilities as well as various teams data from wind tunnel testing. The tires in ASR are based off of CALSPAN testing done and provided to us by Hoosier Tire Corp.

Telemetry exports from the sim are then compared to telemetry exports for that car at the same track and the final vehicle performance values are then tuned. In the end, we monitor everything from load ratios on the tires throughout the track and on each line to suspension travel, engine protocols, aero protocols in both clean and dirty air as well as many other values of the simulated physics to create a final product. Like in life the cars are always changing as new technology innovations in the industry are achieved so were always fine tuning to meet those changes.

Our software is the only simulation product on the market that uses custom tuned physics at every track and for every car we simulate. So when you are at a short track, intermediate track or a speedway, you are driving the proper chassis and body package as would be in life. This is an absolute must to create a training simulator as changes are often made to the suspensions front-end geometry as well as the body by teams as they move from track to track. As not every single part of the vehicle is currently interchangeable or adjustable in the software, we make these changes track to track so that drivers can have the closest to life representation of vehicle performance. Ultimately this creates a far more effective training simulator as well as more realism and enjoyment for the sim racer that wants their simulation experience to be highly realistic.

The actual raw scan can be accurate to within millimeters based on the equipment you are using. To implement into a consumer level sim which is powered by a single PC the raw scan is then used as highly accurate tracing paper. Some items such as buildings can simply be downsampled to a lower polygon count and used in the actual model. However a raw scan can be used in a multi-computer powered professional simulator such as DH Pro by the Sim Factory, but the package is very expensive and is for training and engineering purposes, not massive multiplayer online racing.

For consumer level titles laser scanning the surface is still by far the most realistic manner in which to create a simulated racing surface. Though you are not driving the actual scan, it provides you the most in depth and comprehensive tracing paper to start track development. GPS scanning is also a great way to achieve the transitions and so forth, but the laser scan references are far more accurate in regard to capturing the entire surroundings as it is within a finer measurement of accuracy and GPS is effective for the surface only.

One of the important things to remember is there is always a portion of the detail lost in translation when going from a scan of a track or a car to an in-game model as the initial is millions of poly's and to make it work in game it needs to be thousands of poly's, so some detail must be sacrificed simply to allow it to work on a standard gaming PC. During the downscaling it is the track designer's job to try and salvage as much of the scans detail as possible as to maintain the tracks character in regard to surface performance. Driver input plays a role in the final work on the surface, though the most effective means is real world telemetry data in regard to comparing load ratios, suspension travel and other performance protocols of the vehicle.

Will the Sim Factory ever laser scan tracks? Yes we will and we have some scans were working off of now though we will also continue to use GPS scanning and telemetry as well as any other first-hand references and data available to us to try to lose as little in the translation as possible.

So ultimately the laser scanning method is the most accurate way to design a track surface and has become the new bar for simulated track design. Laser scanning is ultimately using real world data and that method is equally as important as using real world data in the design of vehicle physics and performance protocols. Both together create a finer simulated environment that relates to the real world. Simply laser scanning a track and placing a car on it that does not match or compare to the protocols of that real life vehicle can be fun, but it lacks realism in vehicle performance protocols, which is by far the most important aspect to a driver when using a sim to train. The main point is that nothing can compare to real world data integration when making a simulator or simulating any real world protocol and that includes the use of laser scanned tracks.

Hardware-In-The-Loop is where computer hardware controls the vehicle to retrieve vehicle, track and or engineering data.

Driver-in-the-loop is a human driver drives the vehicle in a realistic simulated environment.

The ARCA Series presented by RE/MAX and Menards car is the identical car run in NASCAR before changing to the COT. Most cars come from cup team stables and the average horsepower is around 850HP or more. Some cars run by the top teams have in the high 800's.

This is mainly due to the fact that as you gain experience in vehicle and chassis adjustments in our software you are learning a more realistic skill-set in regards to such adjustments. Meaning that the adjustments made by you in our software to find competitive speed and a comfort zone and the reaction of the car based off those adjustments are more comparable to a real life stock car of this class. No consumer level racing sim can be perfect as one PC cannot handle that much calculation in physics so there will always be a percentage of the experience or protocols lost in translation due to technology limits.

In competitive titles the setup parameters that are there to find speed are excellent, but the adjustments that are needed to be made to find competitive speed and a comfort zone are alien to a real stock car. Therefore, when going to a competitive software title with only knowledge from our software or real life, you will need to learn what finds speed and your comfort zone based off how to adjust the car within their programmed vehicle dynamics. 

A race car drivers job is first and foremost driving the car, however not everyone , but most people can drive these cars with given seat time, training and a lot of money. But to be able to accelerate at the level needed to succeed in today’s real racing industry you need to be a cut above that skill-set and you cannot simply buy the championship or a win at a track. Getting to that point means you understand not only your job as a driver, but that you also have an in-depth understanding of the vehicle underneath your seat, what it is telling you as it performs its tasks, what the tires and brakes are telling you based off of input changes, performance protocols and so forth. Mainly it is the drivers job to relay that information to the team during practice testing and the race. This skill is one only a handful of today’s top drivers have and those drivers continually dominate the sport. You do not need to be an engineer...but you need to understand the value of engineering and as a driver, you are the one in command of the vehicle after such engineering changes are made, so to have a basic understanding and a respect for it is extremely important.

Our mission is to provide software that allows such protocols to exist for the sim racing enthusiast and as a training device for amateur and professional drivers.

The answer is no. There are many simulation and game titles that are built off of pre-existing software engines and like our software, changes are made to that engine that make it unique to each developer. The engine is merely a programmable drawing board and like any other developer we have the ability to make changes to the system that are then hardcoded to our engine. The product starts as a blank canvas and the end-result is a software engine that has many changes unique to the developer. A mod would be items such as a vehicle or a car or a track or an airplane that is created as an add-on product for an existing title.

As a mod or add-on product developer you are restricted to the predetermined executable and software engine parameters.  Bascially meaning that nothing can be changed in the hardcoded executable file or game engine. But nonetheless, an add-on developer is a developer also. Some of the finest content and utilities made in the flight and racing simulation markets as well as in many other genres of games are pay-ware add-ons or community built items.

Yes, features of the software engine are similar if not identical, such as how the graphics system works or what audio codec you choose to use and so on.  There are many unique titles that have a recognizable quality or features because of a shared engine or component of an engine. Some developers engines contain seperate components of another devlelopers engine such as graphic systems, netcode or physics engines. There is an element of sharing or using pre-existing code in any software development. Which is why all consumer level racing or flight simulation software uses very similar principles in coding of their graphics systems, texturing philosophy as well all the way down to folder structure of the software and base physics calculations.

What separates software titles the most in the simulation industry is how each developer chooses to program the physics engine, their ability at realistic modeling, texturing, creating a unique user interface and so forth. Ultimately if you are simulating an action, the biggest difference in the overall end-users experience would be as a result of how in-depth you go into the physics programming of the object being simulated and if your racing on a surface...how realistic the racing surface is modeled.  All items completely unique to each developer and not related to the software engine being used.