About Grid Motorsports

Grid Motorsports is several things: a community, a league, a custom simulation racing mod, and software utilities and web services that support all of that.

The mod is currently implemented for the rFactor simulation from ISI.  The mod consists of multiple classes of vehicles.  The flagship class is an open-wheel, ~500hp, modern era car patterned loosely after GP2, with suspensions designed specifically for the Real Feel Force Feedback Plugin (as well as a traditional suspension).  A signature feature of the vehicles is that they incorporate different (original) components across a broad spectrum of categories (chassis, engine, drivetrain, bodyshape, brakes, tires).

The mod exists primarily to facilitate a dynamic league environment, where drivers participating in the league can exert much of their own preferences upon the design of their vehicle.  Also, one of the most compelling features of the mod is the fact that the client software allows us to provide targeted customizations and updates at a high frequency -- typically at least once per week to coincide with our league's season events.

(Note: the mod has been restricted to seasonal updates until we can refactor it to avoid Windows-based file permission problems.)

The Grid Motorsports software fetches the latest mod configuration and rebuilds the mod accordingly, allowing us to overcome many of rFactor's inherent content limitations.  For example, we dynamically generate vehicle skins, and apply decals to the vehicles that display things like current league championship standings, and other results-related details (awards, etc..).  We also leverage the mod synchronization feature to apply subtle environmental effects as well as 'manufacturing variability' to the vehicle components.  For additional details about the software, and for links to mirrors where you can obtain the latest version, please visit the mod section of the website.

The primary league associated with the mod is called the Grid Motorsports World Cup (GMWC), and the members of that league currently constitute the majority of the Grid Motorsports community.  The league is an experiment, of sorts, whose objective is to allow both hardcore gearheads and casual racing fans to coexist in a competitive yet friendly environment, without the elitism and ostracism endemic to many sim-racing groups.  For a detailed description of the league, its policies, and its operations, please visit the league section of the website.

Philosophy

Grid Motorsports was formed and is operated under the auspices of a very principled philosophy towards motorsports competition and community development.  We encourage you to read the full discussion of that philosophy if you seek insight into the manner in which we govern ourselves.

Personnel

• AJ Weber: lead developer (physics, game design)
• David Hostetler: lead developer (gui, infrastructure, web, game design)

The following currently have supporting roles, technical and/or administrative:

• Dennis Loyer (3D modeling)
• Doug Baggett (ne'er-do-well)
• Cordell Cahill (recruiting)

The following have assisted in the past:

• Matt Steele (graphic design contributions)
• Matt Lewis (racing administration)