A recurring theme with iRacing is that some offseason updates tend to all-out break how certain cars drive. Today is no exception as iRacing’s newest update appears to have given the NASCAR Sprint Cup cars copious amounts of grip, upsetting some of the best sim racers in the world.

Dillon Raffurty, the fifteenth best oval racer on iRacing, with 138 wins in 563 starts and a perfect safety rating has found that the Sprint Cup cars appear to be half a second faster at Michigan International Speedway for no apparent reason.

Both Ray Alfalla and PJ Stergios, two of the best overall drivers on iRacing, echo this performance change, and seem upset that the cars have been totally dumbed down.

Jesse Atchison, another fantastic oval driver sitting just outside the top 50 stock car drivers on iRacing, makes fun of former fixed setup builder for iRacing David Cater as being the culprit behind the performance change.

Wyatt Foster, an iRacing alien , revealed that it’s entirely possible this unexplainable gain in performance may be due to simple human error.

However, average joe Mitchell Lancaster comes along to praise the change in handling. Mitchell’s iRating, the iRacing version of ELO, is barely above the starting value of 1500 despite over 1200 starts.

Starting from scratch with a free dummy account via the Blancpain 2015 promotion, I was able to achieve the same iRating as Mitchell in five starts, where as his path to the same ranking took 1200+. In short, this is probably the last guy who should be giving feedback on how the cars drive compared to previous updates, because with a rating barely above what the game starts off your account with, there’s no way this dude has the skills needed to push the cars and discover physics oddities – probably why he doesn’t find anything wrong with how the cars handle.

This is common for iRacing – guys like Mitchell (sorry) don’t find anything wrong with how the game behaves, yet avid sim racers actively speak out about the broken physics.

Some of these avid sim racers happen to do this for a living away from the computer screen.

Gonna trust Mr. 1800 iRating guy when he says the cars drive fine? Probably not.

Those looking to try out iRacing with zero hit to their wallet can rejoice; a promo code that allows anyone to sign up for a completely free three month subscription still works.

Using the promo code PR-BLANCPAIN2015 on the sign-up page will allow you to try out the game’s base subscription for three months, free of charge. Unfortunately, to fetch some personal info the registration process requires you to input some credit card information, but provided you aren’t sixteen, this shouldn’t be an issue, and you won’t actually be charged. Like all online transactions, read things through carefully and click the giant option that says TURN OFF AUTO RENEW so the site doesn’t automatically renew your account once the three month trial period ends

The quality of the default content varies wildly – the Cadillac CTS-V race car pictured above is an utter abomination to drive, whereas the Street Stock 70’s Camaro  is the best it’s been in years. The remaining few who have been curious about iRacing yet reluctant to take the plunge now have no real reason to keep putting it off – you can’t coach that beat free.

Popular YouTube personality weregonnalose has finally put on his big boy pants and signed up for iRacing, with predictable results.

While his videos may not be everyone’s proverbial cup of tea, the guy does a phenomenal job of pushing people’s buttons in online sports games:

While not announced externally through the traditional means yet, the price for iRacing’s Nurburgring GP track, as well as the twelve mile Nordschleife (we spelt it right this time), has been revealed internally to members via the iRacing forums and slowly made its way out to the general public:

I just don’t see this being a very good deal based on the current market. Forza Motorsport 5 included a phenomenal version of the Nordschleife for free as a surprise update (along with Long Beach, which has still not been completed by iRacing), Assetto Corsa priced the track at $11 and included ten cars the community requested, and Project CARS includes the track right out of the box.

Broken down to an even more absurd degree, the amount of content you purchased for $11 in Assetto Corsa would cost you $135 in iRacing. When people on message boards complain about the ridiculous cost of iRacing, this is exactly why.

I’m not excited for the Nurburgring to appear in iRacing.

First, the track isn’t practical for how the game’s safety rating works. The amount of off-track incidents, just from inexperienced drivers, could see them regress to a lower license level in a matter of one race. And given that a driver is disqualified from a race after seventeen incidents, small mistakes would add up much quicker than on a traditional road course like Road America which is significantly easier to memorize. With upwards of seventy corners to mess up and races lasting anywhere from thirty minutes to a full hour, a large portion of the grid won’t see the checkered flag. It’s going to be a race people avoid when it inevitably pops up on the schedule.

Second, the track isn’t practical for how the game’s series are designed. Aside from the Lotus 49 and Blancpain GT3 series, there are very few cars featured in iRacing that actually compete on the Nordschleife. Unless iRacing shoe-horns every popular road series into a Nurburgring Week as they’ve done on the oval side with Daytona and Talladega (hell they’ve sent IndyCar to Talladega), the track wouldn’t get used a whole lot, which wouldn’t justify the steep price tag.

Alternatively, they could create a VLN-like series with nothing but twelve weeks of the Nordschleife, but the game lacks several of the slower class cars that make VLN racing unique – it is not full of moderately quick gentleman cars like Assetto Corsa and the roster of 80’s DTM rides, plus the BMW 235i, which was so popular it has its own VLN class.

Lastly, the tire model isn’t anywhere near adequate enough to handle the world’s most dangerous race track. Below is an example of a random GT3 race in iRacing at one of the easiest tracks on the schedule. Take note of how many people self spin or just get lines totally wrong. It’s easy to pass these off as rookie drivers, until you realize the license system in iRacing is specifically designed to bring people up through the ranks and gradually build their skills before progressing to faster cars:

IDK it’s pricey and won’t be the acquisition iRacing is making it out to be.