Author: Jeremy Bouteloup

VRS Updates – June 2021

Posted on by Jeremy Bouteloup

Summer is approaching, and it’s about time we look back at what happened so far this year and what is yet to come in the second half of the year at VRS!

A lot has happened on the hardware front in the last few months. We are happy to announce we’ve started shipping our first VRS DirectForce Pro Pedals and we are scaling production so that anyone who orders them can get them as soon as possible. We expect production to be fully ready by the end of summer. Also, we just released software to help you calibrate and configure your pedals with dead zones, force curves and profiles. For more information, head to our Discord, in the #pedals channel. Click on the following link if you want to join our Discord server: https://discord.gg/rg7EMn5

We now have our own distribution for the DirectForce Pro in Australia, which means that customers down under can now buy our hardware products without having to worry about paying extra for import taxes, customs fees, or high shipping costs. 

Finally, we are currently building the first fully functional prototypes of the VRS DirectForce Pro steering wheel. The VRS coaches at the Coanda Team House will get them in about a month and will start teasing the steering wheel on stream.

We are also working hard to develop a datapack setup sync tool to make things easier for all users when it comes to getting weekly car setups. We know the process of going to the website and to the relevant datapack every week can be repetitive. Our sync app will automatically download the setups for the car & track you just loaded in the sim and will place them in the correct iRacing setup folder. This tool is still in beta and if you want to help us test it,  just join our VRS Discord server and find a link in #sync-app. Click on the following link if you want to join our Discord server: https://discord.gg/rg7EMn5

On the datapacks front, there will be some additions in Season 3 following the recent iRacing announcements. We will provide coverage for some of the new series coming to the service, including the Formula Vee, coming as a free car in the Rookie series, and the very much awaited Porsche 911 GT3R, in both the VRS GT Sprint and IMSA series. Jake Burton, who also has experience in the real car, will cover the Formula Vee, while Mack Bakkum and Josh Rogers will respectively take care of the Porsche 911 GT3R. We also have a few changes of coverage that we have detailed at the bottom of this article.

We are looking forward to the next few months as we should be able to communicate on some important projects and news we’ve been working on. Stay tuned!

Summary of the datapack coverage changes:

NEW Datapacks

Road:

  • Porsche 911 GT3 R in VRS GT Sprint Series will be covered by Mack Bakkum
  • Porsche 911 GT3 R in IMSA Hagerty will be covered by Josh Rogers
  • BMW M8 GTE in European Sprint Series will be covered by Moreno Sirica
  • Fixed F3 – Dallara F3 will be covered by Julian Dunne
  • LM2 Prototype Challenge Fixed – Dallara P217 will be covered by Tommy Ostgaard
  • Formula Vee Fixed will be covered by David Williams

Dirt Road:

  • iRX VW Bettle Lite Rookie will be covered by Mitchell deJong

Dirt Oval:

  • WoO Fixed Sprint Car – Dirt 410 will be covered by Tim Ryan

Apex Racing Academy

    • Porsche 911 GT3 R will be covered by:
  • Alejandro Sanchez in VRS GT
  • Salva Talens in IMSA Hagerty

EXISTING Datapacks

Road:

  • IMSA – Ferrari 488 GTE will be covered by Carl Jansson (previously Mack Bakkum)
  • VRS Sprint – Audi R8 will be covered by Sindre Setsaas (previously Josh Rogers)
  • Simlab Production Challenge – Mazda MX5 Cup will be covered by David Williams (previously Madison Down)

Dirt Oval:

  • WoO Late Model Series Fixed – Dirt Late Model Super will be covered by JD Brown (previously Tim Ryan)

VRS Updates – March 2021

Posted on by Jeremy Bouteloup

We are already in March of 2021 and it’s time for us to look back at a busy start of the year, and also update you on what’s coming in the next few months.

As announced recently, we are pleased to partner with one of the world-leading simracing teams, Altus Esports. Established in 2018, Altus has quickly grown and become one of the forces of the simracing scene, on road racing but also on dirt oval racing, and is now expanding its horizon on oval as well. Altus is also the home of two well-known VRS coaches, dirt oval ace Tim Ryan and open-wheeler expert Julian Dunne. This partnership will help VRS strengthen its brand and open up new opportunities for all of its products and services.

On the hardware front, we scaled the VRS DirectForce Pro Wheel Base production and we have been able to meet the increasing demand since last fall. Our Australian distribution and demo room are coming soon, ensuring Australian customers can get the DFP at the best price and with the shortest delays possible.

We also know a lot of you are expecting the VRS DirectForce Pro Pedals, and we cannot wait to release them. We will announce the pricing and start accepting reservations before the end of this month (March 2021). Existing VRS DirectForce Pro Wheel Base owners will be getting priority for the initial batches. That means that Wheel Base owners will be invited to place an order before new VRS DirectForce Pro customers. We expect to fully scale production and to remove reservations by the end of summer 2021.

Finally, we’re also working on a steering wheel for the VRS DirectForce Pro Wheel Base, with the same goal as for our other products: provide top-notch quality equipment at the best price. Our design is functional, modern and with everything people need on a wheel. We’ll battle test the first prototypes with drivers at the Coanda team house. We’ll share more details in the next few months.

On the Data Packs front, Season 2 2021 shouldn’t be much different from Season 1. With that being said, we still have some updates for you as we will provide a Road To Pro Data Pack on the oval side, covered by none other than Keegan Leahy. We also have some minor coverage changes that we have listed below. 
We are also pleased to welcome Salva Talens as a Coach, working on datapacks for the Apex Racing Academy. Salva is part of MSI eSports and also one of the drivers in the Porsche Esports Supercup. He will bring his knowledge and experience to the team and with GTEs, having recently finished P2 in the last race of the very competitive BMW Sim GT Cup.

On the website, we’ve worked hard to improve the overall experience for users. As a consequence, we’ve revamped the Data Packs page to make it easier for you to find what you’re looking for. As we’re covering more and more series, and our Data Packs list is expanding with the additions of more Premium Data Packs, Add-ons, and content from 3rd party providers (Apex), we wanted to make sure that you could easily filter the content. That is now made possible by the addition of cards at the top of the Datapacks page. You are also still able to follow any Data Pack you’d like so that it appears at the top of the page, and you can filter even further by looking for a specific track or car.

We are looking forward to the next few months as we should be able to communicate on some important projects and news we’ve been working on. Stay tuned!

Summary of the datapack coverage changes:

NEW Coaches

Salva Talens for the Apex Racing Academy

NEW Datapacks

Road:

  • McLaren 570s GT4 (in IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge) will be covered by Josh Rogers

Oval:

  • Road to Pro – Part 1 will be covered by Keegan Leahy

EXISTING Datapacks

Road:

  • IMSA – Corvette C8R GTE will be covered by Johnny Guindi (previously Sindre Setsaas)
  • ESS – Ferrari 488 GTE will be covered by Sindre Setsaas (previously Johnny Guindi)
  • Touring Car Challenge will be covered by Carl Jansson (previously Jarrad Fillsell)

Apex Racing Academy

Road – Apex Academy GTE add-on ($4.99 / €4.99):

Porsche 911 RSR GTE (in both IMSA and ESS) will be covered by Salva Talens (previously Kevin Ellis Jr.)

VRS Updates – 2021 Season 1

Posted on by Jeremy Bouteloup

It’s time to close 2020 with our last update of the year, in what has been a very busy year. First, we’d like to thank everyone using the service this year, trusting us with your sim racing development and allowing us to help you become better simracers! We’re also thankful for all the feedback we’ve received, good or bad, because this is what helps us to continuously improve our products and service.

The last few months have been very important for our VRS DirectForce Pro product line. We scaled production for the VRS DirectForce Pro Wheel Base, we removed the reservations list and you can now purchase the Wheel Base directly on our web store. The price is US$799 / €899 (VAT incl.). The feedback we’ve received has been outstanding and we’re pleased to be able to provide high quality equipment at a highly competitive price. We’re also getting very close to the release of VRS DirectForce Pro Pedals. We recently shared a few photos and we expect to open sales in the first quarter of 2021! More details, including pricing will follow shortly.

We’re also pleased to announce a new coach is joining the group, J.D. Brown! J.D. is currently participating in the World of Outlaws Sprint Car World Championship series, gathering the elite of dirt oval. He’s highly experienced on anything dirt oval related and also drove in the World of Outlaws Dirt Late Model World Championship earlier this year, finishing inside the top 10. He’ll be working with Tim Ryan to expand our content offering for Dirt Oval. 

Starting with 2021 Season 1, we are introducing a new add-on bundle, dedicated to Dirt Oval! Tim Ryan and J.D. Brown are covering the majority of Dirt Oval cars and series. You can find the full list of the datapacks covered at the end of this post. The add-on will be available at the start of this season, at the price of $4.99 / €4.99). People who only race dirt oval can switch to the Dedicated subscription and get the new Dirt Oval add-on. That will also give them full access to the four dirt oval datapacks included in the Competitive subscription.

On the Rallycross side of things, the Competitive subscription will now cover the Subaru WRX STI in the iRacing Rallycross Series, which will replace our Ford Fiesta datapack in the iRX Rookie Series. 

On the Road side of things, we will cover the new cars coming to iRacing in the 2021 Season 1 build. The Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo, which will be part of the VRS GT Sprint Series and the IMSA Sports Car Championship, will be added to our current premium offering and available for all Competitive subscribers, as well as our dedicated subscribers who’d like to select one of these datapack. Jeremy Bouteloup (VRS GT) & Arthur Lehouck (IMSA) will be the respective coaches covering this car for this season. In addition to those, we will cover the newly released Dallara IR-01, part of the Dallara Formula iR Series. Martin Krönke will take care of this datapack, which will be added to the Grand Prix add-on (previously only including the MP4-30 datapack). The price of the add-on will remain the same at $3.99 / €3.99.

Over the past 6 months, we have been working hard to develop our partnership with Apex Racing UK. This has included partnering with their Leagues and Broadcasts via ARL & ARTV respectively. Further to this, Apex Racing Academy members have been enjoying our partnership with the ability to study exclusive data packs using VRS telemetry tools. We are pleased to announce that we will be expanding our partnership further for 2021 Season 1. Apex Racing Academy data pack addon bundles will be available to purchase directly within VRS. These addons will give our members greater choice in picking the setups that fit best with their own driving styles. See below for the full list of Apex addon datapack bundles.

We’ve also been working hard on providing additional content to help you improve and get ready for your races. We’ve recently released weekly Track Maps cheat sheets for the Global MX-5, with a bonus car / track each week. They are complementary to the video tutorials, helping you to learn and remember the important references for a track. We’re also looking to expand this to other series and we will provide bonus Track Maps for other series in the future. For more information, go to the following page: VRS Weekly Quick Reference Track Maps.

Another thing we’ve been working on is the Car Setup Guide, providing you with pointers on what to change on the setup when you want to improve the behavior of the car. We’ve released our first guide with the Nascar Cup Car, made by none other than Keegan Leahy. We’ll be looking to release more of them in the future, on both the oval and the road side of things. You can find the Nascar Cup Car Setup Guide here: VRS eNASCAR Setup Guide by Keegan Leahy

Finally, here is the full list of all upcoming coach and datapack changes:

NEW Coaches

J.D. Brown covering Dirt Oval datapacks (DIRTcar Pro Late Model, DIRTcar UMP Modified Series and WoO Late Model Series).

NEW Datapacks

Road:

  • IMSA – Lamborghini Hurracan Evo GT3 (TBC) covered by Arthur Lehouck
  • IMSA – BMW M4 GT3 covered by Paschalis Gkergkis when it gets released
  • VRS GT – Lamborghini Hurracan Evo GT3 (TBC) covered by Jeremy Bouteloup
  • VRS GT – BMW M4 GT3 covered by Paschalis Gkergkis when it gets released
  • Dallara Formula iR Series – Dallara IR-01 covered by Martin Krönke – will be added to the Formula Grand Prix add-on ($3,99 / 3,99€)

Rallycross:

  • iRX – Subaru Impreza covered by Mitchell DeJong (replacing the iRX – Rookie – Ford Fiesta datapack)

Oval:

  • Street Stock C series as part of the Short Track add-on ($4,99 / 4,99€), covered by Keegan Leahy

Dirt Oval add-on ($4,99 / 4,99€):

  • iRacing 358 Modified Series covered by J.D. Brown
  • Big Block Modified Series covered by J.D. Brown
  • DIRTcar Class C Street Stock Series covered by Tim Ryan
  • WoO Late Model Series – Fixed covered by Tim Ryan
  • iRacing Dirt Midget Cup covered by Tim Ryan
  • DIRTcar UMP Modified Series covered by J.D. Brown
  • WoO Sprint Car Series covered by Tim Ryan
  • WoO Late Model Series J.D. Brown
    • This add-on also unlocks the following Premium data packs:
      • DIRTcar 360 Sprint Car Series covered by Tim Ryan
      • DIRTcar Limited Late Model Series covered by Tim Ryan
      • DIRTcar Pro Late Model Series covered by J.D. Brown
      • Fanatec DIRTcar 305 Sprint Car Series covered by Tim Ryan

Apex Racing Academy GTE add-on ($4.99 / €4.99):

  • IMSA
    • BMW M8 GTE covered by Antoine Higelin
    • Corvette C8R covered by Zac Campbell
    • Ferrari F488 GTE covered by Alejandro Sanchez
    • Porsche 911 RSR covered by Kevin Ellis 
  • ILMS
    • Corvette C8R covered by Zac Campbell
    • Ferrari 488 GTE covered by Alejandro Sanchez
    • Ford GT GTE covered by Michele Costantini
    • Porsche 911 RSR covered by Kevin Ellis

Apex Racing Academy GT3, GT4 & TCR add-on ($4.99 / €4.99):

  • VRS GT Sprint Series
    • Audi R8 LMS GT3 covered by Jamie Fluke
    • BMW M4 GT3 will be covered by Jamie Fluke (when released)
    • Ferrari 488 GT3 covered by Jamie Fluke
    • Lamborghini Huracan GT3 covered by Jamie Fluke
    • McLaren MP4-12C GT3 covered by Jamie Fluke
    • Mercedes AMG GT3 covered by Antoine Higelin
  • IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge
    • BMW M4 GT3 covered by Reinaldo Llerena
    • Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 covered by Reinaldo Llerena
    • Audi RS3 TCR covered by George Simmons

Apex Racing Academy Open Wheel add-on ($4.99 / €4.99):

  • Dallara iR-01 covered by Zac Campbell
  • Dallara iR-18 covered by Brandon Traino
  • Dallara P217 (ILMS & IMSA) covered by Yohann Harth
  • Formula Renault 2.0 covered by Peter Berryman
  • Formula Renault 3.5 covered by Peter Berryman
  • Indy Pro 2000 covered by Peter Berryman
  • Skip Barber covered by Benny Simonsen

Apex Racing Academy Rally Cross ($3.99 / €3.99):

  • Ford Fiesta RS WRC, Subaru WRX STI & VW Beetle covered by Jon Robertson

EXISTING Datapacks

Road:

  • ILMS – Ferrari 488 GTE will be covered by Johnny Guindi (Jeremy Bouteloup previously)
  • ILMS – Corvette C8R GTE will be covered by Josh Rogers (Mack Bakkum previously)
  • VRS GT – Ferrari 488 GT3 will be covered by Paschalis Gkergkis (Ricardo Castro Ledo previously)
  • iRacing Porsche Cup will be covered by Mack Bakkum (Josh Rogers previously)
  • Simlab Production Challenge – Mazda MX5 – A tutorial will be added to the datapack, covered by Madison Down
  • Fanatec Global Challenge – Cadillac will be covered by Jake Burton (Ricardo Castro Ledo previously). A weekly tutorial will be added to this datapack.

Dirt Oval:

  • DIRTcar Pro Late Model will be covered by J.D. Brown (Tim Ryan previously)

DISCONTINUED Datapacks

Rallycross:

  • iRX Rookie – Ford Fiesta RS is being discontinued and replaced by the iRX – Subaru datapack.

Hardware

The DirectForce Pro is now fully in production and can be directly ordered from the website (https://virtualracingschool.appspot.com/#/Store)

The pedals are nearing the end of their development and should be released during the first quarter of 2021. More info to come on that

A button plate for rims is still actively in development. Aiming to release it in the middle of 2021