A hotfix for 2022 iRacing Season 4 Patch 1 was released on Thursday (22nd September 2022) and in it, a recent issue that creeped into the equation for the eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Series in their most recent event at Bristol Motor Speedway was hopefully resolved.
During the race, eNASCAR Playoff driver Matt Bussa was involved in an incident around lap 100 of the 175 lap event. The ensuing incident, which also involved fellow playoff contender Casey Kirwan, wound up costing Bussa enough time on the track during the yellow flag slow down lap that it trapped him behind the pace car, but still ahead of the leader on the tail end of the lead lap.
Normally, the game will do one of two things in these situations. Either it will wave a driver around if they are between the leader and the pacecar, or if the game determines that they were involved in the caution to an extent, it will send them to the tail end of the line. At shorter tracks, however, a few iRacers reported in official and unofficial races that they found this procedure to be glitched at times.
Apparently, in this scenario, the game got confused on the matter and overlapped itself, causing Bussa and later Garrett Manes to become the control car for the restart by simultaneously waving them around and sending them to the end of the line. When their cars entered the new iRacing Start Zone, the race restarted incorrectly, and also provided black flags to those drivers for ignoring Start Zone procedures.
Bussa would serve his penalty and ultimately finish 28th, multiple laps down following another incident later in the race. Manes, on the other hand, was able to get his penalty cleared by race control, but the race restarted in the middle of Turn 3 as a result with the pace car still on track.
Essentially, these incidents would not affect the playoff picture too much besides originally trapping Bussa laps down before he wrecked out again later, but there is a bit of scuttlebutt that there may be something updated in the playoff format in time for next week’s race at Talladega and the Playoff Finale at Homestead-Miami. We’ll have to wait and see if this is the case.
Anyway, in the update, iRacing explained the mechanics of what they found, why this happened and that hopefully with the hotfix, this will be fixed going forward. I personally encountered the error in a league race at FTF.gg on Sunday night, at the same venue in the game, Bristol Motor Speedway. We were able to circumvent the issue by manually giving the driver a wave around before they reached the Start Zone.
iRacing did not specifically mention that this was an oval specific issue, mind you, but in my experience, this is something that seems to happen mostly at the short ovals. Other updates in the hotfix are centered around the New Damage Model, which was updated in the 2022 Season 4 build and tweaked in the first patch last week.
The hotfix further refines values for cars such as the 1987 NASCAR Stock Cars, the Dirt Sprint Car, and a trio of road cars in the Aston Martin DBR9 GT1, the Chevrolet Corvette C6.R and the Ford GT2/GT3. Check out the full release notes for the hotfix below.
2022 iRACING Season 4 Patch 1 Hotfix Release Notes:
iRACING UI:
General
- If iRacing detects you are using an unsupported version of Windows, or iRacing is currently set to utilize a Windows Compatibility Mode for an unsupported version of Windows, a warning message will be displayed as iRacing launches (if able).
SIMULATION:
Controllers
- Support has been added for separating triggers on more XInput devices.
Race Control
- Fixed an issue at tracks like Wheatland where the pace car pulls off immediately after the Start/Finish line after going “one to green”, so if the leaders haven’t crossed the Start/Finish line yet, the race could immediately go green instead of letting them do the final pace lap.
- Fixed an issue where cars involved in incidents that cause Cautions get marked incorrectly in the pace order. This could cause them to get a wave around at the “One to Green” right after they get shuffled to the back of the line, but then they are immediately slotted in behind the pace car ahead of the field, negating the wave around, and losing their position.
- For the Tire Compound Change Rule, fixed an issue where the pace car indicated it needed to change its tire compounds, or it would be disqualified.
- Split times are now using the correct precision to ensure the displayed values in the sim and the results match exactly.
- Fixed an issue that could cause user laps to be marked as invalid if they ended qualifying in an unscored state. This could also impact future events hosted on that race server.
Spotter
- Fixed an issue with the left/right calls in the Spanish language spotter pack.
- – – Thank you, Ari Cejas!
User Interface
- Fixed an issue with the F1 black box that caused the Driver Ahead/Behind lap times to not be reported.
- In the Session Information tab, fixed an issue where the measurement units were not updating properly when their format was changed.
CARS:
<Car Class> NASCAR Classic 1987 Cars
- The yield and break limits for most body panels have been reduced.
Aston Martin DBR9 GT1
- Increased yield limits of roof mounts.
Chevrolet Corvette C6.R
- Decreased yield limits for nose, hood, and rear mounts.
Dirt Late Model
- (Limited and Pro) – Fixed an issue where these cars had the incorrect DIRTcar sponsorship.
Dirt Sprint Cars (All)
- NDM material properties were updated for this vehicle.
Ford GT2/GT3
- Increased yield limits of roof mounts.
Modified – NASCAR Whelen Tour Modified
- iRacing setups have been updated with a road setup.
Super Late Model
- iRacing setups have been updated with a Bullring setup.
Supercars Ford Mustang GT
- iRacing setups have been updated.
Supercars Holden ZB Commodore
- iRacing setups have been updated.
[Legacy] NASCAR Cup Chevrolet SS – 2013
- iRacing setups have been updated.
[Legacy] NASCAR Cup Ford Fusion – 2016
- iRacing setups have been updated.
TRACKS:
Circuit of the Americas
- Track surface parameters have been adjusted slightly. This will result in a very minor grip reduction.
Fuji International Speedway
- Track surface parameters have been adjusted slightly. This will result in a very minor grip reduction.
Hockenheimring Baden-Württemberg
- (All PEC Configs) – Fixed an issue that would lead to an error message about BMX files.
