The SP3 Audi A4 (Olrud Mobil1 Racing) was a car built by my class at the school local to the team back in 2004. It was what ignited my love for the circuit and the racing there back then. I do have a lot of hours with this mod in rFactor over the years too. Wonderful summary of it all, Jake 😊
Your class built it? Where you a KFZ Lehrling at that time or how did that happen? They wouldn’t let a class of normal school kids build there cars I guess haha
@@rolux4853 The local school at Våler in Norway built that cars, yes. The bare shell came into the workshop at the school in early january, with the rollcage welded in place. From there we had to assemble everything, create brackets to fasten the engine and everything else that goes with the build. It was 3 hectic months of building to get the car ready for the 24h race in early May 2005, but so fun to see the car take shape with our own ideas and input along the way :)
@@rallyroymadness oh I thought it was build here in Germany at a Berufsschule, since it’s a German car, that’s why I mentioned KFZ Lehrling. That’s how car mechanic apprentices are called. Sorry for the misunderstanding! I think that’s an amazing project to let a school of car mechanics build your race car! They learn something for live, have the most fun ever while working and they contributed to something legendary! That’s a great move by the team and it is an amazing opportunity to light a fire for racing in young people! Then they want to excell in their job instead of just working at the corners car shop until retirement(nothing wrong with that of course!). When the fire is lit young people often do their best to either work directly for a car manufacturer, work in a race team or even become an engineer! You can forever be proud of that achievement. If you don’t mind the question, are you still a car mechanic or did you move on from that job?
@@rolux4853 It was an experience for sure 🙂 I did work as a mechanic for road cars for a few years before I decided to change my direction a bit, so now I don't do mechanical work unless I really have to 🙂
IRacing has an endurance event every year around the same time of the real race. There are also leagues doing it in Rfactor, Rfactor2 and Assetto Corsa.
I think a developer being able to do it with a full grid and AI that would be able to lap each other would be the ultimate test of a sim. I can’t think of any race or series that would be harder to simulate. I can’t wait for the day sims are able to do it.
@@jorhop4005 Well there is the Targa Florio. While you won’t have to deal with the day/night cycle or perhaps as large and varied of a grid, the circuit is so much longer- which makes the AI so much harder to get right. There’s a mid 60’s mod in GTR2 that’s super satisfying to run with 50 cars. Just to think how great a complete modern sim would feel centered around this race- and not the piece meal non period stuff that’s currently available.
@@rolux4853 Yes, but in iRacing with just what, 7 ? different Carmodels? In this mod there are already more than 7 different Porsches :D I think the problem, why no dev is doing something like that is, the problem with licenses especially from older cars and the fact that everybody in simracing just want to drive the biggest class. We got an rF2 VLN/NLS like league with 6 different classes and the only full classes are GT3 and cupporsche. The other thing is, that rF2 for example is a lot more complicated for modders than rf1 is think, so noboody want to spend 5 years for one mod, or nobody with the skills to do it, has the passion to do such an amazing project today. Just paying big respect to the NLC guys
Trivia: one of the Nürburgring 24 regulars was Australia's Mal Rose. Over the years he drove everything from a Mitsubishi Mirage to an Aston Martin Vantage, but his most curious entry was 2008, when he entered a Holden Commodore V8 Supercar. He was also supposed to co-drive for Mike Burgmann at Bathurst in 1986, but never got to drive after Burgmann was killed; he also scared me half to death when I booked a NASCAR ride at the Thunderdome in 2014!
28:41 this Porsche was the so called "Turbinchen" (minimization of Turbo) by the Alzen Brothers. Mostly driven by Uwe Alzen and concepted by his brother Jürgen Alzen. Uwe Alzen repeatedly lowered the lap record at the Nürburgring Nordschleife with his silver-black "steam hammer" and grabbed the pole position for the endurance classic three times in a row. Despite the fast lap times, he never managed to win the 24-hour race. "People believe that we have a brutally superior car, but that's nonsense," Uwe Alzen rightly warned at the time, because of the fuel consumption of the six-cylinder biturbo engine. "We have to drive faster than anyone else to compensate for the fuel consumption disadvantage. When the Alzen Porsche first appeared in the VLN in 2003, the boost pressure was still freely selectable. With around 740 PS and 900 Newton meters of torque, the Alzen brothers mixed up the front of the field."
Glad to have you onboard the N24 train - hands down one of my favourite races of the entire calendar year. Where else can you have full factory GT3 outfits in the same race as 4 friends in an Opel Manta, and the Stellantis board in a team building exercise. A truly magical event.
Stellantis board in a team building exercise Oh come on, is it powerpoints during pit stops and those ridiculous ice breaker games on the radio then? :P Somehow, both shocked, and not shocked, Stellantis board in a team building exercise is a thin in the N24, but then again was not ready or it being those guys. I figured it'd be RUF or someone like that just flexing on everyone
sure was a nice surprise seeing my name pop up in the description. thanks! (and btw, my name sounds a lot more like "stan" when spoken. but i don't blame you, the dutch language has a many weird spelling and pronunciation rules that often don't make a lot of sense, kind of like some motorsport rulebooks come to think of it)
1:40 - Fox tail Manta!!! That car might be worthy of a video all on its own if there's enough info out there. 12:49 - I see you've adapted well to your responsibility in the Grello 911, Estre would be proud 🤣 Also one of this year's overall winners, David Pittard, is an avid sim racer. He was even my teammate in the hosted Winter N24 in iRacing! I highly recommend giving that race and the official iRacing N24 a shot with some friends if that's something that interests you.
I liked that era of VLN because the field was full of smaller cars prepared by privateers that you would never see in another major championship or race. It made it more relatable in the same way regional or national rallying is in Europe. Nowadays the field is very GT3/GT4/TCR heavy.
I was part of NLC. A group of a lot of enthusiats, working hard for the release for over 3 years - every day. It was such a huge task. So glad that some people like this mod. Thanks for your nice review @GPLaps. Very well done :)
14:30 some of the cars came from GTR2 and GTR Evolution in fact, which just released in August of 2008. SimBin was content with using their models from GTR2 as they were older than one year, but those from GTR Evo not so much. That meant that back in the day you had to have GTR Evo disc to install this mod, as it needed that to verify you own GTR Evo. I know some of the people from the NLC modding team and can't believe it's already this old. I was following their thread every day for a few years and couldn't believe we could finally get our hands on in january (?) of 2009. And since this day I have an rFactor installation with this mod installed on my PC. NLC also started with the VLN 2009 mod which was supposed to be much more in depth (e.g. like the Endurance Series by EnduRacers), but sadly that never went through. One of my friends was a member of NLC and still has his VLN 2009 "alpha" installation, I need to beg him to give me at least one try...
N24 is by far my favorite race of the year. You have 140 or so cars, everything from amateurs to the best gt drivers in the world, and the oddball super rare cars. All on the most technical and beautiful track in the world. There's really nothing like it
One thing that's sucks about the DL on RaceDepartment is that they didn't include the pdf files which where extremely detailed and would tell you which rounds each car competed in, and what car count to use per round, iirc this mod also scripts the AI pit strategy per round to match the actual events too
The interesting thing about the VLN/NLS is the scoring system ... you don´t get extra points for overall victory, instead every class has the same scoring within the class and so the champion of the VLN/NLS is usually some team from a slower class that shows up consistently during the season. So, drinving the fastest car will not secure your championship automatically, like in most other endurance classes like WEC/WET and such ...
this isn't going to return. the wealth disparity is increasing every year. Most people live in poverty. It's just going to be super expensive teams and no one else.
The BMW you were following was an M3 GTR, also seen in GTR2, it isn't a DTM car, it was actually a GT car. And the Twin turbo Porsche with the roof scoop is the Alzen Porsche, insane car, ive seen it irl and it was a really beautiful & stupidly fast car back in the day.
Talk about a walk down memory lane. I'm from the Eifel, grew up with the Nürburgring basically in my back yard. That era of VLN really was something special, great spread of cars, from the gt2 Vipers and BMW GTRs up front through the massive amount of Porsche 911 cup cars, as you said, to the lightly modified street cars. The slower classes have really gotten smaller over the years, big shame in my opinion. They are what makes the race so special.
I was gonna come up in the comments with this same point, but I wasn't sure about bringing negativity and you're more qualified to make it anyway. In the past 12 months especially, I've been blown away by how awesome the N24 truly USED to be. It hasn't exactly become _boring_ or _sterile,_ but looking back at the grids of years past reveals that things aren't quite what they used to be. ESPECIALLY in the early 2000's. What I would give to see the titans of the post-GT1 sportscar world - the Viper GTS-R, E46 GTR, and 996 RSR - go to war amidst a field filled with everything from tiny little EP3 Civic Type Rs to that absolutely LOOPY Alzen Porsche Turbinchen. Funnily enough, I'd KNOWN that Audi and Opel brought their DTM cars here, but only very recently did I realize just how supremely _nutty_ a decision that was. Now 50% of the grid is made up of GT3, GT3 Cup, GT2, GT4, and other off-the-shelf cars. There aren't many modded rides like that flat-6 BRZ out there anymore, and the Dacia Logan appears to be one of the last holdouts of the little cars that used to swarm this place. Again, the VLN Series hasn't lost its luster entirely, but I'd also be lying if I said the grids are just as interesting as the old ones.
Awesome mod. I just needed to downgrade to an old laptop until i get my pc fixed in a few weeks and rf1 is just amazing. I didnt remember how good it was. Thw physics really surpass the dated graphics and really deliver's a great experience. Im loving to make the game base season with the weak jr formula car, its awesome since I love open wheel cars. I would appreciate if you could make a video about the best cars from base game and mods that would cover from rookie series to f1 and gt world of gts, maybe touring cars too.
Wow, that's an unexpected blast from the past. Clocked hundreds of hours in that mod. Funnily enough, for me it was almost the opposite from Jake, sure I heard about the N24, but I only got into it after really "discovering" it through this mod. Learning the track through this mod only added to the fascination. Some ppl were mentioning that this mod is available in AMS, any pointers where one would find it? :D
If anyone can help with some car textures missing? On rFactor 1, happens on this mod and drm revival as well, when going for a big grid maybe starting at 30 -40 can occasionally be missing car textures. Gpu is in lower 40% of usage most of the time, cpu less than 10% and RAM 10Gb free still so is not any of that. Using the DX9 option
golden memories. I had this mod and raced it extensively back in the day. I almost forgot how good rFactor looked back in the day. Today I can say that the Nordschleife is my home track, as I moved quite close to the mother of all tracks a few years ago. ;) Edit after watching the complete video. It was soo nice to re-live those great times of me doing this mod in rFactor again. I was following the real life-series for a couple of years back then and I still follow it today. All the correct liveries, the real driver names - some of them are Nürburgring-legends today. This really warmed my heart. Thank you for doing this Jake. It was magic. I am really tempted now to download and install all this again.
As a German it’s unimaginable to me not knowing about the extremely special VLN24 race and then mentioning the Daytona 24 which has much less spectators and especially viewers. The 24 hours of the Nürburgring is the most famous endurance race after Le Mans..
I've actually known of this mod for a while! I was doing research on the 2008 VLN Series for a fictional what-if build in Gran Turismo and, since there just isn't that much about old-school VLN out there on the internet, ended up bumping into this mod quite a few times. 22:00 Damage, sure, but from what I've heard, the Alzen Porsche Turbo was notorious for draining its fuel tank at record speed. Assuming you have accelerated fuel usage on, it might just have emptied its tank. Yeah. _That fast._ I guess 700bhp isn't for free LMAO Mein gott....what a time capsule.
Hey there, have you tried the Formula Nippon mod for Rfactor 1, it's really awesome, cars sounds amazing, and it has all the cars and drivers from seasons 2006, 2007 and 2008
I really do wish more sims allowed for these types of races. iRacing is limited by no AI control of the players car so you need to drive solo. rFactor 2 has major issues for me in running with more than 50 cars Raceroom is the closest but falls short in there being no day to night and max race time in the sim is 360 mins. Also again, no AI control available. I just wish these kind of races existed more or were more known. I love the idea of the fastest cars going against the underdog family cars. No sim has really delved into it. I guess you could say even this race is changing, with the Logan and Manta now gone. The local drivers are being pushed out now.
Half my childhood right here. Just incredible. rFactor even back then was the only sim that could even handle this many cars. I wish Assetto Corsa could. I'd love a modern representation of this.
Oh yes, 104 car grids, wrecks galore...brings back memories. But the AI for rF1 had definite issues passing slower/lower-class cars: if they weren't of course wrecking each other (turning damage fully on usually meant less than half the field was still around 2 hours later), the faster cars would simply camp behind the slower ones on the flat-out sections-you could even hear their engines revving and falling, over and over. I couldn't find the magical adjustment (such as following distance) to get them to get the passes done. You also had to adjust their fuel factor for each track .ini so they would pit when you did (something GPLaps noticed in this video). But one of the best mods ever made for rF1. Showed the S-2000 I often used--that or the hippie blue and green 911... A successor mod was announced in the late 00's (by another mod team), but became a victim of vaporware and was quietly dropped.
I have converted it to Automobilista to play this mod on VR with better FFB and throttle physics. I was amazed by car list in this mod. Today there's only GT3, GT4 etc but then... ehhh I'm just sad that I missed this times in Simracing.
The rivalry with Zakspeed vs the organizers in the 2000s is legendary. I forget if 2005 is the year they had made a quick change fuel tank, had it banned, then went and found a massive massive loophole to get around not one, but two or three rules that were deliberately TARGETING the absolute monster that was the Viper GTS-R. Every time the organizers tried to nerf that car. Zakspeed just went through the rules and found a loophole and drove the whole team through it, giving the N24 organizers the midle finger in the process. This went on from the 90s up until the 2007 race, so 2005 was at arguably the height of Zakspeed's getting uber creative with the rulebook. EDIT: Okay went to check. 2005 was the year they were hit with a 6.2L maximum engine size limit and had to use the original block. Zakspeed looked at the rule, saw how it was worded, and....just basically, turned off two cylinders. The car was thus, on the engine size limit and legal, and did end up winning.
Okay, so some knowledge: Manthey Racing was founded 2003 or 2004, they in fact won the 24hour several times. 2023 winner of the 24hour, Frikadelli Racing, was founded by Klaus Abbelen and Sabine Schmitz in 2005, you had that very car right behind you in the opening lap.
You pronounced that quite good, Veranstaltergemeinschaft Langstreckenpokal Nürburgring is quite a mouthful, even for us germans (in english it means something like: Partnership of Organizers Endurance Cup Nürburgring)... these days it has been rebranded as NLS or Nürburgring Langstrecken Serie (Nürburgring Endurance Series).
33:06 - AMG were an independent company for over 30 years race modifying Mercedes for prestige races like Nürburgring 24 & Spa 24, until Mercedes bought into them in 1999 when they made the CLR for Le Mans 24 as a joint project. AMG became the HWA (full initials of one of the founders) race team for that and then raced “Mercedes-AMG” cars in the new DTM for the decade. Mercedes bought out AMG entirely in 2005 and used that marque for F1 from 2011 and returned to the Nürburgring 24 with Black Falcon in the same year. So I think there were no AMG Mercedes modifications or models for any 24hr races in the 2000s.
Hello, I tried it yesterday with the mod. Everything went well, but I have a problem. All AI cars look normal. The car I drive is always completely black and you don't see the paint. It would be very nice if I could get some tips!
I’m really impressed / horrified by the way you take Grello into the Hohenrain Shikane, so brave / careless. I’m stamping the floor in approval / fear 😹
You should also have a look at AvD Oldtimer GP.. I promise it won't disappoint. And when the racing is done, you can do a lap or two on the ring. It is usually held in august
Great video! So glad you came back to rFactor 1, still one of my favorite sims to drive for certain mods. Have you raced the GTPC mod by Virtua LM? So many amazing 80s Group C cars, and they also created vintage Le Mans, Sebring, and Fuji to race them on. A fantastic conversion was done for Automobilista 1 with new physics too. I need to give VLN 2005 a shot!
03:08 Eh, maybe I'm on the wrong slopes here. But AFAIR rF1 was released in 2007. I know since I clearly remember one summer day in 2006 walking down the pedestrian streets of my old town with big sale signs in front of every shop and peddler, one of the biggest being from our world:; release of GTR2. And remember ordering rF1 a year after. So though this excellent mod reflects some of the 2005 grid, the rF1 mod work will have endured for a max time frame of 2 years. Unless it is conversion and further development from another sim? Well, nevertheless... 13 years ago this summer I had exactly the same feeling of embarrasment when visiting Die Grüne Hölle for the 2nd time of my life (the first time being in 1985 as a teen on the passenger seat). But his time in 2010 really going for it myself in rented sports cars with more grip than power. Took a couple of days in the area together with my now wife and I digged a bit more in the NS24h event. By the time I knew it was a massively popular spectator sport with a long and cozy tradition of camping around the entire track with bonfires, Bockwurst, Bier vom Fass and a cozy family party atmosphe. But what I DIDN'T know was the mixture of series, until then just thought it was round 200 professional single class GT teams. When I asked locals and dived a bit more into it, I suddenly realized what a precious piece of motorsport soul this yearly event contains. And since my ave of NS24h has been immense, quite frankly. Now I know you live overseas and I'm a bit more lucky, only having 900km/560miles in distance from my home to the Nordschleife, but if you ever come to Europe, don't let yourself miss the chance of 'just' standing at the fences at night with bonfires and smell of German beer and Bockwursts. I've been very keen of your content though the years (well don't know for how long, but when you had less than 10.000 subs when YT suggested me your channel). Especially the part of bringing tons of heavy SOUL back from the soulful times. This is my gasoline of life. Greets from Denmark
Speaking embarrasment. I should just read the caption. rFactor 2005. NOW speak of an AHA moment, at least on par with the one I experienced in Nürburg in July 2010. But, now where the heck were I bewteen timeslot 2005-2007? So. rF1. is.. OLDER. than. GTR2? How could an old simmer be so clueless? Or was rF1 release a regional thing`? 2 years seems as a huge timeslot. Always thought rF1 was the freshboy to GTR2. Sorry.
Try to go to the real 24h race just once. The tracks beauty can not really be displayed in the right way in sims. The steepness of most parts look even more extreme from a spectators point of view. And the atmosphere is completely crazy around the Nordschleife!
I grew up with GT4 and dedicated a full install of GTR2 to the Nordschleife that might be over 100GB with all the mods available. But seeing the track in real life still took my breath!
Hey Jake, reaching out here just hoping there's a chance you may see this: assuming you were still using the CSL DD base with rFactor 1, how did you get that combo to work? It may come down to my wheel having mappable buttons on it that's causing a bunch of constant input tomfoolery in setting up controls as I have the McLaren GT3 V2 rim. This is still a great video to look back on as inspiration to have this sim up and running!
Hey there, i do know rfactor 1 only supports a limited number of buttons/axis. I would use something like joy2key to map the rest, but i didnt have any issue
I bought rfactor specifically for this mod. I can not for the life of me figure out how to install this mode all downloads are in notepad and nothing is working
Does this have day to night transitions so you can do the full 24 hour race? I used to try to do the rolex 24 on pcars2 with the 30 or so cars, so 104 wpuld be wild
Thanks for this nice little throwback! I don't want to know how many hours I played this mod many years ago. Historic Eifel Endurance Championship when? 😊
Manthey Racing's first win at the 24h Nurburgring came in 1999, it was also at the same time their first podium in GT class for the 24h there, their next podium at the 24h nurburgring would come 4 years later in 2003 with a 3rd place. They would follow it up with another 3rd place in 2004 and would fail to reach the podium in 2005 with a 9th place. From 2006 untill 2009 they would win 4 years in a row. They would win it in 2011 and 2013 aswell. Fun fact: The reason for it being alot of Porsches in this series back in the day wasn't because they were particularly the fastest on 1 lap, but because in comparison to the other GT cars like Vipers, Corvettes, and whatever you can think of, the Porsche was the car to have because it consumed alot less fuel than most other GT cars, which would result in alot less pitstops over the course of a 24h race which obviously resulted in alot of time gained.
I remember that one! As a German who got into simracing in the late 2000s (slightly later than into real life motorsports), this was one of the greatest mods. rfactor and GTR2: the greatest days of simracing. Talking of "greatest days", the days of privateers at the Nürburgring is coming to a close: there are that many works-supported GT3 and GT4 cars, there are roughly 100 less starters than in 2008!
This video has really inspired me to give rFactor a try, was a bit late to the sim racing game and got started with Assetto Corsa. I'm having some trouble finding optimal feel/settings with my T500RS, was wondering if anyone knows of any good tutorials/setup help videos/forum posts that might help me get it feeling a bit better? Any help would be massively appreciated
Lol I downloaded that turbocharged Porsche as a mod for AC from racedepartment just today. There's actually two versions of it, one from 2003 (rwd with 800hp) and one from 2005 (awd with about 600hp). Definitely worth a try
To my eyes this looks great, just as I remember it. This digital version of the Ring was certainly my most travelled & I could anticipate every little bump as you made your way 'round. This was interesting to watch, mostly because of your remark here 26:30 I had never raced the AI in this mod, only other humans. We used this mod for an annual summer VLN enduro in the league I raced in back then, usually with 20-30 racers across 3 to 4 classes. So not the same levels of traffic but It worked well, I loved it. I still have most of my favorite rFactor mods saved & backed up across a couple of drives & you better believe this is amongst them.
oh yes, that mod was mint, remember being very happy that the foxtail Opel Monza was there! I also have the 2007 VLN mod,but it is not as comprehensive as this one
I can't think of many (any) other mods for that era of sim racing that went as deep in providing a complete offline experience. Thanks for reminding me about it, downloading now and ready to play imminently :)
Oh man, this mod is legendary!! Helped me understand what the VLN is and the concept of the n24 too. Awesome stuff, so many good memories with this mod and my old xbox 360 steering wheel 😂
I wanted to start downloading mods for this game and trying to enjoy it, but the FFB on my direct drive wheel was soo bad. I never could tell a car was spinning out until it was too late.
Great video as ever - crazy stuff with that many cars on the circuit. Would love to see you do this again in one of the slower cars starting elsewhere on the track.
