It seems hard to imagine that yet another year has flown by. The awards banquets have all been toasted to and the race teams begin to hibernate to the depths of the shops, soon to emerge again in the spring with the Cars of Tomorrow. This is the time of year that our team and our readers look back on the Sim Titles of this past year and award those products that promote our sport.

When I look back on the events of the year I begin to wonder what the next big event in our industry will be. There have been a few bright spots this year but I keep wondering what the future holds for our sport. There just seems to be more focus in the console market. Here’s what makes me ask these questions. I’m sort of a news junky in that I just like to know what’s going on around me. The news that I find the most bizarre lately are the stories of people camping out in front of the local Big-Box store to buy a console. I guess the thing that honestly disturbs me about that is there’s no line of people camping out to get the latest and greatest version in PC Sim-Racing. There is no such thing right now. I guess it’s not hard to see why gaming producers are not too worried about PC titles. Another puzzling item is the way the console product is displayed. I go into some of these stores, the games are behind bullet-proof glass and you need a sale associate with you to even touch the box. Yet.. the CD-games are just sitting on the shelf, right out in the open. There is simply a tremendous buzz around the console industry now.

We are in a narrow market, we are just going to have to accept that reality, and frankly we’re too proud to stand in a line when it’s cold out anyway. BUT…. ----it sure would be cool to see another GPL roll off the shelf for $29.99. As I said last year, I still believe the best chance for a true simulation in our sport is going to come from some privateer and not from a mainstream producer. Live for Speed continues to progress with updates and probably has one of the most vibrant communities in Sim-Racing. NetKar Pro is another privateer project that I am hopeful will become the next hot item in sim-racing. Flat-Out2 comes to the market in 2006 as well but you could hardly consider it a full-blown sim but there are always some interesting qualities in a BugBear game. GTR 2 and RACE WTTC roll off the assembly line at SimBin Development with separate publishers. GTI Racing and Evolution GT attempt to gain popularity with the “Tuner” crowd but neither quite hit the mark in the Sim department. Codies’ Race Driver 3 and Sprint Cars: Road to Knoxville get the usual response from a re-hashed title containing nothing much more than an update patch. Therefore, as you can see the nominees in the Sim-Racing categories this year are a bit on the skimpy side.

I wish there were better news on the forefront of our industry but there just isn’t much in the realm of true simulation software that bears reporting. There have been a few rumbles about IRacing but they are only in the Most Promising Category at this point. ChampCar was another title on the horizon in that same category but that project has been set aside at this point. There is one positive note to reflect on this year however and that is the amount of exposure simulation software has gotten in the racing news. More and more you hear different drivers mention using simulation software as a training tool to sharpen their knowledge of upcoming racing circuits. At this point I don’t see publishers camping out themselves, to be first in line to build more simulators for the PC. It sure is nice to have a little publicity.

Blackhole Motorsports would like to thank all of our patrons and our community for the support of our awards section. Please take time to vote in the annual Sim-Racing Awards. Remember to vote for each category and don’t forget to complete the write-in ballot as well. Voting will continue until December 31, 2006, and the winners will be announced during the first weeks of 2007.

Happy Holidays

David B. Harrison