What Are Your Surprisingly Fun Car/Track Combos?

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Many circuits are built with certain cars in mind. Therefore, some cars don't fit on some circuits. Some cars aren't meant to fit on a circuit. But some of those combinations that on paper look dreadful actually do work. Let's take a dive into some surprisingly fun car/track combos!

DISCLAIMER: This article is heavily dependent on your comments. It serves not so much as an article letting you know of many different combinations, but rather should it inspire you to bring forth your own experiments in the comments down below!

As I mentioned in the lead, some cars aren't meant to fit on certain circuits. For example, you wouldn't put tiny cars on a vast high-speed circuit. Also, fitting huge trucks or similar vehicles around tiny little tracks like Vålerbanen might not be the most interesting to race.

Now that makes sense on paper, right? There's only one problem with that. Slight little adjustments to that very steady argument make for a rather enjoyable time. Here's what I've come across.

Trucks at Vålerbanen​

Now, I know what I just said. Trucks around Vålerbanen are not the most interesting thing to race in. Vålerbanen doesn't really fit more than 1.5 trucks next to each other. However, queue a certain single-player alternative called leaderboards.

Go to RaceRoom, for which I'm sure every single one of you owns every single DLC (Right? Please don't let me be the only one!) and select the RaceRoom Truck around Vålerbanen. Now, I haven't set a valid lap (yet), but am planning to do so. Hopefully. One day.

Big, huge vehicles aren't the best friends of track limits, if you catch my drift.

Anyways, I want to challenge the leaderboards there, which has a bountiful 4 lap times set. My goal is P1. And I invite you to make this goal as challenging to achieve as possible for me. See you on the racetrack!

Mini Cooper S's at ExCeL London Formula E​

How should I explain this? It just works.

rFactor 2 is sometimes rather weird with its DLC policy. Prices aside, when the Mini Cooper S was released a few months back, I was quite surprised. And when I read that they were a blast around the ExCeL Formula E track, I was perplexed. How would that even work?

I mean, the Mini Cooper S doesn't even have Attack Mode! Blasphemy!

But then I tried it and it felt ... nice. Too nice, maybe. It is just the thing that shouldn't work. Formula E-specific circuit and just about the slowest car in rFactor 2.

Granted, it is not very fun in a sort-of leaderboard challenge. But the pack racing is amazing. So many overtaking opportunities, so many diving opportunities. So many opportunities for stewards to get even more grey hair than every single one of them already has. I'm so glad singleplayer races aren't live-stewarded.

Anyways, as I mentioned in the beginning, I want to stop hogging the limelight for now and give you ample opportunity to share your opinion. So without further ado, here come the question of the week:

What Are Your Surprisingly Fun Car/Track Combos? Please, let us know in the comments down below!
About author
Julian Strasser
Motorsports and Maker-stuff enthusiast. Part time jack-of-all-trades. Owner of tracc.eu, a sim racing-related service provider and its racing community.

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My personal favourite car/track combo in sim racing, if I had to choose, is a surprising one:

Fiat Unos at Velopark in Automobilista 1

The feeling of sending it over the kerbs at the first chicane and getting up in the air :roflmao: or on two wheels is unlike anything else! And then the sweeping corners after that demand careful throttle control and left foot braking - especially in a race. And because the Uno is a glorious little FWD box, its poor little suspension is swaying all over the place and its little bicycle tyres are squealing away.

If you've never tried this - do it!

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Probably The 'Straw Bale' Cadwell Park for GTL-GTR2, 150-200 hp 60's tin tops, Alfa GTA, Anglia, Lotus Cortina, Mini Chasing the bigger Falcons, Jags and Mustangs, those are the races that I want to go on forever.
Some of the French club tracks like Folembray and Grand Sambuc are surprisingly good with similar cars too.
I didn't mention the likes of Brands and Goodwood because those tracks go without saying, though I love Chrystal Palace too but I always get my butt handed to me there but the track is excellent.
 
Sebring RF2 1990 Indy Carts and RF2 Sonoma .95 with the GT's or Nascar 2018.
 
Doing some multiclass racing in AMS2 on the Buskerud kart track: Racing in rental karts against Formula Trucks and GT3s. On a kart track, it's somehow incredible balanced and you have quite good racing :D And it's quite scary racing those trucks in a kart xD
 
AC Group C at LilSki's Road America with dd ffb set to replicate those no power steering wide slicked beasts. Flatout through the Kink two wide is nuts; watch your thumbs!
 
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For all of its faults, PCars2 driving the Lotus 49c Cosworth on the Nordschleife at 2 a.m. and no lights in VR is exhilarating.
 
Had a great time on AC last night Mini Judd V8 (Legion) racing on Hong. I'll be back.
Radical SR3 (Shaun Clarke's one) at Roller Coaster raceway is another great combo.
 
For all of its faults, PCars2 driving the Lotus 49c Cosworth on the Nordschleife at 2 a.m. and no lights in VR is exhilarating.
Project Cars 2 has some gems in combinations indeed
- Aston Martin DB1 on historic spa in VR is amazing
- Audi R18 etron Quattro on Nordschleife or Spa
- Any of the wrx/rallycross cars on Bannochbrae
- Formula A on Bannochbrae
- Renault Clios on Snetterton (or any FWD car)
 
Just have to add. There's more into it.
'Best combo' may also highly depend on other circumstances/parameters.

During 90ies and 00s I raced quite a lot of classic formula content. Could be e.g. at Donnington. Except for a few track mods in GP2 (back in the day), F1C99-02 and rF1 it has not been that special to me racing classic F1 @ Donnington.
And with modern day simgear, dedicated flexible seat, more solid H-sticks, and modern day eye candy (which was lowest priority here on beforehand), at first in front of 32'' 1440p@165Hz curved screen and then recently full sim gear in front of my LGC2 65'' OLED 4K@120Hz with this combo:

AMS2 Formula Classic Gen2-4 (multi-class) @ Donnington

But even high res. eye candy and fully finetuned simrig, the combo was still not 'it' for me, just flatscreen driving it.

But for the last hour I've raced the combo with
  • Keyboard controller
  • VR in very high res, just using Virutal Desktop and finetuning SteamVR settings for my GFX
  • Helmet cam
  • AMS2 graphics settings, trying to set every performance - and visual effects as high as possible. Besides, trying to max out shaking effects (though a challenge to get something out of it in VR - I would really like the road to rumble an earthquake here, but much easier in flat screen mode).

And then
  • Overcast practice session
  • Sunny qual
  • Race event: Pouring down in puddles

And just keyboard driving it all, using my old bindings from the GP2 days. This has been a really, really pleasant surprise!

Just luvin' it! :inlove::inlove::inlove:

So most recent decade has gone with formula racing as maybe personal priority 4 at highest, now I think I'll dig into my old habit of classic formulas again and go with this combo for this weekend, or maybe next week, month or. ...:D
But really have to try this out in my sim rig tomorrow. Could maybe be even better.

Without these external circumstances, the pure car-track combo would not have been the same for me. At all. Just sayin'....
 
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I don't really know if it's "surprising", but still a lot of fun :
911 RSR 3.0 at Oulton Park no chicane, the flow of this track is just too good, and with this car :thumbsup:
Ferrari 250 GTO at monaco 66 is pretty great in AC.
Indycar at Sebring and Brabham BT44B at Daytona (both with rF2), fun combinations too.
 
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Late to the party, but in Assetto Corsa, grab the Spa Petit-Champs mod and get into your Audi Sport quattro S1 E2.
Set the game mode to quick race, have your opponents be the same car and enjoy. I recommend using the reverse layout, though, because some corners are simply too tight for the AI with the normal layout.
It's a ton of fun!

Another thing: Have you ever tried mower racing? Download the Keehner Park Mower Circuit and the Honda Racing Lawn Mower made by GP and enjoy. Super difficult, but super fun :thumbsup:
 
I once did a DTM race around Fat Alfie’s Bremgarten. I selected it error instead of Brands. I decided to give it a go as I couldn’t spare the 1 minute it would have taken to rectify the mistake. I had a total blast. I then moved onto Battenbergring & Thomson Road, it was incredible.

I then felt really ashamed & dirty as I had just sullied some amazing, historical heritage with relatively modern machinery. I showered for hours, scrubbing furiously whilst The Crying Game song played mournfully in the background….

So if you’re ever tempted, just say no.
Part of the fun of sims is the "what if" scenarios. NASCARE at Nordschliefe? Sure. Modern F1 at Talladega? Why not. And we have available many of the classic tracks which no longer exist in RL, like Bremgarten, Riverside, Bridgehampton; how would modern cars do there?

What sullies historical heritage is demolishing the real Hockenheim and replacing it with a little club circuit, or butchering historic Monza and Silverstone with chicanes. We can still enjoy the real tracks, along with the likes of Zandvoort and Kyalami, in our sims.
 
Since you own all the raceroom dlc OP, I highly recommend any of the Porsche Cup cars around Falkenberg Motorbana, the flow is amazing
 
In AC: Corvette C5.R (by Legion) @ Codegua's Largo B layout.
This vs. various other roars, e.g. mid 00s GTs from RSS.

Important: Remember to manipulate car's drivetrain.ini in order to make H-shifter drive possible.
The car deserves it at those slopes!
 
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