HSO 1976 Formula Atlantic

I. Installation :

Extract the content of the archive file in your rFactor root folder.

II. Description :

By 1976 the Formula Atlantic was a well established and world wide spread formula. The biggest championships were in the United States, Canada and United Kingdom, but smaller series also existed in South Africa, Ireland or Australia.

The mod contains cars mainly from the 1976 IMSA and CASC Formula Atlantic series (respectively the US and Canadian series). However several cars are from the British and South African series. Many future F1 or Indycar stars drove in Formula Atlantic that year, such as Gilles Villeneuve, James Hunt, Bobby Rahal, Alan Jones, Patrick Tambay and many others.

This mod is some sort of a big upgrade from the original Formula Atlantic mod from David Sabre. It comes with brand new physics for each chassis, lots of new historicaly accurate skins and graphic updates from David Sabre himself.

The Formula Atlantic cars are lightweight single seaters, powered by 1600cc Ford BDA engines, developping between 190 and 210 horsepower. Indeed, many engine tuners had a go at tweaking this engine, with various results. With so little power and weight, a 10 HP difference can make a big difference, and the engine at the back of the car will be almost as important as the chassis itself.

To make things easier, we spread the engine tuners into 3 different power outputs :

210 HP : Hart, Morris, Race Shop, Swindon
200 HP : McCoy, Nicholson, Traylor, Cook, Cosworth
190 HP : BSR, CRW

There are 6 different chassis in the mod. The fastest car is the March 76B, followed by the Chevron B35 and the Lola T450. The Ralt RT1 and Boxer PRA76 are average cars, and the outdated March 75B is the slowest chassis of the mod. But all in all, cars performances remain pretty close, only a March 75B with a 190 HP engine will be really struggling to keep up with the rest of the pack.

All cars are equiped with the same Goodyear tires, coming with 2 compounds, soft and hard. Soft tires should be good for 40-50 of racing but will suffer from heavy wear at that stage, while hard tires will have no problem with a 60-70 minutes race.

III. Thanks, sources and acknowledgments :

Physics : Guillaume Siebert, Alberto Ibanez
Original 3D models and updates : David Sabre
Additional skins : Jason White, Carl Larrad, Guillaume Siebert
Betatesters: Gregoire Goissen, Ben Paulet, Yannick Lampuré, Tiago Malafaya, Martin Audran, Richard Coxon, Vadim Sadoshenko, Jukka Maattanen, Yves Plaçais


  
 

Great mod, congrats to everyone involved!

Btw, any chance to add Villeneuve's white livery used for the last two races of the season?

Very nice mod, this cars was funny to drive !!!
Great works !

Thanks !

Tu ne l'as pas encore proposé sur rfcentral? Je voulais y mettre un petit vote.

Quote :

any chance to add Villeneuve's white livery used for the last two races of the season?

Nice pic, lifting the front wheel. Amazing what a very stiff front sway bar a soft suspension and a driver with a pair of balls can do even with a lightweight and low car  

People stopped posting mods on rFC because they don't believe in SimRaceWay which used to use those mods to earn money.
If you want to submit the mod there it's your call, but I never posted my stuff there and never will.

http://www.nogripracing.com/index.php

or

http://www.virtualr.net/category/rfactor

is a possibility  

I submitted it on both.

I know of at least two:   Chris O'Brien, aka "Chriso," who is the ONLY sim-racer I know of who also raced in REAL life against four men who would all later go on to become F1 World Champions...and also against a fifth man most agree "should have been."

Chris raced in the lower formula (F2/F3, and probably FF too) in the UK back in the early seventies, turning wheels in anger against the likes of none other than Niki Lauda, Jody Sheckter, James Hunt and Alan Jones...

...and in 1974 he raced at least part of a season in Formula Atlantic over on this side of the pond, competing against Gilles Villeneuve.

http://www.oldracingcars.com/results/result.php?RaceID=K74A

[DNF'ed in this one--17th after 17 laps completed, driving a Rondel]

Needless to say, Chris was and still is pretty competent and quick himself, and his "gear-shifting" technique for sim-racing was probably the very first ever immortalized on video way back in the days of our first great simulation:  "Grand Prix Legends"--see it here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjURCM9lkcE

The original title of that ^ video was "Chriso Rows it at Rouen" and he's driving the original version of Rouen, as given to us by Papyrus way back in the day.   He's using a very early ACT LABS GPL shifter....

----

The second man would be our very own John Nelson here at CMS, who raced FA quite a bit later on.   I won't presume to relate any of John's story, as I am simply not privy to much of it.   He can chime in himself, if he cares to.

Just FYI....


CS

Fantastic work! Thanks to all who provide us with so much fun.

Quote :

Chris was and still is pretty competent and quick himself, and his "gear-shifting" technique for sim-racing was probably the very first ever immortalized on video way back in the days of our first great simulation: "Grand Prix Legends"--see it here:

That's a very nice demonstration of heel & toe, especially considering he is wearing shoes while doing so  I myself have always been doing heel & toe (And double clutch on some slow gearboxes) in real life cars and motorbikes for ages, as it is way smoother and faster when downshifting, but for some reason I have never ever managed to do it in simracing even with my adjustable clubsport pedals with load cell  I guess I am too used to left foot braking and the poor feel of simpedals compared with a real car prevents it in my case  .

Neither does it work for me. I prefer left-foot braking aswell(there was a time where I used my right foot to do both  )

If someone will add other cars , nice photos :

http://www.flickr.com/photos/46681980@N03/sets/72157623186773769/

and

http://blog.yahoo.com/_X4JGXX6CRYZO6WQD5UTYFO32HE/photos/page/2

one other nice link :
http://forums.autosport.com/topic/33162-formula-atlantic-merged/page-17

and nice vidéo
http://vimeo.com/13903876#

This is my absolute favorite rFactor mod.

If forced to choose a single mod to play forever.. this be THAT mod.

Thanks modding team!

If you like 70s open wheelers and turning only left ... we are going to release something big soon

Alberto Ibañez wrote:

If you like 70s open wheelers and turning only left ... we are going to release something big soon

Alberto.. looking forward to that. Left is one of my favorite ways to turn ever!

Hey! Do I smell Offenhauser????

What is it about the physics of the 1976 formula atlantic mod that makes them so ' tossable '
by comparison to other mods? Is it just the way the original cars handled?

What manner of sorcery is this??

Thank you Robert for the kind words

elles me manquent deja ces petites bombes de F Atlantic

Have you tried our 1972 F5000 mod Robert ? Physics are great too but, as you probably know, the cars had a bit more HP than the Atlantics !

Greg Goissen wrote:

elles me manquent deja ces petites bombes de F Atlantic

Oui c'est vrai que c'était sympa ces courses Atlantic. On pourrait se refaire un Open à l'occasion, genre Westwood ou Trois Rivières .

Thanks Frank!

No I haven't tried the 1972 F5000 Mod... I'd love to though.

Where can I get that mod?

Oh I just checked it out on Youtube. Niiiice.

Also saw a video of Howden Ganley driving the F5000... I always wondered..

Did he build the front or the rear of my old Tiga FF?

Oh! Also a shout out to Guillaume Siebert.

Nice work on that Atlantic Mod!

You can find all the details on our F5000 mod here

Hehe if the Tiga acronym is any indication, I guess Tim Schenken did the front part and Howden Ganley the rear part of the cars . But seriously if I remember correctly Schenken was more the organiser/manager of their joint venture while Ganley was more the engineering specialist . But I've been wrong before !

Do you still have the old F.Ford Tiga ?

Have fun with the F5000s !

Tiga FF... yeah sold it years ago. Dunno what became of it.

There were two of them.. a fellow named Alan McCall is racing one at Mission B.C. and kicking ass.

Okay installed the F5000 mod.. what a blast! Love the physics.. careful with those upshifts!

Took a quick 7 laps at Westwood... 1:04.024. Clearly there's a lot more there.

Thanks for the tip. F5000 is going to be a hoot. Wheelspin in 4th gear! Woohoo!

Honest, my heart was racing with this mod. Very cool.

Thanks Frank!