iRTrackwalk.com

After almost 3 years after making iRTrackwalk a side-job for me and monetizing it via subscriptions I decided to close that chapter.
What started as a means to make some money and offset the costs of this project became a bureaucracy monster. The mental cost of maintaining the subscription and declaring that to every govern agency that needs it is too high to what little money I get out of iRTrackwalk.

So I decided to make iRTrackwalk free again to everyone. Every track and its configuration will be accessible to everyone. No paywall anymore.

I will cancel all subscriptions and delete the personal data (E-Mail and associated StripeID) that is stored in my Database immediately but I need to keep some data in accordance with German federal law.

I hope that this step and some other steps will free up my mind and I can find the mental space again to keep working on iRTrackwalk. I have some very interesting plans to make it even better. I just takes a bit more time to develop. 

I thank everyone that subscribed over this period and help offset the costs of running this project.

For this Season 3 Update I made a few changes on how the data is loaded.
To keep things simple: The website loads faster and fewer resources.
For the tech-savvy: I've switched to HTMX for track selection data loading. This replaces the previous method of loading the entire 200kB JSON file on initial website load.

Additionally, the website now remembers your last trackwalk and pre-selects it on your next visit. If you're new to the site or have cleared your cookies, a random track and configuration will be chosen.

I'm currently working on a bigger feature, but that's a story for another time.

As with every update, I will add the new tracks Sachsenring, Navarra and Oswego, as soon as they are ready.

This update contains only a few visible updates, because the majority of the work has been done in the background with a lot of rewritten code.
But one of the features that came out of it was the 'random trackwalk'-Button on the main page. That button will send you on a trackwalk on a random track.
There is also some clarification on what is considered a track that is premium content and what not.

There are now a few more free tracks, as iRacing promoted some existing tracks to be part of the iRacing Base Content. To align with this, the following tracks will be completely free to take a walk on at iRTrackwalk.com:
- Motorsport Arena Oschersleben with all configurations
- Snetterton Circuit with all configurations
- Winton Motor Raceway with all configurations
- Circuit de Lédenon (already free, as it only has one configuration)

The new tracks (Algarve International Circuit (or also known as Portimao), Millbridge Speedway and Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli) will be available as soon as I get my hands on them and can make screenshots of them. That will take a few days to process all and will become available as soon as possible.

Fuji International Speedway and Sebring International Raceway will also get a new version, since they now feature 3D Curbs.
Same goes for the new configurations for Lime Rock Park and Kokomo Speedway.
All 4 tracks are in the pipeline after the newly released tracks.


With the iRacing Tempest update for rain, I will look into how that can be implemented in iRTrackwalk.com if it is visually pleasing and offers a benefit by showing you where puddles and rivers form on a track.
However, to make it transparent, this will be a premium feature due to the additional work and additional storage space required.

On that note, if you like this project and want to help, please consider subscribing to one of the plans and gain access to additional track configurations.

After a long few month with a lot of work, I can finally announce that ALL the Tracks and Configurations are finally ready. All currently 366 Track Configurations.
This does not include the new tracks for 2024 S1 - yet(!).

To cover some of the costs I put some behind a subscription paywall. Sorry. BUT:

In total that makes 228 Track Configurations free and only 138 not, as of the end of 2023 S4.

When new tracks get available, I will publish them a couple of days after iRacing releases them.

If you run into any problems, please contact me via Discord or via email.

6 years after iRacing.com released the first Dirt Oval Tracks and Cars, iRTrackwalk.com now also features ALL Dirt Oval configurations to take a walk on for free.
Just be careful where you step, it might be slippery.

#DIRTCONFIRMED

I think that was the fastest turn around I did. Only 24 hours after the release of Circuito de Jerez - Àngel Nieto it is already finished and ready to walk on.
1380 screenshots, 69 locations (nice) and 13GB project folder size.


And a little reminder (although I never asked for it before 😅), you can support this project by donating a few bucks on PayPal: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/irtrackwalkcom 

This now marks Stage 1 completed, where every road license track has the major track configuration available and every track that is part of the free iRacing membership is completely available, for free.

There are now 104 road track configurations on iRTrackwalk.com, that is almost half of the road configurations available on iRacing.com.

I will continue to make new track walks available and to update ones, if and when iRacing updates or adds new tracks.

Next Stage will Dirt Road. Keep an eye on the Changelog here.

All Road Configurations from the Charlotte Motor Speedway are now available on iRTrackwalk.com.

That includes:

Next track that will get all configurations, will be Oran Park and then Oulton Park Circuit.

The way towards all the free tracks is underway. I just added all the other configurations for:

Only 3 other tracks are missing; Charlotte Motor Speedway, Oran Park Raceway and Oulton Park Circuit. These I will add in the next update.

In addition to the tracks, I also was working on some bug fixes, some new features and some more optimizations.
Features:

And a massive thanks to all the people that are using this site.
So far over 3500 track walks have been made and over 26GB of traffic generated in a month.

Rudskogen Motorsenter and Motorsport Arena Oschersleben are ready to be walked on.

There were also a few behind-the-scenes updates to have a better mobile experience and some SEO optimizations for the big Google.
And a minor backend rework to sort the tracks by name and have the legacy tracks at the bottom.

Bugfixes:
- Viewport has been declared in the HTML head section
- Track selection was out-of-bounce. No glitches allowed in this category.
- gyro2.js now loads correctly on mobile
- Nürburgring Combined 24h Layout - Hotspot link to another one at the Schumacher-S fixed.

If you see any errors or mistakes. Please contact me. Either in Discord or E-Mail.

After a lot of consideration, thinking, work, try&error, I settled on changing the iRTrackwalk.com Website from a simple HTML file, to a self developed CMS in Symfony.
Now every track and every track configuration can be easily added, edited and updated by me, without having to change the index.html of the website and uploading it to the Web Server again.

To add to that, not only the old tracks have been imported to the new system, but EVERY major road track configuration is included and can now be admired in all the details, that you most likely miss, while being in the car.
I will add Oval, Dirt Oval and Dirt Road tracks soon™.

With the new CMS I also took the opportunity to update the software in the backend and add some new features to the tours. And it will be much easier to implement bug fixes and new features, since I don't have to edit every single tour by hand. Now it is only one template that I have to update.

If you want to implement the track walks in your project or website, you can make that via a iframe or simply link to it.
It would be really nice, if you message me about that, just because I love to see what the community is working on.


Here is a list of features I added to the track walks and the Website:

What comes next?
As I mentioned above, I will add Oval, Dirt Oval and Dirt Road soon-ish. I already have the screenshots made for all of the tracks and configurations (as of 2022 Season 3) (thank you Luca for providing a PC for that) and I "only" need to finish them - which still is like one hour per track configuration.
I am also working on some nice-to-have features and I want to continue to have new tracks from iRacing ready within a couple of days after release.
If you have a feature idea, please don't hesitate and contact me. Either by email or slide into my Discord DMs.


I hope you enjoy the new release of iRTrackwalk.com and share all the details of the tracks with your friends.