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It takes The Benz Patent Motorwagen More Than 1 Hour To Go Around The Nürburgring In Assetto Corsa

Mercedes-Benz is no stranger to wild lap times at the Nurburgring, but has it always been so? In a sense, yes.

YouTube sim racer and IRL race car driver Jimmy Broadbent recently decided to take the automaker’s first car and, indeed, the first gas-powered vehicle ever, the 1886 Benz Patent Motorwagen, around the fearsome track to see exactly how deep in its DNA hot laps go.

The test is possible thanks to the Assetto Corsa modding community. User SATLAB is responsible for the project, which took place over the course of nearly 10 months. The car has been faithfully recreated for the racing sim, though SATLAB says that the nature of the endeavor led to some “bugs, or extra features…”

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The car cannot be played by the AI because it’s so slow that the computer stops immediately after the start of the race. The original car only made two-thirds of a hp (0.69 PS/0.4 kW), but it actually has 1 hp (1.01 PS/0.7 kW) in the game because any less and it wouldn’t have moved at all.

The result is a top speed of just 13 km/h (8 mph), which probably felt like a lot from the tiller, but does not look good when you consider that the Nurburgring is nearly 21 km (13 miles) long. The Motorwagen does have a secret weapon up its sleeve: neutral.

On downhill sections, Broadbent says that the car can just be popped into neutral and gravity can be allowed to help the car reach speeds Karl Benz could have only dreamed of. Early in the run, he’s able to more than quintuple the Motorwagen’s supposed top speed and hit 70 km/h (43 mph).

At those speeds, the dynamics are less than ideal.

“It actually turns very sharply, given that it has three wheels,” says Broadbent. “But it’s got a sort of, like, a Robin Reliant-style situation where you just go whoa! And you just go over. And that’s it.”

What goes down must come up, though, and the good work that gravity does helping the car down hills slows it to a crawl going up them. On the steeper inclines, the Motorwagen is stopped completely and Broadbent has to zigzag up, lengthening his lap time considerably.

In the end, it takes the car more than 80 minutes to do what it takes the fastest current Mercedes-Benz (the AMG GT Black Series) just 6:43 to do. That’s more than 100 years of progress for you, I guess.

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Seven Years After Its Release, Mario Kart 8 Remains Nintendo’s Second-Best Selling Game

The staying power of Nintendo’s racing game franchise, Mario Kart, remains a marvel. I can still remember sitting on the ground, inches away from the TV, playing Mario Kart 64. Seven years later, Mario Kart remains a sales juggernaut.

Kotaku reports that even today, Nintendo’s sales charts are dominated by Mario Kart 8. While that, at first blush, might not sound surprising, it becomes more impressive when you learn that it was first released in 2014, seven years and a whole console ago.

In all, the game has sold 37 million copies, which has undoubtedly been helped by the second life Nintendo‘s latest console, the Switch, has given it. Despite that, though, Mario Kart 8 didn’t really receive a meaningful update for the new console beyond taking advantage of its generational improvements.

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And yet, the game continues to beat new Nintendo releases with dedicated followings of their own such as Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Mario Golf: Super Rush, and others. Although New Pokemon Snap beat Mario Kart in its first full quarter of sales with 2 million sales, the karting game wasn’t far behind despite its age, with 1.7 million sales in the same period.

It seems, then, that Mario Kart 8 is a testament to the undying appeal of a well-designed racing game. Despite not having the fancy graphics or as many manufacturer tie-ins as other games like Forza and Gran Turismo, it just does racing well.

As Kotaku argues, Mario Kart also serves a niche in the Nintendo universe, as a more accessible game for inexperienced gamers than, say, Super Smash Bros., but a quicker and slicker gaming experience than Mario Party.

At the risk of turning this into a QOTD, how many of you out there have a copy of Mario Kart 8, and how many still play regularly with people who aren’t otherwise racing fans?

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Fanatec Aims To Bring Direct-Drive To Sim-Racing Masses With $350 Wheel Base

In the world of sim racing, there are direct-drive sim rigs and then there’s the stuff normal people can afford. But Fanatec is trying to change that with a new, more affordable direct-drive steering wheel base for sim racing.

With a starting price of $/€350, the CSL DD isn’t exactly cheap, but it does bring substantially closer to mass market racing wheels than direct drive wheels have come before. The base does not come with a wheel, pedal, or table clamp, all of which will cost extra.

It’s still an impressive feat, though. The cheapest direct drive wheel base that Fanatec offered before the CSL DD was the Podium Wheel Base DD1. It starts at $1,199 while the DD2 starts at $1,499. Prices for direct drive sim racing rigs, though, can get pretty lofty.

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That’s because, unlike in cheaper belt or gear-driven setups, direct-drive wheels require a bigger electric motor. The advantage of that is they hook the motor right up to the wheel, giving you a more direct and precise steering feel.

Fanatec says it can achieve this thanks to a new bespoke electric motor designed specifically for sim racing that is small and affordable, even though it has a carbon-fiber motor shaft for low rotational mass.

The catch for the CSL DD, though, is torque. Whereas the Podium Wheel Base DD1 can provide up to 20 Nm of torque (15 lb-ft), the CSL tops out at 8 Nm (6 lb-ft) of torque but comes standard with just 5 Nm (3.6 lb-ft) of torque. That is on par with Fanatec’s Clubsport, belt-driven wheel base, and more than you get from, say, a Logitech G29 wheel.

Unfortunately, there’s no official launch date yet, but Fanatec promises it’s coming soon. If you’re interested in learning a little more about the world of direct-drive wheels, watch the video below.

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