I've been meaning to check out the Aussie V8 Supercars mod for GTR2 for a while now. After watching replays of the series every Tuesday on the Speed Channel, I finally got around to downloading the mod so I could check it out. It was done by the Mr Men Mod Team and it's a must have if you're a fan of the series. It's similar to the V8 mod they originally created for rFactor before the ORSM V8factor mod was released. Check below for download links to the mod and the tracks currently available. The tracks that aren't linked haven't been released yet but I'll update the post when they become available. A big thanks to Mr Men Mod Team for this great addition to GTR2.

Download the Aussie V8 Supercars Mod for GTR2:
MMMV8 Supercars v1.0

Download Aussie V8 Supercars Tracks for GTR2:
Adelaide
Barbagallo
Bathurst
Canberra
Eastern Creek
Hidden Valley
Oran Park
Phillip Island
Pukekohe
Queensland
Sandown
Symmons Plains

Just in time for the start of NASCAR season, The Pits have released their highly anticipated Stock Car Challenge mod for rFactor. Here's a local download mirror (94MB) for the main mod and the 2006 Nextel Cup HiRes Carset (54MB). More download mirrors can be found in this thread at The Pits forum. There are tracks, setups, templates and low res skins available so head over there and check it out. The Pits also recently released a video preview of the mod.

Patch 1.1 Update: There is now a 1.1 patch (33MB) available for the TPSCC rFactor mod. For a list of changes, visit this thread at The Pits forum.

ISI has released their latest update for rFactor. You can download v1250 from this local mirror (11MB) or from the list of links provided at rFactor.net. For a list of changes and fixes included in the v1250 patch, head over to rF Central. You'll need to have v1150 already installed in order to apply the latest patch. Probably one of the biggest changes you'll notice is the new spotter. Just in time for that highly anticipated stock car mod? Let's hope so =)

If you happened to turn on the Speed Channel at any time over the weekend, you likely caught some of the Barrett Jackson Scottsdale auction. I always end up watching quite a bit of these auctions as they can be pretty addicting for car buffs. Last year I posted the Top 10 sellers from the Palm Beach auction so I figured I would post a list for the latest Scottsdale auction as well. A few of the prices below are skewed a bit due to the fact that some of vehicles on the block were charity bids. For example, the CNN Hummer was auctioned off to benefit the Fisher House Foundation.

As always, there were plenty of motorsports celebrities in attendance including Carroll Shelby whoes 1966 Twin Supercharged 427 Cobra "Super Snake" took top bid of the show at $5.5 million dollars. The lists below show the top 10 highest and lowest sellers for this event. Since there were several cars tied for tenth place, the lists include more than ten entries. If you surf around the Barrett Jackson website a bit, you'll likely find some nice hi-res desktop wallpapers of some of the cars that were on the block. For cropping or resizing, check out Irfanview, a great freeware image utility. There's also a bunch of videos over on YouTube from the 2007 Scottsdale auction. If you'd like to check them out, here's a link to a Barrett Jackson YouTube search sorted by "date added". The Palm Beach auction starts on March 28, 2007.

With the 24 Hours of Daytona coming up this weekend, I spent some time checking out the Daytona Road Course tracks for rFactor and GTR2. These tracks have been available for a week or two so many of you probably have them already but if not, here you go. The track was converted from Nascar Racing 2003 by James Burroughs of RealRacin.net and he did a great job on them (also grab River Road Raceway from his site if you don't have it, it's another great track for rFactor). I like his latest version of the Daytona RC even better than the one he previously released that was later pulled due to some permission issues. Download links for both the rFactor and GTR2 versions can be found below. There's also a link to the fix for the rFactor version that includes the correct colors for the rumble strips. The screenshots are from rFactor using the ProtoRacer mod. For multi-class racing on this track, check out the All Car Challenge mod at rFactor Central.

Download the Daytona Road Course for rFactor (29MB):
Finish-Line.net (rumble strip fix)
RealRacin.net
rFactor Central

Download the Daytona Road Course for GTR2 (25MB):
Finish-Line.net
NoGrip Racing
RealRacin.net