Online Banger Racing
UK-Dirt isn't a game, it's a league. It started with the first commercially available short oval racing game Dirt Track Racing(DTR) from Ratbag Racing. It was based on the Super Modified cars as raced in the United States. By utilising the ability to create your own custom paint jobs or 'skins', many of the familiar sign jobs seen on the UK ovals were also seen on the UK-Dirt Modifieds. The original pioneering skin painters were Darren 'V8Stox/Dirt Bozz' Summers and James 'Jimbob' Wallis.
These and many of the other original members of that league are still racing in the current league.
A year or so later Ratbag released a new version of the game(DTRSC), that used American style Sprint cars. This was soon adopted by the league as these cars were much more like the UK Stock cars that are the favourite formula for many in the league. Again skins were copied from 'real life' cars of F1 and F2 drivers. Soon 'repainted' tracks were also appearing, which were made to resemble some of the UK ovals.
In the early part of 2001, things took a huge step forward. A small band of racers, led by Andy 'Moz' Garton, found that it was possible to amend the files in the game to create different car shapes. After many months and thousands of hours of work, the first BriSCA F1 style stock car game was made available. These techniques were also applied to the tracks, and soon modified tracks were also being released.
Although there was now a proper stock car game, the realism was limited. With this in mind, Moz found another game that could be modified that looked like it could improve on what we had. This game was NASCAR Heat. At the end of 2001 BriSCA Heat was born, with the basic F1 Stock Car for NASCAR Heat being released. Although the cars were significantly better, they were limited to running on the tracks that came with the game, namely large NASCAR ovals. It was possible to create new tracks, but this required a professional 3D-Modelling program that would cost thousands. Determined not to settle for this, hours of research and experimentation resulted in a world exclusive, custom made tracks, done without the 'required' software.
With the knowledge now available the development team went full steam ahead to expand on what Moz had started. We now have nearly fourty UK ovals, nearly 30 F1 stock cars, 15 F2 stock cars, 45 Bangers, 3 Saloon Stock Cars, and 7 Hotrods and there are bound to be more goodies on the way.
As well as UK-Dirt, there are plenty of free leagues that run most nights of the week, with Thursday Night Bangers (TNB) by far the most established and exciting league to race in. Although, with their brand new Jolt server meaning bigger heats, the Banger World Series (BWS) is once again proving to be a top league.
- Monday - Monday Night Bangers
- Wednesday - Wednesday Night Bangers
- Thursday - Thursday Night Bangers
- Friday - Friday Night Thunder
- Saturday - Saturday Night Smash
- Sunday - Banger World Series
These free leagues, TNB in particular, see a whole host of other cars that are not used in the main UK-Dirt league, with new cars being added almost every week!
As the title suggests, these free leagues are completely free to race (UK-Dirt requires a £20 fee towards the Jolt server) and as such can attract a large turnout of drivers making for some exciting competition.
It's easy to start racing online, so what are you waiting for? Simply pop on over to the UK Dirt website and follow the installation guides.
If you intend on racing the free leagues then it is advisable to check the free league websites or forums for updates, especially TNB.
