https://www.racetrim.pro/The semi-serious place for serious sim racing.Mon, 16 Feb 2026 15:41:39 -0800clj-rsshttps://www.racetrim.pro/posts/2026-02-16-finances-2025/https://www.racetrim.pro/posts/2026-02-16-finances-2025/Hey y'all, it's been a while since I reported out anything from Racetrim. I'm still here, and still dreaming up things to do in 2026. It's tax season here in the USA, so I'm tallying up the final report on Racetrim's finances from the year 2025. This was my first year in business, I registered the racetrim.pro domain back in January 2025 and it's been a year beyond all my expectations. Most "startups" (if you can even call this that) don't ever make a single sale before they struggle to their death. I've been really fortunate to have at least a few regular customers who like the app.racetrim.pro site, and choose to run servers through us. However, it is definitely not enough to sustain a business. As I'll detail below, I operate at a fairly large loss even without counting my own labor costs to build the app.2025 CashflowWill VaughnMon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 -0800https://www.racetrim.pro/posts/2025-12-19-acc-wrap/https://www.racetrim.pro/posts/2025-12-19-acc-wrap/This flurry of features over the last couple of days are the final ones I consider essential for ACC on racetrim.pro. This is not to say that the app can't be improved, or that there isn't a long list of features I could build. If you have feedback or ideas, please keep messaging me. I can still implement features, and will do so if anything compelling comes up. However, I am declaring racetrim.pro "good enough" to support the elite 😏 group of people who use it to run their ACC servers.It has been a lot of fun to learn Clojure and build this app, but it pales in comparison to how fun it has been to see a community of racers form from its servers. All the racing, banter, and friendship that has grown here is super humbling and inspiring. Thank you to those of you that participate, and especially to the guys that help organize and make the place more fun than I ever could have!Will VaughnFri, 19 Dec 2025 00:00:00 -0800https://www.racetrim.pro/posts/2025-12-18-penalties/https://www.racetrim.pro/posts/2025-12-18-penalties/ACC's penalty values in results are strangely data-modeled. They are difficult to interpret and understand exactly what time penalty should be applied, whether the penalty was fully served, or if the driver should be marked as disqualified. For now, I'm going to write them out to session results pages more or less as they're reported, and will want to look at them and match them up with my personal knowledge of what actually occurred in the races to learn how to report them more accurately.Will VaughnThu, 18 Dec 2025 00:00:00 -0800https://www.racetrim.pro/posts/2025-12-18-driver-search/https://www.racetrim.pro/posts/2025-12-18-driver-search/You can now search for the public profile of any driver who has ever raced on a racetrim server, using our Driver search. This will allow you to search for any driver, view their track stats, and review some of their recent session results. Do with this what you will.Imagined use cases:Will VaughnThu, 18 Dec 2025 00:00:00 -0800https://www.racetrim.pro/posts/2025-12-18-democratizing-race-plots/https://www.racetrim.pro/posts/2025-12-18-democratizing-race-plots/Were you never actually in the top 10 lead lap cars, and so you never got to see how you did visually on Racetrim's race plot visualizations? This update is for you! No more discrimination, you can now adjust the plot to show data for all cars in the race (no matter how horrid that plot looks).Will VaughnThu, 18 Dec 2025 00:00:00 -0800https://www.racetrim.pro/posts/2025-12-08-in-the-paddock/https://www.racetrim.pro/posts/2025-12-08-in-the-paddock/The "In the Paddock at Racetrim" blog series communicates what I'm working on and where the platform is going.Racetrim Community UpdateWill VaughnMon, 08 Dec 2025 00:00:00 -0800https://www.racetrim.pro/posts/2025-11-01-in-the-paddock/https://www.racetrim.pro/posts/2025-11-01-in-the-paddock/The "In the Paddock at Racetrim" blog series communicates what I'm working on and where the platform is going.Racetrim Community UpdateWill VaughnFri, 31 Oct 2025 00:00:00 -0700https://www.racetrim.pro/posts/2025-10-27-website-content-updates/https://www.racetrim.pro/posts/2025-10-27-website-content-updates/The https://www.racetrim.pro portion of the domain is now much more focused on promoting the Racetrim Community discord and the driver-focused features of the app, and less focused on promoting league-centric features.That sales position toward leagues was tested, and while it provided a lot of great learning, ultimately it failed to resonate strongly with the league organizers I was able to talk to about it.Will VaughnMon, 27 Oct 2025 00:00:00 -0700https://www.racetrim.pro/posts/2025-10-22-bug-fix-practice-sessions/https://www.racetrim.pro/posts/2025-10-22-bug-fix-practice-sessions/Hey y'all, because Kunos designates Practice sessions as "P" when configuring a server, but then writes out the session type of the session as "FP" in the results files, we were experiencing a bug where the practice sessions you've run on racetrim were not getting processed and stored correctly.Good news! I've fixed that bug and the data from 447 practice sessions is being reprocessed. You'll see practice sessions start to show up on server session pages as well as in your list of past sessionsWill VaughnWed, 22 Oct 2025 00:00:00 -0700https://www.racetrim.pro/posts/2025-10-09-personal-stats-progression-at-tracks/https://www.racetrim.pro/posts/2025-10-09-personal-stats-progression-at-tracks/Today I invite you to explore more of your personal lap time data in the racetrim app. All the laps you're running on our servers are being stored, and now you can see a breakdown of your performance and progression on any track.A few highlights:Will VaughnThu, 09 Oct 2025 00:00:00 -0700https://www.racetrim.pro/posts/2025-09-26-racing-so-much-we-need-pagination/https://www.racetrim.pro/posts/2025-09-26-racing-so-much-we-need-pagination/Hey y'all! Where sessions are listed on your profiles and on server pages, now the page will load 100 sessions by default instead of all of the sessions, and then at the bottom of that 100 is a button to click to load another 100 or however many are left.We're racing so many sessions on these servers, that this feature started to become needed. That is incredible to me! Most of the time you'll only ever need the first page of sessions, and this way we never load more than needed, while maintaining optionality to load more.Will VaughnFri, 26 Sep 2025 00:00:00 -0700https://www.racetrim.pro/posts/2025-09-05-sim-racing-server-prices-are-too-high/https://www.racetrim.pro/posts/2025-09-05-sim-racing-server-prices-are-too-high/Ha! Reviewing my August AWS bill, I've been pricing my servers at a Linux rate and paying the Windows rate to AWS. Whoops! 💸I am already seeing very low demand for these ACC dedicated cloud VMs at the Linux rates. The Windows rates will make it even worse. I don't know if there are many ACC players who will pay for this service, at this price, even with all the extras and conveniences that come with this app. Kunos officially only supports windows for their dedicated server program, and that's what I'm delivering on racetrim with full Windows virtual servers. The AWS price I charge is comparable to other Windows VPS services. The companies that offer cheaper ACC servers are either losing money, running their acc servers on multi-tenant windows servers, or not using windows vms at all.Will VaughnFri, 05 Sep 2025 00:00:00 -0700https://www.racetrim.pro/posts/2025-09-04-reworked-bop/https://www.racetrim.pro/posts/2025-09-04-reworked-bop/Today, I reworked the BOP features in the racetrim app. The old method of syncing with LFM bop was over complicated and confusing. It allowed users to edit the bop, which is something only like 5 people on the planet really need to do. Now, all anyone ever needs to do to set up their server with a proper Balance of Performance (BOP) file is to select LFM from the dropdown in the settings. Your server when it starts/restarts will then have that BOP on it and the server's name in ACC will appear with a suffix | LFM BOP. This helps players know the BOP is applied, as well as who put the work in to build the BOP.Racetrim pulls an updated version of the LFM BOP every week after LFM publishes their updates, and if you restart your servers you'll get the updated one automatically.Will VaughnThu, 04 Sep 2025 00:00:00 -0700https://www.racetrim.pro/posts/2025-09-02-all-your-dedicated-servers-are-belong-to-us/https://www.racetrim.pro/posts/2025-09-02-all-your-dedicated-servers-are-belong-to-us/Alternatively Titled: ALL OF YOUR DEDICATED SERVERS ARE BELONG TO USRecently, Kunos Simulazioni shared their decision to not distribute a dedicated server program for the Assetto Corsa EVO community to run on their own hardware. They shared that they are providing free public multiplayer servers for everyone to race in, and leagues and private groups can rent and configure a "dedicated server" for about 1 EUR per driver slot per month. Sounds fine, right?Will VaughnTue, 02 Sep 2025 00:00:00 -0700https://www.racetrim.pro/posts/2025-08-19-racetrim-race-plot/https://www.racetrim.pro/posts/2025-08-19-racetrim-race-plot/Here's a sneak peak at what I'm working on today.Will VaughnTue, 19 Aug 2025 00:00:00 -0700https://www.racetrim.pro/posts/2025-08-13-in-the-paddock/https://www.racetrim.pro/posts/2025-08-13-in-the-paddock/The "In the Paddock at Racetrim" blog series communicates what I'm working on and where the platform is going.Platform GrowthWill VaughnWed, 13 Aug 2025 00:00:00 -0700https://www.racetrim.pro/posts/2025-08-02-halting-the-enshittification-of-online-sim-racing/https://www.racetrim.pro/posts/2025-08-02-halting-the-enshittification-of-online-sim-racing/When game designers make deliberate choices to keep multiplayer ecosystems open, they empower sim racers, communities, and developers. The open server systems of games like AC, ACC, AMS2, RaceRoom, and many others lower the cost of running servers by giving players choice of where to run. Openness creates flexibility for leagues to craft unique scenarios and run exactly what they want. A multiplayer system that is open to extension allows game developers to focus on building great sims while inviting participation from passionate tinkerers and hackers to build surprising value and innovations that make the games even better. And yet every new sim racing title is feeling the pressure to form walled gardens where every aspect of the online experience can be restricted. Why?Before answering that, I need to explain what "enshittification" is. I grew up in the 90s during the emergence of the internet, when it was still open and good. A few years ago when I heard the term enshittification coined by Cory Doctorow, it immediately resonated with me. This term describes the phenomenon we observe in major internet platforms (i.e. Facebook) that fueled their initial growth by creating immense value for their users, but then intentionally degraded or enshittified that value as their user base grew in order to shift value from end users to business users. Essentially, they sell you to publishers and advertisers. And in the end stages of enshittification even the business users get owned when the platform is intentionally made worse for everyone to increase profits for the platform's shareholders.Will VaughnSat, 02 Aug 2025 00:00:00 -0700https://www.racetrim.pro/posts/2025-05-29-in-the-paddock/https://www.racetrim.pro/posts/2025-05-29-in-the-paddock/The "In the Paddock at Racetrim" blog series communicates what I'm working on and where the platform is going.ACC on 5 ContinentsWill VaughnThu, 29 May 2025 00:00:00 -0700https://www.racetrim.pro/posts/2025-03-01-in-the-paddock/https://www.racetrim.pro/posts/2025-03-01-in-the-paddock/The "In the Paddock at Racetrim" blog series communicates what I'm working on and where the platform is going. Your feedback and input are highly encouraged and appreciated.February reviewWill VaughnWed, 26 Feb 2025 00:00:00 -0800https://www.racetrim.pro/posts/2025-02-15-racetrim-launch/https://www.racetrim.pro/posts/2025-02-15-racetrim-launch/After a lot of work it feels great to have the first version of this app out and running. It is a very minimal set of features to begin with, but I'm hoping to learn more from ACC players about what they need. My expectations for this launch release are that its not enough to appeal to most players. Words can't express how much I value those of you that are willing to experiment with Racetrim in this early phase. I appreciate your feedback and willingness to help me learn. This is just the beginning of the journey! I'll keep building.Launch featuresWill VaughnSat, 15 Feb 2025 00:00:00 -0800https://www.racetrim.pro/posts/2025-01-23-vision-and-roadmap/https://www.racetrim.pro/posts/2025-01-23-vision-and-roadmap/MissionRacetrim's mission is to build professionally crafted, privacy focused, and simple infrastructure that connects sim racers and empowers them to build opportunities for fun, competition, and community.Will VaughnThu, 23 Jan 2025 00:00:00 -0800