John Bodin's blog
Enough about you -- let's talk about me for a while . . .
12:38 PM on Mar 31, 2008

Name: John Bodin

Nickname: "jbodin" on most sim racing forums

Profession: Process Control Engineer

Age: 46

Residence: Indianapolis, IN

Interests/Hobbies: Sim racing, real racing (IRL/IndyCar/F1), computers, movies, reading, writing, game mods, my wife and daughters

Favorite Movies: The Usual Suspects, It's A Wonderful Life, Le Mans

Favorite Music/Band: Bruce Springsteen, Sheryl Crow

Favorite Drink: Coffee, Green Tea, or Diet Mountain Dew

Favorite Book: Illusions (Richard Bach), The Last Open Road & Montezuma's Ferrari (Burt Levy), The Dark Tower (Stephen King)

Real Vehicles: 1998 Saturn SL2, 2005 Saturn Vue

Real Racing Experience: Track Attack Driving School (Indianapolis), some non-competitive karting (2-stroke non-shifter race karts)

Sim-Racing Experience: ICR2, Viper Racing, SCGT, Grand Prix Legends, NASCAR Heat, Dirt Track Racing, Super 1 Karting, F1CS2K, F1 2002, F1CS, Rally Trophy, GT Legends, GTR2 -- the list goes on and on . . .

Online Sim Racing Experience: Raced three ( or was it four? ) seasons in the Virtual Online Racers (VOR) Team Series league (http://gplvor.speedgeezers.com/) driving various '67 and '65 cars using Grand Prix Legends, completing 39 races with 4 wins, 3 poles, 7 podiums, 5 front-row starts, etc -- full stats can be found on the FILSCA site ( http://www.filsca.com/drivers,career,letter,0,1046,B,John%20Bodin).

Sim-Racing Hardware:

AMD Athlon 64 3000+ @2145Mhz
1GB PC3200 RAM
256MB ATI Radeon X800XL
TSW2 wheel
Norwood Micro 17" LCD monitor

What I enjoy most about sim-racing: Being able to participate in historic eras (GPL/GTL), the physics, the overall level of realism, and the level of intensity.

Additional Comments:

I served as a beta tester for Ratbag's Dirt Track Racing game, and I participated in a couple of online leagues after it was released. I also ran and participated in an offline league for the Super 1 Karting sim. I've had several sim-related articles, reviews, and previews published on the High Gear, Gamesdomain, and Blackhole Motorsports sites. I've also been involved with several mods for NASCAR Heat, including the now-defunct IRL Heat mod (the Indy Racing League asked me to remove this one from circulation, unfortunately), and I was primarily responsible for the physics for the Spirit of Heat 1937 mod (featuring 1930s GP cars), the Porsche Challenge mod, the 1950s trucks mod, and the IROC mod. I worked closely with Malcolm Edeson (Maxx) on several of these Heat mods, which was a real treat -- Maxx was the lead test driver for the Porsche mod, for example, and I think I learned a lot from his feedback while we were testing, which I think ultimately helped get me below 100 in the GPLRank (I've since gone negative, currently at -0.881 . . . not eligible for "alien" status, but not an insignificant accomplishment!) in the GPLRank. I also put together an advanced physics patch for F1CS2K based on work that myself and several other people did to try to bring that physics model more up-to-speed, and I cooked up the original set of CART physics for the now-ancient F1CS2K CART mod. Recently created new menu screens for the release 1 of the Power & Glory mod for GTR2 (available in the NoGrip downloads section).

Between work and family (wife, 5-year-old daughter, 7-year-old daughter, 2 cats, one dog and a six-month-old puppy), my sim racing and gaming time is limited these days, which is why I drifted away from the VOR GPL Team Series league. Things are getting to be less crazy these days, though, so I'm looking to do some racing . . .

-- JB




Posted by Dave Henrie at 01:12 PM on Mar 31, 2008
Comment #2

John! I was just talking about you the other day with Punko about the old Champcar mod for Nascar Heat. How are ya?
dave henrie

Posted by John Bodin at 01:36 PM on Mar 31, 2008
Comment #3

Doing well -- good to "see" all the old faces again! I see Bob (Punko) is busy doing stuff for rFactor . . . gonna have to pick up a copy of that eventually!

;-)

Things going well with you?

Posted by Andrew Carson at 02:40 PM on Mar 31, 2008
Comment #4

Interesting Write-up John.

I'm from Indianapolis as well. Nice to see someone else from here.

Posted by John Bodin at 04:25 PM on Mar 31, 2008
Comment #5

Good to see other fellow Hoosiers around here, Andrew! The write-up is basically the bio I used when I applied to run in the Virtual Online Racers league way back when (with a few updates, of course!).

What part of town do you hail from? I'm on the northwest side, in Pike Township, but I work near downtown.

Posted by Andrew Carson at 06:14 PM on Mar 31, 2008
Comment #6

Same to you John,

I am actually moving out to the avon area. It's a small world I'd say.

Posted by John Bodin at 08:27 PM on Mar 31, 2008
Comment #7

Avon's nice -- I have friends who live out that way. I grew up around Mooresville / Plainfield, so I'm a natural-born west-sider!

;-)

Posted by Andrew Carson at 09:02 PM on Mar 31, 2008
Comment #8

I believe that its us hoosiers that lost the most when F1 left indy. Can no longer have that benefit of driving to the track in 20 minutes : (

Posted by Steve Blankenship at 09:27 PM on Mar 31, 2008
Comment #9

Hey, hey JB, good to "see" you again - been a while! Got me all nostalgic and looking for my Heat CD... ;-)

Posted by John Bodin at 12:01 AM on Apr 01, 2008
Comment #10

Hey, Steve -- LONG time! Hope you're doing well!

NASCAR Heat is still on my shelf -- still haven't re-installed since my last upgrade . . . too much other stuff taking up all my time these days. As they say, though, the good old days are NOW, eh?

;-)


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