During the first 200 laps or so of the NASCAR race in Bristol, I finally got NASCAR.COM’s RaceView working on my system. Hallelujah brother! LOL. This post will probably get further tweaking after next race. Before I begin I should state that my system is as follows:

• Running Windows XP Home w/ SP3 with all high priority updates applied. I use the Windows Classic theme which explains why the dialog boxes in the screenshots I have look the way they do. Old school, what can I say.
• Have Windows Media Player 11 installed.
• Have Internet Explorer 8 and Firefox 3.6.8 installed.
• Running latest version of Java (build 1.6.0_21-b07)
• Using an EVGA 6800GT with NVidia drivers version 178.13. I mention this because many of the newer 190+ drivers have caused RaceView to lock the system harder than a rock in the past when it was working before and re-installing the older video drivers cured it.
• Running DirectX v9.0c

Now that all of that is out of the way. Much of what I cover here is also mentioned on NASCAR.COM’s TrackPass knowledge base. All I am going to include is what I did that, apparently, got it working, possibly in combination with what the NASCAR.COM webmasters did on their end after I told @NASCAR on Twitter my problems getting nothing but errors.

I decided I would try to get it working with Internet Explorer first. If it doesn’t work with it, it’s not going to work with anything else. Due to the length of this post with all the screenshots, I’m using the read more option here:

First, went to Internet Options in the Control Panel and deleted browsing history. I’d recommend at least Temporary Internet Files and Cookies:

Then, went to the Control Panel -> Java -> General Tab -> Clicked “Settings” in Temporary Internet Files section -> Clicked “Delete Files” to clear the Java Cache.

You might want to click the “View” button in the first dialog just to make sure the Java Cache Viewer is empty. You can also delete the files from here as well:

Also on the General Tab, click “Network Settings” and choose “Direct Connection“:

For debugging purposes, go to the Java Control Panel -> Advanced Tab -> Click “+” by Java Console and select “Show console“. This way, as soon as anything Java starts, the console will appear and you can see any errors or other information. After you know everything is working you can set it back to “Hide console”. Be sure to click “Apply” for all the changes you make:

At this point, start Internet Explorer and go to NASCAR TrackPass. Log into the website by clicking “LOG IN” at the top-right. Now, launch RaceView by clicking the link down below and cross your fingers LOL.

You should get the window where it asks if you want to install the Octoshape plug-in or not to get the enhanced abilities. Even though it says optional, go ahead and say yes and let it install. It may just be coincidence, but until I installed it, I never got it working (more about this later).

This is the point where things get a little fuzzy on my part remembering exactly what occurred when. Right after the Octoshape plug-in got installed, it threw up a Windows Firewall dialog asking to give Octoshape an exception or to keep blocking. I gave Octoshape permission. I think I restarted Internet Explorer and RaceView at this point but I’m not positive. I noticed some positive information in the Java Console I had not seen before.

During this phase, I got a Window asking to disable DirectDraw for Java 2D apps for increased stability. I let it. I also got a window stating that it increased the amount of memory Java could use. After all this, RaceView completed loading and started working! For those curious, RaceView makes the following changes to the Java Runtime Parameters settings:

Because I didn’t care so much for this Octoshape thing running, I closed IE and uninstalled the Octoshape program. I then restarted RaceView and told it Not to install Octoshape this time and it loaded fine and worked, minus the DVR type functionality.

I did manage to get it working with Firefox as well; however, I want to save that for another post as I want to get some more screenshots that I can’t really get until the next race. I also want to confirm what Windows appeared when and get images of those. I was just in a hurry to watch the race! Hopefully this information helps someone.

Download DestroyTwitter 2.X NASCAR theme

Since these are just CSS files, they are very easy to modify how you see fit. Enjoy!

java.lang.NullPointerException
 at com.sun.opengl.util.JOGLAppletLauncher.start(JOGLAppletLauncher.java:385)
 at sun.plugin2.applet.Plugin2Manager$AppletExecutionRunnable.run(Unknown Source)
 at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)
Exception: java.lang.NullPointerException

Yes, I did try to reload several times. So I gave up and just started PitCommand to listen to Dale Jr’s audio. I did have to start it in IE first before the audio would work in Firefox and I just didn’t care to investigate this further. I was frustrated and missing the race. Before you ask, I do meet their minimum system requirements.

Now, I don’t mind troubleshooting problems; however, I do not want to do it during the actual race! It totally ruins the fan’s experience. How can you expect fans to search knowledge bases and forums, reinstall Java, plug-ins, audio and video drivers, and do whatever else might be potentially involved? It boggles my mind that there isn’t a race simulator that we can test these applications with during the week. If I was a NASCAR website/TrackPass developer I’d scream for this. I am quite sure the website team has no desire to fix the software during races either (I only hope they at least have some internal system to do this). Normally I wouldn’t give a flying fruitcake about it, but I am paying more for TrackPass than I am for my webhosting here that my blog, among several other sites, is on. The IndyCar RaceControl works (yes, they do loose timing and scoring sometimes but that’s an issue at their end when it happens) and it’s free.

This will probably be my last season to subscribe to RaceView. If the preview works during next year’s Daytona 500 then I might reconsider; otherwise, I’ll just stick with the scanner.

I welcome any comments about other’s experiences and how you got it to work, if you did.

Problem:

When I first tried it with Firefox (version 3.6 or 3.6.2), the video portion did not work and the live chat portion on the right side would not work properly either. It would let me attempt to login via Twitter and provided the typical Twitter Allow/Deny Connection authorization window; however, upon returning to the application it did nothing and acted like I had never logged in.

Solution:

After the race was over, I re-enabled Adblock Plus for NASCAR.COM . Hopefully this helps anyone else trying to get RaceBuddy working with Firefox should they have it again.

June 6th.. well, not only is today D-Day, it’s also my B-Day. I turn 40 today! ACK!

The following music video also mentions the date June 6th:

Convoy

Yeah.. that’s about all I have to say for now LOL. I’m tired.