Blog

Thomas Jackermeier

Enjoy

Thomas Jackermeier

As all current projects come to an end and production is about to start (which includes handbrake) we are now ready to work on new projects.

We are working on some rims but there is another item I would like to get your input on.

What should the ultimate button box look like?

How many buttons?
What type?
Special functions?
Programmability
Connection of other peripherals
Compatibility
Size and dimensions
Materials
Price

It would be great to get your input on the points above and we can discuss it. We have some initial ideas but you can still influence the design with your input so please use this chance.

Thomas Jackermeier

We added the ClubSport Shifter(s) and the ClubSport Shifter table clamp to our webshop and you can enter your email adress if you want to be notified as soon as pre-order will start.

The pre-orders will start as soon as production is running and this will happen very soon. We still need to make some final tests but the raw materials are ordered for the first batch.

We offer the shifter in two flavours:

The regular ClubSport Shifter is H-pattern only and comes with one round knob. It sells for 149,95 €/USD

The ClubSport Shifter SQ also comes with sequential mode and an additional aluminum knob and costs just 199,95 €/USD.

You can easily mount it to a cockpit or wheel stand but if you mount it on a table you can get the optional ClubSport Shifter table clamp for 29,95 €/USD.

There will be adapters for the ClubSport table clamp and the RennSport Wheel stand at a later point.

The 7th gear is only compatible to the ClubSport wheel at thios point as it requires a firmware change but personally I think the 7th gear is rather a gimmick anyway. A Porsche 911 uses it for fuel saving and other cars with 7 speed gearbox don't have h-pattern shifting so it is unrealistic.

Perhaps somebody comes up with a standalone adapter for the shifters and then you could use all gears with any wheel. Hmmm...maybe not a bad idea...

Thomas Jackermeier

Porsche Supercup Champion 2010, 2011 and 2012, René Rast, was trying out the ClubSport Shifter and he honestly liked it. In fact he was here to make a video about the RennSport Cockpit and some other product. The "interview" he gave was somehow taken by coincidence as the camera was still running.

The video also shows the inside of the shifter and you probably get an idea about the complexity of this product. It is all metal of course.

Next week we plan to unveil pricing and put both versions in the shop. The last big issues we found were all sorted out and the shifter now lasts 7 digit shift cycles. We still need to run several tests with external beta testers but we are almost there!

Greetings from China!

Thomas

Thomas Jackermeier

This feature of the ClubSport shifter is probably the most anticipated one. We have implemented a proper sequential mode.

It is not a cheap compromise which was requested by the marketing department to fill up the feature list but an authentic sequential mode with strong haptic feedback and the correct movements. The technical effort to do this was huge and it is one of the reasons for the long development time.

It is also not very useful to have such a mode and force the user to use tools and disassemble half of the shifter so we made it easy and added a switch on both sides so you can quickly change between the modes.

I know that you still miss price and an availability date but come on. If a new car appears, the first thing you see are prototype pictures "leak" accidentially. Then the car is shown on official pictures or a car show and what is the very last thing they tell you?

The next teaser will be a video with some shifting action.

Thomas Jackermeier

Fanatec partners with Kunos Simulazioni for the launch of Assetto Corsa Technology Preview.

Celebrate with us and receive your personal activation code to play AC Tech Preview and netKar-Pro!

You are eligible to get the code if you order any of your favorite products on www.fanatec.com during the month of April and “Like” Fanatec and Assetto Corsa’s Facebook pages.

https://www.facebook.com/Fanatec

https://www.facebook.com/Assetto.Corsa?fref=ts

The code will then be automatically sent to your inbox at the beginning of May, 2013.

Aren’t you just dying to try our ClubSport Series together with Assetto Corsa?

Thomas Jackermeier

What would a ClubSport product without customizing options? Exactly, it would not be worth the ClubSport brand.

Therefore you can easily exchange the shifter knobs and use the style you like. A longer one for sequential fun or a round one which fits well into your hands. carbon, öeather, metal and whatever colour you want.

There will be a few options directly from us but the CSS is compatible to most automotive shifter knobs so the options are almost endless.

What is your favourite style? (Count the left shifter without knob as #1)

Thomas Jackermeier

So here is the third unique and innovative feature of our new ClubSport shifter.

Not only has it 7 gears plus a reverse gear, the gears are also arranged just like in the car which has a 7 Speed H-pAttern shifter: The new Porsche 911.

And just like Porsche, we were also concerned about about the shifting performance between 1st and 6th gear because the 7th gear is just for fuel saving and the reverse gear is normally not used on the track unless you end up like Kimi in front of a closed gate.

So the default position is between the 3rd and 4th gear and in order to change to reverse or 7th you need to push down the stick.

Thomas Jackermeier

The second feature we will show is the table clamp.

There are almost unlimitless ways to mount the shifter to this clamp from all sides and in any height.

The clamp is made of solid metal and is mounted with two screws. This makes sure it will fit to almost any table out there.

The clamp will also be compatible to your Porsche or CSR shifters. As the ClubSportShifter is too heavyfor the two steel rods it it not recommended to mount it directly to the wheel. We will have an adapter to mount it on the current ClubSport Table Clamp as well.

Thomas Jackermeier

Our RennSport Cockpit has undergone a major revision and we made several changes to improve this state of the art cockpit.

Cockpit is now sold separatly from the seat.
2 new seat options: Besides the bucket seat we have two more seats from Sparco
New mounting system for the wheel with more options to adjust and more sturdy
New monitor holder design
New shifter holder
The angle of the pedals can now be adjusted

We have also changed the supplier and improved the overall quality of the aluminum welding.

Thomas Jackermeier

Racedepartment has posted a great review about the ClubSort wheel.

Anthony Levene compares our products with the modded T500RS he used up to now.

His final sentence:

"More power than you could need but refined, classy, less plastic, more brushed metal. "

Thomas Jackermeier

The testing of our ClubSport shifter is going well so it is time to announce the features.

The first function we want to show is the mounting on cockpits.

All four sides have t-slots which allow the insert of t-slot nuts at any position.

You can mount the shifters on all sides but also on the bottom.

This makes mounting extremely flexible.

Thomas Jackermeier

We are now able to ship all products in Australia with immediate delivery.

Besides the products which were already listed on the website we are now offer some special bundles:

Forza Motorsport CSR Wheel Value Pack

Porsche 911 GT3 RS V2 Value Pack

They both come with the CSR pedals and sell for 299,95 AUD each (incl. Sales tax)

And in order to avoid the discussion before it even starts. Yes we are aware of the fact that the prices are higher than in the US. Reason for that is, that we have to include sales tax and we have much higher administration and logistic costs in Australia.

Thomas Jackermeier

Here we go with a new driver version for your Windows PC.

The main thing we adressed are some random rumble effects which kept playing after you already left the curbs. This happened in rfactror and Simbin simulations.

Please let me know if this has been fixed with this beta version.

Download

UPDATE

Fixed broken link

Thomas Jackermeier

The first reviews for the CSL seat are out.

Amar has made a fantastic review of the CSL seat as well as the ClubSport Wheel on GTplanet.

Another great review was done by Joe and posted on the VVV website. He was not satisfied with the manual so let me tell you that we are working on an improved version as well as a video manual.

Thanks to Amar and Joe for these great reviews!

There will be more reviews coming up soon.

UPDATE

Konsolenracer.de Video (German) Danke Michael!

Thomas Jackermeier

After several delays we are now happy to start taking orders for the Formula rim for CSR Elite wheel.

We will start production right after Chinese New Year and will bring in the products by airfreight.

The wheel is similar to the Formula rim for the ClubSport base but it is not compatible and has different features.

Different colur scheme
Different electonics
Mounted with 2 screws instead of a QR
No rev meter LEDs
2x 4-way joysticks
Artificial leather on the grips. Very comfortable and easy to clean

This will be the only optional rim we make for the CSR Elite and the production number is limited.

Thomas Jackermeier

We are working on a profiler extension for our PC driver.

All kind of settings should be adjustable and launched automatically when a game starts.

We already have a lot of ideas of what features we want to implement but it would be great if you let me know know of what you want.

So please tell me what are the settings you want to have adjusted.

How shhould the user interface look like? What special features or functions do you suggest for the profiler?

We will try to implement all constructive suggestions. Thanks a lot in advance.

Thomas Jackermeier

From today we are finally able to take pre-orders in Australia.

Our system is not fully ready yet so that shipment will probably take until middle of February for all products except CSP V2 and CSR P which will be shipped in April.

Please let me know if you have any issues with your orders so we can fix that.

I am happy that we are finally getting started. It took way too long and I appreciate the patience of all our loyal fans in down under. Thank you.

Thomas Jackermeier

The ClubSport Series is our state-of-the-art product line and our customers can expect to get outstanding service for it.

On top of the great service we already provide we will even offer an enhanced service for all simracers which depend on their product and want to be sure that they always have perfectly working equipment in order to participate in the competitions.

Therefore we will offer the ClubSport base and both wheel rims in version with included Premium Service Pack.

The premium service pack gives you high priority access to our support channels and we guarantee you that we will repair your product within 48 hours on working days. If it takes longer you will get a free replacement unit as loaner until you have your product back. You will get this service throughout the full warranty period.

The PSP is not available as a stand alone product so you have to decide during your purchase if you want to get it or not. You already have a CSW?

All existing customers of the CSW and the rims will get the PSP for free!

The second service we offer is the Maintenance pack. Basically you can send in the ClubSport base and we will make sure it works properly again. We will exchange all parts which can wear out and it makes sure that you have a working wheel long time after the warranty period is over.

Just like a real car, a mechanical unit needs some attention from time to time and we will make sure that you get all spare parts you need to keep the wheel running.

The ClubSport wheel is a long term investment and not a plastic toy which will be thrown away after a few years.

Both services are only available in Europe so far but we will extend it soon to other territories and products.

Thomas Jackermeier

After the CSR Elite wheel users are happy it is time to release the wheel for the Porsche 911 GT3 RS V2 wheel.

This firmware is only compatible to the V2 version of the GT3 wheel!

Please note that you must follow the the instructions carefully. Installation on Windows 8 will work.

Make sure that you calibrate the shifter and center position after the firmware update.

Please make sure you use driver version 144 or higher with this firmware.

Download firmware 756 for 911 GT3 RS V2

Download driver 144 64

Download driver 144 32

Thomas Jackermeier

We have fixed the fan issue on FW 756 and released 757 for the CSR Elite wheel. There is no other change than that.

There are comments that this version works with that game better and the other fw version with the other game.

Force feedback is to a high degree a matter of taste and also highly depends on what the game developers do with it. It is almsot impossible to make a version which is perfect for everybody and every game. We give you a choice so you can decide if you want to keep an older version or go with the latest one.

"Latest" does not automatically mean better for some people and if you are happy with your wheel then I would recommend not to change anything.

Please note that you must follow the the instructions carefully. Installation on Windows 8 will work.

Make sure that you bind your wheel and calibrate the shifter and center position after the firmware update.

Please make sure you use driver version 144 or higher with this firmware.

Download firmware 757 for CSR E

Download driver 144 64

Download driver 144 32

Thomas Jackermeier

First of all I wish you a Happy new year! We will start the year with a new firmware release but we will release many other new goodies as well this year.

It turned out that all issues with 756 on the other wheels were not firmware related so it is time to release this version for the next wheel: The Forza Motorsport CSR Elite Wheel.

This version is again a release candidate and if there will be no bugs reported we will release it as final firmware.

Please note that you must follow the the instructions carefully. Installation on Windows 8 will work.

Make sure that you bind your wheel and calibrate the shifter and center position after the firmware update.

We will release 756 for PWGT3RS within the next days.

Please make sure you use driver version 144 or higher with this firmware.

EDIT:

IMPORTANT

We found a serious bug in the fan control. Please do not use this firmware version. We will release a new version asap.

Download firmware 756 for CSR E

Download driver 144 64

Download driver 144 32

Thomas Jackermeier

Let me wish all of our community members a merry Christmas. I hope you have a great time with your families with a lot of good food, presents and most of all: happiness.

Have a great time and do what you love to do!

Here is a little greeting from us:

Thomas Jackermeier

After the succesful release of Firmware 756 for the PWGT2 and PWTS with no issues, we can now release this version for the Forza Motorsport CSR wheel.

This version is again a release candidate and if there will be no bugs reported we will release it as final firmware.

Please note that you must follow the the instructions carefully. Installation on Windows 8 will work.

Make sure that you bind your wheel and calibrate the shifter and center position after the firmware update.

We will release 756 for CSR E and PWGT3RS within the next days.

Please make sure you use driver version 144 or higher with this firmware.

Download firmware 756 for CSR

Download driver 144 64

Download driver 144 32

Thomas Jackermeier

We have just launched new bundles with our new CSL seat.

In Europe we bundle it with our CSR wheel and CSR pedals and in the USA we have it available with our 911 GT3 RS wheel and CSR pedals.

For just 399,95 USD (CSL Porsche edition) or 499,95 € (CSL Forza Motorsport edition) you receive:

High quality, full spec cockpit with seat and shifter adapter
Belt driven Force feedback wheel with all the Fanatec goodies like Tuning display and alcantara rim
Multi platform compatibility with PC and full PS3 compatibility (all racing games) and in case of the CSR wheel even Xbox 360
High quality pedals

And where can you get such a bundle from one manufacturer which makes sure that everything fits perfectly together?

We will make community reviews for the CSL seat very soon.

Thomas Jackermeier

We have a new firmware version for all Porsche 911 GT2 and Turbo S wheels (Xbox versions)

This version is a release candidate and if there will be no bugs reported we will release it as final firmware.

Please note that you must follow the the instructions carefully. Installation on Windows 8 might work but is not tested.

Make sure that you bind your wheel and calibrate the shifter and center position after the firmware update.

IMPORTANT: If you upgrade to this version then the RF dongle does not work any longer. If you want to use a wireless connection on PC and PlayStation 3 then you must use the original 681 version.

We will release 756 for CSR, CSR E and PWGT3RS within the next weeks.

Please make sure you use driver version 144 or higher with this firmware.

Download firmware 756 for PWGT2 and PWTS

Download driver 144 64

Download driver 144 32

Thomas Jackermeier

The CSL Seat is now avilable for pre-order and the first shipments will arrive before Christas in North America and Europe.

Please check out the Fanatec.com website for full features of this product and have a look at the intro video.

(You might notice another product there as well)

Thomas Jackermeier

We have a new firmware available for the ClubSport Base with the following changes:

LED rev lights supported in PS3 games
Alternative button combination to switch to PS3 mode (select + the button in the middle between select and start)
Improved initialisiation routine
More steady FF characteristics
Better linearity of FF signals
New updater
New fan control

Please use this firmware only with driver 144 which is included in this package as well.

Changes:

Fixed an issue with RBR
Combined pedal mode added (for compatibility with WRC 3)

Please use this driver only with CSW or with PWX and CSR wheels with firmware of 750 or higher.

More firmware updates for other models to follow soon.

Download

Thomas Jackermeier

Yesterday we finally launched the new website. It took a little bit but we wanted to be sure that all bugs are eliminated.

Check out the new configurator! We also added more payment options and of course we added the new territories Australia and Japan.

We are still not finished and the most important things which is missing is a proper community section.

Please let me know how you like it and what kind of suggestions you have for the new website.

Thomas Jackermeier

We finally were able to send the first products to Australia last week and they will arrive in December.

The only thing missing is the GST number for Endor Australia as it takes ages to get this number from the authorities. We now sent the goods on our risk and hope that we get the GST number in time before the containers arrive.

We plan to offer the full product range but it will take some weeks until everything is there.

Although many of you did not believe it anymore it is a fact that we highly appreciate this market and I personally LOVE Australia and the Australians although I have only been there one time. It used to be one of our biggest markets in the past and my target is to make it as strong as it was and more.

I will let you know once we are able to start shipping the products or start taking orders.

Thomas Jackermeier

So here we go with the Black Friday offer of Fanatec.

This year we decided to give you a free Formula rim if you purchase a ClubSport Base with a BMW rim.

The total price for the base with two wheel rims is just 699,95 (USD w/o Tax and € incl. VAT)

We have limited supply so this offer only lasts until we are sold out and have no more inventory. It is valid in the USA, Canada and Europe and will only be available for one day.

Thomas Jackermeier

It has been a bit quiet but this is because we were working on a lot of things and there will be an update on the announced new products and the Australian shipments within the next two weeks.

But we were also working secretly on new product: The CSL Seat

The CSL seat is a stunning construction with a very clever and unique design. It is not only super solid and perfectly suitable for our strong ClubSport wheel. It is at the same time extremely lightweight, fully adjustable in any relevant way and super comfortable.

It comes with a shifter holder and is fully compatible to the following wheels, pedals and shifter sets:

All Fanatec products
G25 / G27
T500 RS

The seat cover will be easily exchangeable and we will offer additional designs as well.

Does it look familiar to you? This seat was previously sold under a different name but we came to an agreement with the designer and manufacturer to sell this product exclusively under the Fanatec brand and manufactuered by our factories. Renato is a genious engineer and there are more products in the pipeline from him.

The production has already started and we will fly in the first units for immediate delivery.

The price will be 299,95 USD / € and it will be available for pre-order from next week.

Thomas Jackermeier

Our team driver Greger shows you how to drive a fast lap on Suzuka in a F1 car.

Greger is one of the fastest guys in the world so enjoy how he drives and perhaps you can learn from it so you can challenge him.

This is a rare video as not many people have seen Greger driving so far. Usually you just see his virtual car in front of you.

Thomas Jackermeier

We are happy to release a new driver version 142 for all Fanatec wheels.

We fixed several small bugs and improved wheel detection and and registry cleanup.

Please uninstall your previous driver and reboot the PC after installation of 142.

This time we do not release it as beta version and it is safe to install it.

Download Driver 142

Thomas Jackermeier

The CSR Elite wheel with Formula rim which was signed by current F1 world champion Sebastian Vettel is now on sale in an eBay auction.

Due to technical reasons the auction is limited to European customers.

100% of the auction result will be donated to the Wings for Life organisation which tries to cure and prevent paraplegia. Wings for Life was founded by MotoX world champion Heinz Kinigadner and Dietrich Mateschietz, the owner of Red Bull. Paraplegia can happen to anybody so we fully support this organisation and I hope you will do so as well.

In return you will get a unique and fantastic racing wheel. A true collectors item.

PS: No, I dont have any news about Autralia and the ClubSport Shifter

Thomas Jackermeier

Here is the video footage of the race session which was recorded just before the Monza Grand Prix.

Lewis Hamilton, Heikki Kovalainen and Bruno Senna came with their race engineers and had some innovative race which included a driver change.

The drivers used the PS3 version of F1 2012 with the Formula rim and our CSR Elite pedals mounted on a Playseat.

If you watch the video carefully you might notice something in our wheel.

Thomas Jackermeier

Doug Meyer of Sim Racing Review has made a very informative review about the new ClubSport Pedals V2.

Enjoy!

Thomas Jackermeier

We have a new bundle package available and this time we packed the following things together:

Porsche 911 GT2 racing wheel
ClubSport Pedals V2
Clubsport carbon shifter paddles
RF dongle for PS3 or PC
Porsche wheel shifter set

It is available now for 499,95 USD (excl. VAT) or 499,95 € (incl. VAT).

This means a discount of about 100 €/USD!

Thomas Jackermeier

Codemasters has just confirmed the compatibility of our wheels with their latest racing title.

Here you can see the full compatibility list.

Let me know what settings you prefer. Please list your wheel and platform.

Thomas Jackermeier

We are now planning to add more features into our PC driver (not firmware).

please tell us what features you like to see and describe them as good as you can. Perhaps add screenshots or drawings so we have a better understanding.

Thomas Jackermeier

We finally came up with a new firmware version for almost all wheels. It is still declared as BETA but we solved all known bugs.

We are releasing it now as open beta so you can report if we still missed some issues.

Important:

After updating the firmware you must

calibrate the h-pattern shifter
calibrate the center of the wheel

ACL is "Autoclutch". If you have it turned to "on" you send out two different button presses so you can shift and activate the clutch at the same time. This only works with Forza Motorsport and other games where you can assign a button to the clutch axis.

In case you have any issues you should first reset the Tuning settings to default by pressing the tuning button for 10 seconds.

UPDATE:

PWGT2 and PWTS: The RF dongle will not work with this firmware version due to the increased data transfer rate

PWGT3RS V2: There was a copy+paste error in the previous file which is now corrected. Please wait a few seconds until the wheel is detected.

Changelog:

Optimized digital pedal input in Xbox mode
Fixed issue with ABS not working at 100
Optimized ABS rumble on lower ABS values
Improved USB input dataflow
Optimized cooling (fan)
Optimized force feedback effects
Optimized performance with telemetry output on Tuning display

750B will harmonize perfectly with the new driver 1.40 on PC.

Please do not update if you are not confident to do so and if you are happy with your wheel as it is.

Firmware 750B for

CSR
CSR Elite
911 GT3 RS V2
911 GT2
911 Turbo S

Download Firmware

Driver 1.40 for

all Fanatec products:

Download Driver

We fixed several issues on the user interface and registry cleanup.

Thomas Jackermeier

The next video manual is about the ClubSport Pedals V2.

Especially the procedure to fill up the oild is important. You must not use too much or not enough oil to make it work properly.

Thomas Jackermeier

The first new wheels and pedals arrived yesterday and today in the hands of our customers.

If you are one of the lucky ones, please post a picture here or on facebook to show your new set-up.

Some people who ordered with a September delivery will be surprised to get the wheels ealier as we have more inventory rolling in in July and August. But we decided to give no earlier availability date as everybody is happy if it comes earlier and we don't want to mention another deadline which cannot be met. Hey, we are learning.

In the support section of Fanatec.com you can now download the latest firmware for your CSW.

The new updater is simplified and works on the most popular Windows systems.

The electronics of the CSW is entirely different from the CSR and Porsche wheels and therefore the firmware numbers are different.

Thomas Jackermeier

Nobody likes to read manuals. But it contains some useful info so we thought to make it a bit more fun to have a look on the functions of your new wheel.

We will make a dedicated and more detailed video about the tuning settings and how they affect gameplay at a later stage.

And of course we plan to make more video manuals for all our products.

Forza MotorSport CSR Elite video manual:

ClubSport Wheel Base

BMW M3 GT3 rim

Formula rim

Thomas Jackermeier

We just put the new products online on the old website in our webshop.

The product description and support site is still missing but will be finished this week.

Unfortunately we had to send out an e-mail to a few European customers who placed an order last week as the product was actually already sold out. The inventory management system did not work. Of course they will be the first to get wheels from the next shipment and we can guarantee that there will be enough inventory.

There is a small number of units available from the batch which arrives in early August in US and EU so if you order now, you "just" have to wait a few weeks.

As we are also clear with order and inventory situation we can ship all open and paid orders in the US from last week and all confirmed orders in EU from last week before the end of this week.

The new website will have to undergo some intensive review and we will move to a much more powerful server and provider. Of course we learned a lot and therefore we did not announce a specific time to launch the products this time.

Now it is time to ramp up production without sacrifying quality and fly in more units so we can keep up with the demand.

There was a bit confusion about the prices for the CSR E. On the new website we actually reduced the price to 499,95 for the first sea shipments which should arrive in a few weeks. So if you are not in a hurry you can save some money in a few weeks.

And no, we have not forgotten about the Australians but I cannot announce anything specific at the moment so it is still work in progress. Same for Japan.

Thanks for staying with us during this exciting and crazy launch of the new ClubSport series and I hope that you all enjoy your new gadgets very soon.

UPDATE

That was fast.

The next shipment is sold out as well so the shipment date moved to September.

UPDATE 2

It looks like we get the performance problems again although this website is on a complete different server. Pleeeease..... not this site as well. We are running out of options. Do we have to sell them on eBay?

Thomas Jackermeier

What a weekend. The team was working almost day and night over the past days trying to fix the damage caused by the server crash on Friday.

Within minutes we received a huge amount of orders and order attempts although the website was super slow and it was nearly impossible to finalize the order.

A few hundred very lucky to go through the whole checkout process and make the payment. These customers ordered all inventory of the CSW so that we are sold out for now.

The order data we received is not consistent and we need to check if we did not sell more units than what we actually had. Our sales team will have a look at each order and will notify you in case there is some uncertainty. We already sent out e-mails today and you will probably get another email if necessary. Of course we will ship the approved orders by the time stamp of the order placement.

There is more inventory on the way so all orders will probably be delivered in July/August.

For now we decided to rollback to the old website sometime on Monday and we will not put the new products online at start. We learned quite a few things with this launch and giving a specific time was not the best idea.

We fixed the the issues but our webserver performance is still not satisfying so we will move to a complete new server and provider and set up everything again. We added several more tests to make sure this will not happen again and the new website will go online within the next weeks.

As soon it is online I will announce it here and on facebook. Make sure you subscribe to our facebook site so you will be notified

A big thanks for all the support and encouraging commnents we received. A big thanks as well for my team around the globe which was trying hard to solve the issues. This launch was not working as planned but we learned and will come back stronger than before.

Thomas

UPDATE

The server crash has damaged our database and now we have inconsistent data. We need to manually check each order and adress between our system, Paypal and the website and this takes longer than expected. We need to do this properly to avoid more chaos. Sorry for the delay.

Thomas Jackermeier

The wait is finally over and we successfully switched over to the new website.

You are now ready to order the new products or just have a look at the new website.

We made it!

This was a complicated birth and we are exhausted but happy at the same time.

Thanks for staying with us and beeing such a great community.

www. Fanatec.com

Thomas

UPDATE

Ohhmmmmmmmmmm... I need to stay calm and relaxed.....

Ok guys. Looks like we have holy grail for sale and a Playmate of your choice will bring it to you for free. Server is collapsing again and begs for mercy. This is sheer insanity and I am going to get more Red Bull for the team.

UPDATE 2

We have to take the wesbite offline again and fix the issues occured during the overload in the last hours.

We have received many orders but a lot of people did not get a confirmation email or had other issues.

On Monday we will analyze all payments we received and all orders we got. We will then try to fix the orders manually if we have received everything or will contact all customers with incomplete orders to ask for the missing information.

Please don't contact us before Tuesday and give us chance to contact you on Monday. Any individual inquiry will slow down the process.

I can only thank you for beeing such a great audience. Besides the understandable frustrated comments we have received a lot of encouraging comments as well.

I hope you forgive us this bumpy website and product launch.

There will be no more time estimate when the website will be online again but you can be sure that as soon as the site is working fine and is online again you will be notified on facebook and on my blog.

Thomas

Thomas Jackermeier

Since 12.00 our servers collapsed and is down. This is due to the massive amount of users trying to order the CSW or have a look at the new wesbsite.

This comes unexpected as yesterday there was no such problem under similar load and of course we planned for a massive amount of users by providing plenty of bandwidth.

Please help us and stop pressing F5 for some time as we cannot transfer the websites under overload.

UPDATE

We fixed the server issue. It was a wrong setting. No idea why this was not a problem yesterday. But now there is a new problem in the database which is showing existing customers in EU prices without VAT. Well, I know that most of you will appreciate to pay 19% less and you certainly deserved it with all the pain we give you here but we are not rich enough (yet) to make you such a present.

The problem occured during the import of the database and only on some of the customers so we were not able to detect it in our testing before the launch and even in the initial tests after the import. In fact the server crash down gave us more time so we were lucky to find it.

This is again not a satisfying situation but we will bring this website oline today. Whatever it takes!

Thomas Jackermeier

We tried everything but a last minute bug which occured during the import of the database stopped our launch. This is not a minor bug we could have tolerated and solved it later so we were forced to make the painful decision and delay the launch for 24 hours.

I know that this is a big dissapointment and hey I saw your pictures how you lined up and what efforts you make to get to the website in time. I can't deny that we are dissapinted as well as the Endor team is as excited as you are.

Of course this means our line up competition will last one more day longer and I expect to see even more exhausted people waiting in front of our closed doors.

You don't have to be nice now and understand our situation. Don't even think about to feel pity for us. I want you to tell us how you feel! Go and express your emotions. Let it out!

Thomas Jackermeier

Patience will be rewarded!

Tomorrow at 12.00 German time (CEST) we are opening our new website on www.Fanatec.com and at the same time our new ClubSport wheel and ClubSport Pedals V2 will be on sale.

Obviously this is the most anticipated product launch in the history of anticipated product launches and we want to make Apple & co jealous with the best and longest queue of hardcore fans lining up in front of our webshop.

So post your picture how you stand in line and wait until our webshop opens on our facebook page.

www.facebook.com/fanatec

Show us your tent in your office and the staples of empty pizza cartons on your desk!

The person who posts the best picture will win a ClubSport wheel with the rim of choice. The competition runs until 5.7. 2012 12.00 CEST.

PS: You are welcome to post your picture here as well but make sure you also post it on facebook.

UPDATE

The amount of likes your picture receives is a very important factor for us to decide about the winner. Make sure you tell your friends to vote for you!

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