Anyone that has been simracing for a while will have either played around with tuning options, or found somewhere to provide them. And one of the most popular options will be ending their service soon, as Craig’s Setup Shop will close in December 2024.
Founder Craig A Williams announced that operations will end when iRacing Season 4, 2024 comes to a conclusion. It marks the end of a set-up service originally founded six years ago, in March, 2018, with a team of set-up providers and coaches, and a community of more than 12,000 downloading the tuning options provided.
Any discussion of tuning and set-ups for simracing will always plenty of debate about whether they’re needed to be competitive, the best places to find them, and whether you really need that extra 0.1 degree of toe-in. But regardless of your personal preferences, it’s undeniable Craig’s was one of the most popular choices for anyone looking to use a provided set-up for iRacing.
One reason for that was that it was possible to subscribe to the service via a Twitch subscription to Craig A Williams, which many people could do for free if they were Amazon Prime members. With many other options costing £10 or more per month on top of your other sim racing costs, it obviously made it an attractive choice.
Unfortunately this appears to have been part of the reason for the closure, with changes to the revenue coming from Prime subscriptions due to regional pricing and the split with content creators, which means some subs would end up being worth about $1 per month, and doesn’t mean it’s financially viable for the team and effort to run the service.
There’s no decision yet on whether the existing set-ups will remain available, and how access might be provided, but there will be reimbursement for existing subscribers depending on how long is left when the season ends, and both the existing Discord and Twich channels will continue.
Whatever your personal opinions on tuning and set-ups, it’s always a shame to see sim racing services close, especially when they offered a low cost option. It’s completely understandable that everyone needs to earn an income to support themselves, and as someone who has used CSS setups at various points, I can only be happy that it existed for a time.
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