Playing as an Indy Car driver of the same mode as Danica Patrick and her fellow open-wheelers on rFactor is something that is possible thanks to a mod called the X-Series.

The X-Series mod is based on the 2007 IRL roster, and the cars reflect it - Patrick is still in her Rahal/Letterman colors, while Roger Penske's team is represented by Sam Hornish, Jr., and Helio Castroneves. The paint schemes are right on the money, right down to the "Marlboro" logos adorning the sides of the Penske Racing machines.

You'll start your career in the IRL the same as in the NASCAR mods - select the team you want to represent, and the car you want to drive - your name will replace the actual driver's name during the race, so if you want to be Danica Patrick, go right ahead. You can also alter the tires in the game, to a special set with "Indy 500" emblazoned on the sides. They do look sharp, but don't really serve much purpose otherwise.

One omission from the X-Series mod is the tracks. You'll have to have a series of tracks, like the ones from JNS or possibly even the NSS or SCE mods, in order to race these cars, and even then, tracks such as the Twin Ring Motegi in Japan are omitted.

Another drawback to this mod is that since there are no default tracks, there are also no default setups. You can just jump in a car and do a few laps around Michigan or California, if you wanted to. To really get the most out of this machine, you'll have to look for customized Indy-style setups, most likely at sites such as www.rfactorcentral.com.

Once you get a good car setup figured out, how do the cars actually run when they are on the track? The answer is surprisingly well actually.

Going into Turn 2 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, during a recent testing session, Sam Hornish's car (which I was using) was doing a perfectly respectable 215 MPH.  As I entered Turn 3, the high speed coming off the backstretch was 229 MPH, which is a little slower than typical Indy speeds in the month of May, but pretty darned close to the actual speeds you'd see these cars doing.

The damage model is, like all other rFactor mods, good but not great.  Slamming into a wall at 230+ mph will cause pieces to fly off the car, not unlike real life, but the handling of the car will not be affected as much as it would in reality.

Losing all or part of your front wing, a catastrophic incident in real life, makes the car somewhat uncontrollable, but it is possible to get back into the pits, where on the real race track, the tow trucks would be coming for you.

One thing this mod doesn't reflect (yet) is the recent merger between Champ Car and the Indy Racing League (IRL). This event has reunified the two warring factions of American open-wheel racing, and so it's only right to expect that any new mods of any game would reflect this.

I exchanged a few letters with the mod's creators over at rfactorcentral.com, and they assured me that, yes, they were aware of the Champ/IRL merger, and were working on a complete 2008 carset which will include cars from the entire series.

So, is X-Race a viable mod for rFactor? Not unlike Stock Car Evolution, the answer here is a qualified yes. It does have its good points, like the complete 2007 IRL roster and full paint jobs, but, it's a little low on the realism scale, with no individual tracks and a lacking damage model. Still, for people like me  who enjoy the wheeled rockets that are Indy cars, this mod is a worthwhile pickup.