PODIUM!

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I had two races this evening. First one was terrible. I was overdriving after the first few laps and just ended up with no grip towards the end. Ended up with a bin load of penalties half of which were totally my doing.

Second race was great though. I qualified 5th iirc, and got a place right off the start. By the time I got to the first sequence of corners the leaders had taken each other out and I was in the lead! I managed to hold that position for a few laps but I made my one mistake and let the back end step out just before the second straight. Got on the grass and let the 2nd and 3rd guys through.

Honestly, the reason the back end stepped out was because I was struggling to keep them behind. So third seems right to me. Had a 5 lap tussle with a rookie behind me after that. I let him past a couple of times because I didn’t want an accident, and he just overshot on the next corner anyway because his line was compromised. We did that for about five laps before he made a big enough mistake that he had to concentrate on what was behind him from then on.,

The rest was just a nail biting 10 minutes of me saying “don’t fuck it up” to myself. 🙂

LOVED it. 🙂

Brave changed the title to iRacing .

Hope you don’t mind @Alex , I’ve changed the name of the thread. That one post has sparked a whole new obsession. So thanks, I think!

Anyway. I’ve moved on to phase two of the addiction process. I’ve bought the BMW GT4 and the next two non-free (the next couple of weeks use the free ones) tracks in the BMW 12.0 series. Um… and nordschleife. 😉

Just the normal one. There’s three versions you can buy and the one that gets used on iracing most is called something else. It incorporates the old Sudschleife as well. A track that’s actually not possible to drive in real life anymore, I believe.

I just wanted the ring. My theory is it’s a bloody good test track. Every kind of corner and straight imaginable. If I can drive that one consistently enough with no off-road excursions, then I’m ready to race whatever car I’m doing it in.

The beemer is actually quite tricky at the rear, and also has an annoying debounce on downshifts which makes rapid downshifting for tight corners actually quite hard; so I’m not ready to race it yet.

I’m going to run the Nordschleife a lot today in test drive mode and see if I can get it nailed. Currently low 8 minutes with a few mistakes. Thankfully test drive mode doesn’t affect ratings 🙂

Just to add. I totally understand why some folks hate the way they monetise it. But for me, I just love the idea of treating it almost like the real thing. Buying a car, learning to race it, learning the tracks each week.

Of all the sims I’ve tried this year, this is the one that feels most like an actual sport, not just because of that; also because of the way the safety ratings and iratings work. Once I got through the worst of rookie, I can honestly say I’ve never had better racing online anywhere. Ever. Maybe with exception of racing at the back with @SRR back in the motogp2 days 😉

So for me, it’s been a bit of a revelation. It’s as close to motorsport as I’m ever likely to get now; and I get the same rush and adrenaline spikes from it that I used to get back when I was actually a sportsman. I think… I think I might actually “get” esports now.

Although, clearly sim racing is one of the few gaming sports that near totally replicates what you do in real life. So, y’know, is the best esport 🤔😆

I’m enjoying it as well, the MX5 is a fun car to drive, and I like the one track a week thing that lets you get to know one track/car really thoroughly. Although last night I spent some time practicing only to realise it was the wrong track. The actual track is Jefferson Curcuit which frankly I don’t really like. I’ll probably try a race and try to keep it clean for some points, but not feeling very enthusiastic about this weeks track.

I’d still say that classic LFS was the best racing experience, because of the way the multiplayer works in that game. It’s something weird to me that it’s never been copied. Every racing game tries to copy the format of a weekend, with practice, qualifying, race. LFS on the other hand is based on Quake. You do race after race after race, and if you crash out or retire then you just spectate until the next one. This meant that people got so much experience of wheel to wheel racing, as you’d do twenty or thirty races a night. It also meant that crashes and accidents were much less impactful as you’d only lose a few minutes of driving before the next one.

One thing I don’t like about iRacing is how the races are spaced out on the hour. You have to coordinate and plan races in a way that’s not really fun. I’m going to keep at it though as I’m enjoying the driving.

    Alex One thing I don’t like about iRacing is how the races are spaced out on the hour. You have to coordinate and plan races in a way that’s not really fun. I’m going to keep at it though as I’m enjoying the driving.

    Yeah, that’s why I decided to run a second car tbh. The BMW 12.0 is on the half hour so theoretically you could drop into one race straight after finishing another. I guess it’s just a good way to ensure that there’s a large amount of people ready for each race. Well over 200 people queued up for each one makes the splits so much fairer. It would be hard to do that without a heavily scheduled approach.

    Until I get the hang of the beemer, I’ll just be test driving, but still, it shakes things up between races.

    I’m not a fan of Summit Point either. It doesn’t have many corners but every single one is a little bastard to get the hang of at speed. Especially that first sequence.

    • Alex replied to this.

        Brave That’s a good idea, I might give the beemer a go.

          Be prepared to short shift a lot with the BMW. I also have trouble getting down from third to second quick enough. It’s the same with the Porsche in ACC too, as it’s a feature of the real-life cars, to prevent engines blowing, but I’m finding it hard to get my head around. Getting there though.

          Yeah tricky with the downshift, seems to be if the revs are over 5k, so have to train yourself to let the revs fall for a moment before downshifting. Or you can just stay in third for a lot of corners, it can actually be faster sometimes to stay in a slightly higher gear, although downshifting can help bring the nose in.

          Again pleasantly surprised at how drivable iRacing is these days. I think they changed the tyre physics, it’s a lot more “analogue” now than it used to be. The cars slide, you can drift them, they recover nicely, there’s no snap spins like the olden days. You can really chuck the cars into the corners.

          On tyre temps I do think that display is buggy, or the temps themselves are buggy. There definitely seems to be some discrepancies between what the display shows and what’s happening in the game.

          I think I saw on the iracing forums that the black box readout only updates in the pits? The idea being that it’s the pitcrew that normally take the temps.

          With the beemer I’m trying to go off the tyre pressure readings which are on the dash and do update.

          That makes sense I guess.

            Alex one more thing. I found I had to recalibrate the wheel when I switched cars. The MX5 is 900 degrees and the beemer is 520. It only takes 10 seconds to do but really foxed me initially.

              OK slightly changed my mind about Jefferson. I had a good race there. Managed to make it into the lead at the start, but had second place on my tail for about half the race. I could have pushed a bit harder but wanted to protect my tyres a bit as I hadn’t done any long runs before. I made a small mistake on about lap 11 which let him through. Then pushed him right to the end, finishing about half a second behind. Really good solid race.

              It’s a really easy track to make a mistake on, so it’s much better to be conservative and not take any big risks. Just a nice solid consistent pace with nothing showy. Would be nicer if there was a proper overtaking spot.

              Nice!

              I’ve had two third places there this week but I’m still pretty inconsistent from one lap to the next.

              I think there are a couple corners where it’s better to have a really wide turn in and very late apex and it just feels really counterintuitive. I end up overdriving out of the corner and have no rubber left at the end.

              Yeah, the last corner especially, you want to brake really late and basically run right to the outside, then cut in for the apex. It’s tricky and one reason I lost the lead in my last race was that I still haven’t quite mastered it yet. Even though I hadn’t done any long runs I could just tell some of those corners are tyre killers. I really protected my tyres there, making sure to straighten the car before accelerating etc and I think that helped.

              Right, might do the 8pm one too. 🙂

              Absolutely bossed that one! First race where I’ve actually figured out how to start properly. I had a lightening start from second into first by the first corner, then lead every lap of the race.

              Results

              I have to say, that was pretty consistent.

              Ironically for the last two laps I decided to use up whatever life was left in my tyres, but actually just ended up being pretty scrappy. 🤣

              Goddamit. I fixed a problem and now I’m slower. 😆

              I noticed yesterday, that I wasn’t getting FFB. There was a constant resistance but no reaction to surfaces at all. So I spent last night scouring the net for solutions. Iracers have identified variously: VR, the wrong USB port, the wrong power socket (more than a handful of folk), and a bunch of other stuff.

              None of it worked, so as a last resort, I uninstalled the software everyone says to use with the G29 ( the old profiler) and installed G-Hub, which I dislike. And it worked \o/

              Unfortunately I’ve become accustomed to iRacing with no ffb, and now I’m around 1.5 seconds a lap slower in the bmw around the full Okayama circuit. =( I much prefer it now because I can feel the back end getting away, but I’m gonna need days to get reacquainted with the handling. 😭

              I tried G-Hub and I get no FFB at all in any game. Reinstalling the gaming software.

              It took me a good couple hours to try every option I could find. Was overjoyed when G-Hub worked. I had good ffb in other games though, so it could be a different issue for you. I did totally uninstall the g29 as a device and the profiler software, before I reinstalled everything. It still didn’t work until I installed GHub, but it might be worth removing the g29 wherever it appears first.

              Track has changed, it’s Oulton Park! One of my favourite tracks of all time!