iRacing goodness!

Just did my first oval race in a street stock at Charlotte. OMG!!!!! Freakin' blast! On a fun scale from 1-10, I give it a 10. If I can figure out how to start posting in-game footage, I'll try to upload some races for you guys.

Oh, and Stalker, you'd be proud. I started a new season in my road racing career and I'm using a Mustang! Thing's a sled.

Odd choice of car for you I must say.

Glad to see your having fun with it.

I'm going to go out on a very short limb and say, it's this Mustang.

Tux, have you and Rem. raced in the same lobby yet?

We have not. With their setup, the only way to guarantee that we are in the same lobby is to join a hosted race (hosted by another iRacer). Otherwise it seems to randomize people with similar iRatings, and since Tux is winning and I suck at life, his iRating is already higher than mine I think.

Yeah Avanti, that's it. It's a fun car. You can thrash it a little more than the Spec Racer Ford. The racing is awesome. And Rem, you don't suck. I looked at your stats, you've got lap times faster than me.

TuxTshirt wrote:And Rem, you don't suck. I looked at your stats, you've got lap times faster than me.

For now... lol




I'm not really digging the spec racer as much as before, maybe it's because after 4 laps the rear tires lose grip and the last 8 laps are spent racking up the incidents. I might have to break down and get the Mustang and go that way, I've done nothing but lose iRating and safety rating the last 3 races with the spec racer. Practice is usually about the same, the car just can't hold on for an entire race. The last 2 races I've been up to 2nd place but lost it later the same lap by a few spots. Hanging back at the start seems to be working for me right now, but then I push it on still cold tires and spin it out. Then once they get hot, they slide. I'm adjusting camber little by little with the hopes of having even heat across the tire after a race. I don't know if that's ideal, I've never known. Tux especially, when you set up your cars how do you determine how much camber to run? Everyone else too, but right now I'm in iRacing mode and to my knowledge Tux is the only one with iRacing.

Rem, I run a few laps then go to the garage and look at my tire temps. I set camber so that my inner edge is no more than 5-10 degrees hotter than the outside edge. You want the inside to be a little hotter.

In other news: Ran my second race at Charlotte and want to break something. Had an awesome race going, on lap 17/20 while in second got punted by a lapped car. The same idiot that wrecked half the field on lap one. Finished 8th, behind the idiot.

TuxTshirt wrote:
In other news: Ran my second race at Charlotte and want to break something. Had an awesome race going, on lap 17/20 while in second got punted by a lapped car. The same idiot that wrecked half the field on lap one. Finished 8th, behind the idiot.

Hmm, sounds like Forza

Yeah, sadly jackwagons (AKA: retards, ass-fucks, dumb shits, mouth-breathers, griefers, and more) are everywhere. Rem. and Tux can step in and add more: From what I understand, iRacing tends to get rid of them. If your iRating falls below a certain level or if you have a history of making contact, you go bye-bye rather quickly.

Well, not necessarily that easily, but if you intentionally wreck and someone reports it and iRacing reviews it and deems it intentional, there's basically a slap on the wrist. Keep doing it and they will ban you. However, if you are wrecking out of races and keep finishing last, your iRating goes down. Basically, when you are put in a race, your car number represents about where you should finish (in theory) depending on your iRating compared to the room's. Finishing better than your car number your iRating increases, worse it decreases. There's formulas for all of this, but even if you're car #1 and finish first your iRating increases. #12 and you finish 12th place (let's assume that's last for this race) and it still drops. Once your iRating gets low enough, you're in rooms with nothing but ass-clowns and then it's pretty much a demo derby. Not intentionally all the time, just they all suck. I've been down that way once, when I first started racing on iRacing. My steering wheel was from the late 90's I believe so the drivers were long since outdated and the pedals didn't respond all that great. Then there was the double shifting my paddles were doing, it got bad fast. New wheel and reserved starts, now I'm back up there. That's oval at least, road racing is still dropping a bit due to the spec racer being a pile of miserable car.

Yeah, as Rem said, when you level up you should, in theory, race with better/safet racers. When you first start, they put you in Rookie class. So the level of experience is low across the field. Not everyone is terrible though. I was racing with Rookies and D-Class drivers alike and most know how to race. That's what's cool about iRacing. MOST drivers take it seriously. I don't know if this guy just lacked situational awareness, skill, or he was just a dick. Judging from the replay, I'd say he just lacked awareness and skill. The race up to that point was incredible, that's why I was pissed. I worked to pass the second place guy for 14 laps. Three laps after passing him, the lapped guy totally screwed my race up. Ovals are a blast with people that know how to race because the racing is so close. The front pack of six cars were within 1.5 seconds of each other up to that point with no incidents.

I just got 2nd job, to pay off the REST of the bills and have EXTRA for my sim rig. Shooting for before Xmas!

Heck yeah Josh!

They are having a half off sale right now at Iracing... thinking about doing the 2 year deal. Kind of concerned I won't like it though. Not sure if I have the time to learn another sim game. I've had multiple titles of the GTR series games and never really invested enough time to learn them. I will say since I started racing with you guys it's hard for me to just race online in the crash fest rooms now... I think that's one of the main reasons for looking into this is more competitive racing with friendly yet competent drivers.

So talk me in/out of it...

Only the subscription is half-off. The cars and tracks you want have to be bought, and are not cheap. Also, you need a computer and a wheel. Evidently, you cannot choose who to race with online. (There must be a way...)

The racing will be less "crashy," and more realistic.

How much do the cars and tracks cost? That is not very clear on the web site... it's eluded too and that's about it. Why don't they list the prices for that on the web site? I hate this shady get you to pay money up front and then charge the fuck out of you once they have you hooked on the line shit!!!

Edit: it does say it comes with 10 tracks and a few cars... it doesn't tell you how much additional ones cost.

I couldn't do it myself.

I love the insane amount of cars that are in Forza, I can drive 10+ different types of one car in Forza, and in iRacing, if the car I want is even in there, there is only 1 version.

I don't know if they are just bad screenshots, but it doesn't look as good as Forza to me.

Each additional car costs 11.95, each track costs 11.95 or 14.95 depending on the track. Some tracks have many more variations so they cost more but it's like getting several tracks for the price of one. If you buy three at once you get 10% off. If you buy 5 at once you get 20% off. If you buy everything at one time you get 25% off. You don't really need to buy more cars or tracks at first. You can hold out for as long as you like, the racing is still good at lower levels. When you start leveling up, the higher series use some tracks you don't start with so you can buy a little at a time when you need it. I bought the 2-year subscription for half off. I just bought one car and six tracks because I wanted to run a higher series. The racing is good and even the guys at rookie level have good etiquette. It's like a whole world of racing. You can make what you want of it. You can also win credits to buy in-game stuff just by racing.

Yeah Stalker, in terms of numbers, Forza has it in spades. iRacing has you focusing on getting faster in one car for whatever series you're in and you learn the personality of each. They're hardly cookie cutters though. Each car has its own characteristics and you start finding and exploiting them. It's much more a racing simulation than a driving/car simulation. The entire program is focused on motorsports. But it sells the motorsport part very well. The way racing/practice/qualifying is laid out, is just like real racing. How many times in Forza have you wished you had a spotter? Well, you have one. If you damage your car, you can drive back to the pits(if it will move), and they DO repair your aero AND mechanical damage. The more you have, the longer it takes. Sometimes it takes minutes. You can set fuel load, you can change weight bias, you can change chassis per corner, your tires do fall off, you can overdrive and wear out your car, your windshield does get dirty, you do serve penalties when you don't follow rules, there is a pace car/safety car, they do have open-wheel cars....the list goes on. We've talked before. I justify it because all I want to do is race. $60 a year for XBox live and all I did was play Forza. If you want much more than racing, XBox is for you. Oh, and iRacing has several proper stock car series. I had to have two games to play NASCAR and it wasn't that good compared to this. So for me, it's worth it. I still love Forza, but this is where I want to be right now. And, yes, I wish I could've brought all of you with me. I do miss you guys. That's why I'm still here daily.

Winning credits in-game for real-world purchases = awesome!

Are you listening Turn 10???

I am in a similar position as Tux, but can't afford to switch at the moment anyway.

I only play FM4 anymore. And I don't play that often (with my schedule, I'm lucky to get on at all...). I love racing, and want to get better, and iRacing would surely allow for that.

But FM4 has the cars I want, and I don't have to buy anything else to play it, and you guys are here, so you're stuck with me.

Maybe one day I can afford to do both.

Yeah, you have to run a full season usually, but you can earn up to $40 a year though. That almost pays for your subscription if you wait for another deal. Let's not forget, DLCs cost money guys.

No argument here I think the whole monthly DLC concept is a rip off. I understand it cost a lot more to develop games these days but it really is getting out of control. No question I spend a fortune on FM3.1232 and all the DLC plus the xbox gold (which btw you can get for $40 or less if you look for it on amazon). So if I stopped getting that stuff and just subscribe to iracing I bet the difference wouldn't' be that much. It just bothers me that they don't make that clear on the web site (that cars and tracks cost extra). I'm still mulling it over if it's worth it. I'm having a blast with the drifting part of forza right now (shhh I'm having fun). Well maybe the answer is getting active in an additional league on forza that races on a different night (friday is spotty for me)...

Tux how important is tuning setup on iracing? I don't want to have to spend every night chasing setups to be competitive...

In the lower levels, where you start, setup is hardly important. Consistency is key to success in the earlier races. As you level up, the competition gets better. I was just second fastest in practice, but the fastest guy was ahead of me by just over two seconds. Trust me, it wasn't his setup. Some series do a fixed setup so you can't be beat by another guy's setup. The community is great too. Every week, one of the faster guys posts a thread on the current track. They do setup and approach tips to help newbies. It's helpful even for those that are fast.

Like Tux said, the lower classes tend to be fixed setup. That way you're only getting beat by people smoother or faster than you. Once you get moving the setups come into play. Though the mid cars tend to have less to set up, which is nice. I used to have a very fast setup that I made (Hell must have frozen over) and it was winning me a few races, and getting me tons of podiums. That was in late models, which I leveled out of and started running NASCAR style cars.

You can earn up to $10 in iRacing credits per 12 week season. Right now I don't have enough tracks to do it in any one class, unless I go back and check I think. But it's nice that they reward you for racing. That's in addition to the reward you feel when you win your first race. Or 2nd. Or if you're like Tux, every other race you run

Yeah, buying cars and tracks can get expensive. But, there are only so many things you can do when you start out, and if you only buy what you need to to fulfill a schedule, it's easier that way. For example, when I got my D license on ovals, I bought only what I needed (car and tracks) to run a full 12 week season. Once I hit C, I did some more of the same. There are tracks I don't have that they do run, but I was hurting for money that time around. I'm real bad on cash now, car loan is insane when you have terrible credit scores.