iRacing in the off season.

[Giblet]

Man I got humbled today.

Driving a Lotus 79 around Laguna Seca.

Yeah...'driving'. More like holding on for dear life. It sticks at speed, but getting to speed is not exactly easy. I managed one lap out of three without spinning.

I was impressed by the damage to the car. The bent wing and the exposed monocoque beneath the nose after a spear job into the tires was pretty neat.

Cripes. This is going to take some work.

[CMSMJ1]

I am getting more tempted...but I have such a shonky PC that I doubt it will run it.

Also, my wheel is pretty knackered after 7 years of abuse.

Maybe I'll pick this up over the winter when my real racing season is over.

[theblackangus]

Just FYI guys,
IRacing has some deals now that put a year membership at less than 9$ per month, so that is a pretty good deal for an online game.

Ive been IRacing too this season, I do have to agree with Gib the actual racing is just great compared to any other sim where there is AI. I love to play Race07+Addons but IRacing is just way better because of the live competition.

So far everyone I have met has been pretty nice and helpful, which is a nice change.

The only thing to really get past is the whole license thing. You need to race safely first and fast second, only then will you get your license up enough to join other series. But after you get past the "slowness" of the solstice its actually great fun to drive. Ive even started to like.... <gulp> oval racing some. Damn bit harder than it looks when you are racing against people who are fast.

We should get together an IRacing F1T group to do some racing some time that would be great fun.

Gib - you in?

[Giblet]

Yeah that sound good. I think it would be fun to have some of the guys in here, who really understand what they are doing (and maybe advantageous!) to help do some setups. A good example is that since my club is small, Western Canada, there is not a well developed setup in the club garage for some tracks.

The Jefferson short track has no setup at all, while the Midwest has a bunch to choose from, but obviously you aren't supposed to share your club setups with other drivers. I'm just using my Lime Rock SRF setup right now and tweaking the tire pressures, since I have a lot to learn.

I'm not huge into ovals either, but may buy the current Daytona 500 series.

Some people don't like the pricing when you change series, but I am not bored of even the Solstice yet, and it's been months. The pricing keeps out the kiddies for the most part, and attracts real racers, ie people with money.

I won my 6th race last night at Laguna. I was in a strong third, and the number two guy just disappeared. He came back a few minutes later, as his iRacing client had died. I never hear of crashes (zero for me), but he admitted his vid card was overclocked a bit hard. That was on the second last lap.

On the last lap, the leader made a booboo on the uphill to the corkscrew, and I hit the kink hard and fats, and was a few car lengths behind at the CS, but he overcut it (I guess his mirrors were full ) and got the slow down penalty. I almost hit him, came to a sideways near stop, managed to not him, and got around for the win in the last 3 corners.

What time zone are you in?

I'll PM you my real name, and you can friend me up.

[Jersey Tom]

You might be surprised how challenging and fun running at ovals is.. be it short track or trucks or what have you.

I kinda feel like getting back into some iRacing. Been a while...

[Giblet]

Oval racing IMO is easy to drive, but hard to be quick. Most people can't get around the track on their first Laguna run, but the opposite is true coming to ovals from the road side.

The sudden changes of direction required in the road racing make you learn more I think.

I've had oval racer come in and wonder how the hell we do it, making the solstice do things on street tires most people can not.

Again, this is not to say that ovals are easy, but the basics are easier, it's getting to 10/10ths driving that is a killer. 9/10ths is easy(ish).

The legends are cool cars though. They are fun on the roads, as they rev very high with their motorcycle engines in them.

[Giblet]

Last night was fun, ran into Hangaku for the first time in a practice session driving the Skip Barber RT2000 at Road America.

I had zero experience on that track until yesterday, not sure about Hangaku but he managed to pip me by about 3/4 of a second. There is a lot of time to be made up there still for both of us, as the quick guys are turning 2:35 and were in the 2:37-2:38 bracket. He seemed to be a bit quicker in a couple of 3rd gear corners, which you can tell when following someone, which we tried to do a bit.

Such a long lap, when you make a mistake it can be frustrating. Especially if you make one on the last corner, killing your home straight speed, and you basically kill two laps time wise.

I do like Road America though, it is fast and flowing, and none of the corners have an awkward feel to them really.

What are you running for a setup Hangaku? If you are running the stock setup that was very impressive indeed.

I blame the large glass of Whiskey I had beside me, but I'll beat your time yet

Nothing wrong with friendly competition. One of my iRacing acquaintances has the track record at the real Road America in a 600hp Noble. I might hit him up for some advice

[theblackangus]

Road America is a great track. I have yet to buy any extra content for IRacing... now Im feeling left out! =)

Actually Im still happy with the solstice and spec racer as I have about 2-3 seconds off the best times for them still.

Anyone for making 1 week night a F1T Iracing night? Nothing solid, just to get all the F1T guys together for some Iracing once a week or once every two weeks.

Ill start by suggesting Wednesday or Thursday night or maybe a Saturday morning to get all the cross continent people together.

Any one like the idea?

[Giblet]

That sounds exactly why I keep talking about iRacing on this site. Trying to get some of these guys who are likely good drivers, know how to race, AND are good at setting up a car.

I would like to suggest Thursday myself as I have school starting next week on Mon-Wed nights. Saturday would also be good for me usually, if I am not picking up any extra work.

The Solstice is fun and seems to be able to go a little quicker all the time, and every lap is an adventure. Feels like a tank after running the Skip though.

Myself, I pretty much ignore the oval side of things. My oval license is still rookie class.

I bought the Skippy series as I felt I needed a new challenge. The SRF is fun but it is also a little bitch of a car. No matter the setup, the thing tends to push when you brake, it's just a matter of to what extent. When you buy the Skip series, most the the other series become just a track or two and a car away from owning.

Not everyone knows you can buy the Skippy and a couple tracks, but you don't all of the tracks to compete. You can still just race at the tracks you have and not run in the weeks where you don't have it. It can be easier to pick away at purchases, but then you don't get the %20 off for buying in some bulk.

Even if you just buy the car, I don't mind spending the 3 bucks to host a private session and get some guys on Skippy's on the standard tracks like Lime Rock, Laguna, and Summit.

We could even do Solstices on an Oval just to be weird.

[Hangaku]

Last night was fun, ran into Hangaku for the first time in a practice session driving the Skip Barber RT2000 at Road America.

Wooo!

I had zero experience on that track until yesterday, not sure about Hangaku but he managed to pip me by about 3/4 of a second. There is a lot of time to be made up there still for both of us, as the quick guys are turning 2:35 and were in the 2:37-2:38 bracket. He seemed to be a bit quicker in a couple of 3rd gear corners, which you can tell when following someone, which we tried to do a bit.

Such a long lap, when you make a mistake it can be frustrating. Especially if you make one on the last corner, killing your home straight speed, and you basically kill two laps time wise.

I do like Road America though, it is fast and flowing, and none of the corners have an awkward feel to them really.

I bought the track just yesterday, as I saw that it was on the Skippy calendar. I was on my second practice session when you jumped in.

I'd just realized that I hadn't set up my G25 for iRacing - it was last calibrated for LFS - so I was both learning a new track and a new steering wheel realism setup. But after that was overcome, I started getting into the groove, which is where I just touched on 2:37.4 time.

There are some very deceptive corners on this circuit, that feel like you should be taking them a lot slower than you can. Turn 1 and 3 are good initial examples, where you can hammer into T1 and drive through it with your foot to the floor in 3rd gear, and T3 the same, but in 2nd gear. There's much more width that you initially think!

The carousel is a complete bitch, if you get car balance wrong, you'll lose 3 or 4 mph in Kettle Bottoms. I initially thought that hammering round it in 3rd then 4th was the way forward, but it's much better to sacrifice time there for a clean exit. This leads to Kink, which if you're using all the road, it appears you can get 115mph through it, which is a bit tasty.

The other places where I can see me losing time is the 2nd gear corners (as you said) T5, T6 and T14. Motherbitches, they are.

That said, I do like Road America, it's a nice fast circuit. I'm not sure how good it is for the Skippy, as there isn't much scope to push the car that much faster if you've lost time. I imagine this circuit is awesome with the Radical or the Star Mazda though.

What are you running for a setup Hangaku? If you are running the stock setup that was very impressive indeed.

I blame the large glass of Whiskey I had beside me, but I'll beat your time yet

BRING IT OOONNN!

Sadly, I don't have the mental capacity to play with a setup too much and still claim to know what I'm doing! In all honesty, the only things I do play with on the Skippy are:

-) The front tire pressure - I bump them both up by a couple of PSI (28?), and I find that I get much better breaking and mid-corner stability. the down-side to this is less stability on cold tires.

-) Break balance - I dial this towards the rear a little bit, but front still has something like 54%. I break hard before corners, and drive around them, rather than trail breaking.

Nothing wrong with friendly competition. One of my iRacing acquaintances has the track record at the real Road America in a 600hp Noble. I might hit him up for some advice

*gasp* CHEAT! But I agree, I'd much rather race with people that I sortof know, and have some good regular banter / competition. I really need to get my voice comms sorted out.

[Giblet]

The setup I have works great in the carousel. 3rd gear has grip all the way through, and when you shift into 4th the car shifts its nose in from the quick lift, and you can hammer it through.

I can for sure feel where I am slow, and like you said, it wasn't until following you that I saw how much quicker I could be in turns 1 and 3.

The fella who have me the setup says it's good for 1:35, but I also have been told you can get by with one setup with this car for all the tracks.

I also have one from a guy named Bruno, who is a certified alien. He has a world record at Laguna in a Solstice, at 1.46.136 or something crazy like that. Where he gets 2 seconds off my PB I can't quite figure out.

I take it you like iRacing more this second time around? It's for sure grown leaps and bounds since you ran it in 2008.

As for troubleshooting your mic, just be aware that any hardware changes you make while inside iRacing the sim will ont recognize until you exit and reload.

[Hangaku]

The setup I have works great in the carousel. 3rd gear has grip all the way through, and when you shift into 4th the car shifts its nose in from the quick lift, and you can hammer it through.

I can for sure feel where I am slow, and like you said, it wasn't until following you that I saw how much quicker I could be in turns 1 and 3.

The fella who have me the setup says it's good for 1:35, but I also have been told you can get by with one setup with this car for all the tracks.

I also have one from a guy named Bruno, who is a certified alien. He has a world record at Laguna in a Solstice, at 1.46.136 or something crazy like that. Where he gets 2 seconds off my PB I can't quite figure out.

I take it you like iRacing more this second time around? It's for sure grown leaps and bounds since you ran it in 2008.

Oh yeah, iRacing has really moved on for me for a couple of reasons.

Since I first tried it in 2008, it's got a lot more going on, and is a much more refined product. It feels a lot more like driving than any other sim I've tried. I know this by how much I swear at my monitor

When I first started sim racing many years ago, I was just sort of blinding driving around, with no thought for line or track position. Over the years though, I think I've got a better understanding of racecraft, and this sim, more than any other, appears to award that.

I might have to pinch a setup off you, see how it goes! These things are so subjective though, I often find that one man's junk is another man's treasure.

If we get some regular racing going on with some F1T guys, that would be cool.

How do the private server things work out? You have to pay for a private session? Does it last the whole night, or a certain period, or?

Tell you what, the guys at iRacing have pretty much got their business model spot-on;

Everyone pays a small amount for new content, the developers have a budget to deliver new content, content gets delivered, everyone pays a small amount for content. Repeat ad infinitum.

And new content appears to be coming all the time too, which is unheard of!

[Hangaku]

I've been running iSpeed, which does telemetry for iRacing. It's pretty good, and so long as it's always running when you race, it's an awesome piece of software for analysing where you are losing time in a lap.

I took one of my laps (1:37) from Road America, and one from a guy that I was racing with (1:34), and compared the two. He's braking later, never leaving the throttle pedal, and going through T3 and T12 in 3rd gear, rather than 2nd. Generally, his exit speed is a bout the same as mine, but he maintains a more constant all the way through the corners, whereas my speed is much more up and down.

So, turns out that I need to be left foot braking. Having driven for some 13 years, it's pretty hard now to teach myself to do this, especially when using pedals that don't actually give feedback. Going to be a toughy.

[Giblet]

I can't believe I never mentioned iSpeed. It can be frustrating as much as helpful, when you see all your best sectors, and it tells you your best possible lap if everything was strung together properly, and its a second or two faster than your actually able to drive.

Left foot braking is the preferred way, some of these cars need throttle and brake applied at the same time to be able to rotate the rear properly. The SRF can barely make a corner without 10% throttle at all times. You can do it with heel toe, but most of us are not as advanced as real drivers. If Rubens was able to convert from right foot braking so can you

The Skip is another car that is important to keep up the momentum with.

There is a guy who offers a free 'seminar' periodically in the Skip Barber car tips forum. He does it at VIR and apparently it does wonders for people. I just missed his latest one but am looking forward to the next.

You say this quick fella never lifts the throttle, keeps it buried while braking, or just never completely lets off?

[theblackangus]

The Solstice is fun and seems to be able to go a little quicker all the time, and every lap is an adventure. Feels like a tank after running the Skip though.

I agree. Im actually trying to get good at the solstice so the other cars will feel awesome.

Myself, I pretty much ignore the oval side of things. My oval license is still rookie class.

Ditto, I was picturing most people here wanting to road course race.

I bought the Skippy series as I felt I needed a new challenge. The SRF is fun but it is also a little bitch of a car. No matter the setup, the thing tends to push when you brake, it's just a matter of to what extent. When you buy the Skip series, most the the other series become just a track or two and a car away from owning.

That spec racer is a little beast to.Throttle control is so important with it (At least for my driving style!)

So that's two for thursdays or saturdays... Who else and can we mark this on the F1T site calendar or somewhere for people to see?