Day 12: June 5th, 2013

Last Sunday, I finally ran two races at Summit Point, capping off a furious few days of panicked practice. I shot a short video recapping the experience of my first race, naturally.

This is also the first time I’ve really tinkered with my webcam and fancy usage of XSplit scenes, so I apologize if you wince at having to watch my dumb face ramble on about racing with silly overlays.

For those who (understandably) don’t want to watch, I placed 4th out of 10 cars, with an outside shot at 3rd place. I drove way too safe and inconsistently, but was rewarded with a nice safety rating boost as a result. Heading into my week two, I’m now at 2.90 safety rating. Once I exceed 3.00, I’ll very likely guarantee myself a permanent upgrade to a D license at the end of the month.

That part’s good, and I’m pleased with my admittedly weak performance. I promise I’ll write in more detail about my racing in the future, but my thoughts on iRacing’s community in general are still wavering somewhat.

I will say this – so far, I’m beginning to think the whole super-hardcore stigma associated for iRacing is bit overblown. It’s early in my career to assume this, though, so it’s probably best to get into higher license classes before passing mass judgment on a community.

Current Day Practice

I’m noticing two problems that are going to hinder my progression in iRacing.

The first is a distinct lack of time. Dealing with a longer, more arduous work week is affecting my ability and time to practice, and this consequently makes it harder to jump right back in on my free days. It’s becoming clear that my muscle memory with a Miata is going to have to be treated akin to a daily workout, where I put in at least twenty minutes a day working on my driving skills and habits. Even two days away from any racing have caused me to forget how to delicately input steering and gas so as not to spin the car out. A lot more practice will be needed before I tackle races in the upcoming weekend.

The second major problem is the risk of de-calibration. I inadvertently lost the calibration for my wheel while spotting for a friend, and while the wheel and pedals are now recalibrated, the brake pedal apparently has a much larger range than when I first calibrated it. This means my braking is taking more effort and producing less stopping power, making the entrance to turns rather stressful. I think I’m going to have to adjust the potentiometer again, or otherwise get the brake pedal back to a comfortable position with less travel.

This says nothing about the stress I’m beginning to notice the wheel putting on my body, most notably my ankles. I wore socks the first week of racing, and that lead to somewhat imprecise input and my feet slipping away from the pedals. I tried barefoot today, and while the precision is much better, the lack of any cushion or support makes it rather uncomfortable for long periods of time. I really don’t like the idea of using shoes, be it driving shoes or otherwise, but I’m beginning to think that’s my only reasonable option other than toughing it out.

I did discover a neat feature in iRacing for my practice runs: a delta monitor.

It allows me to see how I’m improving on sectors in real time, turning red when I’m slower and green when I’m picking up time. The real-time functionality’s what I really enjoy, as it’s helpful it see exactly what moves on a track are gaining or costing me time. The last game I played with this sort of feature was F-Zero GX, which is kind of crazy to think about. Seeing a corner exit or a late apex’s effect on a lap time is valuable as hell for the sake of improvement.

Okayama International Circuit’s my next race in the Miata Cup, and while it looks easy, I apparently can’t drive it well yet. My goal is a 1:51 lap time, and I’m running consistent 1:53s right now.

No matter how much I’ve grown as a driver through other racing games, it seems the PC racing sims always cut me back down to size. I’m going to try like hell to finally change this.

These seem like so much fun, wish i had the PC to run it. I like to think i have to chops to be a front runner but if not its seems sweet.

NERVES OF STEEEEEEL

Good review there. Only caught blog 6 and 12, but I'm going keep an eye out. I'm waiting for Oculus rift before I get serious with racing sims. Already got the G27 ready.

Any chance you could make a sim racing guide? How to take turns, when to shift, etc? It'd be nice to have to do a video blog like this one and it be about when you should shift, how to run lines, etc.

I approve of this blog and these videos. Keep them coming!

Both of these are great ideas. Quality VR support for a racing game would be pretty amazing.

As for the guide, it's something I want to do at some point, but I want to improve my skills to a point where I'd at least have some authority in spouting knowledge about racing technique. There are a few training options I haven't dealt with yet, including school layouts for certain circuits, so those might be covered in future blogs, as well.

I noticed that iRacing has 50% off for the 3 month membership at the moment. Would it be worth it for someone who races exclusively with a pad and has no intention of buying a wheel? Is it the kind of game in which pad players can reach a solid level of competence, in the way that, say, pad players sometimes pop up at fighting game tournaments even though the conventional wisdom always says to use a stick? Or would you say that it's not really possible to succeed without a wheel?

I did skim a couple of your earlier blogs where it seemed pad play was causing you a lot of problems. I don't play many racers, but when I do I usually turn all assists off and race in manual transmission at the hardest difficulty, then don't rest until I've mastered the game. I like to think I'd be able to handle a game like this but perhaps it would be beyond me. For instance, Codemasters F1 games were near impossible to control with a pad if you turned off traction control.

Good blogs btw. I like your presentation style, good balance between comprehensiveness and simplicity of explanation.

@laivasse: I think it depends on what sort of pad you use, and your comfort with its nuances. The 360 controller is fine for gas/brake on the triggers, but it needs somewhat of a large dead zone in the center; otherwise, you're going to have centering issues. I didn't mess with any dead zone settings, and that was part of my issue.

The other issue is dealing with full range of steering on a stick, and no assistance in potentially steering past the useful limits, which will scrub off a little speed and can unbalance the car in some situations. Furthermore, that means the useful input you'll have to work with will be minuscule by comparison to Forza with its "normal" steering assist or a similar game.

I'm not sure what racing games you play with a pad, but it's certainly possible in iRacing, just difficult. You might not be as fast, and I feel very safe in saying you won't be able to be as consistent. You will, however, be able to counter-steer inhumanly fast.

I know we discussed your reservations about Project CARS before, but if I'm not mistaken I believe they are gunna have Oculus Rift support. And damn I'd love a G27 jams.

Technically you are building your iRating already, it's just hidden. Once you reach D class, you'll see how high or low it got from your Rookie races.

You shouldn't bother to wait! It's amazing as is, and if money is no issue getting a nice 3 monitor setup+cockpit will most likely be a better setup then the Rift for a true to life simulator like iRacer. Although that could be 1500$.