This is easily the biggest hurtle for me right now. I can get a handle on the different cars fairly quickly, getting good times on the few tracks I'm familiar with. One on one battles are also a lot of fun when its just two people battling for position but as soon as I'm grouped in with a pack I get really nervous and tend to just slow up.

What did it take for you guys to really push through and get comfortable with driving in a pack or get used to driving in intense traffic. I love the fast road racers, getting really into V8 Supercars right now, but watching some people run those on youtube and seeing them running bumper to bumper just like in real life blows me away. I imagine it will just take some extra time to get used to it and get a bit more daring in my driving. Anyone have any tips in the meantime though?

Oval or road racing tips are fine, I've only done one oval race so far which ended with a couple wall hits avoiding rookies in the middle of the track ha.

I guess you have to wait for things to settle down. Don't try to do too much early on and wait for the pack to go single file. Then you can attack whats in front of you with less risk.

I was just realizing last night how a year ago, when I first got into iRacing, I would get incredibly nervous any time I got close to another car. My pulse would go up, the adrenaline would start flowing, I'd become a nervous wreck. Lap 1 was especially always nerve wracking. When you realize that these other cars are driven by real people, and you have a very good chance to ruin someone's day, it's hard to calm yourself down.

But, you eventually get used to it. I noticed last night that I barely get worked up now. I still get a brief moment of panic at the very start of a race sometimes, but that goes away. It's just a matter of getting comfortable enough with the cars that you don't worry so much about crashing, and a matter of time and experience. The more you race, the more relaxed you'll feel. It can take a while to happen though. Just keep racing, you'll gradually get used to it.

One thing you might want to try is to spectate a live race, but then jump into it. If you hit the button at the top of the screen that normally puts you in the car, you'll be placed into your car like usual, but you'll be a ghost to everyone in the actual race. You can't collide with them and they'll never know you're there, but you'll still be able to race them. It's a good way to practice driving in heavy traffic since there won't be any consequences. Just try to police yourself and don't intentionally drive through them. Pretend it's real and actually work on avoiding them while driving as close as you can without touching. It's a good way to practice and you won't get even slightly nervous.

@maxx77: Didn't know about the ghost racing sounds like a neat feature I'll have to give it a go. I've been doing oval races all day and I've found myself getting a bit more comfortable already mostly because you are in a crowd a lot of the time I'll have to see how well that translate over to road racing again once I start moving up to the quicker cars.

@hawk767: I found that oval racing skills like racing in traffic, wreck avoidance and general awareness of what the other drivers are doing carry over to road racing perfectly. But then again, I have the opposite problem: I don't know any fear when racing others, which sometimes ends....poorly.

Honestly I think it's just one of those things that you need to do. Make mistakes and learn from them and you will get better and more comfortable with the whole process.

And believe me, mistakes will happen.