Day 76: August 8th, 2013

Week 1 of the Skip Barber Race Series is complete, and it’s official: I’m not complete garbage with the Formula 2000.

It didn't hurt that the first track was an ungodly familiar course in Summit Point, of course. It certainly helped me become familiar with the car, if nothing else. Here’s the video recap for those of you who’d rather watch a 30-minute recap than read about last week:

One of the key issues that I’m running into, especially with a car as willing to lose control as the Skip Barber, is that I need plenty of time to practice. Three nights were spent last week in open practices alone, as I worked on my line and driving habits. By the end of the first night, I had reached a point where my lap times were consistent 1:23s, and I could run about 8-10 laps without spinning out or visiting nearby woods.

I think we talked about this last week. At least one second had to drop consistently off of my lap time if I wanted to compete for decent positions. I found that second in the setup.

Those of you that play a lot of general racing games know how unwieldy car setups can become when you’re diving into the intricacies. At some point, they go from being easy improvements on time and speed to being preferences on how we want to drive and handle our cars. It’s a completely normal and natural ordeal, if perhaps a little frustrating to work through.

iRacing, at least at the lower levels of cars, limits this by restricting what can be changed on a setup to only the more realistic details. I can change the Skip Barber’s tire pressure, brake bias, fuel load, rear anti-roll bar, and essentially where the suspension’s mounted, but that’s it. There’s no gear ratios, toe-in and toe-out, or camber settings, though these adjustments can affect some of that on the car. It feels a little more realistic for a car of this caliber, where I wouldn't be able to change anything amazingly drastic to outperform my opponents.

As it turns out, dropping tire pressure significantly helps the little Formula immensely. After a few laps of practice and adjusting the brake bias from a pro recommendation to a level where normal people like me can brake without spinning out in half a second, I had my 1:22s.

It’s at this point that I took two days off due to being tired. Whoops.

I re-emerged Saturday, having to knock off some light rust and regain my consistency on the track. Thankfully, I managed to pull myself together long enough to drop a decent mid-1:22 lap time in qualifying, despite running into a mouthy child who spun out in front of me, ran less than a second behind me in qualifying, and then flipped out when my line varied from his and he had to dive off-track to avoid a collision.

This leaves just Sunday for racing, since I don’t have time to compete before 8 PM on Monday. Oh boy.

In all honesty, while I love to rip on my lack of skill in racing, I’m pleasantly surprised by how I performed. Sure, my first race was a middling finish with two spins, but my second race was a solid second place finish, and neither race involved any contact whatsoever.

Furthermore, and here’s where I’m really ecstatic, my pace was good enough to where I felt confident enough to fight for positions. If you watch my videos, you see me give up a lot of positions just because I know I’m not faster than the car behind me. While I still wasn't in a position to get scrappy at the end of a race, there was a lot of confidence that my line was good enough to hold. Cars could drive close behind me, sure, and they did, but I challenged them to make the pass stick. It’s one thing to drive a lap time slightly faster than the car ahead, and another entirely to be fast enough to complete a successful pass. I was not going to give up positions as easily as usual.

Again, this didn't really factor in to either race, since by the end of each I was only chasing a car in front of me, but it’s a nice feeling. I should work at having this confidence more often.

Oh, and I had a quick meeting with an old friend. God damn it all.

With week 1 done, I begin a trek into somewhat unfamiliar territory, as week 2’s race takes place at Road America. It’s one of my favorite tracks that I've visited in person, but I've only raced it in Forza. I’m a little apprehensive on how I’ll handle it in iRacing.

Also, it’s Thursday, and I still haven’t tested or practiced on the track. Fuck.

I’m beginning to run into a problem with iRacing, in that it’s not a great game if you want to spend nights doing other things. I've spent the last few nights either resting or playing Borderlands 2, and I guarantee this is going to hurt my ability to perform well when I race this weekend. iRacing doesn't welcome other games so openly, and if I’m going to compete in each week for my division title, it’s going to take a grand portion of this free time. Games like Borderlands 2, Papers, Please, and #GRID2 have to take a backseat. I’m not used to the uneasy feeling this imbalance of game time creates, but hopefully that will change.

Success demands sacrifice, after all.

Side Notes

So hey, we have a league for Giant Bomb running, and there’s going to be a race this Saturday night to test out our attendance capabilities. Check this thread out if any of that trips your fancy, OK?

I promise to have an entire championship devoted to races filled with dangerous levels of fog. We’ll call it the Inaba Super Cup. If you have great race ideas, I’ll be glad to help bring those to reality, too!

Day 67: July 30th, 2013

Here we go.

Sure, I’ve driven a Miata for a while now, but that was a simple four-week season with mostly inexperienced drivers. Now I’m in a series full of competitors who have proven they can survive a simple Miata and each other, driving a car that demands calm driving under pressure, and it’s a twelve-week season. By the time I’m finished with my first Skip Barber season, I will be 30 years old and in the middle of an early-onset mid-life crisis/emotional breakdown.

Never mind that last part. Allow me to set aside this build-up for a moment and break into a tangent.

I want to take a moment to thank all of you, most notably those that have commented on my blogs and YouTube videos with advice and praise. It’s been helpful, even the times where you seem aghast over my driving skills. I rarely reply, just because it feels somewhat awkward to do so (especially on YouTube), but I read every comment, and it’s uplifting as hell.

Last week, I mentioned that I wasn’t lifting while shifting up with auto clutch, leading to an ugly-sounding shift as I banged against the rev limiter. This was discussed by Drew during his iRacing quick look, but more importantly, a single comment opened my eyes with a basic statement: Shifting up without a clutch is possible, so long as you remove load from the transmission.

Basically, lift off the gas when upshifting, and blip the throttle on downshift. It’s almost the same as shifting in real life, only in a reality where transmission damage doesn’t exist to deter a potential gearbox-shredding technique through shunning a clutch. Naturally, I had to try this out myself.

With auto clutch ticked off, I calibrated my clutch pedal, and then prepared to swiftly ignore it for anything outside of launches. At this point, I’m feeling nervous. Ticking off an assist for the first time feels a whole lot like selecting a difficulty level above your normal comfort zone in just about any other video game, except instead of enemies that soak up more damage or less ammo, a part of the world that was previously ignored is unveiled. Troubles and terrors that were previously unknown rear their heads, and it brings about a realization that, no matter how much of the simulation you had under control, you were being helped more than you realized. Your hand was held, and now it’s gone, and you’re on your own.

I pulled out of pit lane slowly in first, proceeded to accelerate, and at the top of my torque curve, I lifted off the gas, clicked the flappy paddle up, and got back on the gas. Second gear. No rev limiter, no grinding, no engine exploding into a crowd of locals.

Well, shit. This seems doable.

It only took about ten laps of driving before lifting off the gas for a clutch-free shift felt normal. I’m amazed how little it differs from what I’m already used to in sim racers, so even if transmission damage is eventually modeled, I’ll be able to retrain myself without much hassle. I’m not really blipping the throttle much when downshifting, though. It’s kind of reminiscent of how little I touch the throttle when decelerating in real life.

Haven’t blown an engine yet. We’ll see if that lasts.

Now that auto clutch is a thing of the past, it’s time for me to start practicing for this week’s race. My Skip Barber debut is at Summit Point, a track I’m extremely familiar with now. I know its nuances, so I can start off attacking the track in all but a few turns.

…then I remember I’m driving an entirely different car, one that doesn’t care for being forced back on line harshly. Smooth input pays off, and when I’m rolling through turns in an almost care-free fashion, I end up gaining time. This isn’t to say I’m being slow, just smooth when I take the proper driving line.

Practicing online in open session isn’t a necessity, but I’ve found it’s a good indicator of how my current lap times are stacking up against my potential opponents. Anybody can throw down one good lap, but to repeatedly run a fast time takes a bit more focus and skill. In this case, I’m running consistent 1:23s in my laps, and while that’s about middle of the pack for best times, only one or two drivers were catching me at a frightening pace. I consider this a minor victory for my first major practice.

When drivers pull out of the pits right in front of a group of cars, though, open practices can be a little annoying. There’s no risk to safety rating, thankfully, and I do need the practice running alongside other cars, so I tolerate the repetition of cars pulling out, spinning in front of me, and resetting to the pits to do it all over again. It’s a little bit of object avoidance, if you will.

Speaking of object avoidance, this seems like a familiar position for me at Summit Point. Damn it all.

With my first night of practice complete, my best lap time of 1:23.304 is about two seconds off of the lead pack, and one second behind what I would be comfortable running during a race. We’ll see if I get there as I keep working on my racing line and tuning my car.

…and by tuning my car, I mean ripping off the setups of faster drivers.

Side Notes

I’m saving my usual video plugs for the end here, since they don’t really relate to my current practices. If you watched the iRacing quick look and wondered what my perspective looked like as I pulled away from Drew, I’ll give you a hint: It was cars pulling away from me.

With the new season, tech tracks were introduced to iRacing. These are cheaper, unfinished tracks, and don’t currently merit much beyond a passing mention. Long Beach is the only offering thus far, and I ran a few laps around it for fun. This won’t surprise any of my Forza rivals, but I think more obvious braking markers would have helped immensely.

Day 58: July 21st, 2013

Consider this the calm before the storm, if you will.

I've taken a bit of a break from iRacing after feeling a bit of burnout handling the Miata. It’s not a tough car, but it’s not fun trying to squeak the seconds of time I need out of it. The Skip Barber Formula 2000’s rather fun to drive, but without friends to compete against like I have in Forza and other console racing games, I need something to be on the line before I get the urge to jump in and race. In this case, that would be a championship for 2013 season 3.

Yeah, I’m aiming high. It’s not going to happen, but it’ll be fun to try.

I should be practicing more with the Formula 2000, but I don’t feel so bad about my laziness, as an update next week will change the tire model for the car. It might not have thrown me off any, but it’s comforting to know I wasn't comfortable with an outdated tire model.

I did some practice, though. Here’s the video I shot of my second Skippy test session at the easiest Watkins Glen configuration:

Practice and laziness talk aside, here’s how the next Skip Barber season will break down:

1. July 30th: Summit Point, 18 laps
2. August 6th: Road America, 10 laps
3. August 13th: Suzuka, 10 laps
4. August 20th: Watkins Glen, 12 laps
5. August 27th: Okayama, 14 laps
6. September 3rd: Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, 15 laps
7. September 10th: Laguna Seca, 15 laps
8. September 17th: Mosport, 16 laps
9. September 24th: Road Atlanta, 15 laps
10. October 1st: Lime Rock, 26 laps
11. October 8th: Sebring, 10 laps
12. October 15th: Interlagos, 15 laps

I've italicized Suzuka and Okayama because these fall on weeks where I’ll be taking vacations in order to travel to GenCon and PAX Prime, respectively. Those weeks might be without blogs or much in the way of coverage, as a result, but I’m determined to run races on both weeks nevertheless.

If you enjoy watching the videos I post, I will have race recaps for each week, and I plan to have a test session or practice video for each track as well, time and focus permitting. In addition, I’m looking into the possibility of following another driver around as their spotter for a race each week. My intention is to showcase a higher level of racing or something uniquely different than the struggles I’m going through, since there’s a crapload of variety in iRacing.

Finally, one more point I wanted to address that has been a recurring comment:

“Why aren't you letting off the gas when you shift up?”

It’s a completely fair quirk to note, since in reality, this is a terrible practice. In sim racing, however, there’s not a tremendous detriment to keeping the throttle buried, especially since I’m using an automatic clutch. I've practiced with lifting during the shift and staying on the gas, and it makes no noticeable difference in my lap times. With that in mind, the choice is between awful-sounding shifts and putting my throttle pedal through what feels like uncomfortable wear. For now, I prefer the awful sound.

I said very early on that I wasn't comfortable using a clutch pedal with flappy paddle shifters, but maybe that should change. Perhaps I’m not jumping into the rough bits of sim racing hard enough right now. Perhaps more of this battle and experiment should involve learning through suffering.

Musing aside, business picks up next week, as I look to begin my campaign for a divisional title in the Skip Barber Race Series. It should be interesting, if not a little bit humiliating.

Day 39: July 2nd, 2013

I thought I’d try something different for the video this time. It’s a little more spontaneous this time around.

The audio’s a bit spotty in a few sections, likely because I was actually taxing my computer for once with all the packets and frames flying about. I’ll look into resolving that for future recordings.

That was one race at Summit Point, and it had a lousy result. Given my first races took place here, it’s a little embarrassing. I ran two other races in the Grand Touring Cup this last weekend, and for the sake of staying on-topic, I’ll cover the other lousy result.

In all fairness, it started pretty well. Grand Touring races are rolling starts, so they involve driving slowly behind a pace car for a lap, and then being let loose once the pace car pulls into pit lane and the leader decides it’s time to go. Ideally, they’d wait until the green flag is out, but that never seemed to happen from my experience.

The scene’s awesome, regardless, especially in a big race. This is one of the main reasons I was looking forward to iRacing. It’s rare to have such huge packs at the start of a sim race and not have some ungodly awful pile-up at the very first turn, and for the most part, iRacing’s drivers do a decent job avoiding such a fiasco.

My biggest gripe, looking back at my driving, is that I continue to be too timid, both in the space I allot the driver in front of me, and how easily I give up positions when a faster driver is behind me.

There weren’t any exceptions here, but damn if I wasn’t in the middle of a fabulous pack of Miatas. The battles in front were making it very tempting to try a pass, but I knew better. Drivers of my skill who try a three-wide pass often create a three-wide blockade on the track when they inevitably cause an accident. I relented as much as I could, looking for an opportunity while the competitors behind me were salivating for the chance to dive-bomb past me in a corner.

I’d like to think impatience works its own nefarious brand of karma, but too often in racing, it ends up rewarding the bold or crazy. Maybe I don’t have the daredevil genetics and instincts for these sorts of battles.

Then again, I was hanging with this pack rather well. My strategy remained just about the same: Wait for the cars in front to spread out or take each other out, then pick off whatever remained, one by one.

I thought I had conquered a certain turn, and my comfort with the Miata’s handling was reaching reasonable levels. Such feelings tend to go away real quickly when you forget to stabilize the car properly before a hard braking section.

See? God damn it.

God. Damn. It.

...God damn it all.

At least I now know the driver that said “fucking idiot” in the chat was likely referring to the guy that hit me.

A hard hit after a solitary spin means I finished second to last, a disheartening result for what could have been my most interesting race yet. That killed my weekend motivation for racing really quickly, despite likely being one race away from a C license upgrade.

Wait, a C license? Already? First, though, I needed to think about what happened, and how I could prevent myself from getting into race-killing accidents. That’s not to say they happen all the time, but it’s certainly more frequent than I’d like. Maybe I just needed to move away from the Miata permanently. It’s a dead end at this point, anyways, since I can’t go any further than D class races using it.

A much simpler answer faded into my head at work on Monday: Didn’t you start near the front of the pack when you won those two races?

…well, shit. I did, and in the other unmentioned Grand Touring race this weekend, I started 4th and finished 4th, which is a decent result, given my apparent driving issues.

In iRacing, grids are set by qualifying time, but qualifying is completely optional. Bypassing it means you fall behind everyone that did qualify, and are then sorted amongst the skippers by your driver rating. In an attempt to be gracious to more talented drivers, I had willingly avoided qualifying in the hopes I’d be placed at the back, but instead I kept finding myself right in the thick of the pack, surrounded by said skilled drivers.

Perhaps the easiest way to put myself in a less stressful position is to bloody qualify every week. It’s worth a shot from now on, at least. Worst I can do is get taken out by faster drivers, right?

Back to that license situation. Provided I don’t royally screw up my next D class race, I am one race away from qualifying for a C license. I’ve only driven the Miata so far, and I lack experience, but C class contains all the cars I want to drive, including Daytona Prototypes and IndyCars. To say it’s awfully tempting is a rather large understatement. Conversely, I need to become a better driver, and the path to learning smooth, safe driving goes straight through a Skip Barber Formula 2000. It’s unwieldy and perhaps annoying, but I will either learn or suffer grave consequences.

The decision is tough: Go right for my dream cars, or gut it out properly in a Skip Barber season. With only one more race that I need to run in the next three weeks for my C license, I think it’s time for a little experimentation and testing.

Naturally, that involves some screaming from my wallet. Business is going to pick up very soon.

Day 33: June 26th, 2013

It ends with a whimper. After some chaotic races at Laguna Seca, the 2013 Season 2B iRacing Mazda Cup is over. As always, here’s a video if you’d prefer watching that instead:

Laguna Seca’s an interesting track, if only because it’s one of the few race tracks I’ve experienced repeatedly over several racing games. My time with Forza 4 helped out quite a bit in providing the general driving line and tactics for the course, but there are nuances that iRacing’s cars and system create. For one, turn six, an uphill left before the iconic corkscrew, is far scarier. Turn too early, and receive an off-track incident point and a furled black flag for course cutting. Turn too late, and receive the same incident point and risk losing control. The margin of error feels smaller with penalties on the line, and building a rhythm is tough for a turn that requires very sudden input.

My initial lap times at Laguna Seca were garbage, and this was frustrating until I watched replays with cars much faster than me. The real problem isn’t my driving line around the track, which is fine. Instead, I’m just taking it too slow, without a healthy amount of aggression. Once I started attacking turns intelligently, my lap times started to improve by a couple of seconds.

If I’m being honest, the key was to reject the Laguna Seca I had become accustomed to, and accept the Laguna Seca iRacing presented me, slippy MX-5 and all. My results weren’t great, but at least I finally built up a rhythm that I can improve on over time.

So the season’s over. It was short, but was a great opening learning experience for iRacing. It’s quite the good introduction to this service; after all, if the 20-minute races from either introductory cup aren’t enjoyable enough for a person’s driving urge, there’s a good chance that the higher-level races won’t be much fun, either. After all, most cars beyond the MX-5 are harder to control, and the races ramp up in time investment. Eventually, 20 minutes could become an hour or more, and if that sounds more boring than exciting, iRacing is most certainly not worth its cost. For me, that’s totally worth the time. Money’s yet to be determined, but a few hours of racing has never turned me off.

I won’t speak to the oval cars, as I’ve heard that some of the cars beyond the JR Motorsports Street Stock are a hell of a lot more fun, but they’re still a larger time investment moving up to faster cars.

As the title of this blog implies, out of 5,636 drivers, I finished 407th in this Mazda Cup season. Top 7% or so. That’s not bad, but obviously I would have work to do if I wanted to contend for a championship. Thankfully, that’s not my aim right now – I’d rather move on to a series where I want to contend.

This brings me to a point I brought up in my last blog. Part of my discussion of my various career paths and championship choice in iRacing revolved around series attendance, and which series featured decent amounts of drivers. I decided my assumptions from brief observations weren’t good enough, and instead evaluated eight weeks of racing from every series.

Those of you who liked my older stat posts might enjoy this.

Here’s the day-by-day table based on those eight weeks. I kept my tally to eight weeks in order to remove some bias caused by series going to a free or otherwise desired track, as compared to a less-popular course. I also cut “Monday’s” observed times to two hours, which ends up being 8:00 PM EDT to 10:00 PM EDT on Sunday for me. The days are based on GMT here, see, and quite frankly, I’m not going to attempt a week’s race after Sunday, when I’d normally start getting ready for work.

The day-by-day is all nice and dandy, but seriously, a total by series is way more helpful.

There we go.

As you can tell, Skip Barber is indeed freakin’ popular, as I suggested last week. What I didn’t suggest is that the Spec Racer Fords and Global Challenge would be the next two popular series by attendance (or, more specifically, attendance good enough to make races count for official points). I think there might be some bias due to the Global Challenge using a relatively new KIA in its races and the Spec Ford series being the last bastion for that car, but it’s surprising nevertheless.

It also turns out that my favored Grand Touring Cup isn’t all that hot in attendance. Go figure.

Oh, and one more image, just to show the obvious:

This just in: iRacing is more frequented on the weekends. Shocking, I know.

Based on this data I’ve compiled, along with your comments in the last blog, it seems like the Skip Barber Race Series is my logical next step in the world of iRacing. I’ll go down that path in four weeks, but until then, I see the Grand Touring Cup has a race back at where it all started for me: Summit Point Raceway.

Let’s see how it goes with some experience under the belt and tougher competition, yeah? I’m looking forward to it.

Day 27: June 20th, 2013

My short rookie season is coming to an end. It’s time for some thought.

Here’s a video recapping my time at Lime Rock for week 3 of the Mazda Cup:

I won’t reiterate much this time around, other than to say I was a complete wimp. Blame the safety rating, I suppose.

Don’t blame it too much, though. That safe driving did get me my first license upgrade.

23 days into this iRacing.com experiment, and I am no longer a rookie on road courses. This D license is the lowest road license I can hold from now on, no matter how unsafe I am from this point forward. More importantly, it unlocks a bunch of new racing series for me to participate in.

Moving upwards comes with a significant cost, though. Let’s go through all of my choices for D class, in order of preference at a first glance:

(Note: Estimated costs based on this season’s schedule, which is subject to change next season.)

Grand Touring Cup

The Grand Touring Cup’s a multi-class series involving the Mazda MX-5, Pontiac Solstice, and Volkswagen Jetta TDI. The Jetta doesn’t have its own series in iRacing anymore, presumably due to a lack of interest, so this series lumps it in with a few more popular cars.

It’s a comfortable series to jump into, since I can use the MX-5 I’m already familiar with, and I’ll only be competing against other Miatas in the field. The multi-class aspect also creates the potential for larger fields. Races begin with rolling starts, which I’m much better at handling than standing starts.

…unfortunately, other drivers might not handle those starts as well, since it involves slowly driving in position for a lap behind a pace car. Still, for 25 minute races, it’s not a bad next step into the world of multi-class racing.

• Cost of car: $0.00 ($11.95 for the Jetta)
• Cost of tracks: $101.65
• Total cost with bulk purchase discount: $81.32

Spec Racer Ford Challenge

The Spec Racer Ford is a staple of the SCCA, which runs and supports a bunch of the road racing in America. It’s built solely for racing, and since they’re reasonably affordable for someone with a bit of extra money looking for a weekend hobby, there’s decent groups that can be found racing around the country throughout the year.

At least, that’s what I read on the Internet. The Spec Racer Ford comes free with iRacing, and it might be a good way to familiarize myself with lighter and faster cars, but it doesn’t seem to attract large fields for racing. I’d still have to buy a bunch of tracks, too.

• Cost of car: $0.00
• Cost of tracks: $104.65
• Total cost w/discount: $83.72

Skip Barber Race Series

If you’ve ever thought about learning how to race, you’ve heard about Skip Barber. Named after the man at its helm, it’s the premiere driving school for newbies looking to learn the basics. Over the years, Skip’s created a few racing series for rookie drivers willing to invest in leasing or buying cars from him, and this series features a Formula 2000 equivalent car.

The great part about a Skip Barber series is that, even in the virtual world, it attracts a lot of interest. Skip Barber races run more frequently than other D series options, and they’re better attended, too. That means more competition and more opportunities to hone my skills. It also means more highly skilled drivers are in the fray, though, and for someone inexperienced like me, especially with a beginner Formula car, I could easily be eaten alive on the track.

Provided I don’t take anyone out, that is. That would be awkward. Still, I have some interest in moving to IndyCar later on in my career, so this could be a decent first step.

• Cost of car: $11.95
• Cost of tracks: $119.60
• Total cost w/discount: $105.24

iRacing Global Challenge

The Global Challenge is the closest current equivalent in iRacing to the Pirelli World Challenge, which is basically the SCCA touring car series that I used to watch hour-long summaries of on Speedvision. In this case, it only features race-ready versions of the Cadillac CTS-V and the KIA Optima. Not quite as varied a field, but that’s the norm for iRacing.

The CTS-V comes free with iRacing, which is good since I’m not buying a KIA, but Cadillac’s sports car strikes me as heavy and powerful, two things I’m not keen on jumping into given my alternatives. The iRacing community seems to agree, as well, as it’s one of the lower-attended championships in D.

It doesn’t feature the sort of cars I think I’d stick with at higher classes, but it’s an option.

• Cost of car: $0.00
• Cost of tracks: $119.60
• Total cost w/discount: $95.68

iRacing Mustang Cup

It’s a bunch of race-ready Ford Mustangs. Slowbird would be thrilled to see me in this series, but it has terribly low attendance and a car I have absolutely no interest in which I currently can’t use in any other series.

Kind of a dead end, really.

• Cost of car: $11.95
• Cost of tracks: $128.55
• Total cost w/discount: $112.40

....yeesh, there's a lot of money flying around here.

Let’s just summarize those potential costs, to drive a point home:

• Grand Touring Cup: $81.32
• Spec Racer Ford Challenge: $83.72
• Skip Barber Race Series: $105.24
• Global Challenge: $95.68
• Mustang Cup: $112.40

Have I ever mentioned that iRacing can be fucking costly? Granted, track costs will go down somewhat once I’ve purchased the popular ones, but damn, it’s one heck of a steep initial investment, especially given I’m going in blind.

There is one more option, however.

inRacingNews Challenge

The inRacingNews Challenge is reasonably well attended, full of drivers a step up from new rookies, and features tracks and cars I already have! It’s Pontiac Solstices and Mazda MX-5, to be more specific. I guess it used to feature Spec Racer Fords, as well, but I guess that stopped working out, because they are gone from everything except the imagery.

The biggest problem here: It’s a rookie series. I can participate in this, free of additional charges, but I can never move up into C class through this series. I have to participate in at least four D-class races to earn a C license.

After the Mazda Cup finale this week, we’ll be over four weeks away from the D championships starting new seasons. I think I’ll dabble in the inRacingNews Challenge at the point, and maybe dabble in D races at tracks I already own, should the opportunity arise.

Diversify the skill set. That seems like a good enough idea. Don’t know what it’ll do to my safety rating, though.

Day 23: June 16th, 2013

Before every race, as I’m sitting on the grid, I start to panic. My heart feels like it’s attempting to push its way out of my chest, and my stomach churns like I’m cresting a never-ending hill. Standard signs of nervousness, I suppose, but it’s a bit much for online racing, where I’m usually fine. It’s all surrounding a recurring fear I have with iRacing: I could be the guy who ruins somebody’s race.

I could be the driver that doesn’t brake in time, or brakes too early, or turns into another car, or loses control in the middle of a huge pack, and what follows is all my fault. All the incident points, all the potential protests, all the possible suspensions. All my fault.

The start of a race, and lap one for that matter, is the absolute worst for these nerves. No matter how accurately everyone is placed on the grid in regards to their lap times, the beginning of a race is a gigantic sorting process, where the hasty and reckless are eliminated, and of those that remain, the fast and slow generally shift into place. Sure, there’s plenty of battle left in the laps that follow, especially if a driver picks up speed and begins working their way through a pack, but it’s almost always cessation from grand scale warfare to focused battles with one or two cars.

Occasionally, the sorting process favors an unlikely competitor. Sometimes, that unlikely competitor is me.

Yeah, it happened last week. Twice in a row, I won. I was hardly the fastest in either race, but general bursts of calamity tilted in my favor, and I ended up at the front.

The first victory felt rather surreal in how quickly it unfolded. I started second, thanks to some luck in qualifying, and as the leader and I ran cautiously through the first two turns, I saw most of the cars behind me crash and collect each other. Being mostly secure in second now, I figured I’d focus on running cleanly behind the leader, and should I be in a position to challenge for position at the end, do so then. Of course, I didn’t expect the leader to lose control and spin out at the end of the first lap, completely clearing the track for me to assume the lead.

If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like for the world to part like clouds and leave you alone, I assure you it’s an intensely calming sensation.

Deep breath. Quick shake of the head at my sudden luck. Just put down safe laps, I thought, and so I did. Ten laps of safe, slow, secure driving, and my first victory was secured. It wasn’t exactly an exciting race, but I pumped my fist and punched the air to an audience of zero regardless. A win’s a win. At least a little celebration is merited.

The second victory is just a great lesson for racing. For the majority of the race, I ran fourth, which is where I settled after dodging an early wreck and several cars spinning in front of me on the first lap. The top three cars ran away from me in their own battle pack, so with no challenge behind me, I was once again alone on the track. I could have tried to race harder to catch up to the leaders, but instead, I focused on running a safe race.

By the final lap, the leaders were getting antsy in fighting for position. I could see it ahead of me down the front straightaway, and I could hear it in uneasiness over the voice chat. Finally, at a hairpin, one bad attempt at a pass led to all of the leaders wrecking.

Once again, a victory had fallen into my lap, but a win’s a win. A primary lesson to keep in mind for racing, especially with human opponents: Never give up. Never stop fighting. Until the checkered flag is thrown, there’s always something that could happen.

So with two wins in the last week of racing, I move forward to a track that’s proving quite problematic for me: Lime Rock. Whereas I was incredibly slow with a controller, now I’m crashing all the time with a wheel. It’s frustrating as hell, and also why I haven’t practiced laps since Wednesday. That has to change, because today’s the last chance for me to get a race in.

Never give up. Never stop fighting. I’ll let you know how that goes, and afterwards, as I head into the final week of the season, we’ll talk more about where I go from here.

Day 15: June 8th, 2013

There comes a time where, despite all the racing games I’ve played and all the accomplishments I’ve managed in games like Forza Motorsport and F-Zero GX, I have to step back and admit that I’m just not good enough at racing.

The lap times aren’t good enough. The finishes aren’t good enough. I can and should do better.

Though the mumbling in the video above doesn’t tell the whole story (and yes, I’ll work on that in future recordings), I have struggled mightily to adjust to Okayama International Circuit from Summit Point. I thought it would be easy, and in a video that won’t see the light of day, I passed its turns off as basic and terribly easy to drive while spotting for Slowbird.

Then I drove the track.

The first right-hander hairpin seemed easy enough, and memories of Twin Ring Motegi’s opening turn flooded in as a form of instruction. Easy enough, I assumed. You’ve handled this style of flat, double-apex turn before.

Assuming that two tracks will have an identical turn is a very dumb mistake. This became evident to me when I discovered Okayama’s first turn ending a lot sooner than expected and starting downhill. The first mistake was a slide coming out of turn one. The second was a spin going into turn two.

This folly became a familiar habit for several practice sessions. Could I take two downhill lefts at a flying speed? No, that’s a good way to eat gravel or spin in a dangerous section of track. Surely I can attack the uphill hairpins with aggression, right? No, you lose control in an instant and ruin a good lap. These mistakes compiled, frustrated, and demoralized the hell out of me.

That was three days ago.

Such inexperience vanishes over time, thankfully, and by Friday (Day 14) I was running reasonably consistent laps again. I knew where the Miata would get upset in turns, and I had ideas on how to correct it should it happen in a crucial race. I wasn’t extremely fast, but stability and safety is more important, as I’ve often repeated, and hopefully my qualifying will put me in a good position to finish well in races.

Enter race one of the day, the wake-up call. Ten laps around Okayama.

I’ll discuss the psychological feeling of the start of a race another time, but position-wise, starting near the back with plenty of drivers able to pass me helped a lot. I figured a few turns in, the faster cars would be by me, and I could run my own race.

Turn two, the downhill left where I first spun out, seemed easy enough. I just had to stay to the outside of the track while being passed. Shame I wasn’t ready for this.

Loss of control. Dead last. Far behind the entire pack. Cursing at myself. At this point, I knew my best option was to run as safely as possible for the rest of the race and salvage some safety rating out of an already-pitiful performance.

So slowly I drove, making sure to be cautious and reasonable. Shame I was tempted to pass a slower car for position by the two downhill lefts, and on lap four, found myself having to demonstrate whether I’d learned anything about running an outside line.

Nope. Even worse, a backmarker behind me wasn’t able to adjust his line quickly enough, so my car was soundly ruined. The remainder of the race was spent in the pits or running slow laps of shame and disappointment on my own.

Time to take that step back and make an admission: I’m not as good at racing sims as my fanaticism for them would imply.

There was another important race on this day, but I’ll save its result for a separate blog and video recap. Instead, I’ll just leave my current license status below, and say I’m actually doing well thus far. If I surpass a 4.00, I will automatically get a D license. Failing that, I’ll have my D license in two weeks, barring a major disaster.

I’m safe, but I can and should do better. Given time, I’m still determined I will.

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.

Day 8: June 1st, 2013

It’s here.

The wait seemed long, but after a week traveling across the country, my racing wheel arrived in three large boxes.

Naturally, I took a bunch of pictures.

Here’s the pile FedEx brought to my house. That’s a wheel, pedals, and a shifter kit. Also pictured: An enthusiastic tubby cat.

I purchased the Fanatec GT3 RS, so it comes with a stylish Porsche emblem and casing similar to the car’s paintjob. I’m not a huge fan of the buttons, and the button at the bottom of the wheel that's supposed to act like a d-pad is pretty terrible, but the wheel itself is easy to grip and comfortable. The flappy paddles on the back are tinier buttons, unlike the more recent Forza wheels Fanatec's made, but at least they’re quiet. My dad has the lesser of the two Forza Fanatec wheels, and you can hear the clicks of his paddle shifting anywhere in the damn house. It’s borderline obnoxious.

Here’s the part I was really looking forward to: Fanatec's Elite pedals. They look solid, and feel the part as well. I’m usually a horrible brute with pedals – in fact, I've ruined no less than three wheels by destroying the potentiometers in their associated pedals -- but the gas has a definite stopping point and the brake becomes too stiff to push all the way in. It’s all really smooth, not to mention adjustable, so it’s likely I won’t bust these pedals up as quickly. Plus, if I do, at least it’s easier to order replacements from Fanatec, compared to the pedals for my old Sidewinders and Driving Force Pro.

Here’s the only downer from the bundle. The one on the left is sequential, so it’s push and pull for shifting (which is awesome). The one on the right is the h-pattern. Problem is, it’s difficult as hell to tell which gear it’s in. Toying around with it, I couldn't reliably shift between first gear and reverse. If there was some sort of visible shift path for the various gear notches, it might be usable, but for me, it’s going back in the box. Unfortunately, that also means I won’t be using the clutch pedal for a long while, since flappy paddles and clutch pedals mixing is a concept that breaks my mind.

Anyways. With everything plugged in, it fits nicely at my desk. Didn't have to finagle anything too much for comfort.

I did make a gigantic fucking mess of boxes, though.

Earlier today, I took this setup and streamed my first major practice on Twitch. The stream went well. The driving, not so much.

In the long term, a wheel might be the faster option. However, there’s a definite and noticeable adjustment curve to switch from a handheld controller to a wheel and pedals. Counter-steering takes more work. The car’s stability has to be taken into consideration more often. This is especially true with a Miata, which has a reliable and consistent habit of kicking its rear out through turns. With a wheel, I have to be more careful about my braking habits at first. If I begin to turn into a corner while braking, the car wants to come around and spin out, and this is way more noticeable than it would be on the 360 controller. The Miata’s personality is more noticeable, for better or worse.

I think that’s the thing with a wheel. It’s not crucial for immersion or performance, but it’s a far more reliable control method, and it does a better job of bringing out the nuances of a car. I just need to practice more, and seven years without a wheel of my own has left me a little rusty. Plus, I really don’t want to rip it apart in the first week with aggressive steering.

My best time for Summit Point on the stream was an abysmal 1:28.1. I've since improved to a 1:26.5 in testing. I’m almost ready for an actual race, once I build up some consistency in my safe laps.

Hopefully that’s soon. The first week of the Mazda Cup’s season is rapidly approaching its end.