My Experience with iRacing So Far.

[Evan Madore]

Well, the past month has been pretty interesting. Around mid October I was suspended from Race2Play.com for a month on somewhat ridiculous pretenses. I was not so mad about this really, but what happened after that just crossed the line for me. I was then banned until the first of January. Anyway, I went on a trip to NYC and got a web dev and cleared all of this from my mind. While I was in NYC, I saw an ad somewhere for iRacing. it stuck in my mind until I got home.

I had tried iRacing around the beginning of it's launch. Things were buggy and it was more expensive so I shrugged it off. Then, around three months ago, I decided to give it a try again. This time I had a buy one get two free coupon. Again though, I did a few races and kind of shrugged it off. It really was not to my liking.

When I got home from NYC, I remembered I still had a little time to try it again. With no other leagues to attend, I said to myself I would give it one week of my attention when it comes to sims. Now, I am glad I did.

Starting off as a rookie, I had 3 cars to pick from. SRF's, Solstice's, and now the MX-5's. I came back in the week 13 or whatever it is called, so there were a bunch of fun runs and an official SRF series. For the first day or so, I just could not get a handle on those SRF's. They are the complete opposite of the ones in rF. It seems with any sort of braking or throttle lift, the back end breaks loose and you really only have a very short amount of time to get it back. Anyway, I quickly learned to always be on the throttle at least a small amount to keep that back end in. In the few short days I had in this series, I was able to take a few wins.

Shortly after just beginning, I was upgraded to a "Class D" license. This is where I am at now. I am sticking to the rookie class races right now as I want to wait to purchase more content. I am having plenty of fun in the Mazda's. They are very easy to keep stable and make around the track. Although, it is difficult to put in a competitive time. They somewhat remind me of the Skoda's from rF. Anyway, I have had some of my best, most fun races in my sim racing history in these, as well as some of my worst.

Example of the worst. (I am the blue and orange car)

Now, at this point, situations like this are happening to me a lot. My safety rating has dropped almost a full point for incidents that I should not even have been part of. I feel as if everything I have learned to avoid accidents in 200+ league races in rF don't apply at all to iRacing. I was looking forward to advancing to Class C soon, but at this rate would be lucky to stay at D. Does anyone have some suggestions?

Also, I am looking at purchasing some new content. Probably one car and two tracks for now. What would you suggest. I DO NOT oval race.

These are my stats as of now.

Starts: 34
Wins: 4
Top 5: 20
Poles: 3
Avg Start: 6
Avg Finish: 6
Total Laps: 535
Laps Led: 48
Avg Inc: 8.5 =[
Avg Pts: 52
Win %: 12%
Top 5 %: 59%
Laps Led %: 9%

What now?!

 

[William Nowell]

Your video mad me laugh, because I have been there before. Best advice I can give you is get out of the rookie class. You will learn quickly that SR points are worth more then wins sometimes. You either want to be in the front of the grid or the back. There's nothing but trouble in the middle. As for as cars, I think most will agree that the skip baber is a solid choice. Lots of series run at walkins glenn and zandvoort.

 

[stabiz]

I have to disagre with William here, SR points are never worth more than wins. If you get out of rookie class the racing cleans up as you progress, and as a D car I would go with Mustang. The Skip barber is massive fun too, but after racing a full season (or so) in both I found the racing more fun in the Mustang class. (Its really a toss up between those two)

My advice is to practice until you can run a competitive pace for a race distance, qualify as best as you can and then race hard and fair. Some races you will leave the track because of others mistakes, some races you will gain places from others mistakes and some races you will lose places due to your own mistakes. SR evens out and reflects your true safety rating eventually. I just dont see the point in rolling around tracks at 80% to avoid incs, since this will cost you iRating. iRating is way more important than SR, since getting in higher splits makes it easier to gain SR due to drivers generally having more control and driving more predictable the higher you get.

 

[Dario Jagar]

I have to agree with both, for me it is a mixture between iR and SR, in short my way was get SR up first to collect licences in order to get out of rookie series (default cars), switch mostly to Skippy still with SR in first place which simply pushed me back in iR because there is really plenty of poeple fast enough (faster then me) but unable to finish complete race without incidents, finally when my iR went over 1800 I started to join higher/highest splits with Skippy, there was real pleasure to drive cause races are very clean, competitive and if you are able to finish in most of those races in better half you will stay there, once you enter those races from pure respect to those folks you begin to practice even more b4 races,

in short once you past 1800 iR (and stay there) fun begins
between Mustang and Skippy I would choose Skippy.....and Mustang
regarding tracks Road Atlanta, Watkins and Mid Ohio are must have and all are used in most of the road series, gl, hf

 

[Onno Naber]

Hello Dario
Nice work on your career, Iam with iracing now for some 3 months now and still enjoying every moment,Iam still learning (especially on setups )
which is still my weakest point but its getting better,it took me quite a wile to figure out what is doing what (done a lot of comparing setups from more experienced drivers to look what the have done and changed ).
Now unlike you Iam more into oval racing,like most of you know it looks easy but its not,its almost like a controlled slide true a corner and with a full pack really exiting.
I can not give you any tips on which car to buy,but my personal experience with the incident problem is the same as yours when I was in the rookie class on oval (Iam a class B now ),cars flying al over the place,disaster.
So I started to do time trials to get into a higher class and things are much better now,ok there are still incidents but its racing (you know )
I know Iam telling you this from a oval point of view but i hoop its helpful to you
Good luck with your career

 

[isamu]

between Mustang and Skippy I would choose Skippy.....and Mustang

just to be clear, you *CAN* participate in both, so long as you own the content...right? How many of you guys do both, and would say doing both is far better than just one of them?

 

[Don Davis]

just to be clear, you *CAN* participate in both, so long as you own the content...right? How many of you guys do both, and would say doing both is far better than just one of them?

yes you can compete in any series you own the content and license. I fast tracked out of D before the season was done, but bought both cars and still go back and mess with them. they are fun to drive. Tho the williams ends all.

 

[Dario Jagar]

just to be clear, you *CAN* participate in both, so long as you own the content...right? How many of you guys do both, and would say doing both is far better than just one of them?

In last season I did 12 weeks with Skippy, 8 weeks in Star Mazda, 8 weeks in Mustang, started Jetta/haven´t finished
yep you can do more then one, depends how much free time you have and how much you plan to practice

 

[Abdul Al-Amry]

Last season I joined every series my licence and content allowed me to. This season I have cut down and focusing on Star Mazda first. I'll be having the odd race in Mustang or Vettes or the others that I have the cars to use, but not as much as last season.

 

[Ryan Vickery]

Spend some time getting a good qualifying as starting from the front can probably avoid these situations, a lot of the races i have done the drivers that end up in the wall the most are also usually the ones who didnt set qualifying times, if you can avoid the madness into the first corner you make it a lot easier for yourself.


As for SR vs Wins.... i say to myself before every race... dont worry about winning, just keep your safety rating. That lasts until about the first corner and then i dont care about anything other than winning... ^^.

I've had some nice battles with people and won 3 out of the 9 races ive done, and two 2nd positions. Had a race where i lost the lead at lap 2 due to slipstream on main straight and i let him take it into the 1st corner, then i did the same thing to him on lap 3 and took it back, but the driver (after watching the replay) turned in and clipped my back end at the first corner, sending me off the track, what looked like intentionally, so going for wins is always risky when your fate is in the hands of another driver. Luckily for me in that race he had a battle with the 3rd place (now 2nd) car and lost the place, and shortly after he put it in the wall so i was able to take 2nd.

There are drivers in the rookie ranks that will take out disapointment on other drivers, i've seen it a few times and been lucky to avoid it in a few of my races, im guessing the general idea here is to get your ass out of there as soon as possible. But i say that in theory, when it comes to the track i always want to go for the win. I'm currently at 2.70 rating, started Iracing last friday, its been up and down but i've become more consistant and have a better idea of what the other drivers may do now.

 

[David Rolleston]

Now, at this point, situations like this are happening to me a lot. My safety rating has dropped almost a full point for incidents that I should not even have been part of. I feel as if everything I have learned to avoid accidents in 200+ league races in rF don't apply at all to iRacing. I was looking forward to advancing to Class C soon, but at this rate would be lucky to stay at D. Does anyone have some suggestions?

Also, I am looking at purchasing some new content. Probably one car and two tracks for now. What would you suggest. I DO NOT oval race.

Welcome back to iRacing, like you I have returned to it this last couple of weeks after a long lay off. The intention being to obtain an A licence so that I can compete with the Williams F1 car. At week 13 I was B class with an SR of 2.10. First race back was carnage with 13 incidents that dropped my SR to 1.51 and what would have been a relegation to C class at the end of the week.

The bottom line is to promote through the divisions and compete with faster cars in closer cleaner races first of all you have to concentrate on your SAFETY RATING.

The SR is based on the average incidents during your last 10-15 races along with a reduced amount from qualifying and time trials that you undertake.

To raise your safety rating you need to drive through so many corners without incident. The average number of corners you can negotiate without incident impacts on your SR. Check out resources and page 23 of the beginners guide. This has a chart that shows you what you need to average to reach the next level. To get to class C you will need to average 50.5 turns per incident. 5 laps of Laguna Seca would be 55 turns. An A licence requires an average of 76 turns so not much higher, when you can race 20 laps at Silverstone which is a total of 400 turns for the race.

So plan your races carefully and also use time trials and qualifying to get some incident free racing in as well. It also helps to reach the Minumim Required Participation per licence.

Upshot is with some careful driving and not pushing for position I have now progressed to A class and along the way my iRating has risen by over 500 points without really trying. Now I have the A licence I have the full choice of what classes I wish to race in and can push like crazy to continue to improve my iRating.

Car choice is a personal thing, but my favourites have always been the open wheelers, so for this season I will be running in the Skip Barber (may drop this), Star Mazda, Lotus 79 (awesome car and very close racing) and the Williams F1.

BEST TIP: If there is a large field you're up against then don't be afraid of starting in the pit lane, just don't click grid when the option is available and you will allow everyone else to start and then the pit lane opens for you to pull out. I have finished many races in the top 5 this way and avoided the inevitable barging and carnage that happens during the first 3-4 corners of a race. Also note that once at C licence cars do not get repaired when towed to the pits so effectively race over if its damaged too much. This also means more careful racing in the higher classes.

Good luck

 

[William Nowell]

Good write up daverollo, I agree with you whole heartly. It took me a little while to realize what was going on in iracing. As a rookie I would push, push, push, and safety rating, what's that? But after awhile you get tired of being taking out in the first lap while fighting along with everyone esle. Once I started focusing on being clean and finishing, things started to change. Soon I was able to put in a full race distance, incident free, and my times started dropping, and my finishing position started improving. To the point now I can be clean and fast, not just one or the other. I find that if you can have a clean race, this will lower your average lap time, which is better then just that one fast lap that everyone else is shooting for.

 

[Jeff Fedorovich]

Iracing is easily hacked with cheat engine 5.6

 

[AProst]

Cheating in a game whose account value can be several hundred dollars is a bit risky...

In their terms and conditions, iRacing state that they can cancel an account with or with no reason...

 

[Kevin Watts]

From what I've read in the official forums iRacing is on the case and users have already been banned for cheating.

 

[Jeff Fedorovich]

Shannon Whitemore banned me for telling them that I tried it and it works. I didn't try it in an official race server. Just in a practice and twenty minutes after telling the members in the forum that it works I got banned. That software has been around for five years so I'm sure iracing has known about it. I don't think they can do anything about it.

 

[AProst]

Maybe some rookie drivers would risk having their account banned, but I doubt that the drivers who have invested a lot of money in the game would use cheats.

Maybe it is one or the only advantage of iRacing high price for tracks and cars...

 

[Jeff Fedorovich]

It can't be detected. The only reason I was banned was for being a whistle blower. 500 plus dollar account permantely banned without even a written email. I got an email with a quote from the sporting code. It was like getting an email from a bot. As you can imagine I'm totally pissed about this but what can you do. In my opinion iRacing is screwed with this cheat engine program because they can't do anything about it.

 

[Abdul Al-Amry]

Jeff, imho what you should have done first is contact iRacing and informing them about your test. I have read all about this cheat even seen a youtube video about it. Am I eager to try it? Never. I enjoy games so much that using a cheat will reduce the enjoyment and eventually look for another hobby.

 

[tommyturner]

It can't be detected. The only reason I was banned was for being a whistle blower. 500 plus dollar account permantely banned without even a written email. I got an email with a quote from the sporting code. It was like getting an email from a bot. As you can imagine I'm totally pissed about this but what can you do. In my opinion iRacing is screwed with this cheat engine program because they can't do anything about it.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA Unlucky buddy. You deserve everything you get. Hope you never come back