iRacing.com Motorsports Simulations

how do i get into a time trial, as opposed to a normal race? Also im using the rookie pontiac, i heard this does not improve my rating, is this true?

I'm going all road-racing open wheel in this game, how fast can i get into the stock racer ford, even in a time-trial capacity? (I know its closed wheel, but you know what i mean)

Already paid for the Skip Barber F2000 and Star Mazda. Currently wasting time testing the Formula Mazda instead of getting better with the lame pontiac, Grr... Its so much fun!

The time trials are accessed on the far right of the sessions page. They generally run every 2 minutes and are solo runs. You have to string together a series of incident-free laps, so no dropping wheels. The qualifying sessions are just like open practice sessions only safety rating counts and your best lap gets you a better spot on the grid.

If you do nothing but time trial and qualifying (qualifying generally has higher safety rating gains) you'd probably get high enough for the Spec Racer in a few hours. It takes a while. It really is best to do races, even if you finish at the back. I think it would be a really good idea to learn to race it, though. You'll get there faster by doing races and then qualifying in between. The higher you get the closer the racing gets, and it really is a very good trainer.

You do not gain iRating (your skill rating) as a rookie. It shows up when you're D class.
 
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When I first started iracing, I read something on the site about what it is to be a rookie. It's all about improving yourself. I didn't bother with qualifying, just hopped into a race straight away, and concentrated on not dropping wheels and being CLEAN. Some races went much better then others. But I quickly realised it was me being to agressive into T1 or trying to overtake. For some reason whenever I got into the game, I would forget about being clean and just drive it as hard as I could. When I saw my SR dropping wildly, I thought this is bad. So I made sure every race, to just be sensible. Give room to others, and it quickly went up. I started to get faster without even realising it as I was finishing higher and stole a couple of wins. If you patient, the game rewards you. Your times get faster and your license goes up. The higher up you go, the better the racing is.

Also I got to race in one of the legends race on the weekend. It was really fun. I started 6th and made it to 4th. 4 pro's were racing. Was a really exciting race. I think my setup was ok, I could keep it on the road, but couldn't get the laptimes the pro's were doing. I think they were doing 46's to my 48's. But one mistake and you'd lose the place. Was tight for 3rd 4th and 5th. I didn't get to watch any of the low splits, but we had a couple of wrecks. They were both rather funny!
 
Here's my Mustang setup.

Still tweaking. The trail brake window is a little thin - you need to use a very specific medium-light pressure no matter the speed of the corner. But otherwise is quite progressive and seems to be fast - quite good traction coming off the corner. Current thinking is to level out the rake a tiny bit and soften front compression a couple clicks. Probably do the rest with toe and camber. Consequences of rake reduction hard to anticipate. Roll center seems really important in this car. Probably due to the lolaxle suspension (fortunately no lolsprings), but I'm not a physicist.

I'll have to get back to it next week when I get back from vacation. Fortunately this car is a "run what ya brung" car. Hardly any tweaking is required for individual tracks. That's going to go a long way towards keeping fans.
 
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Hey guys, racing is going very well. I got P2 in a race! Drove hard but dropped a wheel off road something like 5 laps in a row (along with a late race spin) so it actually made my safety rating go DOWN, but im happy with the points.

Did the second race of the Solstace Challenge today, laguna seca, Qualified well (P2), Finished P4 and improved my safety rating BIGTIME. (I dropped 2 positions in the first lap by letting faster people by. You're welcome, holding my spot in p4 i got tapped in the back pretty badly going into crest of the back straight, but it wasnt too hard to recover). Scary part was when I went into turn 1 lap one only one fender behind the leader on the outside, a cloud of many pontiacs filling my rear view.

Duke_Nukem_Ava_by_The_Xorcyst.jpg



The bad part:
I ran a little wide going into turn (i think?) 5, the turn after the straight where you go uphill afterwards, i dipped a wheel off track because i turned in too early, while the guy right behind me (putting pressure on me) did the 'old "monkey see monkey do" trick and followed me right off track. While i dipped a wheel off and slowed a bit, i saw Mr.White.Car go spinning out of control in the rear view. What a relaxing sight :)

Top 200 in my first season, missed first race. Booyah.
 
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Nice one Matt. See, you're picking it up quick. You'll be in the Spec Racer in nothing flat.

Looky.


http://a.imageshack.**/img713/2557/iracingspa5.jpg

http://a.imageshack.**/img713/5165/iracingspa4.jpg

http://a.imageshack.**/img822/2481/iracingspa3.jpg

http://a.imageshack.**/img201/9756/iracingspa2.jpg

http://a.imageshack.**/img840/7978/iracingspa1.jpg


My fizzy spot is fizzing very enthusiastically indeed.
 
OMG SPA!!

edit: Hasn't polyphony been using laser scanning since gt4?
 
Hey guys, racing is going very well. I got P2 in a race! Drove hard but dropped a wheel off road something like 5 laps in a row (along with a late race spin) so it actually made my safety rating go DOWN, but im happy with the points.

Did the second race of the Solstace Challenge today, laguna seca, Qualified well (P2), Finished P4 and improved my safety rating BIGTIME. (I dropped 2 positions in the first lap by letting faster people by. You're welcome, holding my spot in p4 i got tapped in the back pretty badly going into crest of the back straight, but it wasnt too hard to recover). Scary part was when I went into turn 1 lap one only one fender behind the leader on the outside, a cloud of many pontiacs filling my rear view.

Duke_Nukem_Ava_by_The_Xorcyst.jpg



The bad part:
I ran a little wide going into turn (i think?) 5, the turn after the straight where you go uphill afterwards, i dipped a wheel off track because i turned in too early, while the guy right behind me (putting pressure on me) did the 'old "monkey see monkey do" trick and followed me right off track. While i dipped a wheel off and slowed a bit, i saw Mr.White.Car go spinning out of control in the rear view. What a relaxing sight :)

Top 200 in my first season, missed first race. Booyah.

Very nice. You are one corner short, I think. Turn 1 is at the top of the hill just after the start/finish line. Turn 2 is the double-apex Andretti Hairpin. Turn 5 is the left hand corner that starts the small uphill bit, and turn 6 is the left hander that is very sharp just before the big uphill. Corkscrew is Turn 8 and 8a. Can you tell I spend a lot of time at Laguna? :)
 
Very nice. You are one corner short, I think. Turn 1 is at the top of the hill just after the start/finish line. Turn 2 is the double-apex Andretti Hairpin. Turn 5 is the left hand corner that starts the small uphill bit, and turn 6 is the left hander that is very sharp just before the big uphill. Corkscrew is Turn 8 and 8a. Can you tell I spend a lot of time at Laguna? :)

And 7 is that annoying little kink at the crest of the braking zone for Corkscrew.

I hate when American race tracks don't have actual names for corners. Laguna has Corkscrew, Andretti and Rainey. Infineon has Carousel. Why not give them all names?! Thankfully my kart track has a name for every corner.

I think it's a radio operator infatuation. Everyone wants to say whiskey tango foxtrot no go ten four. So they say turn 8a...
 
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And 7 is that annoying little kink at the crest of the braking zone for Corkscrew.

I hate when American race tracks don't have actual names for corners. Laguna has Corkscrew, Andretti and Rainey. Infineon has Carousel. Why not give them all names?! Thankfully my kart track has a name for every corner.

I think it's a radio operator infatuation. Everyone wants to say whiskey tango foxtrot no go ten four. So they say turn 8a...
Turn 6 is informally known as the Salinas Offramp. Apparently in the days of the old track configuration, you had a lot of speed by the time you got to that point, and the wall was closer to the track. In the distance you can see Salinas, so hence the name :)
 
What kind of cars are you presented with at first when you sign up? And how hard is it to get to openwheelers/formula? Cos I have no interest at all in racing pick up trucks or NASCAR...
 
What kind of cars are you presented with at first when you sign up? And how hard is it to get to openwheelers/formula? Cos I have no interest at all in racing pick up trucks or NASCAR...

The first cars you get are the Legends Ford, the Pontiac Solstice, and the Spec Racer Ford.

The first open wheel car, the Skip Barber F2000, is one level above those. It would probably take the average player less than a week to get there.

The other road racing open wheel cars in the game are the Star Mazda, the Lotus 79, the Dallara IndyCar and in a couple of months the Williams FW31.
 
What kind of cars are you presented with at first when you sign up? And how hard is it to get to openwheelers/formula? Cos I have no interest at all in racing pick up trucks or NASCAR...

No hard at all. You do a little Solstice to get to SR 3.0 Rookie, then you can race the Spec Racer Ford (sorta like openwheel light). Once you get to D class, you have the Skip Barber car which is open wheel. D isn't hard to get to at all. Easily done in a week. From Once you get C you get the Star Mazda, then B is the Lotus 79, and A is the Dallara Indy car. Those are all on the Road side of the racing. You don't have to do Oval racing if you don't want to, but if you want to get above C in Oval, you have to drive the truck.
 
I think I'm sold, I'll give it a go (MadCat, do you have shares in this company? Pretty good advertising :D)
I'll get my Intel GP series promo I think, or is Zandvoort better?
I'm gonna start with my e-racing driver excuses right now and say that.. uh... it's quite hot and I hate sweating!
 
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I think I'm sold, I'll give it a go (MadCat, do you have shares in this company? Pretty good advertising :D)
I'll get my Intel GP series promo I think, or is Zandvoort better?
I'm gonna start with my e-racing driver excuses right now and say that.. uh... it's quite hot and I hate sweating!

I'm not sure if the GP series promo is still going, but you might try it. IMO the promos with cars are better than promos with tracks. Since you want to race the open wheel stuff anyway it makes most sense to get the Mazda and try it. It's the second-most popular open wheeler after the Skip Barber (they are almost neck and neck in popularity though).

I wish I did have shares. iRacing is on a huge growth streak. But they aren't public unfortunately.
 
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If only I could get some referrals and get some iracing cash :) I keep telling friends, but they aren't biting.
 
So cool thing. I did a couple of practice laps in the SRF at Summit Raceway and I ran a 1:23 after a 4 or 5 laps in a test sessions. When I ran Summit last season at the end (like week 8), I struggled to get 1:25s. Was awesome to see that I have improved. Now I'm doing Lime Rock, which I hate, for some reason. Its just bumpy as hell. I'm running mid 1:00s which look respectable.
 
Lime Rock is just a devil in fast and stiff cars. The Radical is just the worst there.

Why'd mpicco get banned?
 
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