Be Excellent To Each Other

So on bagwaa's recommendation I've taken out a one month subscription for this. I'm very impressed so far, even if my 360 wheel doesn't support FF on the PC (Microsoft never bothered to release drivers).

So far I've raced three times around Charlotte International Raceway in the Street Stock Class and I'm just about to race an MX-5 around Lime Rock Park. You are rewarded more for clean driving than for winning, and you need to prove you are a safe driver before you can get a better licence, which unlocks more series with more powerful cars.

I can see it being a complete time sink - I've played it for about five hours alone this evening, just with one track and one car!

http://www.iracing.com if anyone is interested (membership is half-price until the end of July).

One of my friends earns money from being good at this.

I've never heard of this before, which is a bit surprising because a cursory glance at the website makes it looks like a mature and compelling game (if you like driving sims obviously). Is this totally flying under the radar or am I just a complete idiot? Note: I fully admit that those two options are not mutually exclusive.

I think it's more of a big deal over the pond. The testimonials page is chock full of NASCAR and IndyCar drivers singing its praises.

Is it all oval tracks and endless lefts?

Also, did that trailer call Williams F1 "The Best" ?

It is reasonably US-centric at the moment, but they are committed to adding more and more European circuits and series. Check out the website for what's currently available.

About fucking time! Playing Forza after playing this will seem properly shit.

Oooh, custom leagues now available.

Some more interest in this would be awesome.

I added you as a friend but it had said you had completed one race.

ha, thats probably about right. I think I have spent 99% of my time on there doing practice laps.

You're missing out - the racing is very very good!

I have no doubt it is, but I dont want to race unless I can win, or at the very least, not fuck it up for someone else.

I definitely need to get my wheel setup again and put some time into this. Would be good if we could get a league going tho...would probably need 6 to keep it interesting.

We have three already...

Oh look, I started a thread about this the first time I tried it.

I'm racing reasonably well in the iRacing NASCAR Late Model series this season. I've only raced in four out of the 7 available weeks and I'm third in my division (out of 81 racers). Five top 5 positions and one win.

Well done! They actually show people playing this on TV now.

It's as fun as watching real-life racing, so how ever much you enjoy that. There are YT channels devoted to it with proper commentators and everything. I watched a full Australian V8 Supercars race at Bathurst a couple of weeks ago and it was very enjoyable.

I found it to be not as much fun as watching proper racing, the excitement and the spectacle that comes from seeing big machines hurtling round at speed is somewhat tempered by the knowledge that nothing is actually going anywhere. Also it still doesn't look that great, like when they collide it still all looks a bit like matchbox cars bouncing off each other. But it looks excellent to play.

Moved up to second in my division now (I had dropped slightly last week down to 5th). Hopefully can improve on this later, I'm only 25 points behind the leader, so just need one high points-scoring race to take the lead.

Currently one point behind the leader with one week left! Reeling him in.

The season isn't quite over but I'm not sure if anyone will catch me at this stage.

What sort of calculation puts you on top?

Letters in driver name?

Championship points. There's 12 weeks in a season, but only eight count - your worst four weeks are discarded. You get points based on where you finish in the race but you get more points the stronger the field is. For example I got more points for finishing 4th in a strong race than I did for winning a relatively weak race.

If you race just once during the week then the points you receive in that race is your total. However, if you race twice then it takes your best score. It takes an average of the top half of your results that week, so if I race ten times it'll take my top-scoring five races and give me the average of those (rounding down so if you race three times it only takes your best score).

What division you are placed in is based on your iRating (how good you are basically). I am currently in Division 9 of 10. As my iRating has gone up considerably this season I would expect to go up a few divisions next season.

So after winning Division 9 in the NASCAR Late Model Tour, I narrowly missed out on licence promotion due to my Safety Rating (SR) being slightly too low, but as my iRating has improved I'll be running in Division 7 this time. So I'm running D-Class licence again this season. I'll probably do some more Late Model races but will primarily concentrate on the NASCAR SK Modified championship this time. Instead of being big heavy lumps like the LMs, these are grippy, light and faster around a short track than even the NASCAR Sprint Cup cars.

Brum, brum, brum.

I don't think NASCAR race there

Alabama? Probably

Nice one! How long is a season?

12 weeks.

2016 Season 1 midway report!

So I've won 3 races from 11 starts so far this season, which is an improvement on my 1 win from 39 starts last season. I've also led 106 laps out of a total of 451, as opposed to 16/1232 last time round.

Running two series is slightly problematic as the cars are wildly different, but I'm doing reasonably well; I'm 14th out of 100 competitors in Division 7 of the SK Modifieds series and 10th/158 in the Late Model tour. Not bad considering I've only raced 4 out of the 6 weeks so far.

One week to go, and realistically I can finish in the top 5 for Late Model, and the top 20 for SK Modifieds. I don't recommend running two series at once, it's actually really hard. At least I'm on course to gain my Class C oval racing licence as I've raced pretty clean this season, which means I'll be able to run Super Late Model and fixed-setup Trucks next season.

So looks like I'm going to finish 5th in Late Model and 18th in SK Modifieds in Division 7. Happy with this. I also earned $8 for completing at least 8 rounds of each series - kerching! Very much looking forward to racing the Super Late Models and the NASCAR trucks next season!

No one will care, but I've rediscovered my mojo for this since being promoted, as I was going through the motions last season after missing out on my Oval C licence. Street Stock (Class C) and Super Late Model seem to suit me, even though they are very different power-to-weight-wise. The Street Stock is 3,400lbs with 375bhp, whereas the SLM is 2,800lbs with a whopping 550bhp - takes me a few laps to get accustomed to the SLM, it is ridiculously fast!

Just managed a very respectable 7th place in a field of 19 where I was ranked 16th according to iRating. It was an error-strewn race though, and we had quite a number of caution periods due to collisions, but I'm still pleased with it. The races are getting longer too, this one took over 30 mins and was 75 laps.


Street Stock


NASCAR Super Late Model

Did you forget which way to turn?

Although I said I was going to focus on two series this season, I have actually been racing in six different car classes with varying success. I'm still in Division 7, and these are my positions in the rankings:

SK Modifieds: 1st out of 56 drivers
Late Model Tour: 6/96
Street Stock - C: 7/89
Super Late Model: 6/35
Class C Fixed (Camping World Trucks): 227/234
Tour Modifieds: 12/30

So the glaring error there is the trucks, which I am not very good at right now (I have only done one race though). My safety rating is now up to 3.84 thanks to some generally incident-free long Tour Modified races. If it goes up above 4.00 before the end of the season I'll automatically get my Class B licence.

So yeah, very much enjoying this, and I seem to be competitive in the main.

Nice! Well done!

I think I played iRacing with the Rift. It was fucking brilliant.

Yeah, it's like 75% of the reason why I'm getting one.

It'll be a huge advantage.

The other 25% is for virtual tours of craft beer breweries.

Otherwise I'd have got a triple monitor setup by now. I've been waiting!

Just had an email saying they're going to be adding dirt tracks soon!

Obviously an April fool. Would be nice though.

Not an April fool's joke!

https://twitter.com/iRacingMyers/status ... 9258549248

What's this "RallyCross" you speak of? Is it something to do with this @MSportLtd @CGRTeams Fiesta? #DIRTCONFIRMED pic.twitter.com/lkPOzr7ZZB

— Steve Myers (@iRacingMyers) April 4, 2016

Original video that was posted on 1st April, but has been confirmed to be actually happening.

I think I'm finally getting the hang of the trucks. Finished 6th in a field of 19 last night at Texas with no incident points! It wasn't down to fast driving, I was pretty uncompetitive for most of it but kept my nose clean and waited for my chance. With 8 laps to go Idecided not to pit for fresh tyres during a caution period. This bumped me up to 6th, we started with 5 laps left and I managed to hang onto my position for two laps when another yellow flag came out, which locked me in to the finish!

So I've reached the midway point of this season and my standings in Division 7 are as follows:


SK Modified: 1st


Super Late Model: 3rd


Late Model: 4th


Street Stock C: 4th


Tour Modified: 4th


National Series: 11th


NASCAR Class C (Fixed): 71st

The first five series I'm well familiar with now, and I'm happy with my results so far. The National Series (using the Class B cars from 2010) is a lot more power than I'm used to and it's pretty tricky around the short tracks it usually runs, but I'm getting there. The trucks are pretty tricky too, and race on a mixture of all three oval types. I'm on course for my B licence, but that's as far as I'll get for a while. I'm going to concentrate mainly on the trucks and National series next season in preparation to move up to the Class B (Xfinity Series) or Class C open setups. Haven't decided yet.

Of course part of me wants to switch to road racing and get my C licence so I can race Aussie V8 Supercars, but I've already spent enough on content to last me a couple of years I think. Steam says I've clocked 70 hours since January, but this is only track time and it hasn't taken into account that I bought the game directly from iRacing and didn't link it to Steam for the first three months

About to stream a race if anyone is interested. https://www.twitch.tv/themindsweeper/mobile

Lol