Racecraft is huge! Too many don't have any or understand how important it is! It goes beyond knowing the car (1st) and track (2nd), to understanding how to be fast with other cars on track AND be clean!
Thanks for this one! As noted: Learning and applying racecraft to the best of our ability is a major peice of effective, fun, on line racing. Another, which sounds almost counter intuitive, is to go a little tiny bit slower. Meaning target a race pace that is fast, but not reckless. We all dream of being the uber racer, but maybe accept that all the skill and speed isn't going to happen after one twenty minute practice session. Drive in a competitive and consistent manor, that keeps your car in control . You can place very well in your class just by being consistent and applying your knowledge of racecraft. Accept that crashes happen. You can do everything right and still get crashed out. Conversely, you can make a mistake and everybody dies. Resist the urge to make the other driver an asshat. You dont know what happened at his end in that moment, or the safety/consistency of another driver from one race. Try to communicate and see what you can learn about the situation. Maybe make a new friend. It's way more fun to drive competently and finish wherever, then to drive over your limit and crash out. Have fun!
Personally once I experienced VR .... it allowed me to focus only on gear that would enhance that immersion. I focused on creating a hybrid seating position with Aluminum profile so that I could drive a wide range of vehicles and have it feel very convincing that I'm sitting in the car properly. I then focused on reliable gear like the (VRS) wheelbase, Asetek (Invicta-S) pedals, a couple of Buttkickers along with the SRS U-Shake6 and their Hurricane wind/speed simulator. All of these specific gear choices just enhanced the immersion, joy and comfort of VR racing. I no longer feel the need to buy, upgrade or over complicate anything else on my rig simply because I literally don't see it. Maybe down the road motion or even a seat mover would be my final purchase but at the end of the day I just focus on getting better in iRacing and my racecraft. This has been my personal experience getting into our wonderful hobby.
Another tip, get a wheel setup, and I dont mean an expensive one, just a wheel setup (I use mouse amd keyboard only and things like trail braking are impossible to execute)
You may be the only person in the world to chose mouse and keyboard as an input for driving games. Why not just controller? And do you steer with mouse movement?
Lots of good tips that took me a long time to realize the significance of & most still have quite a ways to go 😇 4:43 Macho Man Randy Savage & The Ultimate Warrior were my favorite "pro" wrestlers (I did 5 yrs of collegiate wrestling, once qualifying for my sate's champs). And him saying that while dropping that cup was hilarious🤪
Spend some time on a skid pad and figure 8 track, developing muscle memory for sim car limits as sensed thru sim controls. Few sims have those; RaceDepartment has Assetto Corsa mods "Skidpad 0.5" and "Clarksville, Indiana_Sportsdome Speedway_Figure 8"
I got a g29 earlier this year and started sim racing for the first time after playing forza my whole life. I realized immediately I wanted a DD wheel. All the videos I watched said you needed one. You HAD to have one... I went to the local microcenter and tested the rig they had setup and realized right away that mostly I was just having more fun. It just made it feel better. Maybe I had slight better control over the car? I ended up getting a really good deal on an R5 bundle with the brake mod and enjoy it WAY more than the g29, but I knew it wouldn't make me faster. And it didn't lol. But I am enjoying it more.
I personally do think, as I am a beginner the 2 most crucial aspects for improvement in better lap times is to prioritize corner exists over entry’s and mastering (trail)breaking. I focused on way better exists to step way earlier on the throttle and since then my lap times improved instantly. But I realized pretty fast that I do trailbreak but that it has much room for improvement. Over a few days I noticed I break to much into the corner with abs kicking in and that I steer in too early for the corner. So I knew I am not good at breaking and that I need to work on it more and more. But sadly it all depends on the corner and on the consistency to actually improve
It is challenging to practice race craft with other cars in ACC due to the behavior of AI cars. In ACC, AI drivers tend to brake too much and too early, which is not commonly seen in human drivers. Therefore, using AI in ACC can lead to developing bad habits.
