I noticed that there are quite a few threads here about racing games and decided to start one about iRacing. I joined iRacing a couple of years ago and stopped very quickly because I was also racing in an rFactor league and couldn't find time for both. Towards the end of last year, I decided to give up on rFactor and move to iRacing and started to put some effort in getting my A Licence (Road) and enter the iRacing Grand Prix Series.
For those of you that don't know how iRacing works, here's a quick summary:
- iRacing is subcription based and you must pay a monthly fee to be allowed to race
- All racing is done online with only human opponents, no AI.
- You initially get a small amount of cars and tracks and must pay extra for additional cars/tracks.
- Cars/tracks are laser scanned and are of the highest quality.
- Race series are according to licence class. You need to have a specific licence to race in a specific race series.
- Promotion to the next higher licence is based on a safety rating system and a minimum participation requirement (MPR)
What's really enjoyable about iRacing is that bad drivers get punished automatically by the Safety Rating system and good drivers will find themeselves racing against quality opposition. Also, depending on race series, you can race several times a day, 7 days a week. You can earn up to $10 per season/$40 per year which you can use to buy cars/tracks or pay subcriptions fees.
The top drivers (ninjas), race in the iRacing World Championship and compete for a $10000 first prize. The winner gets the cash and even gets flown to the US to drive a real race car.
Real racing drivers use iRacing. I raced a against a real GP2 driver the other day in the Star Mazda Series.
Here's a video of me doing a lap at Interlagos in the Williams FW31. It's my first lap on race fuel and is around 1.5 seconds of my typical race pace. The reason for that is the tires are still not up to temperature and the engine is still not at it's best:
[video=youtube_share;s37e-Qvf7qQ]http://youtu.be/s37e-Qvf7qQ[/video]
iRacing outputs telemetry data that can be interpreted by Mclaren's Atlas Telemetry software or Motec's i2 Pro. Here's a couple of screenshots of the data from the Interlagos lap using Motec:
The red circle in the first shot shows the difference in rotational speed between the front left and right wheels. You can clearly see that the front-left is locking to much. This is fairly normal since the front-left is unloaded at that point due to weight transfer. The top iRacers have race engineers that use telemetry data to improve the car's setup and overall race performance.
iRacing is technically demanding sim that requires a lot of time and effort to get anywhere. Track maps, damage indicators and other aids that you take for granted in other games/sims are not in iRacing. However, if you finally get to grips with it, then it is probably the best racing sim you can get next to a professional simulator.
iRacing is quite tricky to understand especially when it comes to licence progression and the safety rating system. I learn't quite a lot this past year mainly by trawling through the forums. If anyone here is interested in joining racing and would like more info and have questions, feel free to post in this thread.
For those of you that don't know how iRacing works, here's a quick summary:
- iRacing is subcription based and you must pay a monthly fee to be allowed to race
- All racing is done online with only human opponents, no AI.
- You initially get a small amount of cars and tracks and must pay extra for additional cars/tracks.
- Cars/tracks are laser scanned and are of the highest quality.
- Race series are according to licence class. You need to have a specific licence to race in a specific race series.
- Promotion to the next higher licence is based on a safety rating system and a minimum participation requirement (MPR)
What's really enjoyable about iRacing is that bad drivers get punished automatically by the Safety Rating system and good drivers will find themeselves racing against quality opposition. Also, depending on race series, you can race several times a day, 7 days a week. You can earn up to $10 per season/$40 per year which you can use to buy cars/tracks or pay subcriptions fees.
The top drivers (ninjas), race in the iRacing World Championship and compete for a $10000 first prize. The winner gets the cash and even gets flown to the US to drive a real race car.
Real racing drivers use iRacing. I raced a against a real GP2 driver the other day in the Star Mazda Series.
Here's a video of me doing a lap at Interlagos in the Williams FW31. It's my first lap on race fuel and is around 1.5 seconds of my typical race pace. The reason for that is the tires are still not up to temperature and the engine is still not at it's best:
[video=youtube_share;s37e-Qvf7qQ]http://youtu.be/s37e-Qvf7qQ[/video]
iRacing outputs telemetry data that can be interpreted by Mclaren's Atlas Telemetry software or Motec's i2 Pro. Here's a couple of screenshots of the data from the Interlagos lap using Motec:
The red circle in the first shot shows the difference in rotational speed between the front left and right wheels. You can clearly see that the front-left is locking to much. This is fairly normal since the front-left is unloaded at that point due to weight transfer. The top iRacers have race engineers that use telemetry data to improve the car's setup and overall race performance.
iRacing is technically demanding sim that requires a lot of time and effort to get anywhere. Track maps, damage indicators and other aids that you take for granted in other games/sims are not in iRacing. However, if you finally get to grips with it, then it is probably the best racing sim you can get next to a professional simulator.
iRacing is quite tricky to understand especially when it comes to licence progression and the safety rating system. I learn't quite a lot this past year mainly by trawling through the forums. If anyone here is interested in joining racing and would like more info and have questions, feel free to post in this thread.