Well i have been playing now for a bit over a month and i have thought long and hard about the SR ratings and the IR ratings and i have come to the following conclusion.
iRacing really does teach you have to drive a race car in a competative arena, no really it does. Lets take the SR ( Safety Rating ) i see people moaning about it alot and particulaly new drivers to iRacing and indeed i hated it at the start too. Now however i really understand what its all about it is about teaching you to drive in close company of others and not having silly accidents. How you may ask? well look at it this way if you drive safe and get your rating up enough to progress to the next level, thats one thing but its more complex than this. You see anyone can run around at the back of the pack waiting for others to fall off the track or quit to gain a place but that really is not fun now is it?.
Pretty soon you will get fed up with this and so you start to fight people for places and in so doing you run certain risks. For me personaly i think my driving has been so much better for iracing to due to having to really think through my next move and planning ahead. This is something most of us just do not do most of the time in other sims, why? because the accident can happen and in most cases there is no penalty system in place so therefore the only real risk to most of us is we may go off ourselves. In iRacing however the penalty is various forms of point deduction from your safety rating but also your irating, so what do you think?. Keep on trucking into people and before you realise it you are in a crowd of what can only be described as Rookie Muppets who wouldnt have the first clue about which way to drive let alone race with someone in close proximity and pass cleanly. Your SR dropped that much you got a demotion maybe or your irating is such that your basicaly driving againt the equivilant of Neandathal racers.
If this does not teach you a lesson i dont know what will and with that lesson comes thought, thought about where you should be on the track and what you are going to do not on the next corner but maybe 3 corners ahead and plan your attack so you get passed with no contact and no SR drop. "Yeah but i get penalties and it isnt my fault" you see that alot and i understand that fully and its a pain in the backside but however there is a lesson the be learnt here too. You see i have gained far more spacial awareness since playing iracing and i look for what my competitor is going to do as well as me more. In my last Clio Cup race for instance Ryan picked up i ran wide at a certain corner because i anticipated the mayhem that was most likley to have occured behind me and had a potential to take me out. Two months ago i would have been so much more looking to the front and would never have seen this.
Has iRacing made me a better driver? yes absolutely and even though im am a lowley driver compared to many here i think i now have the skills to advance more, yes i have a long way to go and mistakes are going to happen but i am learning really learning now. If my Sr gets a knock because of someone elses fault i dont like it but i understand that if they drive like that alot pretty soon ill never race with them again as they wont be anywhere near my class or irating so ill never meet them again. Is that worth x 4 points? i think it is to be frank. So yeah next time to have a hissy fit like me about some muppet taking you out stop and think about the fact that soon he will not be able to race against you again, it makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
So does iracing help you learn to drive? well this old man thinks it does and yes you can teach an old dog new traicks.
This post was not to all of you here that play iracing or are very good experienced drivers, it was aimed at people like me who are average and want to try iracing but are afraid of this points system they have. Do not be afraid of it unless you plan on not becoming a better driver.
Nick
iRacing really does teach you have to drive a race car in a competative arena, no really it does. Lets take the SR ( Safety Rating ) i see people moaning about it alot and particulaly new drivers to iRacing and indeed i hated it at the start too. Now however i really understand what its all about it is about teaching you to drive in close company of others and not having silly accidents. How you may ask? well look at it this way if you drive safe and get your rating up enough to progress to the next level, thats one thing but its more complex than this. You see anyone can run around at the back of the pack waiting for others to fall off the track or quit to gain a place but that really is not fun now is it?.
Pretty soon you will get fed up with this and so you start to fight people for places and in so doing you run certain risks. For me personaly i think my driving has been so much better for iracing to due to having to really think through my next move and planning ahead. This is something most of us just do not do most of the time in other sims, why? because the accident can happen and in most cases there is no penalty system in place so therefore the only real risk to most of us is we may go off ourselves. In iRacing however the penalty is various forms of point deduction from your safety rating but also your irating, so what do you think?. Keep on trucking into people and before you realise it you are in a crowd of what can only be described as Rookie Muppets who wouldnt have the first clue about which way to drive let alone race with someone in close proximity and pass cleanly. Your SR dropped that much you got a demotion maybe or your irating is such that your basicaly driving againt the equivilant of Neandathal racers.
If this does not teach you a lesson i dont know what will and with that lesson comes thought, thought about where you should be on the track and what you are going to do not on the next corner but maybe 3 corners ahead and plan your attack so you get passed with no contact and no SR drop. "Yeah but i get penalties and it isnt my fault" you see that alot and i understand that fully and its a pain in the backside but however there is a lesson the be learnt here too. You see i have gained far more spacial awareness since playing iracing and i look for what my competitor is going to do as well as me more. In my last Clio Cup race for instance Ryan picked up i ran wide at a certain corner because i anticipated the mayhem that was most likley to have occured behind me and had a potential to take me out. Two months ago i would have been so much more looking to the front and would never have seen this.
Has iRacing made me a better driver? yes absolutely and even though im am a lowley driver compared to many here i think i now have the skills to advance more, yes i have a long way to go and mistakes are going to happen but i am learning really learning now. If my Sr gets a knock because of someone elses fault i dont like it but i understand that if they drive like that alot pretty soon ill never race with them again as they wont be anywhere near my class or irating so ill never meet them again. Is that worth x 4 points? i think it is to be frank. So yeah next time to have a hissy fit like me about some muppet taking you out stop and think about the fact that soon he will not be able to race against you again, it makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
So does iracing help you learn to drive? well this old man thinks it does and yes you can teach an old dog new traicks.
This post was not to all of you here that play iracing or are very good experienced drivers, it was aimed at people like me who are average and want to try iracing but are afraid of this points system they have. Do not be afraid of it unless you plan on not becoming a better driver.
Nick