Have Your Say – What’s the Hardest Style of Sim Racing?

Hardest Types of Sim Racing.jpg
Sim racing is a diverse hobby, encompassing dozens of categories and sub-categories. Which do you find to be the most challenging?

In our latest Have Your Say article, where your responses are the real story, we want to hear about what style(s) of driving you struggle with in sim racing. Whether it’s something you can’t seem to grasp despite a concerted effort to learn, something that involves skills you’re too intimidated to learn, something you thought you understood before looking at a leaderboard ranking, or any other reason, we want to hear it. Below are some ideas, but whatever makes you shake your head in frustration, we want to hear about it in the comments below.
  • Drifting – Whereas some driving styles involve frantic activity from the driver, drifting done right is smooth and seems like it should be achievable. Scratch the surface of drifting, however, and you realize that drivers are sustaining perfect levels of traction loss in high-horsepower cars while moving the car around a complex course just inches from surrounding walls.
  • Rally racing – Speaking of traction loss, how about taking a racing car with acceleration comparable to the best supercars out to snow or dirt covered winding tracks, often at the edge of a cliff. Oh, and you probably won’t have the course memorized; you’ll need to listen to coded calls from your passenger to determine what challenges are ahead, only seconds before you come across them.
  • Formula 1 – Whether it's the modern generation of F1, which are the fastest cars to ever compete in a race series, or older, more unforgiving F1 cars with brutal speed and less downforce, watching real-life F1 drivers gives us an appreciation the incredible pace and precision demanded by these cars. This is something hard to replicate for most of us at home.
These are just a few examples, but of course we want to hear your specific story. What is the most difficult form of racing for you?
About author
Mike Smith
I have been obsessed with sim racing and racing games since the 1980's. My first taste of live auto racing was in 1988, and I couldn't get enough ever since. Lead writer for RaceDepartment, and owner of SimRacing604 and its YouTube channel. Favourite sims include Assetto Corsa Competizione, Assetto Corsa, rFactor 2, Automobilista 2, DiRT Rally 2 - On Twitter as @simracing604

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Premium
I think either pre-1970s Grand Prix cars/Pre-1970s IndyCars and Rally Racing are quite the most difficult forms of sim racing I have experienced, but they also provide the most entertainment for me when I am finding consistency and form throughout the time I have learned the cars and tracks.
 
Premium
For me, it's F1. Things just happen way too fast in a formula car. I find it to be tougher than. Rally racing, and I am plenty terrible at that.

LOL
 
A good question, that leaves me fickle-minded as a simracer since mid 1980ies. In general my experience is that every single category and sub-category has it's walk in the park and mission impossible.

However, skimming the headline the following images appeared instantly on my retina:

Classic F1 :
  • GPL, driving out the 1967 'Coventry' at 1967 Nürburgring as the very first to-do thing, just acquired my first real sim wheel/gear/pedals. As a simmer, coming directly from GP2 the first thing I did was to deactivate all kind of aids. Without knowing anything of what to come. By that time I wasn't even familar with the old Nordschleife at all. This was surely learning Die Grüne Hölle the hard way. 10 years later I preparared for a real Touristfahren track event using GTR2 and a splendid track mod and car mod equal to the race car I booked renting. Piece of cake. And hillariously, the real world experience felt even easier - maybe due to I've booked a car with more grip than engine power, but it was extremely delightful being able to push the limits even further and take the battle with cars having four times the engine power in the twisty turns. Back on term, it's not comparable driving a low power car on perfect track surface and softened curbs - as opposed to driving the monsters of the past on a track that on paper has the same slopes, but is a completely different world of track surface irregularities and non-forgiving curbs.

  • Speaking "monsters of the past", one of my all time favourite race cars the Auto Union Type C (ok by definition a 'grand prix car' and not F1) is an even much wilder horse trying to tame, of which I've tried in rF1 and AC mods at classic versions of Die Schleife, adding leg braces of difficult wet weather conditions is definitely some of the most difficult sim challenge, I've tried. Imagine Bernd Rosemeyer doing that in real world 1930ies, oh boy he is passed over too often speaking the now frequent summarizes of top-X absolute motorsport legends.

Rally
  • When Colin McRae Rally 2.0 was released right in the new millenium I just had to try it out. First experience was 'oh this is easy'. But then focussing on beating my own records: There was the challenge!
  • Richard Burns Rally and the heavy RSRBR modpack including Group B mod quite nice modelling of the 1st gen sudden out-of-nowhere heavy turbo boost, pushed to the limit on twisty stages. Level of concentration was to my experience way above a modern 2hour Monaco F1 GP simraced competitively with all modern controlling.
  • Critérium des Cévennes. The classic version. I.e. Peyregrosse-Mandagout 1960s version. During family vacations in mid 80ies I by coincidence I heard of this classic event in the neighbourhood. Then ~25 years later realizing it was available via a rF1 track mod, I just HAD to try it. Boy it was a challenge getting the track together, to my experience way more challenging than e.g. the most difficult Tour de Corse stages. So unforgiving. Few years later an excellent track mod version for AC was available as well as mods one of my all time favorite cars; variants of the classic 1960s Alpine A110. But starting with low power as the 66bhp A110 1100cc pushing the limits, then continuing on the job in the 1600S version, distess and hardly recovering being in the slope. Then switching to a Group B mod car (now I don't remember, but not the Audi Quattro S1) with a surprisingly insidious turbo blast - again one of my hardest sim challenges through decades.
Drifting
OK, this is a genre I have not been so keen at. Though my first experience was real world and a really good one; at the crawl space wetlands of the test track for my driver license training. In addition to the mandatory practical maneuvre exercises, us driver students were given a surprising opportunity to try drifting. And I found myself surprisingly good at this - but also in a BMW E30 very suitable for this kind of play.
  • AC Open Nordschleife Lobby. Some years ago I suddenly found myself in what I thought was a regular open trackday online lobby. But it turned out to be filled up with pro drifters! Driving out in the 190E Evo 2 and testing drifting, I was completely drawn around in circles by an online fellow in identical car. My old feelings from the distant past of being a world champion in the discipline quickly fell short. I chose just to try following him by a normal drive. Reminded me of the real world infamous Yellowbird video. It was like watching art. No it WAS art.
So even though I am not particularly interested in the discipline, I have a crushing admiration for those who masters driving The Ring in donuts.
 
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Bike racing. The only sim that just kept kicking my ass no matter what was GP Bikes. Partly because no one has made a decent mass produced controller for motorcycles yet, granted.
i play mx bikes and i have to say it tops drifting and rally for me in terms of difficulty. even driving an old car with old tires and no abs or tc is easier than getting a single clean lap in mx bikes. i need to get one of the controllers with buttons on the bottom so i can have both rider leans mapped and still be bale to shift and sit and stand with my thumbs ont he sticks.
 
I'm in the (seemingly) majority and think it's rally. It's certainly the most demanding and toughest racing discipline in the real world. Rallying is my thing, and no matter how much I drive, it's still very difficult to go fast and be competitive. I die a lot trying to keep up.

My OTHER answer is almost the complete opposite, and that's proper good ol' 'merican oval racing. NASCAR style. I got a screaming deal on an iRacing membership last year and dove in head first with full commitment. "Turning left" is the least of your worries. There are so many other strategies that require consideration, not to mention that you're always surrounded by other drivers averaging 160mph+ laps. One wrong move and you're out of the pack, and will end up a lap down in no time (or dead).

At face value, oval racing is a joke. But when you take the time to focus, strategize, and try to do well, it's a completely different story.
 
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By far Rally. No doubt. After that, and I say it as a road racer, it's oval racing.
When I race ovals the car always feels like someone took a Sawzall to the chassis and suspensions and mounted the tires wrong. Just going straight is a chore, let alone race at speeds.
Funny enough, I am a better oval racer on flat tracks rather than banked ones. Maybe because slightly banked or flat oval turns are more similar to road turns.
My one and only victory in ovals was on such a track. Actually, not quite. I also won a race at Pocono with the ARCA cars, Pocono too is unlike other ovals though.
 
Oval is by far the most difficult - you're on the knife edge for hours at a time or in a pack of 40+ cars hurtling through corners 3 wide for 500 miles.
 
I'm quite terrible at driving off-road. I enjoy racing in rally sims, but I admire my fellow sim racers who can actually drive those cars at a spectacular pace.:thumbsup:
 
Funny how only F1 is mentioned, like prototypes, touring cars, gran tourers are irrelevant.
If there's anything that's actually difficult, it is rallying.
 
For me it's not the discipline, it's the duration. I can't handle doing sprint races, anything under at least an hour seems pointless to me. I understand rally and drift are stages and that's fine, but any races on closed circuits I have to do something that requires some extra strategy.
 

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