Faster or slower?

[Dennis Phelan]

I was much faster just a few years ago. OK, not "much" but I was more competitive and I seem to have lost some of my pace. I'm not really looking to get it back as I'm still very happy running the tracks, finding them just as difficult and enjoyable to run.

There are learning curves and plateaus, I went through them in racing IRL, they happen in sim racing too.

Have you gotten better?
Worse?
Stayed the same?

 

[Bart Snijders]

I´m just back in sim racing a month after not racing for two years but I dont think I´m slower then I was, I might even be a bit quicker at least more consistant. I still see a lot of people here that have been here as long as I can remember but I do also see lots of new `faces` and too be honest a lot of them are a lot faster hen I am
And as we get older we tend to get a bit less competitive(at least this goes for me)
So did I get slower... no not really maybe even faster but I do enjoy driving more now and dont really feel the need to be competitive all the time.

 

[Richard Hill]

I stopped playing racing games for about 2 years and it took me a while to get back to where I was but I'm now faster and a more complete driver than I was

 

[Leon Charmant]

Do you really have the feeling you've gotten slower, or could it be that the competition is now relatively harder than it was before?

Or perhaps your agressiveness on track (how hard you push and how determined you drive) has decreased? It could be that earlier in your sim racing career you tried harder because you felt more pressure, whereas nowadays you're trying more to have a comfortable and consistent journey to the finish line.

I find that when I really want something, I spend more time on it and achieve better results. For instance the last Mini Friday race at Singapore; I love the track and street circuits in general and decided to practice a lot. I spent 2 hours reading the RD setup tutorial, driving many laps and fine tuning my setup until I was happy with it. I then put in a lot of laps on the server itself and the result payed off in the form of a win. I was very agressive in the corners and concentrated really hard. I remember a Mini Friday race at Monaco a good couple of months back. Damn, that race was physically really hard. Concentrated to the max!

To quote Ayrton Senna:

You must take the compromise to win, or else nothing. That means: you race or you do not.

In the Singapore race, I was actually racing, wanting to win. In other races I'm usually in the midfield spending more time working out a strategy and to just have an enjoyable race.

I'm just trying to come up with possible reasons for the feeling you have, hope I'm not sounding like this young know-it-all

 

[Dennis Phelan]

I actually had a nice, long reply written for you but I ended up blowing it away! The jist of it would be, more laps on track yield better laptimes and higher placings for sure.

 

[Kennett Ylitalo]

Probably the same as always, mostly it's about expectations.. I expected to progress a bit further and when it stopped, overall pace decreased too. Particularly hotlapping is a thing of the past but i'll make it til finishline more often.

 

[Peter]

I'm still getting faster, the more I race the faster I get.
I started with a Momo/F430/G27 and T500. After every new wheel I was slower and had to practice my way up, exept switching from the G27 to T500 I was immediatly faster and get a little bit faster every day.

 

[Guus]

For me personally I think I only improve consistency wise. When I first started simracing my pace was very similar to what it is now, I just made more mistakes.

 

[Tony Gentile]

yep have just boxed up my g27 because the T500 is so much better it cost me $550 on a one day special normally $799 and its the bomb so happy I got it improves my lap times and gets you more in to the sim
thanks thrustmaster

 

[Dennis Phelan]

The T500 looks like a Radical unit Tony! Seems to have all the right stuff and glad you're both faster with it and that they put some Nordschleife in there advert video!

 

[Peter]

yep have just boxed up my g27 because the T500 is so much better it cost me $550 on a one day special normally $799 and its the bomb so happy I got it improves my lap times and gets you more in to the sim
thanks thrustmaster

I love this wheel, I switched to my old G27 today for some testing but the T500 is much better and more detailed FFB.