Giving iRacing a second look?

DND

Stay Safe, Healthy and be Kind - Stop Hate
With iRacing getting AI I am considering to reactivate my account when that time comes. Have you given iRacing a second chance by reactivating an account and what has been your experience the second time around?
 
1 question about subscription renewal:
I have a 1y sub for the whole 2018 (from February 18 to February 19).
If I put another 3 month sub right now will they add at the end of my sub (so from febrFebr 2019) or they get lost?
I know it's a dumb question, but I can't find the answer anywhere.
 
search on the car related forums, should be up there somewhere. little hint: the dallara is classified under ROAD cars, not oval. but check the date and make sure it relates to the latest tire model, #07. usually, if you just ask on the forum, you will get an answer, however, doing your homework before probably feels more self-reliant :)
 
search on the car related forums, should be up there somewhere. little hint: the dallara is classified under ROAD cars, not oval. but check the date and make sure it relates to the latest tire model, #07. usually, if you just ask on the forum, you will get an answer, however, doing your homework before probably feels more self-reliant :)
Latest tire model is version 6, version 7 is supposed to be out later this year.
 
I think I should start a thread and ask How many posts does it take to get completely off topic and make the thread useless for its OP?
 
Well today I decided it was time to give iRacing another go, for a month as of now, and immediately went to the Mazda MX-5 at Lime Rock.

Before I get into my initial reaction I have to take into account I have made some changes like triple monitors, a significant upgrade to wheel and pedals and two additional years of experience as well as updates to iRacing.

I was pleased with the ease of setting up the triple monitors and the feel of the wheel and pedals with the default settings was better than I anticipated. Turned about 20 laps in practice and look forward to getting into a official race to see how that goes, but for the second 1st impression I am happy so far.
 
Although, now it is all coming back to me why I ditched it before. Think I will wait for AI before I do another month.
 
I reactivated recently during a promo, trying to get my road and oval up to C class. I've got there in road and working on oval now, but I am remembering why I let it go before. There is a lot of grinding involved to get there...running races you aren't really interested in to get more SR points. And of course, getting no points or less when you get bumped around by others. It can seem more like work than fun.

There shouldn't be much grinding involved, do 4 MPR races and drive around at the back where you aren't in danger of getting crashed, boom you're promoted. Kinda defeats the purpose being that easy to go up a license, but it is what it is.

When I first moved to PC-Land 3.5 years ago I jumped into iRacing, I found it a bit overwhelming and didn't really like the way the cars felt. So I bailed and dabbled with the likes of AC, R3E, and AMS for a few years. Eventually I got tired of those because it's so difficult to find good, regular, online racing with a fairly level playing field (i.e. huge gaps in speed/talent that sees the grid spread out after a couple laps and turns into a glorified hot lapping session).

Decided to give iRacing another chance on the Black Friday deal and this time around I'm really enjoying it. I have a number of races I can get into every single night, I've had some fantastic door-to-door and bumper-to-bumper racing, I often find myself against people of similar ability so rarely does my race turn to glorified hot lapping, and I've even scored a few poles and victories. Well worth the $0.40/day I pay IMO. I don't necessarily think it's the most realistic or best feeling sim, but it gives me the racing I want and the others don't, so this is where I spend most of my racing time now.
 
There shouldn't be much grinding involved, do 4 MPR races and drive around at the back where you aren't in danger of getting crashed, boom you're promoted. Kinda defeats the purpose being that easy to go up a license, but it is what it is.
That is an interesting observation, perhaps I will try the 'parade' method and see if I can advance.
 
That is an interesting observation, perhaps I will try the 'parade' method and see if I can advance.

It kinda goes against the point of racing to drive around at the back and not actually race, obviously, but it's an easy way to get your license up and then you can go back to real racing (until you want to license up again). And of course your iRating will likely take a hit but your license doesn't care about that, it only cares about your safety rating (i.e. don't crash or go off track, doesn't matter where you finish).
 
one looks down on this method on the iRacing forums, but i suppose more than 50% of all players did that to quickly get to their coveted A or B-level license. Especially if one has lots of online experience in leagues, I think this is a fairly reasonable thing to do, one should have learned about online racing before and now uses this gap in the system to quickly get up to speed. However, if one is new to competitive online racing, this is a certain way to disaster, as one will be quickly overtaxed. It all depends on where a person comes from.
 
one looks down on this method on the iRacing forums, but i suppose more than 50% of all players did that to quickly get to their coveted A or B-level license. Especially if one has lots of online experience in leagues, I think this is a fairly reasonable thing to do, one should have learned about online racing before and now uses this gap in the system to quickly get up to speed. However, if one is new to competitive online racing, this is a certain way to disaster, as one will be quickly overtaxed. It all depends on where a person comes from.

All true. But it seems like a lot of people don't understand how the system works enough to realize how easy it is to fast track your license. Especially people who are new to online racing, I've seen people commenting about struggling to get out of Rookies when it can literally be done in an afternoon with very little effort or skill required but they just don't realize that.
 
It looks to me like you get very few SR points for droning around at the back. You need to place well and stay out of trouble unless you want to run a lot of races to slowly crawl up to 3.0. I don't have time for that unfortunately, but if I get back into iRacing, I will definitely give it a try.
 
sr points depend on the number of turns you have taken without stepping over the line. where on the grid you do that does not matter, it is just darn easier to do it trailing the mob by 15 secs, i.e. hotlapping in a race. just start from pit and you're fine. oh yes, and pick long races on twisty tracks :) anyone who's done a clean 40min race on nordschleife will know what i'm talking about.
 
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Other posts have nailed it, but it should be pretty straight forward to get out of rookies and into C or B class. You have to be clean and consistent in your lines and braking though. If someone goes three wide into the first turn, back off a bit....they will crash out anyways. Your goal initially is not to win the race, it's to get away from guys who think that they are playing wreckfest.

Keep in mind that your braking marks have to be consistent as well. I see time an again folks braking 100m early one lap, 200m late the next. If someone is chasing you, its' really hard to not crash into you if you are braking all over the place.

I used to hate the FFB from iRacing with my T500 until i started using irFFB (see forums). That made a huge difference. Similarly, i've now moved to a direct drive wheel and i think i prefer iRacing's FFB over any other sim. The GTE cars in particular are so amazing in feedback.
 
So far this go 'round my license dropped from C 2.45 to C 2.25 because I was driving to race.

After taking into consideration what @Brandon Wright and @Eckhart von Glan suggested I have done a few races and took the approach of consistently quick but don't push so hard where I am on the edge, don't go off track and avoid at all costs possible contact. I now have increased my license from C 2.45 to C 3.78.

It does seem like I am going against the spirit of iRacing, but I have noticed there are battles to be had doing this without the first few lap debacles that seem to be inevitable.
 
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