iRacing day one.

After nearly a 3 year absence from sim racing I was as it turned out, briefly back in the racing seat.
Well the old office chair that is, but hey its got a built in handbrake to keep it still ;-)

I got the G25 back from my nephew last month. Without the power adapter of coerce :mad:
iRacing had been high on my wish list for a long time but I wanted to wait until the content had matured a little more towards road racing. Oh and more importantly, my first born baby came/comes first.

On Saturday I got the new power adapter. Riped of the paper wrapping and called a friend with the other hand.
Loaded up LFS and had a blast chasing one another for a few hours. I've been prepping him up to sign up to iRacing with me. But think I've scared him a little with the seriousness of the sim.
And he's probably worried about being too slow, well he should as he's past 50 now and uses two sets of glasses ;-) I know he will love it, as he enjoys taking part in the race as much as I do winning them :)

Well I said I would buy iRacing later that night and invite him to a test drive.
I took out my credit card but before I paid I noticed the code box. Checked my backup mail and found a special invitation code from iRacing from before it was launched, it still worked and saved me a few bucks :D

As people say. Download and install was easy as pie but all the info from the web page seamed a little overwhelming at first glance. As an old GPL racer I will probably never loose my love for single seater's.
I've watched lots of clips with the Skippy on YouTube and thought it was part of the package, wrong.
Silly decision really as its most likely THE best car to learn to drive in. Well forked out a few more bucks and was eager to take it for a spin.

It turned out to be horrible. Well I couldn't tell for sure if the car was OK or not, because the wheel was not giving a good FF feeling and I had huge dead zone to master. The wheel calibration process went wrong all the time. Spent most of the night trying to make it work. Gave up frustrated and wrote support letter to iRacing.
Next day I searched and tested G25 settings, It didn't perform so well in other games too. The Logitech profiler software had been running in the background with custom profiles for each game. I turned it OFF and made a permanent profile in Windows control panel. Got back to Lime Rock and suddenly everything was great. After a few laps me and Skippy where the best of friends.

I was eager to get into a race as I felt confident with the handling and I also knew Lime quite well. But I was not eligible to drive the Skippy in races it seamed, well at first glance. The only race open to me was Laguna driving the Solstice. 30min to start. Took it for a test ride but spent to much time in the options menu to get a feel for the car and track, selected forfeit. To my surprise a little later, I think I'm listed as a starter in the race, even though I didn't even get to the warm up?

Found a new race and went practicing again.
Never liked Laguna, T1 5 and 6 are easy to loose control in, not forgetting the blind exit at the corkscrew and the following long sweeper. I know the track layout but only raced there a few times and never been close to master it. Good news it changed in a flash as I quickly noticed the excellent apex and road markers. That in combination with the locked gear ratio made it easy to get into a steady rhythm quickly improving lap times, but I was slow, around 1.55 at first.

Race 1. First in iRacing.
Told my self to focus on driving safe and staying on track. On the second lap I got hit by a car that came flying back onto the track after a bad exit on T6. At first I thought, its not so bad. Then I noticed I had to hold the wheel 45 degrees to the right to go straight. Limped back to pit and went back out when it was repaired, took a while ;-) finished last but exited and happy with the experience.

The Solstice proved it self to be easy and fun to drive, so he's my pal too ;-)
A tiny flick, lift of and slide into the turn with full throttle, well by the end of the day it felt like that ;-)

Race 2. My first WIN :D
A little more confident in car and track but my hart was beating hard and knuckles locked tight around the wheel.
Started 6 on grid and got up to second on lap 2. On lap six I took the lead and hold it to the end.
My fastest lap was 01.50.645
This was everything i hoped it would be and something I've missed since my GPL league days.
Not because I won the race, its the feeling of being on the track fighting, trying hard to stay in control, of emotions and car and not f..... up.

Race 3. Another race another trophy :D
Started 8th on the grid but advanced to second on the first lap. Swapped places with leader Ben Adams a few times in the middle of the race but lost control in lap 7 and T. Yasuoka went flying by.
Snatched the second place back on the last lap :cool:

Wow.. I was totally exhausted by the intensity and the level of concentration, witch I'm not used to anymore.
But I wanted MORE.

Race 4.
Started at 11th on the grid but exploited the usual first round chaos and hopefully made a few smart moves too. Got up to 4th on the second lap and it looked like it could be another podium finish :cool:
Then suddenly a huge BANG sounded of next to me and everything electric went black.
The "good as original" power adapter didn't physically explode but it sounded like it had.
I had to go out to the fusebox and turn the power back on. To my relief my PC booted up again.
But my G25 is dead, or at least the crappy power supply is. I hope the G25 is OK too :confused:

If it only it had hold up until the race was over, instead it struck me like lightning and left me screaming for MOORE.

And the eBay seller has not responded yet :mad:

F...
 
Step 1 before taking a car on track: Read all the documentation which is listed on the main page (Resources -> Documents). It could've spared you a lot frustration about the issues you had.

The basic content is listed on the main public site (iracing.com) so you could have known that the Skippy isn't part of it.

If you signed up for a race you can withdraw from it until 1m30 before race start without any consequences. If it's less than 1m30 you can forfeit it, but it will show you in the results page of that race and you will lose iRating for it (invisible for a rookie driver).

The licensing is one of the most important things in iRacing, so it's strange you missed that completely. Everyone has to start in the rookie cars and only after you managed to get to the next license (or Rookie 4.0) you will be able to race in the skippy.

For the wheel, make sure to set it to 900 degrees in the logitech profiler and do the ingame calibration as told, that should be fine.
 
Great first account, the anticipation and trepidation or going online. Sorry to hear about your wheel issues, perhaps Santa could treat you to a new one? I agree the Skip Barber should be in the base package as I think it would pull in more people to try the game as its the closest thing we have to a modern day GPL in my opnion.
 
Thanks Kevin :D

Yes Sander you are correct and thanks for helping.

I don't blame anyone other than my self for not reading the Step One manual first.
But I'm hardly alone in that club :redface:

The wheel calibration process somehow got wrong, I had it setup correct several times I'm sure but it still didn't work as expected, so that was very frustrating. But eventually it worked and I'm very happy with the FF feeling in the game now, its excellent.

On the subject of wheel setup.
iRacing is the only game I know, now. That can set the physical rotation of the wheel in game.
In all other games I know or rather knew, its only a feature used for syncing the virtual wheel rotation with the physical rotation. I didn't know that. So when I read that I should set it to 900 degree my first thought was it would lead to a virtual rotation 2-3 times faster than the physical rotation or that people actually suggested I should drive all the iRacing cars with a 900 physical rotation.

If I see somebody needing help with a 900 degree wheel I will tell them that the slider in iRacing controls both the virtual and physical rotation and iRacing can save this as a profile for each car, I haven't tested the last statement but it looks like its true. If so, that's fantastic.
But perhaps this is common knowledge these days and I'm just an old fart.

No I can't remember seeing the Skip Barber car in the package, I just took for granted that it was.
If its true that it is the best car for rookies to start with! Why isn't it part of the package?
I'm more baffled than disappointed but it made no difference to me, I would have bought iRacing and the Skippy anyway, and I think they know that ;-) The Solstice is a great tool also, I love it. Its a perfect rookies car for the initial car and track deal. But we have more road tracks now and soon also an F1 car.
Well I hope its possible for outsiders to buy gift certificates cos I know what I want for Christmas.

Anyway: I got a reply from the eBay seller, he's going to send a new Power adapter, the original one, for 15$ :)

I'm very very pleased with iRacing. The physics and the surrounding player service is excellent.
If they manage to dim the dreadful red and blue glare I see everywhere I would be more than happy with the graphics but most of all I'm looking forward to the next sound upgrade.

I can hardly wait to get back on track and race online again and getting to know you all there.
 
Just wait till you get to the Skippy races you'll love them.

However since it's such a great car some of the Pro's, A and B drivers race them so there are some very quick drivers in the different splits.

I joined mid August of this year.

Don't regret is at all, it's been a lot of fun.
 
I agree, the skippy is a good car. I signed up in March of this year and it has been the only game I've played since. The spec ford is a very good one as well, plus it races on more of the free tracks then the skippy. It's a good balance so you are not buying a track every week. Have fun and get that SR up.
 
Hi all.

Waiting is tough so I got to borrow a Thrustmaster RGT Pro from a friend today. This wheel is 6 years or older.
Pots where spiking and the FF firm like the tits of a woman giving birth to 7 children.
I tried to have fun with it but it was hopeless :redface:

If you don't have a good wheel and also a good FF setup. iRacing or any other sim will be hard to enjoy.
So if anyone who reads this are still hanging on to their stone age wheel relics, yes that's when it was invented. Do your self a favor and buy a new wheel. Its bloody expensive I know, but the fun makes up for it.

The Legends 34 is so cool and strange looking. I saw one live at the race track 2 years ago.
Don't know much about the engine it had but it was damn fast and sounded fantastic.
I'll post a picture of it, perhaps its not the same we have in iRacing, but it sure looks like it.
Good to know the Legends car is popular and fun to drive. I'm looking forward to test it.
Btw, I see there are two versions of the L34, but I only get one in the basic package right?
What's the differences? And is it worth it getting the other one too.

Have nice weekend.
 

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I agree, the skippy is a good car. I signed up in March of this year and it has been the only game I've played since. The spec ford is a very good one as well, plus it races on more of the free tracks then the skippy. It's a good balance so you are not buying a track every week. Have fun and get that SR up.

Wondered where you disappeared to. So I take it you recommend it? Still sitting on the fence - my skill set isn't huge and I don't want to be stuck paying for a game with an artificial ceiling as to what classes I can drive in (at least that's the impression I get - that I can pay for something and not be able to use it if I'm not good enough?)
 
Hey Eric, I think you have a slightly skewed impression of the license system. The only thing you pay for monthly is the basic system with the rookie cars and tracks, everyone starts as a rookie and you can race these races no matter your skills or license. It only takes 4 races and your sr score to be over 3.00 to get promoted to D license. Each new license opens up new cars and series you can run in, as long as you hold that license you can race those events. It's not about being good is more about being clean. You get dinged for things like going off track, contact with another car or object and this is what effects your license. I think you will love, one new track each week, races every other hour (every hour for rookie series), qualifying open all week, you pick the time that fits you. Your whole career is tracked for you all you have to do is show up and race. It would be a blast to race against you again, so get off the fence and jump in. If it helps tell your wife that the oval and road championship winners won $10,000 cash this season, it worked on my wife.
 
Just wanted to report back that I've got a new G25 Power supply today.
The guy I bought the first one from has not replied so I ordered an universal PS on Saturday.
So far its holding up, its warm to touch but not as bad as the first one.

Took part in 4 races tonight.
Two 1st and one 2pl The 4th race was ruined by a tiny incident in the corkscrew.
Damage system is damn sensitive, its was right on the entry before going down the corkscrew, no speed at all.
My rear end got so much damage it was hard to control and nearly lost it several times going back to pit.
I'm happy Anthony from UK took no offense, both drivers fault I'd say.

Phew, Its to much fun and I'm way past bed time again.

Cya on the track tomorrow :)
 
I got back to pit, but didn't wait long enough... Went back out and found out it was still broken.
Ecs and saw the TOW being on a count down, checked replay of the incident, got back on track 2min later when tow was finished.
Slowly learning as I go along, my fault again :)
 

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