Tag Archives: online racing

Motorsports UK Esports Series and iRacing update

04 Sunday Oct 2020

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In a very strange year, it’s now October, and the only racing I’ve done has been online.

This does mean I’ve sunk many hours into sim racing with iRacing, and improved a fair bit from where I was for my last blog.

I have now completed my first ever full season with iRacing, and also completed the minimum number of weekly races so that I get $10 credit back to spend on the game. If you complete 9 out of 13 weekly races in a season you get $4 credit, up to the maximum of $10 up to a certain licence class, with another $10 available for A and B class events.

I finally have the A licence now, but to be honest it only really allows you to do a couple of much longer endurance events, which I don’t want. I’d much rather have their 15-40 min race format, because I have a job and fiance who would not agree with me doing 24 hour online races!

More importantly, though, I actually did quite well in my overall leagues in the iRacing series I was racing in.

My main race series is still Skip Barber, but I also did pretty well in the RUF, Radical and GT. I stopped racing the basic MX5’s which were a major learning series for me, but still dip in occasionally and also do a few of the Advanced Mazda Cup races. I also concentrate more on the other open wheel series: Formula Sprint, Renault 2.0 and F3. And I’ve used my $10 credit to buy the Ferrari GT3, which seems like a good series to do.

So, as you can see, I finished right up the pointy end of several leagues, which I was chuffed with! This means I get promoted to tougher leagues, so we’ll see how this season goes.

I should note that this is NOT the best way to go iRacing. You should concentrate on just one or two cars and master them. This will mean your iRating goes up as you’ll do far better at your specialist series. If you jump into multiple cars, your iRating score sorts you into races accordingly, so if you’re fast in Skip Barber and then jump into the unraced Ferrari, the game assumes you’re just as good in both, so when you finish right at the back your iRating drops as well.

But I’m doing this for fun, and am happy with an iRating around 1500 as long as I get to drive different stuff.

Last week, I also had my first ever genuine win in the Motorsports UK iRacing Esports Series!

I do quick race reports on my Facebook pages, so you should have seen them already if you’re following them (and you should be!).

I like some layouts of Lime Rock Park, but hate the one with the West Bend Chicane, so you can imagine my ‘joy’ as I logged into the pre-race practice to try the Dallara F3 around there.

However, I soon found I was within a second or two of the usual fastest drivers, and knew I could improve with more laps. I qualified in 3rd place!

With a decent start I actually crossed the line at the end of the first lap in the lead, but lost a place soon after… although I was still right on their tail for the next few laps.

I dropped back a little, but then caught and passed them, and despite several cars giving chase and almost catching me, and some very close calls with some cars I was trying to lap, I won by 6.5 seconds!

Not bad at all!

That leaves me 5th in the championship, but don’t think I have much chance to gain more than a few places, but I’ll give it my best shot. It might be the last time this series is ever run, so I have to make the most of it before I jump back into a real car on a real track…

Which still might be on the cards for Formula Vee this year… Watch this space!

The Return To iRacing

24 Sunday May 2020

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I hope you are all safe and well out there? Or, to be more specific, I guess – in there.

With all racing cancelled due to Covid-19 (you might have heard of it), if you haven’t switched on to all the brilliant sim racing that is being broadcast, you really are missing out. Many ‘real drivers’ have switched to sims for their first time ever to try and get some of that buzz back. And you know what? It works!

Me? Well, I last did a blog on iRacing years ago. In fact I let my subscription run out and hadn’t played it for around 3 years.

Why?

Mainly because my internet connection wasn’t good enough, so I’d get my laptop hooked up to the TV, plug in the wheel and pedals, fluff up a few pillows, and then on the first lap of the race my connection would drop out, no times would be recorded, and my game ratings just took a dive every time…

Add to that a not insubstantial monthly fee, and that was that.

But despite having most of the other racing sims, I still knew iRacing was the one I really wanted to be playing. The one that was most rewarding to race against others on.

I signed up for one month for $15, as tax is now included. That’s a crazy increase!

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My first impressions (after a few hours of downloads and updates) were that the tyres felt much more realistic – especially on braking where they’d nailed the floaty feeling before it locks up.

I’d also forgotten how to drive the sim, and my safety rating took a clattering, along with some more disconnection issues…

But I reset my brain again. I started driving like Miss Daisy and put the racing line back on. I did a load of Time Trials with just me on track, so I could lap consistently without going off track without overdriving the car everywhere.

I concentrated on the Skip Barber and Mazda MX5 only. The Skippy is the closest the game has to a Formula Vee, and feels great. The MX5 is much less forgiving, and will swap ends frustratingly quickly, but the actual racing you get is brilliant.

ir skippy

I’m trying to get my C Grade licence back, so will literally start the race slowly and keep out of everyone’s way to let them pass me through the first few turns. Assuming they’ve still not taken me out, I then drive a few slow laps, and half the field will crash on their own or in tangles. I then just cruise through and normally end up in the top 5 just through consistency.

If someone is catching you by 2 seconds per lap, just let them through. You’ll gain a lot more by avoiding the incident points for contact and following them to see how they’re faster.

Honestly, all you want to do is stay out of everyone’s way and even if you finish last as long as you have no incident points your rating will climb and you’ll be put into races with more careful drivers.

Do that a few times and you’ll find yourself leading races and THEN you can start to enjoy it all.

I’ve definitely got the bug again, so will be taking out a full year subscription.

ir mx5

I also remembered a few essentials for people using their laptop and basic equipment:

  1. Plug into your router with a top quality (class 8) ADSL cable, and do not use a WiFi connection.

  2. Use the lowest graphics setting. I have a very high spec laptop, but it’s still only barely good enough…

  3. Lower the screen resolution slightly to get more FPS (frames per second).

  4. You need a custom desktop PC if you want it to look pretty, but you can still do it if you have limited space and just a laptop and your TV screen.

So I’m still building my skills up again, but loving it for a few hours a day. I might even try some oval racing – or the new dirt oval and rallycross that’s now in the game.

If you’re on it, feel free to add me as a friend – I’m called ‘James Cater’ weirdly enough.

I bet you’ll enjoy it, once you’ve slogged your way out of the crash-happy Rookie series!

ir spipcrash

BONUS BITS!

Did you know that Motorsport UK licence holders get 3 months of iRacing for free? Click the link in the Members Benefits section of your account and they’ll send you a code in an email.

As someone already paying for iRacing, I tried this and the code did not work – I’ve queried this with Motorsport UK to see if it’s for first time members only, or if it will work when my sub runs out…

Also, there is an e-racing championship being organised by Motorsport UK and iZone for all licence holders, with analyses and stuff all free for you! You need to sign up to the league before Monday 25th May (tomorrow!!!) ideally, or you won’t be guaranteed a space. The link in the last mag is wrong, so go here to sign up: www.bit.ly/izone-esports

Online Racing: Steering wheel upgrade

22 Thursday Sep 2016

Posted by in Products, Technique, Uncategorized

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Online Racing: Steering wheel upgrade

I’ve posted before about my first experience of iRacing – online simulation racing.

Although I am still playing iRacing, it’s not as much as I’d like to, as it does take a fair bit of commitment, time-wise.

However, the biggest change here came when I upgraded my steering wheel and pedals, upgrading to a Logitech G920 state-of-the-art wheel and pedals set!

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This was very expensive. The last generation wheels still sell on Ebay second hand for upwards of £160 – and the G29/G920 costs around £400 to buy new!

When I had decided that I may as well spend the kind of money you’d spend for a practice day on a wheel, I saw a G920 on special offer for not much more than a second-hand G27 wheel, and so bit the bullet.

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I also paid about £30 for a stand for it all, so I could set it up, sit and use it on the couch, and then put it all away again when I wasn’t using it.

Cars that were previously undriveable on my old controller suddenly felt great with the force feedback and weighted pedals.

I’d tried Project Cars before, and couldn’t even survive a lap – but now all of a sudden that game was back on.

And the way that the tyres behave on Project Cars is much more realistic. It lets you drift the cars around more, and the Formula Rookie (Formula Ford) car is closer to a Formula Vee than the Skip Barber racer on iRacing.

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Project Cars also has a fair number of tracks that we use in real life – Snetterton 300, Silverstone International, Brands Hatch, Donington Park, Cadwell Park, Oulton Park…

The gear ratios of the Formula Rookie are way out compared to the vee – especially the first 2 – but still useful for getting a feel of things.

With the new G920 the difference between driving a single seater and a classic touring car is profound, with the heavy, stable and direct feel of a Formula car pretty well mimicked, and the relative floaty, unresponsiveness of a saloon car a very clear difference.

At the moment, the quick way that I can set up a few short races on Project Cars is winning over the hour or so minimum you need for iRacing – but I’m not going to cancel my membership.

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I also made a demo video to try and show it in action:

iRacing

02 Saturday Jan 2016

Posted by in Formula Vee, Racing, Rules & Regulations, Technique, Uncategorized

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iRacing

Happy New Year to you all! I hope you got what you wanted for Christmas, didn’t put on 3 stone in weight, and are looking forward to a great 2016!

One of my Christmas presents was a subscription to iRacing.

For those of you who are even later to the party than me, iRacing is an online racing simulation used by thousands of gamers and real life racing drivers from all over the world. You have to pay a monthly subscription fee (you can get this from $4 if you watch out for offers or take out a yearly subscription) which gets you some basic cars and tracks, and then you have to buy any extra cars and tracks you want for around $12 each.

One thing that had been holding me back is that I only have a laptop, which isn’t ideal, but at least I upgraded the CRT TV to a flat screen HD one recently! You can pay hundreds for specialist racing wheels and pedals, or even virtual reality headsets to really immerse yourself in it all.

I have an old crappy Madcatz 2 steering wheel for the Xbox 360 that I paid about £30 off Ebay. Surprisingly, when I plugged it into my laptop, it actually worked! It doesn’t have any feedback or vibrations of Ferrari logo’s, but it’ll do. A quick word of warning that my Xbox 360 controller doesn’t work with my laptop, for some reason…

I downloaded all the stuff I need directly from the iRacing website, and paid up with my voucher and details whilst that was downloading, and then after a quick calibration of my controller, I was ready to race!

It takes a while to learn how to drive a simulator, so don’t expect to be able to jump on and win everything. There is also a good/bad (haven’t decided yet!) rating and licence system, which in theory means all the nutters only into knobbling everyone else will stay racing against like-minded idiots, whilst anyone trying to race a bit more realistically has an opportunity to upgrade their rating so they are also put into sessions with equally sensible drivers.

The only problem here is that it’s very hard to get your rating up, because you either bin it as you’re learning to stay on the track, or you get taken out by idiots which lowers BOTH of your ratings – your fault or not.

Even with my controller, it feels pretty good straight away. If you get a slide on, it’s extremely difficult to get it back without spinning – but that’s what it’s really like in real life! This might put off a lot of gamers…

After my first few days of playing, my Rookie rating had taken a serious bashing (down to 2.19!) but my racing was definitely improving! Today I finally had a clean race where I finished 3rd after a great battle with someone I had a brief chat to after the race, and that endeared me to it all a lot more.

At my level all I can really do is race an MX5 around Lime Rock Park (nice little track!) on the hour every hour, or race ovals in the Pick Up Cup. I haven’t really driven any of the other tracks, yet.

Ovals are a bit crap – especially when you’re trying to stay out of trouble to get your rating up. The good news here is that there are two separate licences for ovals and road courses, so you could quite happily leave the ovals to the ‘Merkans.

You can also do Time Trials, where you have to do around 8 totally clean laps minimum within 30 mins. This is harder than it sounds if you’re used to Forza and other games!

I will have to buy some of the UK tracks to see if it helps my Formula Vee racing in real life, and the closest car in the game to a Vee has to be the Skip Barber car, so that will also be getting bought. I am looking forward to getting that out around Oulton Park, Donington and Brands Hatch. Snetterton should be in the game soon, and having just checked, not only is Silverstone there, but so is the International layout!

There isn’t any other game with those UK tracks on them, and there really are some cracking tracks from all over the world, with more being added all the time.  There are also a load of instructional videos that apply to real life just as much as iRacing, and so I figure it can’t harm my race preparation.

If you’re on it, then please feel free to add me on there – weirdly enough I’m on there are ‘James Cater’.

If you’ve got any tips or advice for me, I’m open to it all – and feel free to ask me any questions, too!