Tag Archives: sim racing

Motorsport UK iRacing Esports Series

16 Tuesday Jun 2020

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https://www.tradingpaints.com/showroom/view/193139/Dallara-F3-Zebra-Air

After my last blog, I signed straight up for the Motorsport UK iRacing Esports Series , and was assigned a qualifying slot to decide what league we’d be in.

My session was an absolute disaster because of tech issues. My laptop had finally reached its limits for gaming, and I was getting around 20fps with no laps registering through the whole of my qualifying.

Thankfully, I was given another slot, where I managed to lay down a couple of laps that was enough to get me in.

Then it was time for the long overdue tech upgrade – I bought a reconditioned desktop PC set-up for £500, featuring a Nvidea GTX1650 GPU and Intel i7 processor. Basically the best bang for my buck that I could get. Old but will still more than do the job. A bit like the Sheane Formula Vee I race!

I could also justify this because it gave me a monitor, keyboard and mouse that I can use for working from home, rather than my current work laptop. It might save my back, and to be honest is something I should have done at the start of lockdown when I knew it would last more than a few months. (there you go – now you can justify it to your wife, too!)

It boots up in around 20 seconds! Sometimes you just have to get the right tools to make life easier for you…

So things were looking much better just in time for the first race at Silverstone GP in the Dallara F3 cars we’d be using for the season.

I made a great start, weaving through the field until I found a car slam it’s brakes on around the outside of the first turn, and I slammed into the back of them.

This was the first I knew about damage not being turned on in the sim. This is great as you can keep going, but encourages everyone to drive like idiots.

You might notice that on my recovery I ended up, well, upside down, as another car hit me.

This put me dead last, with so many incident points that a couple of minor off-tracks gave me a drive-through penalty as I tried to fight back through the 28 car field.

Finally things settled down a little, and I finished 17th. Not bad considering my fastest lap was about 5 seconds off the pace, so at least I’m consistently slow!

The Dallara F3 is a good car to drive (it feels a lot like the Praga R1), but as I’m not used to driving it at all, let alone used to downforce, it’s going to take me a while to get up to speed. Plus when I took a look at some of the other names in the field, they’re racing this kind of car in real life, so have a bit of an advantage there!

That said, it’s great to be amongst them, and I can learn a lot from them.

The next round is at Spa on June 22nd, so I will try and get more practice in. That is hard when I’m doing ok racing the Mazda MX5, Skip Barber, RUF GT3 and a couple of others in the regular iRacing series, though!

We’ll see if this all helps when I get back in the real car…

The Return To iRacing

24 Sunday May 2020

Posted by in Formula Vee, Products, Racing, Uncategorized

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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: