Quote from Waz :

Thanks for tips guys!
I made a little video from my drift practicing. Look it and say what i'm doing wrong.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w84dc92XkJs

I have no idea about drifting, but I do believe that if you used more of the track, your lap times would be faster. You're not using its full width. But since I'm clueless about drifting, I might be wrong. There are plenty of experts here that will be able to help you, though.

Quote from AlienT. :

Good mate! You'll get plenty of help in there, looks like a very good site. Unfortunately I don't speak portugese

How's the racing coming along?

It's coming along very well. For instance, for some reason, I was doing embarassingly bad in the XRT yesterday (my laps were 4 seconds off my regular laps. o.O), but then I had a FOX duel with someone at BL and won all the 3 races to make up for the XRT fiasco. I only need to cut about one second off my BL FOX time to be within the benchmark.

I really liked racing in the FOX, it's a very controllable car that allows for more aggression in racing. I was never worried about crashing into the other guy because I had full control of the car at all times and could turn, slow down or accelerate anytime I wanted. I could focus on battling for position, rather than having to focus on taking the turns without losing control.

I feel so humble compared to these LFS aliens.

On another completely unrelated note, I'll probably be visiting Edinburgh in about a month and 20 days.

Red Bull because of Coulthard. I also support Massa and I'm quite fond of Schumacher, even though I've never been a Ferrari supporter.

I used to have a terrible idea of drifting. But that was because of the Fast and Furious series, str33t NFS games and rice boys who are apparently unable to say the word "race" and think that their muffler size measured in centimetres equals top speed (so a 3 metre long muffler would equal a top speed of 300 km/h).

But since I joined the motorsport community, that idea has somewhat faded, and I'm even practising a few drifts every now and then, when I feel like having some offline fun. I still frown upon rice boys just as much as I used to, though. An old VW Beetle could probably beat their drag ridden, overweight noise factories in a real rice. I mean, race.

Quote from legoflamb :

If I ever go onthe demo servers (wich I occasionally do: "to pwn up n00bs 'cause I suck") i go on the silly project servers. then have a decient insim that auto spectates, on certain collisions (how and wich? I don't know),the two drivers.

It's a good idea in theory, but it's really annoying when I get kicked out of a race even if I'm the one who got wrecked.

As for Burnout, yes, that is indeed a great game for wrecking.

I'm considering giving this a download, but I don't wanna waste time on something I may not like when I already have rFactor for offline racing against the AI and LFS for online racing.

Heh, I'll be looking forward to the time I'm able to give out advice then.

In my experience, demo servers are either horrid or okay. Sometimes, I can't get past T1 without someone slamming into my rear end and making me have to try to control the car to avoid having my race ruined. Other times, I can have a clean race.

My first few experiences with demo racers were terrible. I once got rammed off the track on BL's long straight. Another time, I was completing a lap but the race leader came in the wrong way and slammed into me (I had started the race late and it had already ended, so it was a post-race wreck). o___O I've also had someone ram into my car in T3 after the long straight more than once.

I don't get the point in wrecking. If I want some mindless fun in between races, I'll go join a crash server. But when I'm racing, I'm being serious and I want everyone to be serious too, or the fun gets spoilt. =/

Leave wrecking for arcade games like NFS. LFS is for those who are serious about racing.

Update, I seem to be getting better each day, improving both my laps and my racecraft. I'm still shy when it comes to overtaking and being overtaken, but I'm working on being aggressive without causing crashes. I've also since learned to stay as wide as I can during T1, because the wrecks always seem to happen on the inside. I usually end up gaining a good number of positions as a result.

I'm not good enough to hold myself in the middle of the field in competitive servers yet, but I'm looking to become the king of backmarkers.

I'm addicted to racing online now. I'm not half as bad as I expected either, I'm finding plenty of people that are slower than me. On this particular server, I was even able to constantly finish in 4th or 3rd. Granted, the level of competition was quite low, but hey, still great, and it was clean racing too.

Needless to say, I'm having a lot of fun.

I like NASCAR as much as I like other kinds of racing, such as F1. I appreciate the unique talent required in the races, where overtaking isn't as simple as overtaking on a straight or taking a passing line when cornering, you need to learn how to use the draft pack to your advantage, and know exactly when you have enough momentum in order to pull away and pass some cars in front of you before going back behind the rear end of another car.

Qualifying is also particularly interesting, because even though it's really easy to go around an oval, it's not nearly as easy to get a competitive time, and the qualifying times in NASCAR are a LOT closer together than the ones in F1, for instance. If you lose a single second, that could be the difference between taking pole and starting in the back.

It's an entirely different brand of racing, which isn't necessarily inferior or superior to road course racing, just different.

I doubt many drivers in the top leagues such as F1, NASCAR, IRL, V8, Champ Car, etc..know much physics. But I'd believe that you do need to have a grasp of physics (nothing too theoretical, though, that's up to engineers and automotive engineering is not in LFS...yet.) in order to set up a car properly. Either that, or a lot of experimental knowledge.

I'm on, should I join now?

Thanks to all the helpful advice, my laptimes are steadily improving. I'm now managing to do laps in the high 1:26 - low 1:27 range and the car feels great. If I brush off only 3 more seconds, I'll be looking at a top 50 position on the chart.

I'm going to practise each turn until I feel fully confident, then it'll be time for me to tweak the car every couple of laps and see what each change does to my laptimes. For now, I've lowered the brake balance to 69% (front) to give the car just a wee bit of oversteer during braking, and reduced the brake force so I can brake harder without having to worry about locking up the tyres.

That's some tremendous help right there, cheers. I know that if I work on all that, I'll see some improvement not only with this car/track set, but also in general.

Quote from AlienT. :

Get online and race is my advice, I think your name is actually Irish

As a matter of fact, Aiden McGeady was born in Glasgow, but comes from an Irish lineage. He's a class player, one of the best MFs currently playing for Celtic.

I'll just do a few more laps tomorrow (well, technically it's today..) before beginning to race online this weekend. LFS sure is addicting, and the better you get, the more you want to play it.

Thanks for all the helpful input. As for the name, it just happens that Celtic is my favourite club, and Aiden McGeady is the name of one of the players. I love all things Scottish, I'm even learning the accent.

But anyway, here's a lap around Blackwood in the FXO. I know I can push harder, but I try to have clean laps. Maybe spinning out a wee bit could bring me benefits in the long run, my fear of losing control of the car can be a tad irrational at times.

Edit: I'll definitely be going online sometime this weekend, I'm looking forward to it!

Just to add, if you're on a tight budget, you don't even need an expensive wheel in order to play the sim, any wheel that works at least decently will do. Then you can move on to the best ones as you feel the need for even more precision.

A wheel is like a musical instrument, you don't need a top class guitar if you've just started playing the guitar.

Hello there, everyone! I just wanted to ask one question, am I doomed to being slow for the rest of my life? Whilst I certainly know how to drive (I only spin out the immensely high-powered cars such as the BF1, but I rarely ever spin out anything below that anymore), the laptimes don't seem to come. I try out some hotlaps, but can only stay amongst the last couple of pages on the LFSWorld charts.

I've never raced online in fear that I couldn't even compete with the backmarkers. What's the most efficient way to learn? I know that in any case, I won't be able to compete with people that have been simming for years until I sim for years myself, but I'd like to at least get some, less shameful, laptimes.

I always have fun on the Coca-Cola Superspeedway, going in the wrong way at the start of the race, going past the cars the first time to let them build up speed, then slamming into them the second time, when everyone's doing above 200 mph. It's not unusual for one or two cars to go high up in the air.

Meh, I think he should just forget about the scale, and look at the mirror. It's the mirror that counts, not some numbers on a scale. I'm 5'8" and weigh 12.1 stone. I look just fine when I look at myself in the mirror, and my physical conditioning is well above average.

Meh, give the bloke a break, no one in their right mind should be buying that horribly coded piece of rubbish anyway.

If you want to get fit, go to a MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) gym, sign up and tell the instructor your goals. You'll be sure to get a brilliant fitness regime that will help you in no time at all.

I have a vast experience with flight simulators, and many, many flight hours.

I began with FS2002, then FS2004 before quitting flight simming, due to lack of time to devote to it.

My favourite airplane of all time is the Level-D 767, which I believe can not be surpassed in terms of sheer realism unless you actually step into an actual 767 cockpit or buy a professional flight simulator. The PMDG 737 airplanes were pretty good too, especially with the FS2Crew mod. I also used to have most of the greatest and most popular freeware aircraft, some of which being truly payware quality, such as the Project Fokker ones. In addition, I had some payware scenery and some freeware, but definitely not as much as aircraft.

I knew how to fly ILS and successfully take off and land most airplanes under a good deal of conditions, save for Airbuses, which I could never learn to fly. Oddly enough, I couldn't fly VFR.

I flew for a couple of online airlines, like JAL and Cathay Pacific, but that was always shortlived because I couldn't be bothered to fly on demand.

Regardless of all that, I still found VATSIM intimidating, and could never do a single flight on it. I was always afraid of being a hassle to the controllers, and the so called "help guides" were invariably several pages long and had gazillions of rules that everyone had to memorise in order to avoid conflict. If anyone thinks racing on a server is intimidating, they surely DON'T know about flying online.