Just a quick heads up for the few that have not yet joined but are going to now with the public release: Make sure to treat one of your friends, who is already into iRacing, a little 10$ extra in iRacing Dollars by use of the iRacing Referral Reward Programme. All you have to do is input your friends email address (the one he or she used to register their iRacing account) in the "Referring Member Email" field when you purchase your three, six or 12 month subscription.

Doesn't cost you anything, but your friend will get 10 iRacing Dollars.

If you don't have any friends who are already into iRacing, simply request my email adress via pm to put into that "referring member" field and I'll gladly hand it out to you.

Setup is not really important on the Solstice, imho. I'm running the same set on all tracks and whenever I try something else it doesn't make me any faster.

It's a shame what happened (was done?) to Plato. But I believe that he won't win the championship anyway. Gio is just consistently finishing within the points, which will be good enough to take the title this year. If Seat didn't have all those problems earlier, it would probably look a lot different, but as Plato would say: "It wasn't to be."

Edit: Forgot to say that the driving standars are really quite appaling at times in the BTCC. What's considered a hard but fair move here would be considered dive bombing in most other racing series.

Great stuff, Samuli! Loving that overlay with throttle and gear indicator. And inspired by that vid (and the fact that I finally had some time tonight), I did around 30 more practice laps and got down to a 1:22.4 and can now run consistent high 22s. At least in practice. I would probably have to take it down a notch in a race, because I'm constantly dropping two wheels into the gravel at the outside of T3 (that gravel trap is just too forgiving, you can just drive through it and only lose a little time). Low 23s and an occasional 22 should be possible in an official session. Now I only have to actually find some time to race.

Quote from spanks :

what is an averate irating?

when I moved up to class D I started with one around 2050. D: I was paired with the fastest qualified drivers in the last solstice race I did. (granted I'm now qualified 6th overall...but can't race that quick)

When I advanced to D my iRating was a little above 1,800 and I consider myself an average racer. It depends on how much you actually race, of course, but I'd say 2,050 is not bad to start out at in D. As a Rookie you start at 1,600, so that's a considerable gain.

As far as SoFs go, what is average depends on your own iRating, of course. Personally I have found that in the Adv. Solstice I usually end up in fields below or around my own iRating. The SoFs have seldomly been more than 100 pts above my iRating but considerably lower sometimes. 400 pts below my rating was the most difference I ever saw.

In the skippy the overall SoF seems to be a little higher most of the time for me, but still pretty much around my own iRating. That said, I think I was always one of the top5 cars in my skippy races and as I recently found out, there are usually several races at the same time where the Sofs are much lower and probably also one or two with a higher SoF.

Seems like racing in the Rookie series is not very clean. But then again, that's to be expected sort of. I have to say, though, that while I was racing the Rookie Solstice, I never saw any deliberate wrecking and only very little recklessness. You guys should race the Adv. Solstice. I found racing to be much cleaner there and quite respectful.

In the skippies on the other hand it seems like half the field usually goes off sooner or later (at least at VIR full). Makes for some easy points if you can keep it on track. I picked up two finishes in the top 5 in the skippy series, even though I'm not up to pace at all in the races I'm usually in, not at VIR anyway.

And for some reason my iRating seems to be too high for my pace. I just broke into the 2000s after my last top 5 finish in the skippy and I don't see myself winning anything in +1,800 SoFs.

Looking forward to Summit Point, though. That's aleady a very fun track in the Solstice and after about 5 laps of practice in the skippy I can see it being a true blast.

The Solstice is already running slicks, spanks. Hoosiers R6 or something like that (don't remeber the exact name).

Quote from Crommi :

I think I had him but no idea which one is it, I already have plenty of people on my list

Me too. I have no idea who all those people are mostly.


On a more serious note: it would be nice if we could attach, erm, notes to our "friends". I can remember nick names much better than real names.

Well, I do feel sorry when someone spins due to pressure I put on him, but only because the fight is then over. And at the same time I'm happy to gain the position. A clean overtaking maneuvre, however, is more rewarding than gaining due to the car in front messing up. (Not that I speak from experience, it usually only happens with back-markers for me.)

I don't feel sorry for the driver personnally. I think it's part of race craft to put pressure on someone, and it's not easy. In order to do it effectively you have to be close to the car which makes it harder to hit apices, braking points etc. If you can pull that off cleanly, power to you, I'd say.

Likewise, it takes race craft to not mess up when someone is pressuring hard. That is an area where I have to do a lot of learning still. And if I spin because someone put pressure on me (which happens too often), I only blame myself.

Just in case it was overlooked, I'll mention it again:

I've got an invite to spare. First to PM me will get it.

You guys are too fast!

I won't tolerate 1:03s at LRP on the first night! Nor 1:50s after a couple of laps at LS. Slow down guys, you're making me feel bad!

On a different note: in case anyone needs an invitation, I've got a promotion code to spare. PM me. First come, first serve, but I probably won't send it out until tomorrow.

That video made me remember one more of those clever things in LFS: The way the driver moves adds so much to the video. I'm always finding it rather odd, watching a replay in iRacing with those dummies in the cockpit which don't even move their arms. I hope this will change sometime in the future. It's certainly not a priority, though. Just a working replay function would be just fine for starters -- and all those other things missing, that are even more important...

Quote from Shotglass :

theres more to it than damage... on curbs such as this the car should show some reaction to the bump
and if you can just jump across really high curbs without any correction whats the point of a bumpy track anyway?

Well, the kind of reaction and the needed correction really depends on all kinds of things. I don't know if I would have been able to take the curb the way Huttu did there (I assume you're talking about the curb where he just goes all the way over it), probably not. But than again, Huttu is not really a benchmark. What he can do in a sim is rather special.

So, I can only talk from my personal experience and I have to take bumps, curbs, camber etc. into account when driving. Very much so, actually.

Quote from Shotglass :

you must have missed all the jumping across gigantic crubs without upsetting the car even the slightest bit... especially on that one corner exit in the huttu video which no one would ever attempt in real life
not on purpose anyway sutil did something similar in hungary

True, there doesn't seem to be real suspension damage in iRacing, yet. That's a problem and why you can get away with jumping curbs. I usually can't however. I would simply crash.

Quote from Shotglass :

didnt you guys always go on and on about how great it was that the tracks were really bumpy how fun it is that the bumps really change the driving and the general amazingness of these vicious curbs?

Not sure what you're trying to say, but did you watch the videos? There sure are lots of bumps, even if it might be one of the smoother circuits. If you look at how the suspension is moving it's quite obvious really. And you can feel it through the steering wheel, too. The left sweeper after start/finish shows it very well.

It doesn't show everywhere, though. For example, the braking zone before the double apex hair pin is very bumpy, you have to be quite careful with the brakes or you'll lock up.

So, yes, the tracks are bumpy and it does change the way you have to drive them, or, depending on the type of bump and corner, you can make use of them. But maybe you were trying to say something completely different?

But let's just leave it at that. If, for whatever reason, someone doesn't like iRacing enough to subscribe to it, it's entirely his choice.

And honestly, it may sound funny at first, to dismiss iRacing without even trying it online, but if you think about it, it's actually not. It depends on one's priorities. If for example, someone simply wanted to find out if iRacing offers physics that are far and beyond everything else on offer today, and if that would have been the only reason for him to justify the rather high cost, it's perfectly logical to not subscribe to it. It's not worth it in his opinion. Simple as that. And that's just one reason Tristan and/or Kev might have had. The other being the online racing structure etc.

Quote from Gizz :

race was a lot more exciting than i had thought, and massa's pass was sublime!!, i think massa has somthing to prove, awsome drive from him just soooo unlucky.....

Your expectations must have been veeery low.

Quote from ATC Quicksilver :

I think they meant Ferrari should have turned down the engine a bit, he was a few laps from the finish after all.

I thought they did? According to german commentators, he was running 2 seconds off the pace towards the end of the (his) race...

First time I'm seeing a race like this.

It's amazing and somehow very cute that it's soo low-tech. They've got like 5-stud wheels and are going to attach the windscreen wipers when and if it starts to rain. lol

Also, the rain tyres they're using were supposedly manufactured in 2001! Seriously, some people wouldn't drive their Opel to the grocery's on tyres that old.

I tried the Adv. Solstice around Summit Point briefly, and I'm now finding myself on or close to the redline through T3, T9 and T10. Atm it still seems to be faster for me to stay in 3rd, but that might just be because I'm used to it that way. If I should get just slightly faster overall, I might have to stay in 4th for those turns, or rather shift to 4th for T9, which seems a little awkward. So, maybe it will be 4th for T3 and T10, but 3rd for T9.

Edit: I'm using a setup for LS, but it works for me. And tbh, I don't think it makes that much of a difference in the Solstice. As long as it's decent it's more about comfort, I'd say.

Quote from zeugnimod :

Is Hill that bad?

I always liked him in interviews.

He can't be all bad, he used to play in a Punk band called "Sex, Hitler and the Hormones".

Quote from Gabkicks :

Is there any reason to shift properly in iRacing? Is there any sort of damage/wear/heating from flatshifting or upshifting without the clutch?

Like Crommi said, we're badly missing that. Right now, almost everybody turns off auto clutch and flat shifts. I had auto clutch enabled for almost 4 weeks before I found out that it's not needed.

It's kind of lame, but hopefully they'll implement damage soon.

Quote from evilpimp :

And btw stableX, it's frozen. (The iRating) I think it's only for this week though cuz of the multi-car races. So I'm stuck at 2.5 till my races actually count for iRating.

You're getting iRating and Safety Rating (SR) mixed up. 2.5 is your SR, which you need to get above 3.0 by the end of the season (12 1/2 weeks from now) in order to advance to the next license level (Class D). Your iRating is not visible to you, yet, as you're still a Rookie. It's still calculated even for Rookies, but not visible until you get to class D.

Both, SR and iRating are frozen during the current "fun" week, however.

The dp1 is actually a true mid-right-engine layout.

Quote from Jertje :

I'll try practicing a bit for Silverstone, but with the current weather here it's too hot to be gripping a steering wheel longer than an hour

Get one of these then, you wimp :

KLICK