For all my talk of 'a bit steep' I must confess to buying TrackIR 4 at the same time as I got my wheel...

grab a cheap (or better more expensive second hand) joy, gets you racing for under $20AU, its a bit odd at the start but its tonnes better than KB or Mouse.

Well, practice is helpfull but some basic instruction on racing 'techniques' such as understanding of the friction circle, the effects of weight shifting on traction and handling, and how much to properly turn the wheel for the given bend are all extremely helpfull for the newbie learning to race. I had to search around the web for weeks to find out about all these techniques when i was new to the game. I was allready able to get all the super licenses on gran turismo 3 so I was pretty experienced with going fast in a racing game but the more subtle and realistic physics of LFS made the application of advanced techniques necessary to even be competitive. For some reason there is practically NO information easily available for new sim drivers on these techniques. The racing guides I have seen on places like IGN.com or something are complete jokes and often give dead wrong information. Ive written out some long ass guides in forums before and whenever i see someone new online I allways take the time to personally coach them about things they need to change.

Actually understanding the techniques you need to be improving is when racing games get fun. Flying blind and going slow/crashing when you dont even know what your supposed to be TRYING to do is when racing games are nothing but frustrating. This is the reason I HATED any racing games for most of my videogame playing life especially sims, and this is a big reason alot of people still hate racing sim games (ie. the reason they arent more popular). Its a shame sim racing games dont introduce new players to the techniques needed to have fun with them. LFS does a better job than most at introducing beginner drivers to the techniques they need through the license tests but it is still not thorough enough.

Anyone know of a thorough guide for racing techniques that isnt a discussion on advanced physics that few people can understand? I think thats what this guy and all beginners need. That and a wheel or some other analog device.

http://www.turnfast.com/tech_driving/driving_cornering.shtml has some nice basic stuff. The site is a bit of a mess right now but a bit of digging goes a long way.
Anyway, I don't think it's the lack of information that turns off a lot of newbies; it's the fact that they simply don't want to deal with simulating reality (putting in effort) when it comes to racing. Many enjoy the NFS or Outrun-style of driving "physics" and LFS is like a slap in the face to them. (the dreaded understeer on T1 as they approach it full throttle and full lock) Of those who manage to get S2, I can only imagine that the FOX is the next closest thing to what they perceive as "proper" cars.
GT imo is popular not just because it has all the c00l c4rz and tr4ckz (95% of the reason) but because it bridges the total arcade and sim in terms of physics (the other 5%). Basically, it is not as brutal, should you screw up, as LFS. (example: if you go way off, you're just bumped back onto the road, not into the gravel pit from where you shall never return)

I know I allways WANTED to learn the (more realistic than most console racing games) physics of gran turismo through gran turismo 1, 2 and 3 but because there was no instruction anywhere on techniques like how to determine the proper racing line (well, actually they had that but it was merely a tease and made things even more frustrating when you didnt understand the techniques to stay on the line), and all the other techniques I mentioned, I wound up hating gran turismo 1 and 2. It was just pure frustration cause I didnt know what i was doing wrong. I forced myself through an insane amount of frustrating trial and error to finally understand how to drive the cars fairly fast in gt3. That took me like 4 months of trial and error and it was by absolutely no means enjoyable in the least (except for when I finally started succeding however). After a ton of frustration at not being able to improve my speed once I reached a certain point, when I was doing everything they told me to do 100% perfectly, I went online and searched forever (like I said, insanely inaccessible, confusing, and often contradictory info on driving techs) and finally found the reason I was screwing up a corner. It was due to the fact I wasnt trail braking, or balancing the car on 4 wheels through the corner or something like that which gran turismo, nor any other racing sim I have ever played adequetly explains the importance of or even how to do it.
So anyway, what im saying is a hell of alot more people would play sim games like LFS if there were adequate tutorials of some kind to help new people along. Im not denying that plenty of people are just completely uninterested in sim physics though regardless of how much help you give them with learning proper racing techniques.
Also im not bashing LFS on this for not being newb friendly or something at all. Im just saying its amazing the lack of available info newbs are faced with. There should be thousands of newb friendly guides on racing techniques it seems, but there are practically none!
That site was actually one of the most helpfull and easy to understand sources of info I remember finding. Thanks for posting that undertech. Someone should sticky that site, or a better one if there is one, to the top of the newb forum! For the love of god!