While we all love our sim-racing, there are certain things that just can't be simulated. Obvious examples: gravitational forces, gritty visuals with depth-perception, etc. We all acknowledge these sorts of things, and get on with it

But how does our state-of-mind differ from those that do it for real?

A few that occur to me:

• The obvious - no consequences. If you miss your marker by 200 metres, only your ego (and the stupid bloody cat for getting in the stupid bloody way) is hurt.
  
• A sort of oblique but important one - in pick-up races (and, to a lesser extent, league racing) you can count on the errors of others. If you pressure the bloke ahead enough, 9 times out of ten, he will make a mistake. If you sit back and lap comfortably, you can usually be assured of gaining spots. IRL, they have to push - within their limits, remember dot-point one - and take every chance they can get.
  
• Team and financial pressure - OK, we may put pressure on ourselves to do well, and those in a team may feel obliged to finish well "for the team". But you can always disconnect, join a new team, or just kick the cat. Would you drive differently if you were racing for prize money - you need to finish well in order to continue with your season - or with the expectations and financial backing of a hard-working but ruthless team?
  
• The knowledge that if you touch someone in an intimate place (say, turn-1), after the race, they may kick your...... cat.

Anything else? I think it'd be interesting to hear from some RL-racers too:cat3:

I think the biggest difference is that sim racers have no information about proper racetrack conduct at all. It is all based on experience - you learn it all by doing the mistakes and getting shouted at. The difference is huge even if compared to ordinary real life track days - the info you get from drivers' meetings, for example.

Another difference is that sim racing and arcade racing are quite different, even though in both you can use expensive wheels and pedal systems. If you play Gran turismo and jump to any more real online sim you will be in trouble because the rules are so different. In GT it is all ok to force yourself past, push and nudge all time. In more realistic sims you will get (rightly) banned for such heroics.

I am glad I am not goop's cat!

At rl track days, the officials are very strict - if you disobey the rules, that's the end of your fun and games for the day.

In a sim, you just join another server...

at track days, if your slow, or its your first time on a track, you get help, not some 12yr old calling you a noob and spamming a 'blue flag' message.

And in real life if the driver's brain is lagging, his/her car doesn't vanish into thin air and be replaced by "Lag: x.xx" where the car was, only to reappear later right in front of your car.

the point about pressuring your opponent isn't necessarily true in real life. Knowing the personality of your opponent and his mentality during a real life race helps a lot of is very much a part of the race. Creeping up on him and just lingering, making sure he knows your there can very well cause him to goof up. I think the strategy works both in the sim and also in rea life

I agree, it works in both. But in what sport does pressure not play a part?

The point I was trying to make is that you can't rely on it so much to make up the positions you gifted away, while tippy-toeing through turn-one. As everyone else is so hungry, and less-inclined to fork it up, you're more pressured into creating those overtaking opportunities - even if it means getting forceful.

Of course, I could just be talking out of my :cat3:

(Just to clarify, this wasn't intended to be a discussion on how sim-racing differs from real-life racing - we've done that to death - but instead on how mentalities differ between the two.)

When finding speed and the limit, in RL you'd start well under your limit and push upwards, edging faster and towards the limit.

In sims, you generally do the opposite, attacking a track over the limit, then edging downwards until you are within your limit. It's fundamental difference and one that really affects how we drive compared to RL I guess.

Hopefully a sim at some point will give the options of greater consequences which forces us to approach driving more like RL. nkPro's full mode does this to some extent.

i suppose the obvious is that IRL you drive with a certain fear, to crash, die, do something else terrible.
in a sim who cares if you crash- unless you understand real racing, than you wouldn't. as said a post ago, you drive over the limit and bring it with in the limits i a SIM, not IRL.
Many people drive sims and have never driven in real life, so they do not bring track conduct and etiquette into the online world, as if the rules are different
lets face it 3 or 33 laps, the race still is most fun when everyone can finish intact, so why would you wreck and make foolish passes or attempts if you may sacrfice the race for you or others?
it is noobish and rude,
racing on STCC,(mostly better than silver license) the much faster guys occasionally get a little impatient, but most STCC racers do wait for an opportunity to pass, rather than force it.
CORE-racing is the same, just good racing. which means not wrecking int T1 and not trying to pass in a chicane (Fernbay anyone?), which wreckers and schmucks seem to think there is more than one line in.

Quote from dontsimon :

When finding speed and the limit, in RL you'd start well under your limit and push upwards, edging faster and towards the limit.

In sims, you generally do the opposite, attacking a track over the limit, then edging downwards until you are within your limit. It's fundamental difference and one that really affects how we drive compared to RL I guess.

Hopefully a sim at some point will give the options of greater consequences which forces us to approach driving more like RL. nkPro's full mode does this to some extent.

well i would say that this depends on the mentality and experience of the driver... Due to lack of time I can't practice much so I usually drive like I would in RL... easy on the first laps, then pushing the limit... and I found out that racing almost without practice only in league races where every mistake counts (I haven't raced a for fun race on public servers for a loooong time now...) made me drive only at about 95% of the limit...

-unlimited tracktime and consequenceless crashing make you approach to the limit very differently than in RL.

-on track behavior in league races is generally better than in RL, maybe also due to the immense tracktime LFS racers have, and because LFS racers are less desperate (bad positions don't ruin career etc.)

well it depends, if i drove like in BTCC do, it would say "no longer welcome" underneath my avatar.

With the gtr cars in lfs, it seems much easier to fight without crashing in LFS than in RL gt racing. visibility seems to be very low in gtr cars IRL, and depending on the class, heat and exhaustion can be an issue, even on shorter races.

I think limits play a big part in the main mentality-difference between sims and the real deal. Not just in how you approach them, but also in how much you're willing to approach them, and for which amount of time.

It would be madness to drive at the limit for a long amount of time, the psychological stress of knowing that there is no margin of error left when you're at your peak is not something most people can race comfortably with in real life. Some drivers may not be comfortable with driving in this manner at all, let alone doing it several laps in a row.

I think essentially, this is what made Senna do some of the things he did in his time. The essence of being a great (edit: fast is a better word I guess, since being fast does not make you great) driver is to be able to drive on the limit, and this limit is always a little further than you'll imagine at first. Finding the ultimate limit, which is to say, going beyond what you perceived to be your limit at first, is not something a driver in real life will attempt very often, yet almost everyone hunting for a great PB in LFS will attempt to break through that limit.

Quote from GT Touring :

i suppose the obvious is that IRL you drive with a certain fear, to crash, die, do something else terrible.

Strangely enough, I have never felt fear of injury or death on a rl track - once you put your leathers on and see the large run-off areas, you feel invincible. The only fear that has ever slowed me down in real life is the fear of a large bike repair bill. I have never come off on the track before - touch wood - so perhaps that would change once I do.

In sims, I would rather crash out than take out an opponent - I know what I feel like when I get crashed out mid race, by somebody else's stupidity or over confidence, and I don't want others to feel that way.

Quote from ev0 :

Strangely enough, I have never felt fear of injury or death on a rl track - once you put your leathers on and see the large run-off areas, you feel invincible. The only fear that has ever slowed me down in real life is the fear of a large bike repair bill. I have never come off on the track before - touch wood - so perhaps that would change once I do.

In sims, I would rather crash out than take out an opponent - I know what I feel like when I get crashed out mid race, by somebody else's stupidity or over confidence, and I don't want others to feel that way.

+1

Also, pace. I just completed (well, ran out of fuel w/ 10mins left) a 4 hour enduro. Virtually everyone was running qualifying pace (within a second) for the duration. Fast laps in real races usually don't come close to qual speeds.

Quote from Gabkicks :

well it depends, if i drove like in BTCC do, it would say "no longer welcome" underneath my avatar.

I watched the BTCC at Rockingham on TV yesterday, for the first time since getting LFS. I was thinking 'Banned...' 'He's banned.' 'Banned.' 'Ban there.'

Quote from Crashgate3 :

I watched the BTCC at Rockingham on TV yesterday, for the first time since getting LFS. I was thinking 'Banned...' 'He's banned.' 'Banned.' 'Ban there.'

LFS is one of the few games where I feel the player name on top of the car actually means something.

There's no artificial career mode, no quest for in-game fame on top the scoreboard, the game doesn't tap you on the back for success or give minus score for crashing. Instead it's the people behind the nicknames, connecting from another country but racing door-to-door against you, who reward you. It's all about respecting and earning the respect.

Therefore I do my best to have the mentality like I'd race against human beings on a real track day... while cursing to myself in my living room for misshifting at the worst moment and Hyperactive accelerating past me.

EDIT: Holy typos, Batman!

I don't really think there is much difference in mentality between sim and RL racing.
Basically all racers, sim or real, can be sorted by patience. Much patience = good racer, few patience = bad racer.
Many BTCC drivers: No patience -> bad racers
Many new LFS drivers: No patience -> bad racers
Many WTCC drivers: Much patience -> good racers
Many seasoned LFS drivers: Much patience -> good racers

Consider though that 'good racer' doesn't always mean quick racer. But having patience means that you don't want to drive a world record lap each time you're on the track so you are likely to be consistant which ultimately makes you considerably quick. But absolute pace, measured in personal best laptime, has few to do with patience.

Vain

Having raced carts and saloon cars for real, I tend not to be too agressive on sim because in RL, a tap could cost your a fortune to repair and when your budget is only a few k for a season, you can't afford any undue damage.

When racing in Sim however, you know to repair your car only takes a Shift-S, so people fly into corners and use you as a brake. If they thought they might damage their car then i doubt they would do this.

I know I tend to position my car to block my opponent but the amount of times im forced off the track is just silly.

I was in STTC1b yesterday round the Kyoto ring and was running side by side with another racer, I was in the inside of the second banking and the other guy was trying to go the long way round but ended up clipping my rear quarter, I ened up in the wall which its self was bad but then I got totalled by the poor guy running behind us.

If this was RL, I would have probably been dead lol.

But how does our state-of-mind differ from those that do it for real?

well i dunno bout you but im usually not even legal to drive when i play

Quote from Crashgate3 :

I watched the BTCC at Rockingham on TV yesterday, for the first time since getting LFS. I was thinking 'Banned...' 'He's banned.' 'Banned.' 'Ban there.'

Agreed!

Some good psychological differences between sim and RL mentioned so far. I think another big difference between real racing in any form and casual pickup races in LFS is the amount you have invested in the race, and how long it will take you to get into another race if you screw this one up. In online racing some people clearly feel it's OK to make a desperate turn one move because if it all goes wrong they can either vote for a restart or switch servers.

Quote from DEFFX :

But how does our state-of-mind differ from those that do it for real?

well i dunno bout you but im usually not even legal to drive when i play

hehe, thank god there are no RBT units in LFS... I would that license test quite often

Psychologically for me the difference is that I don't have the gumption to race a real race car.

normally i think the differences between LFS and real life are the fact that, if u are in a good position u dont want to crash because it will ruin your race in real life, not the fear of getting hurt, spending cash etc...

also, most people in sims dont udnerstand racing, like not sticking on the outside of sum1 round a corner. so many times they hit the wall then vote to bad me or whatever from their own mistake. admittedly sometimes i squeeze them off but in the same situation as them id back out.

for me, fear doesnt come into it in real life, like sum1 above said once that lid goes on u feel no danger!!

Theres no progression, I can come along as a complete noob and jump straight into a f1 car. Yeah right how many actually get the chance to drive that kinda car. most people will start off in very simular matched karts, formula ford, feistas etc etc

I think there should be some kinda unlock license for online racing. Optional on servers or course, but based on your experience, laps, offs, crashes etc etc. The better the driver you are the quicker your advance. A bit like nascar IPL jobbie but not so strict.

It would make people a bit more respectable to get in the higher cars