Well there goes my clean record, clipped my rear wheel on the wall with 2 laps to go, even though I actually missed it, the game seemed to make my rear wheel collapse for a laugh anyway. So I finished 7th, 3 incidents, still got extra SR though because the field was really strong, but I was 2nd, so I'm not thanking the game for that stupid glitch. Especially since the guy that won is a complete arsehole that blocks and chops to keep positions.

Field strenght doesn't affect your SR in any way.

Quote from ATC Quicksilver :

Well there goes my clean record, clipped my rear wheel on the wall with 2 laps to go, even though I actually missed it, the game seemed to make my rear wheel collapse for a laugh anyway. So I finished 7th, 3 incidents, still got extra SR though because the field was really strong, but I was 2nd, so I'm not thanking the game for that stupid glitch. Especially since the guy that won is a complete arsehole that blocks and chops to keep positions.

I almost lose a race in the last lap yesterday, just because the driver in front of me (blue flag) didn´t let me pass. We crashed, but fortunately I was able to drive my wrecked car to the finish line before anyone tried to pass me
But meh, usually they are nice guys, just the opposite than LFS

On the subject of idiot backmarkers, the last race I was in was the worst example so far. First this guy called Robert Rackshaw decided to hold up 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th for about 3 laps, in the end the idiot in 5th decided to try and overtake 3 cars in one turn which caused them all to crash infront of me, but I saw it coming and had already backed off and took 3rd. Then I came to lap a guy and I was going round the outside and he shut the door on me, tiny contact which didn't actually give me an incident point, but it was stupidly close to a big wreck.

Maybe it would be worth considering moving to Adv. Solstice or Skippy if you can handle it.

Well I don't really want to fork out on a skippy and tracks at the moment, and the advanced solstice doesn't interest me much because it will just be battle of the best setup in an already boring car.

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.

Just tried skippy for the first time, and boy is it hard

Doing 1.23.5 but I am miles away from being able to go online yet...

I am the most gutted person in the world right now, I nearly beat AJ, I was in 2nd place ahead of him but I spun 4 laps from the end. It's that guy I keep on racing against, he is a curse to me, we are on exactly the same pace most of the time, but his luck is immense and his blocking is too.

It's so wierd knowing you have a Nascar driver inches off your rear bumper, he actually nearly lost it under braking trying to pass me which gave me the gap I needed to stay ahead. I wish I had just backed off instead of going for the lead, but it's so tempting when you see this Alex guy, he is all over the road but somehow still fast, getting away with slides across the grass on the exit of turns that would cause anyone else to spin.

Quote from irated_boner :

60fps avi, 2 decent laps for reference help.

1.47.6 laguna lap in the solistice http://www.gamefaction.com/kid ... iRacing-Laguna-1.47.6.avi

59.7 at jefferson in the solistice http://www.gamefaction.com/kid ... odea_Jefferson_0_59_7.avi

from last betadays

Thank you very much! This helped me a lot in my line! You very fast i want to have your babies!

Just had my first decent race with any pressure. Started on pole, with Curtis Fung in second place who's qualifying time was 1:03.416. He really kept me under pressure for 7 laps, during which he was within 1 second of me, but then I pulled a tiny gap, and while I started to knuckle down with some fast laps he began to fade away until he must have had an excursion or something because he dropped back 10 seconds or so, and I could take the win. Hopefully I can start to work up the rankings a bit more now.

Guys, I am trying to put the useful info I am picking up from you guys in one place. Please can you let me know if you have anything you know of that could go there, thanks

http://www.sonicrealmsracing.c ... um/index.php?topic=1276.0

Dave you must be like lightning because Curtis Fung has been unstoppable my last few races! Just now I took second 17 seconds behind him. I just can't run mid 1:03s all race yet...

Quote from jasonmatthews :

Guys, I am trying to put the useful info I am picking up from you guys in one place. Please can you let me know if you have anything you know of that could go there, thanks

http://www.sonicrealmsracing.c ... um/index.php?topic=1276.0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HO-imphkjiw

top 10 qualifying time in the avd. solstice around LRP

Quote from ATC Quicksilver :

Well I don't really want to fork out on a skippy and tracks at the moment, and the advanced solstice doesn't interest me much because it will just be battle of the best setup in an already boring car.

Setup means very little and they're very easy to get anyway, the Advanced is also 10 times nicer to drive than the Rookie with none of the annoying understeer.
It really boggles my mind how many people stick to the Rookie version, it just doesn't make any sense

Quote from ATC Quicksilver :

On the subject of idiot backmarkers, the last race I was in was the worst example so far. First this guy called Robert Rackshaw decided to hold up 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th for about 3 laps, in the end the idiot in 5th decided to try and overtake 3 cars in one turn which caused them all to crash infront of me, but I saw it coming and had already backed off and took 3rd. Then I came to lap a guy and I was going round the outside and he shut the door on me, tiny contact which didn't actually give me an incident point, but it was stupidly close to a big wreck.

Hahaha, I think I was one of the many that he took out! White w/ Blue middle stripe.

He totally screwed my last turn up disregarding the fact he was down a lap, causing a huge traffic jam on the front.

I was in 3rd(?) going down the front straight with Robert to my left, another guy to my right. I expected that Robert would lift, and the guy to my right would pass us both.

Unfortunately Robert decided to turn into T1 as if no-one was there.

And you got by us all!

There's an awful lot of sense talked by this guy. It's long read but worth it:

Quote :

Racing Smarts AKA Savvy
There are a lot of ingredients in the recipe for winning races and series championships and all of them are crucial to success. That recipe includes a LARGE dose of racing savvy. You can do all of the right things preparing for the race but if you don’t do the right things during the race most of the time, your chances of winning it are very slim. Most people will preach about patience and after years of seeing it preached but very few people actually grasping the concept, I’ve decided to take a different approach. I’m not going to preach about patience; I’m going to preach about being smart.

First and foremost is to know your limitations and try your absolute hardest to never exceed them. You will, but you must try as hard as you can, not too. How do you know what your limitations are? Here’s an example, If you’re not absolutely positive that you can hold your line as you’re passing someone low going into a corner, you’ve exceeded your limitations. Even if you’ve successfully pulled off the maneuver, you still exceeded your limitations to that point. Every time you exceed your limitations but succeed, you’ll gain confidence until eventually you totally blow it and wipe out ½ the field which inevitably sets your confidence and your reputation way back, kind of like dieting by not eating. You lose weight for a while but put it all right back on because you’re starved. Confidence in racing should come just like everything else that provides true confidence, from your overall success, not individual instances of succeeding by exceeding. However, doing that offline against the AI is great practice.

Next, we need to discuss respect. Remember racing etiquette, if you don’t respect your competition, you’re not going to have much etiquette but even worse than that, you’re not very smart. There are lots of times when you’re going to have to have help from someone else on and off the track to win races. If you don’t respect anyone else in their endeavors to have fun with this, no one will respect or help you. If you think you can win races all on your own and enjoy this at the expense of others always taking and never giving, once again you’re not very smart and/or just plain masochistic. Now that we respect our competitors, and ourselves we can talk about the difference between being smart and being patient. If you’re a patient driver, you’re pretty darn smart. However, while you have to be patient, you also have to be aggressive. You’re a savvy driver when you know when and how to do both. I see lots of fast drivers, lots of very aggressive drivers, a few patient drivers, and very few savvy drivers. Most people rely on their own common sense when it comes to racing smarts but common sense to one person is not always common sense to another especially when it comes to racing online. A savvy driver realizes this and almost always does the smart thing without having to really think about it. Just like after hours of practice, you instinctively do the right thing if you get into the corner a little to hot, your reflexes take over and you deftly maneuver the car back to where you want to be. A savvy this by sizing up the competition. Forget how fast they are in practice. How smooth are they lap after lap? How nervous do they get when you get right on their rear bumper? How well can they hold their line lap after lap? How well can they checkup if you slow a little more than normal going into a corner. How aggressive are they when they want by? Do they move over easily if they can tell you want by or do they run as hard as they can to stay in front of you? All of these things can be found out during practice and if you don’t take the time to do this, you’re not very smart. This is why most pickup races are such a wreck fest; no one knows each other.

Lastly, let’s look at the smart thing to do in specific situations: A driver you don’t know very well gets up to your B pillar on either the inside or the outside going into a corner, back out of it and let them have it. Maybe you know you can hold your line but do you know if they can hold theirs? Sure you can blame them later for not holding their line and causing the accident but that doesn’t get those valuable points back does it? Conversely, a driver you do know that can hold their line in the same situation does this and you know you can hold your line, what do you do? This depends on what’s smart for you based on the overall objective of winning the race. Do you abuse your tires racing him/her through the corner, if you only have 5 laps to go, abuse those tires J If you have 50 to go, the smart thing to do may be to let then have the spot. This is a bit trickier, You’re in a pack of cars and you’re passing on the inside going into a corner with cars right above & behind you. You know you’re going to have to brake more to stay low and keep your line to pull off the pass. Do you go ahead and make that dive and take that chance? Almost never!!!! Why, have you ever heard of follow the leader syndrome? It’s difficult when cars are all stacked up to judge exactly where you’re at. If you brake later and harder than normal, the chances are good the person behind you is going to punt you into the upper deck even if he or she is a good driver. It’s imperative to be as smooth and as consistent as possible when in traffic especially going into the corners. If those around you want to take chances, back out of it and let them. You can wave as you pass low underneath that huge pileup. From the above 3 situations, you should get the idea that anytime you’re not sure what you, your car, or the other person is going to or can do, the smart thing for you is to be conservative or patient if you prefer to use that term. It doesn’t matter where you are at or where they are at on the track and how anyone else drives. There’s no rule that says you should be here or they should be there on any part of the track except during pace and caution laps. Regardless of what anyone else says, there is also no RULE that says anyone has to do anything on a racetrack except of course what’s mandated in the sim or by the league. Don’t ever assume anything. If you have to assume around drivers you don’t know on a racetrack, you’re exceeding your capabilities and even if it’s totally the other person’s fault when you get into a wreck, who’s really to blame if you ASSUMED they’d hold their line? You are!!! To drive this point home, say you’re leading the race and coming up on a lapped car really quickly going into the corner and you really don’t know this person, lets also say league rules state that lapped cars must let the leaders pass on the inside so you immediately move to the inside, go to pass and this person cuts right down in front of you and takes you both out causing you engine damage. Well, I hate to tell you this but you’re an idiot. You assumed this person read the rules and you also assumed that he saw you coming up on him 25 mph faster. Sure he was at fault but you don’t get your 185 points back for leading the most laps and winning the race. This is why I think a lot of people confuse patience with racing smarts. You can be as patient as a saint but if you expect or assume people you’re not sure of are going to do something, you’re just not very smart. Hmmm, this sounds a lot like defensive driving school. By gosh it is J Now the paradox, this is racing and if we drive patiently the whole race we’re probably not going to win. We have to drive agressively and take at some point in time but we have to be smart about it. The aboslute best way to do this is to do your homework and know the competition. Remember what we did in practice? We did some things to size up the other drivers. Take advantage full of that. Any time you can take and you’re almost positive that other person can and will do their part. Take! If you’re not sure of a person during a race, you have to take the time to size them up then. If you don’t have that time because you’re being pressured from behind, do what’s smart for you and your overall goals. Take the risk of passing or let the guy pressuring you from behind by and see what he can do with the guy in front. Do whatever is smart for you. If you take the risk of pushing a pass and the guy in front can’t handle it, he may be to blame but your decision wasn’t very smart. What it all boils down to is pretty simple, be aggressive when you know you can and be patient when you’re not sure. Even when we’ve done our homework and we’re certain that we can pass a driver that will give us room and either of us screws up, that’s not stupid, that’s truly one of “those racing deals” and it happens to all of us. Laslty, don’t play headgames with yourself. Don’t use warp or justify to yourself that you were sure you could get by and both of you would hold your line when you really weren’t sure of the other driver or your own ability at all.

Again, the above is a draft and needs to be proofed. One other thing I'm going to add to this is more on blame. Blame is irrelevant, blame is a lost cause and worthless, blame is not worth your time or anyone elses. Also, I'm adding a section on common courtesy. It's not a rule but it's common courtesy that if a driver gets upto your door handle on inside to give them room. If the inside driver does not get to the door handle, he should back out and expect the other guy to cut down. If you're a lapped car and the leaders get upto your door handle on the outside, it's common courtesy for you to backout and give them the low line at apex. Having said that, if you don't know what the other guy is going to do, it's always correct to be patient and backout, if you're aggresive and the other guy can't handle it by not doing the proper thing or holding his line, you can BLAME all you want but who really gives a poop? Be smart and be savvy by never having to blame anyone because of you getting caught up in thier mistakes

Bob Stanley

Quote from spanks :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HO-imphkjiw

top 10 qualifying time in the avd. solstice around LRP

Do you think left foot braking is the key to your speed? You're on the throttle so early in T1, and it looks like you use the brakes just a little on every corner?

left foot braking is key in underpowered cars.

It's why Nascar drivers do it on superspeedways with restricted motors...you can keep in the gas and keep the rpms up, but still slow it down a little...

I always did it in gokarts too...since keeping the rpms up high was really important...

Be careful though, you can only do it to a point, too much brake while your in the throttle can turn you around really quick...

I'll have to start trying it, as I can't seem to push much past 1:03.7xx.

Left foot braking is definately the key in the Solstice, but I can't actually do that because my acceleration and braking are on the same axis, so I will always be a few tenths off, but I can make my car wide and be consistent to make up for that. However in the last few races I have been put against the fastest guys, and having to push beyond my limits every lap just to keep up with them is causing me to make silly mistakes.

Same thing is happening to me. Every race I'm in it's either Curtis Fung or AJ running away with it. I need to find some speed big time.

Quote from Doorman :

There's an awful lot of sense talked by this guy. It's long read but worth it:

Very very good read! Hopefully I can train myself and actually put some of it into practice.

Quote from titanLS :

Same thing is happening to me. Every race I'm in it's either Curtis Fung or AJ running away with it. I need to find some speed big time.

AJ is sometimes slow off the start, so just jump ahead of him and hold a tight line. I managed to hold him off by using an old trick that I can't believe worked on a professional driver. Basically I was defensive into turn one every lap, but when he was close I opened the door at the last minute, he was up trying to pass me like a shot but because it was such a late move he screwed up on the brakes and spun. I made up for that moment of cleverness by spinning with 4 laps to go though!

Quote from titanLS :

Do you think left foot braking is the key to your speed? You're on the throttle so early in T1, and it looks like you use the brakes just a little on every corner?

for sure, its definitely the key

The thing just doesn't like to turn, but a little trail braking seems to get it to rotate right around.

The biggest thing I found was to try to get most of your turning done at entry, and then just use the momentum and gas to keep you turning. Have to be careful not to get into too big of a slide though as you'll lose all your momentum.

Turn 1 exit is pretty key to being able to go through turn 2 like I did. I basically got the car to turn by turning in on the brakes, and then slid the rest of the way through the corner. A worse exit from turn 1 and I don't really have the speed at the right point to get through the corner like that. Turn 2 is definitely the trickiest turn on the track imo.

btw, I can't run at that speed for more than about 5 laps...I crash large lol. Even that lap was pretty sloppy.