Quote from Jertje :

So, with the first full season (for many of us, at least) coming to an end, is everyone planning to continue? I probably won't race as much in the coming season, but as long as I can keep improving relatively easily I'll put effort into it.

Heck, I'm in for a year anyway, so I owe it to myself to keep racing

I'm in for a year as well

I'm going to keep racing, no doubt...but I want more cars for the road racing stuff.

I really dislike the mazda, and how it has to be driven to be fast.

I've done some laps with the latemodel on road courses and its probably the most fun I've had flogging a car around a track by myself.

I want a more powerful tin top to race with A proper race car like the DP or a v8 supercar...

I'm really interested to see how the DP drives. I don't really know how they behave irl, and there have been lots of debates about em on the forums. Should be interesting...and fast

I only paid for a month initially, and when that finished whenever it was, July or August or something, I didn't renew. I just got a 3 month subscription at the weekend though, and have been playing pretty regularly again so far! When I came back I had been bumped up to a D licence, and given I'm above an SR of 3.0 I should move up to a C licence for the next series. I think I will focus on the Skippy though as I enjoy it and think it will be a good car for my first full 12 week series.

The only thing I find frustrating is that I want to do a bunch of races in the Skippy, but really as far as the 12 week series goes you can lose out if you do a lot of races, as it averages your points. So a couple of bad races can harm your standings. Really it would be best to just get a lot of practice in before the start of the week, qualify well, and then do one race in the first day while a lot of people are still getting up to speed. If it goes well you should get a large number of points, and not need to race again that week. Unfortunately I want to race a whole lot....

Getting back into it after a couple of months off, I'm really enjoying the Skippy again. It's been a lot of fun at Infineon Cup, and I've got down into the low 1:25s there which I'm really happy with. As for the Solstice, I'm really not finding it very entertaining any more. It started to get fun for me when I had really got into the groove with the car, but now I just miss the responsiveness of the Skippy too much to really enjoy it.

that's a very nice time I've only managed to get into the 1'26's but i feel like my lines are off. Infineon's a pretty fun track to drive. I'm trying to get my road rating over 4.99 before saturday, so maybe i can race the craftsman truck on roadcourses. i'm already at 4.99 for oval.

Thanks My best was 1:25.424 in a race earlier today, so I guess mid not low 25s really, but I'm happy! Yeah I found it took a long time to get close to the right lines there. I just got my rating in D license above 4, so now I can race the Formula Mazda series... You mention the craftsman truck on roadcourses, have you heard rumours that will be a series?

As for oval, I've not spent any time with it... just road circuits! Currently SR of 4.45 and iRating of 2184.

I was expecting the car to be released during fun week, and then it is supposed to replace the SK as the class C oval (maybe additional road too) but maybe i am setting myself up for disappointment.

Quote from Gabkicks :

I was expecting the car to be released during fun week, and then it is supposed to replace the SK as the class C oval (maybe additional road too) but maybe i am setting myself up for disappointment.

Would be a perfect time to release it........ *fingers crossed*

It was first announced to be released at Oct. 15th, but due to coding conflicts it was postponed to be released along with the new built, which is in fact expected in 13th week.

I think the truck will be a huge hit, though really, the NASCAR equivalent will be the real winner for iRacing I think!

The truck IS a NASCAR car, though I guess you mean the CoT?

Quote from DeadWolfBones :

The truck IS a NASCAR car, though I guess you mean the CoT?

yeah, sorry

I got some practice in with the Advanced Legends at Infineon Cup today to see whether I'd be up for doing the Wednesday night race with it... I got my laptimes down a bit but really I am not comfortable enough with the car yet to compete in a race with it!

Also did a race in the Formula Mazda, which was kinda fun. Was a little longer, about 50 minutes, and on one of the long VIR tracks with a 2:30 laptime and a whole bunch of turns! I am not very quick in it, but it's fun. Although I am not hugely fond of slicks and downforce cars... I prefer cars with no downforce and lots of power but not much grip, like the LX6

Soo, what series/cars are you guys going to run next season? I have raced the late models a lot more recently and I'm really liking them and oval racing in general. 50 laps per race is just too few! I think I'll go try the ovals with the silverado truck so I need to buy few ovals too. Probably going to get few late model tracks too so I can switch back and forth with LM and silver without buying all the tracks in the calendars (I've bought just one oval so far). Probably good idea to not invest fully into silver anyways as that series may not be the most popular one. Although the yankies really love the round tracks so I'd be happy proven wrong.

As for road I'm defenately not touching the mazda so I'm planning to go straight in the radical. I probably need to upgrade my sr for a while so for the first week I'll be racing the skippie (dislike the car, totally love the tracks). That also means that I'll save some monies by not buying the radical tracks.

Actually I'm thinking about making a schedule for myself, 2 cars for each week, one for road and another for oval. With good schedule I can race all the cars I want without paying too much for such an arcade sim . Mixing with LM/silver and skip/radical seems the safest way to go atm... It's probably not much use to invest much into the C lisence cars simply because there aren't probably much racers in those. The main reason why I haven't bought the sk. Even the LM races are quite empty sometimes so there's also the other option to just race few radicals and silvers with some skippie and LM thrown in and then focus on the road sport league on LFS... iracing for pickup racing (literally) and lfs for leagues :snail:

I dunno, I think I need to schedule my sim racing for all this to work

Anyone else actually planning to schedule their weekly racing in iracing?

EDIT: Also check for a blog called "A day in the life of a cat herder....​#3​" at www.iracingworld.com A new track in future, long into 2009 but still...

I have been thinking about this as well... will definitely run the Skippy series... also thinking of the Radical rather than the Mazda because I enjoy the Radical more and also think the races will be longer which should be fun. Only thing is I'm not sure about spending the money on all the tracks I'd need for the Radical... so maybe I'll focus on the Skippy for now and just run the Radical on the weeks I have the tracks for...

Good blog Have you read the other two by the same guy?

Quote from Michael Denham :

I have been thinking about this as well... will definitely run the Skippy series... also thinking of the Radical rather than the Mazda because I enjoy the Radical more and also think the races will be longer which should be fun. Only thing is I'm not sure about spending the money on all the tracks I'd need for the Radical... so maybe I'll focus on the Skippy for now and just run the Radical on the weeks I have the tracks for...

I just went through the C and upper classes and there are few tracks that are driven a lot: Martinsville, Daytona and then maybe USA and Phoenix, all of which have at least 3 race weeks in the calendar. Martinsville is defenately going to my cart, it is driven with the silverados and LMs and later with the silver crowns as well. For road courses the daytona seems good value as is Road america and Silverstone, but only if you drive the mazda series. Sebring seems pretty expensive like Barber for the little use they get (twice/12weeks). The most "expensive" tracks are Concord and Atlanta which are both just driven once per 12 weeks. Milwaukee, Richmond, Bristol and Irwindale are driven twice per 12 weeks. So going from there it is kinda easy to drop those less used ones although I really like just hotlapping road america in the radical. The daytona seems a good buy because it is used in the 13th week radical series as well. You probably have the skippie tracks so you'll have 7/12 of the mazda tracks.

I'll wait for the truck and then buy all stuff with the discount though. Although I had to buy the stafford to get the minimum participation requirement done for the late models as the fun factor of those totally surprized me. Too bad the car is pretty useless on road courses :/

I'd just wish they had made a road series for the truck as well

Quote from Michael Denham :

Good blog Have you read the other two by the same guy?

Yeah, always nice to hear something from behind the scenes

I still need to buy 5 tracks to fill up the radical schedule...thats a bit of a bummer, especially for a limited run series. I'm probably not buying any more content until they release a new car as well...hope that is really before the end of the year like they tenatively said.

Sadly I guess I will be running the skippy some more. I'm a bit annoyed that the schedule is the same as last season...and its even more annoying that the first two tracks are infineon and vir again...same as the last two weeks lol.

Well finding it difficult to get a race at the moment, which is frustrating... I did a legends at Infineon race earlier which was a lot of fun. Went to do another one and nobody else signed up. Just went to do a Formula Mazda race, and nobody else signed up... The only road course races that seem to be populated for the most part are the solstice and skip barber. And even when you do get a race in another series, usually there aren't many people and given a varied group of drivers usually shows up, there won't be many people at the same kind of pace as you. If you had 100 people show up for a race, then if it's split up by iRating, you will have a nice bunch of people probably around the same pace as you... but when it's only 10, you run with the people who are amazingly quick, and also those who have never turned a lap at the track you're running.

Sorry if this comes across as advert.

Just wanted to mention that imho the best time to subscribe into iracing are usually these "end-of-seasons" weeks, like now. If you put enough laps and races in before saturday 25th you will get very easily and quickly into D lisence which allows you to drive the skippie and late model along with the C class cars later on with high safety rating. (Naturally you need to buy the LM/skippie etc. and tracks for them.). Rookie races ar held every hour so you are probably looking at 8-10 hour grind in total between now and saturday evening to get the stats up for lisence upgrade. Just finishing the races without incident points is more than enough.

So if you think you might try iracing later on this year you are looking at being in the rookie lisence until end of the next january if you join after saturday. If you join now (and manage to fulfill the requirements), even for a month, you still get to the next level license which may be something nice if you decide to try iracing again later on. Or if you have tried iracing already you may want to put 20$ in and advance to the next level, again, if you manage to fulfill the requirements.

It also needs to be said that the next "big" update is coming now at the change of seasons so you will get good look at what the next 12 weeks look like software wise.

The next week is also the 13th week special week where you can race as rookie or as D the radical on one of the free tracks, if you buy the radical, that is.

Kinda just another heads up

Quote from Michael Denham :

Well finding it difficult to get a race at the moment, which is frustrating... I did a legends at Infineon race earlier which was a lot of fun. Went to do another one and nobody else signed up. Just went to do a Formula Mazda race, and nobody else signed up... The only road course races that seem to be populated for the most part are the solstice and skip barber. And even when you do get a race in another series, usually there aren't many people and given a varied group of drivers usually shows up, there won't be many people at the same kind of pace as you. If you had 100 people show up for a race, then if it's split up by iRating, you will have a nice bunch of people probably around the same pace as you... but when it's only 10, you run with the people who are amazingly quick, and also those who have never turned a lap at the track you're running.

yup... I think right now the issue for the whole system is that they need to reach a critical mass for it all to fall in to place and that hasn't been reached yet......

Good advice for people thinking about trying for a month!

As for the series in which I'll run... it'll have to be the Skippy again unless they fix the current aero issues. The Radical will also not last for 1 hour races with the current way in which it eats tyres. Hopefully the update addresses these things and I suspect that it might, but currently there's little fun in either understeering a radical all over the place, or running ultralow downforce in the Mazda on every single course because the extra speed you gain in corners seems to offset the lack of wing by generating more downforce through raw speed

I'll race the skippy again and probably cut down on the Adv. Solstice which was supposed to be my main series last season. Due to no internet connection for over 4 weeks it wasn't really a full season for me, so I'm seeing the coming season as my first full one in iRacing.

I'm still contemplating to buy the FM, Road America and Silverstone just to have it and get a little discount with my purchase. If I should go that direction I'll probably throw in a couple of races in the FM, too, also to meet the requirements to move up to B when promotion time comes.

I thought about skipping the FM and go directly to the Radical, but somehow feel it would be best for me to move slowly and climb the full ladder. I'll always be "behind" as far as license class vs. series running goes, but with my limited time and talent that's probably the smartest way to go.

I'm really looking forward to next season, as I feel I'm really starting to get to grips with the skippy and think I can be reasonably fast (to my own standards) and clean now.

Quote from Jertje :

Good advice for people thinking about trying for a month!

As for the series in which I'll run... it'll have to be the Skippy again unless they fix the current aero issues. The Radical will also not last for 1 hour races with the current way in which it eats tyres. Hopefully the update addresses these things and I suspect that it might, but currently there's little fun in either understeering a radical all over the place, or running ultralow downforce in the Mazda on every single course because the extra speed you gain in corners seems to offset the lack of wing by generating more downforce through raw speed

Really great points indeed. I was just driving the radical on INF cup and after 10 laps my tyres were chewed and I got a puncture. I was thinking that with the skippy currently running 20 lap races on the same track, what would the radical be doing in a race. No way the tyres would last out! I haven't tried the Mazda but a couple of our people in RSR have said it needs fixing before really being a good car for a series.

Quote from Linsen :

I'll race the skippy again and probably cut down on the Adv. Solstice which was supposed to be my main series last season. Due to no internet connection for over 4 weeks it wasn't really a full season for me, so I'm seeing the coming season as my first full one in iRacing.

I'm still contemplating to buy the FM, Road America and Silverstone just to have it and get a little discount with my purchase. If I should go that direction I'll probably throw in a couple of races in the FM, too, also to meet the requirements to move up to B when promotion time comes.

I thought about skipping the FM and go directly to the Radical, but somehow feel it would be best for me to move slowly and climb the full ladder. I'll always be "behind" as far as license class vs. series running goes, but with my limited time and talent that's probably the smartest way to go.

I'm really looking forward to next season, as I feel I'm really starting to get to grips with the skippy and think I can be reasonably fast (to my own standards) and clean now.

It's amazing how long it actually takes to not only understand how the whole iRacing system works, but also changing your whole mindset to accept and enjoy the system. I hear so many people get annoyed that there are not any pickup races and things like that but really iRacing is a true sim and putting in the effort practising is a vital point of competing in a series! Good luck next season in the skippy. I think that will be my car for next season too though I had hoped there might be a track like Road America or Silverstone in there, but there isn't

All good!

I think we should all do the Skippy, have a little LFS driver battle Certainly if anyone wants to do anything else as well then go for it, but if we get as many of us as possible doing the Skippy races, that could be fun

Quote from StableX :

I haven't tried the Mazda but a couple of our people in RSR have said it needs fixing before really being a good car for a series.

The Mazda is weird. I always find myself comparing SS cars to the ones in netKar Pro, and the Mazda is very strange to drive. It feels all wrong, but i cant put my finger on what it is exactly.
The fact that you can recover when the rear steps out more than 90 degrees doesn't help. How did it get released with such an obvious bug?

The iRacing physics are good, but not all they've been cracked up to be.

Quote from StableX :

I hear so many people get annoyed that there are not any pickup races and things like that

I'm one!

I still hate the system, and I've been studying it hard for weeks now. It bears no resemblance to anything in real life. It's not pick-up racing and it's not a league (in any traditional sense of the word)
I still haven't seen the guy, whos iRacing i use, enter a race with a full field in peak UK time either.

Still, one thing iRacing has done for me is get me into oval racing. It's a hoot!


I'm still not sold on iRacing, and wont be buying it yet.
It's great to drive, and the tracks are absolutely fantastic, but it's soulless and dare i say it, a bit dull.

The fact that there is no pick up racing or proper league racing is still stopping a lot of people i know from buying into it.

I still firmly belive that if private leagues and proper pick up racing were introduced a lot more people would invest in it, and im sure the vast majority of those people would dip into the iRacing system as it is now and do a few races a week, therefore increasing the number of racers participating, not taking people away from the system as a lot of people i've read posts from fear.

Quote from The Moose :

I'm one!

I still hate the system, and I've been studying it hard for weeks now. It bears no resemblance to anything in real life. It's not pick-up racing and it's not a league (in any traditional sense of the word)
I still haven't seen the guy, whos iRacing i use, enter a race with a full field in peak UK time either.

I do hear you but I've had many a race thats full. I think it depends on the car you like. For instance, a little earlier I saw that the skippy had 46 people registered for the race which means 4 races almost full.

I think it's as close to real racing as there is right now in that you practise hard on your own then do some practises with others. After that you do a few time trials to ensure your consistency while trying to get your lap times down. Lastly, you get on track for a race or three.

I guess my point is that unless you go and take up real racing, iRacing is as close as there is at the moment to a system thats like real racing. The way the points work too, it averages out your races so the ideal is to do one full race a week and win it!

Like any sim racing game, each have their own merits and pit falls. Each different to the other one. We all know we'd love to take elements of rFactor, LFS, iRacing and NetKar and parcel them up in to a new sim that we all go WOW about!

I do find it funny when you get those going its a sim not a game!!!!! It's a bloody game

Quote from StableX :

I do hear you but I've had many a race thats full. I think it depends on the car you like. For instance, a little earlier I saw that the skippy had 46 people registered for the race which means 4 races almost full.

There should be no shortage of drivers for the Solstice and Skippy races, definitely not during European peak hours. Both series usually get 3-4 grids of drivers for the races. Next season there will probably be less people in the Solstice and the Mazdas should start getting constant good grids.