Being a rank beginner I am keen to race but don't want to get smashed and my ego left in the gutter. Is there perhaps a host where the really slowest drivers get together?

if you join a big server, then you will most likely find a few slower drivers to battle with. the most important thing is to learn race smarts and that only comes from jumping in and racing with people. After a few races you'll learn how to be quick around a track and how to pass/ defend there are lots of tips on this forum about how to be fast and safe

Just join a server with a combo, that you like, without thinking of this. If you are driving clean and dont cause crashes every race, you will have no problem then.

And you will find someone to race with; I never saw a public server with only racers, who drive laptimes within 1 second of the wr or sth.

I find most servers welcome drivers of all abilities. The only time when I see people becoming irritated is when somebody clearly doesn't know the track and car combo. I find that it's always a good idea to spectate on the top few drivers for a lap or 3 and see who's driving the car you will be driving, look at their braking points and gear changes and their line, then join in and just take it easy. As long as you're not all over the place and yield sensibly to blue flags you'll be fine.

Yah absolutely, most people have no problem at all with slower drivers (although I did *once* meet someone who very arrogantly said go away and practice offline when I joined a server and said "Hi", "This is a new combo for me ".

What annoys people is wreckless driving, and I have to say that actually sums up half the field in most 5/10 lap LFS races. There's a lot of talk about not logging on until you can drive a clean race, but the proof is in the pudding and if you watch any server with 6 or more cars on doing a 5/10 lap race then at best only half will finish on the lead lap - the rest will have crashed & pitted.

So log on and race away and just try to avoid doing anything too stupid or outright criminal... It wont stop *your* race being wrecked by somebody rejoining the racing line strait after causing a yellow flag, but at least you wont get shouted at.

Oh also, just incase you where feeling inadequate about being slow...

These are stats from a 1 hr long league race, check out my fastest lap time compared to everyone else, then look where I finished...

http://fp.mad129.plus.com/OWRL ... 4/05_server3_results.html

First weeks of being licensed i used to find a server i liked, spectate a few laps and note laptimes in general, go offline and do a few laps, and then go join the server, first run of south city in the formula xr for example, my offline practice went something like huge crash first lap, smaller crashes and mistakes laps 3-4 onwards, steady 45's a few laps more, joining the server and racing worked reasonably well straight away.

Here's another hint for you and other new guys (and those who haven't seen me post this before and want to avoid the T1 pile up).

Sit in spectate mode until the race begins to restart (you will see a countdown in the middle of the screen). As soon as you see the grid set, join the race. This will put you in last position where noone can possibly hit you from behind if you mess up. Then just meander on your way at the green flag braking early and slowing for T1. Watch the mayhem in T1 for a good chuckle, go through and around all the wrecked cars, then blast it out of T1 and continue on with racing.

This will ensure that A - you won't cause anything to another driver because you are new yet, and B - you won't get smashed by those in the back of the field who can't get through T1 and are the cause of all the restarts. Eventually as you learn the track from the back, you will progress forward through the field as you gain experience and can start following behind faster and faster drivers learning all along.

Enjoy and welcome to LFS!

New drivers are always welcome , so join races and enjoy.

BYW getting fast laps are (in some cases) no indication of a drivers abilty to race with others.I have had the best races on LFS with poor lap times, dont get obsessed with the PB

Just keep an eye on the map if someone is closing quick, and you don't feel in control of the car, ease off then get back on there tail, great way to learn .

Best advice don't overdrive the car ( lots of tyres noise , massive steering correction is a giveaway) It should feel smooth and the best laps actually feel slow .

John

If I want to try a combo I never did before, I usually immediatly join a server and spectate with whomever seems to be doing fine. I watch him/her going for at least a few laps to learn the circuit and the braking points. Then, depending on the density of the traffic I start practicing online or offline (if there's a race going on with cars all over the track I go offline, but if only a few people are racing I practice online making sure I don't obstruct anyone).

I also find that I improve most by racing better drivers. It may not look that rewarding when you finish far from the podium, but you're often improving - both in lap times as in battles. If you race slower drivers, you win a lot - but you don't get better.
Somehow racing better drivers motivates me to do better. And it works.

Something I found funny in the early days is to tail someone at a SAFE distance. And by safe I mean you can't even crash into him if you wouldn't brake at all. Just visible in the distance. You shouldn't pick someone who's 5 seconds a lap faster of course. The fun wouldn't last too long, but if you tail someone who's slightly faster you will find yourself having a lot of fun trying to keep up. You'll try different driving lines, braking points, apex',... and you have almost realtime feedback by looking at the distance between you and the car ahead. As soon as you can keep up with him, it's time to pick another - slightly faster - victim. Of course this depends on how consistent the driver in front of you is performing, but you'll learn from it and it's fun because with some imagination it feels like a battle. And at a certain point you will feel confident enough to attack the car in front and actually overtake it - hopefully in a way that both cars continue...

And it's like JohnPenn says. Don't stare yourself blind at the laptimes. You can win a race with laptimes that may be seconds slower than other cars on the track. You should drive consistently. And don't forget, there can be great fights and races for other places than the top 3 too...

Best couple of laps i've ever had was round Aston Historic in the XRT, with one other XRT and an FXO. None of us had driven it before, but somehow we all managed to stay on the road, racing really close, clean overtaking in uphill chicane, lovely position battling thru the midfield. Really odd race and i can't remember how it finished, but a few magic laps.

Laptimes where probably 10-15 seconds off respective wr's.

This is some of the best advice I've ever seen, for newcomers to get started in S2. Really sound advice.

[fm] oval junkles has a couple noobs and barely any good raceing 'cause the [fm] racers always win

tHAnks a lot fellahs, there's a pile of good hints in there. much obliged.

My humble opinion:
The very moment you begin to think "But will I fit, although I'm very slow?" you're a better driver than 60% of the people on the public servers and I will prefer racing with you over a lot of other people. So you fit right in.

Vain

When i first started online racing s2 i always joined the server and spectate a few laps, but i always spectated the person in last place - this meant i wasnt watchin someone on the edge but someone who chances are was in control but no fast. I then would join always try to be a good 10 secs behind the person in front of me. I would then try and match those lines and speed. At this point i didnt pay attention to times at all. After about 20 laps i would start to feel comfortable in controlling the car round that track and then look at my times.

The best lesson i ever learnt was - learn everythings bout the track before trying to go fast. A good example of this offline try and take different lines round each corner on each lap, this way you can find out which line is good for u and your setup, then tweak so its the fastest line for you. Keep practising and then you can drive the whole lap safe and fast. I found then when i go online i might still be the slowest but i could keep it on the track, and sometimes finish above people faster than me.

Another weird thing i found - was if i went on team inferno for set ups i would be really slow with them as they are a bit of hanful for noobs (specially gtr's etc) so i made a setup with my liited knowledge. It wouldnt be quick but it would be safe. Then after id got used to that i could then drive the inferno set ups ok.

If you like racing the gtr cars, feel free to come on the MG team server. As long as your clean then your welcome

Quote from thisnameistaken :

I went on there late last night because there was basically no other servers with more than 1 person on. It didn't even feel like I was playing LFS. I stayed for three restarts and then disconnected.

Just ignore the [FM] servers I went on it today and managed to get banned within 10 minutes probably for saying 'wtf' or being auto pitted after someone drove into me and the eagle eyed admin blamed it on me or when I clipped the stupid barrier coming out of the pits which catapulted my car.

I could live with most of those but what hate most is the constant unblockable popup messages (the special server ones which come up in the same place a blue/yellow flags) I just cannot keep concentrating on the road when they pop up and they pop up for just about anything, why do I need to know someone's set a new PB, whats wrong with the LFSW messages?

And if you do decide to go onto their server just remember to press shift + S constantly.

Try the [noobs] servers, they are always full of noobs

And yes, the [FM] server is quite a mess, the pop-up messages along with that stupid barrier make for some rough racing!

Quote from Rappa Z :

[fm] oval junkles has a couple noobs and barely any good raceing 'cause the [fm] racers always win

there is ALWAYS good racing on there! and the [FM] guys win because they are the best! (well, the eagles might have the WR, but they dont always have a server)

Quote from mrodgers :

HSit in spectate mode until the race begins to restart (you will see a countdown in the middle of the screen). As soon as you see the grid set, join the race. This will put you in last position where noone can possibly hit you from behind if you mess up. Then just meander on your way at the green flag braking early and slowing for T1. Watch the mayhem in T1 for a good chuckle, go through and around all the wrecked cars, then blast it out of T1 and continue on with racing.

This will ensure that A - you won't cause anything to another driver because you are new yet, and B - you won't get smashed by those in the back of the field who can't get through T1 and are the cause of all the restarts. Eventually as you learn the track from the back, you will progress forward through the field as you gain experience and can start following behind faster and faster drivers learning all along

learnt a really good trick at blackwood recently, its best if you start at the back for this one! instead of following amidst the pack, and getting pushed, shunted & fishtailed, keep on the outside, turn in at about 25 and keep wide, miss the apex and go onto the rumble strip on the side, its not the fastest way round BUT everybody on the RACING line will be making small amounts of contact, slowing them down, and may have had to swerve to avoid spun cars, or being hit themselves, as you have gone wide you will be going slightly faster than everybody else, you should be able to easily slot back into the trafic (just watch out, now that your going faster than them you might just drive right up their tailpipe!), gain on the person infront, and then your on the the straight, with not only a speed bost, but (if someones ahead of you) the ability to draft, just don't try this on a demo server or you will get a response of "xxxx is using NOZ boost!" (believe me, its happened to me before!)

Aye I always take T1 on Blackwood wide and it serves me well at the starts. The problem I have is I take it wide on lap 2 aswell.

Just found the thing that likes banning me: http://monkster.hopto.org/~janez/LFSLapper/LFSLapper.html

Quote from ajp71 :

Just found the thing that likes banning me: http://monkster.hopto.org/~janez/LFSLapper/LFSLapper.html

Monkster has really started putting weird stuff into lfslapper.

Don't worry I think I was banned for clipping the red pitlane barrier.

that barrier kills me. I kan't leave the pits without going into orbit...or at least a jump

Quote from Jakg :

there is ALWAYS good racing on there! and the [FM] guys win because they are the best!

Hmm, I was on that server for maybe 30 minutes in the last months and didnt see a second of good racing or a start without someone spinning and causing a big crash. So its at least ALWAYS minus 30 minutes.