There are very few S1 servers. You will find a lot more S2 servers!

Oh and don't use auto gears. You can learn manual pretty quickly

The speed you reach on the straight very much depends on how fast you exit the chicane. Should be able to go through it full throttle with e.g. XFG. Press 4 to see the racing line

Been playing the demo for the last week, love it! I want to buy the rest soon but I am worried that I may never leave my computer again.

(I'm running LFS on Ubuntu with wine and it works perfectly )