I am going to go ahead to say, I have been with iRacing for 2 years. I love it! I am unfortunately at this time not able to race real cars so this is the second best thing that is out there. If you are not familiar with iRacing there is a quick overview: it is a online simulation using both oval and road cars and tracks. From the Legends cars to F1 they have it all. Computer generated cars taken from CAD files, manufacturers telemetry, and pictures that they actually take of the cars. Adjustments from just the shocks all the way to differential settings, transmission settings to every single aerodynamic wing on the car. Unlike other racing sims, they actually take laser scans of the tracks instead of taking GPS points like the other ones. The laser scan is so detailed that if there is a moth that flies in front of the scanner it copies that. So the tracks are the most detailed there is.
So let's get to the title of this blog. Skip Barber Formula cars were at Brands Hatch. Indy oval fixed was at Texas which keeps it in line with the real Verizon Indy Car Series. Me and my teammate Jon Carrigan are always in the top 10% fastest drivers overall. So this race we decided to race together, I started on the pole and he started second. Great start for both of us. As always one of the faster ones who didn't qualify was in this race. Not really go to do a turn by turn cause by the time I raged quit I couldn't remember anything except for what caused me to get out. I am in 3rd position fighting to get back to second. Coming into turn 4 coming up on last racer who was always a lap down. Now in most situations, the lapped person either brakes early or lifts or lets the ones who are still on the lead lap pass them. But not this guy!! Going into turn 4 he decides to slam the door on me, hitting me in the front left wing and spinning me out. I lose it! "You aren't even on the lead lap or racing anyone!" I yell. His reply even now just amazes me that someone could be this stupid "I was racing so and so who is 10 seconds ahead of me. I am trying to catch him". After that my race was crap. I couldn't even concentrate. Couple of laps later again a lapped car spins in turn three I go high but the car in font of me goes low clips the spun car which pushes it into me and I just quit. Absolutely disguested! And on top of that since both cars where overseas and their ping was so bad, no damage to their cars but mine is destroyed. Teammate Jon fighting for 4th having 2 cars behind him that can't pass him on the finally lap. Instead of them just finishing the race in 5th and 6th, one takes it upon themself to just run into the back of him and take him out. Now on to Indy!
After 200 laps go practice plus 2 laps of qualifying, I feel that I am ready to race Indy Fixed at Texas. That is how I get ready for a race. Many many people take this type of racing seriously and I don't want to be the one that ruins their race. So I sign up, get a couple of warm up laps then grid. On the WARM UP lap I get hit from behind by someone obviously not paying attention to what is going on. I am so shocked that I can't even say a word. Rear wing bent up I find out after looking at the replay. Again he has a terrible ping, no damage to his car. We start the race going into turn 1, I witness the worst netcode that I have ever seen. The car in front of me "hits" the car below him it throws him up the track right into me and moron behind me doesn't even try and avoid me and plows right into me. I lose it again. "How can you hit someone on the warm up?!" All I get is "sorry". "if you can't handle paying attention at 70 miles per hour just go back to legend" His response " it is just a game". I am going to cover the "hit" before my rant lol. There was a whole car width between the lower car and the car in front of me but the game coded that they hit each other! It was unbelievable to say the least! Now to rant!
To most people on iRacing it is more than just a game. They put in hours and hours of practice, use programs with telemetry to get the best setups possible (using the same programs that top tier professional race teams use, it cost us money every month to race not even the fact that every track and car that we have we had to pay for that as well. To race against people who don't take it seriously is just a disservice to us commuted iRacers. If you just want to play a game get Forza or Grand Tourismo and have fun. But not come in and ruin someone who is racing for a championship against 400 other racers!! Even if the wreck isn't your fault your Safety Rating takes a hit. So now because of a hand full of idiots, me and Jon have to do a ton of Time Trails to get our Safety Rating back up to a level that can withstand the moron drivers. So what we have decided to do is to run Time Trails in a car that we feel like it will be the best for us to up our SR. For me this will be the Skippy. I feel like this is the best car to learn car handling and car control. And we will race Indy Fixed Oval for the rest of this season. Next season the Indy cars goes from the 2005 version to the DW12. So we will be racing the DW12 in both road and oval. I think this is the car that we can both fight for the championship in our division. With Jon's huge engineering background and the great telemetry analysis programs we can do it. But iRacing needs to fix it's netcode issue with people overseas joining an American server. And some of the racers use this to their advantage.
Again thank you guys for reading this one as well. I will have one more to cover one last thing that I did this weekend then on to today.
