**********PLEASE NOTE******
These views are mine alone and I know people will disagree with some.
Also keep in mind, the following WILL NOT apply to 1. casual racers 2. Huttu no.1 wannabies. The following style best applies to people who take racing semi-seriously. If you’re a casual race – just go race and ignore my post, if you strive to be a champion, the following will not help as I am not that good.
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1. Caring about irating does help because it makes you practice more. I find myself practising for X days and racing only once or twice depending on the finish. If my testing goes well, I race quite a bit, if I can’t nail down the track well, I will totally skip a race. iRating stops me from doing stupid things. Not caring I find that I would do stupid things as I didn’t “care” and soon enough you will turn into one of those people that ruin other peoples races. If everyone cared for their SR and iRating, I personally believe races will be better quality.
2. the turning point for me was when i learnt to drive incident free laps and not trying to beat or achieve PB every lap, this worked wonders. I normally say my aim is to be PB +1 second. I did this at suzuka. despite being 5th, i had no incidents and came in first. Trying to achieve or break your PB every lap makes you incident prone.
3. just give way. Rather then seeing a guy in my mirror, i just give way to them. avoids rear ends, and it takes pressure off me. i drive best when no one is near me, i can hit great lap times. i suck when being chased, this should improve over time as I get better.
4. Qualify, qualify, qualify. I find it avoids more rear ends and mid pack crashes. I tend to find people who qualify care more for races and will take care in avoiding a crash with you. Mid pack or people at the back I find are more casual and tend to go all out. Also I find they are more aggressive as they “need to” make up 10 positions before getting first.
5. Always aim for top half finish. Over time your irating will improve. Don’t aim for no.1 – this also helps avoid pressure.
6. Skip races if your not good at the track. It’s not life or death. It’s not end of the world. Go do something else if you don’t want to waste money. Practice sessions with other people are just as good. Use the ghost sessions if you really must race. If you can’t do a track and do a race, I find that not only it kills your ratings, it also kills other peoples races.
7. spend time studying. This involves looking at iRacing forums for replays, setups for the week.
8. Know your timezone, know your lifestyle. I live in Australia and that means I can’t race in ~70% of the series out there. Due to my lifestyle of full time work and family commitments, I can’t race in another ~10% so I am very limited in my choices. For the series and timeframes I can race in, I have created spreadsheets to help me analyse and give me what I call “SOF advantage”. Basically I aim to be the highest ranked irating in my race. Why? 1. It means my qualifying time should give me pole or near pole (see above point 4), it also gives me better chance of winning as I am “the most skilled in that group according to iRating”. I have done this so often that I know the “optimal” times to race to give me the best chance of winning.
9. Keep track of your emotions. I always like to end a week on a high. This means if I win, or get a few races with decent results, I like to stop early and not get greedy with iRating. Gives me a good mood for next week. I am sure you have all experienced the “winning a race” and coming last in the next race and that was end of the week – quite a crap feeling isn’t it?
10. time trails is one of the best ways to know if your ready for a track. Why? It forces you to 1. incur no incidents 2. get a good race time. You can then compare your time with other racers to get a good idea of how you will run in an actual race. Time trail results can also be compared to series results to see how you will “theoretically” place in the race. I like to use time trails average lap +1/2seconds = theoretical race result. Don’t use your actual time trail as your race average because with traffic, pressure etc you won’t always hit those times.
Good luck, hope you had a good season.