A few days ago I was browsing Facebook and came across from a posting from a friend of mine saying how addicted he was to iRacing. This friend of mine is a long time RC oval racer and race organizer so I thought if it was good enough for him, I needed to check it out. My roots in racing are deep. I have been a racing fan since my childhood years (I am 32 now). I will watch anything on 4 wheels except I don’t care much for drag racing. I have raced RC cars since I was in 6th grade or so. I also already enjoy online racing, via the PS3 and GT5 Prologue, and EA Nascar 2009. I’m sure most of you have played these games, they are good but could be much more realistic. It’s also important to note that my son (who is 3) has completely taken over my PS3 setup and he’s not too happy when I’m racing and he is not. This kid has it good, PS3, 32” LCD, Playseats racing seat, Logitech wheel and pedal set. Me, I’m stuck on my PC with a 19” monitor , an old Logitech momo wheel and pedal set up, and a desk chair.
Downloading seemingly took forever….but it was worth the wait. Before I paid $100 for an annual subscription I decided to play it safe with a 1 month pass. I didn’t want to spend all that money to realize my older PC couldn’t handle the game. Once everything was installed I figured out that I needed to use the web interface to launch the application and I was up and running. My first laps were in a Legends at the Lowes Legends track. After some adjustments to my wheel and pedal setup I was turning some fun laps (note that I said fun, not fast J). I realized right away that my PC had plenty of power for the game, it was very smooth. After navigating the site a little bit I joined the rookie Legends Car league.
In a few days I have gone from being in the way to wanting people out of my way. Keep in mind, this is in the rookie league. I am at a 2.90 rating and looking forward to moving into either another rookie oval class or possibly advanced legends. Before I advance I would love to get into the 17 second bracket at South Boston in my rookie Legends car. I’ve come so close! I can run an 18.0 but I need one more tenth. I should be watching the replays of these laps when I see someone runs one. One thing I really like about iRacing is the realism. There is no pause, no do over, once the race starts it’s on. It reminds me a lot of RC racing. Staying out of trouble is of upmost importance. You can be the fastest guy on the track but if you can’t pass a lapped car without wrecking you are useless. In the last race I was in I started 6th. I prefer to start on the inside row but what can you do? It was funny, while we were driving the pace laps the car on the outside of the front row and someone else crashed. On the pace lap! Unfortunately someone got paid back right after the green flag and a lot of innocent cars were collected including myself. That was frustrating.
The point of me creating this blog is just to capture the experience of a new iRacing driver. Hopefully other new racers will learn from some of my mistakes and others can follow my progress if they choose. Please feel free to leave a comment here or you can e-mail me at Nickolas.Ledford@gmail.com.
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