64 replies to this topic

[Danny Steyn]

Hi all

 

A week ago I hijacked Todd Lambs coaching thread with a statement that I feel that iRacing has a serious place to play in helping racers get faster on the track, and I had several drivers PM me for advice. Rather that reply to each one individually I decided to put together my approach to iRacing, in the hope that there might be other readers that find it useful. I hope I have answered all the questions that were asked of me, but I anticipate that there will be many more.

 

Anyway, hope this helps.

[Danny Steyn]

Basics - what iRacing can do for you

For me, iRacing is an inexpensive way to get hours of seat time at tracks that you will be racing. Even if you are familiar with the track iRacing will help you develop muscle memory and timing related to the track, allowing you to roll out onto the track confident in your marks, and allow you to get up to speed much faster.

 

In terms of the basic skills iRacing will help you become more consistent with your

• Line selection (preferred and alternate)
• Braking point
• Turn in point
• Apex (preferred and alternate)
• WOT application point
• Track out point
• And much, much more as I will get to later on

[Danny Steyn]

Setup – What equipment do you need

I am by no means a computer geek, but I can find my way around the basics, so I did some research reading several threads on the iRacing Forums and other sim sites. Basically I Googled “what hardware do I need for iRacing Sim”?

Once I figured out what I need I set out to buy all my stuff on Amazon using my credit cards rewards points. Be aware that I did this 3 years ago, but prices haven’t changed all that much, but what you get for the money in terms of PC performance is way better!

 

 

I wanted a standalone simulator that I would ONLY use for iRacing, so as not to bog the machine down with software bloat, or have others using the computer and messing up my settings. I also wanted a simple and relatively inexpensive solution, preferably costing me less than a weekend of racing.

 

Since I wanted to have the multi-monitor wrap around immersion, rather than a single large TV screen, I purchased a Dell XPS (under $1,000) that came bundled with the AMD HD7750 graphics card with 1GB of video RAM and 2 x HDMI and 1 x Display Port connections that allows you to merge 3 monitors into a single wrap around monitor with the AMD Eyefinity software, giving you a 5760 x 1080 pix immersive experience. Note that the PC came with Windows 7 but I have upgraded it to Windows 10 without any issues.

 

I purchased the popular but simple Logitech G27 wheel, pedals and shifter setup (under $500), and the popular Playseat with wheel, pedal and shifter mounting supports (under $400). I got the Ergotron DS100 multi-monitor stand ($300) to support 3 Acer 24” monitors, (under $150ea).

 

It took about a week to get it all shipped from Amazon, and about 4 hours to get it all setup. You will probably need longer monitor cables as well as display port to HDMI adaptors, depending on where you mount your monitors and what the various I/O ports are on the equipment that you purchase

 

Some sim racers feel that the pedals on Logitech G27 setup do not give enough feedback and while there are many really expensive pedals and wheels out there, I had NO interest in getting too caught up in having the best damn simulator ever!!!! (unlike my race car!)

[Danny Steyn]

iRacing – Getting Started

You will need to purchase an iRacing subscription. Note that you never own the software and you never own the tracks or cars. You subscribe to the service and it comes with several cars and tracks as part of the deal. Sign up and start driving. There is a forum to help you get started and just like racing, lots of people willingly share their setup and approach and genuinely want to see you get faster.

 

Start with the Rookie cars and get yourself acquainted with your wheel and pedal setup. Initially you will need to dedicate time to getting familiar with the feeling of the wheels and the pedals, and since there is no seat-of-the-pants-feedback, you will need to be very comfortable with both the pedals and especially the wheel.

 

Initially I was hopeless and would over drive the car, spin out, crash everywhere, and pretty much suck! However as I kept investing time, I have become very comfortable with the setup and for me, I get the sense of under-steer from the increase in tire noise, and I can immediately feel over-steer happening in the wheel through the change in force feedback. Once you develop the feel for this, the car control improves rapidly and your lap times drop accordingly.

 

Once you start enjoying yourself, it might be time to lease additional cars and tracks, based on what you are looking for from your sim experience. These are one time lease purchases.

[Danny Steyn]

Set your targets

Everyone who embraces sim racing will have a completely different agenda. Some embrace it as a form of entertainment, and do it for fun. Others take it seriously and sign up for races and championships, climbing the iRacing ranking ladder. And some have even taken it way beyond that, qualifying for the Mazda Shootout and even winning the shootout. There is a massive iRacing world out there that I know nothing about. Some people are REALLY into it, writing special software to give real lime analysis of comparative drivers. SO it is absolutely possible that I have not even scratched the surface of what iRacing can do for me.

 

For me this it purely about getting faster at a track with my race car. To date I have had no interest in participating in an iRacing race and measuring myself on how I do against others in the sim world. I have been doing iRacing for 3 years and have never done a single race.

 

So all I can talk about in this thread is what I want get out of the iRacing sim. Others will have a very different approach

[Danny Steyn]

My Approach to a Session

I choose the track that I will be racing at next. Then to start my session, I typically I select one of the fastest cars on iRacing, the Honda HPD-ARX 01c Prototype with its massive ground effects down force. It is not as quick as the F1 or Indy cars, but it is easier to drive, and the ground effects allow you to carry much more speed through the faster turns, running much quicker lap times than the Mazda MX-5 Cup car.

 

Which means that get in way more laps for the same amount of seat time.

 

I always run my car with the reference lap display set to “best session lap”. This gives you instantaneous predictive heads up display of your lap and whether your change is making you faster or slower. I also like to have my reference shadow car switched on, as it is another immediate display of what is working or not working, and it also means that I get the feeling or racing under pressure (from myself)!

 

In terms of car setup, I run all my non-MX-5 Cup cars in their default setup. However I do play extensively with setup in the MX-5 Cup car but the default setup is fine to get started with.

 

Apex Choices

 

I slowly work up to pace running an instinctive line, and when I am able to run around 10 consecutive laps within a few tenths of each other, I then start working at changing my braking points, turn in points, apexes, and throttle application. For the most part, this is seeing what happens when I target an apex that is possibly 2-5 ft later than what I am instinctively running.

 

I identify a reference mark on the track after the exit of the turn and check to see what my exit speed is as I hit the mark. Just moving the apex a few foot earlier or later might can have significant affect on your ability to commit to WOT and that will transfer to faster exit speeds, and this translates to faster lap times

 

In real life, on a certain track their might be one specific turn where you feel that you are giving up time in your race car. You know you are competitive everywhere else so it makes sense to dedicate your sim session to finding out what you are doing wrong.

 

For example, despite living in Florida, I don’t have a lot of track time at Daytona, and I have been typically weak exiting the bus-stop, but able to hang pretty much everywhere else. So before the runoffs this year I practiced the bus-stop almost exclusively, running through the turn, accelerating out of it a checking my exit speed at a certain reference marker on the track. I would brake, turn around drive back and do it again. I did several thousand bus-stops first in high down force cars, then moving to fast mechanical grip cars and eventually to the MX-5 Cup car. Everything that I learned in the high down force cars transferred to the Mx-5 and when I arrived for testing at Daytona, I was one of the fastest through the bus-stop.

 

NOTE - The predictive timer will not work when you run only portions of a lap so you will need to check your exit speed at a reference point to see what effect your technique is getting

 

 

Braking approach

 

In real life I am typically a late threshold braker. But iRacing has really taught me the value of both trail braking and left foot braking

 

Running the sequential shift cars in iRacing trained me to left foot brake, and I now practice left foot braking to and from work every day. I am still a right foot braker but I now have much better feel in my left foot and this is a direct result of iRacing sim practice.

 

There are many tracks where trail braking is critical, often to help rotate the car, but also to help set the nose. Some corners even respond well to slight left foot brake application to set the nose and keep the car planted close to the apex.

 

As before, once I am able to consistently run at least 10 laps within a few tenths of each other, I then start experimenting with threshold braking, progressive braking as well as trail braking, not forgetting slight dabs of the left foot to help settle the nose through turns. As before I will run through the same specific corner hundreds of times, and drive back to have another stab at it, each time checking my exit speed at a reference marker.

 

Putting it all together

 

After a while things will start to come together. You might find your instinctive approach was the best, but often you will find that there is another way through the turn that yields even better exit speeds, without giving up too much in the braking zone.

 

Also corners where you might have threshold braked, you might find that applying progressive braking pressure holding onto a hint of trail braking and voila, you get a completely settled car that hugs the apex, allowing you to get to WOT even sooner than before.

 

Now go and run around twenty full laps, applying what you have learned in the individual corners, and see how it compares to your previous session laps. In my own case, almost without fail, my exit speeds improve and my lap times drop. 

[Danny Steyn]

The real value of iRacing (for me)

 

I am sure that if I had unlimited funds that would allow me to rent a track and apply the same approach in real life, running certain corners thousands of times, I would have a similar result, faster speeds and lower lap times.

 

But my funds and time are limited, so iRacing allows me work on aspects of my racing within the constraints of my budget and time allowances.

 

For this reason alone, iRacing has been a phenomenal investment for me. I hope you have similar experience to mine.

 

I look forward to reading your comments and questions.

[Steve Scheifler]

Danny, Thanks for all the effort to share your experience!

I have tried this several times over the years including this time last year. Each time I get so frustrated with how touchy the car is that I quit spending time on it when I should be working on the cars. I know that it just takes patience, but why are sims which in most ways are so realistic in most ways also so impossibly twitchy at low speeds? There is no way I could get a real Miata to do the slides and spins that seem almost unavoidable at first.

But that aside, if you or anyone has what they think is a setup for the MX5 which most closely simulates driving an SM, I would sure appreciate it. One of my new year resolutions is to give this one more shot!

[Danny Steyn]

Steve

 

I had the same initial experience. I think that I was applying similar inputs on my simulator controls to what I was doing in the real world car, and I was crashing everywhere. But as I put in more time the controls not only started to feel normal, but I started to sense way more subtle nuances, especially in the steering wheel, and could feel the rear end getting away from me before it was happening. Similar to getting seat of the pants feedback and turning into an oversteer condition even before the rear end has even let go.

 

When I first started I couldn't run two consecutive laps within one second of each other, However as the feel improved, everything started to feel better in my hands and feet, as if I was getting more sensitized to the sim feedback (noise and steering force) and my lap times got WAY more consistent. On Sunday, dealing with my normal horrible December racing withdrawal symptoms, I spent 6 hours on the sim and after working on one turn for over an hour, I ran 22 laps at Homestead with less than 0.4 secs of variance between my best and my worst in the HPD car. I switched to the MX-5 Cup car and was able to run 22 laps within 0.9 seconds variance. 

 

So my take on this, is like anything else in life, if you spend enough time at it, you WILL become a lot better at it. Now the question is, does the time spent on the sim translate into worthwhile returns on the track, or in your case, would that time be better spent working on the car. Only you can answer that. For me, Fowler takes care of my car, so I better be doing something in my downtime or I am going to go NUTS!

[JRHille]

I second everything Danny has said.

 

For virtual racer newbies, it can be a very frustrating experience.  But when you get used to it, it definitely has its rewards.  With the right steering wheel, the force feedback can give you a hint as to when the car is going to lose the back end.  You will eventually learn to work the brake pedal on corner entry so the car doesn't have terminal understeer, and get back to power when you think you should be able to.  

 

There isn't a car that allows you to give the same inputs as you would in a spec miata.  Actually, the closest thing I can think of is a SRF with a proper setup.  However, once you get to know the little qwerks in the sim, you will trick yourself into thinking you're doing the real thing.

 

Once you get through the frustrating learning process, it is a very useful tool for learning muscle and visual memory.  If you can concentrate for a 20 minute race without having the adrenaline and awesome feel of the g force, and you already have the skill set to race in real life, you will be able to concentrate much better with all the other sensations you experience in real life. Also, the visual memory learned from iracing and other simulators has helped me immensely to pick up new tracks, regardless of whether or not I had practiced on the simulator.

[Kevin B]

Thank you Danny!

 

Steve, as far as touchiness goes, I also found that spending time on the iRacing forum to dial in the best settings relative to my equipment made a significant difference as well.  Given a lot of analog to digital conversion occurs while you're wheeling, the variables that Logitech, etc., uses to transmit that input and feedback, as well as the software tuning you can add via the peripheral's drivers and the iracing settings mean you could be Way out of tune.   

Our experience is with direct mechanical feel so that is the reaction you expect when you turn the sim wheel.  If settings introduce lag, over-damping or a different ratio to what you'd expect, you would end up over-driving as Danny suggested.

 

There is a friendly FAQ section for the most commonly used peripherals with settings recommendations to get you started.  I found it then requires some fine tuning to make it "feel" as close to normal as possible.

 

Hope this helps.

 

-Kevin

[deyan]

I started racing on sims, back in the day of Grand Prix Legends and now iracing, and even though I've been out of it for 2 years, I can only thank sim racing for a very easy transition into racing in general, and especially wheel to wheel racing. It's a great learning tool I feel and great fun too, plus every once in a while, you get to race some pro drivers , my claim to fame is beating Scott Speed twice in the MX5 at Laguna

 

It does take a while to get used to the lack of feedback that you normally have in real life (g forces), but once you reconfigure your brain to make up for it through visual and sound feedback, it becomes very natural. 

[Jim Drago]

Danny
Thanks for taking the time to write that up!

My experience on I racing was limited and frustrating. I really haven't used it since 2009. I knew I had a slight edge on the competition with the Runoffs moving to Road America. I set up a SRF and I did hours upon hours of laps there heading into 2009 Junes Sprints. The previous Sprints races 2006-2008 gave me some track experience, but as frustrating as the Iracing was, it definitely helped me a lot. I don't think most were within a second of me there and it was only close because of cautions in the race. Later that year I grabbed my first podium.

Side note.. After getting to what I thought was pretty good at IRacing. Easily 10-15 hours of practice at Road America alone. I don't remember my lap time, but i wanted to see where I was, so I had Daniels and Drennan, both VERY good sim drivers take my car out and turn laps. Both took the car I had set up, tuned and driven all that time and with no changes at all went 2-3 seconds a lap faster within first three laps on the track. I have not used it since

[mhiggins10]

Thanks for all of the info, guys.  For those that don't get out to the track as often as they'd like, this may be a nice substitute.  I'll have to go dust off my wheel now...

[Chris Ashcraft]

Danny,

 

Thanks for all the time and effort you put into the thread, i am finishing up my needed items to get my setup complete. I am upgrading my graphics card to run three monitors like you suggested. I am running some new tracks this year and i know that this will help.

 

Thanks again

[FTodaro]

Danny,

 

Thanks for all the time and effort you put into the thread, i am finishing up my needed items to get my setup complete. I am upgrading my graphics card to run three monitors like you suggested. I am running some new tracks this year and i know that this will help.

 

Thanks again

Chris it would be helpful if folks with a set up chime in with your comments, and any updates regarding hardware that you are using or going to use.

The real value of iRacing (for me)

 

I am sure that if I had unlimited funds that would allow me to rent a track and apply the same approach in real life, running certain corners thousands of times, I would have a similar result, faster speeds and lower lap times.

 

But my funds and time are limited, so iRacing allows me work on aspects of my racing within the constraints of my budget and time allowances.

 

For this reason alone, iRacing has been a phenomenal investment for me. I hope you have similar experience to mine.

 

I look forward to reading your comments and questions.

Danny thanks for taking the time to post up this information.

 

I assume that since you do not own the software, you have to have internet access and assume internet speed is another factor? Or does it upload it and then stored local?

[Steve Scheifler]

Thanks all. Getting accustomed to the lack of true feedback is surely the biggest hurdle. For me one of the toughest things is the missing sense of velocity and depth perception. Last year I found that something as simple as a consistent brake point and turn-in speed for T3 at Road America was elusive after dozens and dozens of repetitions. It doesn't get much easier than that, at least in real life. But not feeling how fast I'm going or how hard I'm braking is almost as bad as being blindfolded.

But all that aside, like rack of the few sim cars I've tried on several systems over the years, I just really don't think they are accurate at low speeds even though I can't think why that would be the case. They all drive like an over-powder short wheelbase "legends" car. But, some hardware that was back-order for many months finally arrived so I'll give it one more try, if I can find the time.

[Danny Steyn]

Thanks all. Getting accustomed to the lack of true feedback is surely the biggest hurdle. For me one of the toughest things is the missing sense of velocity and depth perception. Last year I found that something as simple as a consistent brake point and turn-in speed for T3 at Road America was elusive after dozens and dozens of repetitions. It doesn't get much easier than that, at least in real life. But not feeling how fast I'm going or how hard I'm braking is almost as bad as being blindfolded.

But all that aside, like rack of the few sim cars I've tried on several systems over the years, I just really don't think they are accurate at low speeds even though I can't think why that would be the case. They all drive like an over-powder short wheelbase "legends" car. But, some hardware that was back-order for many months finally arrived so I'll give it one more try, if I can find the time.

 

Steve - Make the time - It will pay dividends, trust me

[Danny Steyn]

Chris it would be helpful if folks with a set up chime in with your comments, and any updates regarding hardware that you are using or going to use.

Danny thanks for taking the time to post up this information.

 

I assume that since you do not own the software, you have to have internet access and assume internet speed is another factor? Or does it upload it and then stored local?

 

Yes Frank, you log in to iRacing via internet. I have a decent 3MBps hardwired internet connection with ATT, but my sim is actually only connected via an internal wifi card to my router (802.11G specs), and that is still more than enough speed for an enjoyable experience. In the top right hand side of your monitor you will get a frame rate display and even with my mediocre graphics card I am getting around 40FPS - not brilliant but still very smooth.

 

The only track where I get a less than ideal laggy response is the brand new Nurburgring Nordschliefe track which was released two weeks ago and was so popular it pretty much overloaded the iRacing servers. It has improved somewhat in the last two days, and I am not sure what the cause of the lagginess is -  if it is just the thousands of users trying out the new track, or if it is the size of the track (7-10min laps), or not enough servers to deliver the content to the users. I am sure a tech guy here can explain why this one track is having issues.

[Dave Cox]

There are many options as to why there is lag, and I would love to see the backend for iRacing, but I am an infrastructure guy so that is my thing.

 

One piece of the rig that helped me more than I would have ever believed was putting a sub connected to an amp under the seat and plugging it into the sound this feeds off the bass of the car as well as when you hit a bump or a curb adds just a little feel to the experience. Adding this to the setup made enough of a difference that almost immediately I was more consistent in my laps (and I have only been using it for 2 weeks). The addon that is on the rig I was using is called a buttkicker. I have seen some DIY plans out there for the same type of thing not sure if they are much cheaper than the about $200 for a buttkicker though.

 

Dave