Official iRacing Thread

[Not4you]

placeholder ... lol

[Ghost Rider]

Finally!

[BLKNOTCH]

Awesome

[Ghost Rider]

My awesome come from behind on the last lap from 6th to 4th in the Spec Racer Ford Series

photo finish...a lesson in drafting

I'm in car #7

[ZR]

Getting ready for the Nascar race today GR?

[CON VERT]

Hopefully D' Jr will not run out of fuel again, it was his too win last week !

[baddbullitt]

I miss PS3 GT5 Thursdays.... Those were some good times...

[allicedout]

Looks cool, I'm going to have to search further in to this.

[03svt]

What game is this and what among system?

[Not4you]

iRacing.com is a pc based online racing sim. real cars on real tracks.

iRacing ins't for everyone. It has scheduled practice, qual and race times in the main series. you gain points by driving clean so there are penalty points for car contact, off tracks, spins. drive clean to get promoted into the higher license levels where the racing is more comptetive and the cars are better. drive like you're on xBox and you'll be stuck in the Mazda Miata and eventually kicked from the system. It is a sim where many pro drivers from Nascar, Indy, Rolex etc compete regularly and come to practice. If you want to dick around like a bunch of us used to Thursday nights, stick to xBox or PS3. If you want to try some 'real' racing without the expense or physical danger, try iRacing.

First thing you need to do is go here: http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/cyri and select iRacing from the drop down list. This will run a system check on your computer to see that you have the required drivers (video card, sound card, memory, RAM etc). I have run it until recently on a 7 year old laptop so really any decent computer should be fine. getting above the "required" and into the "recommended" is much better especially if you want to get into bigger monitors (30+ inches) or running 3 monitors to get side window views etc. but for getting started most computers will do.

Next you will NEED a wheel/pedal set up. No hand held controllers for this stuff.

then go to iracing.com, buy a membership (1 month is the minimum - I think its about $15 but it is much cheaper to get a full year) then download and install the software.

The initial membership will get you started with I think 10 cars and a dozen or so tracks. They will cover both road courses and stock car ovals and the cars will cover things like the Playboy Cup Spec Miata, Pirelli World Challenge Spec Cadillac CTS-VR, SCCA Spec Ford Racer, '79 Firebird Street Stock car, '34 "Legend" oval car (the scale one with the motorbike engine). A few others as well, I forget at the moment. Anyway, you'll have what you need to get going in the Rookie race series for road or oval. Run clean (no off tracks or car contacts) and finish decent (top half) and you graduate into higher license levels to race better cars on better tracks. Thats if you want to compete in the main series like a few of us on here do.

If you just want to run a FR500 Mustang around Mosport all day or join private sessions to mess around with friends, you can purchase additional tracks and cars that do not come with the initial start-up membership. Or you can get into running the full nascar, indy or F1 series against real pro drivers, racing in a 80’s Lotus F1 car, Daytona Prototypes, Aussie v8 supercars, Radicals, Corvettes - but unfortunately it will cost you to get the new content (tracks/cars).

For wheel/pedal sets, the entry level one is the Logitech Driving Force GT, it retails at $199. It has the force feedback wheel, both paddle and sequential stick shift (both mounted to the wheel or the wheel base) and a gas/brake pedal combo. You can set the cars to use sequential for this wheel even if they do not in real life (eg. miata or mustang). its great to learn on if you're new to this kind of thing. Once you get the hang of things and when you want more realism, you will want to upgrade into, at minimum, the Logitech G27 which has the clutch and h-pattern shifter and the shifter is a separate unit from the wheel so you can position it better. With the G27 you can miss shifts, stall the car but most importantly do heel-toe downshifts.

another thing to consider is where you’ll set it up. I have the wheel and shifter clamped onto our home office desk and I sit in a regular office chair. I have a 28” monitor sitting on the desk. Or you can get something like the playseat (playseat.com) that you spec for your wheel/pedals and monitor and it becomes a self standing cockpit. If you go this route be sure to spec it to have the tray for the keyboard and mouse! Playseat is just one option, there are many other companies that make these and I have also seen some great homemade ones build out of metal, pvc pipe, wood, and work out benches etc.

lastly, just like any racing, it does take money to be truely competitive IMO. So, for a few thousand bucks you can build a killer gaming computer, you can dump 2gs into fully adjustable hydraulic pedals, another $1500 on a CNC machined shifter straight from an AMLS prototype car, magnetic feedback wheels, HD projectors to replace monitors etc etc etc …

But ultimately, a decent computer, nice sized monitor and the DFGT wheel/pedal set and you’re good to go racing 24-7.

blknotch is the guy that got me into this. Ghost Rider, Hutch, Speed3FTW and I race is private hosted sessions fairly regularly - so there are a few guys here that use iRacing. There are also the haters like Zexhuffer but we won't need to worry about him too much, he's harmless