SimHQ.com - Motorsports Zone - Feature: Sim Racing Tips - Getting the Most Out of Your Virtual Racing Hobby

It's one thing to own a racing sim, but quite another to drive it online with other human opponents. Sim racing is a challenging and exciting hobby in its own right, but racing against other sim racers is an adrenaline-pumping experience that's hard to top in the online gaming arena. It simply has to be experienced to be understood. Sweaty palms, twitching feet, stiff arms, dry mouth. Wow. All that just sitting in front of a PC! The wife will never understand.

But there is another aspect to online racing that we often forget — and that is how your presence affects other drivers' racing experience. Many don't fully appreciate that online racing isn't like racing the AI in a title. To be sure, if a racing title has good AI, then that can also be a rewarding experience. But if you slam into the AI cars, who are you really hurting? No one. But if you drive carelessly in an online event, you could ruin the evening for a fellow racer. The online racetrack is a great place to remember the old saying, "do unto others as you would have them do unto you." With that in mind, here are some tips on how to optimize your online racing experience:

1. Practice, Practice, Practice! Each track has its own rhythm and style. Until you've put in a few laps and have that rhythm down pat, don't race that track online. When racing online, try to stick to racing at tracks you already know. Don't subject everyone else to your baby-steps at that track as you drive it for the first time. As you learn more tracks, more racing opportunities will come your way. Be patient, and courteous.

2. Race The AI First, Then Other Humans. Racing the AI will give you exposure to driving alternate racing lines as you work through traffic problems. Learn how to do this at a particular track before you drive against human opponents, whose actions are far more "randomized" than even the best written AI code.

3. Be Courteous & Sportsmanlike On-Track. If you're new to racing, accept that and drive accordingly. But being courteous doesn't mean you shouldn't drive competitively. After all, that's what racing is all about. Your first few races are best used as exposure to the online racing environment, not to demonstrate that you're the next incarnation of Mario Andretti or Ayrton Senna. If you were, you'd be more than a sim racer. Watch your mirrors, and give way to more experienced drivers who are probably much faster than you are — for now. In a few months, with some good practice and good observation, you might just surpass everyone and become truly fast. But for now, observe and learn.

If you're a lap down and the leaders are running up on your rear bumper, don't block them or wreck them fighting over a corner. Let them by. You'll appreciate that sportsmanlike behavior more when the roles are reversed. Keep your SA up and know who is racing around you, as well as what your car is doing. The more you can teach yourself this important skill now, the bigger the payoff will be improved racing skills once your driving technique picks up. And remember that on the first lap of a race, your tires and brakes are cold and won't work at peak efficiency. So don't go hurtling off the starting line, into Turn 1 and plow everyone off the track and out of the race. It's just not sportsmanlike, and it violates that key rule of racing: "in order to win the race, first you must finish the race."

4. Driving In Traffic. It's what makes racing so much fun. If you find yourself racing door to door coming into a corner, and don't have a chance to resolve the formation into a "leader/follower", then you have to recalculate your line. The line you use when it's just you in the corner won't work. Because that was the optimal line, you won't be able to negotiate the corner as quickly, so you should slow down more. Of course, the same holds true for your opponent: If you're on the outside, you won't be able to dig for the apex, but your average speed will be higher than your opponent, who will have the apex to his advantage, but won't be able to drive the car out to the outside edge of the track on exit, thereby slowing him down. The trick is to maximize your set of advantages and minimize your opponent's.

Driving some laps with the AI in the middle of the pack will help you gain experience and confidence in alternate racing lines. Try starting some races with yourself positioned in the middle of the AI grid, and try to stay there throughout the race. This is much harder than running out front, and learning this skill will pay huge dividends on the multiplayer track.

5. The Laws Of Physics Do Not Change When You Race Online. It's easy to get "buck fever" in a race and see an overtaking opportunity in every braking zone. But like a mirage to a desert survivor, it's usually a false opportunity. Remember that "digging deep" into the braking zone isn't the best way to shave time off your laps, or to pass opponents. In fact, it usually slows you down or causes you to wreck. The key is to get the car to the apex at just the right speed, so that you can accelerate properly and start the next straight-away with the highest speed possible. That's where you get quick lap times. And with quicker lap times, you'll be passing more opponents. Stay focused, drive your car and the passing opportunities will come.

Those are my short list of online racing recommendations. For a full discussion of online racing etiquette, it was hard to beat this source for their thoroughness (Google cached page here). Unfortunately for all of us, this web page was closed just before this article went to press. Luckily the meat of it is still in the Google "cache", so we should reap what we can from it now. Although written for GPL, this guide is applicable to all forms of sim racing. I highly recommend it as required reading before hopping onto the information superhighway and taking the exit to your first virtual racetrack. In fact, I'd recommend that every racer should save the text of this page for future use — and re-use. I have, and I know it's helped me.

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