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

The goal of this four-part article was to give new sim racers a guide to making their learning curve a bit easier to handle. We've talked about hardware setup, but the real meat of this guide was to expose the psychological and physiological aspects of racing simulations, and how rewarding the challenge of a hard-core racing simulation can be. Having become a sim racing convert in 2000, I appreciate the level of concentration required, and the robust form of escapism from daily life that a good sim racing session can offer.

Of course, with anything challenging, there's a natural tendency to look for the easy path to glory. For sim racing, it's not there. Some think that finding the "perfect" car setup will magically make them fast. Not so. Like the pill that is advertised to make you "lose weight while you sleep" and simultaneously give you abs of steel, it's just a fantasy. Assuming your default setup is drivable, a "great" chassis setup only helps once the basics of car control and the sim's physics model are mastered.

Just by reading this article and the "Fast Lap" track discussions, can you become good? Again, the answer is 'no'. Knowledge, without applied technique, does you no good. But hopefully the knowledge you gained here, and in the other "Fast Lap" articles, can help shape your sim racing sessions and make them more productive, thereby reducing wasted effort and helping you maximize your enjoyment of the learning process as you meet the challenges and reap the rewards that racing simulations offer you.

Good luck, and enjoy the ride!

Curve Grande in GT Legends

Part I - Optimizing the Hardware is here.
Part II - Optimizing the Controls is here.
Part III - Optimizing the Driver is here.

Download a replay of Chunx driving the Porsche Carrera Challenge mod
at rFactor's Essington circuit here. ISI's rFactor v1070 and GSMF's PCC v1.1 mod required for viewing (212 kb).

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