Preview: iRacing

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The Racing

The racing, no doubt, is where this sim shines brighter than anything else for PC or console I can think of.

For die-hard sim racers this is as close to reality as it is currently going to get.

A you settle into the cockpit, in-car view only, NaturalPoint TrackIR will be supported, the steering wheel can be either visible or off depending on your choice, the online code is the best there currently is, bar none, as unintended taps and bumps will not result in the bumped car being launched into orbit, and the contact will be clearly felt and seen in the sim, not side-stepped by allowing cars to drive through one-another.

Please note that I said unintended taps and bumps. You should absolutely never ever drive into other cars on track, in fact you must take the utmost care to avoid contact between you and another competitor as contact will cost you incident points that are subtracted from your iRacing license, that’s right dear reader, you have to earn your license and work at being promoted up the ladder towards bigger and more powerful cars, and if you throw away points by even accidentally hitting other cars, the retaining wall, go off course or spin out, your promotion beyond rookie license will be moving further and further away.

Rest assured that if you drive safely and cleanly, avoiding incidents you will gradually earn enough points for eligibility into the higher classes.
This system combined with the unique and well-working matching-system that puts you on servers and in races with drivers of similar speed and competence to yourself will eventually ensure that you will be able to compete for the win and in the process enjoy intensely competitive and clean racing for many many laps.

I’ve had the good fortune to be in races where I battled with other drivers for the entire duration of the race, passing and re-passing, watching patiently for sections of the circuit where my competitor was slower than I and trying to set up nice clean passes. Quite honestly, in iRacing I’ve enjoyed some of the very best racing ever, and I feel that the service helps build the necessary respect between drivers that will ensure everyone treats each other fairly on the track.

Currently the sim lends itself perfectly to single-make races, or spec-racing. It will be interesting to see if at some time it will be possible to enter races with different Marques, or some prototype, NGT, GT mixed class racing.

At the present time there seems to be little opportunity to invite your mates and run on a specific race track the way we are used to doing from leagues such as the SimHQ races. Track selection is decided by the iRacing schedule and the software assigns you to servers with competitors matching your abilities as closely as possible.

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