my observations of the service after 3 weeks of trying it out. At the time I
summed up my feelings as "In Sum: not bad, I'll continue supporting it"
My summary for this report remains the same. Still a good value and I'll
continue supporting it
Since the last message I have bought the years subscription. In addition to
reducing the average monthly cost of the service the years sub came with a
$60 credit which I used to purchase the Skip Barber car and 2 tracks,
Virginia and Infineon. In addition I also sprung for Road America even
though I can't race on it as yet.
Having accomplished my rookie goals of getting my safety rating in both road
and oval up to the visible max of 4.99 (it actually goes higher but the
higher values aren't visible to you) I decided to concentrate exclusively on
the Skip Barber car and series. While I actually enjoy driving the Solstice
going back and forth between it and the Skippy requires too much of an
adjustment in driving style to be a practical proposition. Same goes for
trying to do ovals and road work; too much adjustment required.
As a rookie I had to keep my SR above 4 to stay in the Skippy races. This
really wasn't a problem. Yes there are some boneheaded drivers who managed
to inflict some incident points on me and I even managed several boneheaded
moves all by myself. The incident points effect on SR is very forgiving to
rookies and I rarely fell below my 4.99 goal during the week I raced the
Skip as a rookie. As you advance up the IRacing classes the role of incident
points to negatively effect your SR becomes more pronounced so as you rise
you are expected to be much more aware of safety than you were as a newbie.
First week of Skip racing was at Virginia on a track variant called Grand
East. This variant appears to take its inspiration from the Nurburgring;
lots of sweeping esses, blind corners and elevation change. Unlike the
Nurburgring it has runoff areas so an off track doesn't always mean a reset.
It is long and tricky and probably not the best place to start out in a new
and tricky car.
The Skip is a squirrely little beast to drive at its max. The car has a wing
front and rear but they seem to be mostly for show. Possibly this is due to
the fact that the car has not much power and doesn't go fast enough to work
the wings or maybe the wing angle is fixed so flat that it doesn't generate
a lot of downforce. Whatever the reason this is mostly a mechanical grip
racecar and anytime the wheels are unweighted (like going over a crest) you
are dancing on the edge of disaster. Adjustments are few , mostly limited to
tire pressure, brake bias and some weird thing call Spring Perch Offset
(mostly seems to effect the height of the front end). After some fooling
around I determined that tire pressure is the main factor and lowered mine
by 3 psi all around. The really fast guys are using much lower pressures
than that but the tendency for the car to fling itself off track is too much
for me to handle. After a week of this I was only just starting to get a
grip on it and participate in some racing as opposed to trundling around at
the back. Not to say I wasn't far from the back but at least I was racing
for position. Fun time
At the end of that week IRacing reached the end of that season. There was
then a week of "fun races" that I did not participate much in since I did
not own most of the material. The future plan for this between the seasons
interlude is to run championship races but that will only go ahead after the
end of the present 12 week season once full rollout is achieved.. I used the
week to get really familiar with the Skip and the next Skip track, Infineon
long.
At the beginning of the new season all us rookies who met the requirement
(SR>3 plus a small minimum # of races) were promoted to class D. Now in
addition to a visible SR we can now see our IRating (more about this later)
. We now get an orange stripe on our car instead of the rookie red (?for
danger?). Promotion involves having your SR knocked down by a full point
however mine only went from 4.99 to 4.48 which is when I found out about the
hidden SR over 4.99. This would be great if I wanted to go on the next step
the road race ladder which is the Mazda series (require minimum Class D and
SR >4 if a Class D) Since Mazdas require buying additional content I have
elected to stay with the Skips for the next 12 week season. I quickly
brought my SR back up to the 4.99 level. Race clean and don't try to force
the impossible is my formula.
Once into the new season I became really involved in IRacing and put in a
major amount of races (at one point my stats said I was # 14 of 700 + in
Skip races started; I think this makes me a IGeek :) ). I am basically a
strong midfield runner, rarely challenging for podiums but able to pick up
position on the mistakes of others as well as do the occasional pass on my
own. Infineon is a real rhythm track and once you get into it one corner
flows into another. There's only a couple of real passing places but since
this is the sim racing world there are always THOSE GUYS who try stuffing
their car into a 1/2 car spot. Keeping an eye out for the knobs is a major
part of keeping SR. Apart from the aforesaid fools there was plenty of good
racing to be had and I raced PLENTY. At one point I was even ranked in the
top fifty in points (at #50 dead on) but then the big dogs showed up and I
am now more like 150 (still not too shabby in 700+ drivers).
IRating: one of the neat things about IRacing is the IRating system. This is
a numerical rating that the server uses in an attempt to match you with
similar drivers when setting up races. Apparently everyone starts out as a
rookie with a IRating of 1600 (I think thats the number) and you rise and
fall from that value according to your ability. As a rookie you can't see it
but you can infer it from the company you find yourself in. Class D and up
can see it and it makes an interesting figure to track which is exactly what
I've done the last couple of weeks. In theory once the server has gathered
enough information about you to give you the appropriate IRating it will
place you with racers of your own ability and you'll all have a splendid
nose to tail race. That's the theory anyway. The reality is not quite so
finely polished. Chief gotcha factor is the # 's signed up for any
particular race time slot. The more numbers the better since the server
sorts you into several races of 12-14 cars which are roughly of similar
IRating. Obviously the more cars the more races are generated and the closer
the 12-14 cars will be in any one particular race. Low numbers mean that
sometimes you can find yourself in totally inappropriate groupings. For
instance I am in the 1700-1800 range and I have found myself in servers
where the average is around 1400 and in the next race I find myself in a
server with an average of 2500. In the latter case I am usually the car
ranked 14 out of 14 in the group and I am racing for the crumbs that fall
when the fast guys screw up. I've sometimes done well by those crumbs but
more often it generates a small loss of IRating points. No big deal since
there's always another race in 2 hours where you can make up for it.
How do you get IRating? From my tracking the major factors in generating
ranking points are A)where you finish in the race and B) where you finish in
relation to your ranking coming in. A & B may seem like the same thing but
they can either compliment or offset one another.
For instance I enter a race where I am ranked #2 (you can always tell your
relative rank in a field because that is the number assigned to your car)
and I finish 2nd. Since this matches my relative rank factor B does not come
into play and I gain points solely based on my finish. If I finish 5th I
don't get all the points I might normally expect from finishing 5th since I
did not perform up to the expectation of my # 2 rank. If I crash out and
finish 10th I'll take a major hit to my IRating points for both a low finish
and being nowhere near my #2 rank.
For another instance I enter a race where I'm ranked 13 of 14. If I get
lucky and a lot of fast guys crash out I might finish 4th. In that case I
get a lot of points both for finish position and greatly exceeding
expectation. If I finish 7th I still get a small # of points for exceeding
expectation. Finish 10th and I lose a couple since the finishing order
reward for 10th is negative and I did not exceed expectation enough to
offset it
Tracking IRating is a academic exercise but at the end of it all its the
racing that matters . As I go on the races are getting better all the time
since the win or bust drivers are slowly learning that it doesn't pay off to
take themselves out of the race (a reset can put you a lap down , very
costly in IRating results). I may not be able to race with the best of them
but the races can have some major highs as you battle it out. This week we
have moved on to a Virginia variant call VIR full which is a lot more fun
than the overly fussy Grand East. There are some wonderful off camber
corners where a matter of a few inches in line can make all the difference
in catching the draft of the guy in front. What a great feeling to finally
draft by the guy you have trailed for several laps. Just as you are getting
used to thinking of yourself as some sort of driving god he does the same
thing to you next lap :)
At the end of this week we will be sorted into divisions for the rest of the
season. I think this is just a further refinement of the ranking that allows
us to contest for divisional titles with others of same talent since, lets
face it, Gregor Huttu doesn't stay up late at night worrying about the likes
of me chasing him down on the track. More to come in my next report....
End of it all: Still having fun, still worth the money, still worth the
time. Good stuff
Dave Erb