rec.autos.simulators

I've downloaded the NR2003 Demo and I enjoy it quite a bit, thinking of
buying the full game after I buy a wheel (probably MS Precision) for my
laptop and if it runs decently on that machine (it has a really bad gfx
"card", an onboard ati one. Right now I play with a joystick.

I don't know much about nascar, being a european, i usually watched f1 races
and so on, my only exposure to NASCAR was the tom cruise movie, but i
discovered driving nascar is much more fun than it is to watch and requires
quite a lot of precision..

I've been playing on the Michigan and Talladega, on michigan with the "fast"
setup i was able to do times as low as 38.8xx, and the NASCAR WR for that is
something like 37.6xx so that's not bad.. I am usually 2/3 secs faster/lap
vs. 80% AI

However for Talladega i tried a lot of different setups, and i can't go
below 49.xxx and that was with help from other cars ("drafting"). With that
I'm barely on par with 80% AI and the WR is still about 5 seconds lower.. I
can't maintain any speed above 186-187mph on this "100% throttle all the
time" track. Do I have to be ultra smooth on the bankings, because with
joystick it's a bit hard to achieve such precision.. Any help would be
appreciated.

--
Can Gencer

At Dega you really have to use the whole track and be very smooth. Ride up
next to the wall on the straights and roll it into the turns being careful
not to turn too sharp as this will scrub off speed. Try to hold it on the
bottom through the turns and drift up next to the wall coming off the turns.
If you turn too sharp coming off it will also scrub off speed. Drift down to
the inside in the dog leg, again be smooth and don't turn the wheel too
sharp. That should get you a good qualifying lap. In the draft, it's all
different, just go with the flow, the inside is faster, but in online races
the outside can work if you get enough drafting help.

bluestringer