Beauty and the beast

[Troy Dalton]

In my opinion, one of the beauties of iRacing is just how much effort is put into providing accurate physics models. Never before have I experienced models that react to minute setup changes like they do in iRacing. It's fantastic and it's also frustrating. With the level of competition that you will generally find on any given evening, it is virtually impossible to be competitive without a great setup. This is especially true in the oval racing, where the difference between first and twelve is likely only tenths of a second.

All this week I have been dipping a toe into the Late Model waters and I really enjoy driving those cars. They provide quite a bit of feedback and are relatively easy to drive on the edge. However, I was simply too damned slow to feel comfortable joining an official LM race. Thankfully, someone felt sorry for me and helped me out with a setup, which immediately shaved more than a half second off my lap times. That may not sound like much to the road racers, but on a short oval like USA, it's a ton!

So, armed with my new found setup, I decided it was time to get in the mix and joined a race. There was a full field of twelve cars and I started eleventh. I likely would have started last, but the twelfth place guy was the only driver without a qualifying time. I eventually finished sixth, but only because six guys in front of me crashed out.

Anyway, the point to all this digital ink is this...I'm finding that iRacing's attention to detail has put a glaring, white-hot, spot light on my lack of setup skills. That's not a bad thing, because in my opinion it provides a more accurate representation of the real-world counter parts. However, I feel like I need to hire an engineer just to finish mid-pack and therein lies the beauty and the beast of iRacing.

[davidan]

I agree Troy - iRacing certainly has presented the most challenge for me ever as a sim racer, but I really enjoy it .. and having success from time to time really feels good.

[Scott Bennett]

Well said Troy