Sim Racing Journey

I've been thinking for a while about turning off the ideal racing line assist. It's been very useful for learning new tracks, but I think its time. And, while I'm at it I'll turn off stability control.  With that done, its time to head to the track and see if it has any significant negative effect. After doing approximately 40 practice laps at Barcelona in the Lamborghini, I think it's okay. No big problems. This lap is 1m52.071s - and is around what I'd usually do. According to the game stats I have at one point done a 1m50s lap in the Lamborghini before, but I don't think thats the norm. 

ACC has been my racing sim of choice for the last couple of weeks. I’ve started the career mode and participated in the first 3 tracks: Brands Hatch Misano World Circuit Hungaroring Next stop is Nurburgring, but after completing the above tracks — which we all new to me — I’ve decided to try to get to know the next track before I start the session. Not something that is necessary, but knowing the corners makes it more interesting and competitive. The best thing is that I’m now able to have fun in races against the AI — I’m no longer getting tangled up in the first corner and crashing out early. Now I’m actually able to battle, overtake (sometimes with questionable technique but getting better), and if I get a good start then perhaps take the podium (racing in rookie mode at the moment). I still haven’t started playing with the car setup, but I’m planning to compare “safe” setup with “aggressive” setup both from a hotlap and race perspective. I’ve also got to check out my ThrustMaster T...

A couple of weekends ago the Playstation Store had a sale on and I grabbed Assetto Corsa Competizione for half price. I’ve been playing AC Ultimate Edition up until now, but I thought it was worth seeing what ACC was like. It actually has a very different feel to it than Ultimate Edition, but its hard to put into words. I’m definitely not sure if I’ve got the Thrustmaster 300 set up correctly, but I’ll try tweaking it over time and see. I’m giving career mode a go at the moment, and although I have no idea what I’m doing, I’m having fun. I think I’m slowly getting better at practice laps but when it comes to racing the AI it’s a bit of a melee. Career mode started off with a Lamborgini at Monza, and after doing some laps in different conditions (dry, wet, night), you get to choose a car and then start doing some events at different tracks which consist of: practice laps qualifier 1 qualifier 2 race 1 race 2 You can adjust the settings, to change the duration of a session, but I left i...

 I finally cracked 1m54s in the Porsche 911 RSR 2017 at Barcelona in Assetto Corsa Ultimate. My lap times have slowly improved throughout the weeks, but now it’s time to move on from Barcelona. I started at Monza, then moved on to Barcleona, now my next stop is the Red Bull Ring — best lap time so far is 1m33s which leaves my current Personal Bests by track at: Monza — 1m57s Barcelona — 1m54s Red Bull Ring — 1m33s I’m thinking every month I’ll move on to learn a new track, but also come back and visit these ones briefly to see if I can beat my personal bests — this should be a good measure of progress! This video from Ermin Hamidovic is a great intro to sim racing that briefly covers a lot of good points. Something that I think has made a big difference for me is holding the steering wheel at 9 & 3 — turning seems to be smoother and it seems easier to straighten up and accelerate earlier. I’ve also dropped the force feedback on the Thrustmaster down from 100 to 55. I’ll proba...

 I finally started getting under 1m56s laps for Barcelona in PS4 Assetto Corsa Ultimate — I’ve had the Thrustmaster since 29 July 2021 — under a month, and after studying this advice from TraxionGG I’ve steadily improved my time from over 2m10s down to 1m55s driving the Porsche 911 RSR 2017. I’ve got the canonical brake mod installed in the T3PA pedals, but I still don’t have a good feel for trail-braking and I’m still to slow on the acceleration coming out of corners — but it’s been great fun so far and awesome to see my driving improve over time. Best time ever! Multiple 1m55s laps Even got 1m55s in a 5 lap race (Very Easy AI) I’d still like to evolve my setup over time. I’m sitting too far away from the screen still, and would love to upgrade my pedals but I’ll be sorting that out slowly as I go… Here’s the video of my fastest lap — with some very rough cornering included… I’m planning to work my way through the Driver61.com Uni to further understand what is involved in drivi...

Since studying this video from TraxionGG I’ve made some notes on positioning and gears. I’ve found I get my best times when I don’t try to set a personal best, but concentrate on positioning and choosing the correct gear. I heard somewhere that smooth is fast and fast is smooth. This seems to be true for me. Doing this I’ve taken 2 seconds off my lap time — but my laps are still very rough. I’ve put the rubber brake mod in my T3PA pedals, and I’ve got to get used to that now. I think I’ve got a much better appreciation now for how important pedals are. I’m tempted to upgrade to the T-LCM pedals so I can compare the basic potentiometer pedals to some Load Cell pedals. Now, I think I need to concentrate on braking effectively — I’ve found some advice here from Driver61 .

I’ve been trying to improve my Barcelona GP lap time… I found this explanation from TraxionGG which I’ve found very useful. I’ve printed out a copy of the track from RaceFans.net and annotated it with notes as described in the video — which gears when, where to start breaking, where to position etc. So now comes the time to put the theory to practice… And its not so easy! One thing I thought I’d try out is the rubber brake mod that came with the T3PA pedals. It was easy to install, but I couldn’t get Assetto Corsa to calibrate the brake properly — so I only had about 50% braking power. A problem similar to this one but I didn’t get to the point of breaking it, I just couldn’t put enough pressure on it to get it to register 100%. I thought I’d try out Assetto Corsa on the PC — it seems the PC version has lots of settings and customisations from what I’ve read. So I grabbed an old laptop, reinstalled Windows 10, logged in to Steam, and grabbed Assetto Corsa for less than $6 (it was o...

  Dude, can you even race? I’ve always liked racing games, but never been any good at them. Sitting on the couch, playing F1 2020 on the  PS4  with the standard controller has always been a lesson in frustration with a little enjoyment. So, the time had come to give it a proper try. I did a little bit of research and opted to go for the  Thrustmaster T300 RS GT Edition . This comes with the T3PA — GT Edition Pedal Set and is a mid-level steering wheel. There are less expensive options, and there are more expensive options. In this case, the Thrustmaster cost more than the PS4, but I’m hoping it’ll give me a good enough experience. After ordering it online (couldn’t pick it up due to COVID lockdowns!) I set up an old table in front of the old 46 inch LCD TV. This is NOT an optimal setup, but this is where I’m starting and perhaps if I enjoy it enough I’ll look into some improvements. After just over a week, I can definitely say that using a steering wheel and pedals i...